Been trying to figure out how to get back into this writing shin-dig. The basic is there: make time, sit down in front of keyboard.
Which is all very well and good but then one must write. Temptation is to start spewing on the keyboard, but I tend to start with something. Not exactly an outline, but an idea, feeling or mental snapshots of something intangible that I want to paint into a story. Which I sort of have, but don't (not going to say more, or I'll ruin it for myself).
So first, I began blogging. Then today I yanked out a story that has been accepted but I'm still not totally pleased with, and edited. (Yes, I believe a person should turn their best work in. I did. For that time frame. But breaks move the goal post. Which you, as readers, should be grateful for - because now my best will be better.)
But still, my snapshots, ideas, essence that floats in my groggy heat-sapped brain - not ready. So I yanked out Elizabeth George's Write Away. Never read it. You? Was given it back in July, one of two writing books. Writing books - they can be crap or wonderful. The good ones make me itch to write. They start organising my thoughts. They are like a coach, saying, 'Now get going.' And because I have a memory like a sieve, each time I read one I latch on to a new problem area, and then work like mad in my drafts to correct and try (really, I do try) to never commit the sin again.
There is a danger, of course, if you fall into the procrastinator category, that you'll just read about writing and not actually write. Please never do this. It is unhelpful.
Instead, do this: read, write, read, write, read, write, read, write . . .
But one should be doing that anyway, even if what one is reading is not technically about writing. One is never to old to improve one's self.
Or so my grandmother believed.
Comments