Sunday, November 23, 2008

When in doubt ... write!

Every writer that, when asked to give advice to other writers, says "The only way to do this is to write. When you don't know what to write, write anyway."

HAH! Not as easy as it sounds.

This morning I had a bit of a breakthrough in the piece of fiction that I'm working on. Aw heck, I simply added another character. But, it did begin to define the direction. However, I wrote the first scene and then. stopped.

I leaned back in my chair (I have an amazing rocking chair that sits at the perfect height for me), I shut my eyes trying to imagine the characters and what they might be doing and I found myself nodding off sometimes and other times simply wandering away into other thoughts.

Fine. Set that aside and work on the Pour Out a Blessing blog. Cool! I'm a couple of paragraphs into it and distractions take over. I could call them outside distractions, but really, I'm just allowing the outside to tempt me to avoidance.

Here I am ... posting on blogger. Not finishing either thought that I have going - because - I'm not confident yet of either thought.

Is it writer's block? No ... something much worse. Mindless distraction.

Alright ... Max has gone to get some supper and do an errand. That will give me 1/2 hour of absolute quiet in the house. I'm going to finish something now. I. Must. Write.

2 comments:

Cayla said...

i really like having friends who are writers. good for you for being persistent in writing. i usually grumble, "i hate writing, i HATE writing, i hate WRITING, i hate writing, i HATE writing," at every available chance. and of course I would have to write more than ever before at college. of COURSE. but the good news is that there are no more composition classes. the only papers i write are exegetical/"report"/research papers. MUCH easier than creative thought. a bit dry, yes, but geeze, i hate writing.
BUT i LOVE to read what my brilliant friends write! so hooray for you!

Cayla said...

**I emailed you!** :)
I don't know how you feel about the music group The Decemberists, but I've been listening to them a lot lately and I think you might enjoy them. That is, if you like interesting/experimental indie rock that sometimes has the flavor of Irish folk songs and/or sea shanties.