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The Writerly Update: The Case of the Broken Compass
My internal writerly compass has been feeling a little on the broken side. Perhaps my muse, being a surly plumber named Jim Bob, has some sort of magnetic contraption in his tool kit that's throwing my readings off.
I know we're generally our own worst critics, but lately I've been trusting my own judgment even less than usual. Why does this story click while this other one that I thought was equally awesome doesn't? Clearly there's a difference, but it beats the hell out of me what that difference is. And Jim Bob ain't helping. He's crouched down under the sink with his butt crack showing, muttering, "I'm the idea guy. What you do with them's your problem."
And then the judgment distrust starts trickling down from the macro to the micro level as I write. Does this scene actually work? I think so, but I also thought that other thing worked before all those responses suggested otherwise. And what about this paragraph? And this transition? What about that sentence? Or that word? This bit of punctuation? Am I even writing in English?
With all of that going on in my head, I've ended up writing only about 800 words over the last four weeks. That's a bit pathetic. Normally I could excuse that by saying revisions are generally slower, but since where I'm currently at with My Big Fat Epic Fantasy Novel involved writing a whole new scene that I should have been able to spew out fairly quickly (the aforementioned 800 words), my excuse is kind of crap.
Time to see if I can get a good deal on a new compass, or at least figure out what's screwing my current one up. If it's not Jim Bob messing with it, then I suspect my internal editor. She's been looking a little shifty lately.
I know we're generally our own worst critics, but lately I've been trusting my own judgment even less than usual. Why does this story click while this other one that I thought was equally awesome doesn't? Clearly there's a difference, but it beats the hell out of me what that difference is. And Jim Bob ain't helping. He's crouched down under the sink with his butt crack showing, muttering, "I'm the idea guy. What you do with them's your problem."
And then the judgment distrust starts trickling down from the macro to the micro level as I write. Does this scene actually work? I think so, but I also thought that other thing worked before all those responses suggested otherwise. And what about this paragraph? And this transition? What about that sentence? Or that word? This bit of punctuation? Am I even writing in English?
With all of that going on in my head, I've ended up writing only about 800 words over the last four weeks. That's a bit pathetic. Normally I could excuse that by saying revisions are generally slower, but since where I'm currently at with My Big Fat Epic Fantasy Novel involved writing a whole new scene that I should have been able to spew out fairly quickly (the aforementioned 800 words), my excuse is kind of crap.
Time to see if I can get a good deal on a new compass, or at least figure out what's screwing my current one up. If it's not Jim Bob messing with it, then I suspect my internal editor. She's been looking a little shifty lately.
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If something's not working for you, change the POV, change the setting, change something. You don't necessarily have to KEEP that change, but looking at it a different way often helps in seeing what went wrong. It's like when you're looking at a painting and then someone flicks on another light, and all of a sudden, there are carnivorous zombie-birds in the trees over that lovers' picnic that you hadn't seen before. Shazam! A little change and it's a whole new picture.
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I suspect that this is mostly job stress and me having been sick a big chunk of days putting me in a state of temporary kerfuddledness. Maybe after a relaxing weekend of Halloween candy and bad horror movies, my gut will be back from vacation. :)