I finally started.
Because I got tired of not getting into the flow.
Sometimes you just try and get your thoughts into some sort of organized flow, or at least try to begin with a single line, despite knowing how disjointed your thoughts are. It's a shot, anyway.
You could do paper scribblings or you could just work it directly into the computer. Technically, I love the good ol' habit of manuscript writing- yeah, I advocate pen and paper and notebooks of all kinds- but sad to say, my thoughts aren't flowing with ease on paper this time.
Is this how it is for authors and writers too? Do they get all their thoughts smoothly on paper? I'm talking authors like Agatha Christie and Judy Blume. I'm talking Somerset Maugham and Thomas Hardy. I'm talking Anton Chekhov and Clive Cussler and the Bronte sisters and the Austen sisters. Many of them apparently wrote during their travels, during train journeys and steamship journeys. Did they never want to crush their papers and throw them out the window into the sea? Did they never crush their scribbles and chuck them into the wastepaper basket? If they did, have any remnants never been found?
It is a curious thought.
How did they and how do they write so effortlessly, so efficiently, with their thoughts flowing so smoothly with ink and sheets? Did they not throw anything away? Did they not cancel their work? Did they not scribble out whole pages? Did they not get disgusted when everything felt so wrong with their story? Were there no tearing of papers?
Because I got tired of not getting into the flow.
Sometimes you just try and get your thoughts into some sort of organized flow, or at least try to begin with a single line, despite knowing how disjointed your thoughts are. It's a shot, anyway.
You could do paper scribblings or you could just work it directly into the computer. Technically, I love the good ol' habit of manuscript writing- yeah, I advocate pen and paper and notebooks of all kinds- but sad to say, my thoughts aren't flowing with ease on paper this time.
Is this how it is for authors and writers too? Do they get all their thoughts smoothly on paper? I'm talking authors like Agatha Christie and Judy Blume. I'm talking Somerset Maugham and Thomas Hardy. I'm talking Anton Chekhov and Clive Cussler and the Bronte sisters and the Austen sisters. Many of them apparently wrote during their travels, during train journeys and steamship journeys. Did they never want to crush their papers and throw them out the window into the sea? Did they never crush their scribbles and chuck them into the wastepaper basket? If they did, have any remnants never been found?
It is a curious thought.
How did they and how do they write so effortlessly, so efficiently, with their thoughts flowing so smoothly with ink and sheets? Did they not throw anything away? Did they not cancel their work? Did they not scribble out whole pages? Did they not get disgusted when everything felt so wrong with their story? Were there no tearing of papers?
Autobiographies tell you nothing of these. We get loose sheets of notepaper bound together into a journal. We get notebooks. We get snippets and scraps of handwriting. We get leather bound journals and papers scattered here and there. But no write-overs or scratched-out lines have I managed to see thus far... either they were remarkably confident with their thoughts, or that they considered carefully first before putting pen to paper (which is more likely the case, given that paper and ink was often a precious, sometimes expensive commodity).
I'm far off from their level of patience and depth of literary expression.
In my case, my shredder has been working overtime. .
I'm far off from their level of patience and depth of literary expression.
In my case, my shredder has been working overtime. .
I don't know how many copies I've thrown away. I don't know how many sheets I've crushed and dumped in bins. I don't know how I'm going to keep fluidity and tonality and plot outline going without a struggle.
What I do know is a combination of a chapter here, a chapter there, a person here, a person there. What I maybe know are the arrows shooting out from each face and where and how they exist and belong.
But... it's really just plot and character notes.
And I have a #%&@ deadline.