Saturday, September 18, 2010

head Wall BANG

i went on a tear writing yesterday. i mean, really - i nearly set my laptop on fire!

want to see what i wrote? here it is:

garbage
garbage
garbage
garbage
garbage
garbage
garbage
garbage
garbage
aha! plot! there you are!

...about three thousand words of garbage before i got back to my plot thread. normally, that would make me want to bang my head against a wall and give up on the WIP - okay, actually i STILL wanted to bang my head against a wall - but i did not feel inclined to walk away from the book.

i am generally not of that clan of writers who say "it's okay to write crap." personally, if i'm writing crap, the story is probably crap too, and i get bored of my own crap and move on to something else.
but in this case, i feel deeply committed to the characters and the story. so even though i spent a whole day writing scenes that will probably not even make it to the beta stage of this MS, it doesn't feel like time wasted. in fact, i'm excited to finish and get into revisions, so i can go back and erase all that crap - or at least figure out how to condense it.

i think i've said this before, but for me, the only manuscripts that have any chance of going anywhere are the ones i know i'll be willing to go back and revise a thousand times.
garbage can be rewritten. crap can be erased. hell, plot line can be changed. as long as the story has heart and character, i know i'm still committed.

or maybe i just need to BE committed - because only a crazy person would spend an entire day of vacation writing crap and banging their head against a wall.

p.s. if this doesn't sound crazy to you at all... you are probably a writer too. ;)

3 comments:

Michelle said...

GARBAGE IS MY BUSINESS.

That is what all writers should have as bumperstickers.

Unknown said...

You got to spend an entire day writing, and you found something useable in the heap. Sounds like a fine day!

erinjade said...

haha michelle!

ej - absolutely true. :)