Doodling
May 4, 2000
7:20 a.m.
So I've been putting words down on this story I'm working on, and it's been okay if nothing spectacular. Steady progress. Meandering toward some end someplace. All in all, it's been basic idea generation at its "finest." This morning, though, I decided to get a bit more serious. No music. No e-mail first thing in the morning. No browsing pages. No reading during breakfast. No anything but thinking. This story is, of course, one in a series. And I think one of the problems I've been having is that while I've had general notions about where the whole thing is going, I've never really set them in my mind. I talked to Nancy Kress at a convention once, and she said that she never knew where a story was going or how it was going to end. She said that she was glad of that because if she did know, she would get bored and tired of the thing, and the story would probably never get written. I understand that. I guess. At least I've heard lots of other people say that, and I've nodded my head at them. But, to be honest, that's not how I work at my best. Yes, I can do it that way, and have. But not knowing where the story is going puts an emotional strain on me that makes me uncomfortable. Not knowing where the story is going gives my inner critic an way into my brain patterns, and he sits on the bookshelf like a mad scientist flipping the "You're Horrendous" switch and laughing maniacally. "You're dog meat, Collins. You don't have a clue what you're doing. You've got no talent, and no imagination!" When I try to argue with him, he cackles and plays his trump card. "Prove it, Buddy." It's really hard to argue with him, since I've got no proof. No outline or design. No concept. Just a bunch of spaghetti code lying lifelessly on the page. So today I cleared my brain of everything else. I spent the morning thinking about the entire story I'm going to tell--figuring out where this single story fit into the overall picture. I developed a clearer picture of what the story's role was in the "saga." Now I know that there are at least four succinct parts remaining--maybe five. Now I know their relationships. It may grow and morph over the next few days, and no, it's not really very detailed (heck, it fits very easily on a single page, so how detailed can it be, right?) But I feel better about it. I feel more at easy dealing with the blank page. And, in the end, that's what makes for better stories.  Oh, shut up and get to work Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
|
NTV today. No music, no distractions, just thinking |
BACK TO 
|