Getting it Down
November 16, 2000
7:29 a.m.
In her book, The Artist's Way Julia Cameron says that writing is not about thinking things up, it's about getting things down. This morning is a great example of that. For the past week, I've been fiddling around with "Searching for Ghandi," looking for the second character (no, she's not named Ghandi!). This morning, I sat down and forced myself to write about 1,500 words of stuff about her. I saved the latest copy of the story, then renamed it in a different file, and told myself "Okay, Ron. This is a throwaway version. Your story is saved. You cannot hurt it. All you've got to lose is a morning's work. So, go have fun." And I ripped into the document, focusing everything on the secondary character. I wrote a ton of her dialog. I captured her tone, how she wears her hair, what she thinks about stuff. It's all scattered in the story right now. Some of it will come out again. But at the very end of the morning, I hit upon about six sentences at exactly the right spot in the story, and the path to the ending has opened up. I think I've actually got it. And to tell the truth, I had a total blast. The only failure is not to try.   Have a great day.  All we have to fear ... blah, blah, blah ... Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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