Fits and Starts
Quote of the day:
"The older I grow, the less important the comma becomes. Let the reader catch his own breath." Elizabeth Clarkson Zwart
I feel like I should be writing something about my writing, because well, I do call myself a writer, and I'm paid to write, but these past few weeks, I've been writing in stops and starts. There's a personality trait at work here. I write like I parallel park. I go for the spot, pull in a bit, get myself all fired up because I'm relatively parallel, and then after I straighten, I see I'm about twenty feet from the curb.
I think starting a book is quite similar to this process for me. I get excited, fired up, write down some stuff, and then get out of the car, and yes, the curb is WAY out there. So, I've been retooling my efforts, and I'm back to the "fired up and excited" stage, so I have big dreams for today.
Speaking of dreams, there's a discussion going on one of my loops, regarding getting stuck in writing. As you can see from the above, I do get stuck. Try as I might to be organized and plotter-girl, I'm not. So, my favorite form of work is thinking about what I'm stuck at, mull it over (usually a glass of wine is involved) and then go to sleep. Nine times out of ten, this fixes this problem, and as a bonus, I get extra sleep and extra wine. Not a bad life. I think this is as close as I get to living the stereotypical writing life. I can see how Poe, Doyle, and the heavy addict-writer types were so prolific. I think if all I did were drink, sleep, and write, I could do some serious cranking, no pun intended, as well.
I just finished reading an arc of BLINK, which is a January release that you'll be hearing about. It's from the THE TIPPING POINT guy, and I think it's interesting. His point is that our sub-conscious is a truly powerful device and is often correct about picking up on things before we consciously note them. It's the gut-check, in other words. I think the gut is a very powerful thing and the author argues that in today's society, the gut is becoming more formidable as a decision-making tool. In my case, my gut decides many things, both about my writing, and also about what I eat. Sometimes I ignore my gut and go ahead and do what I want to anyway. I pay for these bouts of gut-ignorance.
I think I've accomplished all the procrastination I can manage without guilt, so I'm signing off.
Happy Tuesday.
Kathleen
p.s. in other news, we received our first seasonal greeting card yesterday. Back in Texas, we called them Christmas cards, but it's not the same up in New York, so I'm going with the "seasonal greeting card". Is there a PC term that's shorter? Probably. Although this reminds me that I need to write up our annual Christmas letter. I've already bought the paper for it, got a good deal at Staples.
As you can see, I can always procrastinate when push comes to shoving it back to tomorrow.
"The older I grow, the less important the comma becomes. Let the reader catch his own breath." Elizabeth Clarkson Zwart
I feel like I should be writing something about my writing, because well, I do call myself a writer, and I'm paid to write, but these past few weeks, I've been writing in stops and starts. There's a personality trait at work here. I write like I parallel park. I go for the spot, pull in a bit, get myself all fired up because I'm relatively parallel, and then after I straighten, I see I'm about twenty feet from the curb.
I think starting a book is quite similar to this process for me. I get excited, fired up, write down some stuff, and then get out of the car, and yes, the curb is WAY out there. So, I've been retooling my efforts, and I'm back to the "fired up and excited" stage, so I have big dreams for today.
Speaking of dreams, there's a discussion going on one of my loops, regarding getting stuck in writing. As you can see from the above, I do get stuck. Try as I might to be organized and plotter-girl, I'm not. So, my favorite form of work is thinking about what I'm stuck at, mull it over (usually a glass of wine is involved) and then go to sleep. Nine times out of ten, this fixes this problem, and as a bonus, I get extra sleep and extra wine. Not a bad life. I think this is as close as I get to living the stereotypical writing life. I can see how Poe, Doyle, and the heavy addict-writer types were so prolific. I think if all I did were drink, sleep, and write, I could do some serious cranking, no pun intended, as well.
I just finished reading an arc of BLINK, which is a January release that you'll be hearing about. It's from the THE TIPPING POINT guy, and I think it's interesting. His point is that our sub-conscious is a truly powerful device and is often correct about picking up on things before we consciously note them. It's the gut-check, in other words. I think the gut is a very powerful thing and the author argues that in today's society, the gut is becoming more formidable as a decision-making tool. In my case, my gut decides many things, both about my writing, and also about what I eat. Sometimes I ignore my gut and go ahead and do what I want to anyway. I pay for these bouts of gut-ignorance.
I think I've accomplished all the procrastination I can manage without guilt, so I'm signing off.
Happy Tuesday.
Kathleen
p.s. in other news, we received our first seasonal greeting card yesterday. Back in Texas, we called them Christmas cards, but it's not the same up in New York, so I'm going with the "seasonal greeting card". Is there a PC term that's shorter? Probably. Although this reminds me that I need to write up our annual Christmas letter. I've already bought the paper for it, got a good deal at Staples.
As you can see, I can always procrastinate when push comes to shoving it back to tomorrow.
posted by Kathleen at 10:05 AM
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