Often I get this vision in my head. It's the perfect plot, crystal clear and shimmering with intelligence and depth. Unfortunately it's also as brittle as crystal. The second I try and put it down on paper it shatters and just falls flat. I had this excellent idea today (well, I thought it was excellent in the rush of the moment) for this story about a woman in an internment camp who is killed because of bureaucratic error. In my head, it was fantastic. The second I started writing it, it was crap - really so terrible that to make it work I would have to ditch everything I wrote on it and start again. And now that the heat of the moment has cooled, I'm not even sure it's worth it any more.
Any other writers, artists, photographers out there have the same experience? I'd love to hear which clouds of yours became fog.
I got some good writing done today to even out the crud, so that was all right. Today's count ended up coming in at 2,783 words. Tomorrow I expect I'll be able to do even better because my husband is working so I won't be tempted to go out and waste spend time talking to him.
I had thought to post a proper reply, but then I remembered something that I read a few weeks ago. A blast from the past: Neil Gaiman's NaNoWriMo pep talk from 2007.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nanowrimo.org/node/1065561
Oh, I'd forgotten how wonderful that pep talk was! And it's right on the money.
ReplyDeleteAs it is, my husband is very supportive now, but I do wonder how he'll be in six months when I'm still spending three-ish hours a day writing... 0_o