Simple is as simple does
Oct. 18th, 2006 11:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompsonFor better or worse, I hit 10k words (SMF) on the novel yesterday. One-eighth of a novel! Unfortunately, I doubt I'll be able to stop at 80k. I sure would like to, but things never seem to work out that way for me, so I'm not even going to speculate how long this one will be. I've been laughably wrong each time I've tried.
Once I'd given myself permission to let the magic flow in the story, it did. I went over all three chapters and fixed the airship portions to suit my new "awareness," and I'm much more satisfied, overall. Something inside me relaxed. The suck monkeys are still dancing back and forth on their legs and banging sticks on the ground, but I've managed to shoo them off into the distance.
Random quote of the day:
"If you stuff yourself full of poems, essays, plays, stories, novels, films, comic strips, magazines, music, you automatically explode every morning like Old Faithful. I have never had a dry spell in my life, mainly because I feed myself well, to the point of bursting. I wake early and hear my morning voices leaping around in my head like jumping beans. I get out of bed to trap them before they escape."
—Ray Bradbury
He's more fortunate then most, maybe, but I think there's some validity to this, at least for me. My one period of bad writers' block corresponded with a period in my life when I was no longer able to read fiction. I'd reached that stage in my writing development where I was too aware of the wheels of the writer's mind spinning and I could see the construction lines of each story, what decisions the writer made. Not coincidentally, when I was able to let go of all that and enjoy reading fiction again, my writing also came home to me.
I have nothing against game media, TV, movies. I like all of those. But they don't have the complexity and layers of the written (or narrated) word. By their natures, they are a more simplified form of storytelling and they just don't do it for me like . . . true stories.
People say we're heading into a post-literate world. I hope that isn't so because I think it would also mean we're headed towards more simplistic thinking and analysis. God(s) know we don't need any more of that in the world.
ETA: And I was just thinking that with current publishing trends, complex layers may be a thing of the past in books, too. ::sigh::
Once I'd given myself permission to let the magic flow in the story, it did. I went over all three chapters and fixed the airship portions to suit my new "awareness," and I'm much more satisfied, overall. Something inside me relaxed. The suck monkeys are still dancing back and forth on their legs and banging sticks on the ground, but I've managed to shoo them off into the distance.
Random quote of the day:
"If you stuff yourself full of poems, essays, plays, stories, novels, films, comic strips, magazines, music, you automatically explode every morning like Old Faithful. I have never had a dry spell in my life, mainly because I feed myself well, to the point of bursting. I wake early and hear my morning voices leaping around in my head like jumping beans. I get out of bed to trap them before they escape."
—Ray Bradbury
He's more fortunate then most, maybe, but I think there's some validity to this, at least for me. My one period of bad writers' block corresponded with a period in my life when I was no longer able to read fiction. I'd reached that stage in my writing development where I was too aware of the wheels of the writer's mind spinning and I could see the construction lines of each story, what decisions the writer made. Not coincidentally, when I was able to let go of all that and enjoy reading fiction again, my writing also came home to me.
I have nothing against game media, TV, movies. I like all of those. But they don't have the complexity and layers of the written (or narrated) word. By their natures, they are a more simplified form of storytelling and they just don't do it for me like . . . true stories.
People say we're heading into a post-literate world. I hope that isn't so because I think it would also mean we're headed towards more simplistic thinking and analysis. God(s) know we don't need any more of that in the world.
ETA: And I was just thinking that with current publishing trends, complex layers may be a thing of the past in books, too. ::sigh::
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Date: 2006-10-18 08:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-18 08:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-18 10:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-18 10:27 pm (UTC)Tell me about it. I used to read a book a week, no problem, but anymore it takes me two weeks or longer. And it has nothing to do with interest. I'm reading a book now that I really like and really want to know what happens! but there aren't enough hours in the day, it seems.
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Date: 2006-10-19 02:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-19 04:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-21 01:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-21 05:54 pm (UTC)I think the last Generic European Fantasy I read was one of Jacqueline Carey's. Did you ever read Kushiel's Dart? Kinky, but also a great adventure story with wonderful characters, lurve, and a sweeping epic to boot. Big book, though, LONG, and part of a trilogy. LONG trilogy. But all good, and each book is a complete story in itself.
Hmm. You might like Warprize by Elizabeth Vaughan. Although it came out as part of Tor Romance, it's more of a clash of cultures, lots of fighting, with magic and a romance thing and characters you can really love--although the sequel, Warsworn was disappointing. You'd also have to get over reading a book with a maiden in a gauzy dress on the cover.
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Date: 2006-10-22 08:08 pm (UTC)And somehow I think I can get past the maiden in a gauzy dress. :-)
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Date: 2006-10-22 08:31 pm (UTC)I had faith in you. :-)
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Date: 2006-10-19 04:43 pm (UTC)