Friday, February 1, 2008

Write Now

I thought I'd give you all some insight into my life (or lack thereof) as a writer.


So I'm sitting here, working on The Season, so I have something to show all of you guys on Sunday, not that you'll be reading because you'll be too busy catching the Super Bowl (which I think I'm gonna attempt to live blog), but that's not the point.

Anyway, I'm sitting here, writing, and it hits me:

The good stories, the ones that stay with you, write themselves.


I can spend an entire day sitting in front of my computer, but the more I try to get something down on paper, the less I actually do.

The most successful nights I have working on The Season, like tonight, are nights when, somehow (and I've given up trying to figure out how) everything falls into place. Z can happen because I introduced X here and Y here and now I can make them add up, if that makes sense.


Writing is a challenge. Writing a blog, perhaps more so, but writing fiction, while it may be a release, is in some respects harder than that precal I had to take in high school (I haven't taken a proper math course since then...oops). Precal, at least, doesn't generally cause catharsis when a big, dramatic event has to be written. Okay, so maybe there is a little catharsis when I get a math problem right, but that's not the point.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking: this girl must have NO social life, at all...she's staying in on a Friday night to WRITE?!, to which I respond that

1) It is precipitating something awful outside, between freezing rain, ice, freezing rain and ice again.

2) When the muse hits, you write. There's no other way around it. When you're hit with an idea, when the muse strikes, you write, or you lose it.



Often when I write, I'll get an idea, I'll sit down, I'll start to work on it, and the idea will fade after a week or two.

This, however...

This is different. The muse struck sometime back in August and I haven't lost it.



So why am I telling you all this?

Well, I've been giving you these updates every Sunday, but I haven't given you anything about the experience of writing it, and I felt like changing that.

You see, writing this has been an experience beyond an experience. I've written stories before, but I've never written anything like this.




There's a long way to go, of course. I'm only about halfway done, and once I do finish, there's a lot of editing that will need to be done, and even then there's no guarantee that it will e a rousing success, but that's okay.

What's that they say again? Something about a journey and a single step?

Right, yeah, that.


Cheers.

5 comments:

  1. I don't watch the Superbowl so I'll be reading The Season!

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  2. Rebecca,
    I have enjoyed "The Season" and look forward to tomorrow’s chapter. Your take on writing is very interesting. I am an old newspaper guy so I could never write a word if I didn’t go out and talk to people. I could sit in front of a computer for the rest of my life and I would never write anything, but when I walk the streets and talk to people the stories come too fast to write down.

    I like to hear the approach of others because we are all different.

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  3. Todd: My background is in creative writing.

    I'm actually really shy around people I don't know irl (online is completely different), and I discovered that the hard way, when I gave a couple campus magazines a go. I love writing and I almost love deadlines more, but I'd never make it as a newspaperwoman :-D

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  4. Rebecca -

    Your post today was an answer of sorts to a question I've had since reading your last installment (I'm enjoying the story, btw).

    I'm always curious about the process of fiction writing. I do wonder how you've come to know these characters - and do you research the particulars?

    Your story is good, because it's a story about people, not just a story about baseball, and you've created a genuine curiousity about "what's going to happen next?"

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  5. Doreen--On occasion I'll google some minor things, like what happens when you're high on coke, but that's about it.

    I'm glad you're enjoying it!

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