I know. You are all having de ja vu. Didn't we get our monthly post from Melissa already? But I just couldn't help myself. I've been writing like crazy this week. All kinds of writing. Writing articles, writing proposals, writing short stories, and cover letters, and chapters. Writing, writing writing. And why shouldn't I write. I have nothing better to do. (sorry that is the workaholic and perfectionist in me speaking).
So I just keep writing, regardless of whether or not someone is actually reading and I have been meaning to post a follow up to my last entry but this is the first free minute I have found. Typically what happens is I go to work. Where I write for 8 hours. Then I come home and write for two to three more hours. On top of checking my emails, doing research and journaling. By that point my eyes have become weary, my butt hurts and my fingers are tense. It is all I can do to crawl into bed and watch some mind numbing tv.
You'd think with all this writing, I would actually get something done. Not true. Don't believe it. Again, part of it is my perfectionism. I can't stop working with a piece until I feel it is just right, and I never know when I am going to get that feeling. Like today. today revised a short story for just under three hours. All I did was revise!!! And this was the third draft. But revising is about rereading something, trying to identify what it is that isn't working, trying to find words to replace what it is you have finally identified as not working and then retyping all the changes into the actual draft. I have to have that last step because I really can't revise on the computer. I need to see it on paper. To carry it with me. There is something about being able to cross paragraphs out that brings a rush. It's not the same on the monitor.
I used to work really well with my old supervisor, because he was a pretty decent writer as well and somewhere during the middle of my, it's almost there but not quite, he would take it and say, it's fine. Stop working on it. Sometimes I need people to tell me to stop working on it. Because the truth is that I'm never really going to be satisfied. I will always be able to find something that I think might be better if said differently. Even after it gets printed or published. I can still pick it up, look at it and say, man that first paragraph sucks. But the average person doesn't care, so maybe I should just relax.
I do want to apologize to all of my high school english teachers. I can't count the number of times we all whined and complained about being forced to analyze something to death, searching for clues and hints that the author probably hadn't intended us to find. I was wrong. The author knew what they were doing. It was done on purpose. I hate that I even for a moment thought that it was all just a big coincidence. The funny thing about it is that now I realize that it is in almost all books. Even the silly ones, you think are just beach reads can be pulled apart into many complex layers.
Now I get chills when someone asks me if I am still working on my novel. Um, yeah. Do you know how many thousands of words go into a novel. Do you know that you have to make them all up. it isn't like writing a report or a paper, where you reasearch everything and draw your own conclussions, reporting back to others. It isn't like academic writing or technical writing where everything has its place and it's just a matter of getting the write information there.
In fiction writing you are creating an entire world. You are giving life to not one, or two but dozens of people, each with their own wants, and fears and complexes. I could go on and on and on about all the things it takes to put together a novel that works... but most people won't get it until they've tried. And if any author ever tells you that writing their books is easy, they are lying. It might be easier, than when they first started, but it was never easy. Being an artist is never easy. That's why so many of them have died tragic deaths.
A friend of mine commented on my personality when we were having a philisophical discussion of some sort, and she said, "well maybe you just see the world differently. Through the eyes of an artist. You see things others don't. You are more perceptive, and intuitive, and because of that more sensitive."
Maybe that was her polite way of saying that I am just another overdramatic and moody/needy artist who is trying to boost their self-ego by seeking praise for their work. I don't know. I do know that this is my favorite kind of writing. Because I don't have to think. I just go. Letting whatever hits the page stick. Too bad life can't be that way.
