Tuesday, October 14, 2008

On Blanking

I have officially arrived at the "Over Thinking" place.

I blame it on too many books about writing. The last one steered my right past "I Can Do This," where I've been putzying comfortably for a month or more.

Suddenly I am bogged down by complicated transition rules and how to develop the perfect momentum through goals, obstacles, disasters, dilemmas, and resolutions to achieve a well-crafted novel.

My absolute inexperience is staring me down like an overbearing college professor, demanding undue respect in spite of its irrelevance, at least with this project. Why should I be so intimidated? I am prepared for the first draft to suck... I don't even care. I really, really want to create a draft!

I've always been overly into research. With November rushing to meet me, now is not a good time to be horrified by the daunting goal I've set for myself.

So I'm off to do some free writes and random, unfettered creating in order to get past my fear that this is too complicated. It's just writing! I've been doing this since I was a kid...

2 comments:

illuminatedwords said...

Ouch. I had to wince when I read your post! I've never read how-to books on writing for that purpose. I'm worried that if I did, I'd get so caught up in following the rules that I'd forget my own voice and style.

I think it's intimidating because, like everything, as much as you accept your first time might not come out so well, you still secretly hope that it will. I think you have to give yourself permission to suck, but also to have flow. Wanting too much can have a negative effect on your work, if that makes sense.

Also, NaNo can always be kind of scary. :P

Anna said...

exactly! it's just writing. let your mind go, and the muse will follow...

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