Blogflog - Be Sure
Link: Be Sure
Disclaimer: This blog entry is verbatim, as originally posted on LKH's blog. Copyright belongs to Ma Petite Enterprises.
Mod note: Full size image here if you want to zoom in. Her Word Doc says "Angel Book."
Eomer and my current office view, for those that keep asking there’s a clue to what I’m writing in the picture.
I typed, Be Sure, today as I sat down to work on the book I’m writing. What I meant for it to do was remind me that I needed to pick an opening gambit and just start typing, but that’s not how my subconscious took it. Once I wrote those two little words, Be Sure, I didn’t write another damn word for an hour. It took me that long to figure out that it was those two words that had put a monkey wrench in the creative flow. Honestly it hadn’t been flowing that well to begin with, which is partly why the phrase stopped me dead in my tracks. Be sure, really? The beginning of a book for me is one of the least sure things in the world. I can know the characters intimately, the plot, the world, everything, but the beginning of a book is like the beginning of a romance, or a trip, you know what you think will happen, or what you want to happen, but what actually happens can be vastly different. That first date, like a first chapter can start out great, but fizzles and you think, nope I don’t want to do that again. The plot that seemed so brilliant in the planning stages is like that great vacation that you were positive the whole family would love and it turns into a nightmare of crossed schedules and hurt feelings. Staring at those two words, Be Sure, froze me. My muse and I stared at them and thought, but we aren’t sure. We aren’t sure of anything. The only thing I’m sure of is which world we’re writing in, and what characters we’ll be dealing with, but beyond that there are so many choices of where to start and how to get to the plot goals that its almost paralyzingly in its complexity. No, not its complexity, its possibilities. I’ve recently realized that too many choices is bad for me, that deciding is my strength and hesitation between choices is horrible for me both in writing and personally. So, I need to just pick a direction and start writing, even if it’s the wrong direction for me as a writer almost any decision is better than indecision. I think for a minute, or an hour, I forgot that. Be Sure, that’s for the end of a book, not the beginning. Right now its all about possibilities, nothing is off the table, or impossible, its all still there floating, waiting for me to choose that first leap into the empty whiteness and write.
Disclaimer: This blog entry is verbatim, as originally posted on LKH's blog. Copyright belongs to Ma Petite Enterprises.
Mod note: Full size image here if you want to zoom in. Her Word Doc says "Angel Book."
Eomer and my current office view, for those that keep asking there’s a clue to what I’m writing in the picture.
I typed, Be Sure, today as I sat down to work on the book I’m writing. What I meant for it to do was remind me that I needed to pick an opening gambit and just start typing, but that’s not how my subconscious took it. Once I wrote those two little words, Be Sure, I didn’t write another damn word for an hour. It took me that long to figure out that it was those two words that had put a monkey wrench in the creative flow. Honestly it hadn’t been flowing that well to begin with, which is partly why the phrase stopped me dead in my tracks. Be sure, really? The beginning of a book for me is one of the least sure things in the world. I can know the characters intimately, the plot, the world, everything, but the beginning of a book is like the beginning of a romance, or a trip, you know what you think will happen, or what you want to happen, but what actually happens can be vastly different. That first date, like a first chapter can start out great, but fizzles and you think, nope I don’t want to do that again. The plot that seemed so brilliant in the planning stages is like that great vacation that you were positive the whole family would love and it turns into a nightmare of crossed schedules and hurt feelings. Staring at those two words, Be Sure, froze me. My muse and I stared at them and thought, but we aren’t sure. We aren’t sure of anything. The only thing I’m sure of is which world we’re writing in, and what characters we’ll be dealing with, but beyond that there are so many choices of where to start and how to get to the plot goals that its almost paralyzingly in its complexity. No, not its complexity, its possibilities. I’ve recently realized that too many choices is bad for me, that deciding is my strength and hesitation between choices is horrible for me both in writing and personally. So, I need to just pick a direction and start writing, even if it’s the wrong direction for me as a writer almost any decision is better than indecision. I think for a minute, or an hour, I forgot that. Be Sure, that’s for the end of a book, not the beginning. Right now its all about possibilities, nothing is off the table, or impossible, its all still there floating, waiting for me to choose that first leap into the empty whiteness and write.