I got no time for private consultation

[raybear]

It's not so much writer's block -- it's more like writer's crawl. I sit and read and stare and sit and read and then I go through and make all the tiny changes, the typos, the misplaced commas. Then I sit and stare and tap my fingers on the veneer and sit and read and stare and then....I write one sentence. then I get up and go to the bathroom or get more water or get a cookie. Then i come back and sit and stare and type, type, type. After two minutes I stop. Then it all starts again.

The work is getting done, just at a glacial pace.

I got chinese takeout for lunch, just like characters in a scene from my story do^*. My fortune said " you have a deep understanding of other people's needs and feelings." Um, thanks, but I want to know about my future. Sometimes having deep understandings aren't all they're cracked up to be. I think I'm going to give myself a tarot reading instead.

^*Don't worry, there's no scene involving fortune cookies in my fiction. Things aren't going THAT slow that I need to resort to such devices.

Comments

[legalmoose]

I saw this article the other day and thought of you...

[raybear.livejournal.com]

ha! i like his point about finding ways to make use of inpsiration when it comes. but part of his suggestions read like someone who doesn't have to deal with deadlines! part of the reason i'm forcing myself to prod along is because i need to have something postmarked by tomorrow. ah, time limits: you bless and curse me.

[sharkysmachine.livejournal.com]

When I have to revise, I just stuff the first draft in the drawer and start from scratch. Otherwise I am paralized and way too attached to the material to change even a dangling modifier.

[saltjam.livejournal.com]

my problem is the type-erase-type-edit--erase--type--edit--edit--edit--get stuck--get afraid---never type again for a long time--then start typing-editing--erasing-typing again. a similar version. i think all writer's go through versions of such things.
a glacial pace is still a pace, right?

[wearemany.livejournal.com]

ahaha. i could write one for you, though, if you needed.