yes, i'm talking to you

[somedaybitch]

...Which brings me to the Third (and, thankfully, last) Cosmic Rule of Writing...namely, 'Writing Begets Writing.'

If you're stuck on a difficult scene, write it anyway.

Write it badly. Write it in verse. Write it as a journal entry, a Dennis Miller rant. If you're frustrated at being stuck, write about that. I don't care. But write.

If you have angry, self-critical feelings, give them to a character in your story. If there isn't a likely candidate, invent one. There IS one, anyway: you. Your anguish, doubt, fears and frustrations are as vital and elemental to what you're writing as any character or plot point. Might as well make use of this fact.

Writing begets writing. Just as worrying begets worrying. Obsessing begets more obsessing. Pacing back and forth begets -- well, you get the idea.

When you risk writing from where you're at, you set in motion a whole set of internal processes. The first rotten sentence you write has a life you can inhabit, evaluate, cross out. This first attempt can be replaced by a second, hopefully less rotten sentence -- maybe a good piece of description or a sharp line of dialogue.

Then again, maybe not. But it doesn't matter. Just keep going. As William Goldman reminds us, some scenes you write are just going to be sludge, but they're important connective tissue. They keep things moving; they're links in a chain. Weak links, perhaps, but you can always go back and strengthen them later.

With what? The knowledge that you've written, for one thing, because writing doesn't just beget writing, it also begets -- and reinforces -- the reality that you can write; that pages will accumulate.

Look at it this way: Every hour you spend writing is an hour NOT spent fretting about your writing. Every day you produce pages is a day you DIDN'T spend sitting at a coffee shop, bitching about not producing any pages.

Writing begets writing. Not writing begets...well...not writing. You do the math.

--Dennis Palumbo
writer and licensed psychotherapist

Comments

[thevaliumsofalj.livejournal.com]

--Dennis Palumbo
writer and licensed psychotherapist

I like Dennis Palumbo.. I remember him from the panel we went to at Words into Pictures. He's the one that talked about life being about the journey, not the destination :) and that he had been a writer first, and then became a psychotherapist :) I was really impressed by that.

[simplystars.livejournal.com]

Write it badly. Write it in verse. Write it as a journal entry, a Dennis Miller rant. If you're frustrated at being stuck, write about that. I don't care. But write.

yeah yeah yeah. *plbt*

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

you talkin' to me, dog? you lookin' at me?

[simplystars.livejournal.com]

you will rue the day i learned that expression from you. *vbeg*

*****PPPPPPPPPPPPLLLLLLLLLLLLLBBBBBBBBBBBBBBTTTTTTTTTTTTTT*****

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

i'll just blame Scorcese.

[cofax7]

Yup. Editing is easier than getting it down.

Despite that, and the two scenes outlined in my notebook, I'm not writing ADW tonight. Instead I'm reading HBP. So there.

::sticks out tongue, runs away::

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

:::throws a pillow at you:::

[sabaceanbabe.livejournal.com]

Word.