Monday, January 28, 2008

Cornering

Are you like me? Do you write until your interest just peters out? There are times when I write I feel like I'm pushing further down a narrowing hallway only to get stuck without any more momentum or interest in continuing. It doesn't last. I just come to a corner and stop, and come back later when the corner seems to have disappeared. Whenever I do this my writing gets noticeably lazier. There is the basic sentence with generic verbs. I don't even try. For example, if I had a character who ran across the freeway needed to dodge cars before getting to the burning building at the other end, my lazy sentence would read something similar to what you just read. Bobby jumps over the fence and dodges cars and gets to the burning building. That whole action should probably take at least a good paragraph, if not more; but since I just want it down on paper before I forget it, I basically write the blueprint, hoping that I will go back later and fill in all that necessary prose and stuff.

Is that writing or note taking? And can I count it in my daily word count?

2 comments:

pattinase (abbott) said...

When my interest peters out, I go scrub a toilet and hope for the best. Seriously, I do no good work after three or before nine. And I need a good lunch hour and a walk. So it's a few hours. But that may be a function of coming late to the party.

Lyman Feero said...

It's writing. Crappy first draft but writing none the less. In my novel I'd get to one of those narrow hallways and simply write ***Nathan needs to discover something about Providence here *** and just kept rolling along. I'd go back and write those passages when I knew what I wanted to say. It's still writing, just not finish copy. Very few writers are capable of finish copy the first go around.