Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Write Now; Cull Later

Since my last blog, writing has gone something like this: I'm writing! The pages are scrolling up; the rewrites are getting done; the project has taken on that organic feeling that comes when you work at it every day. I'm not even worried about whether it's good or not which is precisely why things are getting done. What stinks can be decided later. That's what the 100 million rewrites are for. 
Nothing can slow a story down like the Premature appearance of the Editor, or PE. That mini dopplegänger standing on one shoulder whispering wait, you can write that better; do you really want him to do that and her to respond that way? Should the wind really keep blowing south by southwest? (Of course, there are other things that can slow the story down, but I talked about that in my previous post.) 
For every one paragraph that is written, immediately read/critiqued and rewritten, four more could have been hammered out. Whatever, two of the four might not make it through tomorrow's refresher read, but at least you're that much further along in getting that big lump of ideas, actions, side-plots, character arcs, what ifs? out of your head and into times new roman.
That lump is going to get whittled down and kneaded soon enough. Let the PE in at the start and you'll do very well in publishing pamphlets. Let the story spout like a geyser and you'll have a completed work on your hands before you know it. 


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