Words Of Wisdom
Uttered by Yanniconny in another friend’s locked post this morning:
Don’t let arbitrary rules get in the way of actually getting writing done.
This is so true, and so timely, because yesterday four thousand words slid out of my head and onto the fifth Valentine book. I was having some “this is not working for me”* trouble, you see, barely slogging through 700 words or so a day. That’s about a tenth of my usual average production speed when I’ve got a project. Something was wrong.
Then, in the shower Sunday morning I was startled by a thought. “What if,” the Muse whispered in my ear, “the White-Walled City could be anywhere, not just where you’d like to put it?
Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble. Finally, yesterday I sat down, and the world exploded.
I’d been so determined to keep to the plot outline I was strangling the story. As a pantser, I should know better than to outline; it NEVER works well for me. Instead of the White-Walled City being at the END of the book, it wanted to be in the MIDDLE, and I was not cooperating.
Voila. 4K, sliding out of my head on greased skids.
Never let “rules” distract you from your primary purpose as a writer, which is to have your bum in the chair and your fingers on the keyboard. (Or pen, for the technophobes among us.) Rules include a plot line, or how you think the story should go, or how you think or hear the writing process is for another writer. Just sit, and write. Everything else takes care of itself a ridiculous amount of the time.
I woke this morning and pulled back the curtains to see a good two inches of snow on the gorund and more coming down. The weather report says two to four inches, which means everyone will be home today, getting cabin fever and wanting snackies and going out into the snow only to track dirty water and pinecones in.
That’s okay. I’ll be writing. It’s finally working again, now that I’ve gotten out of the way. No matter how long one has been writing, one still needs to be reminded every now and again.
Don’t let arbitrary rules get in the way of actually getting writing done.
Word.
* I have to tell this story. When the Princess was very wee and just starting with wearing knickers, she had some topology problems. One morning she came into the bedroom, where the DHM and I were sitting drinking coffee. “Minnie hurts me,” she announced. We both looked at her blankly. She pointed to her knickers, where Minnie Mouse, supposed to be right-side-up, was actually laying on her back. Both the DHM and I tilted our heads in confusion, at exactly the same angle. The Princess had her waist in a leg-hole, and one of her legs through the waist hole.
Then the Princess informed us, “This is not working for me.” Thus was a catchphrase born.
We did eventually get her out of the mismanaged knickers. The DHM took that phrase to work, and now engineers who’ve worked with him will often look at something and sigh, “This is not working for me.”
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