Despite what I said in that last post, saying that writing “is what I do”, I haven’t really done a lot of it in the past few days. Well, not really creative writing. I banged out 1,500 words of college work (defining Special Needs and support) this afternoon and I managed 500 words of utter drivel late on Saturday night.
But, on the positive side, I’ve got a fairly good idea of where I’m going from this point on. Rather than diving in, like I usually do, going hell for leather to get the words out, I’m letting this one steep in the back of mind for a month or so, hoping the not-so-good ideas drift away and the good stuff settles.
The more I think about it, the more I want to get started. It’s more of an effort not writing than it is just getting on with it.
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Went to a talk given by a writer/teacher/editor last night and she said that you should just bash out that first draft. She said you need to get it down even though it's likely to contain a lot of utter rubbish. THEN you go back and edit. Interestingly she said there were two types of editing: editing at the level of the imagination, which is basically sorting out the good ideas from the bad, developing character and plot etc. Then comes editing at the level of presentation, or proof reading. So don't mull...write! Quote from Ernest Hemingway - "the first draft of everything is sh*t".
I've read that idea a lot. Orson Scott Card suggests multiple layers of edit, sometimes concentrating on particular character characteristics to make sure they are fully developed. I do like the NanoWriMo idea where you bang out 50k in a month without editing, just to let the writing take over. I actually tried that 18 months ago, and I got some good stuff, but an awful lot of crap too. The result of that experiment is the basis for my next project. I'm busy going through it, trying to find the good from the bad. It feels like untangling a ball of wool a kitten has played with for half a day.
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