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Glare Report: 3/17/05: Lake Nokomis scene. Still. Somebody shoot me and put me out of my misery.
words: 170
Total: 13270
Stopping because: past my bedtime. And because I can't quite find what I wanted to find in research comparing blood and seawater.
Mood: Dismayed and cranky. Gawd, I'm never going to make it out of this scene alive. Will it seem as endless and boring and pointless to the reader as it seems to me? Am irritated because I want to think of some incisive similes and the ones I'm coming up with are crap. [e.g: "He stood up again and stared at her with a trace of annoyance, as if she were a design he were trying to draw and he couldn’t quite get the scale right." See what I mean? Sucky.] It occurred to me that I had decided previously to make Solveig a Myers-Briggs ISTJ, but I keep writing her like an ENFJ, because that's closer to what I am. So went back and tried to adjust her reactions. Not satisfied that I succeeded.
Still too tired to write the explanation I had meant to give you all about the fish and yoga, and why suddenly it seems important to have Solveig know a little about yoga (probably no more than me, really, which is precious little). I may get over this conviction in a day or two, and then I'll never have to write it up and explain it to you all.
You know, this really isn't the best time of day for me to be writing. I'm more of a morning person. But I don't have any choice about it, with the work schedule I have, a fact which doesn't help.
(Do people really find these glare reports of the slightest interest at all? is this book as boring to you all as it is to me? Actually, I suppose this means, in a backwards sort of way, that the book must be going well, because this is a stage that all writers must go through when writing a book they will end up finishing. Lois calls it the "miserable middle." Except, of course, that I haven't written nearly enough to call this the middle of the book. Shoot.
Total: 13270
Stopping because: past my bedtime. And because I can't quite find what I wanted to find in research comparing blood and seawater.
Mood: Dismayed and cranky. Gawd, I'm never going to make it out of this scene alive. Will it seem as endless and boring and pointless to the reader as it seems to me? Am irritated because I want to think of some incisive similes and the ones I'm coming up with are crap. [e.g: "He stood up again and stared at her with a trace of annoyance, as if she were a design he were trying to draw and he couldn’t quite get the scale right." See what I mean? Sucky.] It occurred to me that I had decided previously to make Solveig a Myers-Briggs ISTJ, but I keep writing her like an ENFJ, because that's closer to what I am. So went back and tried to adjust her reactions. Not satisfied that I succeeded.
Still too tired to write the explanation I had meant to give you all about the fish and yoga, and why suddenly it seems important to have Solveig know a little about yoga (probably no more than me, really, which is precious little). I may get over this conviction in a day or two, and then I'll never have to write it up and explain it to you all.
You know, this really isn't the best time of day for me to be writing. I'm more of a morning person. But I don't have any choice about it, with the work schedule I have, a fact which doesn't help.
(Do people really find these glare reports of the slightest interest at all? is this book as boring to you all as it is to me? Actually, I suppose this means, in a backwards sort of way, that the book must be going well, because this is a stage that all writers must go through when writing a book they will end up finishing. Lois calls it the "miserable middle." Except, of course, that I haven't written nearly enough to call this the middle of the book. Shoot.
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Yes, the glare reports truly are interesting, and the book isn't boring to us. I find the glare reports heartening, even.
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As a voracious reader, I've often thought about the process that went into writing the books I love so much. I know they didn't just spring fully formed into existence. They weren't mined out of the earth like a jewel. They weren't plucked ripe off a tree. Someone, an individual person, started with a blank piece of paper and an idea. And then had to write down each and every word, thousands of them, one at a time. Someone started with a beginning, found themselves in the middle and somehow came to an end. Someone took an idea and made it into an entire world full of living, breathing characters.
You're someone who does this, and I feel privileged to have this glimpse into how it's done.
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Even and this is my big fear if I never finish the damned thing? Wouldn't you feel cheated?Thank you.
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Even if you never finished the damned thing.
Really.
It would still have been a privilege to have a glimpse into this process and into your life. Whether this particular book comes to fruition now, years later, or never.
I would feel that even if you never finished the damned thing, you still wrote. And that's no small accomplishment. You still had that blank piece of paper that eventually became filled with words even if they ultimately weren't the right ones, and you had an idea even if it wasn't ultimately fulfilled, and you still brought characters to life even if they weren't quite fully formed.
Even if you only wrote a few words a day, or only got to chapter 12, you were still a person who had a life and a family and also worked on writing a book. And that is something to be very proud of.
Especially since you've already written some very wonderful books. :-)
I don't know if I'm making any sense with this. But I believe that one way or another, whether it's now or ten years from now, you will do it. You will write this damned book. :-)
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YES. As a fledgling writer, these reports fascinate me, and inspire a strange sort of hope. I'm not the only one beating my head against a screen looking for just the right words, all the while watching my characters slip into patterns I hadn't meant them to. Writing is an inherent solitary act, but by reading about another person's process, it no longer feels quite so lonely. (I hope that made sense.)
And as
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And getting the scene on the page is great; whether you are happy with it or not, it is easier to glare at something already written.
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I mean, hell, look at the stuff I spam *my* journal with. *g*
On second thought, don't.
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Well, not with your book.
I'm bored with my book.
P.
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People have probably already asked you that a thousand times. I'm sorry. I feel sort of impelled to ask because when I write at all, I do a lot of jumping around, and because I can't help projecting, the idea of staying stuck in one scene which is driving me bonkers would be horrific.
On the other hand, I never finish anything. (Well, except fort the abomination I committed the summer I turned sixteen, now thankfully lost to time and technology. I believe I wrote it using the word processor "Volkswriter.") Sooooo...
Yeah. What everyone else said. And--sympathy. Slogging through a scene that feels horrible is a miserable experience. Even I know that. What I also know, at least in my experience, is that, bizarrely enough, once they're done, the scenes that I spent geologic ages over and hated ever comma of - and that's far too many commas - turn out not to actually be any worse than the scenes that came easily. It always surprises me. I suspect the same will be true of yours.
Hope so, anyhow.
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Or just put placeholders for the similes? E.g., "He stood up again and stared at her with a trace of annoyance, as if ** INCISIVE SIMILE HERE **. He said," and then go off into whatever needs to be said or done to get the scene moving again.
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Bwah!
A friend of mine was teaching a class at Irvine University, and received a paper that had apparently not been thoroughly proofread before being turned in, because one paragraph ended with "[insert more bullshit here]". True story.
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So far it's never failed me. *knocks on wood*
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YES!!
More importantly, is it helping you? If it is, the write 'em up, and damn the torpedos!
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I like the glare reports a lot. I have a tendency to move on to another project when things get difficult, so they're inspirational. And yes, I'm still fascinated by the story.
You know, if you posted with what you needed to know about blood and seawater, four people would answer. One with sources. *grins*
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This too shall pass.
And I'm amazed that you can fit as much into a day as you do. _Our_ kids are grown and gone and I'm self-employed.
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As for the similes: When there is a simile in fiction, if it comes from a character's throughts, I think it works only if it comes across as something the character, as the reader knows him/her at that point, would actually think. Would this guy, on feeling annoyance, actually think, "Why, right now I feel like I do when I'm working on a design and can't get the scale right"?
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and the middle of the book comes whenever it comes, 10K in or 30K in.
Even if you never finish this book-- and I have faith that you WILL finish this book-- these reports are really good.
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While I think that the actual relationship between blood and seawater is more flimsy now than it was understood to be then, I can loan you my copy of this tape and you can play it for yourself. It's not as engrossing as it used to be, I opine, but your kids might find it fabulous.
K.
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Glare Reports
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Love!
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Which sucks.
(And to answer a question you asked in comments, I would not feel cheated if you never finished it. I'm not reading your LJ because I'm expecting something out of you, I'm reading it because I'm interested in you and your kids and blah blah blah. I don't... /need/ anything from you.)
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