There is a project I’d
like to finish in the next few months. The
idea of the project isn’t that difficult, it’s some essays on a subject I have
a great interest in. So I don’t have to
deal with foreshadowing, or coming up with interesting characters, or any of
the complexities of fiction writing. I
just have to coherently describe my thoughts on this subject.
Of course, since I first
started this project, I’ve shifted the focus three or four times. That’s not a bad thing, since it was rather
unfocused to begin with, but I have now figured out a framework for it. But that means writing, and reading, and
rewriting, and rereading, and rerewriting, and rerereading, etc., the same
paragraphs over and over again. Each
paragraph is fine, but with each refocus I need to massage them to fit the new
framework.
So one night, I’m tired,
and I’m reading this paragraph for the twentieth time trying to make sure it
fits, and it felt like it wasn’t even written in English. Just words mixed together like some kind of vocabulary
stew. That was an obvious sign to take a
break. I went back to it a few days
later, and while there was a bit of clunkiness, it’s nothing a good polish
wouldn’t fix.
And I wondered how many tired,
overworked writers saw the “gibberish” on the page and gave up, thinking they
weren’t “real” writers?
***
Image from Pixabay.
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