Tuesday, January 16, 2024

Random Writing Tips – Am I just writing gibberish?

 

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?

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Image from Pixabay.

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