Application of bum to seat
September 17th 2008 01:14
Whatever writer said that writing is the art of applying bum to seat was a genius. (Some sources say Mary Heaton Vorse said it, I always thought it was Emily Bronte. Whomever it was, thanks.)
But how does one ensure seat stays attached long enough to finish whatever is being written? How does one sustain the glow of a new project long enough to produce something worthwhile?
In the bottom of my desk drawer is about five manuscripts - or half-u-scripts - of stories started but never finished. Why?
I think I am chicken. To finish one is to admit I wrote it; to kill of the possibility of a charater's development; to close the cover on someone's life - even if it is just a make believe one.
Maybe I am lazy. I can't even guide my own life through it's pages without a bex and a lie down, so how can I expect to chart another's?
Maybe I have an attention disorder. My mind races through the story, framing it, writing it along my neurons, but by the time it gets out the end of my fingers I have fallen behind in its retelling. My mind is at the end of the story, and is over it, before I get to chapter two. Maybe those with ADD are actually mankind's next evolutionary step. Maybe it's everyone else who can't keep up with them that makes them seem so un-normal.
Maybe I am a pancake person, a victim of the Google age, where play maker Richard Foreman says we know a little about everything and lots about nothing, so we care about more things but care less deeply about anything. Maybe I should bunk with The Atlantic's Nicholas Carr and be worried that I am a universal expert but master of none. Maybe I should care that I don't care about making my characters exist in a virtual world.
Maybe, just maybe, I am flat out no good at writing long pieces. Maybe I am a pancake writer, destined to satisfy myself with no more than 1000 words, entry, climax, conclusion. Someone hand me the maple syrup, time to embrace my inner pancake and get writing - short stories.
But how does one ensure seat stays attached long enough to finish whatever is being written? How does one sustain the glow of a new project long enough to produce something worthwhile?
In the bottom of my desk drawer is about five manuscripts - or half-u-scripts - of stories started but never finished. Why?
I think I am chicken. To finish one is to admit I wrote it; to kill of the possibility of a charater's development; to close the cover on someone's life - even if it is just a make believe one.
Maybe I have an attention disorder. My mind races through the story, framing it, writing it along my neurons, but by the time it gets out the end of my fingers I have fallen behind in its retelling. My mind is at the end of the story, and is over it, before I get to chapter two. Maybe those with ADD are actually mankind's next evolutionary step. Maybe it's everyone else who can't keep up with them that makes them seem so un-normal.
Maybe I am a pancake person, a victim of the Google age, where play maker Richard Foreman says we know a little about everything and lots about nothing, so we care about more things but care less deeply about anything. Maybe I should bunk with The Atlantic's Nicholas Carr and be worried that I am a universal expert but master of none. Maybe I should care that I don't care about making my characters exist in a virtual world.
Maybe, just maybe, I am flat out no good at writing long pieces. Maybe I am a pancake writer, destined to satisfy myself with no more than 1000 words, entry, climax, conclusion. Someone hand me the maple syrup, time to embrace my inner pancake and get writing - short stories.
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