Friday, August 28, 2009

Don't stop...Believin'

The novel-writing process can be a confounding one.

Do you ever experience the strange feeling of hammering out a dozen sentences, and then just stopping? As if your thoughts ran off a cliff? Do sentences seem to come like you're dragging them through a trough of oatmeal? Do you finish a chapter and stop and wonder 'Now what am I going to do?

If you answered yes to any or all of the above questions, then I'm with ya. And it stinks. Some of the toughest parts are keeping the momentum going. I have written more than 4,000 words in the last few days, and I'm still shaky about all of them.

The problem is that I can't be paranoid about where I'm going when I plod through the first draft. For me, just getting a cohesive story down first and foremost is an important part of the process. Straightening it out? I can take care of that when I'm banging my head against the wall during the editing process.

For now, I'm enjoying watching my idea start to take shape. I know which direction I want it to go, but sometimes the machete dulls a little bit as I'm hacking through the jungle to that destination.

I'm still confident in what I've got, and I still think what I've got is pretty darn good. Of course, it's my first novel, so it will probably get shot down faster than a guy in a leisure suit at a Victoria's Secret convention. But that doesn't mean I'm going to quit, I'll worry about getting rejected when I actually get rejected.

Right now, the focus is on the book. You gotta believe that it's good, and going to be good when you get through the tough spots, or no one else will.

Because you never know. Maybe when that guy changes clothes, and tweaks his delivery, he'll score one of those dream dates.

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