On the other hand, while we were standing at the train station I said to Ted I didn’t know what I was going to do about the end of the book, and by the time we got on the train I had an idea of what I was going to do, because Ted is a plot machine. He came up with a really good idea that doesn’t solve everything, but it gives me somewhere to start, and it’ll make for a much more interesting ending than the book currently has. I still don’t particularly want to do it, but at least now I have an idea of what I’m doing.
I did come home and finish doing line edits, despite my hair. I feel somewhat proud of myself for that, because I’m really pretty gloomy and it would’ve been easy to just sit in a funk. Instead I worked in a funk. And I guess that even if I’m sick to the very bleeding death of this book, I do still like Janx and Daisani, which is something.
miles to Isengard: 44
Sheesh! Can Ted do *nothing* wrong? He’s making the rest of us guys look really bad here… We do not approve. :P
Wait…didn’t I do that joke already? Oh well. If he’s gonna keep being so f-ing wonderful, I’ll keep being glad you yanked him out of the country so he won’t be hanging around raising women’s expectations here where I’m trying to live.
(Note to self: Never meet Ted. You’ll probably like him, which will totally take away the edge from what you’re trying to pass off as humor.)
That’s because Janx and Daisani rock. I still remember them. That’s saying something.
It’s funny–before I ever wrote anything, but ~knew~ I was a writer, I always thought that the plots and stuff would someday spring fully formed into my mind and that’s when I would finally the magical mystical thing that is Author. Now that I’m actually writing, I’m realizing that some of this sh*t is just made completely up. Would have been blasphemy to to non-writing Writer that I once was.
I thought writing was like ethereal archeology. That somewhere, in some universe, this stuff had happened, and it was my job to open up my sixth and seventh senses up and become aware of those events in order to report them to the less enlightened humans. I never fully realized how many of my own thoughts, opinions, experiences, and humor make their way into my stories. I never really thought anybody would be interested in any of those things, which is why I kept looking for the story outside myself. It had to be somebody else’s story, my own perspective wouldn’t be good enough, interesting enough, and the ending wouldn’t kick enough ass.
For some reason, every other time I’ve read about the problems that you’re having with the end of the book–I just figured you’d get over it, not that you’d work through it. I was wrong, and wanted to share my epiphany. I knew you were a fantastic writer before, but now I have a renewed appreciation for your dedication to telling stories. You express your frustration and then you get back to work. You do that a lot. You hit a wall, and then you break through it. I’ve seen you (in your blog) do that time and time again.
Writers have the curious job of speaking not only for themselves, but for everybody who lives in the human experience. It’s the job of the writer to find a way of saying what everyone feels, but few can express. You have the gift of doing so in such an exuberant and joyful and life-affirming sort of way, but the gift isn’t what makes you a great writer. Because inspiration isn’t what makes a good writer, commitment is. Everybody has something to say, but not everybody is willing or capable of opening their mouths and putting it out there.
You are, and you do, and don’t worry, you will. :D *hugs*
For some reason, every other time I’ve read about the problems that you’re having with the end of the book–I just figured you’d get over it, not that you’d work through it.
*snortlaugh* No, “get over it” is what I have to do when I don’t WANNA do revisions or read the revision letter or *whinewhinewhine* whatever. “Work through it” is basically the job. Truth is I always knew the end of the book was too pat, but I didn’t know how to fix it and I was too lazy and content enough with it as it was to not work at it until my editor called me on it, at which point…well. Time to suck up and do the job, at that point.
Welcome to the glamorous life of a writer, eh?
Thanks :)
He took out the garbage the other day, too, when I was listing all the wonderful things he’d done. :)
Thanks for the welcome. Riiight, so. No superpowers or anything…? *blinks hopefully* I guess not. I just never thought of it as work, until I actually started doing it.
No superpowers or anything…?
That depends on whether you subscribe to the idea that writing is the closest thing we have to telepathy, I expect. :)
Hah…that’s funny. I s’pose you are walking around with multi-casts of characters and all their thoughts, hopes, dreams, pet peeves–all of which you tap into in order to tell a story. Which could be considered a form of telepathy–or schizophrenia…It’s funny that you said that, though, because I can look at people sometimes and know exactly what their thinking, even if they’re saying something else. But that has more to do with relating to their experience than any kind of sixth sense.