So every excuse I've ever had about why I'm not writing has been met, down to a new (refurbed but new to me) laptop. I eagerly open up a manuscript I'd started and proceeded to stare.
Ugh.
I forced myself to write. It sucked. I backspaced. I wrote some more. It blew chunks. I backspaced again. And again. Then I made myself stop thinking and simply DO it, knowing I could remove it later if I needed to (which, without a doubt, I would), and got to the end of the scene.
And then I realized that since I wrote that little beginning with just an idea of the story, I knew next to nothing about my character. Well, you can't write without knowing the character, so I started on a character worksheet to try to get into her head. My own head is confusing enough. We can only imagine how hard it is to get into a character's head that comes from my head. Kind of as confusing as that last sentence, but I think you know what I mean.
So tonight I'm whipping out craft books on characterization. This is just like anything else: You have to retrain your mind to do it. Flex those muscles and get them limber enough to work with ease.
And try not to get a brain cramp in the process.
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3 comments:
Bren-da! Bren-da! Bren-da!
Don't beat yourself up if doing character worksheets doesn't work for you. They never work for me. I have to just start writing in order to get to know my characters. One cool thing you can do (if you have an idea of what their backstory is)--write the scenes (mostly dialogue--almost like you're writing a play) that occur before the book opens. Doing that has helped me enormously.
Glad to see you're back at it...and yes, people who used to read your blog still check back occasionally *g*.
Hey! Hi Randy! Great to see you again - LOVE the new photo.
I'm writing again, so my blog posts are aimed that way finally! Glad you still check back :)
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