Whenever
you get started reading the writers advices on the web or when you talk to
people about writing, the best tip you get is write, write, write. At the end,
it sums up to how many words an hour you are able to put down on paper.
I am really
having my big time with that. I have a good notion about the plot of my novel,
I worked on some parts of my main characters I have a quiet clear idea what I
want the first chapters to be about. But when it comes down to writing, the days
were I am most inspired and write like a fool, I seldom stay in this phase for more
than 2 hours, the rest is editing and the result is barely more than 900 words
per hour, most often less. And then there are days, where you know were you
want to reach with your story, but it’s like climbing the Everest with bad
equipment… Somehow it seems still achievable, but you can’t call that a
beautiful journey, and I actually never reach to the top like that.
Ok, maybe
everyone is right, and I just don’t have the hang out of it. But in the last
weeks I have to admit, that the idea of reaching a certain amount of words, was
putting me negatively under pressure. Sure, I have to write. With other words,
I have to spend as many hours as possible on this job. But writing, writing,
writing… that’s another topic. What about the hours of research, the hours
spending time with synonyms, the hours you need to work on your characters, on
the settings, the hours you work on more humorous ways to express one thought.
You need to be patient and calm with that. When I am on the word count method,
I feel like I am speeded up and it’s not helping me. The story has its own
life, it’s own pace. I worked on it chronologically and pushed myself through
the boring parts which were necessary to explain the cool parts. And once that
was done, I inversed the order or the narration and swoop, I could leave most
of the boring parts out, or reposition them in a way, that they are not boring
anymore, but rather clues to what is to come or explanations to what you didn’t
expect. That was very cool!
That set me
thinking. Do I actually need to write the whole story down? Could I not rather use
keywords for the Everest parts and take a lot of time concentrating on the
details, without actually writing them all down. Then I structure the story, and
then I start writing it down? Wouldn’t that save me a lot of time, a lot of
erased words, a lot of sweat?
As newbie
writer, this thought can only stay as a theory so far. Currently, I actually
need to write every word down to be able to imagine the world I am going
through. I am putting emphasis in building up the proper scenario, in
concentrating on the feelings of the different characters, on getting the logic
of the actions, on getting a sense of the surroundings, etc. That cannot be
achieved by hurrying through the lines. It is rather a work as if you would be
building one of this scale models for miniature trains, only in big, in real
size.
I am
curious to see how this evolves. Could it be true, that professional writers
actually do all this thinking and imagining at vertigo-pace and are still
brilliant with it? - ... Wow!
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