Especially with yourself. When I get a story or artwork started, I want to get it done so I can figure out what it is I'm doing. Which can cause me to rush too damn hard to find completion when holding back and allowing the project to breathe on its own terms would be a lot better. I've been able to get around that hurry-up aspect of my creativity by writing down words in first person as being spouted by angry, talkative characters...but that kind of push doesn't work in third person.
I've found that for all my angst and anger and irritation at how The Alice '65 kept needing work and more work and reworking...by going over it and over it and over it, the story has become better and more than coherent. I think I've finally reached the level where a somewhat fantastical plot makes actual sense in the real world. I'm still pulling some crap that's not really possible...but by that point in the story it's my hope it won't matter, except to the shit-nit-pickers.
Because by going through the book so many times, I'm finding typos I would not normally have seen -- like missing a period at the end of dialogue even though I have the ending quotation mark, or using then for than and vise versa. I read it faster so I catch little hiccups in the rhythm of the read and pay attention to those.
I'm also reading it aloud, even though I suck at that, but it helps me keep focused on the progression of the words in a sentence and paragraph. This is all good to do, for taking care like this is not avoidance or just correcting incompetence on my part; it's letting the parts of the story that may need to be addressed shift from my unconscious and sub-conscious mind into my somewhat conscious one.
Writing so fast is monumentally bad for a book like The Alice '65, because it has such a delicate balance between fantasy and reality...and something in me was taking hold and keeping me from just saying, "It's done, now print." Even when I was trying to before it was really set, the fates refused to let me, thanks to the damned ICC Color Profiles not being maneuverable with my Mac. It's my hope that once I'm done with A65, it will be as perfect and professional as anything put out by Random House or Simon & Schuster.
I don't think I'm not going to make that goal.
I've found that for all my angst and anger and irritation at how The Alice '65 kept needing work and more work and reworking...by going over it and over it and over it, the story has become better and more than coherent. I think I've finally reached the level where a somewhat fantastical plot makes actual sense in the real world. I'm still pulling some crap that's not really possible...but by that point in the story it's my hope it won't matter, except to the shit-nit-pickers.
Because by going through the book so many times, I'm finding typos I would not normally have seen -- like missing a period at the end of dialogue even though I have the ending quotation mark, or using then for than and vise versa. I read it faster so I catch little hiccups in the rhythm of the read and pay attention to those.
I'm also reading it aloud, even though I suck at that, but it helps me keep focused on the progression of the words in a sentence and paragraph. This is all good to do, for taking care like this is not avoidance or just correcting incompetence on my part; it's letting the parts of the story that may need to be addressed shift from my unconscious and sub-conscious mind into my somewhat conscious one.
Writing so fast is monumentally bad for a book like The Alice '65, because it has such a delicate balance between fantasy and reality...and something in me was taking hold and keeping me from just saying, "It's done, now print." Even when I was trying to before it was really set, the fates refused to let me, thanks to the damned ICC Color Profiles not being maneuverable with my Mac. It's my hope that once I'm done with A65, it will be as perfect and professional as anything put out by Random House or Simon & Schuster.
I don't think I'm not going to make that goal.
No comments:
Post a Comment