Trying to jump back and forth between UG and APoS, to give me space and critical distance for each, is just spacing me out...and confusing me as to which story I'm working on, at the moment. I started adding notes into APoS that I meant for UG, and just had a hissy fit with myself. I guess I'm crap at multi-tasking.
Truth is, I never really have been able to do more than one thing at a time...and occasionally even have trouble with that. So...I'm going back to the focus on the one story at a time way of writing and just get it done. And I am going to have a first draft of UG written by the end of the month. Then I'll set it aside till I'm done with APoS in first draft. I can make notes for the rest of my life, if I let myself, and get neither of them completed.
It is easier to rewrite than to write, initially. Facing a blank computer screen is terrifying...perhaps even more terrifying than when you only had to face a blank page in a typewriter. Because with that untouched sheet of paper staring back at you, you know how hard it is to rework so fight to make sure, in your head, you've got it as close as possible to final.
While you also have the same basic premise with a monitor, it's easy to change things on a computer, so you have less reason not to just write...which feeds into a loop of, Why ain't I just writing something so I can edit it and rewrite it later? Which feeds into even greater feelings of laziness and self-flagellation...and on and on.
There's an infamous story about a writer hired to work on a script for a famous director (I think it was Raymond Chandler and Alfred Hitchcock, but don't know this for a fact). The writer would submit pages to the director and have them rejected with the comment, "They're all right, but they just don't contain my famous touch." Finally, the writer ripped a blank sheet out of his typewriter and flung it at the director, saying "Here, put your famous touch on that!"
I feel like both of them right now.
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