I realized something today as I was blathering through my early morning writing session…and it was eeaaarrrlllyyyy let me tell you, holy bejesus…I like the writing part of writing. Like, a lot. Love it.
The rewriting part…not so much. Which I realize, you guys, is something that I have to work on. Find a way to make it more enjoyable, or just the resolve and technique to power through that part, because that truly IS where the real writing happens. I guess. Now that I think about that phrase, I’m not actually convinced that’s true. At the very least, it’s equally as important as the first writing part. Ideas have to be put down onto the page, yo. Otherwise they’re not real. They’re not writing.
But, man, I had a blast today with the writing session because I was writing. I had a whole large sequence that needed to be rewritten from the ground up, and it was glorious. Action, intrigue, surprises, cool settings, suspense…it’s so vivid, you guys, when I’m writing. Rewriting by comparison is so clinical, so obsessive and detail-oriented…so pressured to be “right.”
This criticism, or realization that I’m leveling upon myself isn’t to say that rewriting is something unnecessary, or not worth the time and effort. Hell no. No way you’re going to be seeing my first drafts of ANYTHING I write. That shit’s not ready to be read yet. It’s sloppy, incoherent, repetitive…no, the rewriting is crucially necessary, I’m afraid. I’m just realizing that I don’t enjoy it nearly as much as the first time through a manuscript. It’s just not as fun, or as clear for me.
I did not quite hit my target goals – I had planned to do some writing this evening, but I ended up hanging out with the Ho instead, which I must say was the right decision. My writing goals aren’t due until tomorrow, anyway, and I’m fairly confident that if I keep my focus again tomorrow, I’ll be able to hit them.
I should confess that I didn’t hit as many hours of writing today as I’d scheduled, this is true. And I only timed ONE of them…but I will do better tomorrow. I’ll time it, and I’m going to actually keep track of the word count, as advised by the book I’m currently reading. Track my progress. Maybe even post here on the journal entries what my word count was for the day.
Liz and I walked the dogs together, I did some laundry, she made her stew which was friggin delicious, we watched an intense episode of this show on Scientology that she’s been enjoying lately. I think it’s on Hulu…and then Medwards came over to hang out again for a little while before he went home. Hi Matt! He’s a confessed reader of these nightly blogs…Matt, I’m so sorry – some day, I’ll have something interesting to actually talk about on this mundane daily blog – that was cool. I played Fallout for a little bit while he was here, he taught me how to charge my stupid laser gun…that was clutch…and I cleared out this little area. There was nothing in it, though! Nothing that great, anyway. It wasn’t part of my quest…it was just a building on the side of the road with baddies inside that I decided to detour and clear out. Oh well.
That’s all for tonight. It was, genuinely, another great day. I have a lot of work ahead of me tomorrow…including getting up at the asscrack of 6:30am. So, off to bed with me. I’ll catch y’all on the flip.