Sunday, March 31, 2013

A Writer at War

I woke up this morning with words in my head.  Since I wrote the final sentence of LitD, such beautiful words have not occurred to me.  I think part of the reason is because I've felt rather uncreative lately.  Since the end of February, my predominant focus has been pulling apart every single thought Celia has and every sentence the others speak.  Should Celia use a contraction here?  Would the young man answer this question in a monosyllable? Should I use the word grip or clasp to describe this action?   After hours upon hours of new sentences, these decisions all feel...anticlimactic.

Don't get me wrong.  Picking apart every last sentence and word is important.  There is nothing I like worse than reading a book and becoming too distracted by the poor word choice and unintentional sentence fragments to enjoy what might otherwise be an engaging plot.  I need to do it.  I need to do it so when you read LitD you can focus on Celia and not the spinach between her teeth.

So when new words began to play in my mind--exciting new words Celia would say and think if she were presented with an exciting new situation--I knew I had to make a decision.  I could give in to creative temptation and jot down the magnificent conversation Celia and the young man were having in my head, or I could focus on my deadline.  A writer at war.

You see, even though the last scene is written, I'm not done with Celia yet.  She is too vibrantly clear in my head to let her go.  Maybe I'll have to break from grammar and sentence structure to get those scenes on paper.  Maybe if I do, she'll stop speaking to me long enough so I can finish LitD.

I can resist everything except temptation.
-Oscar Wilde

My question for you:
How do you resist temptation?

No comments:

Post a Comment