I’m surprised there isn’t smoke coming from my computer on most days, ideas flowing from my mind with such force and speed, it takes all the pathetic typing skill I have to keep up. But for the past week I’ve been staring a great deal at a relatively blank screen.
There’s not a shortage of ideas, and I certainly know time is ticking in finishing the next book in this series. So what’s the problem? I didn’t have a clue until Kathilynn noticed a pattern during her editing.
“You seem to write just like you approach life, sweetheart,” she said this morning over breakfast, “…with passion and overwhelming force, giving it everything you have.”
“I didn’t realize that was a bad thing,” I answered.
“When I read your story, I look at things from the perspective of the reader, and in that respect, it’s not always good. Your ideas are incredible, but you don’t have to use them all at the same time or in the same book. You create situations with such emotional intensity, that when the smoke clears, you’ll have nowhere to go.”
Wow. I’d never noticed that, but I could see she was right. In wanting to make sure readers feel the full impact of the Waned Hero story, I wasn’t telling the story. I was creating a barrage of events without allowing the natural development of conflicts to occur. Easy to fix, but I would have missed it were it not for my wife pointing it out to me (thank you dear).
Maybe you’re like me–that when you write, you get so involved in the stories that you lose yourself. Your mind spins personalities, situations, people, places, monsters, mayhem and in the end, you’re torn as to what gets to stay and what gets cut. It’s a hard choice sometimes, especially when you want to use it all. That’s not always possible.
What did I learn? That it’s good practice to sit your butt in the chair and barf out the first draft in all it’s chaos, complexity and insanity. Don’t judge yourself–just let it all flow and get it out. I use a general outline, but trust yourself to walk that magical line of inspiration. Then trim it. Make sure you take the time to cut the fat from your original ideas to make the events, conversations and conflicts flow. That’s where I think I was falling short. I’m back on track now, smoothing out the next draft and it’s looking better than I had hoped.
It takes several cycles of combing through a book before you can create a story worth the attention of a reader IMO. Just trust the process…and the power of your creation.
