Tuesday, October 19, 2010

That's funny!

I am rarely one of those writers that leaves gaping holes in my book while I write.  I know some writers like to say, "I'll just write that part later," and skip over sections of their book that they don't want to write at that moment or can't think of what should go in that place.  If I do that, it makes me feel like I didn't finish my assignment.  And that when I go through this painful process of typing up my longhanded manuscript, I not only have to type what I wrote, but I still have to create what I type instead of just edit it.  With GET WELL SOON 2: ANNA'S DILEMMA [do you think anyone believes these are my actual title ideas?], I did have to leave a few spaces for technical reasons, mainly that I was planning on visiting several classrooms for research, but I had already reached the scenes where I needed to write about what I hadn't yet researched (huh?).  Today, I found one of those scenes.  It actually wasn't a difficult one to write, only a paragraph or two was needed, but here's what I had written in my notebook to come directly after the newly written portion:

"My laughter was rudely interrupted..."

What the hell was so funny?  Did I think I'd remember what funny things I wanted to write?  Now I'm all annoyed with myself and haven't typed more than a page this morning.  Stuck, and it's my own dang fault.  Maybe the laughter to which I was referring was my real life laughter at what a tool I was for writing that.  Maybe I was making a joke for me!  To come back to as a surprise!  Like a private joke that only me, myself and I would get!

I don't get it.

2 comments:

Brian James said...

I've come across notes like that of my own where I'm left wondering, "Huh?"

I'm with you, I never leave blanks. I might know in my mind that the scene will need a lot of work. But I can't skip ahead. I can't write happens NEXT if I don't know what happens NOW.

Julie H said...

And occasionally I'll think, oh, I'll remember what I was thinking later no need to write it down, and then I'll have to slap myself out of it. Because of course I won't remember!