And not the fun kind of jungle quiet that happens just before the local natives burst through the bushes to cut your head off and steal your iPad. No, I'm talking about the kind of quiet that indicates a lack of activity, the sort of silence that replaces the raucous noise of clattering keyboards and the spilling of vast new rivers of pixelink onto the virtual manuscript page. That kind of quiet.
I could blame hubris, I suppose. I was all, Look! I'm almost done, clever me! and we all know how the gods love to fuck with people in that sort of state, don't we? Stupid gods. But! That would be wrong, because I never crossed into that whole Behold, I am a jay-nee-us! realm of preening satisfaction with my own talents.
No, I've got a peculiar mix of malaise and a keen desire, not to finish the thing, but to revise what I've written already, and I know exactly whence cometh that desire, all draped as it is with the Fear of Suckage.
The smaller issue: so much changed while I was in the process of writing the first 180 pages or so that the last few chapters won't make any damn sense until I've drawn the new stuff back through the old stuff to complete the illusion that that's what I meant all along. So I'm anxious to make those changes, and I'm doing that by re-typing the manuscript back into the computer, revising and adding as I go. (At one point I intended to do this on a 1946 Royal Arrow, but that's because I was insane.)
Then there's the slightly larger issue: I've got a couple of characters who have stubbornly remained cyphers throughout the whole process. Cyphers are fine, but only if you've created them on purpose. Accidental cyphers are the result of poorly-developed characters, and that's a bad thing, especially when the characters have significant roles to play. So while I've been lying awake at night with the lights off, I've been trying to crack that particular problem.
And, while trying to crack that problem--or, more accurately, problems, because there are in fact two inadvertent cyphers who need illumination and resolution--other problems presented themselves. These problems are world-level: I've got two major societal changes in play, a certain number of decades from now to work with, and I suspect that realistically I haven't got time enough to realize one change, and too much time for the other change to play out as I've portrayed it.
That's an icky feeling: whoops. My world is broken.
It'll all work out, of course, because that's what you do when confronted with problems in a creative project that you're quite certain you'll finish. I've long since adopted the attitude that I really haven't got any choice, the tale will be told, and that any difficulties I encounter in the telling are part of my journeyman's education in Getting It Done, and that, furthermore, once I've dealt with these problems I'll have gained the knowledge needed to mitigate similar problems or eliminate them entirely from my next project.
And that, it seems to me, is the attitudinal key to creative progress.
I could blame hubris, I suppose. I was all, Look! I'm almost done, clever me! and we all know how the gods love to fuck with people in that sort of state, don't we? Stupid gods. But! That would be wrong, because I never crossed into that whole Behold, I am a jay-nee-us! realm of preening satisfaction with my own talents.
No, I've got a peculiar mix of malaise and a keen desire, not to finish the thing, but to revise what I've written already, and I know exactly whence cometh that desire, all draped as it is with the Fear of Suckage.
The smaller issue: so much changed while I was in the process of writing the first 180 pages or so that the last few chapters won't make any damn sense until I've drawn the new stuff back through the old stuff to complete the illusion that that's what I meant all along. So I'm anxious to make those changes, and I'm doing that by re-typing the manuscript back into the computer, revising and adding as I go. (At one point I intended to do this on a 1946 Royal Arrow, but that's because I was insane.)
Then there's the slightly larger issue: I've got a couple of characters who have stubbornly remained cyphers throughout the whole process. Cyphers are fine, but only if you've created them on purpose. Accidental cyphers are the result of poorly-developed characters, and that's a bad thing, especially when the characters have significant roles to play. So while I've been lying awake at night with the lights off, I've been trying to crack that particular problem.
And, while trying to crack that problem--or, more accurately, problems, because there are in fact two inadvertent cyphers who need illumination and resolution--other problems presented themselves. These problems are world-level: I've got two major societal changes in play, a certain number of decades from now to work with, and I suspect that realistically I haven't got time enough to realize one change, and too much time for the other change to play out as I've portrayed it.
That's an icky feeling: whoops. My world is broken.
It'll all work out, of course, because that's what you do when confronted with problems in a creative project that you're quite certain you'll finish. I've long since adopted the attitude that I really haven't got any choice, the tale will be told, and that any difficulties I encounter in the telling are part of my journeyman's education in Getting It Done, and that, furthermore, once I've dealt with these problems I'll have gained the knowledge needed to mitigate similar problems or eliminate them entirely from my next project.
And that, it seems to me, is the attitudinal key to creative progress.
Ian,
Once again I find that a post from you wakes the brain much faster than the prosaic alarm clock.
Ding! OK, I feel better now. Whatever opus you're writing, I WILL be reading it.
Happy day (or semi-happy, pick your pleasure).
Laurie