Post by Bobo The Bard on Sept 30, 2013 15:17:05 GMT 10
October is almost here. For some of you, this is the time to put away your WIPs, and start preparing for NaNoWriMo. For others, it's time to take a break.
For still others, it's time to panic. September is over, but your story isn't. You've got a long way to go. You're scared to death of finishing, scared to death of never finishing. In the beginning, your pen borne by the winged sandals of Hermes, you flew to the end. You fled from the gaping emptiness of the unwritten page, until you found yourself in the midst of darkness, and you wonder how you got there. This is the worst thing you've ever done. You'll never see the end of draft 1. You love your story to bits, but you never want to see it again.
You don't even know where to take the next step.
Trapped in the long, dark tunnel, you cycle endlessly through a series of fruitless beginnings, and you stare into the abyss, waiting for the little voices to answer. You hear only the madness of your own gibbering thoughts. In the silence of your own mental echoes, your novel sits.
Waiting.
You stare into its face, which stares back at you -- a question waiting to be answered.
You're a writer. The path may lie in darkness, but no matter where you are in your story, the way forward is one step at a time. Sometimes, you can't even see that much, but you take that step anyway, because the terror of what lies in that darkness is still less than the threat of what lies behind -- failure.
Yet, as surely as you write, so does your novel know where to go. Your footsteps glow like coals in the dark. As you tread this path together, you move with more confidence. Your fear walks with you, yet another silent companion, but where you tread, it can't. It can only hover, a silence menace.
Don't let fear paralyze you, nor let the block of not knowing where to go next keep you from writing. You can't see where the path ends, but you do know it goes somewhere. Your novel knows, and as you lead it, it grows. It grows with your power, and its growth fuels you.
And soon, your novel leads you. It may not make sense, and it may seem downright loopy, but that's all right. You're in the middle of it now, and it's hardly possible to make sense of the big picture from a single point. Instead, you realize -- the ending is real. It's not an illusive dream, meant to torture writers. It's real, and you will reach it one day. With that knowledge, the path through the tunnel blooms forth in a waterfall of words. The tendrils of light, fed by your words, spear the darkness, diverging, branching, looping, but always tumbling forward, onward, falling down, down to the end, and you're falling so fast that your fear can't follow. Instead, there is the bond of trust -- trust in yourself as a writer, trust in your novel to lead you where you cannot go alone.
Impact.
Suddenly, it's not dark anymore, and your fear is gone.
Your fear is gone.
And your story lives.
Keep on keeping on, writers. Good luck in October. :-)
For still others, it's time to panic. September is over, but your story isn't. You've got a long way to go. You're scared to death of finishing, scared to death of never finishing. In the beginning, your pen borne by the winged sandals of Hermes, you flew to the end. You fled from the gaping emptiness of the unwritten page, until you found yourself in the midst of darkness, and you wonder how you got there. This is the worst thing you've ever done. You'll never see the end of draft 1. You love your story to bits, but you never want to see it again.
You don't even know where to take the next step.
Trapped in the long, dark tunnel, you cycle endlessly through a series of fruitless beginnings, and you stare into the abyss, waiting for the little voices to answer. You hear only the madness of your own gibbering thoughts. In the silence of your own mental echoes, your novel sits.
Waiting.
You stare into its face, which stares back at you -- a question waiting to be answered.
You're a writer. The path may lie in darkness, but no matter where you are in your story, the way forward is one step at a time. Sometimes, you can't even see that much, but you take that step anyway, because the terror of what lies in that darkness is still less than the threat of what lies behind -- failure.
Yet, as surely as you write, so does your novel know where to go. Your footsteps glow like coals in the dark. As you tread this path together, you move with more confidence. Your fear walks with you, yet another silent companion, but where you tread, it can't. It can only hover, a silence menace.
Don't let fear paralyze you, nor let the block of not knowing where to go next keep you from writing. You can't see where the path ends, but you do know it goes somewhere. Your novel knows, and as you lead it, it grows. It grows with your power, and its growth fuels you.
And soon, your novel leads you. It may not make sense, and it may seem downright loopy, but that's all right. You're in the middle of it now, and it's hardly possible to make sense of the big picture from a single point. Instead, you realize -- the ending is real. It's not an illusive dream, meant to torture writers. It's real, and you will reach it one day. With that knowledge, the path through the tunnel blooms forth in a waterfall of words. The tendrils of light, fed by your words, spear the darkness, diverging, branching, looping, but always tumbling forward, onward, falling down, down to the end, and you're falling so fast that your fear can't follow. Instead, there is the bond of trust -- trust in yourself as a writer, trust in your novel to lead you where you cannot go alone.
Impact.
Suddenly, it's not dark anymore, and your fear is gone.
Your fear is gone.
And your story lives.
Keep on keeping on, writers. Good luck in October. :-)