For Friday, November 13, 2015:
“I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.”
Gustave Flaubert
This is where I am with me and the first draft of my novel-in-progress right now: irritated. I’ve reached what I think is the final chapter, and I ‘hear’ and see what I want to finish with, but every time I try to write the scenes, I blank. If I do manage to get any words down, I’m the poster child for Dorothy Parker’s comment: “I can’t write five words but that I change seven.”
Today I can tell myself that’s okay because this is just the first draft. I know there are more to come — and, thankfully, I love the revision process. Sometimes that’s where the real magic happens.
So I need to tell myself to be patient, to just put something down — ideas, partial sentences, pieces of dialogue. Maybe this is the way to reach those ‘notes’ that I can hear so clearly. My fingers may not be as precise as a violinist’s, but this version is still in rehearsal. The words won’t be ready for opening night until and unless I put in a lot of practice sessions — and drafts — to refine them.
magiclampedits 