Word Play: Inside My Writing Mind

You know when you've written the same word several times and then you just look at it and think, is that the right way to spell it? It looks wrong. It makes you question yourself.

That's been happening to me all morning and I realised that principal of seeing something repeatedly and the meaning suddenly changing or the way you see it suddenly changing, can be applied to the a whole host of things: Writing novels for instance.

How many times do we edit, change, tinker and tweak? Especially those opening chapters. Now I look at them and the difference from where I started and where I am now is so astronomically vast that I often wonder if I tried to jump back there if I'd disappear down a black hole or chasm with no floor.

Change is inevitable and the way you hone and shape a craft like writing, it is essential. But along the way I often wonder if this constant tinkering isn't some how losing the original essence of what I was trying to create. Am I editing for the sake of editing? Are these changes necessary or is it that age old quest for perfection (akin to chasing rainbows) that keeps the tweaks coming?It's like a disease. You are happy with it one moment and the next you can't believe how you could have written such tosh.

As much as you'd like your characters to be separate entities that are unaffected by your mood swings and outside stimulus, this is impossible. (Or at least it is for me.) They are a part of you and I don't just mean they take particular traits from you, which they may not. But you created them and so they live in and through you, until the blessed day when they can live in the published pages of the book and jump off into the hearts and minds of others. That blessed day when the tinkering is over and you can set them free to concentrate on another idea.

But I often find that if I'm in a particularly emotional mood then that can be reflected in my writing. If I go back in a more forceful, girls-should-be-strong-and-not-sappy mood, (my self inflicted rule, not forced upon me by parents or family or anything) then what I've written previously will probably make me want to throw up or at least throw something.

Distancing myself from the characters that have lived in me and with me for so long is like shunning part of my brain. They take up such a huge portion, or so it feels like, that without them it would be kind of quiet and lonely.

So I guess what I'm trying to say in a very obtuse and waffly way is to not doubt yourself. Yes you've re-written that twenty times and now it says something different but there's a reason you did that. Maybe on reflection it says more about your mental state at the time but it is still a valid idea and maybe it will illuminate another aspect that needs work or make a link to something three chapters in the future, or give you the stimulus for a second book. Who knows? Presumably the mind isn't out there to sabotage, although that voice of doubt can often leave you wanting to burn the entire manuscript or at least chuck the computer out the window.

Crack on. Keep going. And eventually (or so I'm told) things will fall into place. With your continued hard work and mental sacrifice, of course. It's not a short term solution, it's a long term investment of the mind. It's like being on a roller coaster for five years (and counting). Surely one day those swoops and drops will plateau and you will disembark with as complete a novel as you can make it.

That's when the Agents, Editors and Publishers get to work and it starts all over again. Something to look forward to!

Happy Writing to anyone in the same boat and thanks for reading. If this made any sense I'll be surprised. Still the mind is a jumble and words help it make sense.

Enjoy your Tuesday. May it be full and productive, whatever you have in mind.

Rants