Sometimes you have to listen to that little voice
You know the one. The one that, as you're writing something you're not totally satisfied with says, "Um...you know that's gonna come back to haunt you, right?"
My response is usually to say, "Shut up, Voice. It'll be good enough."
At which the Voice comes back with my husband's sometimes-annoying but always good advice: "Good enough isn't good enough."
Sigh.
I don't even want to count the number of times ignoring that voice has ended up in my being terribly blocked in my writing. I resist the need to go back and fix the problem, trying to plow ahead and make things work, by gum. (I don't usually say "by gum," but it's kind of fun, isn't it? Must make note to bring it back into vogue...) But it never does work. I always have to go back, find the problem, fix it.
I'm lucky when this is a little problem. This past week, I had a dreadful experience where the problem was skimping on research before I began plotting my story.
The Voice said, "You know...you should probably make sure you have all the important facts before you plot this too much."
And I said, "Oh, what can happen. It's going to take a week or so for that book I requested to be available at the library, so I'll just move forward."
Bad idea.
Turns out my idea will not work. At all. Maybe someday I'll evolve my lovely, meaningful plot into a dystopian or fantasy novel. Because history has slapped me in the face and mocked me for daring to think I knew how things were. And the worst part is not that I had the facts wrong, but that the true facts were so terrible that I cried for hours, was sick to my stomach and had a hard time smiling for a bit.
It's been a rough week and my face is still stinging.
(Note: do not read the complete history of Louis-Charles (a.k.a. Louis XVII of France) if you don't have a strong stomach and somewhere you can hide and cry for a while. If you do, however, you might find The Lost King of France, by Deborah Cadbury an interesting read. Despite the horrific details, I do wish more people knew the truth behind the terrors of the French Revolution.)
I'm hardly in the state to give much advice this week. Do you have any for me?
My response is usually to say, "Shut up, Voice. It'll be good enough."
At which the Voice comes back with my husband's sometimes-annoying but always good advice: "Good enough isn't good enough."
Sigh.
I don't even want to count the number of times ignoring that voice has ended up in my being terribly blocked in my writing. I resist the need to go back and fix the problem, trying to plow ahead and make things work, by gum. (I don't usually say "by gum," but it's kind of fun, isn't it? Must make note to bring it back into vogue...) But it never does work. I always have to go back, find the problem, fix it.
I'm lucky when this is a little problem. This past week, I had a dreadful experience where the problem was skimping on research before I began plotting my story.
The Voice said, "You know...you should probably make sure you have all the important facts before you plot this too much."
And I said, "Oh, what can happen. It's going to take a week or so for that book I requested to be available at the library, so I'll just move forward."
Bad idea.
Turns out my idea will not work. At all. Maybe someday I'll evolve my lovely, meaningful plot into a dystopian or fantasy novel. Because history has slapped me in the face and mocked me for daring to think I knew how things were. And the worst part is not that I had the facts wrong, but that the true facts were so terrible that I cried for hours, was sick to my stomach and had a hard time smiling for a bit.
It's been a rough week and my face is still stinging.
(Note: do not read the complete history of Louis-Charles (a.k.a. Louis XVII of France) if you don't have a strong stomach and somewhere you can hide and cry for a while. If you do, however, you might find The Lost King of France, by Deborah Cadbury an interesting read. Despite the horrific details, I do wish more people knew the truth behind the terrors of the French Revolution.)
I'm hardly in the state to give much advice this week. Do you have any for me?
OH my gosh, I've totally done that. I hate that little voice, but it's always right. I've plowed through writing to find that it was really inaccurate.
ReplyDeleteI just deleted an entire chapter becasue of that awful, nagging voice. I don't know a lot about the French Revolution, but I do know it was bloody. You have me interested in finding out more :)
ReplyDeleteI've gotten myself stuck deeper and deeper into ditches shrugging off the warnings from the inner voice. I'm getting better at stopping and going back to the spot where things went off course now, and realy planning instead of skipping merrily ahead.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read very deeply on the French Revolution, but I get the sense that it has some scary forewarnings for today--for instance, a too wide gap between rich and poor usually leading to insane violence. (The Bolshevik revolution had similar root issues, too, right?)
Oh, that little voice? Yes, I tend to ignore it and of course, half baked research will come back to bite me. But I don't mind because at least I went forward ... and sometimes that means taking three steps back.
ReplyDeleteHugs for reading the awful history. When I read Hitler's Willing Executioners (as an adult), I had the same reaction. Although my faith eroded over time in my teens, it began when I was 12, reading about the Holocaust. Where, I cried, where were you oh, Lord?
Methinks it's time for cup of tea and some Chopin.
Thanks for stopping by my blog - Happy Wednesday! Don't have any advice for you :)
ReplyDeleteI can plow ahead without fixing things first, as long as I know how I'm going to fix it. Add a few more to-be-fixeds to the list, though, and it's too much. It has to be fixed so it feels cohesive and doesn't make the revisions quite so daunting.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to cry about the part where the true facts were so terrible it made you sick! :'(
Yes, that voice KNOWS. Amazing that we can learn this over and over again and STILL want to say, "Oh, hush" the next time it speaks.
ReplyDelete