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the rough draft
Feb. 17th, 2006 10:32 pmToday I looked up one of my memoried posts, and I found this wonderfully helpful comment:
The rough draft is neither good nor bad. It is simply a work in progress. Judging it is not your job. Understanding it is.
It's from Jane Smiley's chapter in J.Checkoway (ed.), Creating Fiction.
Well, I found this helpful at least. It's what I meant by breakthrough. First, I am a sucker for inspirational mottoes. I have them up on post-its in the laundry (next to the Brad Pitt calendar), in the kitchen and around my computer (and on my computer on stickies). Second, I have been hung up and twisted in knots of perfectionism around and about this HP opus. And Smiley's point is so nice because it gets me away from the perfection (or not) of the text, and hence, the perfection or not of me, and towards a close look at the story. I really like the understanding not judging. I judge all the time. I judge myself very harshly. But if I am to click my brain into 'understanding' mode, it's different. Then the fic is outside of me.
I am going to try and maintain this mindset. And then I'm going to try and do what my beta told me months ago which is to write the bloody thing and especially to write the plot-crucial things.
I also must obsess less about this fic because I am not on sabbatical in order to write a fic. I am on sabbatical in order to write a book, goddessdammit.
The rough draft is neither good nor bad. It is simply a work in progress. Judging it is not your job. Understanding it is.
It's from Jane Smiley's chapter in J.Checkoway (ed.), Creating Fiction.
Well, I found this helpful at least. It's what I meant by breakthrough. First, I am a sucker for inspirational mottoes. I have them up on post-its in the laundry (next to the Brad Pitt calendar), in the kitchen and around my computer (and on my computer on stickies). Second, I have been hung up and twisted in knots of perfectionism around and about this HP opus. And Smiley's point is so nice because it gets me away from the perfection (or not) of the text, and hence, the perfection or not of me, and towards a close look at the story. I really like the understanding not judging. I judge all the time. I judge myself very harshly. But if I am to click my brain into 'understanding' mode, it's different. Then the fic is outside of me.
I am going to try and maintain this mindset. And then I'm going to try and do what my beta told me months ago which is to write the bloody thing and especially to write the plot-crucial things.
I also must obsess less about this fic because I am not on sabbatical in order to write a fic. I am on sabbatical in order to write a book, goddessdammit.