It's late on a Friday--been working on revising my novel COBALT BLUE. I found that I could work for only about 15 minutes before getting antsy and nervous. (The changes I'm making are small but BOLD) Some of the time it was abougt 3 minutes.
My jumpiness felt rather discouraging; it gave me the feeling that I wasn't going to get anything done today. Wrong--I got a lot done.
MY METHOD: I quit about every time I felt like it. Then went back to work 5 or 10 minutes later. It took me about 5 hours to do about 3 and a half hours worth of writing. And toward the end of the afternoon, I was starting to be able to stay with it longer.
I consider this approach a variation of the LOWERED EXPECTATIONS approach, essentially it's to do what I can. I'm happy with the way it turned out this time.
I don't think I was evading any subject matter by quitting so often. But next round I think I'm going to experiment and explore that possibility.
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6 comments:
Hello, thank you for commenting in my blog.
Yes, I did finish reading your book Sister India. I did enjoy it, and I felt that the imagery was amazing, while reading the book, I felt as if I was right there. I do enjoy character development heavy books, so this was a bit of a change for me. I thought your characters were so wonderful, but I also wanted to know a lot more about them, so I was left with many questions. I liked it, and I think I recommended it in my blog.
Thanks again so much for your comment. I have the utmost respect for authors.
Thanks, Willowtree. I talked by phone Monday night with a book club that was reading Sister India. They had lots of questions about the characters too. The one I always get: why a 400+ pound woman for the main character. I still get excited in these conversations, even though it has been several years since the novel came out. I continue to do these free talks by speakerphone with book clubs that are reading Sister India. They're fun. Although I learned the hard way not to lie down while talking with a CA group at 11:30 pm. Eastern time. Seems I may have nodded off for a moment.
i consider this approachsensible & productive, not necessarily lowered expectations--doing what u can & resting/gestating when ur muse must seems only wise, & clearly, it works--i always want to do more of what works-well, , anyway, i always want to want to do more of whatever works--& when i do i usually get morew good results.
Thanks for the encouragement, Aiki. The only reason I refer to this work pattern as lowered expectations is that I start out demanding too much of myself==more than I can realistically do.
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