Paper Coach : Teach Yourself to Write Fiction
Teach yourself to write fiction while improving the course from which you're learning. This blog tracks an aspiring writer's efforts to design then take a course made from easy-to-find books on writing. Posts explore the craft, suggest writing exercises, and revise the course itself.
3.10.2007
Taxes: Making Death More Attractive and Writing Absolute Heaven!
Papercoach : Teach Yourself to Write Fiction
Still in mad, mad, mad tax land. Still not writing much. However these are no excuses not to deliver the next installment in the AVMI writer's prompt. That's animal, vegetable, mineral and intangible. So try writing - or at least starting - a short story using the words dolphin, bran, jack hammer, and cupidity.
Good luck, write on, and don't look back!
Still in mad, mad, mad tax land. Still not writing much. However these are no excuses not to deliver the next installment in the AVMI writer's prompt. That's animal, vegetable, mineral and intangible. So try writing - or at least starting - a short story using the words dolphin, bran, jack hammer, and cupidity.
Good luck, write on, and don't look back!
posted by Lou @ 1:55 PM
4
comments
4 Comments:
The problem with not looking back is that you don't know what might be sneaking up on you. Always clear your baffles before acquiring a firing solution.
Fair enough. What I meant by the 'don't look back' bit, though, is to write without editing. New writers (like me) have a tendency to get wrapped up in editing whatever we last wrote instead of finishing it. I used to do that all the time, but have been convinced its a bad idea. I read that actually finishing something like a novel will teach you everything you need to write the next one (and re-write the first). But always editing the same stuff and never finishing just teaches you to be a slow editor. I don't have the kind of life that understands firing solutions, so I should have been more specific: write first, don't stop until you're finished. Then, and only then, edit. What do you think? Any thoughts of trying your hand at the writing prompt?
No, I have little desire to write for publication. I am very interested , however, in the experience people have while trying to finish a difficult task. Most memoirs (or how-to books, instructional manuals, etc.) are written by those who have succeeded in the task under scrutiny. While this insight is valuable, it has its own biases. To the question at hand, I retract my previous comment. Only by doing certain things can you hope to understand them. "Paralysis by analysis" is a too common phenomenon experienced by intelligent people faced with a daunting task. I commend you for this insight.
Thank you for saying so. What I find most intersting, though, is how long it took me to apply the thought to writing. In my previous life as a PM, "paralysis by analysis" is a 101 lesson. You need to integerate that concept into your tool kit from the get go, or your projects fail. Moreover, I've always supported the universality of the principle; so why did identfying it in a writing context require such time and effort? Why did I experience as an 'insight' a principle I not only knew, but had acted upon in a different context? I'm thinking just that -- context -- is responsible, and that writing is, for many, a highly charged context and emotional charge obscures in a way that only familiarity-through-practice negates.
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