Where does your lap go when you stand up? Or: where does the writer go when the writing stops? For I am currently in the state of Limbo (population: hmm). The draft of my latest book (a sequel to The Cat Kin) is with agent and publisher. So it’s pointless me working on that until I get back their comments. And while I could try thinking ahead to the next possible book idea, I don’t have it in me at the moment. In other words, at the moment I’m not a writer.
Mind you, I’ve known far worse. When I finished The Cat Kin I (or my agent) was trying to secure a publishing deal for the best part of a year and a half. In all that time I never wrote a word of anything new. I had made a pact with myself that this was my last attempt at publication, and that if it didn’t succeed I would not waste any more time trying. Luckily, I will never know if I would have kept to it. It is hard to imagine a life in which I don’t try to think up ideas for books, and then try to write them. I would probably have to get addicted to Halo 3 or something as a substitute. Actually, that's a terrifyingly easy thing to imagine.
Meanwhile the state of limbo continues and my inner writer twiddles his thumbs. Limbo is also a good excuse, by the way, not to have to try and think up any new ideas. Sequels are one thing, but an entirely new idea is the proverbial needle in the golden haystack at the end of the rainbow linking
The name of that song is “Wasted Time”. How so very nearly appropriate.
5 comments:
Here's a thought for you while your inner writer is twiddling his thumbs.
What if twiddling is, in fact part of the writing process? What if "limbo," is part of it, too?
Why do you think just because you're not writing--physically pushing a pen across paper, or pounding the keyboard--that you've stopped being a writer?
Maybe being a writer involves more than that? And maybe, while you're "wasting time in limbo," your inner writer is doing what it needs to do, letting new roots grow and deepen, so that sometime in the future you will find--amazingly--a new idea waiting for you to pursue.
In the meantime, why not head for the beach and enjoy the time without pen in hand, just "being" in the world, listening, taking pleasure in the sound of the surf that is too often drowned out by the sound of the keyboard?
Good luck!
I went to talk by Walter Dean Myers at the LA SCBWI conference, Nick, that inspired and amazed me. Get this: He works on 3 books at a time.
He thoroughly outlines a book, writes a book, and edits a book all at the same time. He does his outline technique while out and about (like at the beach, for example), spends a few hours writing, and then edits the project already in the editorial process in the afternoon.
That being said, what Bruce has to say is very, very true.
Bruce - you're absolutely right. In some ways I actively want the writer to go away right now. Go back to the subconscious and bother me no more, that sort of thing. It's like closing a massive great application running on your Desktop - it's amazing how much better all the other programs start to run.
Kelly - WDM truly does sound like a WMD. Amazing indeed.
My father used to spend prodigious amounts of time, at his desk, (pre computer days) feet on the desk, chair tilted back, fingers laced behind his head, elbows akimbo, staring off into space. Occasionally he would break this pose, crunch forward and scribble something on the paper in front of him, then resume the position of fingers laced, etc.
As a kid, I would venture to ask, "Daddy, what are you Doing?", and he would say, "Thinking".
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