Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Tuesday's Inspiration ala Dorothy Uhnak


This last piece of inspiration from the essay by Dorothy Uhnak is one every writer should follow, but sometimes the writing seems to sag and the writer believes they have a block. So here goes.

"Write. Do not talk about about it, whine about it, rap about it, agonize over it, discect, Analuze, story or anything else. Just do it. WRITE."

I ran into this just yesterday.Having finished a novella and the time had come to start at the beginning and see about the language and if the story was ready to send off. This is the final draft. I decided some of the chapters didn't seem to be going the way I wanted. I thought another complete re-writing was needed. "Wrong." At least I only wasted part of a day doing all the things listed above. Even went on Twitter to say I hated the story. A good night's sleep made me realize tha deciding to start in the middle of the read through was the really wrong thing to do.

While I'm not exactly writing, I am looking at the story and reading each word and sentence looking for word choice. How many times did I use the same word too close to the last time I'd used it. Tone, have I used the proper tone for this particular story. The last point was, how many times must you agonize over what's essentially a done deal.

I am inspired by the quote. Will I fall into the trap of not wanting to let a story go again? Probably. But I'll pull myself short and think about what needs to be done to make the story sing. So WRITE and let the story come to an end. There are other characters out there wanting their stories to be told.

1 comment:

Melissa Keir said...

Great advice. You have to just keep writing! :)