Tuesday, September 29, 2009
It's like parenting
In a way, this story of mine is like my child. I incubated it, letting it grow and take shape inside my head for a long time. Then I brought it out of my head and onto paper, giving birth to concrete ideas that I shared with other people, but not until the story and I were both ready. I continue to feed it with daily attention, discipline it by correcting mistakes, and teach it how to behave in public by sharing it with my writer's group. It needs my time and my energy, and in return the story takes on its own life and will (hopefully) be strong enough to live on its own in the future. Like parenthood, writing this book has been great fun, a pain in the neck, an inspiration, completely aggravating, and a challenging, amazing experience.
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I LOVE this metaphor.
ReplyDeleteMy completed book simmered (gestated) for 5 YEARS before I realized I might actually have the skill to write the darned thing. Granted, it not only developed limbs in that time, but a second head... or something thereabouts... but the coming together was a very organic process.
I have a book I am maybe 1/3 of the way into writing that I started after I finished CONFLUENCE. I had had an idea that I'd played with, but that one wasn't developing at a rate that I could really write with, so i started this (I refer to it as the Murder Mystery--still unnamed).
But suddenly, after about 6 months gestation, the one I'd been thinking about but not writing on took off.
(I'm hoping while I get the current stuff written, that murder mystery is finally having its gestation)