Sometimes, revision has all the symptoms of a dead-end relationship going through its death throes. Nothing I do brings any sort of satisfaction, let alone joy. My story sits there in tears, milking those tears for all they're worth, going on and on about oh, you don't love me, why do you want to change me into something I'm not? And I'm sitting here, frustrated as rabbit with no dick, going on and on about how oh, if you loved me you'd change your goddamn ways and stop being such a rancid piece of suck. And we both sit here, cutting away at each other because there isn't any other way forward. Things only ever go downhill from here. I can't break up with the story. That's more hassle than I can stomach.
This is fury. I need to fuck or fight.
Right. Cup of tea then.
I think you should see other people.
ReplyDelete*snorf* cup of tea solves everything! (er, except revisions)
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to, Dave, believe me. This story is the clingy type though.
ReplyDeleteI may have solved the issue though. So yay! Time for more tea.
Is this the part that happens after you've dutifully written a lousy first draft, as instructed, or might there be some legitimacy to the story's view of itself?
ReplyDeleteN.B. My human-recognition word is "ancelit", which is an anagram of "lance it". I thought of lancing boils in stories, then began a paranoid fantasy about stories starting to view writers as modern secular humans view God. What if they decided to lance us? D:
Humm, a bit of both, Kirsten. As a first draft it's fine, but for the purposes required it needs some rebalancing, and is thus putting up a fight.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I never got past the boils. That's gross.
Sometimes, when a manuscript is giving me hell in the rewrite, I scream FUCK YOU at it. You know, as loud as I can, holding it close to my face so the ungrateful little bastard gets a good look at my bared teeth and contorted lips. And if it smarts off again, or gets whiney, I throw it.
ReplyDeleteThen I smoke, and brood. And maybe write something else for awhile. Something that appreciates me for the kind and understanding soul I really am. ; )
-- Ennis Drake
I'd love to be able to flip quickly between projects, but as I've discovered, I don't have the mind to pull that off. Which kinda sucks.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about having "the mind to pull that off", but I sure as hell can abandon a manuscript that's giving me shit.
ReplyDeleteI'm good at abandonment. So, I make that work for me.
Or, maybe this is why I've only published a single story in the past year. Haha!
E.D.
PS: It's probably best you not listen to anything I say. ; )