I have been remiss in posting lately, sorry about that. My plate is full and I haven’t been very motivated to blog about the goings on. It occurs to me that I haven’t taken a long Paris stroll in sometime -maybe that will help. Anyway, I sent out an article about my Moroccan trip to a slew of newspapers and magazines. My New Zealand friend edited it down from 4,000 words to 900 and with a few other tune-ups it is out. I’ll let you know how it does.
I’m at a stand still with the book. I have it down to three acts but I feel as though I’m forcing some of the newer characters and story lines that are introduced. I like them but they don’t seem to belong and I hate to get rid of things I like. This, of course, explains why I was edited down from 4000 to 900 words. I had it explained to me like this; “You put all the babies on the porch (ideas, sentences, words) the next morning you keep the ones that are still alive and get rid of the dead ones.”
Don’t let the lilt in their voices fool you; New Zealanders are a dark people.
7 comments:
It's tough to weed work down, no matter what it is. If you felt it enough to put commit to paper, it's hard to admit they dont fit. That's one thing that design school taught me - thicken your skin, and be prolific to give you the breadth of work to weed out the crap and leave the gems.
On a separate note, i was thinking that you should advertise on craig's list that you'll give English speaking guided tours - for money of course. Seeing Paris through your eyes (first hand) was really engaging and educational. Do I hear revenue stream? ;)
I also have a hard time cutting away my beloved prose... that's why I outline like a fiend. Measure twice, cut once.
Okay, the analogy doesn't quite work, but I'm sure you can figure out what I mean.
I'm more of a songwriter than anything else, but I have a trick that works wonders for me when I'm stuck. Maybe it'll work for you.
I grab a pen and start to copy what I've already written. After a short while I slip back into that "zone" where the words are coming faster than I can get them down. If I had to explain why it works I suppose it's my subconcious taking over.
Good luck.
I love the baby metaphor. That's my kind of humor. Yeah, I know!
no matter
you did something
and i'm glad to hear it
hope there wont be too many corpses
>>“You put all the babies on the porch (ideas, sentences, words) the next morning you keep the ones that are still alive and get rid of the dead ones.”<<
Oh, my...I rather like that...dark as it is. Or perhaps that is why I like it :-)
Some one once told me to never fall in love with your words ~ the parts of your writing that you love the most are the bits that usually need to go.
The most famous writing advice of the Victorian critic, Quiller-Couch, was "Murder your darlings".
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