Sick and tired

[desperance]

I haven't been well these last few days, and I also haven't been working much: just picking my way through the play, making vague gestures at a redraft, feeling really fed up with the whole process and deeply uncommitted to it.

I thought it was because I was sick, because I couldn't possibly be bored, could I? With my own work? No, never...

And I'm not, not really. I think what it is, though, I am screamingly bored - sick and tired, as my mother would say - of doing rewrites. In the last couple of months, I've written two short stories and a proposal; apart from that, it's been endless proofs & edits, and I've just had enough. I want to throw real words at the screen again, and I can't, because this has to be done; and then when it is done, y'know what? There's a whole novel waiting for a rewrite, and it's been waiting too long already. Sigh, sob...

Also, of course, I'm so fed up with it all, I'm really not doing a good job on the play here. I should be picking it apart, not picking at it. I'm not good at this anyway, remaking a piece substantially; I can polish for ever, but my whole process is so linear (I start at the beginning, and write till I get to the end, and that's always how I conceive the work, from page to page, moment to moment), my only sense of structure is a rope. This leads to that leads to that. Which makes it hard to reshape. Especially through dialogue, which is the definition of flow.

So gah, basically. I sit here and fiddle, to no great effect. I'd give it up and go cook something, if I didn't feel so grot. I broke a full bottle of nuoc mam at lunchtime, trying to make pho. It's been haunting me all day...

Comments

[martyn44.livejournal.com]

I was going to make elsue's suggestion, although I'd suggest ensuring the good stuff takes priority over the boring stuff - new writing 9-12 every day, routine the rest of the time. Or whatever works for you.

Rewriting can get to the point where you might as well just write the damn thing anew.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I was going to make elsue's suggestion, although I'd suggest ensuring the good stuff takes priority over the boring stuff - new writing 9-12 every day, routine the rest of the time. Or whatever works for you.

Ah, that would be lovely. I've never been much good at multitasking, though, I like to focus on one thing at a time; and these rewrites are all increasingly urgent, where at the moment fresh stuff is not. (I don't like to think about it, but actually right now I have no contracts, no commissions, technically no publisher; hence, nothing to write...)

Rewriting can get to the point where you might as well just write the damn thing anew.

Something I did seriously think about, for the play: write it once, put that draft away, write it again without reference to previous version, then marry the two together. Might have been more interesting, might have been more productive; too late now...