Work, as she is seen by plumbers

[desperance]

...So I finished playing around with the urban fantasy, and sent that off on Friday; and on Saturday - thinking that I would start work on a short story that I owe - I remembered instead that it needed synopses for its two sequels, so I wrote those (oh, look! they've got plots! stuff happens! development! progress! conclusion...!) and then went out for my second Burns supper of the week. More haggis, more whisky. In a lighthouse.

And went to bed thinking that I'd start the short story next day, yesterday, Sunday.

And, um, didn't. Didn't really do anything, beyond a little light administration; but was just winding up to get started in the evening when friends phoned, just in from a day on Hadrian's Wall, and would I like curry and drinking and company?

Well, yes. So Sunday became a retrospective day off, and today - well, today I am working on the story. And I've just reached that point, about three paragraphs in, where I suddenly understand that - although I have had this story in my head, titled and everything, for literally years - I really know precious little about it and I'm kind of scared of pitching into the thing in this state of utter ignorance, I can't make it work and I can't make it well, all I can do in this condition is spoil it entirely. So ordinarily I would hurl myself away from the computer at this point and go for a walk, go shopping, get the hell away from it for a while until I have a bright idea or recover my nerve or just get desperate enough to come back and poke at it anyway; only I can't do that, because my plumber is fixing my toilet today. He's been and gone and is coming back; so I am rooted to the house, cannot flee the story, and so - well, yes. I am writing the story. Ruining it, most likely, because truly I know nothing; but 'twas ever thus. We blunder about in darkness, and gather stuff together, and whimper "Does it make a shape yet?" to some presumptive higher power who can actually see.

Remind me again, why we do this...?

Comments

[szandara.livejournal.com]

You do this for people like me, who very much like to read books, but cannot write them ourselves. Without people like you writing books, there would be a large number of very smart people spending much of their time being very bored, which sounds to me like a recipe for badness.

Also, Recipe for Badness would be a great name for a band.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Also, you are right. Names of bands are like short-story titles; they are everywhere. Except, of course, when you need one.