Sunday 8 November 2009

When oh when...

will I ever learn.
Picture the scene.
During the week I started to type up the short story that I had finished a day or two earlier wuth the plan of polishing and getting out a few days later. About 400 words in I hit a snag. There's something about the story that's not right. It's just a paragraph but it's an important one that's central to everything that comes after. So I tweak a bit here and then a bit there and I'm still not happy so eventually give up on it and go to bed. As it was about midnight then and my alarm goes off at 6.30 it seemed like a good idea.
However I digress. This morning when I am walking the dog I tell him my plans for the morning. I am going to check emails and see whats happening in blogland and be ready to get back to the story by 9am. It's a good plan. So at 10 o'clock (trivia and surfing got the better of me) I opened up Word and got to work.I have to be honest, I'd thought about how I was going to reslove this issue a lot and I hadn't worked it out. yet when I read through the 400 words that were already there 200 more flowed quite naturally from my fingers and hey presto they problem is solved in less than five minutes. And what do you know, I had to come right over here to blogland (now 10.10am) to tell you about it.
So in answer to my own question of when will I ever learn the answer is now.
A. Don't force it. If forty odd years of life have taught you nothing it should have taught you that you always work better on gut instinct. Give it time and the answer will come.
I should also try and learn to not be so easily distracted.
Back to the story.

6 comments:

Cheryl said...

I am trying to polish up my short story to sub to a womag but I'm starting to think I will never be happy with it - I love the story but its not flowing. I have given myself a deadline but I am taking your advice and not forcing it. Good luck with the story!

Sheila Norton said...

Good thinking, Colette - and glad you got the problem sorted. I bet talking it over with the dog helped! x

Colette McCormick said...

I'm terrible when polishing starts (of stories that is not furniture) I just keep going over and over. It's hard sometimes to know when to stop. Good luck with your story Lily.
I always talk things over with the dog Olivia, he's a great listener.

Deborah Carr (Debs) said...

I'm hopeless at short stories and am struggling with one right now. I suppose I should get back to it and see if I can work some sort of magic.

Karen said...

It's surprising how your brain carries on working away at solving problems or coming up with new ideas while you're not looking!

If I ever do get published I'm going to have to acknowledge Molly-dog, because my moments of clarity usually happen while I'm out walking her :o)

Colette McCormick said...

Don't give up on your short story Debs. The last one that I had accepted was on that I wrote years ans years ago - way before I was trying to do it seriously and at that time it wasn't ready. But with a bit of tweaking recently it was.
I know what you mean Karen. Solutions to story problems pop into my head at the oddist of times and dog walking is a great way of relaxing the mind.
BTW Lily, you may have seen that a comment of yours had been deleted and that was because it had been published twice. I've now worked out how to sort it out properly. Better late than never.