Remember the botched rewrite that I was heartsick over? I wanted it to look like the lyrical art on the right but, instead, it looked like the helter skelter mess on the left?
Well, I figured it out. Oh yeah. It was simple. It was comically simple. A no brainer even. I'm ashamed that, as a SUPPOSED seasoned writer, I couldn't see it. It was as obvious as a Lakers jersey on a Stars goalie.
Hello? Not the even the same sport! Doh!
Any ONE of you would have read through it and seen it right away. You'd have chewed on it a day or two and tried to come up with a tactful way to ask me what the heck I was thinking. But the good thing here is that I got it. I saw the fly in my own ointment, the zit on my own face, the gray in my own hair, the cellulite on my own hip, the snag in my own stocking, the dandruff on my own scalp, the crease in own my -- okay, you know what, let's just stop right there.
The trick?
STEP ONE - Just walk away.
Can't? Well, get the flu and sneeze away...
STEP TWO - Read it with fresh eyes after running a fever.
STEP THREE - Hit yourself in the head with a hockey stick when you figure out that while the rewrite made everything better - something else happened - a new, and more natural theme developed and your original theme doesn't necessarily correlate, parallel, or even make sense in the story anymore.
What the? How did that happen?
STEP FOUR - Now rewrite it again and get rid of that forced theme that doesn't belong there! Oh, sure, you can have more than one theme, but do you really want themes competing for attention or even contradicting each other?
I love being a writer. I really, really do!
2 comments:
All GREAT writing is a process of discovery. Glad, you're improving and enjoying the process. Of cource you're so vague about what you're writing about it's hard to share your joy.
- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA
only show a little ankle.. that's what my grandmother always said.
Post a Comment