Instincts and tinking
Jean, you're a genius! You just wrote something that crystallized everything I've been struggling with for the past year in my writing.
Jean's brilliant insight:"Isn't writing all about learning to trust your own instincts?"
Yes, yes, yes! That's what I've been groping for, the confidence to go with my own sense of what the book should be. Not what other books are, not what the market wants it to be, not what my agent thinks it should be. What I, the writer, believe is right for the story.
However, I SO agree that every writer needs an editor. I was blessed with having a wonderful editor for my first two books and I miss her light, deft touch terribly now that she's moved on to a different publisher and different genre.
Like you, Barbara, I love to cut, to make the prose lean and mean. It's probably a holdover from my days of writing poetry when every word had to do so many duties that it practically groaned from the burden. However, it takes a real mental effort for me to start revising. A cup of tea is not nearly enough to get me into the self-editor's chair--it takes more along the lines of a bottle of bourbon. Yet once I begin, I really enjoy making the book better.
And like you, I 've only recently learned to tink or frog or whatever is necessary to make the knitting project perfect. I find it quite satisfying, in fact, to know that I've fixed a mistake. But I think it's all tied into the revision thing. I figure if I can do it in my books, I can do it in my knitting.
Did I say how wise I think this group of bloggers is?
Jean's brilliant insight:"Isn't writing all about learning to trust your own instincts?"
Yes, yes, yes! That's what I've been groping for, the confidence to go with my own sense of what the book should be. Not what other books are, not what the market wants it to be, not what my agent thinks it should be. What I, the writer, believe is right for the story.
However, I SO agree that every writer needs an editor. I was blessed with having a wonderful editor for my first two books and I miss her light, deft touch terribly now that she's moved on to a different publisher and different genre.
Like you, Barbara, I love to cut, to make the prose lean and mean. It's probably a holdover from my days of writing poetry when every word had to do so many duties that it practically groaned from the burden. However, it takes a real mental effort for me to start revising. A cup of tea is not nearly enough to get me into the self-editor's chair--it takes more along the lines of a bottle of bourbon. Yet once I begin, I really enjoy making the book better.
And like you, I 've only recently learned to tink or frog or whatever is necessary to make the knitting project perfect. I find it quite satisfying, in fact, to know that I've fixed a mistake. But I think it's all tied into the revision thing. I figure if I can do it in my books, I can do it in my knitting.
Did I say how wise I think this group of bloggers is?
posted by Nancy Herkness at 2:54 PM
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