I have a confession.
I'm a perfectionist.
No, seriously, I'm that horrid type of perfectionist that if I can't get it RIGHT I won't do it at all! It's horrible.
Over the years, this has affected how I write. I now outline. Very detailed, scene by scene breakdowns of everything that should happen to make the story work. I also play with the characters in my head for a long while before starting that outline.
Then I start writing, often editing as I go. This always produces the same issue: I produce a damn fine scene. . . and then I burn out. It's hard to be 'done' all the time.
On my current WIP, I changed my pattern. I wrote down the cool ideas and made a scene, and I'll get back later to firm it up, add where it has holes, and will make it like the first scene (Oh, yeah, I still 'perfected' the first scene. Old habits and all that!) and present it to betas then.
So I'm here with a plea: Get it on paper. You have all the time in the world to fix what's already written, but ideas are often fleeting.
I'm right there with you! I was exactly like that until I participated in NaNoWriMo this past November. Everybody kept saying: don't look back, just keep writing, keep moving forward, get it all on paper and worry about fixing later. And I could never do that before, I was always planning and re-planning, writing and re-writing each chapter, back-tracking over and over and over again so that I never got more than halfway through something because I kept going back to the beginning to fix it. So for NaNo, I followed everyone's suggestions and just kept moving forward. And now I have finished a whole first draft for the first time EVER.
ReplyDeleteI'm still a plotter by nature. I still plan alot before I get started, I make outlines and character sketches and all that, but once I get started and DON'T STOP. I think I'm gonna stick with this NO BACK-TRACKING thing now. It seems to be working.
I won't say I don't backtrack. I'll need to follow up on that next week. Thanks for the comment!
ReplyDelete