Welcome back everyone! I am knee-deep in pre-trip panic which means that right now I'm to the 'remind that guy I live with how to feed the cats even though he totally already knows how to' point. I'm also thinking about how my orange tabby's world is going to fold in half while I'm gone...having cats with abandonment/separation issues is complicated...Anyway, you're not here for this, you're here for writing! So let's talk about that!
Writing! The smart ass in me wants to say that we're done, but that would also be mean and I wouldn't want to do that to anyone. The thing is that writing is never actually 'done' no matter how much anyone ever tells you. If it was then you wouldn't have revised editions of anything, director's cuts of movies, re-releases of books with new words in them (I'm looking at you Gaiman!), even movies that are based on books a lot of the times have the original author's input and sometimes even writing the screenplay, which means it give them a chance to do things a little bit differently this time around. For an example, please look at Jurassic Park (the ORIGINAL, the Lost World movie can be ripped from reality for all I care.), Michael Crichton, think I spelled that right, wrote the screen play for the first movie even though they had a perfectly good book to base everything on. Now I'm sure you're all saying they did that so they could have sequel potential, but if that were true they could have done everything strictly by the book and just had the sequels focus on Dr. Grant, however the Lost World movie (shudder) focused on Ian Malcolm (tiny yay!) instead. (Please ignore the fact that Dr. Grant was actually the focus for Jurassic Park 3, and also that movie is dead to me. Also, the Lost World, the book, is pretty awesome.)
So that was my mini rant/hooray for Jurassic Park, but I still feel it was a good example of how writing doesn't actually end once the book is completed. This is something that you are going to have to come to terms with as you work on your wonderful vision of completing your book. Much like I am convinced my trips down the editing highway are right now, it is a long-term process and you need to be prepared for it. It's tiring and difficult and sometimes painful (paper-cuts are your nemesis now, never forget that) and also emotionally draining, but always focus on the payoff and how satisfying it's going to be.
Lets say you have a problem with finishing things; sometimes that happens. You'll start something then either lose interest or things might get away from your original vision, or some part of the world might have a disaster you have to clean up and coming back to it is just too difficult. I get that too, and the important part to remember is to take everything at your own pace. Everyone works at different speeds and unless you decide to make it one, writing isn't going to be a race. Not everyone can be that psycho robot Stephen King and pump out a novel the size of a small hamster cage every year. So please, even if things get tough and you can't look at what you were working on at this very moment, take a break can come back to it later because even if there is a lot of work to do on it that doesn't mean it's not worth doing.
I hope this post helps as I won't be back until next Wednesday. For now I am going to return to panicking about my trip and hoping I have everything I need (shoes cost too much money!) and once I'm down in Vegas I will be able to relax...in the fiery hot pits of heat I was never meant to endure...yay for air conditioning! Anyway, have a great rest of your week and start to your next. I'll be back Wednesday for a full report! See you all then!
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