Sunday, February 17, 2002
Another 1,000+ words on Chapter 3 today. I have about 75 ms. pages on Low Red Moon now, but today was one of those hideous writing days when every single word was a strain. I'd say, "Like pulling teeth," but that's cliché and not entirely accurate, as having a tooth pulled is quick and you get novacaine. A writing day like today is more like pulling your own teeth with a rusty pair of very dull tweezers while riding a teeter-totter. I spent twenty goddamn minutes simply getting a character to flip on a light switch. I kid you not. Twenty minutes. Over an hour getting the character to flip a light switch, lock a door (two locks), and open another door. One paragraph. And people wonder why it pisses me off when they tell me they read SIlk or Threshold in an afternoon.
So, yes, this was one of those days. Everything seems to takes ten times more effort than it can possibly be worth and the distance between the images in my head and the feeble shadows of them that make it into the prose (you can't simply say, "onto paper" anymore) is a million million miles.
It's almost painful sometimes. I can see it in my head. Perfect. And then I have to tear it all apart, these perfect, intricate, fluid images, and put it back together in clumsy, faltering words. The worst part, though, is the end of a day like this, knowing that I have to get up at eight o'clock and do it all over again, start where I finally gave up and quit today, after reworking much of today's prose until I'm halfway happy with it, and then slog on ahead, hoping that it'll get easier.
I even obsess about how well this damned journal's written. And whether or not I spelled obsess correctly! Oh, wait. My cat just walked into the room and said it's time to stop writing for the evening. She's rather strident on this account. I'm helpless before her furry, feline will . . .
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