Welcome to Tuesday morning at ETSU!

Normally I have a ton of reading to do, specifically for two classes. As it stands, I have only one class to read for and, although it’s entertaining – Voltaire’s Candide – at this moment my mind isn’t quite on it.

I’m thinking about the novel.

Don’t worry, I’ll get back to my reading as soon as I’ve got my thoughts down.

It struck me, on my walk across campus – more of a hike since I’m forced to park somewhere out by the Canadian border – that up until now I’ve let the atmosphere of the story be governed more by the central theme than the (hopefully) successful blending of several different real worlds. This means that the SFDs that I’ve shared off so far will be modified somewhere on a scale from heavily-edited to completely-changed.

…and that’s okay.

Right now I’m not overly concerned with getting into the minutiae, more with getting an imperfect, perhaps even heavily flawed, version of the story down, which will get edited or perhaps even completely rewritten.

One of the tips I found about dealing with ‘writers block’ was ‘give yourself permission to write garbage.’ I think that’s the best advice I could have found, because at the end of the day, spending time making sure every scene, every event, every bridge is perfect would result in the thing never getting finished.

There is the other side of the hill to consider, though, and – from my previous experience in attempting to write something – it’s perhaps more important: Give yourself a break for having written garbage!

I’ll post again either next Monday or once I’ve finished Chapter Seven – it’ll be a short one, so I should have it done before the week is out. Till then, have a great week.

Categories: Writing