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Excerpt from Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird about writing
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Excerpt from Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird about writing From the book Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott Excerpt from the section titled: "How Do You Know When You're Done?" There’s an image I’ve heard people in recovery use—that getting all of one’s addictions under control is a little like putting an octopus to bed. I think this perfectly describes the process of solving various problems in your final draft. You get a bunch of the octopus’s arms neatly tucked under the covers—that is, you’ve come up with a plot, resolved the conflict between the main characters, gotten the tone down pat—but arms are still flailing around. Maybe the dialogue in the first half and the second half don’t match, or there is that one character who still seems one-dimensional. But you finally get those arms under the sheets, too, and are about to turn off the lights when another long sucking arm breaks free. This will probably happen while you are sitting at your desk, kneading your face, feeling burned out and rubberized. Then, even though all the sucking disks on that one tentacle are puckering open and closed, and the slit-shaped pupils of the octopus are looking derisively at you, as if it might suck you to death just because it’s bored, and even though you know that your manuscript is not perfect and you’d hoped for so much more, but if you also know that there is simply no more steam in the pressure cooker and that it’s the very best you can do for now—well? I think this means that you are done. |
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Very well thought out. My thought process used to need such visualizations but now Paxil takes care of those pesky things. Hope your day is great. My name is MrWrong and I approved this comment
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sen. that is wonderfully thought out. i will try that . thank you
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