I couldn't decide on the best, most appropriate word to describe what I am doing now--avoiding, evading, equivocating--so I used all three. They all mean the same thing, I know, but not quite.
Anyway that's what I am doing now.
This is a familiar phase in my process, especially when I have a definite deadline.
My definite deadline (for the class) is October 29.
As soon as I have a deadline, I go from thinking I need to finish this story NOW, ASAP, etc., to oh, I have so much time before the deadline! That deadline is so far away! I have so much time to finish this story! I don't need to do it now, I can do it later; I'll think about it now, but I'll write it later, because I have plenty of time before the deadline.
Why do I do this? If anyone has an answer--or a solution--please comment.
Then, a few days after the deadline has been set, and luxuriating in all of the time that I have before the deadline, I decide that I should write something else first. Another story, maybe, a short one that I can just toss off. (I have never "tossed off" any piece of writing in my life. These blog entries are the closest I've ever come to "tossing" something off, but I often go back and edit them later. I have to go back and edit my last post, actually, because, according to Tricia, Mies van der Rohe said "turn a corner" not "turn the corner". Agnes confirmed it last night.) More likely, though, I decide that it is time to write a play. Writing a play would be so much fun right now in this long time before my deadline. Writing plays is easy compared to writing stories. I want to use my playwriting muscles. Actually, I really want to write plays. I should be writing plays. I ALWAYS like writing plays. Why am I writing stories again? Plays are the thing.
Time passes. NOTHING is written. No plays, no stories, though I think about writing them all the time. I read through old story ideas to find the one that I will finally "toss off." I read through dialogue I have written and try to imagine the play it could become.
So that's where I am. Next comes frenzy (next weekend, i.e., the weekend before the deadline) then guilt and finally disappointment.
I am going to try to preempt, head off, thwart those last three phases this time. (Though I'm pretty sure I said that the last time, too.)
No writing last night.
Also, Agnes's last post was lovely I thought. As lovely as Agnes.
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Dear Madeleine,
ReplyDeleteI don't know why you do it but I also do it, and once My Favorite Writer Of All Time told me that he does (did) the same thing. That his best writing was the stuff he wrote while playing hooky from what he was supposed to be writing. I found that comforting. I still find it comforting.
Yrs truly,
Angela