clues at the scene

clues at the scene

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Down To It

Sit in the chair. Don't get more coffee. Don't wish for another cookie (the breakfast of champions - or at least of writers). Don't go and read Elizabeth's weekly twitterific posts.

We have ugly scenes to write. Unpleasant scenes. Difficult scenes.

I've had to restructure a WIP because the linear nature lead down the primrose path to ....blah. We need something else in this bleak story to offset the central idea : love can bloom even in the most unlikely of gardens. Not an original concept for sure, but am I likely to offer an original concept you would understand ? I'm hardly practiced enough understanding my own original thoughts let alone conveying them to you. I suspect the original thoughts I have are of a singular wit. Too many coffees in cafes with dead guys. [ The best breakfast of my life. I'll have to write that story sometime.]

I have a WIP in which the world is going to end. Surprise ! The bit is a however a play on what people find important when they learn truly the world is ending. I loved On The Beach with Gregory Peck. I loved the photo exhibition  I saw about seven years ago at the Metropolitan in New York - the attribution of which escapes me. I love the end of the world.

I'm an endings sort of guy : sometimes I attend them, sometimes I create them and sometimes I am the cause of them.

So, a story restructure. My inspiration for this comes from Mr. Kenneth Helphand and his work Defiant Gardens. The text describes gardens in wartime and war-torn areas. It is an excellent read.

I'm the sort of fellow who loves flowers in the cracks of an old foundation. I'm not above taking down the building to speed up the process. I'm a destruction-as-beauty fellow. It always put me at odds with a college buddy who became a brilliant architect.

Enough digression. I have to go restructure a plot with the unpleasant scenes. I need to do this so I can move to to a work of a different cast I have rolling around in my head.

Work on one thing at a time. See it through it's current stage. Put it down gently, move on.

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