Wednesday, May 13, 2009

on transcending inertia

As I've posted many a time, I've always resisted staying in scene. I like to click along the horizontal--get my character out of there. Maybe, I'm beginning to think, it's a symptom of commitment phobia. Like--if I stay and explore, I might end up being beholden to something that'll make me have to give up my gadabout pace. My blithely swashbuckling through scene and into slick asides and away from trouble.

In this rewrite I'm doing of the first section of TSTL, I'm challenging my tendencies. I'm allowing myself to become bored in a scene. Staying there until I find something in the room, or in the air, or in one of the character's epiphanies that transcends the boredom. It's hard, but continues to reward me with the sort of prose that writes itself--eventually.

Patience is more than mere virtue. It's a fairy godmother.

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