Some people begin at the beginning and proceed to the end, some don't. On any given day, I write whichever scene I can get the best view into, defaulting to linear narrative from the earliest spot that isn't filled if the view is uniformly cloudy.
It's so tempting for a person who had found A creative process that works for her to mistake it for THE creative process. Those of us whose processes make heavy use of dissociation talk about our work in terms of going into the story, being the characters, conferring with the characters, etc., and maybe that sounds easy, but it's actually a fairly strenuous discipline. People who use dissociation less in writing tend to regard writers like me with incomprehension and resentment--don't go around telling people that what we do isn't work! they say. It's tough intellectual labor, and there is no story fairy.
Yeah, well, such people conclude there is no story fairy because they don't have one. I don't know that writers get to choose which end of the spcectrum we fall on. Either we've had lives in which dissociative mental states were the only adaptive option, or we haven't. I enjoy my method immensely, but I would never have chosen the pressures that formed it. I can imagine being able to write without it, but not being able to write anything anyone would want to read.
Anyhow, the pain meds. My fertility doc says there's research that suggests non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, which work by interfering with prostaglandins fairly indiscriminately, may interfere with ovulation, which gets triggered by certain prostaglandins. In short, I get to choose between knowingly contributing to my infertility by managing my pain, or I can martyr myself further to a child I may never have anyway. Who knows, maybe the new research is onto something. If I've sounded whiny or crazy over the past three weeks, this would be a lot of the why.
The writing's actually the best thing that's going on right now.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: That seems mean...
Date: 2005-11-10 09:56 am (UTC)It's so tempting for a person who had found A creative process that works for her to mistake it for THE creative process. Those of us whose processes make heavy use of dissociation talk about our work in terms of going into the story, being the characters, conferring with the characters, etc., and maybe that sounds easy, but it's actually a fairly strenuous discipline. People who use dissociation less in writing tend to regard writers like me with incomprehension and resentment--don't go around telling people that what we do isn't work! they say. It's tough intellectual labor, and there is no story fairy.
Yeah, well, such people conclude there is no story fairy because they don't have one. I don't know that writers get to choose which end of the spcectrum we fall on. Either we've had lives in which dissociative mental states were the only adaptive option, or we haven't. I enjoy my method immensely, but I would never have chosen the pressures that formed it. I can imagine being able to write without it, but not being able to write anything anyone would want to read.
Anyhow, the pain meds. My fertility doc says there's research that suggests non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, which work by interfering with prostaglandins fairly indiscriminately, may interfere with ovulation, which gets triggered by certain prostaglandins. In short, I get to choose between knowingly contributing to my infertility by managing my pain, or I can martyr myself further to a child I may never have anyway. Who knows, maybe the new research is onto something. If I've sounded whiny or crazy over the past three weeks, this would be a lot of the why.
The writing's actually the best thing that's going on right now.