*nods head*

Gets fired up and hangs up the do not disturb sign. :)

Lets go guys!

:)
Chris

--- In derbyscribes@..., "miss_golightly_uk"
<vickycharvill@...> wrote:
>
> Hi there,
>
> By now you're probably ready to give up. You're past that first fine
> furious rapture when every character and idea is new and entertaining.
> You're not yet at the momentous downhill slide to the end, when words
> and images tumble out of your head sometimes faster than you can get
> them down on paper. You're in the middle, a little past the half-way
> point. The glamour has faded, the magic has gone, your back hurts from
> all the typing, your family, friends and random email acquaintances
> have gone from being encouraging or at least accepting to now
> complaining that they never see you any more -- and that even when
> they do you're preoccupied and no fun. You don't know why you started
> your novel , you no longer remember why you imagined that anyone would
> want to read it, and you're pretty sure that even if you finish it it
> won't have been worth the time or energy and every time you stop long
> enough to compare it to the thing that you had in your head when you
> began -- a glittering, brilliant, wonderful novel, in which every word
> spits fire and burns, a book as good or better than the best book you
> ever read -- it falls so painfully short that you're pretty sure that
> it would be a mercy simply to delete the whole thing.
>
> Welcome to the club.
>
> That's how novels get written.
>
> You write. That's the hard bit that nobody sees. You write on the good
> days and you write on the lousy days. Like a shark, you have to keep
> moving forward or you die. Writing may or may not be your salvation;
> it might or might not be your destiny. But that does not matter. What
> matters right now are the words, one after another. Find the next
> word. Write it down. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
>
> A dry-stone wall is a lovely thing when you see it bordering a field
> in the middle of nowhere but becomes more impressive when you realise
> that it was built without mortar, that the builder needed to choose
> each interlocking stone and fit it in. Writing is like building a
> wall. It's a continual search for the word that will fit in the text,
> in your mind, on the page. Plot and character and metaphor and style,
> all these become secondary to the words. The wall-builder erects her
> wall one rock at a time until she reaches the far end of the field. If
> she doesn't build it it won't be there. So she looks down at her pile
> of rocks, picks the one that looks like it will best suit her purpose,
> and puts it in.
>
> The search for the word gets no easier but nobody else is going to
> write your novel for you.
>
> The last novel I wrote (it was ANANSI BOYS, in case you were
> wondering) when I got three-quarters of the way through I called my
> agent. I told her how stupid I felt writing something no-one would
> ever want to read, how thin the characters were, how pointless the
> plot. I strongly suggested that I was ready to abandon this book and
> write something else instead, or perhaps I could abandon the book and
> take up a new life as a landscape gardener, bank-robber, short-order
> cook or marine biologist. And instead of sympathising or agreeing with
> me, or blasting me forward with a wave of enthusiasm -- or even
> arguing with me -- she simply said, suspiciously cheerfully, "Oh,
> you're at that part of the book, are you?"
>
> I was shocked. "You mean I've done this before?"
>
> "You don't remember?"
>
> "Not really."
>
> "Oh yes," she said. "You do this every time you write a novel. But so
> do all my other clients."
>
> I didn't even get to feel unique in my despair.
>
> So I put down the phone and drove down to the coffee house in which I
> was writing the book, filled my pen and carried on writing.
>
> One word after another.
>
> That's the only way that novels get written and, short of elves coming
> in the night and turning your jumbled notes into Chapter Nine, it's
> the only way to do it.
>
> So keep on keeping on. Write another word and then another.
>
> Pretty soon you'll be on the downward slide, and it's not impossible
> that soon you'll be at the end. Good luck...
>
> Neil
>