Okay, so I didn’t post yesterday. But YA Highway’s Road Trip Wednesday topic for this week is a really good one, so I am going to go ahead and post a response a day late.
How do you know when a project will work out, and when it won’t?
Have you ever been in love? I have, but if you were to ask me what love feels like, I wouldn’t be able to express that to you. One would think that, as a writer, I would be well equipped to paint a word picture of love. And I can to a certain extent. My writing can lead a reader to believe that two characters are in love; on a good day, my writing may even stir up some emotions in a reader.
But I still can’t tell you what love feels like. Yet I know I love my husband. Weird how that works, isn’t it?
For me, writing is much the same way. When I get a shiny new idea and start toying with it, I usually know pretty quickly (within a few thousand words) whether it is an idea I will pursue or not. There is no solid way for me to know why an idea is or isn’t right, but I can always just tell.
Now, this is not to say that if a project gets rough, I just abandon it. If that were the case, I would never finish anything. Every project gets tough at one time or another, but deep down I can still feel that it is one worth writing, so I push through.
Alright…how was that for a non-answer?
3 Comments
That was an excellent answer, actually!
Seriously. I would at least tell you what love is NOT, and that is infatuation. That’s not to say it can’t start with infatuation, but the good ol’ infat is more like whale fat. It burns bright and sputters out quickly….UNLESS…..there is more oil added to the flame. That is love. The little things (and sometimes big things), done together and/or for each other that keep putting drops of oil in the reservoir. Real love involves a lot of work. It’s just that oftentimes we enjoy the work so much we don’t even realize how much we are actually laboring. Some times the effort is actually hard, but we know how beautiful and warm the flame is that we are keeping alive, so we push through.
Ha ha. A very good ‘non-answer’ indeed. I pretty much feel the same way. You know when it’s right, you know when it’s not.