The secret is not to try to be perfect. If you try to be perfect, you procrastinate, you go over and over what you wrote, you make no forward motion. Trying to be perfect doesn’t produce masterpieces, only agony and slow writing. ~Stephen J. Cannell
Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses. ~George Washington
This weekend I actually got to work on my novel. I know in my last post I mentioned I was a bit hesitant to start working on it, but I decided I needed to get over myself and just do it. I had the ideas all in my head, and now they are committed to paper. I made a rough outline and did a couple of character sketches. I’ve only outlined the first 4 chapters so I have some kind of idea where I’m going but it’s still flexible. Once I hit chapter four I can just continue to outline from there.
This is the first time I ever wrote a character sketch. Usually I just keep that stuff in my head and write according to how I perceive the character in my imagination. This time I thought it might be a good idea to write it on paper so I can keep my mind clear to focus on the rest of the novel. I read about it in the book Write Your Novel in 30 Days and I’m sure I read about it somewhere else, I just never tried it before.
I think in the end what I really needed to remember is why I started writing in the first place. It wasn’t to get published or write a great book. I started writing because I love to write. I love to make up stories. I love to get lost in a fantasy world of my own creation (or another writer’s for that matter). I like to use those stories to work out my feelings about things. And I can’t imagine not writing.
T.R.'s Musings 