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Good Things
So, to counteract that last entry, here are some good things:
- Everyone so far likes the J story. There are some parties I hope will read it and comment on it to me, but I can't very well nudge them to read it because that would be rude and egotistical besides. Remember, I don't puff up my own stories. So I'm not allowed to tell you that I'm happier with this one than any I've done since F or before.
- I wrote the K story - short and silly - last night. I want to finish the set of twenty-six by the summer, so this is a very good thing to me. I stole the idea for the story, but I only steal from the best.
- While the work isn't going as quickly as I'd like it to, partly due to delays beyond my control and partly due to my supreme laziness, I no longer am struck by blind terror - I no longer go into mental fidgets even contemplating the idea of working on it.
I'm like that with code, even my own code. It's because I don't store it - it doesn't stay in my head between bouts. I look at code I wrote a year ago and think, "Oh, my god, I can't believe I wrote this and it made sense at the time." I have to print it out and stare at it for a while before I can even bring myself to change a line.
But if I'm working with it every day for several days, I can keep enough "state" in my head between sessions that I can just pick up right where I left off, without the terrifying warm-up time where I look at it and say, "Help! I don't recognize ANY of this!"
I have reached this point with the current project, thank heavens, because the warm-up cycle was so long it was keeping me from getting work done. I'd be finally ready to make changes and it'd be time to go home - so I'd either have to stay late and mess with the rest of my life, or start over from scratch with the warm-up the next day. That's part of what I meant in the previous entry about settling down into a steady state, but I knew it would take this much space to explain it.
For what it's worth, I have the same problem with my novels. It takes me an hour to an hour and a half of just rereading old copy before I can start adding to a long manuscript. If I was just working on it the day before, though, it's easier. Proof that you shouldn't work in fits and starts! (This is also the reason there was a two-week gap in the middle of writing the J story, and why my short stories are almost always written in a single sitting. When I stop, it's hard to restart.)
- People seem to be responding well to the "On UDN" essay. How odd! I mean, I'm flattered, but how odd! I didn't think that essay had an audience. I wrote it because I got up one morning and my brain forced me to. Literally. "You're going to write this now." "No, I'm going to add new mouth organ items." "No, you're going to write this now."
- Eddie Izzard proves that there is actually some improv comedy in the world which is funny. I distrust stand-up comedy; I feel the best humor is situational and contextual, not some lout looking for a punchline. But I laughed so much at that show my throat hurt afterward.
- Mary Anne is still willing to have a conversation with me after the weekend she spent here where I was depressed about writing the whole time. Mary Anne, you do realize that three-fifths of it is because I'm jealous, don't you?
© Columbine
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