The reason I haven’t written about writing for a while is that I’m not really writing, I’m re-writing. This, for me, is a thrill and a pain. A thrill because I get to re-invent a character and look at the story from a different point of view. Like picking up a snow-globe and giving it a turn and a shake. It’s also a pain because my imagination tends to write little novels around each new angle and this is exhausting. A character usually pops into my mind fully formed, as did the protagonist I'm changing. But he's now been promoted from a rather bland beauty to a leading man with the same motivations but more time on stage. I had no idea how much trouble this would be. Even though he looks the same and has the same role in the story, he’s got to think, speak and behave more dramatically and this involves massive amounts of re-working.
And of course, his new importance affects every other character. Some just slightly, other more profoundly. The trick is not to get carried away with the new aspects, not to let them branch out and grow into useless distractions. Ruthlessly managing each is like riding an ostrich: you don’t want to hurt it but you don’t want it to hurt you by bolting and wasting your time.
TO FOCUS MY MIND I'VE DONE THE FOLLOWING: * Surrounded my desk with many leafy plants so the additional oxygen will feed the writerly neurons in my brain.
* Read magnificent books that made me gasp with admiration and feel yes, I could do that even though I knew I couldn't because I’m not those writers.
* Got up at 3AM and sometimes just sat stupidly staring at my screen until lunch but on magic days, I wrote like a banshee until bed time.
* Painted trompe-l’oeils on all my walls which allowed me to think and plot while giving my fingers a rest from the keyboard. Painting as meditation.
* Had other pressing things to do, which never fails to give me a powerful urge to write.
AND TO RELIEVE THE PRESSURE OF FOCUSING I'VE:
*Frittered
*Cursed
*Cried
*Laughed
*Chocolated
*
