And stop messing around.
Procrastination from ism studios on Vimeo.
Category: Writing Workshop
I’ve mentioned it before so I won’t explain it again: NaNoWriMo is here, beginning next Monday, November 1st.
Do you dare write a novel in 30 days? It’s worth trying!
I’m not doing it this year because I’m busy with several projects, one of which is, precisely, revising mi nanowrimo 2006 for publication, because -yes- the thing I poured in a rush, after long revisions, seems ready for publication. I hope. At most, I may try to write the second season of Mrs. Carrington in a month. That would be a challenge too.
but don’t let my stories distract you, focus on your own story. Improvise. Unplug the router. Turn off the TV. Those episodes of Glee and Fringe will still be there in four weeks, there’s no hurry. A sandwich will do. Type.
You’re not alone, the whole NaNoWriMo community is feeling the same and they are more then a hundred thousand people. One made the NaNoWriMo report card to help you visualize where you are and how much there’s left. Others draw funny calendars. Some buy AlphaSmarts to write anywhere, even I am considering getting one – donations accepted. It doesn’t matter how, it doesn’t matter what – the question is how much. Come on, you’ve been reading stuff like this for years now, write the damn novel once and for all.
Yesterday we posed a question: Which is the best chosen word in this line?
Her voice was so weak that it seemed to come already from a great distance.
It’s not the verb, “was”, as it doesn’t express action but merely introduces the attribute. It might be “voice”, which is the noun that the sentence describes, or “weak”, which is its main feature. It might even be “distance”, a noun that evokes the weakness even better than the adjective can. All the words in the sentence are common, simple. Any reader will understand them.
But the best chosen word is “already”. The moment I read those seven letters, I knew that the kid’s mother was dying.
Imagine the line without that word. It becomes a correct description with no additional meaning. It is the “already” that places us in context by telling us so much with so little.
I noted the lesson and decided I had to share it with you.
I’d like to present you today with a good example of the simple, precise prose to which we always aspire. And with the example, an exercise.
Last night I started reading “Of Human Bondage” by W. Somerset Maugham. On the first page, a maid takes a sleepy child in her arms to his mother’s bed. The mother greets him. Maugham writes:
Her voice was so weak that it seemed to come already from a great distance.
Exercise: Which is, in your opinion, the best chosen word in this line? My answer, tomorrow.
Carlton Cuse, father numer 2 for Lost, was recently in Madrid to teach a course on television.
If you have something to write, write it.
To the point, huh?
He insists that creativity is more important than technique. I guess we could say his best friend Damon Lindelof made good use of the lesson when he often came up with genial twists that, analyzed in retrospect, don’t really fit.
Although, depending on how we look at it, we might be forgiving:
While he [J. J. Abrams] finished 90 minutes of film, we made 46 hours. The really creative work is now on television.
To our desks, then!
Source: Lostphiles
Press conference videos here.