Let Your Words Flow

Let Your Words Flow
Let Your Words Flow

Monday, January 30, 2012

False Starts


It’s January, the middle of winter.  We live at the edge of a wooded area.  There is a small area we call the swamp.  It stays filled with water most of the year.  One summer, when we had a drought,  we even ran a hose from a natural spring to flood it to keep thousands of tadpoles from dying.  Kermit would have been proud.  We helped save the frogs.  Prince Charles would have been proud.

Each spring, when the weather starts to warm up, the froggy goes a courtin’.  They sound like a flock of turkeys.  The next day, we have thousands of eggs in the swamp area. 
This is not the first time this has happened, but a couple of days ago, when the weather started to warm up, we heard turkeys.  Now we have thousands of eggs we know will freeze and be destroyed.  This happened a couple of years ago.  The frogs don’t give up.  After the freeze, they do their turkey calls again and then we have more eggs.

What does this have to do with writing, you may ask.  Well It made me think of false starts.  Like the frogs, sometimes I get started writing and for some reason, “freeze” and have to start over.

Just my thought for Monday.
What’s yours?

12 comments:

  1. Rick, you are not alone. I go through that, too. I start, get so far, then for some reason, I stop. I have to work on this.

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    1. That's one reason I like to outline. It still happens, but at least I kinda know where I am going.

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  2. I've written novels all over again. Okay, I've written the same novel over again three times. I think I finally got it right. LOL. We've all been there.

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    1. Was it one that was published? Even if not, I'm sure you got it right. Sometimes It's better, if we feel something is just not right, to just go ahead and re-write it.
      Thanks.

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  3. Boy have I done that only about a gazillion times!! I keep plunging in to a story, get it going and then, dang if I don't decide it's stupid or something and either give it up, or start all over. It's so hard to decide if you really got something or not sometimes. Ugh.

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    1. Sometimes you just have to put it on the shelf. It's not really giving up, just letting it rest. One day it may keep bugging you till you dust it off and take a fresh look at it.

      Thanks for sharing.

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  4. Sounds like an amazing place you live in, Rick! I love the sounds of Nature. Even frogs' croaks, which might give me goosebumps initially. (Well done on saving the froggies!) As for false starts, I find them quite healthy. As you go along and make changes (especially drastic ones), the more you'll understand your characters and what they want. Then when you're done, you can look back at the first 'start' and realize how flimsy it was.

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  5. Thanks, Claudine. You're right, false starts are healthy. If you realize they are false starts, then you can go back and start over. Guess It's better to throw out our words and re write than for no one to want to take them in and read.

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  6. Hey,
    we've all been there, I think, You really get to going and then every thing comes to a complete stop or "freeze". There has been times the dead end story comes back alive in a totally different story.

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  7. Isn't it great when that happens? Sometimes they just have to be put away for a while. Then again sometimes a character may do something out of the blue and you have to start over to make things fit.

    Thanks Anonymous Body - A.B.

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  8. I love those false starts. They usually lead me to something better for the character or story overall. The last story I wrote had five or six of them - and it's less than 2000 words! Frustrating at the time, but I think the story is better for it.

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    1. It's great to be able to use them to better the work. Kind of like practicing to get something just right.

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