Thursday, September 20, 2012

New Wrapping! Is Christmas coming early?

Have you ever had the feeling something is missed? Like there is a piece to the puzzle of life you just can't find. When you're sitting at work or flipping through channels or cooking dinner and you just stop and think to yourself "I need... something... But what?" It seems I've been having those moments more often then not these days when I sit down to write. I have the idea running through my head, I know what I want to say, but after writing - and rewriting - the same three pages over and over... All that's left to do at the end of the day is sit back and admit that it needs...something. But what? I truly wish I could figure out what that something was. Passion? Emotion? Some other "shun"? Perhaps my characters are too boring, I found myself wondering today. Too flat. Perhaps if you write for too long without seeking new inspiration, your writing becomes as familiarly repetitive as a singer who writers too many songs all at once. It all starts to sound the same. This week I've trashed three stories. Three. I never thought in a million years that would happen! It's been hard to part with them, and yet...I keep finding these stories in other stories. "Nothing new under the sun" is a rather depressing concept when you're trying to think of something new and interesting for people to want to read. But then... and I'm just thinking out loud here... maybe people don't want to read something new. Maybe they just want new wrapping on it. Gail Carson Levine has made her career retelling popular and well known fairy tales and elaborating on the ones that tell us too little to begin with. She had some of her own, but Ella Enchanted is really just Cinderella with an amazingly brilliant and clever array of twists and turns and flip-flops. And there are plenty of other examples. Some of them not so well disguised. Beastly is obviously Beauty and the Beast. And with or without a name, who hasn't heard the human/vampire love story a million and three times? So maybe, as a writer, I shouldn't be so focused on trying to write what is new and exciting. But more focused on my story and telling it the way I want it to be told. Perhaps it is better to explore the characters more. To get to know and understand them the way I should before trying to force them into situations impossible for them to climb out of. This is my challenge to myself for the rest of this week. To focus on the story the way it ought to be told. I'll do my best to keep you posted.

So Until Next Time!
And check out these amazing women!
Alex Flinn and Gail Carson Levine. 
They deserve much Praise!!

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