Saturday, November 3, 2007

polishing involves two major problems

I keep returning to the first Chapter, or rather, to the first few lines of the first Chapter and keep dragging text from here to there. And sometimes, back again.
Sometimes it seems I'm lost.
See - It does not really seem to matter where I place a particular fragment now.
Either way seems fit.
It's like making a quilt, where you have the patches, but it's almost indifferent as to where you place a particular patch.
The thing is - it is not.
---
I keep re-visiting the text, and keep abandoning it to let it sink.
But too much sinking might result in letting it sinking to depths unattaianble .

7 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

Sounds like you're caught in an "infinite revision loop." I've been there. My advice is to let it stand, go on for a while further into the work. Then see if that doesn't jar loose what should be happening earlier.

Unknown said...

Én hagynám úgy ahogy az elején volt mert amikor én elkezdek kombinálni akkor az csak rosszabb lesz.

SzélsőFa said...

Charles,

yes, that sound reasonable. It is oh-so-hard to know wehn to stop and step away until the mind is clear again.

---I'm starting to develop a flu right now, so this probably accounts for my not totally getting your last sentence....I get the meaning, but the word order threw me off... I'm sorry, it must be the flu.---


Ropinator,

igen, van benne valami.
Kicsit állni hagyom inkább. Írom a többi részt. Meglátjuk.

Bernita said...

I'm caught in that "loop" sometimes, wondering where is the most effective place for a certain sentence or a block of information.
Sometimes, leaving the piece alone for a while helps to provide a fresh sense of the proper, logical, narrative flow.

SzélsőFa said...

Thank you for the right advice, Bernita. Since two plus I myself have suggested 'resting the case', that's exactly what I'm doing right now.
Except that I've started writing Chapter 2.

Vesper said...

I agree with Charles and Bernita. It has happened to me, to obssession; I ended up knowing the text by heart so I was doing it in my head, not just on the screen. Don't go there! :-)

SzélsőFa said...

I'm thinking I was already bordering that stage, Vesper.Thank you for the advice.
It seems that it is a kind of a curse on writers, isn't it?