Dispatch From The Quest: Waka Brown
Over the course of the 24 weeks I am working with the writers in The Quest, each will write a weekly dispatch to share with the GITS community. There are several reasons for doing this, the main one educational: Hopefully you will learn something of value for your own understanding of the craft from the experiences of the Questers. I should also add they are a great group of people, so I expect you will enjoy getting to know them.
Today: Waka shares an experience all writers have… when a story kicks your butt:
This week kicked my butt. It started out well enough. Normally, as soon as our next assignment is posted, I access it right away and get started. So, I downloaded the lecture and writing exercise, read it, uttered a quiet expletive to myself… and then promptly set it aside. I kept on calling the Master Brainstorming List the Monster Brainstorming List to myself. Occasionally, I’d peek back at it. And then set it aside. This was kinda weird for me. I don’t usually procrastinate because I know myself, and I know I don’t work all that well under stress. For me, stress tends to freeze up any sort of creative juices I have. I like to leisurely start a project, think about it, write a little, come back to it, improve a little… Generally, this routine gets me to where I like to be by the time deadline time rolls around.
On Tuesday, I decided that Wednesday morning (er… our deadline day for this assignment) would be the day I’d work on the Monster Brainstorming List. Tuesday after dinner, however, we had… how shall I put it? A “boys will be boys” type of incident which landed us in the ER for five hours. My little guy is fine, but of course, at the time I spent the bulk of my time brainstorming everything that could possibly go wrong. Even though the doctor told me I could send him to school the next day, I didn’t and hovered over him instead. Happily, he watched Harry Potter in the morning and I sat next to him with my laptop, but I wasn’t exactly inspired. Later, we went on a trip to Krispy Kreme to 1. spoil my boys 2. provide me with much needed creative fuel. Plus, day job duties were calling and I happily tended to those first because remember? My work shall not suffer!
Finally, a couple hours before the deadline that evening, I pounded out what I could. It’s hard to cue inspiration, but I plugged along and lo and behold, a couple of nuggets (whether they’re chicken or gold remains to be seen) were unearthed. Although I wasn’t exactly pleased with my brainstorm, I realize that sometimes you just gotta say “uncle!” and what you have is what you have. Fresh start this week… and a smarter approach!
Yes, sometimes our stories kick us in the arse, slap us in the face, and slug us in the stomach. And they say writing isn’t a contact sport! On the contrary, when you go into the story, we need to be prepared for the fisticuffs to come. For the only way to find the story is to work at it. And that work can beat you up.
But like our Protagonists, we need to rise up to meet the challenge. One of the best ways to do that is go at it every day: prep-writing, page-writing, re-writing, each day you do the work.
Some days your story may kick your butt. But if you do the work, day after day, eventually you will kick its butt.
Tomorrow: Another Dispatch From The Quest.
About Waka: Kansan turned Californian turned Oregonian. Fan of Nat Faxon & Jim Rash, Richard Curtis, Tina Fey (who isn’t?), & I still use a $30 Tracfone @wakatb.
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