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Flowers in the Abyss
Apr. 28th, 2010 11:05 amOff work with the 'flu.
Slumped on the couch. Eating chocolate. Watching Regina Spektor videos on YouTube. Feeling like every sexist cliché about PMS ever.
Have barely touched the novel since finishing the first draft on Monday. I feel like I should be using this time off, being productive. There's a lot of gritty technical work to do: clarifying the timeline, checking names, writing a outline so I can work on the plot structure.
But I can't concentrate. My head is full of snot. And after the giddy momentum of writing, all the old self-doubts have caught back up to me. (It's shit, they whisper. No one will ever want to read this, let alone publish it. Ah, my faithful old black dogs.)
So I'm thinking more about the underlying themes, and how I can bring them to the fore.
During the Comedy Festival, I saw a show by Adrian Calear. He did a piece about the difference between Art and Comedy.
Great art, he said, leads you up to the edge of the abyss, and peers over. Great comedy peers over the edge, takes three steps back, and then leaps in, waving at the audience the whole time. Truly great comedy persuades the audience to jump in to the abyss too.
And I'm thinking about Joss Whedon's quote, that he'd rather make a show that one hundred people need to see, than one a thousand people want to see.
You want to write a book about angsty teenage girls, David? Fine. Write about them. Three steps back and jump into the abyss. Be funny. Be honest. Be raw. You'll find one hundred people to follow.
Because you and they both know the secret: there are flowers growing down there in the darkness. And if you're clever, you can use them to break your fall.
Slumped on the couch. Eating chocolate. Watching Regina Spektor videos on YouTube. Feeling like every sexist cliché about PMS ever.
Have barely touched the novel since finishing the first draft on Monday. I feel like I should be using this time off, being productive. There's a lot of gritty technical work to do: clarifying the timeline, checking names, writing a outline so I can work on the plot structure.
But I can't concentrate. My head is full of snot. And after the giddy momentum of writing, all the old self-doubts have caught back up to me. (It's shit, they whisper. No one will ever want to read this, let alone publish it. Ah, my faithful old black dogs.)
So I'm thinking more about the underlying themes, and how I can bring them to the fore.
During the Comedy Festival, I saw a show by Adrian Calear. He did a piece about the difference between Art and Comedy.
Great art, he said, leads you up to the edge of the abyss, and peers over. Great comedy peers over the edge, takes three steps back, and then leaps in, waving at the audience the whole time. Truly great comedy persuades the audience to jump in to the abyss too.
And I'm thinking about Joss Whedon's quote, that he'd rather make a show that one hundred people need to see, than one a thousand people want to see.
You want to write a book about angsty teenage girls, David? Fine. Write about them. Three steps back and jump into the abyss. Be funny. Be honest. Be raw. You'll find one hundred people to follow.
Because you and they both know the secret: there are flowers growing down there in the darkness. And if you're clever, you can use them to break your fall.
