Time

Before I dig back into everything I have to do today, which is a lot by the way, I wanted to ramble about my experience with Time in writing.

I'm one of those types that, when I'm finished with a project, it's out of my head and done.  It's no longer weighing on me as it once was.  I hold so many ideas at any given time that they all tend to cause headaches.  The more I write and get out, the more they ease up.  Odd condition to have but there are worse things in life so I'm in no way complaining.  If I spend what I consider to be a ridiculous amount of time on something, I get sick of seeing it.  No matter how much I love it, no matter how much I believe in it, no matter much I feel for it - I absolutely, positively get sick of looking at it. 

The horror anthology I co-wrote with my wife was one I was solely working on above everything else and it was draining.  I was having issues with writing it anyway but seeing it day in and day out was making it worse.  It's been this way with so much of what I do.  I finished my solo horror anthology "Sharp Items & Bad Intentions" and had to read through it all and honestly didn't want to.  I don't know how many of you are like this. 

Time is an interesting thing when it comes to one's art.  We spend so much time creating something and when it comes out, it's exciting, but at the same time there's a feeling of "finally...let's move on".  Again, that's no matter how much I love something.  I can honestly say I haven't gotten that way with Tourniquet as I love Dennis' art.  Now, HE may get sick of looking at the same pages day in, day out of drawing them, as I do with writing things but I can't get sick of his art.  But for me, the longer I take on something, the more I get bored with it, sick of it, whatever.  My mom or wife will read it and love it and say "I loved the twist, didn't see it coming."  I say "Thanks, glad you liked it" but part of me thinks "How did you not see that coming?"  - Because I've been staring at it for so long.  Because I'm with the process since before it even actually starts, I don't get to see it as such.  Oddly, the feeling or sensation hasn't ever detoured me.  I love to create, even if I hit that short gap of "Ugh, can't this write the rest of itself?  I wanna do the next thing."  BUT I know it's helping.  It's like working out, the more you do it (writing, in this case) the more you'll get from it.

But then there's the other side of time with writing: taking a step back and then returning.  I've written things and not looked at them for long periods of time, sometime years.  In that gap, I've learned more and when I've returned to it I'd seen where I had went wrong with it.  Taking a step back has helped me out a lot.  As I've said before about my screenwriting, I wrote a lot, formatted them wrong, and in the break between writing them and going back to look at them, I'd learned so much more about the craft from notes from my friend Jeff and watching Max Landis' YouTube channel.  One of these scripts I'd sent to Jeff and wanted his notes on it.  I don't think he ever got to that particular screenplay and am glad for it.  After sending it to him, I looked at it for the first time in awhile and was INSTANTLY spotting its faults.

I've gone back to stories I was previously stumped on and, giving it another look after the time gap, I was like "Oh, obviously this is what has to happen."  Now, of course, there are those projects I dig up from the vault and look at and think, "What in the hell was I saying with this?"

As I said, it's interesting what time will do.  Writing Last Rites of the Capacitance isn't draining at all and I'm not sick of looking at it.  The initial draft was sent in around 4-5 months ago and the rewrites are reformatting it so it's almost an entirely different book.  It drives me bananas at times but that's because I want it to be something special and different but, like I said, I'm taking it in ten page strides.  I'm learning how to manage time for certain projects as not every one of them is equal; not in terms of quality but just in terms of my physical reaction to them and one might be more taxing than another. 

Dennis and I are both busy with various other projects that we don't get to devote all of our time to Tourniquet, just like the other project I'm co-writing with a friend, so it doesn't really ever get tedious.  There's plenty of time in between working on it. 

In between taking a step back and returning, you could learn more and that could very well improve the story or formatting.  Now, I understand also that sometimes you need to be in a certain frame of mind for a certain story and a break might very well sever that connection but, again, it doesn't work the same for every project; not for me anyway. 

Regardless of whether taking a break helps or sticking with something, charging through, grows tiresome, it's all helpful.  It's all part of the steps I've talked about before wanting my writing to be.  It might get tedious, mainly towards the end of a project, but it's always going to help.  I, like all of you, have dream projects that I'm excited to get to, but I know that if I'd rush things just to get to them, they wouldn't become what I want them to so I'm going to take the time to learn on my way there. 

Time, like art, is always different for us all.  Thanks for letting me rant and ramble and sorry if it seems a bit scatterbrained.