Monday, October 8, 2007

I Know You Responded to What I Said, But That's Not What I Meant

"They're not getting it" - me in response to Jenny's and Ali's comments on my post about working in the wrong key.

They did get what I said. And their comments were right on. What they didn't get--I think--was that the post was more a whine about not feeling like I have time to work on everything so shouldn't I focus that time on the novel? Which is a whole different animal than what I actually wrote. I remembered Beezy's comment about singing in the right key and thought, "That's a good analogy for not 'wasting my time' working on anything other than the novels."

Now I know it's not a waste of time to work on other formats in order to strengthen both my writing in those formats and my novels. It's not a waste of time to stretch myself. But when I'm already feeling stretched thin, I feel like I need to concentrate my efforts. And even as I type that, I realize that the short stories and poems (yes, Ali, I'm still working on one) help charge the batteries so that I have more energy to work on the novels.

So, I think added to this weeks goals is to finish a first run at the poem thing. Just to stretch my range a little.

4 comments:

Ali said...

I've totally got to work on my mind reading. :)

I getcha, Deb. Concentrate your efforts where you can do the most good. Makes sense.

Jenny Maloney said...

Well, if you're gonna whine, you have to sound a lot whinier. =)

I think, in that case, you just have to trust that you know where to spend your time. If the novel is a pain in the @$$ then you need to focus on something else and come back to it. That's the tricky part with writing. A lot of the time it seems like we're wasting time...but we're not, and we shoulnd't feel guilty about it.

The One and Only John said...

...oh, KEYS!!!

Good lord, for the longest time I thought you were talking about the little metal thingies used to open locks...nevermind.

Mishell said...

Good for you, Deb! I'm all for stepping out of comfort zones. To use your singing analogy--even though an alto will never be a soprano, that doesn't mean that she can't produce a high note every now and then that is so clear and true it makes you cry.