Tuesday, May 06, 2008

On money shots (or lack thereof)

I'm of a mind to start talking about space fish and tropical pink dolphins and boxes that talk and an evening sky in which alien stars peer down and offer differing opinions about which team will win the World Cup.

But I'm not going to talk those things today.

I have been thinking about various stories that have been swirling around in my head since time immemorial, or maybe just time that I'd prefer to be immemorial. My neurosis won't allow me to physically work on more than one story at any given time, so while I'm wrangling with Homecoming the rest of these ideas are floating around in a sort of metaphysical pease porridge. I'm sort of hoping the simile won't extend too far into the realm of truth, and that I won't have to throw out the entire foul concoction after nine days (or years, as it may be).

It is, in fact, possible to think too much about a story. You can outline yourself to death (or, in this case, boredom, which may as well be death). I actually have monolithic towers composed entirely of binders organizing my notes and character profiles and histories and worlds and systems of magic and dead gods, and I suspect by sheer press of imagination they're on the verge of attaining sentience. I spent so much time trying to sort out all these little details and to make sure everything was not only coherent, but novel and interesting and possibly even pertinent that in the end, I got cold feet when it came to actually writing those stories. I keep thinking I'll get back to them someday...and who knows, maybe I will. For now, however, I'm coming to adopt a much less...premeditated...method of writing.

You know, after all meandering I do in these posts, you'd think I'd eventually come to some sort of grand, majestic, life-affirming point. But really, I kind of just dribble off and go nowhere. It's like a poorly shot porno that ends before the money shot.

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