Narrowing the focus . . .
Last week I was confined firmly to a couch with an injury. My world narrowed and my focus by consequence narrowed with it. Apart from forays into Blogland and Ebay, there was little to divert me and the consequence was that the latest manuscript began to assert itself in living breathing colour. I began to mesh with the characters again, to see the setting, to move faster along the plot-line.
It made me realise something I had completely forgotten . . . that if a book is to be written, if the quality of said prose is to be smooth, then one can’t afford to be diverted too much by life all around. There’s no excuse for experience of course. One can’t write in a bubble, but after the experience, the observation, one really has to put blinkers on and focus and I haven’t done that for ages.
I remember Stephen Fry saying he was going into purdah for four months to write a book. The thought of such isolation is not my thing at all, as I am hating not even being able to walk the dogs. But the one bonus is that last week writing improved out of sight and there is a lesson to be learned there, for sure.
Simon Scarrow does something similar, I’ve discovered. When he starts a new book, he goes on his own and stays in a cottage in the middle of nowhere for a week. He says that by the time he gets back to civilization, he’s already a third of the way through. With me, it just depends whether the muse is battering me with her bladder-on-a-stick that day!
Last week was so good as I was a bit numb with all the pain and stuff and so accomplished such a lot. This week is a different ball game and I wonder if I need to pilfer some blinkers from the local racehorse trainer.
I do find I write so much better in summer for some unknown reason.
My muse’s bladder on a stick has busted!
Me thinks it’s wonderful that you can put such a positive spin on such a painful and unfortunate situation.
And, thank you for the reminder that isolation IS sometimes OK and necessary in the creative process. I’ve not been terribly productive on my book due, in part, to feeling bad about my necessary blinders — for me that means real isolation for periods of time.