I’ve just spent a very depressing half hour reading the first paragraph of every work of fiction I own.
Just the first paragraph, or in some cases just the first line, depending on how annoyingly well they were written.
And I know by admitting this, PtW is going to kill me.
‘Don’t go back, not yet, keep going… that’s all work for the second draft, dooooonnnnntttt goooooo baaaaaaccckkk…’
Well, I am back. So there. Because it’s shit. And I know my first chapter is shit, and everytime I open my word file, it automatically opens on that first shit page , and there’s my first shit sentence, in my first shit chapter, winking at me. Try as I might to scroll really quickly down through the forty odd thousand words of non-shit that follow, I still know its there.
I’m thinking its probably like wearing a Roland Mouret dress with non-matching Penny’s underwear – a get-run-over-by-a-bus situation, just waiting to happen. Not that the medics would probably even respond to my shrieks that it wasnt a knock-off as they reached for the scissors to slash it, neck to hem but I’d be putting up a good fight.
Jesus. Could you imagine making it to actually owning (and fitting into) a Roland Mouret dress, and then getting hit by a bus and having the damn thing sliced off you, I’d probably have to laugh at the irony of it all.
Or is that irony? I’m so addled I can’t remember. I might tweet that Alanis one and ask her, her being the expert on that kind of thing.
Anyhow, my point is. Like the Penny’s underwear, I know its there. And it has to be fixed. And its doing my head in, but sure now that the seventeen month old has decided to walk, and sleep (all in the one week), I’d be lost without something taking up my every waking minute with angst/analysis and annoyance.
It’ll be worth it, PtW, I promise….
Just the first paragraph, or in some cases just the first line, depending on how annoyingly well they were written.
And I know by admitting this, PtW is going to kill me.
‘Don’t go back, not yet, keep going… that’s all work for the second draft, dooooonnnnntttt goooooo baaaaaaccckkk…’
Well, I am back. So there. Because it’s shit. And I know my first chapter is shit, and everytime I open my word file, it automatically opens on that first shit page , and there’s my first shit sentence, in my first shit chapter, winking at me. Try as I might to scroll really quickly down through the forty odd thousand words of non-shit that follow, I still know its there.
I’m thinking its probably like wearing a Roland Mouret dress with non-matching Penny’s underwear – a get-run-over-by-a-bus situation, just waiting to happen. Not that the medics would probably even respond to my shrieks that it wasnt a knock-off as they reached for the scissors to slash it, neck to hem but I’d be putting up a good fight.
Jesus. Could you imagine making it to actually owning (and fitting into) a Roland Mouret dress, and then getting hit by a bus and having the damn thing sliced off you, I’d probably have to laugh at the irony of it all.
Or is that irony? I’m so addled I can’t remember. I might tweet that Alanis one and ask her, her being the expert on that kind of thing.
Anyhow, my point is. Like the Penny’s underwear, I know its there. And it has to be fixed. And its doing my head in, but sure now that the seventeen month old has decided to walk, and sleep (all in the one week), I’d be lost without something taking up my every waking minute with angst/analysis and annoyance.
It’ll be worth it, PtW, I promise….