Wednesday, May 4, 2011

No Quitting

Chuck Wending says it brilliantly. Finish the shit that you started. Don't abandon your children. Park your butt in the chair, keep your hands on the keyboard, and spill words onto the page until the only ones left to type are the magic words: "The End". You can't call yourself a runner if you quit every race halfway through, and you won't be much of a writer if your hard drive is littered with the remnants of half-finished projects because—ooh, shiny.

So why am I going off on this here, when Chuck has already said it so much better than I can? Because I had an experience last night that I'm sure many writers can relate to. I was laying in bed, in that semiconscious state between sleeping and wakefulness, when a new character barged into my head, with a scene fully formed, demanding to have her story written now. So what did I do about it? When I got up this morning, I wrote the scene down in my notebook while it was still fresh in my mind, and I told the bitch to wait her fucking turn. Because I am a writer, and I have shit to finish that's already been started.

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