About Knowing Right From Wrong
Post 923:
There is a point where you have to question whether you’re walking the right path. I’m keeping this specific to writing, but it might work for life as well. I don’t know. This isn’t a blog about life, except on the occasions where I say it’s a blog about life. We’ll figure out some parallels between writing and life somewhere in here; that’s one of my bits.
This is actually a pretty important subject. Because… you don’t want to be one of those people who can’t tell if what you’re doing is any good. That means you either ain’t got it or you’re delusional or a combination of the two. Gross. On the other hand, being overly judgmental in the midst of creation can be an anvil around your neck. Ouch.
I think it’s best to create every day, but that’s not always going to happen. Try to make it happen anyway. And at first, worry as little as possible if its right or good or going to move mountains or win the Pulitzer. You can take a chance and assume its not right. Yes, it might be the first first draft ever to be perfect; that’s technically possible, but let’s go ahead and exclude that infinitesimal possibility from the proceedings.
Get you something that resembles a story with some entities that resemble characters and enough ups and downs to resemble a plot. Then tell yourself that it’s mostly wrong. Change, change, change, rework, rewrite, renew, redo. Make it right. And don’t go easy on yourself if you want it to get there. Easy is for people that don’t care about right and wrong.
But when do you know that it’s right?
That’s the toughest part. Because if you’ve done a solid job and put in elbow grease, you can’t look at your work objectively anymore. That’s for someone else to do. Or at the very least, you should put it down for a good chunk of time and come back. The hard point is, you’re not going to really know if it’s good until way down the line. Maybe never. It can be as right as you can make it, however. And feeling right about your work is about as good as it gets in this deal. I’ve felt it five or six times. Those were some of the best seconds of my life. Cheers and see you after.
