in which neil gaiman indirectly reassures me (again)
Since I declared that 2008 was the Year Wil Writes Lots of Fiction, I've been . . . well, I haven't exactly been writing a lot of fiction. I've been trying to write a lot of fiction, but -- okay, let's just stop there and acknowledge what a lot of you are thinking right now: "Do or do not. There is no try."
Yeah. About that. The X-wing? Totally not coming up out of the swamp for me.
More often than not, when I'm just making stuff up and writing it, I get self conscious and feel like I'm trying too hard. I've had a lot of success coming up with ideas and characters, but when I try to combine them into a narrative form, I get massive performance anxiety. A big problem for me is working on a story for several days, and then realizing, "Oh shit. I'm writing Quantum Leap." or "Motherfucker! This sure was interesting when it was called Enemy Mine."
There has been much cursing, kicking of small objects, gnashing of teeth, and not nearly enough actual, you know, writing.
Getting past my paralyzing fear that "this has already been done by some master writer and you're never going to be as good as him or her" will obviously have to happen sooner than later if I'm going to get any of these projects done, and I came across something on Neil Gaiman's blog this morning that, while not a magic wand to cure the problem, was definitely part of the eventual solution:
Genre fiction, as Terry Pratchett has pointed out, is a stew. You take stuff out of the pot, you put stuff back. The stew bubbles on.
If Terry Pratchett can say it, and Neil Gaiman can endorse it, than I guess I can give myself a little bit of a break, and not throw something out entirely when I realize that a scene or a character or something has been unconsciously inspired by something I've read and enjoyed.
I can't help but remember that Luke didn't lift the X-wing out on his own; he had to see Yoda do it before he believed it was possible, and even after he did, he never lifted it out on his own . . . I need to go think about that for a little while, possibly in a hollowed-out tree.
