I feel like I have 'The Word Vomit' disease. That is, the little issue I can't seem to get past whenever I'm writing.... well... anything. An email, a Facebook status, an essay.... a blog and most definitely a book I seem to just vomit up words out of my finger tips. That gives me a really gross visual - apologies - but you know what I mean, right?
Even when I feel like I don't have much to say I just start typing and before I know it there's all these words on the page. Consequently it makes editing a real mission.
My FH (meaning, current boyfriend who is pretending he doesn't pick up the hints that "if you like it then you should put a ring on it...") has a very different writing style than I do. When we were in college, all those years ago (okay it was only three years ago, but whatever), we took one paper which required a 15,000 word paper. That's not a lot of words. At all. Particularly when you have lots to say (or when you suffer from The Word Vomit disease). Anyway, I would word vomit all over the paper for weeks before the assignment was due. In this case I was actually working on it for two months. My dear FH picked up his laptop and books a week before the thing was due and delicately wrote out his essay. Now he edits as he goes. I would spill 30,000 words out and then go back and revise numerous times until it was under the word count and as refined as perfectly as possible. I would get so anxious walking past his screen at 2am (on the one occasion during my college career when I stayed up half the night working) and see he'd only achieved three paragraphs. If he worked the same way I did he would have probably finished his first draft already and would have moved on to editing.
I guess his way of writing essays was more productive than my unorganised mess. He ended up with an A+ for his 'less than a week long effort' and I was given an A- for all those hard hours of word vomit mania! I can't seem to let it go. ha!
The thing for me, is as I write, more ideas keep coming to me. I don't want to lose the thought so I just write it. It may not make sense, it may not fit in with the rest of the book, the whole vibe of the book may change completely or it may mean a character is doing something totally uncharacteristic.... but that's okay. At the end of the day I can look through my work and start the revising period (well, not at the end of the day, more like the end of the book). My word vomit will often help make my book better. Granted, it was probably not likely to sit too well with essays because I did tend to go off on a tangent ... much like I do in my blogs. But for my own novel, I feel it helps rather than hinders my writing.
Just my thought for the day. What do you think? Do you have the word vomit disease too, or is whatever you put on the page planned out from the beginning?
ps. I actually really hate the word vomit, but at the same time, I kind of like the way it sounds.
Even when I feel like I don't have much to say I just start typing and before I know it there's all these words on the page. Consequently it makes editing a real mission.
My FH (meaning, current boyfriend who is pretending he doesn't pick up the hints that "if you like it then you should put a ring on it...") has a very different writing style than I do. When we were in college, all those years ago (okay it was only three years ago, but whatever), we took one paper which required a 15,000 word paper. That's not a lot of words. At all. Particularly when you have lots to say (or when you suffer from The Word Vomit disease). Anyway, I would word vomit all over the paper for weeks before the assignment was due. In this case I was actually working on it for two months. My dear FH picked up his laptop and books a week before the thing was due and delicately wrote out his essay. Now he edits as he goes. I would spill 30,000 words out and then go back and revise numerous times until it was under the word count and as refined as perfectly as possible. I would get so anxious walking past his screen at 2am (on the one occasion during my college career when I stayed up half the night working) and see he'd only achieved three paragraphs. If he worked the same way I did he would have probably finished his first draft already and would have moved on to editing.
I guess his way of writing essays was more productive than my unorganised mess. He ended up with an A+ for his 'less than a week long effort' and I was given an A- for all those hard hours of word vomit mania! I can't seem to let it go. ha!
The thing for me, is as I write, more ideas keep coming to me. I don't want to lose the thought so I just write it. It may not make sense, it may not fit in with the rest of the book, the whole vibe of the book may change completely or it may mean a character is doing something totally uncharacteristic.... but that's okay. At the end of the day I can look through my work and start the revising period (well, not at the end of the day, more like the end of the book). My word vomit will often help make my book better. Granted, it was probably not likely to sit too well with essays because I did tend to go off on a tangent ... much like I do in my blogs. But for my own novel, I feel it helps rather than hinders my writing.
Just my thought for the day. What do you think? Do you have the word vomit disease too, or is whatever you put on the page planned out from the beginning?
ps. I actually really hate the word vomit, but at the same time, I kind of like the way it sounds.
