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| Photo from https://balance.media/overcome-chronic-procrastination/ |
The interesting thing about being a writer who is a pantser, someone who writes from the seat of their pants, instead of a planner, someone who plans every detail, is that the story evolves.
changed. It took me four years to write less than ten thousand words, which isn't great for a planner. I wasn't going off a plan though, I channeled the story and wrote what I felt, sort of how Stephen King does. And after five years of mulling it over, and processing new life events, I finally had the perfect story, in my opinion, to go with my simple idea. I knew where I wanted my story to go and so I started writing, everyday.
If I had finished 'Panglossian: Quasi-Daisy' (PQD), my debut novel, the same year I had started it, five years of my life's experiences would be missing and would have caused the ending to be completely different. If I am being honest when I started writing PQD, I had no idea where it was headed, but little by little as time went on, I slowly discovered the story behind the simple thought.
When I started writing PQD my intentions were to write one novel, with vague details so the reader could interpret it however they pleased, that's
changed. It took me four years to write less than ten thousand words, which isn't great for a planner. I wasn't going off a plan though, I channeled the story and wrote what I felt, sort of how Stephen King does. And after five years of mulling it over, and processing new life events, I finally had the perfect story, in my opinion, to go with my simple idea. I knew where I wanted my story to go and so I started writing, everyday.
The story could have taken many different shapes, and could have ended completely different, however everyday I procrastinated PQD the shape mutated and the final path it chose finally revealed itself.
I think about this a lot. PQD could have been a boring and vague story but after five years of processing it in my frontal lobe, like a background process on a computer, it took its final form and became something more epic, something worth reading (in my opinion).
I guess what I am trying to say is, taking your time to perfect your art is important. Procrastination happens, but it might be a good thing, in the long run. New ideas may show up and make your work, just that much greater. It took me five and a half years to actually finish writing one book, but in the end I feel my product is now in a better spot than where it originally started.
Make sure to check out my website (currently under construction as of 8/14/2020) mkbingman.com
Make sure to check out my website (currently under construction as of 8/14/2020) mkbingman.com
