Well, here we are again. I've been having some ideas about revisions for a story I wrote three years ago, but nothing concrete yet. Wheels are turning. The Wizard of Oz was involved. The story in question is actually on draft three, which is farther than anything else has made it. The problem with that one is that in the first two drafts, I found things that I didn't like, and wanted to change. But once I got to the third draft, I didn't know what should happen, only what shouldn't. But still, maybe we'll be able to rescue that one from the scrap heap eventually.
For now, we're just going to keep going with prompts. Today's is to pick an everyday object (again). Then, describe life without the item (before), and life with the item (after).
I have selected my computer.
Before
I read a lot. I have already finished one book this week and I'm halfway through another. Most nights I'm up until 1 or 2 in the morning, telling myself, one more chapter. Four chapters later and I finally force myself to put it down.
Each story gives me ideas for my own. I have notebooks and binders full of ideas and half-written stories. There's notes on characters, and plots, and somewhere in this pile there's a map. The paper's all smudged from having to move things and redraw them, and for some reason this eraser is doing more harm than good.
My soundtrack is provided by my collection of CDs. The size of this CD player would be inconvenient if I wanted to move anywhere, but I have everything I need right here, with my books and my scribbles.
After
I'm going to accomplish a lot today, I tell myself. But then I get on the internet and the hours just fly by. Most nights I'm up until 1 or 2 in the morning, telling myself, one more episode. Three episodes, four YouTube videos and two Wikipedia pages later and I finally force myself to turn it off.
Everything gives me story ideas. I have OneNote pages full of ideas, and Word documents full of half-written stories. I make maps in PowerPoint, though I constantly have to move things around to make room for more. The file is getting laggy from all the objects in it.
My soundtrack is provided by Spotify, or Pandora, or sometimes YouTube. Sometimes I'll sit here for an hour with my headphones on before I remember to play something. There's so many choices, half the time I don't even know what I want to listen to.
The entire world is at my fingertips, and I don't know what to do with it.
Conclusion
The question then remains, is this a useful item? It certainly can be. I can do amazing things with it. Organizing my thoughts and ideas is so much easier than with paper notebooks. But am I more productive? I doubt it. With great internet comes great responsibility. With all these things I can do, I don't really end up doing much. So it could be useful, but I don't think I'm taking advantage of that as much as I could.
I still don't know the point of these prompts. I also don't know why I wrote all that in present tense. I guess the prompts are supposed to inspire you to write, but I'm just not feeling it. There is a reason I write fiction. This much reality and ordinary objects is just dragging me down. But it's something I have to do.
See you Tuesday, when we'll probably describe something else unimportant.
No comments:
Post a Comment