Thursday, September 07, 2006

Distractions

Ever since yesterday, my mind has been replaying the lyrics for 'Breakout' by Swing Out Sister in my mind--a song I haven't heard or thought about since highschool. Now, with my own posted aspirations to be a breakout novelist (hee hee), they're haunting me.

'when explanations make no sense
when every answer's wrong
you're fighting with less confidence
all expectations gone
the time has come to make or break
move on don't hesitate
breakout...'

I don't really have any aspirations to be a breakout novelist. I just want to be a good novelist with happy readers. I like to think I write humourous stuff--I want to write humourous stuff. How many breakout novels are humorous? How many are genre fiction? That's what I read (almost exclusively), that's what I want to write. So I'll be content to have an adoring cult-following.

So as I'm slowly slogging along on my hysterically funny (IMHO) WIP, I'm also actively, mentally harvesting ideas for other books. I feel like I should write them all down but also don't want to spend all that time focused on books that may never be more than a single sentence premise. Because if I write the premise, I'll feel compelled to add details and anecdotes ad nauseum. I wonder if this process is distracting me, if I should consciously try to focus my thoughts on the WIP. It could definitely use some concentration. I should just buckle down, finish this thing and start something new. Ahhh...but I've got a disease...it's called 'the edits'. I'm a victim.

2 comments:

Trish Ryan said...

Heee! I LOVE that song! It was our theme song my freshman year of college, and we would sing and dance in the hallways like complete dorks. Good times :)

Alyssa Goodnight said...

I used to really like it too. Although...I'm pretty sure I didn't know the words. I did that mumble/lip sync kinda thing, knew some, guessed some (and likely was way off).

For the longest time, I thought that INXS song 'Your Moves Are So Raw' was really 'Your Knees Are So Raw'. I kept wondering why someone would want to sing about dry skin.