Nicola Vincent-Abnett

Nicola Vincent-Abnett
"Savant" for Solaris, Wild's End, Further Associates of Sherlock Holms, more Wild's End

Saturday 27 April 2013

Epiphany




I might have just had one of those. In fact, I'm pretty damned sure I just had one of those.

The trouble is... Now I’m going to have to do something about it!

As if I didn’t have enough to do this year, and some of it is going to be great fun, not least because I get to do it with the husband... And, yes, I will keep you all posted on that... As if I didn’t have enough to do this year, I’ve gone and had an epiphany.

An idea is a wonderful thing, but writers have them all the time. They store them up, and they’ve always got one handy when required. They’ve all got notebooks full of the little blighters all lined up, neat and tidy, for when they’re needed. There's nothing complicated about that. I’ve said it before, I know, but I’m always a little surprised to get a question about ideas, because, honestly, they’re not really the thing I worry about when it comes to writing. I worry about stamina. I worry about cadence and rhythm. I worry about my audience, and, of course, I worry about ever getting my independent stuff published.

Ideas are great. 

Epiphanies... Epiphanies are a challenge.

A conversation with a very smart, very energetic woman, on Wednesday, led to a series of e-mails, which led to an epiphany, in the bathroom, last night, while I was putting on my make-up for date night with the husband.

We like to have date night once a week. The husband brings me a glass of bubbles or a cocktail while I bathe. I put on a frock and my make-up while he cooks up a splendid three course meal, and we have a lovely time together with great food, a nice bottle of wine, something soothing on the i-pod, and, of course, each other’s lovely company. Last night, all I could talk about was work, because, you see, I'd had an epiphany.

It’s going to take two or three weeks, at a guess, to get over this and through to the other side. I feel a huge compulsion, so I’ve got to do it, which means I’ve got to use the wiggle room in this year’s already busy schedule, and I have no idea whether it will actually work, and it will utterly alter the complexion of something that I thought was a done deal, and I didn’t see it coming, and I can’t help myself, and I feel as if I should know better. This book started out as one thing, and it's been that thing for a long time, and now it's going to be something else entirely, and WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING?

This is the lot of the writer.

I’ll let you into a secret... This shit isn’t always terribly predictable, even for a control freak like me.

Still, that takes care of virtually all my weekends for the rest of the year. I do hope the husband can find things to entertain himself with... Oh... Wait... He probably already has, after all, he’s a writer too.

I’ll let you know what happens, but, in the immortal words of my brother, "There’s gonna be claret everywhere!"

2 comments:

  1. that's when you realise we're all slaves to what drives us. but yet, it's kinda delicious isn't it? sometimes writing is like the everlasting gobstopper in that it can lead to ever greater ideas than the one you already thought was great. I'd have trouble NOT writing about things that arouse (psychology term) my conscious to the highest degree.

    in way it's funny, that whole write/audience divide. it'd be easy for readers to make the mistake that we're writing primarily for them. I mean sure, we want people to read it, and we definitely bear our audience in mind when we write (at least if we want to move units). but I'd like to we write to satisfy our own need to write, more than any other reason.

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