Spinning Plates
I remember as a kid watching a juggler balance more spinning plates on sticks & his body than I ever thought possible. While most everyone else in the crowd was fixated on another, more risqué, street festival act, I couldn't stop watching his antics like pretending to stumble before catching a falling plate at the last second.
No doubt that memory popped up out of nowhere because I'm currently dealing with my own version of plate juggling. In my last post, I mentioned starting a new writing project from scratch just to tweak my brain. Well, tweak it did, but certainly not in a way I was anticipating.
Not that I'm opposed to challenges or don't appreciate the drive exuded by some writers like Ray Bradbury (see my last post). In fact, I reviewed my ideas documents, folders, & scraps of paper till I found a science fiction sketch worth exhuming. Last week that concept even piqued my interest enough to pull away from my current serializing project for a few precious writing hours to start embellishing & redirecting & whatnot.
But suddenly I realized my error in judgment—that approach just doesn't mesh with both my writing style & my day-to-day reality.
Unlike some writers who can keep clusters of projects going & even clown around about it all, I'm that juggler off in the wings concentrating on one large plate (as in my everyday life) with maybe a smaller cluster on the side (that is, writing fiction, maintaining this blog, & fumbling with my social media posts).
So thanks again to Bradbury & all the other writers/mentors sharing what works for them & offering suggestions. Contemplating their take on things & applying some tweaks here & there with mixed results actually reminds me of who I am as a writer.
Maybe sometime down the road I'll be ready to try a few weeks of concentrated short story writing just to add another plate to my juggling routine. But in the meantime, I'm comfortable enough with what works for me to settle back into serializing that story I've been luxuriating in.
Keep you posted.
Drew
Drew Faraday
Pearl Fields and the Oregon Meltdown
No doubt that memory popped up out of nowhere because I'm currently dealing with my own version of plate juggling. In my last post, I mentioned starting a new writing project from scratch just to tweak my brain. Well, tweak it did, but certainly not in a way I was anticipating.
Not that I'm opposed to challenges or don't appreciate the drive exuded by some writers like Ray Bradbury (see my last post). In fact, I reviewed my ideas documents, folders, & scraps of paper till I found a science fiction sketch worth exhuming. Last week that concept even piqued my interest enough to pull away from my current serializing project for a few precious writing hours to start embellishing & redirecting & whatnot.
But suddenly I realized my error in judgment—that approach just doesn't mesh with both my writing style & my day-to-day reality.
Unlike some writers who can keep clusters of projects going & even clown around about it all, I'm that juggler off in the wings concentrating on one large plate (as in my everyday life) with maybe a smaller cluster on the side (that is, writing fiction, maintaining this blog, & fumbling with my social media posts).
So thanks again to Bradbury & all the other writers/mentors sharing what works for them & offering suggestions. Contemplating their take on things & applying some tweaks here & there with mixed results actually reminds me of who I am as a writer.
Maybe sometime down the road I'll be ready to try a few weeks of concentrated short story writing just to add another plate to my juggling routine. But in the meantime, I'm comfortable enough with what works for me to settle back into serializing that story I've been luxuriating in.
Keep you posted.
Drew
Drew Faraday
Pearl Fields and the Oregon Meltdown
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