Terminalcoffee discussion

So I was reading a book about projects and the whole process of creating something new--and this book said that essentially with any original project 20 percent of the effort will essentially get you 80 percent of the result, but if you want the other 20 percent of the result then you need to give up 80 percent of the effort.

Right now I'm trying to close in on the end of a book I'm writing and it seems that it's more like 90 percent to get the last 10 percent finished. I think it's at this point that that whole expression about success being 95 percent perspiration...anyway, the　more I get into it, the more I need to give myself those motivational speeches you see in football movies or like Leonidis gave in 300--something about no retreat or something.

Anyway, for other creative people: how do you stay motivated in the death throws of your creative process?

Take a break, go outside, then come back and keep plugging away at it. I wish I had some more inspiring help to offer, but ...

Have you taken a day off from it? Can you afford to do that? Take the time to clear the cobwebs out of your head and get a new look? If you can, that might be the best.

Whenever I flag, I imagine myself doing my day job for the rest of my life. And then I remind myself how short that life would be if I continue doing my day job.

Stephen wrote: "Take a break, go outside, then come back and keep plugging away at it. I wish I had some more inspiring help to offer, but ...

Have you taken a day off from it? Can you afford to do that? Take..."

Oh yeah, I've got plenty of time--no deadlines except the ones I create for myself. I would like to get the whole thing done before my 28th birthday though.

Yeah Richard, I've been getting a little bit of the life is short vibe as well. My hair starting thinning last year and I said "Holy smokes, I'm getting older". Yeah, I think I'll take a week off next week and mess around with some short stories I've been working on. Thanks for the comments.

The toughest part of my dissertation was the end, no doubt, although I suppose one could call that project of a minimal, or at most different, type of creativity. But I was driven by the desire to finish. I didn't want the project in the back of my mind all day. That feeling was worse than the exhaustion of working on the last revisions.

I think we can all agree that endings are the hardest part. Think of how many authors can't seem to end their books, instead they flounder around then finally just stop.

That's why I always ensure that I know exactly where/how it's going to end. In fact, I think I'll write the last chapter tomorrow and then work backwards. Have you ever told a joke without knowing the punchline? Why then would you write a full-length novel without knowing where it's going?

Richard wrote: "Have you ever told a joke without knowing the punchline? Why then would you write a full-length novel without knowing where it's going?"

I think it depends on what kind of story you're writing. I mean, look at all the different kinds of jokes out there: the ones that are sung, the long rambling stories, the two liners.

If a story is character-driven, sometimes that character will suddenly turn to you and say, "You know what, I'm gay. Okay, carry on." That's what just happened when I started writing something yesterday. I was on the second page, a few years down the road from the first scene I wrote and suddenly the character came out.

That's, of course, where editing comes into play. Sometimes you write and things reveal themselves to you; that's always been my style of writing, and all it takes is time enough to go back and edit it to make it seem like that was your point to begin with.

I wish you the best of luck with that approach, Angie. But if you don't have "time enough", you need to think the whole story through beforehand to ensure you don't waste time backtracking. Here's my take on the topic:

http://www.livewriting.co.za/index.ph...

I like the idea of the horse-for-the-horseshoe, but my line of thinking is, "well you wouldn't have known you only needed a horseshoe if you hadn't carved out the horse."

"And if you write biographies in advance, you won’t have characters who suffer from multiple personality syndrome."

I agree with this to an extent. You do need to have a grasp on your character, but at the same time, your character has to be free to run and breathe and evolve, and the best characters don't line up with our predictions of how they're going to act. I guess I'm taking a middle path here.

"Very few people set off on a journey without knowing where they are headed. Those that do, often end up wandering aimlessly, gibbering to themselves, with a bottle of cheap booze in hand. Those are hard luck stories no one really ever wants to hear."

I'd say that Eat, Pray, Love is a good example of precisely the opposite: a journey of a woman that she only undertook after outlining it to her publishers. And so far, from what I've read of it, it's awful. I'd argue that no great adventurer ever sets out with a destination and destination-only in mind, and getting lost has its place, both in real life and in writing. You just have to know when it's good and when it's not.

I was having a really hard time getting through my dissertation this summer and I didn't find my motivation until I teamed up with another student. We started meeting at the library every morning at 9 am (whoever came in last had to buy drinks afterwards). We would have a little rap session in the morning, bounce ideas off of each other and take breaks together throughout the day. If one of us signed on to facebook or otherwise wasted time, the other would smack her wrist, so to speak. Having a partner made the process much more fun and (I hope) helped me produce a shiny, polished final draft. So... would having a writing partner help you?

There is no 'right way' to do these things, Angie. Personally, I don't have the time to change tack halfway and then go back and rewrite. But it could happen, or course. And I do discover new dimensions to characters as the writing progresses. An explorer can set out to seek one new world only to discover another. He may even discover that he is gay on the way. But I prefer to map those discoveries out in advance. Each to his/her own.

Similarly, a writing partner can be handy for some, but the balance of input can be horribly skewed, which leaves one holding the short end of the stick. Hence my preference for lone-wolfdom.

RandomAnthony wrote: "The toughest part of my dissertation was the end, no doubt, although I suppose one could call that project of a minimal, or at most different, type of creativity. But I was driven by the desire to..."

Anthony, yeah on top of the novel I'm writing at the moment, I also have the dissertation to think about. I'll start that in about a year. My goal is to kick out my novel before I start on my dissertation--without going insane, preferably.