(no subject)

[alyse]

I was reading Words back this morning and it was driven home to me how much of it is garbage. I don't mean that the story itself is garbage or that I had a sudden attack of Really!Bad!Fic last night, just how much of it is... garbage.

I was talking to Munchie about this last night. I've said it before in here, every so often I hit my stride, the muses start buzzing, the words start flowing and I'm suddenly in the zone, writing my little fingers off. And what I'm writing is good, which is why I wish it would happen more often ::g:: It's usually late at night when I'm very tired or, occasionally, with mates on these irregular get togethers and slightly pished. (Sidenote: for those who haven't met me in RL it's a constant source of amusement to my friends that I don't drink very often so when I do I'm usually in that happy, slightly tipsy state after a single glass of red wine and stay that way all night. Then it's a case of 'let's mention slings/waterbeds/rain/pink fluffy handcuffs/courgettes and watch Al gesture empthatically then fire up the laptop.')

It's almost as though my tiredness, or slightly tiddliness, has the effect of shortcircuiting my conscious brain, and what wells up is what's in my unconscious mind, but at the same time more formed and structured than that. You know how sometimes you have a very clear, visual image in your head and trying to capture that on paper is a complete pain? How, no matter how much you struggle and snatch at it, it just won't come? It just sits there, on the paper, flat and uninteresting and bearing nothing but a faint resemblance to the brightly coloured, vibrant dancing whirls in your mind? I hate that. I fight against that. And yet, when I'm in this zone, shattered and almost zombie like, I can capture it. The words flow and they match the image, or at least manage to capture more of its essence than any amount of struggling will.

The problem is that my fingers can't keep up. I'm a fast typer - I know I've scared Jan and Jennie on many an occasion - but tiredness makes me clumsy. I catch the obvious typos - taht instead of that - because I have my spellchecker on in Word and, as it underlines obvious typos and grammar errors, I can correct them as I go. However, it doesn't catch the times when I pick the wrong word due to my exhaustion - teem instead of team - or miss out half the sentence because my brain has been tripping along so fast that my fingers have skipped a chunk and I've not realised until I come to read it back. And it doesn't catch the typos that are still real words.

And that, literally, becomes tat.

Comments

[brenk.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but better to take advantage of the times when you're *really* inspired and actually get those visuals down before they refuse to bubble up again. Nuts and bolts stuff can be done at other times and those really 'YESSSS' moments when you can't get it on paper fast enough are (relatively) rare. Mine usually come when I'm fighting a deadline for work.

And lots of typos aren't *always* garbage - at times, in RL, they keep those of us who get paid for sorting them in business. The thing is, very VERY few people can spot them (or at least all of them) in their own writing, however careful they are (and I'm a case in point)*g*. Your mind sort of pre-prints the 'sound' on your brain (bated/baited, for instance), and even subconsciously registers the word / phrase you *thought* you were writing (even if you've dropped a word or something). It simply refuses to see that it's technically wrong until you've at least got some distance from it.

An 'outside' person can pick up these things immediately because they don't have that 'imprint'. It's actually fascinating just how much of a text that you do imprint in this way - your subconscious can actually soak in vast quantities, triggering an automatic response in line with your intentions rather than what your fingers produced. Does this make sense? I am *not* in the 'inspiration zone' today.

Seriously, actually, as you *do* see typos (and other things), ever thought of getting proofreading / correcting work or would it drive you bananas? Good correctors are *so* hard to find, at least in non-fiction.

Just a thought. Sorry, also one of my favourite soapboxes.

[alyse]

Yeah, but better to take advantage of the times when you're *really* inspired and actually get those visuals down before they refuse to bubble up again.

Oh, I've got no objection to that at all. It's just interesting, to me at least, that this seems to be how it works for me. I do, however, get frustrated when my fingers can't keep up with my words, something that doesn't happen at other times to the same extent because I tend to be quite a quick typer. Not 120 words a minute, quick, but fairly speedy and fairly accurate.

An 'outside' person can pick up these things immediately because they don't have that 'imprint'.

True. Which is why it's often important to have a beta even if you, yourself, are good at spelling and grammar - you read what you expect to read, not what you wrote. However, I tend to find that the same thing happens when I read it back the next day. That distance, as you mentioned, usually gives me enough perspective to spot most, if not all, of my typos. Plus, of course, I tend to reread my stuff compulsively as I'm writing - I find that I had to do that, and tweak, to get into the mood to write again. In fact, I have a little running competition with myself - how many typos will my beta spot? If she spots more than three in a relatively short fic (i.e. short for me - about 20 pages), I'm having an off day ::g::

Seriously, actually, as you *do* see typos (and other things), ever thought of getting proofreading / correcting work or would it drive you bananas? Good correctors are *so* hard to find, at least in non-fiction.

Thought about it, have no idea how to go about it ::g:: And, no, it wouldn't drive me bananas. A significant proportion of my job was to proof read reports, accounts etc for errors that other people hadn't spotted as well as grammatical improvements etc. The standing joke was that 'PSR' didn't stand for 'Professional Standards Review' but 'Punction and Spelling Review'. You wouldn't believe (or maybe you would) how many professional, management grade people don't know grammar rules such as when to and when not to use commas and apostrophes.

[jenniek45.livejournal.com]

*hugs* I know exactly what you mean, sweetheart. It's wonderful when you suddenly find yourself in the 'zone', for want of a better word, but it doesn't happen anywhere near as often as it should. I'd love to be able to bottle whatever it is that causes it, I know that! But when the words are coming out so quickly you're falling over your own fingers to get it typed out, and you read back the last few paragraphs to realise that a) you don't remember typing/thinking half of it and b) that it's good, it's a great feeling.

And I agree, it seems to happen more when it's late and I'm tired, like it does to you. Strange that, not that I'm complaining, mind. I'd rather it cost me a few hours sleep than didn't happen at all. :)

[alyse]

Interesting though, isn't it? I'm pretty much convinced it's somehow due to the way your thought processes change when you're tired.