Sometimes if you're lucky there's a moment, when you're working on a first draft, trying to turn it into a second draft, that comes when you're slogging away at micro-level and suddenly, without warning, you see clearly and exactly what needs to be done at macro ditto.
It's not quite as heady as the moment when you look at a paragraph you've just finished writing and think Holy schlamoly, where did that come from. But it's pretty good.
lucky duck
ReplyDeletesaid in an envious, but happy-for-you tone
At least you were awake when it happened. I often dream up a perfect solution to something and then when I wake remember that I had a perfect solution but have no idea what that solution actually was.
ReplyDeleteYou should be aware that inspiration is comprised of 99.99% jolly hard work. Don't sell yourself too short! Yesterday afternoon was spent comforting my daughter who is at the pointy end of her PhD and feels she is at an impasse in drawing all the threads together cogently in the final part of her thesis so I'm hoping she also has 0.1% inspiration.
ReplyDeleteOh, that's so common! The only advice I can give there is to tell her to step back from it, as it were, and see if she can see it whole. Her supervisor should be helping at this point, too.
ReplyDeleteI often find that moment comes the moment I work up in the morning (rather than dreaming), when I'm in the shower, or swimming laps. Just when I start to switch off.
ReplyDeleteSorry, I meant 'wake up'. And I call myself an editor!
ReplyDelete