Damn, just when I make myself believe that I’m done with writing, done with any personal aspirations, I learn something new. Besides, of course, learning by reading, playing around in new software of games and stories.
I can’t simply just create for my own satisfaction. For one thing, I’m as needy as any artist with an ego that fluctuates between the extremes of confidence and ability. For another, I’ll never be satisfied with my own work–few artists are–so that’s like setting the most impossible of goals that turn the ferris-wheel of mood.
I want to move on to another movie clip of another poem or prose work, but what’s keeping me from it is that even though I’ve pretty much tweaked Recycling to death in images (I’ve got about 100 or more used and discarded images just for this alone, using only about a dozen of them in the final version), I’m not willing to send it anywhere as it is with the poor quality audio, yet I’m not–as was the intent–willing to let it just sit on the hard drive without ever being seen again by anyone. Heck, I haven’t even had the balls (an unlikely possibility anyway) to delete the old versions, nor even the copies of the old versions.
So what am I supposed to do? Work or move on?
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
One thing I learned from Stephen King’s ON WRITING is to never have more than two drafts of a work: the First Draft and the Final Draft.
That, and the content of the First Draft is always the best. (The Final Draft is purely for focusing purposes…and grammar fixes).
Ditch the copies, ditch all but the first and last versions, archive them and move on. You will know when it’s time to go back and finish the work.
I say as long as the hard drive can take it just work on. I can so relate. I have draft-1, draft-2, LASTdraft, LASTdraft-a, LASTdraft-b, FINAL LASTDRAFT…
But my biggest problem is a simple thought grows appendages and soon I have another dozen drafts seemingly unrelated but in my own mind they’re conjoined in a way that if one is deleted, it might mean death to all.
Hub knows how I am. I think that’s why he asked me last night when my computer crashed if I ever check the space on the hard drive. Scared me a little, but it was just dead batteries in the keyboard.