Monday, May 08, 2017

Monday Meanderings

I feel as if there's a constant tension in my creative process between the old and the new.

As a writer, I'm restless:  always moving on to new worlds, new characters, new ideas.  I love short stories in part because it enables me to take a snapshot of a concept - for instance, a flying city populated by people who believe the world below has been destroyed - and play with the thread for a bit before setting it aside and, like a child with crayons, merrily clutching for the next.  When it comes to editing for short fiction, I have a definite (if not always consistent) tipping point between when I'll overhaul a story and when I feel it's effort better spent on a new work.

I do this with harp, too:  I'm always eager to try new tunes, and I would far rather pick up new sheet music than revive a forgotten piece from my older repertoire.  And cooking:  I try new recipes almost every week.  I rarely go back.

On the other hand, I have a certain nostalgia for old concepts, characters and stories.  I'm an incubator at heart, so these tales that have had years to mellow from their writing have a powerful appeal.  I'm also a perfectionist, so looking at my old flaws, from awkward prose to questionable plot twists to cliche worldbuilding, I want to fix that ... and I'm also intrigued by the cascading changes that stem from making those improvements.

So I find myself caught between the two.  Should I try to salvage every story, or is it all right to decide that it's better to take what I've learned and spend the effort on a new work?  Should I go back and rewrite old novels, or is it better to mine newer, fresher ideas?  Is either extreme lazy and undisciplined?  Which one?  How in thunderation do I know?

And please, don't say, "Choose whichever appeals the most to you."  Oh, if I knew that, I wouldn't continuously dither about it.  Sometimes, it comes down to my sense of what might be more marketable, but that's always a best guess.

It's a work in progress.

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