"He should have..." What?!

RLB · May 6, 2008

Ever get interrupted in mid-flow?

Yesterday I had to abandon my WIP to get ready for last minute dinner plans. I returned this morning to find:

He should have *blinking cursor*

He should have what? I have no idea what I'd been about to type. I'm sure it was something profound, though. Something that would have made my character even more complex and nuanced, something that was plot-propelling and thought-provoking.

But I just had to delete it and started a new scene.

*sigh*

slcboston · May 6, 2008

He should have ... been doing something, only he was interrupted rudely in mid thought, leading him to murderous impulses.

drachin8 · May 6, 2008

"He should have. But he didn't."

There, that fixes it, right?

-Michelle

Diana W. · May 6, 2008

He should have switched to Geico!

Danalynn · May 6, 2008

Eeeek! That sucks! I feel your pain. I HATE IT when the happens!

NYBrit said:
He should have switched to Geico!

blacbird · May 6, 2008

You must have been reading too much Samuel Beckett.

caw

Sassee · May 6, 2008

NYBrit said:
He should have switched to Geico!

WIN!

And yeah, I hate that. I've learned not to stop myself mid-sentence. Mid-scene, maybe (and I hate that too), but never mid-sentence.

Although... I sometimes have this problem *while* writing. I'll be moving along, moving along, stop to get a drink, go back to it.... omg, what was I going to do here? Shit! I don't remember! I just had this in my head *two seconds ago.* Then I have to sit there staring at the screen for a while wondering what it is I was going to write. A.D.D. is not so fun.

dawinsor · May 6, 2008

This made me laugh. Supposedly, stopping mid-sentence is a way to get yourself going again the next day. But evidently not in this case!

JoNightshade · May 6, 2008

We have a small apartment. Sometimes my husband walks in on me when I'm "in the zone." Whereupon I hold my hands up and shout, "SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP!"

See, you just have to learn how to handle life's distractions.

slcboston · May 6, 2008

Sassee said:
WIN!

And yeah, I hate that. I've learned not to stop myself mid-sentence. Mid-scene, maybe (and I hate that too), but never mid-sentence.

Although... I sometimes have this problem *while* writing. I'll be moving along, moving along, stop to get a drink, go back to it.... omg, what was I going to do here? Shit! I don't remember! I just had this in my head *two seconds ago.* Then I have to sit there staring at the screen for a while wondering what it is I was going to write. A.D.D. is not so fun.

I don't have A.D.D. yet that still happens to me...

(Maybe I'm just getting old.

)

mscelina · May 6, 2008

You're not the only one. Coleridge's notes on the writing of Kubla Khan:

The Author continued for about three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external senses, during which time he has the most vivid confidence, that he could not have composed less than from two to three hundred lines; if that indeed can be called composition in which all the images rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort. On awakening he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone has been cast, but, alas! without the after restoration of the latter!

Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

steveg144 · May 6, 2008

Happens to me all the time. Except I've hit the age where it happens in all aspects of my life, not just in the writerly parts.

Selcaby · May 6, 2008

He should have finished the sentence before he went off for dinner.

I don't know. Try reading the scene from the beginning. You might pick up your train of thought again.

Ravenlocks · May 6, 2008

I admire you for having the discipline to stop in the middle of a sentence because it was time to get ready. If I'm in the zone I usually end up being late to wherever I was going. I'm sure this annoys my friends, although they're nice about it.

Andre_Laurent · May 6, 2008

He should have gone to the bathroom at the first watery rumble in his intestines. ??

Saya · May 6, 2008

I hate when that happens. It also sucks when you're writing late at night and you start to get tired. And then...you have this awesome idea, start writing the sentence and suddenly your mind just goes blank and you can't remember what you were writing so you have to delete it and write something else when you're more awake. >.<

Matera the Mad · May 6, 2008

If I could reach through phone lines and strangle people...

Melenka · May 6, 2008

JoNightshade said:
We have a small apartment. Sometimes my husband walks in on me when I'm "in the zone." Whereupon I hold my hands up and shout, "SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP!"

See, you just have to learn how to handle life's distractions.

Oh, wow! Just today I was wondering if anyone else had this impulse. I only do it in my head, but that may change if the family doesn't learn to leave me alone. Thanks for setting a precedent, Jo.

~grace~ · May 6, 2008

sometimes it happens in academic papers. and I'll come back and be like, "I obviously had a REALLY GOOD POINT to put here--but not anymore!"

kct webber · May 6, 2008

If I absolutely have to stop mid-scene, I never do it mid-sentence or mid para. And when I stop, I change the text to blue and jot out the stuff in my head--just a couple simple outline style notes. That ensures that I won't forget where I was or what I was about to say.

Chasing the Horizon · May 6, 2008

I won't stop mid-sentence, period. I don't care if the damn house is on fire. It has to be a matter of immediate life or death to make me stop writing mid-scene. I have a weird ability to actually answer questions and have a half-way coherent conversation WHILE I'm writing, though. Talk with mouth while typing something completely unrelated with hands sort of thing. And my Mom wonders why I don't remember half the stuff she tells me the next day

triceretops · May 6, 2008

Nope, I don't stop mid-sentence. I usually type a small paragraph (in caps and bold) at the end of a completed sentence that tells me where I'm headed next. It works.

Tri

Vincent · May 7, 2008

You didn't delete half a scene, did you? That was the first line?

HeronW · May 7, 2008

I jot down the most important aspect if I'm called away from my literary baby so I can pick up later with the cues: Aria, mentor trademark line, too slow, poison--into something like: Aria hears her dead mentor warn her with the usual snide 'picklock princess' remark but she moves a titch too slow and the Gaunt poisons her. :}

Shadow_Ferret · May 7, 2008

RLB said:
Ever get interrupted in mid-flow?

Yesterday I had to abandon my WIP to get ready for last minute dinner plans. I returned this morning to find:

He should have *blinking cursor*

You know what? I had read doing that deliberately as a way to stimulate your writer's brain when you start back into writing. You don't stop at a logical break because, supposedly according to this advice, your brain won't be able to pick up where it left off because you had "finished" it.

So this advice recommended that you stop mid-sentence, mid-thought, so that when you return, you'll pick up and finish that sentence, that thought, and go on your merry way.

I tried it, it never really worked for me because I, like you, too often forgot what my train of thought was from the previous session.

"He should have..." What?!

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