Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Snowball Fight!

I’ve been fleshing out my book. Every time I sit down to write I get a little bit more of it figured out. Which is good—if slow and torturous. But this is the problem with having a “fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants” approach to writing.

I also liken it to rolling a snowball uphill.

At first it doesn’t matter that you’re going up the hill. The ball is light and fluffy, the white snow dazzles your eyes as the sun hits it and all is good with the world. The snowball grows a little bit and you smile, thinking what great exercise you’re getting.

But then, as the snowball continues to balloon, it gets heavier and you start to puff just a little bit. You can see your breath coming out in longer gasps of steamy air and the sun isn’t so much dazzling as it is a glare and you wish you’d brought a pair of sunglasses.

After a few more steps, the snowball is up to your waist and your arms are burning as you try to keep it from rolling back down and crumbling away to nothing when it bounces off a tree trunk. You have to stop and turn around, anchoring it in place with your back, your heels digging into the ground, snow falling into your boots so that your feet feel like two matching blocks of ice.

But then, after a few deep breaths, you look around and notice that the sun is still shining and its rays are warm on your face. You’ve come quite a long way up that hill, the top isn’t so far away anymore, and your snowball is nice and round and pretty. Pushing it the rest of the way is still a chore and a half and you might have to stop again more than once, but finally—FINALLY—you reach the top of the hill. You can look down at the distance you traveled and sigh happily that it’s over. Here is your snowball!

Now what do you do with it?

Of course, you send it careening back down the hill and hope it knocks everyone in its path right on their ass...in a good, awestruck by your brilliance kind of way.

7 comments:

Chelle Cordero said...

great analogy - terrific pic!

J.K. Coi said...

I had to use him. Monkeys are always too cute to pass up :)

Viv Arend said...

My problem is the silly snowball keeps turning on me when I'm halfway up the hill and... well... you know those cartoon stories where the characters end up with arms and legs sticking out from the middle of the giant snowball at the bottom of the hill?

That's me.

J.K. Coi said...

Yep, Viv. You've got to be firm with that sucker. Don't let it get the better of you. It's tough. Trust me, I'm holding the thing up as we speak and it taunts me, daring me to let my guard down so that it can swallow me whole. :)

Viv Arend said...

It's the characters fault. I've got them all headed the right direction and then one of them pops out and trips me.

I just added 2K to my current wip to get them back on track...

J.K. Coi said...

I started out writing a single book. Wasn't supposed to be a series at all. But then armageddon happens, and great supporting characters...and before you know it, I'm having to take a break (ie. hold up the snowball) while I think about how I'm going to rework this.

J.K. Coi said...

Oh, not to mention the heroine completely dissed me. She didn't want to play the character the way I'd planned.

I totally feel your pain.