I promised an update so here it is. I’m glad to announce the mojo is still with me, and my current approach allows me an excellent balance of writing, researching, plotting and experimenting. Here is what happened from the beginning. Well, from about a month ago anyway.
As I explained in a previous post, working to a competition brief, I came up with a number of potential approaches and as often happens, the first wasn’t actually the best. In addition, after creating my outlines I re-read the brief carefully, as it was clear from the instructions that they were looking for someone who could follow instructions exactly, and double checked if anything in any of my stories might contravene the rules. I didn’t think so, BUT… I put on my most pedantic hat (which is rather fetching and has a peacock feather) and tried to see if there was a way it could have been interpreted as close to being outside the parameters. You never know the mind of a judge after all. And two of the stories could, just could, be thought of as outside the brief. One was an easy fix, and a slight tweak removed the risk entirely, but the second unfortunately was a central part of the plot. In a strict interpretation it would be fine, but was it worth the risk; was that plot so much better than the others that it was worth gambling on. In cases like that the answer is almost always no. The story wasn’t wasted. I can still develop and use it for other purposes but just not for this competition.
This is part of why I enjoy writing to a brief. Some decisions are beyond my control, and as good as my ideas or my writing might be, there’s no accounting for the competition or the judges’ final preferences. Whatever I do, there may be another entry that better fits what they want, or a genius of a story that went in against me. But what I can do is make sure I don’t get excluded on technicalities, and make sure that I’ve hit every point of the brief. Bit like a job application really. I can make sure I get through the initial sift. That way even if I don’t hear back, I can have some satisfaction that I’ve succeeded in doing the best job I could.
Writing is a fairly thankless solo talk, so any small sense of satisfaction you can give yourself should be celebrated and grabbed enthusiastically, and knowing I wouldn’t be excluded on technicalities is one. Plus a rather smug self-satisfied sensation in knowing that others probably weren’t as fastidious as me and fell at the first hurdle. I’m not proud of that smugness (well, maybe a little) but I prefer to think of it as congratulating myself on doing a thorough job.
So this was my starting point to getting the mojo back. Details on what it led to in the next blog…
Stay safe,
Kit xx