Thanks, Alec — I enjoyed that.
I don't write any more… sadly, the many demands on my time mean that nothing gets past a few hastily typed notes in a Word document and a promise to myself to revisit them at some, likely entirely imaginary, future date. But, when I did…
"The good bits feel like they were written by someone else."
…Is entirely true. I remember (and very much miss) that feeling. Sometimes, the words literally pour onto the screen/page and you feel like you're watching someone else, another, much better, writer do the work and you're just along for the ride.
Doubly so back when I did comics, because 1) you didn't get to see the finished product until the comps arrived, so every choice made by the artist and letterer was fresh to you, and 2) the lead time was long, I mean many months between getting the sign-off on a script and seeing the final product. The feeling of "Did I write that?" was often very strong.
Back in the mid-00s, I wrote a complete SF novel (couldn't sell it, which was the point at which I discovered that writing a novel and selling one are two very different skillsets) and when I reached a pivotal point where two character fought, I discovered that the no-score-draw I'd got in my rough plot outline didn't work with the level of antagonism that had emerged in the writing of the story up to that point.
I realised that these guys would absolutely do their level best to kill each other and, given their proficiency at violence, it would be completely unbelievable if one them didn't end up dead. At that point, the Internal Editor chipped in, asking, "Well, do you want to go back and re-write all their interactions, making them a lot less interesting, or can you get the plot across the finish line if one of these guys doesn't make it…?" Turned out, I could, and the final race to the end was more exciting for it… if a lot trickier to write.
Bastard characters. :-)
