Write Lightning is a blog from writer Deb Thompson.
Everyone is welcome here.
(Some links or topics may not be completely kid-appropriate.)
Everyone is welcome here.
(Some links or topics may not be completely kid-appropriate.)
Mon, May 10 2010
30 years on one work? No, thank you.
I recently got involved in watching a National Geographic special on the Codex Gigas. There seems to be consensus that it took a long time for this work to be completed, perhaps 20-30 years, and that one person did the work. I thought about that sort of time period and wondered if there was any work that I'd be willing to spend that many years writing. I've been doing Deb's Monthly Review since the summer of 1997, so I've been working on it for almost 13 years, but it's a magazine. It isn't really one, continuous work. I suppose I could write a piece of fiction that took 20-30 years, but only in the sense of it being a soap opera or a multi-generational, very lengthy novel. I would be adding to its story as I went along, instead of working on a piece of fiction that had a planned sort of end. It would be finished when I stopped working on it. To set out to spend 3 decades writing on one piece of writing, particulary one done as a complete recluse, would be a difficult decision. The monk, if it was a monk, has my admiration. But I do hope the part about him making a pact with the devil isn't true.
posted at: 19:18 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
I recently got involved in watching a National Geographic special on the Codex Gigas. There seems to be consensus that it took a long time for this work to be completed, perhaps 20-30 years, and that one person did the work. I thought about that sort of time period and wondered if there was any work that I'd be willing to spend that many years writing. I've been doing Deb's Monthly Review since the summer of 1997, so I've been working on it for almost 13 years, but it's a magazine. It isn't really one, continuous work. I suppose I could write a piece of fiction that took 20-30 years, but only in the sense of it being a soap opera or a multi-generational, very lengthy novel. I would be adding to its story as I went along, instead of working on a piece of fiction that had a planned sort of end. It would be finished when I stopped working on it. To set out to spend 3 decades writing on one piece of writing, particulary one done as a complete recluse, would be a difficult decision. The monk, if it was a monk, has my admiration. But I do hope the part about him making a pact with the devil isn't true.
posted at: 19:18 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
