(photo from the author's own monopoly fail)
It’s inevitable.
It’s gonna happen, you just know it.
Sometimes you don’t see it coming because you’re focused. Eyes on the board. Head in the game. But most of the time you know, because you know it happens every time…the fed-up-with-this-monopoly-game—board-flip. Boom. It happened.
Yes, you’re right, the topic of the blog this week is what Groundhog Day thing do you keep doing in your own writing. And I am getting to that, promise! But I wanted to point out that there’s Groundhog Day tendencies everywhere.
If you’re a creative, they’re not always bad. It could be your signature, that it factor that everyone recognizes as you. But more often than not we think of the repetitive in the negative, right?
My first thought was that I Groundhog the hell out of glancing eyes, but then realized that’s because I just finished re-reading a manuscript. Thinking back to the first book I wrote, and I had an overabundant use of was and just. My second book had the case of the glancing gazes. By the third book, I’d moved onto using too many sensory descriptions and not enough environmental ones.
Now in my fourth book, well, I’m only a handful of chapters in so it’s hard to say what will end up being my Groundhog Day for this one. But isn’t that great?! It means I’m learning with each book I write. No, I’m not perfect at what I’ve picked up, but I am aware of those writing pitfalls and take strides to not repeat them, I take strides to improve my writing.
So I guess I’ll go with that, my writing Groundhog Day thing is learning something new. Give me another five books or so and I’m sure I’ll have a new answer. ;)
‘Till then, I really, really want to go watch my favorite, cynical weatherman kidnap Punxsutawney and try win over the heart of the beautiful Andie MacDowell!
How about you? What stage are you at in your writing? Do you have any things you keep doing, good or bad? Or…maybe you just need to find a spot on the couch and turn on Groundhog Day too!
