{"id":4974,"date":"2017-03-30T14:49:51","date_gmt":"2017-03-30T18:49:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/?p=4974"},"modified":"2017-03-30T14:54:22","modified_gmt":"2017-03-30T18:54:22","slug":"early-ideas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/writing\/early-ideas\/","title":{"rendered":"Early Ideas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"An<\/a>I\u2019ve spent the past few weeks testing out possible ideas for my next novel, and as of today, none of them is the right one. This doesn\u2019t mean I have failed. I simply need to keep exploring.<\/p>\n

I once had an art teacher who assigned 100 watercolor paintings of the same object to be done in a week. It seemed like a lot of paintings. I picked an old fashioned drill, the kind that works by spinning a crank. Accustomed to working slowly and deliberately, I started out that way, but I was consuming hours and not tallying up many paintings. I tried working faster, more shoddily, and I counted those, too, but I still wasn\u2019t getting enough done. I wasn\u2019t pleased with the quality of my paintings, either. I had to work differently. I found odd scraps of paper to paint on and fold. I began to experiment with the paint, with the concept of a drill. In one case, I used the drill tip to paint on the paper, and then to drill holes in the paper. Eventually, I was doing paintings that seemed, on the surface, to have nothing to do with the drill, or with painting, or even with myself. Many were frankly bad. I was certain I was failing, and I wasn\u2019t happy, but I was closing in 100. I was completing the assignment.<\/p>\n

I recall watching my professor as he studied my paintings. He picked up each painting and examined it, one after another, like each one mattered, like they created a deliberate pattern. I recall his carefulness, but I don\u2019t remember what he said. His evaluation of my work has no bearing on me now. What stays with me is the understanding that I didn\u2019t run out of ideas. They weren\u2019t all good. They weren\u2019t all worthy, but I could make myself come up with more ideas long after I thought I\u2019d exhausted every possibility. I didn\u2019t quit.<\/p>\n

So far, I have 18 distinct ideas for my next novel. Clearly, I need to keep going.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve spent the past few weeks testing out possible ideas for my next novel, and as of today, none of them is the right one. This doesn\u2019t mean I have failed. I simply need to keep exploring. I once had an art teacher who assigned 100 watercolor paintings of the same object to be done […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4975,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4974"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4980,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4974\/revisions\/4980"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}