{"id":5764,"date":"2020-09-03T09:15:35","date_gmt":"2020-09-03T13:15:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/?p=5764"},"modified":"2020-09-03T09:15:35","modified_gmt":"2020-09-03T13:15:35","slug":"playtime-is-messy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/hope\/playtime-is-messy\/","title":{"rendered":"Playtime is Messy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/IMG_1236.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-5769\" src=\"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/IMG_1236-450x459.jpg\" alt=\"Messy Toys\" width=\"275\" height=\"280\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/IMG_1236-450x459.jpg 450w, https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/IMG_1236-300x306.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/IMG_1236-250x255.jpg 250w, https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/IMG_1236.jpg 628w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 275px) 100vw, 275px\" \/><\/a>I like toys and colorful messes when I\u2019m playing. When I need to concentrate, though, I often have to tidy up a bit so that I\u2019m not itched by tippy clutter in the background. Similarly, I\u2019ll make a list of pesky things I need to do and park them for late in the afternoon so phone calls or errands don\u2019t chop up my writing time.<\/p>\n<p>When I\u2019m starting a new writing project, though, the mess is <em>in<\/em> my writing. I land in a world I can\u2019t see clearly and start inventing the barnacles and snarls. With a general idea of the overall situation, I have to see what my characters will say and withhold, and all the while, I\u2019m aware that I don\u2019t really know these people well, that this particular scene will likely be cut, that the whole thing lacks glue and sense.<\/p>\n<p>Test-running ideas is messy. It\u2019s playtime. The tidying must wait.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I like toys and colorful messes when I\u2019m playing. When I need to concentrate, though, I often have to tidy up a bit so that I\u2019m not itched by tippy clutter in the background. Similarly, I\u2019ll make a list of pesky things I need to do and park them for late in the afternoon so [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5769,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[861],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-5764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hope","tag-writing-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5764","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=5764"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5773,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5764\/revisions\/5773"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}