I think I gave someone some very unhelpful advice today, vis a vis plot bunnies. It’s the only advice I’ve ever found to actually get rid of the wee blighters though - so, while it may not have been helpful, at least it was true.
If you’ve not heard the term before, a plot bunny is a little bit of story that scampers around your mental Elysian Field, digging holes, munching all your radishes, and generally mucking your life up until you do something about it. Often, a case of the plot bunnies occurs when you can do little about it - like when you’re in the shower, or working to a deadline. They’re pests, but often compelling, just like the lagomorphs for which they are named*.
The advice I gave was to just write it. You don’t need to do more than notes, I said, but it’s like singing or listening to a song you’ve got stuck in your head. You have to get it out one way or another, and getting something done about it is the only way I’ve ever found which works. But that’s not always that helpful if you’re writing to a deadline - you feel guilty for doing anything that you’re not supposed to be doing.
And I get that, I really do. But the thing with writing - my writing practice - is that it’s not like I’m gonna use it up. Some times are more fallow than others, for sure, but it never goes away. And also... if you don’t turn something in on time, there will be consequences... but those consequences are rarely world-changing. What have you got to lose by making a note?
But maybe there is something to lose. If you're working two (or more) jobs, if you're writing on your phone because you don't have Internet capacity (or privacy - the whole space issue is a funny thing for writers still) at your home, time is always critical. So maybe there isn't space to 'just write it'. Maybe that's the 'let them eat cake' kind of advice - if the circumstances were right, we'd all eat cake, but the circumstances are right for only a very few of us.
In the end, I wonder if we're going about this in the wrong way. In our (post-)capitalist society, there's so much emphasis put on production, and if you're not seen to be producing, you're somehow not achieving. Plot bunnies are perhaps an echo of a more delicious time in creative development - before our minds were forced into production mode, back when we had time to dream.
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*Yeah, I know, I thought a rabbit was a rodent too. But I wasn't sure about it, so I Googled it, and their proper term was so funny and cute I couldn't resist. Try saying 'lagomorph' three times fast.
If you’ve not heard the term before, a plot bunny is a little bit of story that scampers around your mental Elysian Field, digging holes, munching all your radishes, and generally mucking your life up until you do something about it. Often, a case of the plot bunnies occurs when you can do little about it - like when you’re in the shower, or working to a deadline. They’re pests, but often compelling, just like the lagomorphs for which they are named*.
The advice I gave was to just write it. You don’t need to do more than notes, I said, but it’s like singing or listening to a song you’ve got stuck in your head. You have to get it out one way or another, and getting something done about it is the only way I’ve ever found which works. But that’s not always that helpful if you’re writing to a deadline - you feel guilty for doing anything that you’re not supposed to be doing.
And I get that, I really do. But the thing with writing - my writing practice - is that it’s not like I’m gonna use it up. Some times are more fallow than others, for sure, but it never goes away. And also... if you don’t turn something in on time, there will be consequences... but those consequences are rarely world-changing. What have you got to lose by making a note?
But maybe there is something to lose. If you're working two (or more) jobs, if you're writing on your phone because you don't have Internet capacity (or privacy - the whole space issue is a funny thing for writers still) at your home, time is always critical. So maybe there isn't space to 'just write it'. Maybe that's the 'let them eat cake' kind of advice - if the circumstances were right, we'd all eat cake, but the circumstances are right for only a very few of us.
In the end, I wonder if we're going about this in the wrong way. In our (post-)capitalist society, there's so much emphasis put on production, and if you're not seen to be producing, you're somehow not achieving. Plot bunnies are perhaps an echo of a more delicious time in creative development - before our minds were forced into production mode, back when we had time to dream.
______________________________________
*Yeah, I know, I thought a rabbit was a rodent too. But I wasn't sure about it, so I Googled it, and their proper term was so funny and cute I couldn't resist. Try saying 'lagomorph' three times fast.