And With Heat Come... Bugs

Goedemorgen,

That's Dutch for 'Good Morning' and sometimes I do wish I still lived in Holland. Because there, even in the midst of summer I would not be plagued by bugs. Now that the weather has started to heat up again in Bangkok, thousands of flying bugs have descended upon the smoggy streets, which you would think would keep them away. I hate bugs. I'm a web designer by profession so I should, I guess (a 'bug' in computer terms is an accidental glitch in the working due to faulty or incomplete programming).

Bugs are also appearing in writing. How does anybody when writing keep track of all the seemingly small, but still relevant, details? And I'm not just talking of who said what to whom and thus possesses knowledge that can be used in later chapters. No, I'm also talking about color and type of clothing people happen to wear, tics that they might have and need to come back regularly to ensure continuity. Items they might be carrying that are of major and minor significance.

For instance: one of my characters has a backpack in which he holds various personal items. During the story some items are lost/removed/broken etc. and others are added/stored/fixed etc. There is some significance to items that need to be used every now and then to establish a persona for the character, while other items have to be used at times to reinforce the theme of the book. I've written all the items down that appear throughout stages of the book, but now that I'm 'speed-writing' I find myself sometimes forgetting to maintain continuity (or like Nancy says: create large holes that make no sense). The thing is with moving forward and refusing to self-edit (at least until the draft is done) the documents are littered with border-comments to check if something has already been changed or to change previous situations and have someone say something to another character.

I guess that is the sacrifice of trying to create a smooth writing experience: you always move on, trying to keep momentum, knowing you are leaving a scorching trail in your wake that attracts bugs. And that means more clean-up when the editing starts.

Bah...Humbug!