First off, YAY! Congratulations to Angie on the exciting release of Memento Nora! The League is now more than halfway out in the world. Just me and Elana left to go and we're chomping at the bit!
Angie did a really great series leading up to this day. A whole bunch of great writers (and me) posted some memories they would never want to forget. It makes for some really interesting reading. If you haven't checked these out yet, you definitely should. Here are all the links!
Beth Revis, Across the Universe.
Bettina Restrepo, Illegal.
Julia Karr, XVI.
Me! The Eleventh Plague.
Kiki Hamilton, The Faerie Ring.
Gae Polisner, The Pull of Gravity.
Carrie Harris, Bad Taste in Boys.
Elana Johnson, Possession.
After I wrote my post I got to thinking about what memory, if given the opportunity, would I want to forget? Turns out that, for me, it was easy because this is actually my most wished for super power.
I wish that upon finishing a draft of a book I could immediately forget everything about it. Forget writing it. Forget the characters. Forger the story. Everything. Wipe it from my mind. This way when I sat down to read a first draft and it would be just like reading the work of someone else. Feeling so close to your work that you can't be objective? Missing huge plot holes because your knowledge of the story and characters is covering them over? A thing of the past! I can't tell you how often I wish for this ability.
So how about you guys? Maybe you'd spare yourself morning after regrets by forgetting how much you love tequila or Oreo cookies? Or maybe there's one irritating memory that you just wish you could be done with? Heck, maybe you'd just like to live in a world where the latest Star Wars trilogy never happened. Whatever it is, let us know!
What Would you Like to Forget?
  The League of Extraordinary Writers is a group of debut YA authors who write science fiction and dystopian works. The ten of us have works that run the gamut of near-future mind control to far-future space travel, but they do have one thing in common: a future where the Earth we know now is twisted, gone. |
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6 comments:
I've spent so much time trying to recover memories I lost that I can't conceive of trying to lose one of the ones I have. Even bad memories are better than no memories at all.
Still, I love the idea of forgetting a first draft quicker so you can get to editing it sooner. It might make this whole process smoother.
Wow, that's an awesome wish. I'd never even considered that, but now that you mention it that would be very cool. Especially since I wrote my story basically because no one was writing exactly what I wanted to read.
I'd like to forget whatever I was trying to forget!
Oh, nice! I'd love that power! It would definitely help me to edit without being so attached to my "darlings", but it would be weird at the same time, like the movie Momento, to recognize your writing style, but not the story or the words.
I'm not sure I'd want to forget anything, since I seem to learn pretty well from my mistakes! Maybe I'd forget that I'd seen this one movie, Irreversible (France, 2002), but then I'd probably watch it again and be scarred all over again!
Yes! That would be a fabulous thing to forget. To look at your first draft with fresh eyes.
I'd like to keep my memories though. They're what led me to where I am now.
Jeff forgetting the first draft is a great call. I'd love the clarity of being able to look at that first rush-through with objective eyes.
However, if I did that, I'd no doubt forget all about its existence, and where I'd saved it. The story would linger unknown and unloved on my hard drive until it got deleted in some random file housekeeping.
Either that or I'd think, "Who wrote this rubbish?" on the re-read, and it would be Recycle Bin bound before you could shout, "No, don...."
But that's just me.
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