For anyone who joins me as a fellow Numb3rs fan, you'll understand the comparison I want to make today. Anyone who isn't a Numb3rs fan, I understand it's because you've never seen the show, and I forgive your unintentional ignorance. Netflix. Now. (Or, you know, buy it--that works too.)
In this wonderful show, the character Charlie is a mathemetician who uses his skills to help guide the FBI in investigations--finding suspect locations, future target points, mathematical patterns, etc. In the second episode of the very first season, while working on an equation to predict a team of bank robbers' future movements, circumstances change and Charlie gets overwhelmed. His brother comes home to find him working on a completely different equation, and when he confronts Charlie, Charlie utters this profound thought:
"Sometimes I can't choose what I work on. I can't follow through on a line of thinking just because I want to or--or because it's needed. I have to work on what's in my head."
Sometimes in writing, we hit blocks. We face problems that are just too overwhelming for the moment, and our brains stray to something else because we just can't deal with the problem at hand. That's okay. Push the problem to a little corner in the back of your mind and let it mellow. Work on whatever else is in your head. The beautiful thing about our minds is that even when you're not conscious of it (sometimes especially because you're not) it will still be working on that problem. And it will find an answer.
~ Lizzy
Current word count today: 327
Current song: Make Up Your Mind/Catch Me I'm Falling from Next to Normal
Current quote: "Work is the miracle by which talent is brought to the surface and dreams become reality." ~ Gordon B. Hinckley [Standing for Something]
I am not familiar with Numb3rs and unlike all other lucky people out there, I don't have Netflix. So I'm afraid I must remain in ignorance.
ReplyDeleteHowever, that does not mean I cannot appreciate the comparison you've made here.
The back of my mind is where my stories rest, unwilling to be written at this time because my muse is on strike--I think he took what he deems as a "much needed vacation" to the Bahamas, or something. Claims he'll be back when it's warm again.
Well, tell him muses don't get vacation time. XP Drag him back by his kneecaps!
DeleteThis is EXACTLY what I've been experiencing lately. I've been trying to force myself to work on a story that I just don't love while another story is begging to be told. So I'm going to take your advice and embrace it. When the thing that is stopping me gets unkinked in my mind, I'll come back to it.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen numb3rs in a while, but I did love it when I watched it.
Good idea! I wish you the best of writing luck! :) (And I'm glad you're a Numb3rs fan :D)
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