(no subject)

The downside of basing portions of this current project on my own backstory--not in terms of plot, but just in that I'm stealing some places I lived in as a child for setting description--is that it's an awful lot harder to describe something if I actually know what it looks like. Making up architecture and geography is easy. Trying to actually explain in words a thing I can picture in my head because I was there? Haaaaaaard.

Fortunately, since this isn't autobiography, I can just change the details if it's getting too annoying. But that's unsatisfying, in some ways. I know what I mean--which is the problem. I'm used to evoking a general sensation with setting description (which I use in an overly sparing manner--I always fear I'll bore people if I spend more than two sentences telling them what anything looks like), happy in the knowledge that people will get the right general concept even if they're picturing it differently. But solid things? I want to explain them properly!

...but I'm a writer, not an engineer. No diagrams are involved in the process of this book, except for a few scraps of paper I used to contemplate borders and geography. So I'm just going to have to settle for getting the feel close enough.

And seriously reconsider using childhood memories for writing projects in the future, because, sheesh. Talk about unnecessary extra work.