Am I blogging...or am I pitching my existence?
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| High Concept Am I blogging...or am I pitching my existence? |
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Saturday, September 20, 2003 The Pitch: It's like The Grind meets The Conformist! Work is excruciatingly dull today, although at least it's being merciful enough to go quickly. Edi and her siblings are on a quick overnight trip to see the parent tonight, which means I've got a free dance card. Said dance card will be filled, I expect, with dinner out of a can, video games, and an early night. This is where others might mewl about how couplehood has tamed them, but that was my idea of a good Saturday long before I met Edi. Working in the bar through college made me savor any Friday or Saturday night not spent jammed up against strangers, and I guess in many ways my preference, particularly after the long work day, is go and be brainfried.Work was pleasantly busy up until I went to lunch, and has been blissfully quiet since I got back. That means I've had a few hours to just surf about the Net, simper in the un-air conditioned heat, and think about NaNoWriMo which, as of today, is exactly six weeks away. Less than that, in some ways, as I have to write the people on the mailing list and try to recruit at least one or two new people and figure out what I'm going to write and, more importantly, how. The first year I did NaNoWriMo, there was such a short amount of time between when I found out about it and when it started, I don't think I had time to second-guess anything. I had a few ideas, but mainly a few tricks. I would give characters variations on the same name, so I could write about whichever one I wanted, when I wanted. I figured out how to put monkeys in there. I had a loose theory what I wanted the story to be about. It turned out chaotically, to put it lightly. I didn't go back and finish some unfinished sections. I rapidly lost the plot. I wrote about whatever was around me, just to keep writing. And even though it was just a tremendous fuckin' mess, it turned out far better than I thought it would. And, from what I can tell, far better than last year's novel. Last year's novel was a novel I'd been wanting to write for a long, long time. I thought I knew everything about it--it was practically going to be like writing from an outline, for Christ's sake. And I swore I would tell the story in linear fashion, with only one set of characters, and only the slightest out (a piece of fiction within the fiction). And I did it--but I barely finished in time, and I was unpleased with the results, and I still haven't pieced it all together. The first novel was like declaring "I will now shit a turd," and somehow pooping out a little fire truck. The second novel was like saying, "Thus, I create life!" and vomiting old placenta into a desk drawer I vowed never to open again. Kara Platoni, a terrific writer and one of the people on my NaNo list, was similarly disappointed in hers. "Sophomore slump," she said, the last time we discussed it. "Yeah!" I agreed. "Yeah, exactly!" By which I mean, yeah, maybe. I can see how never having written a novel before (except for a few very short, very desperate attempts) gave me a ton of things I had never said, a lifetime of stored-up observations and so, like the band whose first album is made up of all the sure-fire hits they've accrued, one or two at a time, over all their previous years, I had nowhere to go but down. But considering the crappy novel I didn't write last year got much more attention and acclaim than the one I did, maybe I just did things wrong. Maybe I really need to sit down without a goal other than keeping myself at the table, rather than an idea of a novel already established in my forebrain and demanding creation. Maybe I can't write about things I've already thought of, just things I think of while I write them. Or maybe it's the other way around. Cad that I am, I actually haven't read anyone's novels from last year. But the most successful of them appear to be novels written by people who sat down with outlines first and knew where they were going. Not like my vague plans of last year. A real map, one developed in enough time to see where my weaknesses will be, and research my way out of them. A part of me (a very big part of me) thinks that's what I should be doing: There's the map. There's the destination. But part of me also wants to see if I can recapture that glorious ephemeral joy of squatting down and going: Hey, look! A fire truck! I don't know. I'm still trying to figure it out. I should probably do it soon, though. November's not getting any closer. posted by Jeff Lester | 6:08 PM | |
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