Novel Thoughts
So, like, i'm writing a novel ... LOLOLOLOL. I KNOW!!! It's hilarious. Me, a writer. Who woulda thunk, huh? Certainly not my english teacher, who taught me that i dont know how to write. Stupid woman. I believed her for a good long while, until i met dh. One of the first things he said to me was that i should write (having read some of my stuff). No one had ever said that. Ever. And i didnt believe him. I thought it was a come on. What he was really saying, is i want your body and i'll saying anything to get it. ;)
Ok, but that's ridiculous because i really just didnt believe him. It's the last thing you could say to me to get my body ... but I was flattered. So i guess it worked. But by then he already had my body, so he had no incentive to flatter. Besides that, he is not a flatterer.
Anyway, it took 10 years for me to finally come around and pen something. Actually, me and dh once wrote a draft of an episode of the X-Files. Major fans, we once were, until Mulder left. Then we did too. Anyway, that was so much fun writing between me and him.
But i'm digressing from what i really came to talk about .... rant about. Welllll, i just finished an awesome novel by Lisa Kleypas. You know what was so good about it? The fact that it kept me reading it from the moment i picked it up. It was an entertaining read. Not dark or dreary or sad. That's what i want to write. That's what i wrote, in fact. And now it suddenly occurred to me, what's the point? If Lisa Kleypas is already doing an awesome job of writing stuff i like, why do i need to come in and reiterate the same point? How positively unoriginal. Booooring.
I'm just so disappointed and stuck. I have a major case of writer's block. I want to finish editing my novel, but then i have to make the mistake of reading something good, and it's like, why bother? Huh? I always knew i couldnt write. My stupid english teacher thought so. What does dh know anyway? He cant possibly know what he's talking about ... even though he went to the top journalism school in the country. But still, i know he just wants to get into my pants.
Ok, i'm feeling sort of deflated today about my writing. A good read can do that. It's like, well, if good novels actually do exist, there's no need for me to attempt to save the world from drivel and mediocrity (emphasis on attempt).
What i need is to go back to the basics, starting with chapter one--aka, Suckity Suck Chapter 1. Good grief, everytime i think it's ready, i come back to it months later and find it horrific. ACK!!!! Who wrote this?! It makes me want to go right up to dh and say Seeeeeeeeeeeeeee, this sucks. And you said i could write! Ha! Well, you're wrong, mister. You've been wrong all these years. And it makes me wonder, what else you been wrong about? Huh? Huh, huh, huh? (gasping with dawning realization) You've been wrong about loving me too! I knew it. You cant love me. How could you anyway, i suck!
... ooookay. Now that that little self-flagellating rant is over and out of my system, maybe i can move onto to the real business of my writer's block. I wrote my novel because i really enjoyed the writing process. It's not about getting published at this point. It's about the creative process, which i enjoy. And i enjoy it the more i work on it because it does get easier ... no, let me rephrase that. The frustrations of writing become more manageable while the joy of it becomes less infrequent. I live for those moments where i'm totally involved in what i'm doing, time stands still and i am like michael jordan with an endless stream of 3 point shots. And for that moment, i am happy.
But it's so very hard to stay in that moment because my analytical mind will want to step in to make calculations about how long that happiness will last and when i need to brace myself for the let down that inevitably ensues.
I need to give my analytical mind a vacation. And when that happens, i can finish my novel without worry or fear because in the end, i just want the story to click to my satisfaction. You know that feeling you get from proving a geometry problem or answering a math problem correctly? That feeling of being right? I know it because i majored in math. So many times i would solve a problem and check it at the back of the book against the correct answer and get that click of being right. Eventually it becomes instinctive. I know when all the pieces of my novel have fallen together exactly the way i imagined it when i get that click.
There's a scene in Cat On a Hot Tin Roof, wherein Paul Newman's character cant stand the lies and fakeness, the mendacity of his life, including his wife, who he suspects of lying about having an affair. So he starts drinking. And the only time he begins to feel better is when that click goes off in his mind. I guess liquor silences the screaming contradictions of people in his mind. He wants that momentary bliss you can get from being totally inebrietated. It's a temporary bliss made worse by the terrible short and long term consequences--hangover and addiction. But at least for that moment, he's happy--still, for the wrong reasons to my mind. But his character will take the feeling of happiness for any reason at any cost.
But i think that click of peace, satisfaction, or bliss is achievable with the right reasons, without the short lived, high price of intoxicants. It's much much harder to achieve. Requires unflappable discipline. I've only felt it in fleeting half moments that i stumble upon by complete accident. But still, i believe.
And now i'm aware of them and i'm aware of attempting to string more and more of those moments together.
And that's what i want my novel to do. I'm waiting for my novel to click from beginning to end. And when it does, then i'll know it's finished. But in the meantime, it's like playing your masterpiece, your opus, with an untried assembly of musicians. Someone is playing out of tune, but you're not skilled enough to catch it. So you have to play it again, tweek something else and see if that corrects the twang in your mind's hearing.
Chapter one has been twanging off key for the longest time.
I should take music lessons. Maybe that'll stop the twanging. Or, at the very least, i could learn to compose an opus and call it The Clickity Cluck of Suckity Suck.
Jude
Ok, but that's ridiculous because i really just didnt believe him. It's the last thing you could say to me to get my body ... but I was flattered. So i guess it worked. But by then he already had my body, so he had no incentive to flatter. Besides that, he is not a flatterer.
Anyway, it took 10 years for me to finally come around and pen something. Actually, me and dh once wrote a draft of an episode of the X-Files. Major fans, we once were, until Mulder left. Then we did too. Anyway, that was so much fun writing between me and him.
But i'm digressing from what i really came to talk about .... rant about. Welllll, i just finished an awesome novel by Lisa Kleypas. You know what was so good about it? The fact that it kept me reading it from the moment i picked it up. It was an entertaining read. Not dark or dreary or sad. That's what i want to write. That's what i wrote, in fact. And now it suddenly occurred to me, what's the point? If Lisa Kleypas is already doing an awesome job of writing stuff i like, why do i need to come in and reiterate the same point? How positively unoriginal. Booooring.
I'm just so disappointed and stuck. I have a major case of writer's block. I want to finish editing my novel, but then i have to make the mistake of reading something good, and it's like, why bother? Huh? I always knew i couldnt write. My stupid english teacher thought so. What does dh know anyway? He cant possibly know what he's talking about ... even though he went to the top journalism school in the country. But still, i know he just wants to get into my pants.
Ok, i'm feeling sort of deflated today about my writing. A good read can do that. It's like, well, if good novels actually do exist, there's no need for me to attempt to save the world from drivel and mediocrity (emphasis on attempt).
What i need is to go back to the basics, starting with chapter one--aka, Suckity Suck Chapter 1. Good grief, everytime i think it's ready, i come back to it months later and find it horrific. ACK!!!! Who wrote this?! It makes me want to go right up to dh and say Seeeeeeeeeeeeeee, this sucks. And you said i could write! Ha! Well, you're wrong, mister. You've been wrong all these years. And it makes me wonder, what else you been wrong about? Huh? Huh, huh, huh? (gasping with dawning realization) You've been wrong about loving me too! I knew it. You cant love me. How could you anyway, i suck!
... ooookay. Now that that little self-flagellating rant is over and out of my system, maybe i can move onto to the real business of my writer's block. I wrote my novel because i really enjoyed the writing process. It's not about getting published at this point. It's about the creative process, which i enjoy. And i enjoy it the more i work on it because it does get easier ... no, let me rephrase that. The frustrations of writing become more manageable while the joy of it becomes less infrequent. I live for those moments where i'm totally involved in what i'm doing, time stands still and i am like michael jordan with an endless stream of 3 point shots. And for that moment, i am happy.
But it's so very hard to stay in that moment because my analytical mind will want to step in to make calculations about how long that happiness will last and when i need to brace myself for the let down that inevitably ensues.
I need to give my analytical mind a vacation. And when that happens, i can finish my novel without worry or fear because in the end, i just want the story to click to my satisfaction. You know that feeling you get from proving a geometry problem or answering a math problem correctly? That feeling of being right? I know it because i majored in math. So many times i would solve a problem and check it at the back of the book against the correct answer and get that click of being right. Eventually it becomes instinctive. I know when all the pieces of my novel have fallen together exactly the way i imagined it when i get that click.
There's a scene in Cat On a Hot Tin Roof, wherein Paul Newman's character cant stand the lies and fakeness, the mendacity of his life, including his wife, who he suspects of lying about having an affair. So he starts drinking. And the only time he begins to feel better is when that click goes off in his mind. I guess liquor silences the screaming contradictions of people in his mind. He wants that momentary bliss you can get from being totally inebrietated. It's a temporary bliss made worse by the terrible short and long term consequences--hangover and addiction. But at least for that moment, he's happy--still, for the wrong reasons to my mind. But his character will take the feeling of happiness for any reason at any cost.
But i think that click of peace, satisfaction, or bliss is achievable with the right reasons, without the short lived, high price of intoxicants. It's much much harder to achieve. Requires unflappable discipline. I've only felt it in fleeting half moments that i stumble upon by complete accident. But still, i believe.
And now i'm aware of them and i'm aware of attempting to string more and more of those moments together.
And that's what i want my novel to do. I'm waiting for my novel to click from beginning to end. And when it does, then i'll know it's finished. But in the meantime, it's like playing your masterpiece, your opus, with an untried assembly of musicians. Someone is playing out of tune, but you're not skilled enough to catch it. So you have to play it again, tweek something else and see if that corrects the twang in your mind's hearing.
Chapter one has been twanging off key for the longest time.
I should take music lessons. Maybe that'll stop the twanging. Or, at the very least, i could learn to compose an opus and call it The Clickity Cluck of Suckity Suck.
Jude
posted by Fertile Soul at
5:42 PM
1 Comments:
I know exactly what you mean about the "clicks" - in writing as well as in life. Sometimes I'll get a feeling that everything is right in that very moment in space and time. And then it goes away. But when you've written something that clicks it generally stays "clicked."
Good for you for pursuing your writing and for listening when someone says you should write.
By
Lori, at 1:44 PM
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