Icky day with Husband*, got lost (couple of times), got stuck in traffic, two hours spent in transit one way. By the time we got there we had no time to actually be anywhere we tried to go.  But do to extreme boredom while trapped in car,  I did manage to work on my writing a bit.  I am trying to make some of the changes suggested by reading How to Write a Damn Good Novel 2.  I was pleased to have immediately seen where and how I could apply some of them to what I already had going on. But as I worked on it, I was a bit surprised by my own resistance. I've read my work, there is no drive forward, no suspense; it would seem logical seeing this need, to supply it.  But, but....in so doing the tone is different.  It was light before, flitting above the surface, mellow and calm.  It had a certain kind of poetry to it, soft breeze. If I make these changes (a colder more tumultuous wind, that bandies one about a bit), then the whole mood changes; which part of me realizes is necessary and the rest of me is throwing a fit against.  I wrote down the changes, and worked on the scenes, but it is all still on separate pieces of paper. I am hesitant to step fully into a different version of my story. Hesitant to surrender calmer weather, for more storms, in the hopes that someone will turn a page.

 

(*husband himself is generally not icky)

 In my last post, I forgot to mention that (getting distracted along my way to making a point as usual), later that day, I read an email from the local writer's guild, and for our annual conference, James. N. Frey (not the guy who wrote a million little pieces) will be the keynote speaker.  So having just been inspired by him, I am now really looking forward to this conference. 

 The bad news is I am already behind today with getting my workout done.  The good news, the reason is because I was writing, adding more to a scene in Echo.  Finally, finally I am writing again.  And I don't just mean plunking my butt down in a chair, and staying there till I get nice long strings of words on a page (though that is the most important part); I mean thinking about the story and writing in my head, when I am brushing my teeth, and driving the car.  Story has come back to weave in and out of my every day life again. Little whisperings.  Perhaps then there really might be a writer someplace inside me.  Hopefully I can stay attuned to this, and keep working, and learn new ways of working, so I can bring my life closer to a time, when I can know she is there, and be that writer.

As usual time is flying by.  October, really?  I've set this month down for getting back to work, aka editing.  I was sitting in my car today, in the public library parking lot, reading an overdue book.  I was trying to get as much of it read as I could and drop it in the overnight bin, before the library opened, increasing the amount I owed.  I got halfway through, sorta sad really when you consider I hadn't managed to read any of it in the three weeks (or was it 6?) that I had it at home.  The reason for my mentioning it at all is, it was James N Frey's, How to Write a Damn Good Novel 2.  And I understood it, and it made sense to me, and I actually felt inspired (to fix my mistakes, and develop new skills). Which is quite a feat as nothing else I have read, in trying to learn how to edit, has done that.  I think I actually understand the why and how of my lacking suspense, and I feel like I may be able to create it, or at least now I know how to try to.  So to me, internally, sitting in a library parking lot today, was a great big deal.  The rusty cobwebbed cogs are turning!  Go gears go.  The whimsical me is all set to go dreaming again.  And the worker to forge a path by hacking away the underbrush and overgrowth.  October, what I need during thee is to believe.