So!
I took monday off. called out sick.
The intention was to get grading and plannning done.
The actuality? Far more exhilarating! I wrote and wrote and wrote like I haven't been able to write in ages! Now please understand that I'm not mistaking quantity for quality here, but at this point writing fluently and cogently for more than a sentence or two is a HUGE victory for me!
It felt good. Understatement. It felt amazing. The scenes were more action-packed and visceral because they were from two very climactic sections of the tale. The climax of present day and a climax from back in the day that sort of sets everything else in motion. I think it was important that the two were pouring out of me simultaneously, because they really have to work in tandem for the balance of the story. The one depends on the other, it is reciprocal.
I like the echoes. I like the repeated language and imagery.
I also wrote the same events from different character perspectives, which is a thing I enjoy doing. It feels like real synthesis is going on.
It was frustrating, at first, trying to write. My fingers were clumsy, my prose sluggish and stiff. I felt dull and moronic and uninspired. But you have to understand that I live with these characters 24/7. When my mind is not completely occupied with pressing and immediate matters, it wanders to one of only a few places.
1st: Sex. Sex with Aaron, sex with women, other pepeople having sex. Sex. The character of my stories having sex...
2nd: Regrets. I spend far too many minutes ruminating and mulling over my various and sundry regrets. Loves lost. Friends gone. Mistakes made in my career. These thoughts are legion. They are, however, blessedly less compelling than the other two cetegories, and so while I frequently default to thinking about regrets & 'should haves' I do not spend long periods at a time at this hobby. Recurring but brief.
3rd: The book. Is it a book? The narrative. The fiction. The story. The project on which I am working at present. In this case (and the case of the last, what, year? two years? who can recall) it is Cedar Falls. Before Cedar Falls it was Henry & Eleanor, before that the lesbian fairytale. There is always a 'before that there was' and I am coming to expect that when I tire of or move on from CF, there will ever be an 'and then there was'. But I spend the majority of my thinking on whatever my current creative project is.
I live with these characters. I breakfast with them, I bathe with them, I dine with them I drive with them I walk and talk and think with them. I cook dinner with them, I daydream with them, I fuck them I fall asleep with them. They are always there, always waiting to be picked up again, toyed with again, tinkered with and tweaked and experimented upon. Not always with the computer! Most of the time just in the old noodle. Or spoken aloud; a scene performed by one actor improvising all the roles. Trying out dialogue. Workshopping the plot, the characterization, the feel, the jokes.
So they are all around; withing without, saturating my brain, sometimes so clamorous and suffocating that I can ahrdly concentrate on anything else.
Monday I was able to finally take some of those theories, those swirling scenes and get them captured, get them down in prose. And I glowed with the release. I was so excited. and happy. And proud.
No grading done. heeheehee.
I am a terrible teacher. But the glow of the writing is making the sting of that truth fairly insignificant :)
I took monday off. called out sick.
The intention was to get grading and plannning done.
The actuality? Far more exhilarating! I wrote and wrote and wrote like I haven't been able to write in ages! Now please understand that I'm not mistaking quantity for quality here, but at this point writing fluently and cogently for more than a sentence or two is a HUGE victory for me!
It felt good. Understatement. It felt amazing. The scenes were more action-packed and visceral because they were from two very climactic sections of the tale. The climax of present day and a climax from back in the day that sort of sets everything else in motion. I think it was important that the two were pouring out of me simultaneously, because they really have to work in tandem for the balance of the story. The one depends on the other, it is reciprocal.
I like the echoes. I like the repeated language and imagery.
I also wrote the same events from different character perspectives, which is a thing I enjoy doing. It feels like real synthesis is going on.
It was frustrating, at first, trying to write. My fingers were clumsy, my prose sluggish and stiff. I felt dull and moronic and uninspired. But you have to understand that I live with these characters 24/7. When my mind is not completely occupied with pressing and immediate matters, it wanders to one of only a few places.
1st: Sex. Sex with Aaron, sex with women, other pepeople having sex. Sex. The character of my stories having sex...
2nd: Regrets. I spend far too many minutes ruminating and mulling over my various and sundry regrets. Loves lost. Friends gone. Mistakes made in my career. These thoughts are legion. They are, however, blessedly less compelling than the other two cetegories, and so while I frequently default to thinking about regrets & 'should haves' I do not spend long periods at a time at this hobby. Recurring but brief.
3rd: The book. Is it a book? The narrative. The fiction. The story. The project on which I am working at present. In this case (and the case of the last, what, year? two years? who can recall) it is Cedar Falls. Before Cedar Falls it was Henry & Eleanor, before that the lesbian fairytale. There is always a 'before that there was' and I am coming to expect that when I tire of or move on from CF, there will ever be an 'and then there was'. But I spend the majority of my thinking on whatever my current creative project is.
I live with these characters. I breakfast with them, I bathe with them, I dine with them I drive with them I walk and talk and think with them. I cook dinner with them, I daydream with them, I fuck them I fall asleep with them. They are always there, always waiting to be picked up again, toyed with again, tinkered with and tweaked and experimented upon. Not always with the computer! Most of the time just in the old noodle. Or spoken aloud; a scene performed by one actor improvising all the roles. Trying out dialogue. Workshopping the plot, the characterization, the feel, the jokes.
So they are all around; withing without, saturating my brain, sometimes so clamorous and suffocating that I can ahrdly concentrate on anything else.
Monday I was able to finally take some of those theories, those swirling scenes and get them captured, get them down in prose. And I glowed with the release. I was so excited. and happy. And proud.
No grading done. heeheehee.
I am a terrible teacher. But the glow of the writing is making the sting of that truth fairly insignificant :)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment