No Real Words
March 26, 2001
7:27 a.m.
They say you can never go home again, and I suppose that's true in real life. Luckily, it doesn't work quite that way on paper, or perhaps I should say on silicon. I say this because I went back and looked at the beginning of the book this morning.   I suppose I should start by saying that I've let the whole thing just sit for the last week or so. I've focused on cleaning up short stories, and I've vegged out on the couch, and I've worked on tax stuff, and I've read a couple issues of magazines I've been behind on. I've played computer games with Brigid. I've done the front end of the business part of the job--that being packaging tales up for the mail. In other words, I've done everything I could do to put a little distance between me and the story I was at one point trying to tell. I would like to say that the idea of finding this space came to me in some zenlike trance wherein the voice said "find thee distance and thou shalt be free to make art," but that would be a boldfaced lie. The truth is closer to the idea that I felt like I was up to my ears in crap, and I wanted to let the sewer clear a bit before going back in. (stated as I walked down the stairs, coffee cup in hand) Rule 1: No Real Words I told myself I wanted to spend an entire morning at the outline level. No matter how much my fingers twitched and ached to add a few sentences here and there, I wanted to look at the story. I wanted to figure out what the heck I was trying to do. This has been my problem, I think. I haven't figured out what I want to do, so every character's story is just kind of wading along and feeling shallow. I blame this on me, of course, but mostly on the laissez-faire attitude I was taking to being productive for the past two months. I kept telling myself that I didn't have to rush things, and so I let myself stop working herd to understand things. I am an artiste, you see, and things just come naturally to artistes such as I. What a jerk, eh? I've learned a valuable lesson through this process though. I've learned I am not an artiste--if such a thing does actually exist. I am a "work the thing into submission" type of a writer. And in the end I guess I kinda like that. So I worked at the outline level. I sat down to plot the primary storyline of each character. You can probably guess what I found. Holes. Vacuum. Story that does not hold together. But I'm feeling pretty good right now. Because now that I'm looking, I also see opportunity. At some level, that was the thing bogging me down. I was missing all my opportunities because I wasn't working hard enough to really find them. I was letting the characters just kind of play around, which I guess is okay for just having fun, but wasn't really being very productive. Today, though, for the first time, I've started plotting the stories of each of my characters. I mean, really plotting. No broad brush strokes. No hand waving. Simple words. He does this because of this. I wish I could say I came out of the morning ready to write tomorrow. Unfortunately, that, too, would be a lie. Instead, I came out of the morning realizing I have a lot more work to do. I mean ... a lot. I may need a new character, even. I need to think a bit more. And I need to finish at least three of the minor character's plotlines (which are so vague right now as to be laughable). What I can say is that I feel like I do when I've been sunburned and it's been a few days and I'm getting to that stage where sheets of skin are starting to peel. Parts are bubbling up and easy to get to, and it's kind of fun to pull on the lifted edges. But still it kind of stings, and there's a whole patch over there that hasn't decided if it's coming up or not. Have a great day--and watch out for that sunburn.  We waited five days for this? Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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