Pragmatic and Cool

I am sitting up in bed now with kitties--Julip laying almost on my MacBook and Lady snoozing at the edge of the bed. I was hoping to work more on my article. Normally, I don't care very much about the quality of my freelance work. Oftentimes, when you write for a magazine, your voice is watered down to match that of publication... But this time, I happen to care a whole lot about what this artist thinks of my writing. He's an artist that I admire and besides the fact that he's adorable he's really very talented and has a huge sense of community. It's inspiring. I want this piece to be good but I have zero motivation to work on it. Whenever I open the document, I race through my work, incapable of composing an outline or staying on track with notes, thinking only hurry hurry hurry, as I'm running out of time--Draft 1 of my novel must be finished soon.

The truth is I really have a lot of writing to do in order to complete my book. Well, the first draft. And then the real work begins. It's beginning to bloom--through its faults, its strengths, I believe in this story more now than I ever have. There are some changes that must take place. I'm gambling on some of my larger techniques--the multi-character narratives, the third person writing that opens and closes the book. Its unusual and I wonder, will it work? It's not as if it's so avant garde or far fetched. It simply isn't practical, to lead the reader through third, through a variety of alternating firsts, and back again to third. But the transitions are really quite pleasant. I just want to know if it actually works.

I prefer to write in third. But I'm nearly at a point where I can't see the novel being any other way--this first person POV thing (that's not to say I won't make appropriate changes if need be--I most certainly will. What works for the novel works for me.) I love writing in Cameron's voice, and in Danny's and Dalton's and Ren's. It's strange and sometimes startling, the way some characters turn out. I never would have expected Ren to be so dry and indifferent. Certainly bitchy. And Cameron--Cameron I knew from the start. She is easy going and chill. The word "cool" best describes her--cool in the sense that she is pragmatic and casual, easy to accept. She is fearlessly dedicated to her medium.

Because I've been sitting down to work on freelance, and accidentally working on my novel, I've been writing random scenes from the outline. Not staying in order. This has something to do with the amount of research required to accurately write the scene I am supposed to be writing now. But there is a lecture on Tuesday at Desoto Row gallery that I'll be attending, in effort to learn more of the business side of things. I don't know if it will give me exactly what I need, but it sounds insightful.

Until then, I'm writing away at whatever strikes me: an image of Cameron standing on the sun struck sidewalk across the street from Forsyth Park, or in a waiting room, sketching a likeness of a woman beside her, frantic phone calls between characters made late at night, stretches of dialogue. It comforts me to know I'm making progress.

What I want more than anything is to lend myself entirely to the task. If I could write and write and not go to work or dinner or any other little errand that takes me away from my story... If I could just write and write...

Soon.