Unfolding the First Piece of the Map

Yesterday

Awake and working by 6:30 a.m. I didn't think I'd be writing/revising for a while now, but after a couple of hours of note making, I finally have a plan. I basically had to pick one layer of the story and work on it--establishing character relationships, figuring out the back story, knowing what happened in my character's lives before the story began. In the brief description of my novel to the right of this blog, there is mention of a family in decline. I'm working on that now.

Tempting, it is, to want to go to the Georgia Historical Society and research old families, see what I can find. I may do that. I want to. But I'm not writing historical fiction; the entire plot is set in 2006-2007, the era of a most recent art market boom. But a family in focus is one of longstanding Savannah residence. They are not, in any way, a suggestion or a symbol or an illusion of an actual Savannah family. So I don't want people getting confused, thinking I'm making a plot out of the So-And-So's misfortune. Not that I care what anyone thinks.

I don't. But you knew that already, didn't you?

In a couple of hours, I figured out what to change and how to make this work (at least for the next phase of this novel). I finally have a map. Now all I need is to do the work.

Today

I set my alarm for 6:30 again but that didn't happen. Try quarter of 8. Anyways, I'm awake now and it's a quarter to 9 and all I've done is get dressed, make coffee and write this irrelevant blog post. I was supposed to get something done. After work I've got to rush home and shower and get pretty for my date. We're going to the Gallery Hop tonight.

A Cupcake and Tartt

Right now, what I need is a little pick-me-up. Sugar. Cinnamon cupcake (sponsored by Emily), organic raspberries.

I am hopefully going to have a long, productive night of working. Sometimes, when I fret about the crawling progress, I think about being in college--at art school, and remember how I would pack things into the day--eating overlapping with class and homework and how I'd switch frantically back and forth between reading and writing and so on... I was sacrificing sleep. I should sacrifice more sleep. Sleep?

I can't believe how much I don't know about my characters... This doesn't sound very promising, but I'm working on it. I should probably really know them, having written the damn thing (or, at least a draft of it) BUT like I said... I'm working on it.

Also, I need to be reading. While I let my own characters wander around in my head I flick through pages of novels that I've read and want to read again, literary gems of our time--Donna Tartt's The Little Friend in particular. I don't think I've ever read a better novel. It has everything. Character, setting, plot, suspense, theme and motif on and on. At mention of her work years ago in the classroom, one of my former professors shuttered. He said, "That is the book that almost made me stop writing," as he feared he could never write so perfectly.

Long ago I read somewhere that it took Tartt ten years (or something wild) to write this book. I was unaware of her before the publication of The Little Friend. But her debut novel, The Secret History was a sensational introduction (she was young, hooked up by undergrad buddy Bret Easton Ellis, publishers went back and forth at war over her copy, her agent, Amanda Urban, is literary royalty...) The novels are very different. I think the second one to be much better and though people complained about the wait--I'm guilty, also, of wishing her along with a third--I think it's important to note that sometimes time does make a valuable difference. If an author really spends time with a book, and lets the novel take both the writer and the reader where it needs to go... These things don't just happen over night. I'd be foolish to think my first copy was my final copy. That I could stop now, that it is finished.

Certainly not.

Although I hope it doesn't take me ten years BUT AT THE RATE I'M MOVING--"MOVING" IT JUST MIGHT.

A Course of its Own

Having only written Draft 1, and prepairing the outline for Draft 2, I feel like the novel is ready to take a course of its own. Finally. The characters are now really becoming their own characters, not reflections and guesswork of their inspirers. I see glimpses of plot, new scenes that didn't originally exist. We are wondering further and further away from the origins of inspiration. I don't fear it; I think it's good. This novel isn't about me, anyway. This book is about an artist and a family and the city of Savannah. This novel is about a painting.

There is still so much more for me to figure out. I am hoping to do some serious work on it tonight to bring these new scenes, and eventually a reconstructed outline, to life.

--Harold Rosenberg

"At a certain moment the canvas began to appear to one American painter after another as an arena in which to act... What was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event."

Slowly Avoiding That Category

In the past few months, I've been reading more and more industry (MY industry, so writing and publishing and visual arts) blogs. I can't believe the vast majority of blogs pertaining to writing novels are all about the publishing process and little to nothing is actually said about writing. While I think it's a little boring to write about writing (my blog not excluded--and that's about to change), and the author risks giving instructions or sounding too schooled... I think what a lot of people miss is the soul purpose of the craft--that is, to write a really good book. Something that fills the heart and inspires the reader. Instead we are very concerned about whether self publishing or a publishing house will make us rich and famous. I'm interested in publishing because it's something that I one day want for my work, but I'm mostly concerned with the writing. I mean... the state of my novel, how good it is... it is what matters most. So I really hope I don't get caught up in the potential glitz and inevitable headache that is publishing and marketing and mass appeal. Nor do I wish to adapt some graduate school micro-audience over-workshopped state of mind, the kind where I think I am above publication/a general audience.

And anyways, now is not the time to be considering this. I don't care what you have to say about it. Between all the day job and cupcakes and kisses and sleeping and errands I've got to do, isn't it more than enough just to ask for a little time to PLOT the fucking thing? Please? For the moment, I can't drink coffee so unless I can exercise or otherwise get some energy tonight after work, I'm useless.

A New Direction

I think this blog is boring. No, really. I understand some of you are very interested in my process, but the process of writing a novel (at least, for me) is intimate and internal and doesn't translate well via blog (because if it did, I'd be telling too much information). What this reduces down to is a lot of me griping about not having enough time.

So. I think I'm going to just start blogging about art because those are the posts (albeit, few and far between) that really get me excited. Or maybe I'll write about other, seemingly unrelated things. I think it goes without saying but I have a lot of confidence in my writing-- I'm just not interested in updating a boring blog. Writing about writing... isn't really for me.

Sleep, Work and Updating the Outline

Not enough time!

Seriously, never enough hours in the day. I wish my body didn't require so much sleep, I'd probably get more things accomplished. (Actually, it would be great if I could just nix the day job. I mean... if I have to sacrifice 8 hours...)

BUT I've had lots of good ideas today.

I have finally begun to rework my outline for Draft 2. So exciting. I'm really happy to be at work again and while I haven't finished the outline yet (I've shifted and cut and added and worked my way to point 12 on what was originally a 79 point outline) I'm making a lot of progress. Wishing I had more energy to work tonight. Once I redraft this working outline, I'll go back into the copy and rewrite the manuscript for Draft 2. There's some reading and research that needs to be done. A couple of books to buy. Lots and lots of work (read: love).

Yawn.

Okay, goodnight.