March 24, 2006

Nine days in

Sky’s red and it’s snowing again, all quiet and secret-like, like it thought I wouldn’t notice. It’s not blowing hard and the flakes have tried to make themselves as unnoticeable as possible. You can only tell they’re coming down in the orangish light of a back porch or the rare suburban street lamp.

I’m overdue for bed- got to get up early to write. Seems that’s the best time to get this novel business out of the way. Glad I figured that out early. Otherwise, I’d be up till two or three, suffering through the useless paragraphs, the inert dialogue. I’m nine days in, and a few thousand words behind, but still chugging along.

I’ve noted that the particular envy with which I’ve regarded anyone who has created anything. I’m obviously a frustrated artist. That’s the stock response- jealousy of anyone who gets published, aired, wins a fight, makes it on screen. Damn it, I could do that, I tell myself.

But trying to create something makes you appreciate anyone in the same medium - that is anyone who does it right. Suddenly prose takes on a whole new edge… it’s crisper, clearer, more evocative. The subtle nuances of language reveal themselves to me… or rather they glimmer in the distance, like a soda fountain in the middle of Death Valley.

The creative process also seems to evoke fantastic schemes for avoidance. Suddenly I’m inspired to study fashion, interior design, Cascading Style Sheets. I’m not kidding. I’ve already imagined two different lines of clothing, a highly modular living space, and several potential layouts for my website(s).

Now if I could work this mad creativity into the plot, and somehow make my characters real- that would be the accomplishment of the month.

But as Hemingway has said (and you know that quoting Hemingway gives me some sort of literary caché), “All first drafts are shit,” and it’s true that there ain’t much to this draft. Hell, I don’t think I even want to read it.

Oddly, the morning work on the novel makes me want to pick up on about five other writing projects I’ve left hanging, plus the 20-odd blog entries that I’ve got ideas for, photographs for, or have written snippets of.

But I’m moving slowly, trying not to overwhelm myself, making sure that the hands do other things- like wash dishes, stretch, massage the aching muscles of others.

Sometimes one of the best thing you can do is make a wish. Wishing for things somehow forces them to materialize. I don’t know how this works. There are some theories on this actually… the theories of Synchronicity. Science aside… I wish I could wrap up this plot by the 15th of April. I wish I could create some real sense of flesh and emotion in my core characters. And I wish that whoever reads the thing comes away with it with the feeling that I get after reading O’Brien, Thom Jones, Didion, Allison, Gibson or McCarthy.