What I worked on this week: Whoooooo-boy. Okay. SO. As you know, I’ve been chunking away on the novel rewrite (draft 3) for the past several months. But on Thursday, I did a deep-dive review session with the absolutely fabulous Maria Dahvana Headley to look at the plot and structure and see why I kept running up against a wall. AND…there’s some work to do. Don’t get me wrong: I’m excited to do the work, but it’s some deep, core stuff, and I’m going to have to dig deep to get this book where it needs to go. But her notes were super insightful, so I’m not flying blind on next steps. I’m intimidated by the sheer amount of work but motivated to nail it, and honestly suspect this will make the book *really* freaking cool. SO. That’s where that’s at, but it’s also ground Draft 3 to a hard halt, and I need to do some serious ground-laying before jumping back into drafting. See “what I’m working on next week” to get an idea of next steps.
What’s inspiring me this week: I’ve been digging deep into House of Leaves, which I have been enjoying the heck out of so far. In fact, if you like POOLS, you’ll probably really like House of Leaves, too–at least the beginning has a very similar vibe.
I’ve also been reading Middlemarch, and that’s been a great wind-down book to jump in and out of at night before bed. I’m also trying to pay close attention to how George Elliot motivates her characters–the physical actions vs. the internal need.
See, I think I’ve always struggled with the visual metaphor of “putting your character in a tree and throwing rocks at him,” or the more vague “your character’s need should drive everything they do.” All of this is correct, but my brain doesn’t push those things together well. I think I much more naturally (and without thinking about it much) build character’s deeper desires/needs into them, but what I really struggle with is the SURFACE problems, the physical tasks and forward motion they need to take. I think I’ve always run up against character “goals” too, because those are often more the surface problem solutions (“I want to make a bazillion dollars, so no one can look down on me again!” vs. “I want to be rich, because, actually, I want to be loved for who I am.”<–that second one is where my brain goes, but it’s really hard to build a plot off that, especially if the character doesn’t *really* know what they need (and how often do any of us really, honestly have that kind of self-insight?).)
And sometimes I fall back on the (false) idea that classic literature doesn’t “do” plot (even though I consciously know it’s not true)–hell, even Martin Eden wants to become a genius writer so he can impress his lady crush, only to achieve that (famous writer: check!) and realize that his education had outstripped the girl and her family, and he realizes only now that they’re actually pretty dumb and boring, thus ruining his surface-goal of getting the girl.
I’m not sure why my brain struggles to connect these two things. I’ve done it successfully before, but I really have to force myself to think of the concrete goal a character thinks they want. Maybe they do want that, maybe they only think they do, but that concrete DO/GET X to FEEL/ACHIEVE Y is something my brain likes to skip over. But I can’t deny that it makes better stories, and the internal revelations are a hell of a lot more interesting when they’re developing and blooming in the background of characters doing stuff. So I will continue to practice that!
What I’m working on next week: SO. Here we are. The novel-in-progress. First things first, I don’t want to lose the momentum and energy my meeting with Maria inspired, so I’m going to be mainlining as much influential media as I can to get in the right plotting headspace. I’m going to watch a LOT of movies, some TV shows, and read a bunch of books that are adjacent to what I need to inform myself about. I probably need to watch 2 movies a week for the next few weeks, and once I get the books I’ve ordered, I’ll have to make a reading/study plan for those, too. INPUT, basically. And taking lots of notes. And brainstorming. And daydreaming.
While I’m in input mode, however, I don’t want to stop generating new work. SO-! Part two of this is that I’ve got a couple stories I need to hammer out (one, thankfully, already plotted), and I may just go nuts on short fiction for the foreseeable future. I’ve got a lot of story notes backlogged from working solely on the novel, so if I can get some of those out and written, that would feel great AND serve the benefit of putting art-distance between me and this current draft.
So that’s where I’m at! Hope your week has gone well!
Onward and upward!