The guts
After a few days away, I’ve returned to the hashed out chapter summaries and the manuscript itself. I’ve noticed a couple of things.
I think the chapter summaries are done, at least in the short term. If I get an opportunity to do so I’ll post an image of a page here, like I did with the handwritten version.
The trick now is to look at the 150 or so already written pages and see where they fit into the new plan, what needs changing, and what needs to be truly scrapped. For a while there I was entertaining completely re-writing the novel, but when I look at the already written stuff, there’s nothing wrong with it. Besides I much prefer editing pages filled with text than staring at a black screen. That’s freaking scary.
Read MoreAlmost Perfect Metaphor
Completely irrelevant, but I have to reporoduce the lyrics of this song from 69 Love Songs by The Magnetic Fields simply because I like it. Sixty-nine Love Songs is a ridiculously long record I’ve been spinning a bit lately. I’d love to slip a few almost perfect metaphors like these into the novel:
Read MoreA pretty girl is like a minstrel show
It makes you laugh
It makes you cry
You go
It just isn’t the same on radio
It’s all about the makeup and the dancing
and the Oh,A pretty girl is like a violent crime
If you do it wrong you could do time
but if you do it right it is sublimeI’m so in love with you, girl,
it’s like I’m on the moon
I can’t really breathe, but I feel lighterA melody is like a pretty girl
Who cares if it’s
the dumbest in the world
It’s all about the way that it unfurlsA pretty girl is like a pretty girl
Unreliable narrator
See? My capacity for unreliability knows no bounds. It’s probably a good time to note that this novel will contain a narrator as unreliable I am at blogging. In some ways I don’t want to reveal too much now, it’s still early days, but try if you will to imagine the kind of medical condition that would render a narrator completely unreliable, even to himself.
I am fan of the the unreliable narrator. Most people familiar with my work will know I owe a huge debt to American author Kurt Vonnegut, I flog from his body of work frequently. It’s not a popular novel of his, but I’m still heavily influenced by Slapstick, or Lonesome No More. Wilbur Swain, the narrator of that story is very old, very strange, and dying. He is the President of United States. He also has a habit of saying “Hi ho,” all the time. He even promises at one point to cross out all the “hi ho”s id he manages to finish the book (a clue to how the book turns out as it happens). I’d like to think I could write something as good as Slapstick.
My character, for now known only as F, is not the President of the United States. In fact he’s not anyone of significance. That’s kind of his thing, being insignificant. In some ways, this novel is about families, about what happens when a family pursues a goal for one member to the exclusion of all else. F is the hapless sibling left behind while his entire world focuses on his sister, but he doesn’t mind that. He’s focused on her too. How could he not. His sister has been the family’s project all his life.
It’s starting to sound like a pitch. I’ll stop there. More details will follow when I get around to posting them.
Read MoreAfter a short hiatus
Here I am again. I’m almost at the end of my current read, Yellow Dog by Martin Amis, a fact that has embarrassed me into heaving myself out of the humidity and back to the keyboard. A quick reassessment will follow. I may even post later tonight with some results. But don’t wait for it.
Read MoreReply to Raven
I attempted to reply to a comment about using blog entries as a part of the text of the novel, but it got out of hand, so I figured it should be a blog entry on its own. I should insert a disclaimer here: I have no idea what I’m talking about. Enjoy!
Thanks, Raven. The possibilities are juicy, I agree. It’s the practicalities that concern me. Appreciate your comments about it though, generally reflects what I’ve been thinking about it. I’m thinking about making a complete break between the blog as presented in the text of the novel and the blog as discovered by the character in the story’s world.
Does that make sense?
It may even be an interesting aspect to the story – the character discovers something but doesn’t tell you, the reader, about it. You get to read the same text as the character at the rate I set.
Okay now I’m really confused. How is it that I can confuse myself?
I am certain this whole thing may be frustrating, so it has to be handled delicately, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about writing: no matter how cool you think an idea is, if it annoys readers, it’s dead in the water.
Read MoreThe Books
