Tag: #Novel

  • Admitting Truth, and Novel Chapters

    There are a few things I think is best to just to admit to myself, and you while I’m at it…

    One is that I love reading crap on the internet, and going down rabbit holes that eat up about 30 minutes at a time. When I make this mistake, I swear to myself that I will never do it again, and then about an hour later, I’m right back at looking stupid crap, eating up valuable time.

    Two is that I hate our health insurance system. I especially hate how dental insurance runs a completely different type of insurance scam that is somehow legal. (So, I pay monthly for dental insurance, but it covers nothing?) I have never had a good experience with health insurance, and I never will.

    Three is that I keep debating if I really like doing the work of writing, or if I like the idea of doing the work of writing, and I may never come to a true conclusion and that will haunt me for the rest of my life.

    You can see how my day has been going.

    The last major project I need to work on today is the novel. Sadly, as I was journaling earlier today, and I find myself stuck in a corner that I have created when it comes to the novel. I have three decent chapters for the “first act” of the book, but I feel like I have run out of gas. I know where the protagonist needs to be at the start of the “second act” but I am have trouble getting him there, or even seeing how he will get there. The best I could come up with today was to just write as much of the first act as possible, and then when stuck, just start the second act, and see what happens.

    I have to keep reminding myself that this is a first draft and that it won’t be perfect. I keep having so much trouble accepting that as the truth.

    Ah…

    Four, my first draft will be terrible and that is okay.

  • Steal That Time to Write

    Last night I was able to get about 500+ words done on the novel. (My goal is 1,000 words a day, but that might be too ambitious.) I had to steal moments to get it done while I was making dinner. The brussel sprouts were sautéing, and I added a paragraph; that sort of thing. It was very scattered, but I am trying to finish a first draft; it doesn’t have to be perfect.

    It reminded me a conversation I had with a playwright friend of mine about setting aside time to write. He is a married father of two, both kids under 10. He is a stay at home dad, but that position does not afford him any additional time to write, as any stay at home parent would tell you.

    What my friend told me was that before kids, he wrote anytime he felt like it. Now, as a stay at home parent, he had moved into a system of taking notes when an idea hit him, and then having to find the time in his schedule to write out the idea. He actually felt it made him a better writer. As he told me, he might only have one hour to work a day, so he knew that if wanted to get his idea accomplished, he had to focus and use every minute of that hour.

    Not that I am at that point, but I am beginning to find this to be solid advice.

  • Need to Stay Focused

    I do have issues with staying focused when I should be working.

    Case in point…

    So, I have been sitting here on the couch as the kid watches her afternoon cartoons. This is an hour that I can get a blog completed and even get some work done in the novel. It’s in the schedule, and we all know that is what I do for this hour.

    Now, what I have been doing is reading up on Hamilton’s home, The Grange. I went by it the other day when I was walking the dog, and when I opened up my computer to work, The Grange popped into my head.

    Well, I thought, I could take a minute to look it up real quick. I mean, I did hear that where The Grange house is today is not the original location. I wonder if I could find a map that showed where the original location was.

    Sure enough, I did.

    But that made me wonder if I could find a map that showed the plot of land that Hamilton used to own. That was a little tougher to find, and to be honest, I never really found what I was looking for but I did find a map of upper Manhattan that had the house circled.

    And that’s when I saw that my hour had slipped by and I hadn’t written a blog or worked on the novel.

    Oops…

  • Comedy, Inside Jokes, and a First Draft

    When I was in college, and I was a theatre major, I had a running debate with a good friend, which was, are Shakespeare’ comedies funny? He said yes, and me, to be a jerk, said no. My main reason for the stance I took is that comedies are full of inside jokes that the audience never notices, and what Elizabethans found funny, no one gets anymore. Yes, the puns survived, but puns aren’t funny.

    Also, for comedy to work it needs context and surprise; context established the frame work for a surprise to be funny, and the surprise is funny because context says the surprise shouldn’t be there. Hence, if we don’t understand the context, how can the surprise be funny, or even to be understood as a surprise in the first place.

    Then there are inside jokes, which no one gets except a handful of people, having been orchestrated by the writer. I had a friend who recently had their screenplay produced and released. He had put several inside jokes in the screenplay, most of them honoring quirks his wife has which he loves. All writers do this, which is why I say that Shakespeare’ comedies are full of jokes we will never understand.

    I bring all of this up because I am trying to hammer away at a first draft of my novel. I know full well that my first draft will not be good, and I am really trying to get it down so I have a starting point to begin crafting the story. So, as I rush through it, I am seriously cramming it full of inside jokes, to the point that I started to get self-conscious about it. I know my wife will read the draft, and most likely roll her eyes at me. Most of it will find its way out of the story, as the characters start to stand in their own, and not need the crutch of me anymore.

    But, I always wonder when I read a novel, if the name of the street that a character lives on is actually an homage to author’s mother’s maiden name.

  • Making Time to Write, Again

    Today has gone better, when it comes to making time to write.

    I have stuck to the schedule and I was able to get some journal time in at the park. About 30 minutes, total. Luckily, the kid has started to make friends with the other regular children at the playground, which leads to the air of stability for both of us.

    I am in the afternoon quiet playtime section of the day, where the kid plays in her room, and I finish up my chores, and get about 30 minutes on the couch to do this; blog.

    I am trying not to delve in on the news of today, as I know that will be a distraction for me. I am working at staying focused on finishing this. Then I will have some art time with the kid-o, which can be a fun creative outlet, a palate cleanser so to speak. Then I will let the kid have an hour of free TV time, which will give me a chance to get back to the novel, which sadly, a month has passed since I worked on it last.

    As I go through all of these motions, I am aware enough to know that I will need to repeat this process for at least two to eight months for this habit to form. It does feel like I am the sideshow magician spinning plates, trying to keep everything going.