Finally, after 40 pages, my characters are about to head off on their adventure. I'm not sure where they're going, and as such, they don't even know where they're going. All I have them talking about is, "going East." And then someone asks, "Why East?" And then someone else answers, "No fucking clue, but so-and-so said so and because of this-and-that, we have to go, else blah-blah may happen." Or something like that.
Went to Walmart and bought too many things, practically depleting my checking account with additional groceries, a Cosmo magazine (every girl has a right to rot her brain occasionally), and two small spiral-bound things of index cards. One I am thinking about make my own color cards for Mary Kay skin care classes, and the other, I started using as a way to keep track of all my characters, where they've been, the places, cities, where they went to first, where they're going to next... and it's amazing how complicated things can get in 40 pages! And to think my book is only just now beginning! This is going to be one epic novel, but thank God I started writing some of this crap down because there's no way I'd remember all that stuff and all those people... As I'm writing, I'm realizing I forgot a place. Hold on.
(...)
Alrighty, just learned about some other loose ends I forgot.
I think it'd be wise for me to jot things down as I go and not worry so much about tying up every loose end until I rewrite. Yep, sounds good. All I know is that I'm certainly not going to re-read anything I wrote until I'm done! I turn into an editor and not a writer and then it's hard to carry on, so... we'll see how well I book when I'm done with it.
Okay, so again, I have no idea where it's going. Well I have an idea. But it's a little, teeny, minuscule one that is still really fuzzy. But I'm headed there. The character's are still in the process of being fleshed out, and they haven't started making their own decisions yet, but it's coming and coming quickly. Well. There was once or twice one of the character's got out of line. Now I have that shit to deal with and make part of the story. Why must they be so obstinate?! If you've ever written a story or a book, you'll understand -- your characters DON'T listen to you! You just give them scenarios and then they take it from there, the damned bastards.
Oh, but they're so fun.
So needless to say, I'm excited! I can't wait to see where my book is going to go and how my characters are going to grow and what I'm going to learn about them. It's just as addicting as watching a cool show, finishing an episode, and wanting to watch more.
However... you do reach those times where you stare at the blank page with the blinking cursor, internally screaming at yourself to write a word -- JUST A WORD -- and you find that even writing the word "And," or "Then," or whatever starter word you want to use is super difficult because all of a sudden... no, it's not writer's block y'all. It's worse. It's the part of the book where you don't know really what to write not because you're out of ideas, but because THIS PART is one of the IMPORTANT parts of the book. And you didn't know you were right there, you didn't know that the day before/the paragraph before was the precursor to this potential turning point in your novel, the time where things are going to start happening, characters are going to change, and the plot line is going to progress. There's NO WARNING for these things!
I've been dealing with this stuff for the last 2-3 days. Took me 1.5hours yesterday to write two pages because I had to be careful. Lord knows what I write determines the direction of the rest of my novel. Got to make sure I don't steer it in the wrong direction, even though I still don't really know which direction it's going, so it's hard to make a wrong choice -- or so you'd think. It's very easy to make the wrong decision when deciding an unforseen plot line. Tricky, tricky.
Sigh. This really is a wonderful process though. Truly. I'm loving it. Although I'm at the part where they actually have to start doing stuff now and now it's about to get tricky and the plot line is going to start going forward. Buildup is done. Time to start doing things. And all I want to say -- is crap. ;)
Outside the world of my novel, Tim and I have agreed to move but it won't be for a couple years because we want to save up. Still don't know where we're moving, but we're going to be searching for jobs here in the 757 as well as elsewhere in the country. He's actually talking to some Australian mosquito people (he works in mosquito control, for those of you who don't know) about doing a swap, where he goes there for a few months and they send someone here. I'd love that, although I'm scared of my kittles and them being freaked the fuck out on a plane for 20 hours and then 6 months later, do it all over again. Eeeeehhh, not so keen on that. If I can keep Kota and Jynx as our personal items (maybe?) then fine. Otherwise... nope. But that is still just a mention in a passing. We don't know if it'll go anywhere, but we do agree to move in the near future.
I originally intended to write this thing 2-3 times a week. Looks like that ain't happenin'! Once a week is fine for me. Good for you? I'm glad we can agree.
Went to Gordon Bierch last night. Delicious. Got me a hummus and goat cheese salad which was amazing, so I got some hummus, pita bread, and some goat and feta cheese at Wally World earlier. Might make me some now.
Got a neat Swiffer duster too. I think I'll actually not mind keeping my home dust-free (as much as possible without going all OCD) without complaining.
Tim got me into The Game of Thrones and his wonderful cousin is letting us use his HBO GO to watch it. Not a huge TV watcher, but man when I like a show, it sucks away my life until either the season is over or until I've reach a point where I'm all caught up and I have to wait a week for the next episode. Other than that, TV can bite me.
Annnd, that's all folks.
Ciao.
~Jessica
No comments:
Post a Comment