hey, you sound WAY too busy….how is the new novel coming along, or is it bad to ask? me, I think the winter has been very long and we will all feel less stressed when the sun starts shining a bit more. Well I will anyway.
amanda
Pretty busy, for sure, although everyone is, right? It’s a busy world. We’re âsupposed’ to be busy, it’s a cultural value (a silly one, but I sure have internalized it). But the sun is shining now, and you’re right, it does help.
As for the new novel, wellâ¦. I sent my editor about 20,000 words and an outline, and she thinks the story needs to be focused slightly differently before she’s ready to start showing it around within HarperCollins. She has some good ideas that will make the book stronger, so I’m thinking about them, and about a screenplay, and about a short story collection that I’m interested in putting together (with some new work as well as what’s already been published).
I think the writing in my new book is my best so far, and I think the story will be compelling if I can ever get there. But, as with Solitaire, I find that beginnings are an issue for me. I didn’t know any other way with Solitaire than to trace out the circumstances and events and choices that bring Jackal to the top of the Needle â and yet there are plenty of readers who think the story doesn’t really kick into gear until then.
I have competing instincts as a storyteller. I want to start with a bang and tell a story that’s exciting and compelling and large, full of choice and consequence. And I also want to tell the story that’s real for the characters, that shows where they’ve come from and builds the foundation for those big choices. But if that story is to be truthful (psychologically, emotionally), then it is of necessity a slower story, a story built on smaller details, more daily incidents (as we’ve already talked about with regard to the journals). The stories of real people are stories of accretion; we’re like coral that builds its shape slowly.
I know that one problem with the current novel, for all its beautiful prose and psychological truth, is that it’s just too damn slow. And I’m probably going to have to throw away at least 10,000-12,000 of those words, and go back, and start over again. And just trust that I’ve improved enough as a writer to embed the smaller story within the larger story, rather than spelling it all out for the reader.
So, I am having to step back and let things work themselves out in my writer’s brain at their own rate. I write slowly anyway, and this makes it even slower, and that frustrates me beyond belief, sometimes to the point that I don’t feel like a âreal’ writer anymore. (That usually passes, smile). But what I learned writing Solitaire is that it takes as long as it takes. If I had rushed Solitaire, it would be a lesser book. If I rush this one, ditto. I know that impatience is not my friend, and I ignore the voice inside that tells me I am failing because I am not meeting the one-book-a-year expectations of the âbusy’ world.
While the new book is mulching, I am working on Something Completely Different â I’m putting together a new business venture. I’m not ready to talk about just yet, but will share the details soon, and will say that I think Jackal would approve (waggles eyebrows in the annoying way of people who have a secret they think is really cool).
I hope the sun is shining wherever you are, and your stress is out walking with its shoes off and grass in between its toes.