Today was still a good writing day, though the pace was slower. As I get into the nitty gritty of the story, the flaws appear larger than they probably are, and it takes time to think them through. Much of today was spent on one major scene, an impromptu party the night before a gay wedding. Some important characters appear at the party (my protagonist, Dan, and his boyfriend, Bill, who is best man for Thom; also there is Sebastiano, the second groom, and a woman named Daniella who is Sebastiano's "best man".) I had to take a lot of time to get their relationships right before proceeding.
Some days I get so absorbed by the scene I'm writing that I forget where I am in real time. In my head, I'm on the banks of a river in mid-September, but when I look up and see the snow outside my window and a hawk floating by with wings spread, I think, "Where the hell am I?"
December 14, 2007
December 13, 2007
Another good day writing. It feels indescribably rewarding to wake up and know it's all ahead of you. It was slower going than yesterday, though, owing to the state of the manuscript from about the one-third mark on. Neverthless, I made solid progress all day long.
The book is about a missing persons investigator, Dan Sharp, who attends a gay wedding on a ship. I was able to take Dan up to the scene where he meets his boyfriend's best friend the day before the wedding. (Bill, the boyfriend, is the best man, and his friend Thom is the groom.) For Dan, this will spell the beginning of the end of his relationship with Bill and propel him into the search for a "misper" (missing person) because of events before and after the wedding.
December 12, 2007
Back in the saddle! And I don't mean Viagra. Today was a gold mine for writing, after I shifted gears. Instead of going forward, I went back and began reworking the material I'd produced over the past few months. Suddenly things began to move. It enabled me to consolidate some of the themes and character issues that had been left dangling in my rush to get to the end of the book. With these cleaned up I can move forward again. I've also changed my writing times. I usually get into a groove, with a certain time of day being designated for writing. For a long time now it's been my habit to start in the morning as soon as I wake to make use of that fresh energy. But lately, with the cold and other things, mornings have been a muddle, with the result that I get frustrated and give up by noon. Today I started at noon, and went without a break till nearly seven pm, handwriting my corrections. Then, after supper, I tackled the corrections, inputting them on the laptop until 1 am. The first third of the book is now very clear.
December 11, 2007
And another day slipped by without any significant writing getting done. I guess I'm not the machine I'd like to be. I tried leaving the laptop and working from the printed manuscript, but that didn't help. On top of everything else, it's winter and I feel the cold in my bones all day long. (I'm know, I'm not old enough to have the right to say that with conviction, but it's true.) I spent an hour in the bath trying to warm up, and then gave up and went out to distract myself. Time to plan a vacation in Mexico.
December 10, 2007
I seem to have ground to a halt in my writing. It's not Writers' Block, but lack of focus. Another day went by without my adding much to the book or forging ahead in any meaningful way. Sometimes when this happens I find I need to switch from the computer to a printed version. I printed the manuscript tonight, so we'll see how it goes tomorrow.
December 9, 2007
Another day of mostly not writing, but one in which I was able to scrutinize the organization of story events and shuffle them around till they felt right. This is the "perspiration" part of the equation in which Picasso talked about creativity being ten-percent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration.
December 8, 2007
Every once in a while I find the demands of everyday life too much for me to take an entire day to write. Today was one of those days when I forced myself to stop writing and do other things that needed doing. One of the things I notice (or don't notice) when I get into the writing, is that I lose interest in other things, like piano playing. In my twenties I was a modestly accomplished pianist, but once I started writing A Cage of Bones my practice died off. Each time I begin a new book I lose playing time and have to relearn all over again. As anybody who plays knows, if you stop playing for six months to a year, you get very rusty. Your mind knows what it wants your fingers to do, but the digits won't comply. It's a very frustrating period of getting yourself up to speed again. I keep saying I'll spend an hour every day at the piano, but it just doesn't happen. When the writing is hot, I don't want to stop. And when I start to flag, I don't want to go to the piano, though the longer I stay away the more frustrating it will be when I return.
