Blog Entry: Pre-Writing, Music, and Weekend
Entry posted on August 15, 2010, 3.40 pm
Categories:
Dragon Book, Listening, Reading, Writing Process
It's definitely THAT time of year again: the novel-wrestling time, when I've already written the fun, easy opening of my novel and it's time to do the hard work of figuring out how the main story of the book is really going to work. Which direction to go, which points to head for, what it's Really All About...
This is surprisingly frazzling. The first few chapters are always so easy! They're just for fun, I just see what happens...and then we hit this bit, where I need to actually make important decisions. Oops.
So it's good timing to be reading Russell T. Davies's The Writer's Tale: The Final Chapter (recommended by Sara Ryan), which is turning out to be the funniest and smartest book on writing that I've read in a long, long time. I keep wishing that I had post-it notes on hand to stick on every page where a moment or observation flies out at me and wants to be saved...sadly, this is a library book, so I'll have to wait until I buy a copy of my own (soon!) before I get to mark it up.
Here's one bit, though, that was most appropriate for the stage I'm in right now with my dragon novel. He's talking about the struggle to come up with the main ideas for a Doctor Who Christmas episode, and all the inevitable "buts" that come flying up in an internal cloud of skepticism whenever a possible new idea first occurs to him:
But why not...? Why would...? Why do...?...But that sort of thing shouldn't stop me. Let it ride. I mustn't bore myself with reasons with reasons why not. There are always a million dull reasons why not. Go for the images, the feel of it, the potential, the dynamic. Details come later.
I read that paragraph and thought, YES. It was exactly what I needed to read. The important thing is to focus first on the FUN of the idea, focus on how it could be the MOST fun, and deal with all the rational logistics of it later.
Because I'm me, the main external work I'm doing right now (while I work out all the big questions inside my head) is collaging the novel and going on a big musical hunt for songs that might work as a playlist. So far, the "dragon playlist" on my computer has a Pink Martini song ("Tuca Tuca"), the movie soundtrack from Pride and Prejudice (I don't really like that adaptation, but the soundtrack is just perfect), and some lovely, haunting Maggie Stiefvater songs that I downloaded from her website. I keep the playlist playing in my ears at least half of every day, helping to focus my mind as I work out the different characters and their arcs.
And the whole time, of course, I feel desperately restless and itchy and irritable, because I want to get down to it and just WRITE! But if I skip this pre-writing stage, I will pay for it, because my subconscious needs the time to simmer. That's a lesson I've learned before, all too painfully. Sigh.
Anyway! That's what my writer-side has been up to this weekend, while the rest of me has been mommying. MrD and I had a lovely café trip yesterday, visited the owls, and stopped in at Waterstones. A perfect Saturday! Today has been much quieter, but Maya and I went to the park, and later I'll be skyping with my family back home in Michigan, so it's a good weekend overall.
What about you guys? How are your weekends going? And if you're a writer, what kind of pre-writing work do you usually need to do?