A Writer's Notebook, Day Seventy-Four
I once more gave myself a bit of an easy day, as I know that tomorrow I will hit the ground running once more. I do feel that I did get quite a bit accomplished in preparation for the work I am planning, but I acknowledge it was mostly in my head and not anything concrete as of yet. Under ordinary circumstances, I would feel that was a bad sign, but I think that taking two days to not work on a major project after finishing a novel is reasonable.
While that is true, I do know that I have a lot of work to get done in the next week. First, I am still planning to submit a play for that reading series. I actually submitted another piece recently, to a different local theater, but I am not sure what will happen with that. I feel that the idea I have for my new play is really good, and I am actually pretty close to having it in my head.
Tomorrow, I plan to sit down and write that out, as well as to begin the new novel. The new book is going to be drastically different from the last. First, I waned to try something in a different direction for variety. I like new challenges, and I also thought it might be fun to do something that was a bit less plot driven and more about character and mood. As well, it is a piece that will let me explore the way I wish to write the book, and where the literary mode may be a primary driver of the book.
I also really do want something that will be a little bit easier to do in terms of the structural issues. While I am very glad to have written the last book, and am eager to go again, I know that the challenge I gave myself with Gus And Bow was rather grand. It was a complicated story to begin with, and I knew it had many parts that would need to be addressed. Do not misunderstand, I enjoyed that challenge immensely and am enthused to have taken it on and succeeded.
At the same time, that does not mean that I wish to do exactly that again right away. Certainly, the idea of writing another novel is very much still something I am excited about, and I don't have any desire to back off my plan to keep going like this, and being open to writing something entirely different makes that a realistic possibility. While I love the kind of world that I created in Gus And Bow, I am glad to have a different sort of challenge awaiting me.
Where the last book was about the plot, as I said, my goal this month is to shift gears and write a sort of mood piece, that I think is going to be about the writing itself more than the plot. I think it may also blend in some poetry. The general idea is fairly simple, but I think I have an idea on how to do it that may be incredible. The plot is very simple, a person is diagnosed with a deadly illness and decides, rather than fighting it, to cash out everything and go off on a final pilgrimage.
I know that plot is simple and cliche, but that is partly the point of it. I wanted something that will allow me to focus more on the execution in terms of the prose than on the plot and structure. By choosing a fairly simple story, and one that is really symbolic and universal, I hope to focus my attention on different issues and thus to not only keep myself from getting overly bored or overwhelmed, but because I recognize that mastering the form requires a broad focus.
I do not doubt that I could also have kept working on something in the same vein as the last book, and that this might have taught me many things about writing, and indeed I might have found that it accelerated my learning, but I also would have to have only been learning about that type of book. By choosing to focus on a project with different parameters, I will learn a great deal that might not have been apparent otherwise.
While that is true, I do know that I have a lot of work to get done in the next week. First, I am still planning to submit a play for that reading series. I actually submitted another piece recently, to a different local theater, but I am not sure what will happen with that. I feel that the idea I have for my new play is really good, and I am actually pretty close to having it in my head.
Tomorrow, I plan to sit down and write that out, as well as to begin the new novel. The new book is going to be drastically different from the last. First, I waned to try something in a different direction for variety. I like new challenges, and I also thought it might be fun to do something that was a bit less plot driven and more about character and mood. As well, it is a piece that will let me explore the way I wish to write the book, and where the literary mode may be a primary driver of the book.
I also really do want something that will be a little bit easier to do in terms of the structural issues. While I am very glad to have written the last book, and am eager to go again, I know that the challenge I gave myself with Gus And Bow was rather grand. It was a complicated story to begin with, and I knew it had many parts that would need to be addressed. Do not misunderstand, I enjoyed that challenge immensely and am enthused to have taken it on and succeeded.
At the same time, that does not mean that I wish to do exactly that again right away. Certainly, the idea of writing another novel is very much still something I am excited about, and I don't have any desire to back off my plan to keep going like this, and being open to writing something entirely different makes that a realistic possibility. While I love the kind of world that I created in Gus And Bow, I am glad to have a different sort of challenge awaiting me.
Where the last book was about the plot, as I said, my goal this month is to shift gears and write a sort of mood piece, that I think is going to be about the writing itself more than the plot. I think it may also blend in some poetry. The general idea is fairly simple, but I think I have an idea on how to do it that may be incredible. The plot is very simple, a person is diagnosed with a deadly illness and decides, rather than fighting it, to cash out everything and go off on a final pilgrimage.
I know that plot is simple and cliche, but that is partly the point of it. I wanted something that will allow me to focus more on the execution in terms of the prose than on the plot and structure. By choosing a fairly simple story, and one that is really symbolic and universal, I hope to focus my attention on different issues and thus to not only keep myself from getting overly bored or overwhelmed, but because I recognize that mastering the form requires a broad focus.
I do not doubt that I could also have kept working on something in the same vein as the last book, and that this might have taught me many things about writing, and indeed I might have found that it accelerated my learning, but I also would have to have only been learning about that type of book. By choosing to focus on a project with different parameters, I will learn a great deal that might not have been apparent otherwise.
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