A Writer's Notebook, Day Eighty-Five
I wrote around 1300 words today, which is not as successful as I would have liked, but I feel good about the current status of the book overall. While I still have concerns about it, and at times am feeling a bit lost in it, I do have a sense that it is taking shape and moving in a direction. I don't feel entirely confident that it is working at the moment, but that seems to be a natural part of the process, and I am not going to concern myself with that too much. Indeed, I have a sense that it may be a necessary pressure, one that is integral for the formation of the work.
In some ways, I think it is in these moments of doubt, the days when I feel the work is not going well, that things really are happening. On these days, I tend to think that my concerns are somehow registered and considered on a level that I am not fully aware of, and the next day I have a new understanding of what I am doing. I think that it is important for me, at times, to not really see the big picture fully, as it does let me get deeper into the character as they are experiencing things in the moment. By not seeing where things are going, it becomes about what the character does in that instant.
At the same time, I sense that I almost always have a deeper plan that I am not fully aware of. There are small things that will happen which seem like they are minor, insignificant moments, when I write them, but as I look back, I recognize they had much more import than I had originally realized. In the last book, this often happened when things wound themselves into the fabric of the story, but in this book, where the story is minor and the focus is contemplative and internal, that is not the way it works. Instead, it is more thematic correlations, and changes in the texture of the language that I hadn't realized I was implementing.
In many ways, it is not a novel, but a very long prose poem, I suppose, but then again, I think Hemingway said that all novels in the modern era are prose poetry. When I say this, though, in some sense I am liberating myself to consider the question of the book from a perspective that has different rules and considerations. This is quite definitely a book that needs to function in a different way than my previous books, and I am not entirely comfortable in writing it, because I know that the way it is functioning does not work the way a novel normally would.
The books main driver, at this point, is in the narration and the language, in the way that the text subtly moves through different moods and moments, and the way that the character is changing is reflected within this. The content is serving a function almost as subtext, in my mind, which may sound strange, but I will attempt to explain this in a more concrete way.
Within the text, I am finding that the events are mundane. It is largely just the character observing the world around them, and not taking very much of a role in that world. He is cut off and does not want to acknowledge his vulnerability, and so he does not really open himself up to take part in the world. I expect this will change, but I don't really know. In the meantime, though, the moods and shifts in how the character communicates are the key action, as the actual events around the character are mundane.
In essence, what I've been having to do, I think(though I did not see it at the time of writing), is use the content to set up an occasion for the character's thinking, and in so doing, the event becomes secondary to the internal action, and those internal qualities are communicated through how the character is thinking and communicating, not merely by what they say. Since the character is so blocked and not even able to recognize their own issues in some ways, it is necessary much of the time to not express the key thought that is behind everything else, but to allow it to seep out through the emotion and the unwillingness to look at what is truly significant.
That is largely what I mean when I speak of the actual plot and story becoming the subtext. The character is not in the world in some way, and so what matters most is what is happening inside their mind. They, of course, need to rejoin the world, and that is much of what this book is about. I think I am in a direction that will take me to that very soon. An event occurred in the passage I wrote today that I think will have important impact upon the character, and will begin to realign them in a way that will create the changes needed.
In part, this is all very much about the character's process of accepting their own mortality. They are, at this point, using the idea of acceptance to deny even their own denial. They are just not confronting it, and that will have to change. That is really the central conflict, I think: how can this man accept his death and learn to appreciate the time he has left, and ultimately the answer is that he needs to find a way to allow others in. He has severed himself from everything at the moment, and that choice was about running away.
As mentioned, there was a small moment in the story, today, in which something occurred. A man had a small accident. It is not anything major, just them dropping some groceries, but I have a sense that this will become a catalyst in the story. It allowed a moment where a certain barrier was broken, and I think it will haunt the character, spurring them to take a different path then they are on right now. When I wrote it, honestly, I didn't really see that being the way it would work out, but now, I have a much clearer idea of why that moment occurred . That is largely what I mean when I speak about writing in a way that seems both to be directed and yet directed from outside my awareness. At the time I was writing the scene, it felt a bit odd, as I had no real reason for it that I could see. Yet, it was clear to me that this was the scene I needed to be writing, even if I was not certain why.
It feels, often, like these days when the work is slow and I am dragging to even get it done end up being the ones where I get through the important moments, the turning points that will guide the rest of the story. Tomorrow, I expect that I will be much more prolific, and I am certain that the ideas I am writing will be ones that came from today's work. It is funny that this is how it seems to work for me, but I feel good knowing that tomorrow I will be able to start my work with a clear sesne of what must occur.
In some ways, I think it is in these moments of doubt, the days when I feel the work is not going well, that things really are happening. On these days, I tend to think that my concerns are somehow registered and considered on a level that I am not fully aware of, and the next day I have a new understanding of what I am doing. I think that it is important for me, at times, to not really see the big picture fully, as it does let me get deeper into the character as they are experiencing things in the moment. By not seeing where things are going, it becomes about what the character does in that instant.
At the same time, I sense that I almost always have a deeper plan that I am not fully aware of. There are small things that will happen which seem like they are minor, insignificant moments, when I write them, but as I look back, I recognize they had much more import than I had originally realized. In the last book, this often happened when things wound themselves into the fabric of the story, but in this book, where the story is minor and the focus is contemplative and internal, that is not the way it works. Instead, it is more thematic correlations, and changes in the texture of the language that I hadn't realized I was implementing.
In many ways, it is not a novel, but a very long prose poem, I suppose, but then again, I think Hemingway said that all novels in the modern era are prose poetry. When I say this, though, in some sense I am liberating myself to consider the question of the book from a perspective that has different rules and considerations. This is quite definitely a book that needs to function in a different way than my previous books, and I am not entirely comfortable in writing it, because I know that the way it is functioning does not work the way a novel normally would.
The books main driver, at this point, is in the narration and the language, in the way that the text subtly moves through different moods and moments, and the way that the character is changing is reflected within this. The content is serving a function almost as subtext, in my mind, which may sound strange, but I will attempt to explain this in a more concrete way.
Within the text, I am finding that the events are mundane. It is largely just the character observing the world around them, and not taking very much of a role in that world. He is cut off and does not want to acknowledge his vulnerability, and so he does not really open himself up to take part in the world. I expect this will change, but I don't really know. In the meantime, though, the moods and shifts in how the character communicates are the key action, as the actual events around the character are mundane.
In essence, what I've been having to do, I think(though I did not see it at the time of writing), is use the content to set up an occasion for the character's thinking, and in so doing, the event becomes secondary to the internal action, and those internal qualities are communicated through how the character is thinking and communicating, not merely by what they say. Since the character is so blocked and not even able to recognize their own issues in some ways, it is necessary much of the time to not express the key thought that is behind everything else, but to allow it to seep out through the emotion and the unwillingness to look at what is truly significant.
That is largely what I mean when I speak of the actual plot and story becoming the subtext. The character is not in the world in some way, and so what matters most is what is happening inside their mind. They, of course, need to rejoin the world, and that is much of what this book is about. I think I am in a direction that will take me to that very soon. An event occurred in the passage I wrote today that I think will have important impact upon the character, and will begin to realign them in a way that will create the changes needed.
In part, this is all very much about the character's process of accepting their own mortality. They are, at this point, using the idea of acceptance to deny even their own denial. They are just not confronting it, and that will have to change. That is really the central conflict, I think: how can this man accept his death and learn to appreciate the time he has left, and ultimately the answer is that he needs to find a way to allow others in. He has severed himself from everything at the moment, and that choice was about running away.
As mentioned, there was a small moment in the story, today, in which something occurred. A man had a small accident. It is not anything major, just them dropping some groceries, but I have a sense that this will become a catalyst in the story. It allowed a moment where a certain barrier was broken, and I think it will haunt the character, spurring them to take a different path then they are on right now. When I wrote it, honestly, I didn't really see that being the way it would work out, but now, I have a much clearer idea of why that moment occurred . That is largely what I mean when I speak about writing in a way that seems both to be directed and yet directed from outside my awareness. At the time I was writing the scene, it felt a bit odd, as I had no real reason for it that I could see. Yet, it was clear to me that this was the scene I needed to be writing, even if I was not certain why.
It feels, often, like these days when the work is slow and I am dragging to even get it done end up being the ones where I get through the important moments, the turning points that will guide the rest of the story. Tomorrow, I expect that I will be much more prolific, and I am certain that the ideas I am writing will be ones that came from today's work. It is funny that this is how it seems to work for me, but I feel good knowing that tomorrow I will be able to start my work with a clear sesne of what must occur.
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