A Writer's Notebook, Day Eighty-Six

I had a difficult time getting myself to work today.  In the morning, I did do a smattering of work, adding a few lines or perhaps a paragraph, but not much.  I got to around 860 words and was considering taking today as a bit of a loss, but I decided that I needed to go to at least one thousand.  In that time, something occurred in the book that began to move it forwards and I found myself caught up in the writing again.

In all, I wound up writing more than 2,000 words, and feel that there is a lot more progress in the book.  I also sense that I am getting the shape of it more, and understanding how it is working.  By the nature of the plot, one that is largely internal, the book has a certain focus upon the contemplation of the character, as mentioned before, but that contemplation is cracking into a need for the world, and, as that happens, there is an emotional evolution occurring.

The events of the book are rather minor, in terms of what is happening in the actual plot.  So far, the most dramatic elements occur at the start, when the main character learns about his death and sells his home to check into a suite at a hotel.  After that, he has had a fancy dinner, watched people in the park from the balcony of his suite, gone for a walk in the park, and now is walking in the city itself.  Their are small events within this, but I have to admit that it is not a heavy plot of any sort.  He watches a squirrel, he observes people.  He nearly is hit by bike messenger and later a child bumps into him.  This really is the major action of the book thus far, but this is all secondary to what is happening within the mind of the character.

This is a story about a person learning to cope with their own mortality, and it is not about the world around them as much.  It has to be internal in that sense, but it is worrisome that it may not have enough to it at this point.  The engine of the book needs to be in the language and how it reflects the character, as well as how it reveals the character even when they are attempting to hide.

What is happening at this point in the story, though, is that the character is having a recognition that is about there own relationship with the world, something that has been largely cut off in response to learning they are dying.  Until now, they have kept things from being expressed, have not really dealt with the reality directly, but instead just used a form of false acceptance to move past any attempt at dealing with the issue.

Today, though, the actions around the character and there experiences made them recognize the need for a relationship with the world, and that, in and of itself, served to catalyze much more besides.  In the start, it was merely the character recognizing that barrier they have built, acknowledging it, because it has already been shown to be false by events.  The character then moves on with a different set of perspectives that need to be reconciled, and this ultimately led to them having an internal explosion of anger about being terminally ill.

Much of this feels very organic for me right now.  It is developing in a certain way that is not, perhaps, a typical novel, but is certainly something that I feel is worth the effort.  Even if it turns out to be too lacking in external action for it to work for most readers, I feel that it is something worth writing.  For one thing, there are many technical challenges within the book that are really helping me to think differently about aspects of a novel, particularly in terms of the structure of it.

As well, I really feel that the actual content and the character are things that seem important to me in a way.  This is a book, the writing of which is becoming something different for me, in a way.  It is not that I didn't care about Gus and Bow or the other characters, or that the story wasn't a thing that mattered deeply to me, but this book is about struggling with a universal condition, even if the character is in a condensed version of that.  In some way, it is necessary for me to consider the question of death, and that, of course, is always a personal thing.  In a way, it is a book about my father's death, and it is also a book in which I have to face my own mortality as a writer creating such a work.

That does not automatically mean it will be a powerful work for a reader, though I do hope that some of this transfers to the book.  However, even should that not be the case, I can sense the importance of doing this work for me on a personal level.  It is, of course, still a book that I am writing as a professional writer, but that does not change the personal ramifications and stakes that I feel are present in this work.  I think that by focusing upon the technical challenges, I am liberating myself to actually confront many things that I might not wish to consider as directly, but by my putting my concentration on the writing itself. 

By keeping my main focus on the technique of the story, the rest comes through without much thought.  In this case, those elements are things which emerge when I allow them to.  That act of allowing is not so simple, a lot of the time, as they are personal in a sense, even when told through fiction, and that vulnerability can interfere.  Creating a text that has other elements on the level of the language intricate elements that require me to consider them, the content becomes almost automatically generated, and thus it is much easier to allow those elements to come out.

In terms of the work today, I really felt that a great deal of progress was made, and their were times when I had to really consider what I was attempting to do in the language.  As well, I feel that I have a strong sense of how to continue on from where I am right at this moment, and the point I am at now is still a bit from what I am considering as the next major moment in the story.  In general, I feel equipped to make tomorrow another day where I get my hour done in the morning and am ready to go again later.  Of course, that optimism may be unfounded, but if not it wouldn't be optimism.  I feel eager as well as poised to catch up my word count to where it should be in the next day or so, and I think I have a strong enough grasp on what is happening in the text to do the work that will be required for that.  And when I consider that I felt rather repelled from the work a bit ago, I am really amazed at the difference.