A Writer's Notebook, Day One-Thousand-Five-Hundred-And-Thirty-Four

I am finally feeling as if I have a sense of the shape of this new novel.  I had, as I said, been writing without it being grounded in any particular moment or event.  I was just rambling on about the themes of the story, in a way, offering the main character's thoughts and feelings, but not any actual story.  A few nights ago, though, I began to hone in.  It was still rather broad, but it was narrowing in towards a moment.  Tonight, I found myself getting more specific and moving in.  I know that I still have a ways before I am fully there with this piece, but I am starting to feel that I am on firm ground with it for the first time.  I really do think it is more a matter of my gaining comfort in this material, because I have at least as good a sense of the story as I had when beginning work on other pieces in the past, including the novels I have written.  This piece is building on a lot that I have never really felt comfortable writing about before.  I sort of pushed myself to confront that in order to get to writing this, and I think that is what I have been working through with the first part of what I have written.  I had to face my own uncertainties and confront the part of me that isn't fully comfortable discussing my weight issues in this way, and I am finding that is not an easy thing, but I am still making my way and that is all that I need to do.  If I keep going and don't stop, I will get there one of these days.

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