A Writer's Notebook, Day Six-Hundred-And-Fifty-Three

I have been continuing to think about that idea for a novel that I mentioned yesterday and I continue to have new revelations that make it feel more and more present or, perhaps, real.  It is hard to describe, but it is the sense that I am beginning to know enough.  I am aware of a lot of the general narrative elements and have a sense of the plot, setting, and some of the characters, as well as various aspects that are under that which matter to me.  For example, I had been concerned it might be a bit too similar to other work I have done, in a way that felt repetitive, not so much in the novel I am developing, but more in my own intent and approach.  I had a concern about what I wanted to do that would bring me a new challenge, and that was unclear, but I began to see that this book is quite different in a number of ways that will be exciting for.me and which also, I hope, will mean it does not undermine previous works if it is published first.  I know I am being quite vague in my description here, but one thing is clear to me about my process, and that is that I am conceiving of something that is bound to seem silly or stupid to anyone else right now, because what I have in my head is not easy to put into any form that will make sense of it yet, and, in truth, will only be explained by the book itself when it is done, but to offer a sort of basic idea, it is a kind of haunted house story which takes the notion of the house itself as the being, not as inhabited by spirits.  The action will also be split over various time periods and the narration itself is also more complicated, but I am still sorting that out.  There is a lot more that is in my head already, but so much of it is disjointed or nonsensical outside of the larger picture.  To offer a small example, I know the various time periods will be interwoven in how they are told, and I am also considering the idea of their being other kinds of texts for some of the sections.  I know it is both written by different characters but also has one central speaker who is present throughout, but it is not easy to explain that clear contradiction though it is clear to me it is correct even though I do not yet see how that functions or can be done.  I am relying on unconscious resources to clarify this, and a big part of that, for me, is trusting that these questions come up because the answer is already there but has not yet surfaced to the point that my conscious self is catching only a glimpse.

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