Monday, December 15, 2008

Novel crank

     Whew! Third and final submission for the semester to novel workshop: check! This thing is coming slowly for me. As much as I loved poetry workshop this fall, I should have followed the advice of my novel workshop instructor and committed single-mindedly to prose. It was too easy to take a break from the long form (which intimidated me to begin with) and dash off a poem or two instead. And polish. And revise. 
     Once I get cranking on the story, I love it -- but there's definitely a learning curve when I put it away for more than a couple of days. I reckon it is all about momentum at this point.
     Something else that's not working the way I'd envisioned it is this blog. The purpose was to blather about illness here so I could keep it out of my fiction, but you write what you know, I guess. Small wonder there's not one but two characters in the novel with life-threatening conditions, struggling to work out all the dynamics and deal with the pressures I'm slogging through in real life. Bleh. Maybe in revision one of them will turn into an organ grinder whose main conflict is lack of monkey.
     M fussed at me this morning for following my own judgment rather than doctor's orders, and saving some antibiotics that were prescribed a couple of weeks ago for now, when I actually do have a mild sore throat and fever. My thinking was that I didn't need them before, and good thing I have them now. M's argument was that the doctor said I needed them and I should have finished them as directed. He doesn't need an even sicker me to take care of. I understand that, but I feel it's my job to monitor my health, not his. If the tables were turned, we'd each be making the other's argument.
     A went off to school this morning proudly sporting brand new shiny black patent Mary Janes. The child could not be more fabulous.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Life is a life-threatening condition.

Since you're the god of your novel you can throw things - like monkeys - in your character's way, randomly, out of the blue as it were, like gods are wont to do. And then see how they respond. They may surprise you. If they don't, just add monkeys.

E. said...

Ah, yes, the old "just add monkeys" advice. Didn't John Gardner write a chapter about that somewhere?

My monkeys keep coming down with brain tumors and diabetes.

 

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