Getting Back Inside
I was in Cleveland for five days.
Now I'm looking at the draft of the novel on my screen and I haven't a clue how to get back inside the story. I feel like I'm trying to type with welding gloves on. Who wrote this stuff, anyway. It's not that it's good or bad, it's just that, well, it's hard to imagine the interior life of these characters. And what happens next?
Oh man.
So I'm doing what any sensible person does when something like this happens. I'm playing solitaire. I'm making soup. I'm posting in my blog. The soup has cheddar and jalapeño chicken sausage in it.
Eventually the back part of my brain will get disgusted and take a crowbar to the smooth glossy surface of this manuscript and let me back inside. At least, I hope so.
posted by Maureen McHugh at 10:19 AM
7 Comments:
That sounds like the perfect soup.
Really, how did we evolve such that making soup could be considered less important than writing a novel?
It did turn out to be good soup. Sausage and Bean.
And I did manage to pry open the novel and even write something.
Alas, today was spent mostly navel gazing.
It's been too hot here for soup. Although I did take some emergency chili to a dick friend.
Okay, I've GOT to ask. What is 'a dick friend'? A friend who is a private investigator? Someone you have sex with but only, you know, as friends? (Wait, isn't that called Friends with Benefits?) A friend named richard who always uses lower case?
sounds like you will like this blog:
http://maureenjohnson.blogspot.com/2006/07/how-to-write-book.html
Someone sent it to Lois Bujold, & she posted it to the bujold list & it certainly matches my observations of writerly angst!!
luv ya,
Mary
I love the metaphors in this post--the welding gloves, the crowbar to the smooth glossy surface.
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