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April 02, 2006
The Road Well Travelled, The Novelist Hard at Work
We went to see V for Vendetta this evening (good movie); my son watched The Proposition on DVD (great movie); it will be Monday tomorrow and autumn; the mornings are chilly making it difficult to roll out of bed and into the novel. I'd also like to see Tristan and Isolde--if I can find some time, so I guess that's on the maybe list.
Clickables:
A new off-the-wall piece in elimae that will take a short minute to read In the Quiet, Don Quixote. Kim Chinquee has also a couple of lovely pieces in here.
Another thing thou must do is vote at Million Writers Award Notable Stories of 2005 The top ten stories have been announced and Pia Ehrdhart's Famous Fathers is in there. This week when I can scratch the time together I'll be reading through the list!
I have been steadily adding to my novel. However there's been a lot happening--the addition of a new laptop and a new screen and a network so I can send stuff to different printers. And troubleshooting! Howsa writer supposed to write in the midst of this muck?
By getting up at 4 am and reaching for the laptop.
I have made use of many of the methods suggested by the different writers in the discussion presented in my last entry. I find myself changing tactics. I am really enjoying the creation of this novel in a way that is different to the last one. I think I am willing for my first draft to 'feel' imperfect. And to carry on in the dark as the prose turns out totally different to how I imagined it.
I am now 3/4 into Louise Erdrich's novel The Painted Drum and I'm loving it. She did take a chance with all those first person narrators. Fabulous read even though I'm taking a long time to finish it.
One of the books I've taken off my bookshelf is The Writing Experiment by Hazel Smith. I like it. I like using it to warm up. It doesn't really add to my novel in any way but I can use some of the language experiments when I'm stuck; building text from word. Reading it makes me realize how I have come to use some of its strategies in writing by flailing in the dark all these years. However reading about the process does not bring me greater amounts of exciting prose but serves as an 'aha' experience. It also informs me that there seems to be a science to what I have discovered with all that moaning in the dark.
Posted by girija at April 2, 2006 10:44 PM
Comments
"In the Quiet, Don Quixote" is creepy, off-the-wall, scary; this priest frightens me a bit and also makes me grin. Is he quixotic, or, worse, disturbed? I can't decide, maybe he can't either. How do you do it, compressing all of that into this smashing story? Panache, that's what you've got.
Posted by: claudia smith | April 11, 2006 01:24 PM
"In the Quiet, Don Quixote" is creepy, off-the-wall, scary; this priest frightens me a bit and also makes me grin. Is he quixotic, or, worse, disturbed? I can't decide, maybe he can't either. How do you do it, compressing all of that into this smashing story? Panache, that's what you've got.
Posted by: Claudia Smith | April 11, 2006 01:25 PM
"In the Quiet, Don Quixote" is creepy, off-the-wall, scary; this priest frightens me a bit and also makes me grin. Is he quixotic, or, worse, disturbed? I can't decide, maybe he can't either. How do you do it, compressing all of that into this smashing story? Panache, that's what you've got.
Posted by: Claudia Smith | April 11, 2006 01:27 PM