The Games Writers Play
Blog Number Nine: 2 January 2009
Mid December: I have begun to write the second part of my novella The Black Stones of Hannalore. I should be honest and say that I have almost begun to write.
It’s Tuesday morning two days before the old year of 2008 dies for ever. I am sitting at my laptop not writing. Waiting for the first two paragraphs to begin Part Two. Waiting waiting. There are so many ways of starting a new part of the story. An added problem is that as a novelist, I have a natural inclination to spin out the lives of my characters in minute detail that could ruin the concise format of the novella that I am trying to write.
To make matters worse, I keep looking out of my workroom to make sure that my giant tomato plants have not fallen over with the weight of the fruit. My partner Mike had to come to the rescue with some hooks and stout cord to attach the plants to the wooden box where they are trapped within tomato cages. Just as well he was a Wolf Cub in Canada during his boyhood. Out of the dim past came the memory of a couple of professional looking knots invented no doubt to fasten a sail to the bowsprit or some other nautical function.
The tomatoes have become so large and top heavy that when the westerly blew yesterday and the rain fell in horizontal strings, I feared for the plants that I have watched and watered for two months now.
See how writers divert their imagination? Here I am worrying how to introduce Hannalore and Juno into the frontier town of Piopio in the King Country and how to reveal the relationship between a man that Hannalore is about to meet and her lost mother… and all I can do is think about are two tomato plants that have grow too big for their boots.
It’s now Thursday the 1st of January 2009.
A hot afternoon. Progress! I think… Outside, the motor mowers roar across the extensive grounds of the boy’s high school just opposite my house. School is out until late February. I miss the raucous scenes at the bus stop when the boys are let out of their cages each afternoon. I once used the noise of the boys to excuse myself from the keyboard until I realised that I was playing mind games. We writers excel at making excuses not to write. It is something to do with the deep terror engendered when creating imaginative stories in written language. Once written, once published, they stare back at us flawed, banal and trivial. The only safe way to cope with this is to stop writing. Or hide your work away. Or grow a thick skin. Or learn to love it.
But I’ve started to write Part Two and although it is painfully slow, I think that the ‘voice’ and the characters that I have established carry over well from the first part of the story. I’ll leave the readers to decide if it works or not.
I have worked out over the years a system that seems to work for me. I understand the fatal error of distraction. Each morning I try out my excuses why I cannot write today. Too busy, too tired etc etc. But I know from experience that writing long works of fiction requires a certain stubborn doggedness that has some kinship with athletes who train each day for years to produce the desired effect in one event. The ‘writing’ part of the brain needs to be used each day. It does not need to be a long workout; three hours is my limit when writing the first draft. I consider it a good work day if I produce 300 to 400 words in this time. Little and often seems to be the answer. For me anyway.
The other thing that works for me is that I play CDs that seem to fit the mood of the section I am writing. Classical mostly, not opera though. Anything with words must be banned because I begin to listen to the words and this diverts me from the ‘words’ I am battling with on screen.
For those of you following the story of The Black Stones of Hannelore go to the PAGES menu on the right hand side of your screen and click on Hannelore: Part Two.
January 5th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Yay …. yes this lay outs good …