Floating
Monday, January 7, 2008
I made progress this weekend on the novel I've been writing. I found myself inside the shell of a possibility and took the time to look around. I'd planned on going one way with the story, but an unforeseen entanglement proved seductive. What would happen if?... I wanted to know, and because I am the only one writing this story, I had to swerve in the new direction to find out. I got lost, and loved being lost, inside past tense, future tense, old photographs, a 125-year-old book that arrived from my friends at Alibris. I walked two sisters down a Philadelphia street and let them vanish, for just a moment, inside a cloud of baker's flour. I walked them in to a tailor's shop and let them loose within.
This is the intoxication of writing. This madcap, no one's watching rush to learn just what the yield might be. And oh yes, I can be cranky writing, but I can also swoon. This weekend I was swooning, grateful, that I hadn't given up too soon.
5 comments:
Beth,
Of course it must be different with fiction than with nonfiction, but I find similar adventures waiting for me in an essay. I remember forgotten details or I understand motivations once hidden (mine or someone else's).
Having adventured in both genres, how would you compare and contrast floating in fiction writing with a similar lost-and-foundness in nonfiction?
Lisa
Thank you, Lisa, for the question. I am thinking that the feeling is rather the same. Even in writing this blog, I float, I get lost and found. I have an image, a detail, a photograph. I have a mood. The fascinating thing (for me) lies in building the bridges between these things. The state of euphoria or frustration is rather the same.
The joy is when (you think) it works.
Amen, sister. And I'm glad to hear I'm not missing out on all the fun!
Lisa
Just your description of imagining the possibilities makes me swoon in anticipation of reading this story!
Seriously, what a treat to read about your process here. How wonderful that you were in a state of grace while working this weekend. I imagine that to be an energy you know much about.
Kris,
Your generosity, as always, is astounding. Perhaps, yes, I bring energy to this life, and I suppose it makes up for skills that remain raw in places, a vocabulary that is never as rich as I wish it to be, an education that could always be deepened.
Energy sustains me. The joy that I take from all of this.
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