Unexpected Float
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
 It takes time to write a book; it just does.  I learn that newly each time out—have learned it again over these past few years as the novel I've been writing takes its shape.  Three voices.  One day.  A tapestry of flashbacks and collisions.  The deeper in I get with this book, the more I disassemble and reassemble, the better I come to understand that scenes don't make a book.  Seams do.  The unexpected float from one thing to another.  The power of a recurring detail, an operative refrain.  The care one must take to avoid needless repetitions, blatant explanations, false exultancies.
It takes time to write a book; it just does.  I learn that newly each time out—have learned it again over these past few years as the novel I've been writing takes its shape.  Three voices.  One day.  A tapestry of flashbacks and collisions.  The deeper in I get with this book, the more I disassemble and reassemble, the better I come to understand that scenes don't make a book.  Seams do.  The unexpected float from one thing to another.  The power of a recurring detail, an operative refrain.  The care one must take to avoid needless repetitions, blatant explanations, false exultancies.
(and sometimes you make up a word because it fits)
Something is coming together at last, something that feels as if someone else, not me, has been at work, by which I mean, that this book that I am working on has the power to surprise me. 
A good, essential thing.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
4 comments:
So glad your writing is going so well. There's no feeling like it.
....scenes don't.....seams do
Thank you Beth. I'm working on a play and have been a bit stuck going from scene to scene desperately seeking a way to hold it together....seams do.
Try to transcend it, Libby. Try somehow to float above....
Beth - i love the way you weave words to create images and concepts that are bigger than a+b+c+d ... Looking forward to your next work.
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