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.
(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.
