The Plot Thickens

I have some serious weaknesses as a writer.
Detail is not my thing. I don't know architecture or furniture. Maybe that will come through in the rewrite. For the moment, all I'm interested in is getting the basic story out. It still hasn't completely revealed itself. But tonight, despite my struggling with the details, I hit another pocket and found myself swept up into the story even as it flowed through my fingers.
Granted, I cannot claim it on my taxes, but I am a writer. I always have been. But it takes so much self confidence and willingness to make a lot of sacrifices and to be a complete failure...I became too practical. That was the problem. As a single mother I didn't have time to waste on fantasies of being published and being successful. I needed a solid plan. Problem has been, none of those plans has ever been completely me. Since I wrote my first poem in kindergarten, I have been a writer. Maybe not a great one, yet, but regardless, I can spin a yarn.
But anyway, tonight has been great despite the obvious layer of crappy writing. That's why it's not about being a writer, but a re-writer.
I'm suddenly very anxious to find out what happened to Katherine all those years ago.
Novel pages complete: 45! 11, 806 words.
It's quite a breakthrough.

Falling In Love

It has not been love at first thought between my characters and I.

Stephenie Meyer says she was in love with Edward from the very beginning. That has not been the case between William and I. I don't really know him well enough for all that. Truth is, I haven't really plotted William and Katherine out in great detail. They are revealing themselves as the story progresses and this weekend, whispers of passion began to stir. William and Katherine are starting to take hold of me. It's like when you're reading an awesome novel and you don't want to quit because you just want to stay there with those characters....Yea, it was like that and it was amazing.

Who are Katherine and William? I will not tell.

But here's an inconsequential peek:

"In their uncertainty, they chose silence. Katherine turned back to the darkness of the grounds, leaning against the balustrade for support. William stood stoically beside her, gazing at nothing, studying his own bewildered thoughts."

(c)Gwenn Wright 2010

Pocket of Inspiration

Praise and glory! Hallelujah!
I hit a pocket of inspiration! What an amazing rush. All day I have been plunking away, squeezing sentences out and then suddenly my characters (William and Katherine, you can know that much)
took off. Of course they did everything I, in my infinite wisdom, told them not to. But they couldn't handle it anymore. Four pages flew from my fingers tips. It was like the same rush you get from sprinting a half-mile. What a joy! Of course it's probably all crap, but it felt good! O yea.
And, if my calculations are correct, my novel is 32 pages (book size pages) long now.
How wonderful. I just hope it isn't all crap as I suspect it must be.

Creative Laryngitis

The most difficult aspect of beginning to write again is admitting that you've lost your creative voice and accepting that you're going to have to write a lot of crap in order to get it back. There are days when I just shake my head and walk away from the computer and shut out all the voices in my head.

Who am I kidding? That I can write?

I ask myself these questions daily.

It's ridiculous, but I cling to my sister's high school speech teacher. When I was in 8th grade he read the beginning of one of my novels and was amazed by the strength of my written voice...

O, to be in 8th grade again!

I have never mourned my high school days, but when trying to play the part of a writer I do begin to long for those days with no responsibilities. All day could be spent reading and writing....

It is difficult as a wife and mother and student to find time for your imaginary world. It needs room to breathe, writers need room to daydream and wonder off in their thoughts.

Right now I am at school. As soon as I walked into the studio and flipped on the lights another student was behind me. And now more have followed. There is no solitude for my struggling voice this morning.

I'm beginning to miss my characters, having not written in two days now. Their voices and troubles are so strong in my thoughts. If that makes sense.

And again, I ask myself: Who am I kidding?

Indeed.

The Avoidance of Being Trite

Work on my new novel has begun in earnest. I say "new" as if there is an old novel of mine out there and people are breathlessly awaiting my next stunning work.

No.

New just means that this is the first time since high school that I have written more than...3 pages consecutively.

I am now the proud author of seventeen pages! Woot woot!

It's ridiculous I know.

My first novel was completed my junior year of high school. Piece of trash, that. But it was good practice. It kept me out of trouble.

My friend, who is forever debating with me over the Twlight v. Vampire Diaries, heard from my own lips that I am writing again.

"What is it about!" She asked, her eyes lit up as though she were meeting Robert Pattinson himself. (I do appreciate her enthusiasm for my contrived efforts.) "Is it about vampires?"

No. No it is not.

That story has been beaten into the ground to the point of humiliation.

Can teen novelists jump off the vampire band wagon and find a new way to spin a suspenseful romance?

This is my mission.

I didn't intend to begin a mission. It started with the comparison of Twilight and the Vampire Diaries, the love stories that hold them together. Then I got to thinking about Jane Austen's Mr. Darcy and Nate in Elizabeth George Spear's The Witch of Blackbird Pond. What was it about these characters and these love stories that possessed my soul to the point that I mourned when the story drew to a close?

Before I knew it, there were characters walking around in my head, kicking and demanding to be set free.

It has been all the difference.

Ever since high school I have tried to write, to pull the words out and make them come to life for me. I've had fantastic ideas and wonderful plots, but none of them were living and breathing (so to speak).

And now, in my most academically rigorous semester when I am still trying to decide on an internship and a career and film a mini-doc....there are characters breathing inside my thoughts. If too many days go by without giving them air I start to become depressed and impatient and generally unfriendly. Writing them out is like gasping in wonderful, reviving air after being smothered under a pillow of practicality. The characters are even doing things I haven't planned and didn't intend.

And it's all working out wonderfully.

Now let's just see if I can keep it up.

Simply put,

My story is not about vampires.

It is about love.

It is a bit gritty and a bit fru-fru.

The heroine is not Isabella Swan or Elena Gilbert.

And I am so very happy to be back doing that one thing that has always brought me fulfillment ever since I wrote my first poem in kindergarten...my first love: writing.

And may I just say, thank you dear husband of mine, for giving the strangers in my head room to breathe and loving me even as my flakes begin to show.