Brainiacs

Random quote of the day:


"One should be intelligent enough to know when not to be too intellectual."

—Sol LeWitt, interview, Art Monthly, March 1993








( Illustrated version. )

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

The current structure of my novel

I had a vision the other day of the current structure of my novel, my WIP. It seems most to resemble one of those small town water towers with the long, skinny base and a great big bulge on top—the top being the end of the novel, with all that climaxy stuff and loose ends. I'm working like a frantic thing to cram all that in. But it still looks kind of like this one in Makanda, Illinois:



Only my novel isn't so round and perfect on top. It's more of a big, fat elliptical water tower on a spindly column. I spent way too long on the build up and way too much time on character backstory. (Right about here, those who have been with me on this journey before are saying, "As always.")

Clearly, things cannot be allowed to stand in this shape. Somehow, in the next draft, I'm going to have to push some of that bulge down into base without bursting my bubble or causing the whole rickety structure to collapse.

We wouldn't want that. Think of the carnage if that thing came down on a house. Think of the waste if all those ideas leaked out and inundated the neighborhood. Maybe I can drain them off gradually, reinsert them earlier, so the structure looks more like a really cool rocket:



Then I could lumber into the sky, raining ideas down in fiery sparks. It may not look like it can fly, but just wait until take off. Then you'll see.