Echoes in a Hollow Space

I reached a creative low point at the end of last week, so I officially gave myself the week off from any writing. "I'll just read," I told myself and "and not even think about either of the novels that are driving me insane." And that's what I did, and it's been good.

Long about Tuesday, though, things started tickling; ideas that refused to come when I called began a whispering game from under the closed door, "Can we come back in and play? I think you'll like what we've been saving up for you."

I kept the door shut for another day, stuck to my non-association pledge, but the whispers got more and more insistent: "Really, that incredibly knotty plot problem you've been staring at for weeks? We'll tell you how to solve it."

Overnight on Wednesday they sent in one of the characters to act as an intermediary: "Listen, the Muses have said they're sorry and I know they really are. Won't you give them another chance? I mean, look, they've dressed me up in these spiffy new clothes and given me a whole new direction. It's just so inspirational! You wouldn't want to hurt their feelings, would you?"

"All right," I finally said, "but just an outline. I'm not sitting down in front of the page again until I'm sure they're going to behave."

"Really, we swear this time!" they shouted through the keyhole. "Really, really for sure!"

I am happy to report that when I sat down yesterday to start the outline, they were models of decorum and helpfulness. Gordian knots unclenched before my eyes, pieces of plot that had steadfastly sat on the sidelines chanting, "Neener neener neener," now lined up like good little children, eager to fall into place.

So I opened up chapter 9 of Venus today, and lo! One of those newly spiffed characters showed up just when I needed him to deliver the information I so greatly needed to convey. His arrival is a bit too convenient, plot-wise, but I'm glad for his company anyway. I figure we can negotiate the terms of his later-draft reassignment when the time comes. I'm just glad he—and the Muses—have decided to be nice to me again.

For now.

Surreality of the day: Learning a former boss of mine was targeted for assassination by Al Qaida. He was a jerk, but that seems extreme. I guess that's why they call those Al Qaida fellows extremists.

Exciting news of the day: My friend's husband was asked to be a judge at the Venice Film Festival in September. She gets to go to Italy!

Synchronicity of the day: I talked to my other friend today and she told me she did her annual summer solstice walk Saturday. She and her group walk from Pasadena, over the Santa Monica Mountains, and to the beach at Santa Monica—done every Saturday before the solstice if not the solstice itself. They do this in the spirit of pilgrimage, a way of breaking themselves out of the ordinary and commonplace, in the spirit of commitment. At the precise moment I was walking around Woodlawn taking pictures, she and her group were walking past Woodlawn on their way to the beach. Neither of us knew the other was there.

Things I thought of blogging about today: About how much problem and reluctance I've had lately in getting my chapters started because I've got the "end-of-the-book-but-not-near-enough-to-the-end" sluggishness thing going now.

Why I didn't blog it: Although I felt like I'd have a problem, I had no idea how to start, could feel the resistance building in me to start chapter 23 today...I had no problem starting chapter 23. The first line popped right up and I was off. I wound up writing 1500 words—which is a pretty big daily bump for me. The Muse was being tricksy.

Typo of note: To hit the kind is not nothing.

Cliché du jour: as grim as death

Darling du jour: n/a - Nothing really lit my pipe today.

The Rewrite progresses.  I finished chapter 12 yesterday, and that leaves only 22 + Epilogue to go.  =:0  As is usually the case when I'm firmly committed to one piece of writing, other pieces start singing their siren songs to me.  "Oh, you'd much rather be working on me."  Usually I am able to regretfully but firmly decline—even though some of them grow quite insistent as time passes. 

When I was working on the last half of the first draft of Shivery Bones I kept getting insistent calls from a young woman named Hortensia, star of my novella, "Hortensia's Man," currently up on the Online Writing Workshop: http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/

She insisted that her story was important and needed to be told, and even though I agreed with her, I explained she'd have to wait her turn.  She wasn't satisfied with that, even when I did the historical research for the story hoping to appease her.  I begged off writing by telling her I couldn't start her story until I'd finished that research.  It didn't work.  She kept insisting.  I let her out of the box on weekends sometimes, but she never wanted to confine herself to weekends.  Still, over a six or so month period, her story did get told.

After I finished the first draft of ShivBo, I took about three months off.  The first month, April, I was busy getting ready for my trip or actually being on the trip, but I let the muse know that if he was so inclined, I was open to suggestions.  Nothing.  So I worked on stories from the trunk for about a month and a half, revisiting stories I hadn't looked at in over a year, refining and reworking.  I did another big chunk of work on a (still) unfinished story called, "The Green Ones."  Even so, nothing new tickled at my brain; none of the stories in my Ideas file decided they were ready for the next step.  I decided it was time to seriously launch into the rewrite.  Of course that's when all the new kids decided to move onto the block. 

First up was a story inspired by one of my own blog entries.  Which is somewhat like picking lint out of one's own navel, but whatever.  That story, "Green Horse Bone" gushed out about 1400 words in a few days, weaving in and out of the rewrite, before going on hiatus.  "Okay," I said, "you got that out of your system, now it's time to focus seriously on ShivBo."  I did, but GHB continues to weave in and out—dribs and drabs here and there when my back is turned. 

Then the Muse started playing an old, favored trick on me.  At night when I lay my weary head on the pillow—always on nights when I have to get up early for work the next morning—the Muse launches sneak attacks.  Just as I'm thoroughly relaxed and beginning to drift off, blam!  Into my head pops a great opening line for a story that's been sitting in the Ideas file stewing for awhile.  I'm just at that stage of tired where I really don't want to get out of bed again, but these openers are killer, the obvious gateway to the good stuff to follow.  And I know if I don't jot them down, they won't be there when I wake up.  I keep a bedside notebook so I roll over, sit up and jot.  Surprisingly, when I wake up the next morning, these openers read just as well as I thought they would.  I type them up and put them in the story folder for later when I have time to expand upon them. 

Last night was one of those nights, only it wasn't just an opening line, it was a whole opening sequence that presented itself for a story I've been cogitating over for a couple of years:  "The Story Shaman."  I groaned, rolled over, sat up.  Both sides of a handwritten notebook page is almost always about 250 words.  When I'd written both sides of the page and started on a new one I reminded myself that I had to get up early and it was getting late.  I was able to go to sleep then.  That reminder—and sleep—wouldn't have come unless I'd finished for the night because if I don't get it all down, I just keep coming up with new stuff and have to get up again and do more jotting.  The Night Muse does not care if work comes early and inspiration comes late. 

Fortunately, when I do sit down to write those stories, those openers (even if I don't use them for many months) open the door and let the story flow through.  Openers are crucial.  If I make them up with the forefront of my mind, they don't work.  If I let the hindpart loose, they usually work.  Sometimes I do have to rewrite those, but they are more likely to stay in the final drafts.  The forefront openers almost always have too much preamble, don't get into the story fast enough or with the right vision or voice.  Voice is a particularly key component of these hindpart-generated openers.  I know how to tell the story then, whenever I take it up and go forth.

Which is why it's worth getting out of bed.