The Novel Diary: Week 26
Word counts: 595 (Chapter 6); 31,202 (total).
I started Chapter 6 tonight — not last night as I said I would. For whatever reason (laziness) I just wanted one more night off. Plus, I had a softball game at seven o’clock and did not get to eat until afterward, so I would have only had one hour to write. I did pretty well tonight, especially since I have resolved to be more verbose.
While browsing The Quiet Man archive for whatever reason (laziness), I stumbled on this quote from Mark Twain that I used in The Bookworm post for Puddn’head Wilson:
Unlike the emasculating advice often dolled out by Hemingway (who probably said shit to boost is own pride and intimidate others with somewhat bogus suggestions), Twain’s quote uplifted and inspired me. As Twain says, I have some people, an incident or two (more, actually), and a locality in mind. But no story. There is a story, as I have tried to convince and assure myself, but I feel it has yet to truly materialize in my day-to-day efforts. Though I have grown disillusioned with the conventions of fiction and the ways they are modularized and customizable, I feel that is what my novel is lacking: basic elements. I am an über realist, but even in reality one has to admit certain things can fall, eerily, into their proper places as they do in fiction; there is a traceable line of consequences and meaning. There is a reason why art imitates life, and vice versa. That is currently what the overarching problem of my novel is: it is not imitating art or life. At least not yet.
Chapter 6 will inject a much needed second storyline into the text, one that will be woven in and out with everything else. Perhaps when I get to it (because I was busy being verbose tonight) I will feel a little better about the direction I am going.
I started Chapter 6 tonight — not last night as I said I would. For whatever reason (laziness) I just wanted one more night off. Plus, I had a softball game at seven o’clock and did not get to eat until afterward, so I would have only had one hour to write. I did pretty well tonight, especially since I have resolved to be more verbose.
While browsing The Quiet Man archive for whatever reason (laziness), I stumbled on this quote from Mark Twain that I used in The Bookworm post for Puddn’head Wilson:
A man who is not born with the novel-writing gift has a troublesome time of it when he tries to build a novel. I know this from experience. He has no clear idea of his story; in fact he has no story. He merely has some people in his mind, and an incident or two, also a locality. He knows these people, he knows the selected locality, and he trusts that he can plunge those people into those incidents with interesting results. So he goes to work… I know about this because it has happened to me so many times.
Unlike the emasculating advice often dolled out by Hemingway (who probably said shit to boost is own pride and intimidate others with somewhat bogus suggestions), Twain’s quote uplifted and inspired me. As Twain says, I have some people, an incident or two (more, actually), and a locality in mind. But no story. There is a story, as I have tried to convince and assure myself, but I feel it has yet to truly materialize in my day-to-day efforts. Though I have grown disillusioned with the conventions of fiction and the ways they are modularized and customizable, I feel that is what my novel is lacking: basic elements. I am an über realist, but even in reality one has to admit certain things can fall, eerily, into their proper places as they do in fiction; there is a traceable line of consequences and meaning. There is a reason why art imitates life, and vice versa. That is currently what the overarching problem of my novel is: it is not imitating art or life. At least not yet.
Chapter 6 will inject a much needed second storyline into the text, one that will be woven in and out with everything else. Perhaps when I get to it (because I was busy being verbose tonight) I will feel a little better about the direction I am going.
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