Autumn leaves
Every year I'm hesitant on the brink of November, the first few sentences coming with painstaking care, but then I sink down into the flow of a new character, a new mind, a new set of problems and a new way of thinking about writing, and everything gets back to being right.
I'm incredibly impressed with the actual quality of the prose I wrote last night between midnight and 2am to begin my novel. It's probably problematic, because now I'll want the whole thing to be this well-written. But I also wonder if this just means I'm becoming a better writer--or at least that this is a story that, somehow, I know how to write. I'm less thank 2,000 words in but I feel like the style of the writing itself has helped me get inside my protagonist's head, get to know her in a nuanced sort of way that I've rarely known other protagonists. Maybe, I think, it's because she's sort of grown-up, already living an independent life, unlike so many of my FMCs whose stories are about growing up and becoming independent--but maybe there's just something about her that works, for me, with me. Either way, I'm not going to complain. I don't remember the last time I felt this happy with the quality of anything written in November.
(Of course, the scene I've written couldn't possibly be more quotidian--a woman walking down the street on her way to a meeting with her dissertation adivsor--but I don't care. Something about it is so perfectly hers.)
I could go on with the rhapsodizing, but sadly, writing a novel isn't all that I'm doing this month, so it's back to homework...so that I can attend my first New York write-in later tonight!
I'm incredibly impressed with the actual quality of the prose I wrote last night between midnight and 2am to begin my novel. It's probably problematic, because now I'll want the whole thing to be this well-written. But I also wonder if this just means I'm becoming a better writer--or at least that this is a story that, somehow, I know how to write. I'm less thank 2,000 words in but I feel like the style of the writing itself has helped me get inside my protagonist's head, get to know her in a nuanced sort of way that I've rarely known other protagonists. Maybe, I think, it's because she's sort of grown-up, already living an independent life, unlike so many of my FMCs whose stories are about growing up and becoming independent--but maybe there's just something about her that works, for me, with me. Either way, I'm not going to complain. I don't remember the last time I felt this happy with the quality of anything written in November.
(Of course, the scene I've written couldn't possibly be more quotidian--a woman walking down the street on her way to a meeting with her dissertation adivsor--but I don't care. Something about it is so perfectly hers.)
I could go on with the rhapsodizing, but sadly, writing a novel isn't all that I'm doing this month, so it's back to homework...so that I can attend my first New York write-in later tonight!