early morning nano thoughts
I don't think I can manage NaNo this year. I was hoping to use its discipline to jump start my writing again. The whole idea has curdled in the face of the current emotional trauma (which is ironic given that I started writing in response to emotional trauma!) Ever since R told me my writing was 'selfish' I have struggled with fiction. Non-fiction, journal entries, essays, and the like are easier, although still difficult. The drive to create just seems gone, and NaNo just feels like another opportunity for me to fail.
I have been going over the unfinished novels of yesteryear; wishing I could finish just one so I could say to myself: "Self. You wrote a novel." It is interesting that even though I have written two fanfic novels (Sisters and A Day Late both qualify in terms of verbiage I think), my Self doesn't seem to recognize those as real efforts. Self, you suck.
Three unfinished novels: Telepath World (whose title varies year to year but that's the basic concept), Selkie, and The Death of Dreams. TW is the closest to being finished, and Selkie is the most disorganized.
TW deals with a faltering marriage which is knife sliding off bone right now. The happy ending I planned for that novel is at once bitter and surreal.
Selkie is such a tangled knot that I hesitate to pick at it. I was sliding between times and narrators and voice from chapter to chapter. It is one hot mess.
Dreams might work. It's more complex and about halfway written. It contains the weary frustration of leaving behind what you wanted and what you worked for in order to do what's right, and that fits my mood. But in the end, it's all about Hope, and Hope is a red hot bar of iron that I've been learning not to touch. The story is a modern version of the Pandora myth. There is a lot of my old home in it but maybe I could make that work...with the right amount of hopeless yearning staining the page without obscuring the message.
Come to think of it, I always wondered why Hope was in the box with all the monsters and illnesses of the world. Maybe it's the worst evil of all. Maybe it's the highest good.
Maybe it's both.
This entry was originally posted at http://vjs2259.dreamwidth.org/404848.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
I have been going over the unfinished novels of yesteryear; wishing I could finish just one so I could say to myself: "Self. You wrote a novel." It is interesting that even though I have written two fanfic novels (Sisters and A Day Late both qualify in terms of verbiage I think), my Self doesn't seem to recognize those as real efforts. Self, you suck.
Three unfinished novels: Telepath World (whose title varies year to year but that's the basic concept), Selkie, and The Death of Dreams. TW is the closest to being finished, and Selkie is the most disorganized.
TW deals with a faltering marriage which is knife sliding off bone right now. The happy ending I planned for that novel is at once bitter and surreal.
Selkie is such a tangled knot that I hesitate to pick at it. I was sliding between times and narrators and voice from chapter to chapter. It is one hot mess.
Dreams might work. It's more complex and about halfway written. It contains the weary frustration of leaving behind what you wanted and what you worked for in order to do what's right, and that fits my mood. But in the end, it's all about Hope, and Hope is a red hot bar of iron that I've been learning not to touch. The story is a modern version of the Pandora myth. There is a lot of my old home in it but maybe I could make that work...with the right amount of hopeless yearning staining the page without obscuring the message.
Come to think of it, I always wondered why Hope was in the box with all the monsters and illnesses of the world. Maybe it's the worst evil of all. Maybe it's the highest good.
Maybe it's both.
This entry was originally posted at http://vjs2259.dreamwidth.org/404848.html. Please comment there using OpenID.