The Glory of Words
[Ed. Note: While poor SFist Jon is probably dealing with a wave of anti-American sentiment on his vacation to beautiful Chile, we've taken responsibility for his NaNoWriMo charge Brenda.]
There are sagas, and then there are the sagas about sagas. There are even sagas about saga sagas, but Derrida's dead -- let him rest in peace, for God's sake.
We have the saga of Brenda, NaNoWriMo novelist three times over and four times hopeful. She's been pounding the keys for almost three weeks now and she's nearly admitted defeat - at least on the 50,000 words in 30 days front. It's a war against oneself, writing is, and one has to choose one's battles. While Brenda may be bogged down on the Russian front, she's yet to meet her Waterloo, and soldiers on admirably. So she may have to finish the thing in December -- no matter. How many of us have completed a single novel, much less written four in the space of four months scattered over four years? We have it on good authority that Bulgakov took 12 years to write Master and Margarita, and was still making edits on his death bed.
Along with us, let's give a big cheer in the comments for Brenda and hope that some good feeling carries her through a 10,000 word Thanksgiving binge. She'll be writing while we watch Joey Harrington toil for the hapless Lions on Thursday, drowsy from tryptophan. At least her cause is not nearly as lost as his. Heart-wrenching update after the jump.
I'm hopelessly behind in my novel word count and probably won’t make it to the 50,000 word count by November 30, but I’m okay with it.Trying to write a novel from a new point of view when I’m under a deadline may not have been the best idea, as it has really slowed my word count production down.
I love the convenience and portability of writing a novel via my pda, but it has its drawbacks. The screen is small and even with a larger font, I still end up squinting a lot when I write. Squinting at 8:30 pm in a not well lit coffee place is not fun when you’re tired after a long day at work. Scrolling to read what I’ve written on a pda is not exactly a joy either.
Writing while fighting off a sore throat has just not been fun. Not that writing is every really fun. As William Goldman said at my screenwriting expo in LA, “if writing were really easy and fun everyone would be doing it.” And you know what, the old guy is so right. Writing and the act of creativity is an act of will, and when my body is weak my willpower is non-existent.
Jim Carey in his “60 Minutes” interview on Sunday said creativity comes out of desperation. So the question begs itself, how desperate do I have to be write 4-5 pages a day? And sadly my answer is “I guess not desperate enough, at least not this year. I was desperate for three years in a row, but now I’m over my desperation.”
I still like the plot of my novel. Plotting a novel is fun and creating the characters to carry out the plot of the story is a joy. I start with a big idea and then literally an instant, I see the outline of the story from beginning to end. It’s a gift from the universe, the story gods. But it’s the daily worshipping at the story god altar that is boring and just plain drudgery. All of a sudden the brilliant plot I came up with has huge believability gaps, and I’m sitting there and thinking how I get my character from point A to point B in a way that makes sense. They say that God is in the details, but it’s a yin and yang world and the devil is residing there as well making my da...[Ed. Note: Understand that this is over 1,500 words a day she has to write, and we're happy that she's willing to throw a few our way.]
Anyone who says writing is easy doesn’t write every day. Creating the story is the easy part, it’s the writing every day thing that will kill you. And this is just the beginning of the process; I’m not even to the editing part yet.
But writing is my addiction, my drug, and my creative muse. When I write I feel terrible, but when I don’t write I feel even worse. So I choose the lesser of two evils and sometimes, just sometimes, I read what I’ve written and think “you know, this isn’t that half bad.”
We're rooting for you Brenda. Elderberry tea we've heard is great for the throat, although we go with Faulkner's choice of bourbon, personally. If it's any consolation, there are probably people reading this who will say, "Pishaw, I could do that with my hands tied behind a Royal typewriter," only to get their comeuppance when they attempt the feat next November.