Crikey it’s cold out there tonight. Should get a good 5 or 6 below freezing, I think. Gonna be frosty in the AM.
Liz and I just watched the trailer for the Amazon show “Z” which is about Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of F. Scott and quite the writer in her own right. Apparently, she was a character, and I can see that in every movie that features the writers of that time. She’s always played as young, sassy, and imminently interesting. We’ll have to check out the show, see if it’s any good. We can finally stream Amazon right to our TV through the PS4.
I got writing done today! That was a great success. And it was kind of a tough scene…I realized something today as I was writing…a scene, one scene, can really only be about one, maybe two things. Start on one subject and move to another that takes up the majority of the action/dialogue…and then perhaps have the scene interrupted with a third thing that ends the scene, like literally a line or two that segues us into the next scene…
But that’s it. You can’t do more than that. It just doesn’t feel “natural.” It feels exposition-y and contrived. So, that was a nice realization. I can really use that now when I plan out a novel to make sure that I’m giving myself the scenes that I need to drop certain information and establish certain relationships and conflicts.
It does get tough because when one plans a novel and when one sits down to actually write it, a lot changes. At least, that’s what happened with my first. You discover things as you write; the characters start to come alive and they tell you things you didn’t expect them to. In my experience, when that happens, fucking listen to that shit. A real reaction, in that you didn’t know something was coming, it wasn’t planned, and it surprised you…that shit is gold. It’s real. Use it. Don’t rewrite it.
So, yeah, that was awesome. Sucks that it took me as long as it did, about two hours maybe three, because it was only five pages of the manuscript, but sometimes that was has to happen, you know? The next scene, by and large, works really well already, so it’ll go fast. And it’s, like 20 pages in length so it’ll take me through a large chunk. I should be able to be around page 250 by the time we get home on Sunday. And that is dope. Hoping, praying, loving and eating that I’ll be able have all those changes typed in by New Years.
That’s the new goal, by the way…the one that probably (probably) won’t kill me: to have these hand-written rewrites typed into the manuscript by New Years. The line edits and rewrites will be done the week after, please be true baby jesus. What a major accomplishment that will be.
Anywho…tomorrow I have the chance to work on the writing all day. Liz is going out to the mountain for some skiing with the seester, and my bro and Addie are both working all day, so it’s the perfect time to enjoy our Airbnb and rewrite the shit out of this damn book. Wish me luck with that.
Night errbody!
Artwork tonight is from Paul Lehr.