Crock and Tendril take a vacation

[vaneramos]

I don't know how to continue the novel I started writing earlier this month. I have a few ideas for chapter 6, but beyond that I'm lost. It's not that I don't know how to write the next chapter, but I lack a destination. I started to uncover an underlying theme, but can't see how to execute it convincingly. So the story doesn't have any point to it. The possibilities are becoming too silly, even for me.

It's frustrating, because I liked many elements of the first five chapters. I enjoyed the characters, particularly Crock, the 29-year-old deaf gay playwright, and the relationship with his 12-year-old daughter, Tendril.

I need to put this project on the shelf and give myself permission to start something different.

The purpose of this exercise was to learn something, and to find out whether I could tackle NaNoWriMo. I learned a few things:

1. Although I don't want to plan the whole story beforehand, I need a destination. Otherwise I get derailed.


2. I also need to pick an audience and genre before I start writing.


3. I like writing whimsy, and some people like reading it.


4. Lark, Tendril, Crock, Lesson, Credenza and Mrs. Apron may assist my future endeavours if they want to.


5. I can't handle writing 2,000 words a day on one project. I would have to write larger chunks, maybe 3,200 words four times a week, to complete NaNoWriMo. I still can't tell whether that much pressure will do me any good. Part of me wants to craft the writing more carefully as I go, but another part doubts whether I'll ever finish a first draft that way. It's helpful seeing the way different LJers work. I have to find my own groove.


6. This is only the second novel in my life I have written past the second chapter. It feels like progress, and I value these lessons.

I was amazed at all the people who took time to read this stuff, and I deeply appreciate their comments. I especially want to thank dubious_one, ghostsandrobots and roosterbear for their encouragement, advice and helpful critiques. I feel bad for not letting people know how things turn out, but to my chagrin, I don't know.

Except that some deaf, dysfunctional fairies were plotting to kidnap Crock. It would have been another catastrophe for Tendril, but I couldn't stop their plotting. I don't know what they wanted, and prefer not to.

Comments

[ghostsandrobots.livejournal.com]

I was so enjoying your installments, but understand all too well. I seem to have drifted away from my own attempt at writing fiction after all this time -- and that was supposed to be just a short story! The problems you've run into with this make a lot more sense to me than mine do. :)

Maybe I will take it up again for NaNoWriMo, when I will be forced to not try and structure it due to time constraints. Last year's was really tough for me to get through; freewriting was the only way. The entire purpose was to be able to say, "I have a first draft of something completed!"

[leafshimmer.livejournal.com]

I'll miss Crock, Tendril, and their friends, but it does seem as if it would be best for you to take a break from this.

I have been enjoying the poetry, your LJ writing, your photos, and the other ways in which you are sharing your creativity here.

Shimmer

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Well, from a selfish point of view, I'm disappointed, because I wanted to see how it came out, but if it's not working for you, there's probably no point in your continuing with it, at least for now.

As for not knowing where it's going, I (not a writer) was fascinated by the glimpses into the writing process that I got from Christopher Tolkien's compilations (or whatever one calls them) of his father's drafts for The Lord of the Rings. When JRRT started it, he had no idea what the Ring was or where the story was going. Not too much later he figured out what the ultimate destination was, but getting there was a long and wandering journey.

Re: Me = bossy but well meaning

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

This doesn't strike me as bossy. It's useful advice.

I had a complicated for the other novel I almost wrote when I was younger, but it was so detailed it didn't allow my characters to come to life, in my opinion.

I'm feeling persuaded by your argument though. It would be enough to say that in chapter 10, my main character has to go from point A to point B, in the process meeting so-and-so and discovering P. I was creating an outline like that for each of the chapters in my head before I wrote them, one at a time, but my head now refuses to come up with ideas for those outlines because I don't know where they're leading.

I need to figure out the final chapter.

When I started writing this, I saw it as an exercise. I didn't expect to get further than one or two chapters, but I liked the characters and ideas, and so did other people, which is why I kept going. I have read that some writers do this to get to know their characters. I'm thinking of continuing to play this way for a few days. I've been doing a little research, too, looking for ideas, bits of real life information that I could spin off. Trying to dredge up some treasure from "what I know."

After that, I think you're right. I'll try writing an outline. Whether or not it will have anything to do with this book, I don't know.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid that if I do it all by freewriting it will end up totally incoherent, going off on unrelated tangents. How did it turn out for you? What did you do with it?

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thanks shimmer. My creativity seems to be going in half a dozen different directions just now. This dilemma (not necessarily a bad thing) is something I need to write about in more detail sometime soon.

One thing I know is I have wanted to write novels all my life.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Tolkien spent the better part of his life writing LOTR, but it was worthwhile because he had a magnificent concept and patience for great detail. That detail is what makes the books so masterful. Before he wrote them, he had already created a rich world full of races, languages, mythologies and ecologies.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, except to say that I don't have the luxury of Tolkien's headspace. Tendril's world is practically nonexistent, even in my head. I need to have some groundwork.

[ghostsandrobots.livejournal.com]

Oh, mine did end up being pretty much incoherent, as I recall. Some of the time, when I really wasn't into it, I wrote about how tired I was and what I should have happen next in the story.

It's crap, I'm sure. On the other hand, I got to the end. Even though I had no idea what that should be until the last minute. Actually, embarrassingly, most of it is lost. It was saved on our old computer that died. I hadn't looked at it since I finished, anyway.

I took really seriously the idea that the word-count is what matters, not at all the quality of the words. That was the only way I was able to manage. This was the first of anything at that length I'd completed, ever. Still, especially towards the beginning, I think there were some parts worth saving. It's got to be on a backup somewhere.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Zig. Your approach is different, and helpful for me to consider.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

At the risk of boring non-fans (or maybe everybody), I'll just say that it's a little more complicated than that. He spent most of his life working on the underlying mythology -- The Silmarillion, which in fact he never finished. When he started work on LOTR, its connection with that mythology was tenuous at best, but the world of The Silmarillion gradually took over.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, except to say that I don't have the luxury of Tolkien's headspace. Tendril's world is practically nonexistent, even in my head. I need to have some groundwork.

Sure. I didn't mean to suggest that you should take Tolkien as a model :-),
only that his experience suggests that sometimes a story writes the author rather as much as the other way around (if that means anything).

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Yes it does. The story must become the writer's reality.