Writing

Some rambles on my way to the point of a private place to write:

Three summers ago I began writing sketches and scenes and making notes about a novel that had been in my head for a while. I'd written a lot in my teens and early twenties, had been told I was good, I floundered with the idea of writing, and life went on.

Several months later, I found Sparky's blog and I hovered and read it, sent in an opening, sent more stuff, and what was the most key for me, began doing the writing exercises. They were great for whittling word count, for finding and honing the point of a scene. And sometimes we could send in a scene from our work. Oftentimes, this gave me the opportunity to sift through notes and actually write the scene that had been murking around inside my thoughts but had never quite made it to paper. Or laptop file. Sparky doesn't know this, but he quite literally helped me write my novel.

And I found you guys. It was, and is, wonderful.

Other excellent things happened along the way, that seemed just fun or just work or just something when they happened, but all came together as a way of spurring on the work...

....Chris had a month long writing exercise a while back, and it helped me focus and write one of the most emotionally difficult chapters in my novel, a climactic chapter two-thirds of the way through, because I didn't wanna let her down and not write. I wrote quickly, almost automatically, to get that done, and it's one of the besy chapters in my novel. (I've sent this out to several lit mags as a stand-alone story, and while it wasn't published, I received several personal motes back along the lines of - it made several cuts - loved the voice, the rhythm - loved almost all of it, really, it just needed... - that kind of thing. The point is, if I'd had the time to hone it to a story and sent it out to more than seven or eight places, I'd have done the deal.)

...Shona had a writing exercise several months later, and it gave me a reason to finish another sketched out and difficult chapter.

...I've read for some of you, and some of you have read for me. The knowledge that someone is waiting for your pages is huge. It's an anchor.

(There are more things to go here, some hopefully helpful to you, but I have to go to work, so I'll add later.)

When I wrote...I have a boatload of pictures and I was gonna put more on, but if I did, and explained them all and how they fit into the woven fiction of the novel I've written, and the ones to come, I might as well just set those suckers up as combo plan picture-books/memoirs, another genre entirely, and make it the truth instead of The Truth, and that would be much too much information, and besides, I think the best fiction lends universality to the concrete, the mundane and the every day, so if I send too many pictures along I think I'd be undermining my writing.

And I've seen things on some of your blogs that are so damn good, I've thought about the words being squandered - not that we ourselves aren't a killer good audience, but still.

I mentioned about being on the fence before and part of what I meant was - I think we're walking along the top of a fence line when we write on our blogs.

I'm going to start a private blog where I place things I may want to use later. Or sooner. A test place, a place to post things so that they feel 'solidified', accomplished - this place won't require comments, it won't require anything unless requested. What I'm saying is, I think we could all do with a place that no one can visit without permission - so we can post things and write and prep and instead of being a distraction from the writing we should be doing - which is - after all - how and why we know each other - it will be the place we can post writing to look over and think over, and, if we want, we can ask for comments - if we don't, we won't ask and won't receive. It's not another layer of work - instead, it's a place to help us focus. A place to practice or try out voice or structure.

Either way, it's a place to put something up and get work done without any way the world can read in, before we're ready.

What do you think?