But, heck, it's been a long time. I started my fifth novel, Rictangular Lenses, in early September 2016. Reached 25,000 words, uncertain steps became a shuffle, a crawl, a mouldering body picked to its skeleton on a desert sand dune. At 33,000 words progress stopped. A year went past.
I could have junked RL but 33,000 words represent a third of the way there. My baby, even though it was on a switched-off ventilator. Suffering a bad attack of mixed metaphors
Here's the situation: In the remaining 66,000 words Events A, B, C, D will happen. I see them, if vaguely. It's the paths that link those events that worry me. They must be original, unexpected and lively - the products of my imagination. But my imagination had taken an unfashionable walk and was now in an ashram, trying to get a mobile signal.
Last week my imagination - wearing flip-flops and a tee-shirt with a Camus quote - returned to Herefordshire. The word count's now 40,000. Here are some new words:
In the sparsely populated business class section of the London flight she turned down several offers of splits of champagne. Tried to sleep but couldn’t. At Heathrow customs, wearied and stiff, she was directed to a side counter there to open her suitcase and expose a pile of unlaundered lingerie. With her mind closed down in self-protection she passed through the Arrivals gate and only sheer luck enabled her to spot Gerald Lovelace, now her stepfather....
But the block could return. Novels are a fool’s business.
I would guess the reason is having your energies diverted to your overwhelming involvement with singing? Can most people pursue more than one interest with equal amounts of passion and attention? Some, perhaps, others not?
ReplyDeleteSometimes I feel guilty about doing something I want to do when I know there are other less inviting but not vital tasks to be done and I will put off the desirable pursuit, but in the end we are all selfish to some extent and will end up "doing what we want to do."
Sir Hugh: The form of energy that disappeared was imagination; theoretically, it should remain unaffected by other activities but it is, by its very nature, unpredictable and cannot be forced. One can of course spew out plodding stuff that doesn't depend on imagination but it is neither fun to write nor read.
ReplyDeleteAero-erotica! Aromatic!
ReplyDeleteMikeM: I have a horrible feeling you have missed the point. Second thought: perhaps it was me who missed the point. But then there's always the comfort of the Delete key.
ReplyDeleteI don't have that comfort once I've posted. Did you think I'd fail to note that our heroine has again wandered into the realm of air travel? Did you hope I'd take a pass on "unlaundered lingerie"(say it aloud a few times)? Or "Gerald Lovelace" as step-dad?
ReplyDeleteMikeM: It's just a pleasure to chat, I wanted simply to prolong the experience (Notice how I avoided that split infinitive; there's life in the old dog yet.)
ReplyDeleteAir travel? Yes, but very briefly. I've said "unlaundered lingerie" to myself several times, as instructed. The incidence of the letter "l" (the most seductive in the English alphabet) in both words gives them a delicious squelchiness as if from overripe tomatoes, a phrase, say, from one of the more excessively verbal poets (eg, Manley Hopkins).
More seriously I'm beginning to think I went OTT with my choice of name for Gerald Lovelace. Here he is when he comes a'calling for Lindsay's mum:
Her (ie, Lindsay's) light summer dress might have passed muster but not the neckline. Mr Lovelace’s eyes roved deep into that vee, lips tight with disapproval. His dark grey three-piece and navy-blue – almost black – tie spoke of a different world and his handshake brushed her fingers like a dying butterfly.
What sort of employment, Lindsay wondered? A solicitor limited to wills and other messages from the dead? A civil servant who understood the theory of social care but not its reality?
“You said you wouldn’t be coming to the church?” Mr Lovelace said, as if resuming an earlier argument.
And after he meets her unexpectedly at the airport with news (too complex to mention here) that reflects indirectly on Lindsay's character, something she herself is starting to question:
And here he was at the wheel of his substantial Audi, younger and more wordly than at that confrontation in the Ian Mikardo tower block. Wearing a foulard of all things, white hair trimmed more stylishly. For the first time Lindsay realised that his prominence in the church and his outward display of religiosity had been important pillars of stability that had drawn her mother to him. A fixed point and a source of generosity.
What revelations were in store? Nothing too serious Lindsay imagined.
At the (ie, Lindsay's) Shepherd’s Bush flat – how remarkably anonymous it appeared – Gerald Lovelace looked around and touched her wrist. “Have a shower first. It will do you good. I’ll scout around for the tea things.” He laughed rather sweetly. “Assuming this is a tea flat. Coffee more like.”
There's about 15,000 words and 18 months of waiting-to-write time between those two passages. I'd started out creating a person I intended to dislike. Now, following his marriage to Lindsay's mum, I'm starting to approve of him. The name Gerald Lovelace has echoes of nineteenth-century pornographic novels (typically John Cleland's Fanny Hill) and it may have to go. Fortunately MsW has a "Replace all" feature.