I'm no Mozart

I don't have one and only one draft.  My story is redefining itself one agonizing page at a time.  And then there's my book - the same thing is happening, on a much smaller scale.

An interesting recent comment from Bryan Cranston got me thinking... the gist of it was that there are people who can transcend their pain and anger, but their art is no good - you need some degree of suffering to be creative in a way compelling to others.  I take from it that you may be able to communicate higher ideas, but they are often too dry for the common masses (which are often the very people one intends to reach/educate).  I placed this notion over many individuals I know or am familiar with, and found it rings true.

In the past decade, while trying to redefine my life and connection to the universe - to transcend the human "failings" as I saw them - I took charge of my emotions to the best of my degree.  I sought that higher plane.  During that same time, I found my creative output more and more difficult to sustain.  Now, as I attempt to reinvigorate that part of myself, I find it difficult to place myself in the shoes of my characters - I find my "higher self" attempting to direct them, rather than their own natures.  I've forgotten how to 'feel' anything else.

While I certainly would not trade my higher awareness away, I need also connect to my artistic side... so the conundrum then becomes how do I reconnect to those runaway, knee-jerk sensations that define much of common human interaction and reaction?  How do you revisit that lower level of being without doing so in a condescending/frivolous manner?  I don't seek to educate directly, as I have never learned things in this manner.  I would be in a false position if I attempted it.  So, if I am compelled to communicate an idea, I am compelled to do so through art.

It's said that enlightenment is a door that opens inward, and it's one-way.  There's no losing track of certain higher ideas once they've taken root in you.  I don't feel pain like I used to; I have replaced it with knowing.  But certainly for the sake of sharing my message - whatever that might be - I can at least connect to something I used to be.  Or can I?  The universe is infinite, so yes, of course.

I sieve the best for last

The brain sieve that activates when I sit in front of the terminal relaxed a bit last week and I can count a thousand or so extra words to my literary spill.  They'll need to be retouched and rearranged, of course, but like babies they had to come out, ugly or not.

This isn't to imply that the process of writing (creation in its purest sense, perhaps) is tedious for me.  I do find the story idea interesting, and have the absurd delusion that others will as well.  I just find it curious sometimes that it trickles out, sporadically, rather than the deluge that once flowed from my fingertips in my more brash days.  Experience would indeed seem to have placed a muzzle upon me.

But that's silly.  I'm just choosing better battles.  And when the bigger themes become obvious to me, the story won't be held back by any of this banal justification.

The flow

So I sat down to save the damsel.  The scene had been sitting in my mind for a while, refusing to budge from neuron to fingertips to keyboard.  I finally forced it out.

Of course, on initial reading, the scene will appear to be a cliche.  But I already know that is a misdirect.

All of this vague talk here about story and character for a work no one knows anything about - what is my purpose?  I don't know, perhaps this is just to remind myself that I'm still working at it.

On occasion I make the mistake of thinking about what I'll write next, should this ever become complete - and I haven't the foggiest idea.  It's foolish to think about Thursday's game when you're still playing Tuesday.  (Sports references don't suit me!  But you get the gist.)

Every time I approach the keyboard with the intention of being unique.... my brain rightfully stops me in my tracks.  It reminds me to listen to the heart, and the heart says nothing more than just "write what you have to... don't grab a motive and drag it along, let inspiration pull you."  Grand difference between the two.  Given an opportunity to work for money (a brain concern), I find myself more and more dismissive of this.  The world is replete with uninspired works.  I find myself disheartened in the idea I had to force the words out these last two days, but in saying that I did so, I really just mean that I forced the usual hindrances out of the way and let the words flow.  It may be a creek now, but if I keep out of my own way, there'll be a river once more.

Hovering

Been off the blog scene recently, as I decided to pick up and move to the other side of Mingus Mountain.  While I have found gainful employment (in the same field as before), the housing situation has not settled just yet.  Luckily I have some good family who's allowed me a room for the interim.

Naturally this minor disarray has caused me to neglect my writing, for which I am both appalled and appreciative.  Appalled, as I shouldn't let the minutiae of life get in the way of creativity; appreciative, in that it pulls me away from the product long enough that I'll be able to reread it with less enamored eyes.

I'm also somewhat uncertain about my general overall feeling - that there isn't a great urgency to get the work finished - and yet I know there is no time frame for completing it.  Should I create one?

Progresssss

Happy to report the work makes progress.  Less on the page than in my mind.  I understand its quirks a little more now.  I find the elements have begun to cohere.  I found a minor villain to act as a catalyst for the bigger story.  I found a way to honor a couple original characters while replacing them.

What remains is to clarify the ultimate struggle.  What is the motivation?  What is the outcome if no sabot is thrown into the machinery?  Oh, it's fairly big.  How will my tiny heroes prevent it?

That's the fun of the work for the reader.  The author should be clear on it from the onset.  Not quite there yet!  But there has been progress, and that is better than the alternative.

Ssssh - don't tell anyone - but I know who the first victim will be...

...so, in outlining the first few chapters, I decided to kill off one of my characters.  Not a major one, not yet.  But this represents a loosening of the hold on the initial crew.  The initial draft is so old at this point (and poorly done, I can now say without offending myself) that the characters have been comfortably safe in my mind far too long.  As this character exits, two more will take the place - two I recently designed who are far more interesting to me.  So this murder is not without merit.  I honor the veteran while embracing the newer vision.  As such, I have to remind myself of the great truth:

I'm not their buddy.

You can't be a writer

...if you're not going to be fearless.  The world has too much repetition, too much sanitized prose, too many cliches.  Take your character and tear a big hole in him/her.  Flaw them.  Then take words and flay them.  Beat them down and watch them as they stand.  Make epics out of molehills.

I'm still too timid.  Time to put blood in the inkwell.