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Saturday, October 25, 2014
The Leitrim Fire Station
The Leitrim fire station is near the south west corner of Leitrim Road and Bank Street, facing south on Leitrim Road.
Monday, October 06, 2014
Making Slow Progress With My Writing
I am in the labyrinth of the finale of the novel I am currently writing. I think it's good but what do I know? That will be up to the book's audience, if there is one.
For two days I have not put any words on the page, yet I am in the process of writing. I have decided a few things about what happens next but there is more to work out. I have figured who will be featured and where. I need to provide a time filler to allow another event elsewhere to progress to a scene where there will be sufficient conflict, change and progress to the next event in the narrative.
A scene that is just time filler isn't good enough. There needs to be something there that advances the action with sufficient conflict and action on its own to provide entertainment to the reader.
I am visualizing the characters, the setting, the time of day, the weather, the smells, the noises around them, and fitting that into the overall story, in which, I have something like eight story arcs in progress. This is the kind of thing I have to do in order to get to a point where putting the words on the page will result in something worth reading from the page. At least, that's the hope.
This is somewhat like writing jokes when I was involved in writing sketch comedy. Back then it was all intuition and instinct. Despite the learning and discovery I have gone through with doing this, namely writing, I am still mostly relying on intuition and instinct. I may think something is funny but until it is being performed and an audience is laughing at it I really have no way of knowing.
Another problem with this is that it is in the vicinity of the "third act." This is where the story has to come to close in a way that seems to make sense and that satisfies the reader so they'll feel rewarded for working their way through the story to get to the end.
As to the eight or so story arcs, I am hoping to resolve about three of them. There will be loose ends hanging out all over the place. That's OK because I plan to write other stories in this story's world that will connect back to it.
I think my earlier life in public school would have been just ever so slightly easier if at least one of my teachers had known that the majority of the work involved with writing doesn't involve getting the words on the page but it is the process of working out what those words will be.
For two days I have not put any words on the page, yet I am in the process of writing. I have decided a few things about what happens next but there is more to work out. I have figured who will be featured and where. I need to provide a time filler to allow another event elsewhere to progress to a scene where there will be sufficient conflict, change and progress to the next event in the narrative.
A scene that is just time filler isn't good enough. There needs to be something there that advances the action with sufficient conflict and action on its own to provide entertainment to the reader.
I am visualizing the characters, the setting, the time of day, the weather, the smells, the noises around them, and fitting that into the overall story, in which, I have something like eight story arcs in progress. This is the kind of thing I have to do in order to get to a point where putting the words on the page will result in something worth reading from the page. At least, that's the hope.
This is somewhat like writing jokes when I was involved in writing sketch comedy. Back then it was all intuition and instinct. Despite the learning and discovery I have gone through with doing this, namely writing, I am still mostly relying on intuition and instinct. I may think something is funny but until it is being performed and an audience is laughing at it I really have no way of knowing.
Another problem with this is that it is in the vicinity of the "third act." This is where the story has to come to close in a way that seems to make sense and that satisfies the reader so they'll feel rewarded for working their way through the story to get to the end.
As to the eight or so story arcs, I am hoping to resolve about three of them. There will be loose ends hanging out all over the place. That's OK because I plan to write other stories in this story's world that will connect back to it.
I think my earlier life in public school would have been just ever so slightly easier if at least one of my teachers had known that the majority of the work involved with writing doesn't involve getting the words on the page but it is the process of working out what those words will be.
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