novel

Hamartia

Writing is like breathing: I exhale so that I may inhale. When I do not write I find that I am not fully living. The concoctions of thought, the skeletal remains of lurid fantasies, need to be exhumed. Conversing is good and all, but at the end of a long conversation, I find no evidence that these spirits have been properly exorcised. It’s not like I can see the conversation and know for certain how I felt when I said the words and had the feelings. I may be a bit happier, maybe more relaxed or passionate or enthusiastic, but there’s no reason why that’s the case. The fact is: I need to write. I just need to think through my fingers, through my body. I need to feel the velleity of inspiration coursing through my veins, through my mind. Art is nice, but writing takes the abstract and makes it concrete and comprehensible. I feel like very little is lost in translation, whereas in art, it’s about as interpretive as you can get. Who knows, maybe writing is just as hermeneutic. Maybe art is a purer, more universal language that transcends the idiomatic nuances of the written word. Or maybe not. I like to think that the poignancy of ideas is best captured through writing. So…

Anyway. I began writing another novel. I decided that I’ll try a third person narrative. I’ve never written an extended story in the third person, and I realized that 99% of the stories and essays I’ve ever penned have been in the first person. The majority of philosophy essays are first person. I journal in the first person. Whenever I express my thoughts it’s done subjectively. It’s not like I’ve really had to write in the third person. I figure I should give it a try and wield the power of an omniscient narrator. It might be liberating.

The past two day’s I’ve been writing up a plot and developing the characters, writing close to three thousand words. The novel will be about love, essentially. Loving others and loving yourself. I know, it’s sappy, maybe overused, but I don’t care. I’m not tryin to publish a number one best seller. I’m just trying to write. I’ve written pretty much every day for the past eleven or twelve years, whether it’s in a hand written paper journal or a blog entry, so I decided that, since I’m writing, may as well start writing stories. At least that way I can hone my story telling abilities. And, I’m not sure writing for my sake will do much good unless other people read it, and people generally don’t really read thoughts and journals unless you’re someone with a notable reputation, or saying something of significant importance. So write I shall, and stories they shall be.

So anyway, the plot. The plot is different, but I decided to write about something relevant in our culture today. Specifically, on the theme of homosexuality and fitting in. There’s been a lot of news regarding the bullying and suicides of kids that have identified themselves as homosexual. While I don’t have that much background in that world, I figure at the very least it’d be a learning experience and provide me an additional perspective.

To give the briefest plot ever: “A do-good boy meets his free spirited best friend and falls in love with a girl who seems to have life figured out. He gets rejected by the girl and copes through rebellion which, through a radical summer of experimentation, leads him to discover his true self and sexuality. Initially free and inspired by these revelations, he finds himself feeling trapped and ashamed upon returning to school. As a result he turns inward toward his new inner life and begins writing about these new feelings. Upon finishing his masterpiece he finds that his life has fallen into ruins and he decides to kill himself, but moments before he goes through with it, he has a life changing experience.” Still working out the turns and other details, but that’s essentially it. We’ll see. Woot.

Need to write about thirty pages in two days. Gotta love finals.

There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein. ~Walter Wellesley “Red” Smith

In five days time I’ll be pounding away at my keyboard constructing my first novel. I’m extremely anxious to get started. While I have a general plot with a twelve page outline to refer to, I am overwhelmed by the possibilities of capturing everything. I’ve decided that my first and foremost priority will be to expunge thoughts. Expunge and expel every last iota of thought I can muster. While it may be true that I can’t write, I know for a fact that I can rewrite: and rewrite I will. I have to remind myself that this process will serve only as the initial draft. It is the gathering of amorphous clay before adroit hands give it form; the faint black and white outline that dons the canvas before it is filled with the melodies of color. Nevermind perfection. I need material to shape and mold and hew and hone.

While I have a friend who has decided to join me in this undertaking by writing his own novel in a months time, I know that I will need much than his support if I’m going to see this endeavor through. I’ve been cogitating some strategies for aiding the writing process: outlines, character sketches, perusing old journals for quaint situations and duologue I hope to recapitulate with necessary and profound precision. I’m thankful I’ve journaled consistently over the past decade. With 1700 words a day, translating to three single spaced pages of writing, I can’t be naive to think I won’t hit a wall. When I do, I know I have a trove of notes over the years to draw inspiration from.

So this novel. Writing, every day, hours a day, for thirty days. The very idea gets me giddy.

So I’ve thought about my plot quite a bit. I have concluded that I might very well go mad trying to come up with the perfect plot. Instead, my plot will be internal, and revolve around a boy’s development of his consciousness. Essentially: “The story of a boy’s pursuit to reconcile existence and meaning in the 21st century. Born with a burning curiosity to garner experience and uncover truth, he embarks on a mission to shake free from the familiar foundations that vie for his mind and explore foreign and unknown worlds filled with new adventure.”

I’ll be honest, as someone who has never written a book before, the task is a little daunting. I figured the best way for me to achieve my goal of fifty-thousand words in a month is to write about what’s most familiar. I just so happen to be most familiar with myself. My life has been less than normal, and my childhood progressed with almost predictable unpredictability. I remember thinking at various times in my life, “When will I get a break?”. Problems seemed to afflict me like the plague. Thankfully, I rebounded time after time, and with a new perspective. My goal is to some how weave those transformative experiences into characters and a story that appeals to the universality of humanity.

Whatever happens, I will write, I will finish, I will see it through, 1700 words a day, everyday for the upcoming month. When the deadline comes, I will be proudly fit to call myself a novelist.

I am a man, and alive…. For this reason I am a novelist. And being a novelist, I consider myself superior to the saint, the scientist, the philosopher, and the poet, who are all great masters of different bits of man alive, but never get the whole hog. ~D.H. Lawrence, preface to Shestov, All Things Are Possible, 1938

Novel

There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein. ~Walter Wellesley “Red” Smith

In five days time I’ll be pounding away at my keyboard constructing my first novel. I’m extremely anxious to get started. While I have a general plot with a twelve page outline to refer to, I am overwhelmed by the possibilities of capturing everything. I’ve decided that my first and foremost priority with be to expunge. Expunge and expel every last iota of thought I can muster. While it may be true that I can’t write, I know for a fact that I can rewrite: and rewrite I will. I have to remind myself that this process will serve only as the initial draft. It is the gathering of amorphous clay before adroit hands it form; the faint black and white outline that dons the canvas before it is filled with the melodies of color. Nevermind perfection. I need material to shape and mold and hew and hone.

So this novel. Writing, every day, hours a day, for thirty days. The thought gets me giddy.

So I’ve thought about my plot quite a bit. I concluded that I would will go mad trying to come up with the perfect plot. Instead, my plot will be internal, and revolve around a boy’s development of conscience. Essentially: “The story of a boy’s pursuit to reconcile existence and meaning in the 21st century. Born with a burning curiosity to garner experience and uncover truth, he embarks on a mission to shake free from the familiar foundations that vie for his mind and explore foreign and unknown worlds filled with new adventure.”

I’ll be honest, as someone who has never written a book before, the task is a little daunting. I figured the best way for me to achieve my goal of fifty-thousand words in a month is to write about what’s most familiar. I just so happen to be most familiar with myself. My life has been less than normal, and my childhood progressed almost predictably unpredictable. I remember thinking at various times in my life, “When will I get a break?”. Problems seemed to afflict me like the plague. Thankfully, I rebounded time after time, and with a new perspective. My goal is to some home weave those transformative experiences into characters and a story that appeals to the universality of humanity.

Whatever happens, I will write, I will finish, I will see it through, 1700 words a day, everyday for the upcoming month. When the deadline comes, I will be proudly fit to call myself a novelist.

I am a man, and alive…. For this reason I am a novelist. And being a novelist, I consider myself superior to the saint, the scientist, the philosopher, and the poet, who are all great masters of different bits of man alive, but never get the whole hog. ~D.H. Lawrence, preface to Shestov, All Things Are Possible, 1938

Memoir & Devoir

I’m writing my book. Its got me excited. I get these little bursts of creative inspiration where my life seems to coalesce into a singular story. During these times I begin to see how my story can be told. The outline is expanding. I was always shocked how authors managed to write five hundred plus pages. It seems like such a daunting task. Now that I’ve been working on my outline I find that I have well over 200 points to talk about… and if each of those points was about 3-4 pages long, I have myself a really long book. My initial approach will be to organize all the events. From these I plan to detail the experiences associated with those events. This is where I will retrieve info from all my journal entries. These detailing will be more factual. When I have all these stories together, I will begin weaving them together into an idiosyncratic autobiographical account. From there I will cultivate the prose and rhetoric expected from quality writing.

‘Stories’ or the notion of ‘story’ has been a frequent theme thats been cropping up in my day to day life. From narrative fictions, to tradition and history, to meaning, to context, etc. Stories play a powerful role in explaining the world around us, our relation to it, the truths that reside within it, and our feelings about it. There is no better way to communicate than through a story. This is why I’m inspired to tell mine. Although, its greatly unfinished. The older I become, the more perspective I have to contextualize all these life events. I fear, however, that with this age and perspective will come the loss of rawness I seek to convey.

I have work. Will write later.

***
I can say that I am not living up to my fullest potential at the moment in my life. I find myself met with some mental barriers that have caused me to settle for less than what I know is truly my best. I’ve made a commitment to myself to overcome this mental and emotional stagnation. This is my proclamation. I commitment to myself, to my integrity, to improve my work ethic, hold steadfast to the continual cultivation of my life’s vision, and seek to lead through example, so that every person I encounter has a brush with my passion for harnessing the unbridled potential that constitutes life and its possibilities.