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.
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 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
William Dare 