Mood: lyrical
Topic: Writing
For the last two days, things have been quieter with the whole house buying process (we're planning to have a walk-through with the builder next Wednesday, and then we'll close the following Monday), so I've been feeling the urge to write again. On Tuesday night I took a look at the new short story I'm working on (working title "Dressing for Tom Cruise") and made a few changes and then thought I'd pick up the writing again last night. Instead, I ended up going to the pool with Candy's family and Hans needed the computer for car shopping, so no new writing got done. Hans will probably need the computer every night from now until he leaves for Seattle, so I decided that if I am going to write, I need to be able to do it longhand, which I kind of enjoy anyway. And rather than reading during my lunch break, I decided I would try writing in my notebook, starting today.
Where I left off in the story on Tuesday, the main character has just declared that she's tired of feeling like her husband is little more than a roommate. So today I was trying to figure out the next line of dialogue, but instead, I saw a completely different scene! The main character isn't with the woman I first envisioned at all, but with a group of women ranging in age from 25 to 65, and not in the stuffy L.A. restaurant that includes California pizza on the menu even though it has white linen tablecloths and napkins on all the tables, but having beers and the cheese sampler and chips and guacamole at the Redhook Ale Brewery in Woodinville, Washington. They're not getting together for a my-eating-disorder-is-more-under-control-than-yours-is L.A. lunch, but are wearing lycra and spandex over their variously sized bodies because they just finished an evening bike ride on the Burke-Gilman. This changes everything!
On a practical level, it means rewriting every word from the beginning of the story, but that's okay because the writing was coming slowly and I was spending a lot of time on details of the moment, not because I was trying to pace and place the story so much as because I couldn't figure out what the story really was. Now I can feel the moment and it has energy and I know the writing will flow, at least for awhile. So this in itself is exciting.
But, really, the reason I am so excited by this is because it signals a shift in the way I am able to think about my writing, or at least about short fiction. The short stories I've written in the past didn't feel like they could have been set in another place or been peopled with different characters. Once I had the idea, there seemed to be only one way to write it and I either succeeded or failed in my attempt to bring it to fruition. When "Infinity" came to me, it literally came to me as if I were taking dictation. My dad was having a major surgery the next day and I was alone in L.A. and didn't want to go to sleep until I knew he was actually in pre-op and surrounded by the nurses and doctors who would help him, so I decided to stay up all night and write. A conscious decision to engage in the act of writing with absolutely no idea what I was going to write about. And the first two lines came to me and then the whole rest of the story. I turned it in to Shelley Lowenkopf the very next day and he asked for one change that I was able to make because the line really didn't pay off, but I couldn't make any others no matter who requested them. The story felt sacred somehow and if I altered it, it would be ruined forever. So now, to be able to consider alternate ways of telling the story, to let go of the pages I've already written in order to let the story find its truest form, is new and empowering. Hopefully, it means I'm gaining some perspective and maturity.
Thoughts captured by Kristine
at 1:15 PM EDT
Updated: Thursday, June 16, 2005 6:41 PM EDT