While getting ready to take on NaNoWriMo
again I decided to do something totally counterproductive. I took a little while to look back on all my
unfinished projects that I could be working on, instead of starting up an
entirely new novel.
Ah, nostalgia. It’s so powerful and sort
of hurty and now I really just want to go back to them and dust them off and
work through the rough bits. But no, I’m going to set them aside and try to do
something totally different.
This year, my project is a perfect
example of three things I never write.
1. It’s
just straight fiction. There’s no speculative/fantasy/scifi/steampunk/magical
realism tag attached to that ‘fiction’ label, it’s just ‘fiction’. The plot and
characters never existed that I know of, but conceivably could according to the
laws of nature with which I am acquainted in the real world. They’re just
people, doing realistic people-y things.
2. Its
‘literary’ which in this sense means that it works with the more modern model
of a novel. Instead of building the conflict to its peak and then resolving
everything/offering closure etc., it builds the conflict to its peak and then
end the story in such a way that it really just leaves the reader to think
about it and draw their own conclusion. I’ve always found this to be crap, but
apparently it’s what really smart writers are supposed to do now. Whatever.
Pretentious goons. We’ll see how that part of it goes. I may decide to give it
a classic ending after all, but I’ll try for this, unless I choke on my own affectation.
3. It’s
not my idea. This is a big weird deal for me. Other people have offered up
suggestions to me before, usually the conversation starts about like this, “Oh
you write? That’s so cool, I wish I could write. I’ve got all these ideas, but
I just don’t have the time. Say, have you ever thought about writing a book
about (insertbrilliance). I know! You should write my book for me.”
Most
of the time the idea they’ve got strikes me as pretty dull. Sorry, that’s the
truth. I typically reply in a toneless voice with, “Sorry, I’ve got too many of
my own projects to work on. You’re going to have to write that one yourself.”
In
fact that’s my automatic response whenever anyone tries to tell me what to
write a book about, even if it’s a mildly interesting idea, and that’s exactly
what I said when the idea for this book was first given to me.
But
I couldn’t forget about it. And the person kept bringing it up again, so they
wouldn’t let me forget about it. I do actually like it, I began to realize.
I’ll
go ahead and make it my NaNoWriMo project, even though its obviously not my
usual thing… In all honesty, that’s one of the reasons why I set it aside for
NaNoWriMo. Because it’s so different from what I usually do, I kind of can’t
see myself sticking with it for long. I’m either going to have to knock it out
all at once, or forget about it.
I’m
not saying it’ll be brilliant, I’m just hoping that I’ll go ahead and finish
the 50,000 words as planned and then I can set the rough, rough draft aside and
get back to my other projects for a bit, let this poor, weird neglected child
marinate for a few months/years and then when I’ve pretty much forgotten what I
wrote, I’ll come back to it and see if it’s really any good.
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