fear and loathing in la novela

I am deadly serious about the novel thing. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do with my life. Unfortunately, this novel sucks total ass. I’ve just got to finish it, and I can move on to something more interesting. I could try desperately to make this interesting, but so far, no ideas have come to mind. Actually, writing this, something has surfaced… an idea I hadn’t thought of, but seems so obvious that I’m sure all of my readers would have expected it to go this way in the first place.

Weird how there are just SO many possibilities with a novel in terms of plot… I seem to always be reading predictable ones, and I wonder if their authors felt the same way I do now, like they just discovered this plot, even though when I read their work it seems trite and ill conceived.

That’s part of the problem, of course. There are too many possibilities. These last few days, every time I sit down in front of the keyboard, I get stuck thinking about whether the direction I’m taking the characters will further my plot. I sit there for literally hours just thinking about this. What’s the best story? What’s the best story I can squeeze out of this so-far meaningless heap of words? I have to let go. I knew this, and know it, but it’s much harder than actually doing it. It’s hard to write without consequences.

I know that if I write a bunch of BS, I’m NOT going to want to go back and edit it later. I also know that if I write a bunch of BS, but it at least ties itself up into a story I can be semi-proud of, even if I’m not proud of the words themselves, I’ll be much more likely to go back to it. It’s these two know ledges, juxtaposed, that are keeping me from writing. I have to put them both behind me. I may write BS, but who cares??? This thing is just for me, much like this blog being just for me, and my poetry being just for me.

One of the other NaNo-ers I met at the “gathering” last Saturday (hard to believe it’s been a week) was talking about how she felt modern poetry was just masturbation. I agree completely. Poetry is for the poet first, and reader second… it’s the style and beauty that have opportunity to come out of that masturbation that are enjoyable by readers. And, by and large, let’s face it, most readers of poetry are poets. The market is just that slim.

Anyway, I have to think less, write more. I keep saying it, but today I’m going to try really hard and just do it. Damnit, I wanted to be to 35K today. That’s a long way off.