Daily Archives: 23-Nov-10

Caught up (for the nonce)

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Well, after a few days of, um, NOT WRITING, I’m caught up to where I should be (if not to where I could be).  I managed to plow through the Big Argument, and am staggering along toward the next conflict, which may turn out to be a bit painful.

I got up, walked all the way to the door, which seemed a minor triumph, snagged my hat, and exited. I went down the hallway to the little washroom the tenants shared, splashed a bit of water on my face. My reflection looked back at me. “Now what are you going to do?” it asked.

“I dunno.”

“She’s gone.”

“I know.”

“And she’s probably not coming back.”

I stared at myself. I didn’t look terribly impressed at the glare. “You don’t know that.”

“But you do. It was all perfect, and now you’ve ruined it.”

I punched my fist into the mirror, which starred out in a crazyquilt pattern. Each facet looked back at me and grinned.

I’m planning on Kay and I attending the Write-In tomorrow evening, which will hopefully drive me far enough ahead that I won’t completely collapse during the Thursday/Friday business.

Insufficiently Conflicted

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Conflict may not be pleasant, but it is necessary

No, I haven’t been writing enough.  Part has been, as expected, the disruption of the holiday week (including an Unexpected Dinner or two).  Part has been I’m at a scene that’s busting my chops because …

… well, I’m a nice guy, who abhors confrontation, and I’m trying to write a novel that’s got at least a whiff of noir and stage a conflict between my two protagonists, who happen to be married.

There’s just all sort of uncomfortable here.

That said, I’ve also realized a few things about what I’ve written so far.

  1. The level of conflict is way, way too low.  If every scene is about some sort of conflict, I’ve been dancing around that way too much.  Sure, there’s been a bit of butting heads, but of the impolite tiff nature.
  2. The level of darkness has also been way too low.  It’s been less noir, more like a slightly cloudy afternoon.

I am not, of course, going to fix that right this moment.  I just need to blast through what I’m in, and remember it’s okay if the characters are hurting — indeed, that’s part of what the audience is tuning in for.  So I need to crank that up (and the lighting level down) in the scenes going forward.

Oh, and I really need to get some words in.