Career Novelist

Today has been a relatively productive day.

Last night, I went through CJ and found the chapter breaks, and identified the gaps between chapters. By my reckoning, I'm 4 chapters away from being caught up with where I was when my computer crashed (approximately 12,000 words, a little less than two weeks of slow-but-steady writing time) and 8 chapters from the midline of the book. So I should be halfway there by the end of October, if I can keep up any semblance of pacing.

The goal is still to finish the behemoth by Christmas, but I'm not sure how possible that will be. I have six weeks left in this semester (god, time has flown by) and school is starting to get a bit stressful and time-consuming. Which is mostly just an excuse not to do anything, and I need to stop that immediately.

I wrote the beginning the end-sequence to CJ the other night, and it was delightfully cathartic. It was nice to be completely out of the realm of resurrection and into creation. I think the whole thing will go by much more quickly as soon as I finish off the first half. I have a few doubts about my plot as it stands...I'm not sure the romance element is pronounced enough, and I realized that I'd written myself into a logical hole: Christina needs to betray Davin after Randy's death, but Davin has to be there for the death--which he won't be unless he's already out of the relationship with Christina. Oh, crap.

Still, I think I can solve both problems by remembering that this is a dystopia, not a contemporary novel or a romance. One of the conventions of the genre which I'm keeping intact for this piece is that all of the plot's shit hits the fan when the protaganist and the female lead have sex. Ever notice that? In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, in 1984...in others, I'm sure--the guy's doing just fine (struggling, barely keeping his head above water, but he's surviving) until he has sex with the girl.

I think the best way to work this is to build up the romantic tension up until that point--and then have Davin ultimately dissatisfied with the sex. Possibly because he's a closet case (y'know, that's something that never reaches clarification in the novel, and I'm not sure myself--just how gay IS he?), possibly because Christina isn't really in love with him, possibly because he's a virgin and the first time sucks a little anyway, possibly because he's just really confused....but the point is, he's going to go into it with expectations, and be disappointed. And the relationship will start crashing down the moment he pulls out, and life will just become really miserable for him afterwards. In a lot of ways, Davin finally gets some balls from the experience, though I'm not exactly sure how or why. But the sex scene is a pivotal point in the plot, and should be high on my list of things to write.

Which brings up another amusing point--I've never actually written a proper sex scene before. I know basically how it will play out, and how much detail I'll chance to go into, but at the end of the day it should be interesting to see what happens.

Meanwhile, I wrote the Punctuated Equilibrium scene last night. It made me want to cry. The old scene was so much better, and I have no way of recreating it. I can't just skirt around the scene (the way I did with other things I couldn't resurrect) because it's one of the most pivotal conversations in the piece. So now I'm stuck with a large quantity of wooden dialogue, and it feels contrived and recycled....and I'm not sure how much of that is just because it's so inately familiar to me.

The other problem that keeps coming up with this is that I feel like I'm putting in too much exposition. Most of my exposition comes in indirectly--revealed, piecemeal, in dialogue and overheard from the media--and is introduced slowly so that the reader can get comfortable with concepts before moving on in some cases, and is left in the dark about things for long enough to question in other cases. It seems like the natural way to do it to me--it feels right. At the same time, all of the exposition reminds me of how incredibly contrived this plot sounds. It's important to me, and the message, I think, is a good one, and the world is one that I have faith in....but I can't help but wonder how many people are just going to read the first few pieces and roll their eyes at it.

I think it's because I have such a hard time explaining the story. The background is convoluted because war and character motivations aren't straightforward. I don't know....I'm simultaneously enamoured with the plot and disgusted. That's life I guess.

So tonight I'm going to try to connect the Underground Meeting scene with the Julian-loses-his-brains scene. There's about two chapters between the two, and I have vague knowledge of what will go into them. What I really need to do is work on Christina's character. I'm not sure she's coming in early enough or playing a big enough role--but part of that, I think, is because I haven't written her yet (whereas, I've written the other characters in the old draft and am familiar with them) so I just don't know her as well.

At the end of the day, I love this and hate this. And the only thing I can do is keep writing.

In other news, I really need to hop back onto the short story bandwagon if I have any hope of making something of myself as a professional writer. I need to give a fucking title to the fish story, and polish up Monologue, and send them both out into the world. I'm going to buy a subscription to Writer's Market Online tonight. Money is tight for me right now, but I think I can spare the $30. I really need to get back into the swing of marketing before I forget how to do it.

I also need to finish up "Flowers for Lily" and put it on Zoe. Which reminds me, I haven't been to Zoetrope in ages and need to go back and rescue my dignity...not that anybody really knows me there anyway. Oh well.

I guess the sum of the night is...if I want to make myself into something, professionally, I need to actually get off of my ass and do it.

Wish me luck.