Journey Of A Novel

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protagonist

Breathing space

Tanya V 29 August 2022

Got a job, lost that job, moved house, moved to a new region, completed a couple of courses, currently doing another course to learn a new skill, learned to use a chainsaw, and still writing my novel.

All of these things and more have taken my attention away from writing the journal of my novel. A new chapter has begun in my own life which caused me to loose track of my writing routine, but now, back to it!

The final chapter of the 2nd draft is three quarters done. There will be some polishing off when all of the words are written, even so, I am tantalisingly close to moving onto the 3rd draft. Writing this last chapter is challenging. I’m very conscious of it being the end of the tale that I am telling, and determined to write the ending that the story deserves. The novel’s themes of self discovery, self empowerment, self knowledge, and all of the other ‘selfisms’ come to a resolution as such, but there is no ending to personal evolution. My dilemma in writing the ending then has become to do justice to the story and protagonist without making a blah ending that leaves people exasperatedly asking ‘Is that it?’, or a vague, cryptic ode to life.

In the first draft I wrote an ending that has set me up to write the ending that I want but it is lacking in a way that I can’t quite pinpoint. Time, space and writing will bring the ending needed onto the page, so I’m taking my time, and writing with gaps on the page that I’ll revisit and flesh out.

The end is near, I can feel it, I have faith that it will come to me fully formed if I give it my attention but also some breathing space.

Taking my time

Tanya V 23 March 2021

At almost 4000 words I’ve finished the first draft of chapter three. I’m on fire and trying not to jinx myself with reality checks about if this is sustainable. The pattern of going back to the folklore tale when I reach the next ‘bit’, along with time to think through where I’m at and visualise the happenings is really working for me. Writing this chapter has been enjoyable; I’ve had fun and think that I managed to include a tongue-in-cheek sense of fun in the writing of it. Internet use has stayed at a minimum also. I’ve gotten so much written in the last few days.

For the rest of the week I will have to step back a bit from this pattern, I have work to do, people relying on me and life in general to attend to. Working the way I have been has taken me out of any constructive patterns in my everyday life but that seems to be the trade-off that I need to make. When my protagonist gains some ground, I tend to lose some and vice versa.

Each chapter that I’m writing is a distinctive part of the pre-biblical tale I’m using, each chapter is from different tales about the same character that I’m melding together as one narrative. The next incarnation of this character for chapter four I have written toward in the past. I’ll revisit my previous writing for this section to edit into new parts that I write. There’s some sections that I wrote years ago, I reread them a few months ago and it still reads ok so I’ll use it. I’m looking forward to seeing how it all comes together.

With the momentum that I’ve gained in the last week one aspect that I really like is that I’m curious to see what I come up with. Yes, I have plans and notes and ideas but creativity, for me at least, is about the unknown. Discovering the unknown in my own project is a buzz. The gaps in my writing before, and the disjointed approach that I applied didn’t provide the opportunity for the flow of work that I’ve tapped into. Working in that way before meant that I didn’t continue into the unknown or conversely at times I only wrote in a deliberate way with detailed plans. Working as I have been, I do both interchangeably as needed to serve my story and it works really well. The one ingredient needed for this though is time; I need stretches of time to get lost in my work.

Years ago I read A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf, at the time it really resonated with me but now it does more so. I really get the time and space factor that is essential for work to be done now that I’ve made some real headway.

**Note to self – TAKE TIME TO WRITE!! – Don’t make time to write, it’s not the same…

Telling the tale and showing the story

Tanya V 28 February 2021

I’ve spent time blending showing and telling to bring together the tale and the story. The tale being the telling, somewhat like a fairy tale but more as an idea than stylistically. The showing highlights parts of the tale bringing the story to life and shining a spotlight on the working parts of the narrative where things shift and change.

The piece covers a lot of time but the folklore tale that I’m referencing doesn’t specify over what amount of time things took place so I’m inclined to do the same which is why I am dabbling with showing in much the same way. Also the folklore tale exists in prehistory, in more than one culture and time so there’s more than one telling of it. I’m working this in as well by integrating the tales into one narrative by stitching together the parts in such a way that it suits me. Referencing stories told by different peoples makes for an interesting exercise in establishing motives with more fodder to play with to stitch it all into one tale, even without this I would have been guessing at motivation.

Over the past couple of days I created a bridging section to bring my protagonist closer to the next stage of the story. I still have some events to write before moving on, but I needed to create access to this with character and story development. Some of the parts that I’d written previously were stand alone leaving them disjointed within the narrative. It took some time to think through the connecting section to make it all one story but a bit of story tetris can be fun.

Taking my time to develop and write this is giving me the sensation of visiting a place. When I visit places in the real world I get all of my everyday obligations out of the way and make sure that I’m ready to depart, and it’s become the same for my writing. I have a destination, I know where I’m going, I just don’t necessarily know every little thing that will happen when I get there – I have to be present and open to the experience to get the most out of it.

To help my mind wander into the realms of imagination I’m finding it helpful to wander in reality to a degree. Every other day I’m going for a long walk taking the same path each time and letting my mind be free to the experience of just being. Seeing people, watching birds and the sky, hearing the world about me, and feeling the wind on my face. All of it helps me to consider the place that I’m visiting in my imagination as a real-world experience with the elements and the activation on my senses fresh in my mind.