Mood:
hug meIt is cold here in Vermont. The only room heated during the day is our small bedroom with an electric heater. I lie in bed and write my book and read the Fountainhead and watch old movies. My butt gets numb. My back is propped up by pillows.
It's funny how hard it is in the morning to start writing. I really have to push myself. You would think that a person would go eagerly toward something that their ego is so dependent on. I need an accomplishment every day or else I don't feel good about myself. When I was painting I couldn't wait to get started in the morning. Sometimes I wanted to work so badly that I would forget to eat. Writing is simply more painful than painting. There is a little nasty shock to my system every time I try to pull a sentence out of me. The consolation is that after I've acheived a paragraph that flows smoothly I get pleasure in re-reading it.
I listened last night to the Director's commentary to the movie "Little Miss Sunshine". It took them six years to make. That makes me feel better. My book might take six years to make but I think I can do it in less. The road is long before me but it has been long before other creative people as well. One of the things the directors talked a lot about was how much was taken out of the movie. They had chunks of dialogue between actors that never made it to the final cut. And the directors (a husband and wife team) felt certain that the movie was better because of the strict editing. Today I was re-writing old text and it felt very good throwing away a word here or a phrase there. The writing became more streamlined and the voice more powerful.
Reading The Fountainhead gives me a good sense of Ayn Rand's genius. The words seem to pour out of her. It seems to me that she started the process with definite characters, that would have certain strengths and weaknesses. Once the characters were established in her mind their dialogue came naturally. There is a lot of dialogue in The Fountainhead and it seems to have been prodigiously created. These characters all talk ideas and they do so passionately. I can imagine how she "heard" the voices of her characters and then simply typed what she was hearing. The next novel I will read after The Fountainhead is Anna Karenina by Tolstoy. I want to compare his characters with Ayn Rand's characters. Not what they stand for, good or evil, strong or weak, but to try to guess if the author had a similar process of starting the novel with a character and then driving the action through that character's personality and voice.
Whether or not my first novel gets published I plan for a second novel. I am trying to imagine a creative process. Mike says that when he is writing he gets to a point where the characters take over and write the book for him. It must be so much fun to have characters in your head. I'll live someone else's life. It is what happens with paint and canvass, I carry the image and colors around with me all day long.
Now I have written and blogged and the morning is over. I think I will get dressed and walk to the bank. Funds have to be transfered out of savings to cover the cost of the couch we bought last weekend. I need to take out of savings some money for curtains as well. I am going down to Connecticut soon and want to buy new green curtains for the one window in our bedroom. Since we painted the room green the old curtains are now too weak in color, they are washed out by the new vibrancy of the room. There are more stores in Connecticut than Vermont.
With my old husband all I did with my free time was shop. I miss it sometimes, having all that money. But with the current husband and the isolation of where we live there is more emphasis on my creative pursuits. It seems a more wholesome way of living, creating rather than shopping.
happy
chillin'
down
a-ok