On Friday I wrote that I was seeking something in my life, and I wondered what this meant for my fiction. I didn’t mean that I was going to quit. I meant that I need to branch out and explore other areas of my being-ness. I’ve had one egg (fiction) in my basket for quite awhile now.
However, that said, today I promised myself I’d start writing on yet another new novel idea. Last fall I started a thriller, took a workshop, and lost interest in the story. Hard-core thrillers aren’t my thing, that’s all. But I wanted to check out that kind of storytelling, and I’m glad I did.
Now, it’s time to start again. I’ve muddled a new idea, and, of course, I’m unsure about it. Over the weekend, I realized — RE-realized I should say — that after awhile I tie myself in knots with too much thinking. I’m better in the doing. The only way to know whether I’m emotionally invested is to write the first 50 pages fast, which is to say, with minimal angst.
Being a detail-oriented person, I find it’s the particularites set down on the page that get me excited. The grand story vision is an untested theory, that’s all. So I’ll see what I see after 50 pages.
I’m sitting up in bed with coffee, laptop, index cards, and novel journal (plus cat) at my side. Please wish me luck: I’m exhausted and anxious. I haven’t been sleeping well because of money stress. That’s why I’m still in bed; sitting at my desk to write would take too much energy. This, my friends, is perseverence in action!