Bits and pieces
Sep. 18th, 2002 06:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pegkerrI "heard" my first bit of dialogue today while I was in the shower:
She: "You don't care about anything!"
He: (Jack Frost): (with a smirk) "That's not true. I'm very concerned about global warming."
This strikes me as very funny. I'm not quite sure why . . , or whether other people will think it is. But I like it.
I'm not surprised this came to me in the shower. It's very odd, but many ideas come to me in the shower. I dunno--there might be something mystical about the state of mind you get into as water is being poured over your head. I'm not alone, by the way--many writers have remarked upon the fact that they get their best ideas when they're in the bath or shower. The guy who wrote Cyrano de Bergerac was one, I believe. And Agatha Christie, I think--I believe she used to eat apples in the bathtub as she plotted out her books.
This is characteristic for me, this bits-and-pieces stuff at this stage. I'll get a two line snatch of dialogue, a "snapshot" of a scene, and I'll have to wait for more and more bits to emerge. Gradually, I'll start to fit them together. I also have a picture of Jack in my mind. He's seated in a throne made of ice, in the Ice Palace of course. Smirking. His left elbow is on the arm of the throne, and his chin rests on his left hand. Looks like he might be posing for a book cover. That, plus the bit of dialogue my brain spat up this morning suggests that Jack Frost is a bit of a smart ass.
He also looks a great deal like the character x I mentioned (obliquely) previously, and I keep telling him, "No, no, don't look like character x." (Character x has a great deal of gravitational energy that I'm trying to fight off.) He seems to be ignoring me. I consider our upcoming relationship (Jack's and mine) with a great deal of interest and perhaps some unease. I have the feeling that Jack's going to be fun, but perhaps rather difficult for me to handle.
Another gravitational pull on Jack's character is the pooka in War for the Oaks.
I wrote down those two lines and the picture in the throne room, perhaps out of superstition, because I'm still so surprised that since I declared on Sept. 4 that I'm writing a book that I suddenly feel like a writer again, after being blocked for so long. I'm getting ideas! I think in popping little exclamation bubbles. Ideas! Oh, boy! That sort of thing happens to real writers!
But the fact is, when I'm in the planning stages of an idea that has really caught fire, I generally don't have to write something down to remember it. I have the sort of memory that is very useful for a writer, the sort that allows me to dredge up anything from my mental file cabinet pretty much at will. I once astonished![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kijjohnson by going to open a book I hadn't opened in over fifteen years and finding almost immediately a line that I had remembered verbatim. Once I think of something I like, I just stick it in my memory and then write it down when I get to that point in the book. I had dreamed up the last scene to The Wild Swans years before I wrote it, and when I got to that chapter, it was just like taking dictation. Fun when the writing works like that.
But now, it's still in bits and pieces. So I "supersaturate" my idea-solution by feeding my backbrain with reference books about stuff which May Prove Useful. And I sit and wait, with my idea net, for the ideas to emerge. I'm encouraged. They seem to be popping up more rapidly. I appear to be on a roll.
Cheers,
Peg
She: "You don't care about anything!"
He: (Jack Frost): (with a smirk) "That's not true. I'm very concerned about global warming."
This strikes me as very funny. I'm not quite sure why . . , or whether other people will think it is. But I like it.
I'm not surprised this came to me in the shower. It's very odd, but many ideas come to me in the shower. I dunno--there might be something mystical about the state of mind you get into as water is being poured over your head. I'm not alone, by the way--many writers have remarked upon the fact that they get their best ideas when they're in the bath or shower. The guy who wrote Cyrano de Bergerac was one, I believe. And Agatha Christie, I think--I believe she used to eat apples in the bathtub as she plotted out her books.
This is characteristic for me, this bits-and-pieces stuff at this stage. I'll get a two line snatch of dialogue, a "snapshot" of a scene, and I'll have to wait for more and more bits to emerge. Gradually, I'll start to fit them together. I also have a picture of Jack in my mind. He's seated in a throne made of ice, in the Ice Palace of course. Smirking. His left elbow is on the arm of the throne, and his chin rests on his left hand. Looks like he might be posing for a book cover. That, plus the bit of dialogue my brain spat up this morning suggests that Jack Frost is a bit of a smart ass.
He also looks a great deal like the character x I mentioned (obliquely) previously, and I keep telling him, "No, no, don't look like character x." (Character x has a great deal of gravitational energy that I'm trying to fight off.) He seems to be ignoring me. I consider our upcoming relationship (Jack's and mine) with a great deal of interest and perhaps some unease. I have the feeling that Jack's going to be fun, but perhaps rather difficult for me to handle.
Another gravitational pull on Jack's character is the pooka in War for the Oaks.
I wrote down those two lines and the picture in the throne room, perhaps out of superstition, because I'm still so surprised that since I declared on Sept. 4 that I'm writing a book that I suddenly feel like a writer again, after being blocked for so long. I'm getting ideas! I think in popping little exclamation bubbles. Ideas! Oh, boy! That sort of thing happens to real writers!
But the fact is, when I'm in the planning stages of an idea that has really caught fire, I generally don't have to write something down to remember it. I have the sort of memory that is very useful for a writer, the sort that allows me to dredge up anything from my mental file cabinet pretty much at will. I once astonished
kijjohnson by going to open a book I hadn't opened in over fifteen years and finding almost immediately a line that I had remembered verbatim. Once I think of something I like, I just stick it in my memory and then write it down when I get to that point in the book. I had dreamed up the last scene to The Wild Swans years before I wrote it, and when I got to that chapter, it was just like taking dictation. Fun when the writing works like that.But now, it's still in bits and pieces. So I "supersaturate" my idea-solution by feeding my backbrain with reference books about stuff which May Prove Useful. And I sit and wait, with my idea net, for the ideas to emerge. I'm encouraged. They seem to be popping up more rapidly. I appear to be on a roll.
Cheers,
Peg
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
global warming
Date: 2002-09-18 06:09 pm (UTC)*sends you a virtual bottle of bubble bath and a waterproof notebook and pen*
Happy bathing!
(no subject)
Date: 2002-09-18 11:50 pm (UTC)I find that I get a lot of ideas while driving in the car. However when I get home to write down my wonderful thoughts, they've gone the way of the Dodo. I need to get a microcassette, writing and driving just wouldn't be prudent.
(no subject)
Date: 2002-09-19 12:04 pm (UTC)Have fun!