Tonight

[pegkerr]

Went to Naomi Kritzer's book release party tonight, and then to O'Donovan's to hear Tramps and Hawkers (and I don't even have to write up a report on it, since daedala and jbru have beaten me to it). Great fun, although my ears are still ringing.

Well, I've successfully finished the first scene of the book (and already killed off one character, no less!) I fired it off to kijjohnson, cravenly begging for reassurance, and she e-mailed me back with "It's good. Keep writing." Now I must jump ahead a couple of decades or so . . .

If I was writing the book in order, as I did my last two books, I think I'd next do the scene where the architecture firm has their open house to announce that the firm has landed the bid to build the ice palace. This is where Solveig meets Jack. I was thinking today that I wanted to hold off until I'd talked to Doug, my architecture contact, to get some sort of scene-setting tidbits. I needed to know more from Doug, I told myself, in order to figure out about what education Solveig might have had, a description of what an architecture firm's open house might be like, etc.--and then I realized I was simply stalling. Why? Because this where I introduce Jack and introduce adult Solveig. How to set up their meeting without making it sound like the start of yet another low-grade paint-by-numbers cheap romance novel or something? How much of a smart ass is Jack going to be? What does she say to him? How would she react? I realized that I don't know, because I don't really know her yet. I can imagine how I would react, confronted with a smart ass, in a work-related situation--but then, I would react emotionally; I'm an ENFJ. Solveig's an ISTJ.

I think, rather than letting myself become paralyzed by doubt, I should try just flinging off more of those little scenes later in the book between the two of them, even if it's just a few lines of dialogue. As I've said, this is a very different working method for me . . . but by violating all my preconceived notions of how I should write a book, I've made more progress in the past month and a half than I had the previous two years. So I'm going to try to get to know Jack and Solveig, not by starting out with a formal meeting, ("How do you do, I'm Jack." "I'm Solveig") but by sneaking up and eavesdropping on them after they've known each other for several months. And then maybe they'll introduce each other to me. Anyway, I'm going to try it. I'll still attempt to get together with Doug this week, but since I've fulfilled my first commitment (ahead of my deadline, too!) to complete the first scene in time for World Fantasy, I'll continue with this stretching-scattershot-just-disconnected scenes method and see where it leads. Someplace fruitful, I hope!

Cheers,
Peg

P.S. kijjohnson's new novel manuscript just arrived in the mail for me. Know what I'll be doing this weekend!

Comments

[aome.livejournal.com]

Still fascinated by the whole novel-writing process. For the most part, I, too, am a chronological writer -- I don't usually skip around. But sometimes it just works better that way, to write a scene you *do* envision, while you wait for clarity on an earlier moment. And perhaps seeing how they interact *later* will help you picture what it must have been like when they first met. Congratulations on getting so much accomplished so far!

(And thanks for the clarification on BNF)

[daedala.livejournal.com]

It was great seeing you at O'Donovans.

You use Myers-Briggs too! Neat. I think they're great fun, even if my scores jump around (I'm an NJ. The other two axes vary.) But I've found it useful for getting characters who don't always react like I would.

If you need an SME on bad romance novels, I've read far too many and it would be nice to use that for something.