Patience . . .

[pegkerr]

Have been reading about trolls tonight, and wondering how it all fits together. So far I feel I have amorphous scenes and half-sketched (be honest, quarter-sketched) characters, and nothing yet clear to me that makes it all hang together.

This is something I'm still getting the hang of, identifying the "tipping point" when you can begin writing. I knew I had enough for the first scene, so I wrote that. After I've talked with Inga and asked some basic questions (tell me about Solveig's educational background. How long would it take from the time the architecture firm gets the bid and the ice palace is built? Describe what a firm's open house party/bash for winning a big bid might be.) I could maybe write the next several scenes after that: Jack and Solveig meet as the firm announces they've won the Ice Palace bid.

But after that, I have to know what's going on. You can write opening stuff for so long, and then you have to stop and figure stuff out. Then you can (hopefully) start writing steadily because you know you're going somewhere.

I still need connective tissue.

Questions:

What is Jack up to? What do his changes to the plan of the Ice Palace mean?
What are the fish up to?
What's the threat?
Who goes to see the troll under Minnehaha Falls and why?
What does the Little Guy have to say, and what was the question asked that made him say it?
What else is going on in the story beside the planning/building of the Ice Palace?
Why are Agnes and Ingrid in the story? What do they have to do with whatever Solveig has to discover in the book?
What, after all, does Solveig discover? Something about truth/lies? Something about overcoming broken faith to trust again?
What do Jack and Solveig mean to each other?
What part does the State Fair play in all this?

Frankly, this waiting around/trying to figure things out is a little scary. It's hard, after four years of block, to have faith that my back brain is going to somehow cough up an answer/structure that will make everything fit together. So I try not to panic and instead to sidle up to the problem sideways by peering out of the corner of my eye at it instead of tackling it head on. And I am doing my best to prime the pump by reading stuff that the backbrain can use to tie it together (i.e., this Norse folklore book, and the Winter Carnival book when it arrives). And I sketch little scenes while I wait for the connections to appear . . . except nothing was written on those tonight. Just thinking.

(Don'tpanicdon'tpanicdon'tpanicdon'tpanic)

Here's something else from the mirror of Galadriel: I see Jack and Solveig running, hell-bent-for-leather from Loring Park over the pedestrian bridge (across Hennepin), dashing toward the glass pavilion with the giant glass fish in the Sculpture Garden, by the Walker. Something is after them, something scary, evil, on the dark side. I can barely make out weird, shadowy shapes (I think of the Wargs in the Hobbit). This would be in summer, I think? Fire and air are the domain of summer magic, but the glass pavilion with its glass fish is somehow attuned to winter magic. So if they reach the pavilion, they will be safe there until morning, when the creatures all mysteriously disappear.

Hmm. . .

Comments

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Interesting comment about the "tipping point." I find that I have to let things sit and stew for a while before I'm ready to write them. I no longer think of that as "stalling" or "wasting time." But I once did.

B