Day 20, 41,744 words.
I'm in Kingston for a few days and it is bringing back lots of memories of 1993-1997 when I lived here. I just ate at my second favorite restaurant and tomorrow get to go to my most favorite restaurant of all time. Yay! It's interesting to be writing a love story right now, too, because I'm remembering so much of the intensity of those first loves while I was in undergrad. In some ways, my protagonists are like me and my friends back then. But they are supposed to be 20 years older than that, so...
I can't tell if I'm liking my novel right now. I'm writing a lot of dialogue between Seth and Si, and it's all sort of interesting in my mind, but I don't know if it's interesting on the page. They would be having hours and hours and hours of conversations right now at this stage in their relationship, and it would be impossible and pointless to capture it all. So what is important to capture? I can't figure that out.
Anyway, here is a little excerpt from today. I'm back to being completely confused about how this novel will end because on the one hand, nothing else really needs to happen. But on the other hand, so many of the points I'd plotted out could happen and could take at least another 20,000 words. We'll see...
Through dinner he kept me entertained with stories of Gordon’s antics. Si had actually read through Gordon’s doctoral dissertation on (Be)coming Anima(l), and often teased him by reminding him of several (apparently) hilarious typos that had been left in the text. As astonishing as it may seem, Gordon was the topic that helped us back to the easy comfort with each other that we’d had before our first kiss. We discussed the status of the film, and debated the way Crystal’s changes to the script would go over with a mainstream audience.
“I like having my friend back,” Si remarked, as we sat together after dinner. I felt the same. And, I felt like the last thing I wanted was to have Si as a friend. I wanted more. And less.
We decided to watch an Emilio Estevez film together after dinner. I had explained the homework assignment to Si, who was properly impressed by the commitment of time and energy I was willing to make as I sorted out my future. I had a theory that it was important to watch the films chronologically, because Emilio’s roles matured as his age advanced, and deciding which Emilio was most aligned with my wish for the future was also linked to my emotional and spiritual maturity. Si agreed, but was unwilling to watch the early television roles. I supposed I could watch those on my own once I got back to Oakland - very, very soon - and so we settled on watching The Breakfast Club.
Still being on Hawaii time, after that movie we were ready for another, and decided on Repo Man, a film I hadn’t seen since my social work training.
Si’s media room was spacious, and for the first film we had sat a very respectable distance apart. In fact, we were on separate couches. But at the beginning of the second film, we somehow found ourselves sitting together on a love seat, sharing a bowl of popcorn, and by the end, I was lying on the couch with my feet in Si’s lap, enjoying a surprisingly competent foot rub.
From that point it was inevitable that we soon ended up in Si’s bedroom together. If I were being honest, I would probably admit that this had been inevitable from the time we sat down to watch a movie together. It had happened so many times that way, in high school and my undergraduate years, when ‘watching a movie’ together was simply an excuse to sit very close in a darkened room, just to see what would happen.
I can't tell if I'm liking my novel right now. I'm writing a lot of dialogue between Seth and Si, and it's all sort of interesting in my mind, but I don't know if it's interesting on the page. They would be having hours and hours and hours of conversations right now at this stage in their relationship, and it would be impossible and pointless to capture it all. So what is important to capture? I can't figure that out.
Anyway, here is a little excerpt from today. I'm back to being completely confused about how this novel will end because on the one hand, nothing else really needs to happen. But on the other hand, so many of the points I'd plotted out could happen and could take at least another 20,000 words. We'll see...
Through dinner he kept me entertained with stories of Gordon’s antics. Si had actually read through Gordon’s doctoral dissertation on (Be)coming Anima(l), and often teased him by reminding him of several (apparently) hilarious typos that had been left in the text. As astonishing as it may seem, Gordon was the topic that helped us back to the easy comfort with each other that we’d had before our first kiss. We discussed the status of the film, and debated the way Crystal’s changes to the script would go over with a mainstream audience.
“I like having my friend back,” Si remarked, as we sat together after dinner. I felt the same. And, I felt like the last thing I wanted was to have Si as a friend. I wanted more. And less.
We decided to watch an Emilio Estevez film together after dinner. I had explained the homework assignment to Si, who was properly impressed by the commitment of time and energy I was willing to make as I sorted out my future. I had a theory that it was important to watch the films chronologically, because Emilio’s roles matured as his age advanced, and deciding which Emilio was most aligned with my wish for the future was also linked to my emotional and spiritual maturity. Si agreed, but was unwilling to watch the early television roles. I supposed I could watch those on my own once I got back to Oakland - very, very soon - and so we settled on watching The Breakfast Club.
Still being on Hawaii time, after that movie we were ready for another, and decided on Repo Man, a film I hadn’t seen since my social work training.
Si’s media room was spacious, and for the first film we had sat a very respectable distance apart. In fact, we were on separate couches. But at the beginning of the second film, we somehow found ourselves sitting together on a love seat, sharing a bowl of popcorn, and by the end, I was lying on the couch with my feet in Si’s lap, enjoying a surprisingly competent foot rub.
From that point it was inevitable that we soon ended up in Si’s bedroom together. If I were being honest, I would probably admit that this had been inevitable from the time we sat down to watch a movie together. It had happened so many times that way, in high school and my undergraduate years, when ‘watching a movie’ together was simply an excuse to sit very close in a darkened room, just to see what would happen.
I can relate to so much of this post both in your thoughts as well as in what's going on with Si and Seth. I'm so happy that you're writing this novel. The feelings and tensions that you're working in ring so true to me.
ReplyDeleteI think the most fun thing about writing is about telling yourself a story that you love, and that you are as interested as everyone else to see how it ends. It seems to me that you have captured the feelings of your characters very well, and maybe you are in the exact right space to channel those feelings.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry about not knowing how things will end, or worry that you have too much story to tell, you can do an astonishing amount in 10,000 words, and you have the added excitement of not knowing yourself what is going to happen!
I am very excited to see what Seth comes up with... which Emilio character will be best suited to her future, and which love (if any) will be the right one??
Thanks for both of your comments - they cheered me up!
ReplyDeleteYou've definitely favoured excerpts with Si rather than Hagrid. In fact, I know very little about Seth's relationship with Hagrid. Is this an inadvertent signal about where you want things to go? No matter what happens, you have created a very positive relationship between these two characters that you can tell will be transformative in their lives.
DeleteAlso, I loved the line about Seth not having watched Repo man since social worker training.