creative self-assessment on a broader level ~

[lookingland]

most creative people i know do one thing and stick with it. they may have in mind an endlessly unfolding universe (l. frank baum, c.s. lewis, joss whelon ~ did i even spell that right?), but they start somewhere and then move through it. much as i think george lucas has lost all touch with reality, he made a committment and saw it through to the end. even rowling, after seven books (or however many) intends to finish the series and then move onto something else (possibly even under a psuedonym).

so i dunno why i have so much stuff clogging up the track in my sprint against the clock. i mean: i'm never gonna finish the race if i don't even run and at the moment i am doing anything but running.

last night i hopped into bed and asked myself the question: what is the one thing i can commit to so i can get this pokey flow chugging?

i realized that pretty much all the barriers that existed before (which i enumerated quite articulately in a prior post) still exist. i've resolved none of them.

i also realized that until i resolve the narrative problem, which is really the big bonji of issues for me, this is going to continue to be a stumbling block.

ergo:

1. third person is out the window. begone omniscient and limited omniscient übernarrator (razi-el excepted, of course).

2. perhaps faulkner did do it best in As I Lay Dying. why not just start each piece with the name of the person "speaking"? simple and to the point.

3. taking no. 2 a step further, why not start each piece with an expository bit of victorian titleage: "wherein", "in which", etc. i've always wanted to do this but have never had the courage.

the question is whether this can sustain over the duration. will a reader get sick of the format and/or will i get sick of titling things at length?

i think the best way to explore this will be to kick off the new season of Reconstruction in this new format. it will give me a chance to get into the voices (Lewis is always easy, James could be a problem so i need the practice). i would also like to simultaneously go back and see what happens if i try to apply this to From Slaughter's Mountain. i think i intend to keep that book a three-voice book, but Reconstruction may have to juggle multiple characters to keep things in check. i dunno where my copy of faulkner is at the moment, and i don't recall how many voices he juggles ~ for sure more than three, possible five? with Reconstruction it would end up with a minimum of six, possibly as many as twelve. the other thing about FSM is that with expository "tags" the chronology becomes less of an issue because the tags can serve to orient: in which so-and-so remembers x, in which so-and-so gives their take on y, etc., thereby giving the reader a sense of continuity.

having made this decision, i really need to step up my dialect research and i need to finalize a voice for mr. painintheass morsey. anyone know of any good resources for new york 19th century idioms? how about virginia?

while i dunna think i can ever top the "My mother is a fish" chapter, i can foresee some interesting things structurally with this method that will make it fun and challenging for me.

as to the art:

well, it's a fun side thing, but i have so little confidence in it going anywhere, i think i best drop it as a serious venue for the time being. it'll always be something i do on the side or when i'm just too burned out to write anymore, but i think i've come to the conclusion that i've been using it as avoidance rather than for its own merits (after all, if you draw the picture, you don't have to write the narrative explaining what's going on!).

but i really need to focus on the writing and start finishing some of the vast piles of work i've started. i need to march boldly onward!

so...

...off i go.

: D

Comments

Good for you, kiddo!

[inkidink.livejournal.com]

I like that marching ...

If anyone does pass along a good source of 19th century idioms~ please share. I've been on the search for a while now. Online I've found a few sort of lame (even suspect)lists and nothing at all through my library yet.

I think you should try all the things that sound exciting to you (ala number 3) and keeping it simple (name of who's talking heading up the chapter(s)) in the rotating narrator idea is wise (re:2).

Good luck (you CAN do this!)

I have marching of my own to do.

Re: Good for you, kiddo!

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

tanx moomoodink ~ !

most of the new york idioms i've encountered are strictly slumville, crime-related, and often of questionable currency (as you have found). while i want to suggest that maybe the city was still such a sprawling melting pot that it had yet to sort of galvanize its own "speak" across the classes, i seriously doubt that. unless i want James to talk like he grew up in hell's kitchen, i gots to keep looking. i mean, i dun mind him talking that way for the fun of it, but it would be strictly imitation.

it might be worth reading henry james' Washington Square to see what he does with character voices in that era.

: D

[daregale.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you're familiar with the Victorian author Wilkie Collins but, as I remember, his mystery novel The Moonstone and possibly also The Woman in White use split-narration. Some of it may have been epistolary, but I remember two of the characters' voices vividly: an old servant who used Robinson Crusoe in place of Virgil for sortilege and a lady who left a religious tract somewhere with every couple steps she took. (I guess his strategy is similar to Faulkner's though, identifying the speaker at the head of each chapter.)

Long chapter titles have possibilities. We're reading Don Quixote in Menippean Satire. Cervantes' titles appear to be giving away the chapter contents but their predictions are always fulfilled in unexpected ways.

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

i'll have to give wilkie another look ~ i'm familiar with some his works, but not all ~ and Quixote is exactly right ~ ! that's precisely what i'm talking about: the sort of slightly goofy, somewhat cryptic, possibly misleading preamble to whatever actually follows.

thank you for reminding me of cervantes ~ in so many ways, that really ought to be more of a model for me!

: D

[ehzoterik.livejournal.com]

Joss Whedon. ^_^

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

hahahaha okay, so i forgot the butt-part on the "l" ~ hahahahaha ~

: D