Wednesday, July 30, 2003
Mornings after An Act of Completion are always a little out of whack. This one (and I see it's actually afternoon, but what the frell) is no exception. I spent a chunk of the morning investigating the fact that AMC Theater's has trademarked "Silence is Golden." That's how out of whack it is.
It would seem obvious that, having completed Chapter Six, I should now proceed, forthwith, to Chapter Seven. Assumptions of linear progression will get you almost every time. I need to try to finish up this interminable editing on the "extras" for the Low Red Moon lettered. It's dragging on and on and on, and I'm not sure why. And I want to put down a lot of the things Kathryn and I discussed yesterday about the remainder of the book. As you probably all know by now, I'm not one for outlines or notes, but there are always exceptions. This is one. I'm looking for a particular economy of storytelling in the second half of this novel and I'm afraid a rough outline has become necessary. Also, there's research for Chapter Seven that I should do before I start it, instead of during its composition. I have a bad habit of researching as I go, which is really annoying as hell and flows from one of the Seven - Procrastination. This evening, I need to read Chapter Six aloud to Jennifer and Kathryn to catch all those things that need catching and get a feel for it before I continue.
So, I'll probably begin Chapter Seven tomorrow. If I could finish this novel before October 1st I would be pleased. Then I'd only be about a month behind schedule.
Murder of Angels is an even more troublesome child than was Threshold. On the rare days I don't feel utterly lost within it, I feel like I'm surely floundering. Every now and then there comes a day when I seem to get my balance. I almost feel optimistic (what an ugly word). Then the floundering begins again. It seems, sometimes, as though stories wish to follow a path of least resistance, perhaps following some inherent Jungian dictate. And my instinct, which may run at odds with a collective unconscious will, is to guide it towards a path of greater resistance, to seek friction and shallow, rocky water and ascension. Obvious things make me nervous. Easy things make me more nervous still. A reader's expectations exist to be foiled, I think. And, at ms. page 296, I think I can see where a lot of people might think this novel will go next, so I'm trying to find an alternate route. And an alternate destination. And, more importantly, a depth that will drown any naive preconceptions of fantasy and heroism.
There are days when I seem to know nothing whatsoever of storytelling, and feel as though I need to start back at the beginning.
If only readers would be commonly plagued by similar doubts.
A circle could finally be completed.
I often find readers to be terrifyingly arrogant. I may doubt every line of prose, every word, but they seem to know exactly how things should go. The most terrifyingly arrogant of all readers are those Tyrant Kings we call reviewers. I fear them most of all.
Joseph Campbell wrote, ". . . it will always be the one, shape-shifting yet marvelously constant story that we find, together with a challengingly persistent suggestion of more remaining to be experienced than will ever be known."
It is my belief that a good writer knows the first part by heart - that "marvelously constant story" - having come up with it since childhood. If she has listened, the constant is the simple part. The chore is the "challengingly persistent suggestion." Which brings me back to Murder of Angels and my distrust for obvious, easy things. Here is a hero and a wasted land, a magical talisman and a dragon and a goddess of light, and here is a blank space on the map. You know the story. I know you know the story. We beg for originality, but, in fact, we want familiarity dressed up in unfamilar clothes. As Gibarian says in the 2002 remake of Solaris (a beautiful, brilliant film which I saw again last night), "We don't want alien worlds. We want mirrors." This is a very true thing. So, as a writer, I must try to give you alien worlds. It's the only good I can do in this life.
Ah . . . and George Bush doesn't believe gays should marry. And I don't believe homophobes should be permitted to breed. We all have our little crosses to bear, I suppose.
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