One day and a bit.

Just one day and a little bit extra before the month of July...novel writing here I come!

Ooo...found a place to write today...

I found a new place to write. Greg's Bagels in Belvedere Square. Today was the first time I've ever been there. I have to say - bagels are ok, not the best, not the worst food - but I LOVED the bagel I had today. Oh, just a plain bagel you say? Not so. THIS was a plain bagel with cream cheese and raspberry jelly. STILL not impressed? All I can say is, ya' gotta' TASTE these bagels. Wow.

And it would be a magnificent place to just go sit, type a while, and eat a magnificent bagel in the morning.

What a plan. Lordy, I love summer.

MC I and II

Magna Carta I
What makes a good novel?

• witty dialogue
• bright and lively, strong and clever characters
• a dash of romance
• mystery
• satisfying ending (not necessarily happy – but right)
• happy endings too
• beautiful description
• background that is clear, easily imagined and defined
• adventure
• sci-fi
• magic
• a thriller
• a point
• beautiful, evocative descriptions
• surprising or unexpected description
• unexpected plot twists
• consistent and effective point of view
• daring symbols
• real people/real characterization
• a story that gives hope, even if it ends badly
• language that inspires
• quotations effectively used
• something that is a minor detail or a poem or line that seems like nothing but turns out to have a powerful impact
• campy and cheesy but witty

Magna Carta II – The Evil Twin
Things that are just horrible in a novel.

• uneven or ineffective use of point of view changes – this drives me NUTS
• depressing or unredeemed endings
• that impending sense of doom, when you just know it’s going to end up in a disaster...and it does
• clunky dialogue
• bad description
• purple prose
• campy and cheesy without the wit so the work is just plain dumb
• dysfunctional families who don’t know they are
• dysfunctional main character with no redeeming value
• being adventurous in prose or plot while having no real reason or need to
• not knowing that, sometimes, simple really is the way to go
• excessively graphic horror
• self-aggrandizing main characters
• a lack of compassion in the main character
• un-wrapped-up plot points

I'm gettin' psyched...

yes...I am!

Scheduling my time...

You know. You'd think that summer would be a great time to write a novel - all that empty time. Yeah, right. I can find SOOOO many things to do.

So - realistically - here's my schedule that I plan to stick to this summer for July.

8:00 am Get up. Get ready for the day and eat breakfast.
9:30 am Gym. Oh yes, you read that one right. Gym.
11:00 am Journal and writing.
1:00 pm Lunch and pool or whatever else strikes my fancy for the rest of the day.

Sounds good. Sounds doable. I just have to ACTUALLY GET UP BY 8 AM TO MAKE IT WORK!!! But that's part of the deal too. It means I'll be going to bed BEFORE 3 am. Also sounds doable, doesn't it? YEAH, IF YOU'RE NOT A NIGHT PERSON!!!

Still I am determined not to spend my entire summer having breakfast at noon as I have in so many previous summers. I like the plan. I think it's possible.

I am committed.

Yipee.

Finished The Mermaid Chair

I finished The Mermaid Chair in what was record time, even for me. The story was satisfying in its culmination - very appropriate and ironic in the character twists; the various psyches were well deliniated and the clues were all there, well-placed and well-paced throughout.

But what really got me was the prose. What magnificent language, what great story-telling. It was - it was what a book should be. I could see it so clearly in my head. South Carolina was well rendered and the paintings were described with such clarity that it is still as if I am looking at them in my mind right now. The women were described with their own quirks but they were real people.

To tell more, to get into an analysis of what happens and of the way the book is constructed is really what I want to do here - but I don't want to give away the story by doing so. Perhaps later. So many threads to trace - so many colors used to effect. Oh, it is a rich book.

threads to trace:
diving
use of green in its different colors/different parts of the story
character/clothing and apparel evolution
nervousness
discussion of psychological habits or tendencies as reflected in the character actions
Hugh's role as psych and as husband
limits of psychology
the wildlife
religion versus (or tied to) mythology
belief
release/desire to be released from pain or beliefs
growth
size/type of art (including the chair itself)
trips to/from island
role of water/food
role of ceremony
art and intuition and religion versus science and medicine and psychology and fact
fact verus the stories people tell
male/female, mother/daughter, father/daughter relationships
motive/intention and resultant event (cause & effect)
physical versus mental and how that ties to religious belief and myth
perception



"I did not fall from grace, I dove."

The Month-Long Novelist Agreement and Statementof Understanding (Form: #A30/31/50K)

I hereby pledge my intent to write a 50,000-word novel in one month's time. By invoking an absurd, month-long deadline on such an enormous undertaking, I understand that notions of "craft," "brilliance," and "competency" are to be chucked right out the window, where they will remain, ignored, until they are retrieved for the editing process. I understand that I am a talented person, capable of heroic acts of creativity, and I will give myself enough time over the course of the next month to allow my innate gifts to come to the surface, unmolested by self-doubt, self-criticism, and other acts of self-bullying.

During the month ahead, I realize I will produce clunky dialogue, clichéd characters, and deeply flawed plots. I agree that all of these things will be left in my rough draft, to be corrected and/or excised at a later point. I understand my right to withhold my manuscript from all readers until I deem it completed. I also acknowledge my right as author to substantially inflate both the quality of the rough draft and the rigors of the writing process should such inflation prove useful in garnering me respect and attention, or freedom from participation in onerous household chores.

I acknowledge that the month-long, 50,000-word deadline I set for myself is absolute and unchangeable, and that any failure to meet the deadline, or any effort on my part to move the deadline once the adventure has begun, will invite well-deserved mockery from friends and family. I also acknowledge that, upon successful completion of the stated noveling objective, I am entitled to a period of gleeful celebration and revelry, the duration and intensity of which may preclude me from participating fully in workplace activities for days, if not weeks, afterward.

Glenna, 6/15/06

Novel Start Date 7/1/06
Novel Deadline 7/31/06

The Mermaid Chair

You know, I'm only 20 pages in, I haven't even really gotten to the driving action but oh, do I love this prose. What magnificent description. The very first paragraph drives the plot. It seems so weak to call it only a hook...it's much more. It is the definition.

I've got pen in hand and am already marking up the text. Poetry yes, but prose? I am not usually moved to highlight and mark as I read the first time through on a prose piece. It is beautiful, very beautiful.


"I did not fall from grace, I dove."

It's that time of year... Archiving Fall/Winter Reading

Since we finished exams today (mine anyway) it's time to archive the Fall/Winter Reading list and start putting up the summer list. Really, I suppose, what I'm archiving is the Fall/Winter/Spring list, because it's June now. Still feels like spring though.

Well - here it is - or here it was - a representation of all that is novelicious!

Fall/Winter Reading for 2005-2006

I Burn for You

Dark Challenge

Haunted

Even Vampires Get the Blues

GhostWalk (excellent beach read)

Dark Magic

Dark Gold

Alice in Wonderland

The Creative Habit

Dark Prince

Dark Demon

Crimson Rogue (good series)

Dime Store Magic

Good Poems (again!)

Three

Erotic Tales of Texas Vampires (pretty darn good)

Someday My Prince

The Corset Diaries

Bitten & Smitten

The Music of the Night

Something Wicked

Jude's Law

The Immortal Highlander

The Sedgwick Curse

Shaking Her Assets

Dragonfly

Wild Ducks Flying Backwards

Perks of Being a Wallflower (wow!)

Go Tell It on the Mountain

Siddartha

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Illusions

The Fountainhead

Walden Two

Walden

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Sex, Lies, and Online Dating

Good Girls Do

Shadow Touch

Undead and Unappreciated

Awaiting the Moon

Macbeth

The Right to Write

The Pocket Muse

The Writer's Book of Matches

The Girl's Guide to Vampires

Sex and the Single Vampire

Through a Crimson Veil

A Darker Crimson

Fondling Your Muse

The Crucible

Private Demon

The Scarlet Letter

The Canterbury Tales

Care of the Soul

Practicing the Presence

Science of Mind

Living the Science of Mind

No Plot? No Problem

knitscene

The Vampire Tapestry

Little Black Book of Stories

The Fairy Godmother

La Morte du Artur

A Taste of Crimson

Every Which Way But Dead

The Good, the Bad, the Undead

Dead Witch Walking

Really Unusual Bad Boys

The 3 a.m. Epiphany

Beowulf

Simply the Best Home Decorating Book

Vogue Knitting, Fall 2005

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Things Fall Apart

Room with a View

The Collected Works of Eudora Welty