symbolic 59: the middle bit
I wish I could tell you that I've been in the south of France for the last few months, taking a tour of the wine country. I wish I could tell you that I did a very European thing and took the month of August off and went someplace else, but the only part of that which would be true would be the "someplace else" bit. My head has been someplace else. Busy, I suppose, tied up in minutia and things which are both irrelevant and completely consuming.
One of the precepts of this blog was the idea of letting everyone see the process and, at the time, I thought the process would be this whizz-bang pyrotechnic storm of activity. You know the reality? Nothing is going on. Not a damn thing. Which is never a state that a writer wants to be in.
Is is writer's block? No, I've got words by the truckload. The vehicles are lined up around the block, waiting for the signal to dump their loads. I just can't seem to get the foundation poured. This is silly, really, and the longer it goes on, the more frustrating and paralytic it becomes. I've got no plot.
I wish I could get past this roadblock. It seems to hit me every time. I get completely self-critical of the action and can't seem to be groovy enough to let the story work itself out. I get myself so tied up in structure and symbolism that I can't extricate myself enough to figure out how the pieces actually fit together. It's completely annoying. I've got the 50,000 words written last November (almost a year ago now!) that I probably won't ever use. I've got four different openings written, and I kinda sorta know how the end pans out.
But I've got no middle. I've got this huge, fucking hole right through the middle. Come behind the curtain, gang, and take a look at it. It's big. All sorts of vacant space. And while you're marveling at the blank landscape, I'm going to scamper off to my escape balloon and evacuate for Ohio.
Of course, that wouldn't solve anything. I've had four other ideas for novels since this whole adventure began and each has had that seductive excitement of being new. But they are kernels of ideas, tiny seeds which need to be nourished and properly grown. I can see the flowering plant which they may grow into, but I can tell you that I've given no thought to the actual process of growing them.
You know, the middle bit.
There, the awful secret. Time to get past it now. This isn't how I wanted things to end. This is, after all, the middle bit where the first fires have burned out and the real end is too far off to be visible and there is nothing but the miles and miles of desolate scrub in every direction.
Take a compass reading, pal, find a star to navigate by. One foot in front of the other. This is the middle bit.
writing
This is a reasonably comprehensive list of my published work, both virtual and physical.
THE MISFIT LIBRARY
I am Nine of Thirteen, one of the members of the Misfit Library, a writing collective which puts out a quarterly journal of our respective work. We are scattered across the globe and determined to change the face of the planet one story at a time. The link above will take you to Misfit Central where you can acquire copies of the journal as well as read exclusive online material.
SYMBOLIC
I wrote a column for OPi8.com's Transmit blogs: journals of the new dark underground. SYMBOLIC tracked the novel I was working on, referencing the process and the research materials which mad up the backbone of the work. In addition, SYMBOLIC busied itself with ruminations and considerations on the nature of language and communication. And a wee bit of mythology. The first 100 entries of SYMBOLIC can be found here on this site as well as at OPi8.com.
LITERARY REPRESENTATION
I am represented by Scribe Agency as my literary agents. Please contact these gentleman if you have any queries about my work.