video: a novel day
At a wedding I attended on Wednesday night I lamented to a friend that trying to write a novel is not nearly as enjoyable as I thought it would be.
The problem, it seemed, was that I had formed an idea in my head that novel writing was somewhat like a movie montage. That all of the agony and self doubt that came along with writing could be gathered together to form a meaningful time line of the novel experience.
Through all the days that I was writing I would be kept motivated knowing this time line was being created. That no day was felt on its own, each a small clip in a larger, more filmic experience.
Every down in this montage would be juxtaposed with an up, and once set to an appropriate score, my novel endeavor would sweep along, the creative blanks drawing shorter, the sentences arriving quicker as my montage raced toward its ultimately satisfying conclusion.
Here I would find myself poised to finish the final chapter, looking out a loft window on a quiet snow cushioned forest. The hem of a turtle neck sweater warm around my neck, clean shaven, emotionally together, rubbing my chin knowingly as the final sentences gathered in my mind. Downstairs my future kids would come in from the cold, disrobing from their winter clothes, the sound of their jackets hitting the floor like packets of snow hitting the dirt…
But writing a novel is not at all like the films I have seen.
Currently I am progressing through a first draft. In first draft mode I am rarely writing in the ‘creative’ sense, I am Pushing Through. Sure, there are a few moments of creative flair to lure me on, but for the most part I am just trying to get to the end of these three chapters so that I can go to Varuna in August and bluff my way into making people believe that a novel from Mark Welker in the next three years is ‘quite likely’.
As the world of film has thus far seemed unable to aptly prepare me for the realities of novel writing, I thought I would put together a series of my own montages of what the day-to-day writing experience is like for me. I have called the first one ‘Procrastination’.
If you have ever seen a movie on novel writing and got sucked in (as I have), share some of the scenes that would be in your daily writing montage in the comments below.
P.S. The irony of making a montage about procrastination is not lost on me.
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5 Comments
Well, if you’re planning to keep washing floors and doing the laundry – you’re welcome to procrastinate at my house anytime! I think my scenes would mostly revolve around a lot of net surfing and a fair bit of drawing on my Bamboo tablet…
And in addition to the RT, may I just say that I think you have quite the talent for video makery. Great stuff. (:
Why thank you Dr Phil
What a bril video. Now I know why I stick to writing poetry. Good luck.
What an uncomfortably accurate video! Needless to say, it’s very well made.
As well as all of those procrastination activities, for me there’s also a huge amount of refreshing my email inbox. I also like to fool myself that my procrastination is productive, as shown by my list of Things I Do That I Think Are Writerly And Therefore An Acceptable Use of Time, But Are Really Just Procrastination: http://www.pankmagazine.com/pankblog/?p=3462
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