A STORY. 9. THE AUTHOR INTERJECTS A SECOND TIME
I am ahead. But not far ahead. And the whole trip, the whole STORY, is not neatly planned out.
In many ways, I am along for the ride. When I started to write A STORY, I knew what the first moment would be - ALMOST. I also did have a bit more of the route planned - a second moment and a third.
But then GENTLE RAIN came to mind. I could have stayed with the plan. But it no longer felt alive. So I turned in the unexpected direction.
I do know, now, what moment it feels right to go to next. That feels very clear to me.
HEAVY RAIN.
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By the way, some authors feel they “download” their work - as if there were, say, Mozart the human and non-human-external-force-non-Mozart who somehow sends the compositions. I don’t feel anything like that.
And who is that outside-non-Mozart, anyway - that being with more creative gift than Mozart?
I have loved writing since I was a little girl. It has always felt that I was the writer, that sometimes I had ideas, and that sometimes I didn’t.
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I’m not like some other authors either, who have the sense of knowing where a book will go, or even knowing where a whole book series will go. I did have that sense with a book I wrote in my 20’s. The first few short chapters felt alive - when the book was an adventure. Then when I had the plan in my head, the book felt dead. I did write the whole book. But so much of the writing felt like a chore, following my own planned story line.
Years later, twenty years ago, I wrote a very different book. All I knew when it started, was the opening: “Geela Gribbs was known as more than a little weird.” The book stayed an adventure.
Trying to get it published was also an adventure. I will come back to that.
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With STORY I’m letting the adventure develop, the adventure where you keep coming back to the bookstore, not knowing the next MOMENT.
And where I have some sense of where this is headed, but much is unexpected.
Like life, one moment after another. Life keeps surprising me, and also my responses.
NEXT:
A STORY. 10 . THE THIRD VISIT
https://elsaiselsa.substack.com/p/a-story-10-the-third-visit
A STORY. ALL THE CHAPTERS ... UP TO NOW
https://elsaiselsa.substack.com/p/a-story-table-of-contents-up-to-now
Posted March 18, 2024