Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Initial Apgar: A forgotten entry

After many months, I have finally popped in to write a new entry in my blog, only to find one languishing in the drafts. So here's that:

Sometime in the last two weeks, I started writing. I forgot to make note of when I began; I just got so excited about the coalescing story in my head that I couldn't wait any longer, and even though (once again) I have not fully plotted this book, I jotted down an opening scene from the point of view of the "skeptic" character. I just wanted to introduce the two main characters, but once I had done so, I felt compelled to flesh out what had come before: the Disturbance, wherein the protagonist's family is slaughtered.

So then I started to "jot down" that scene, and discovered it was impossible to make this a mere catalyst for the protagonist's action. Furthermore, Agnetha/Agnieszka needed to tell her own story in first person.

[Continued Tuesday, January 16, 2007]

What I ended up with is, as usual, flouting the rules of writing: a novel that switches between first-person and third-person limited omniscient. Will it work? Who knows? Maybe my novels will never be publishable, but maybe I need to give up on that dream and be true to my muse. Bern's blindness should have remained a secret, 'gite speech should have remained a dialect, Shiva's story should have remained in Anamnesis as a single book, and the sex should not have been compromised. Screw publishers. I'll stay at a dreary desk job for the rest of my life no matter what I do anyway.

So there's that.

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