Groop met amongst a wreckage of LSAT books and Zachary's pizza on Monday to roast Nicky using a lighter, carpet scraps, and a jack-o-lantern.
Nick's really got something with this novel of his. As always, we loved the distinctive and cool narrative voice. We asked for a rise in temperature at the beginning of the piece to bring it up to the fast burn of the last few pages. Other than that, we're looking forward to the adventure. His three mismatched heroes are about to head out into the night, and we are ready to be right there with them. Make it weird and nervous-making, Nick!
Ben brought up an interesting writing question. Nick's been working on this novel for more than ten years, I'm hitting year seven with mine. What keeps us coming back for more? I'll leave Nick to reprise his response.
My response is this: I read novels, so I know I would be writing novels (as opposed to short stories). Turns out it's harder than it looks. I've changed from third person to first person to third person omniscient to third person quasi omniscient. I started three or four subplots that will probably end up mostly in the trash (but will inform the characters that stay on stage). I tacked an old short story to the beginning of the novel (turns out I was writing about the same character but didn't know it at the time).
But it's not just the sheer amount of writing one has to do in order to find enough gems worth knitting together. I had to go back to Italy two more times. I had to read a few more Sommerset Maugham novels. And I had to fall in love, disastrously in love, a few more times.
I'm still not sure what the sum of all of this writing and experience will be, but I'm determined to finish this damn thing. I know it's probably going to deserve that garage treatment the Bridget mentioned--the book of who I was, the thing I needed to write before I knew where I was going.
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2 comments:
But that's just it right. Why the first novel lives under so many of our beds and why, going into agent #3 and year #8 of novel #2, I'm still hopeful. I'm still certain that this is the one that will end up with a cover on a shelve and finally, finally my name will be on the front of the book, instead of a line at the back.
I've heard about a lot of writers who do this "Everything book" that is so all inclusive that it doesn't hold together. your comments seem to indicate something related to that, though I don't feel your book to be all inclusive in the least. Still, there is this "first novel thing" that seems to be going around. I sorta dodged this bullet since I only write itty bitty novellas. Maybe I have yet to write my everything book. I should definitely get started.
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