It's Tuesday evening and I'm sitting on my dock in my Muskoka chair with a glass of wine, trying to write this blog. The scene is idyllic. I have always loved the peace of the lake - the lapping of the waves, the muted sounds of birds in the trees, the bump of the canoe against the dock - and I find it very inspirational for writing. I bought this cottage almost twenty years ago as a writing retreat.
I am now at the cottage for a two-week stretch without interruption. The family visits have ended and although I have scheduled one visit with friends half-way through, these two weeks are to be my writing time. Time to make some serious headway on my much-neglected novel. I have been floundering around in the plot for some time, not staying in the groove long enough to figure out where I am and where I'm going. It's time that changes! I have a research trip booked to British Columbia in three weeks, and I need to know more about what I have to research.
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| My peaceful place |
Yet right now it feels as if this novel is a tangled mat of threads that I can't figure out how to knit together. I have added a bunch of "what if" future ideas and initiated a number of complications that eventually have to go somewhere, but I feel lost in the tangle.
Two days ago, I started to untangle the mess. When confronted with all these loose threads and potential plot ideas, I try a number of techniques. I write down the threads in point form, and I stare at them. I ask "what would/ could/ should happen next?"" in each thread. I write down the major characters and where they are in the story, and ask where they need to go next. How can I push each part of the story forward? And how can I keep (or make) their stories intersecting? Usually once I stare at the points long enough and play with the questions long enough, I get an idea. I pull on a thread. I develop it, and it starts to emerge from the tangle into a plausible step forward. It exposes another thread, which I pull apart from it and lay out. In much the same way one tackles a huge knot, this story slowly untangles, thread by thread, and separates into storylines. I'm not done yet, but I have worked my way forward through the knot, and I have some threads to follow.
I know I will encounter more tangles, or these separated threads will tangle back up again, but for now I have a way forward and I am excited. This takes work and concentration, and maybe two weeks with almost no one to talk to and nothing to distract me.
Drop by in two weeks for my next post, and I'll let you know how much I've succeeded!
