Have been working a little bit every day, mostly wandering around in the middle, trying to get a feel for what my point is. I know some of the things that need to happen, but can't quite figure out how to write them, or how they move the story forward except as plot. I don't know whether it's best to get something down so I can then work with it, or to not do anything till I have a stronger sense of direction. Right now I seem to be trying the "get something down" method.

I know a lot of trade writers look down on work-for-hire, but I owe it an immeasurable debt, if only for one thing it taught me about myself: My thinking is very often overcomplicated at first. I learned that from my readers' theater scripts editor, who has a gift for paring ideas down so that they're perfectly suited to format. I'd come up with some idea, and he'd tweak it by saying, "Yeah, but that's too complicated. Why don't you just have so-and-so happen, big climax, show the characters learning their lesson, the end." I remember when we first started working together I was like, "That's so simple it'll be boring--but hey, he's the boss." Then every time, as soon as I got it on the paper, I saw that it worked. It was humbling to realize that I was just some artsy-fartsy novelist who didn't know squat about constructing a story.

Writing novels isn't the same as writing RT scripts, because there are so many threads that have to be juggled and woven that it's necessarily complex and--much of the time--overwhelming to the point where you don't really quite understand what you're doing. But again and again I find that I need to simplify my thinking about certain threads, or about the way I weave them together, or whether they need to be woven at all, or whether they all even need to be there. There's no one-size-fits-all rule about it, but it's been very helpful to remember that I do have this tendency to overcomplicate. Sometimes it takes care of itself as I work, but other times I have to force myself to consider whether I'm preventing my ms from having clarity and purpose.

This is on my mind today because I have to think about that w-f-h sample. I can't tell at this moment if my head's in the right place, or if I'm just being overly complicated again. It's unfortunate that I often have to figure this out by talking about it, because basically I pin friends/colleagues down while I whine and bore them.

This is one of those days where any writing time is chopped up into small pieces.

I'm thinking about the frame, because I woke up this morning with an idea of how it could go. I'm starting with a heading that sets the scene, then I have about half a page (standard margins) in Troy during the siege. Then the story proper starts with a heading that re-sets the scene (ten years earlier, different place) and goes into the centered formating.

The very end of the story proper (haven't written it yet; just have the GN form of it) leaves on an open note of freedom and ocean horizons. That kind of feels like where the book ought to end. But to me, this story isn't about one girl, it's about a whole bunch of other stuff, so the story needs to go on a little bit. It needs to end in midair, because the rest of the story really lies elsewhere. It seems pretty obnoxious to act like I told the whole thing in 30,000 measly words then tied a bow on it. And it feels dishonest to imply a happy ending when really the story goes on to become a tragedy.

So after the end of the story proper comes the closing frame, picking up where the beginning frame left off. The frame ends where my favorite part of the Iliad starts, so I'm going to stop somewhere in there. Not sure where yet--not sure how abruptly I want to leave it hanging. Maybe the reader needs to turn the page, fully expecting more story--only there's not. That's going to p*ss them off, which is okay with me if it keeps them thinking. Or, maybe I need to end on a note where the reader thinks, "this feels like the end, but I sure hope it's not because I want to know what happened,"--and then it really is the end, too bad.

I seem to be tiptoeing into the Paris section little by little. I have no idea how I'm going to write it without devolving into light steamy romance. Not that I have anything against light steamy romance--it just wouldn't match the rest of the book. Will have to give the matter some thought.

I've been consistently freaked out by how much work I'm doing on the days when I'm stuck in the library with son #2's laptop. I sit there in a study carrel with nothing to look at but the screen from before 8 a.m. till after 12:20 p.m.. There's no way to check e-mail, no way to go off on a net-surfing tangent. No dogs, no cats. I can't get up and wander around or even go get a drink of water unless I pack everything up and carry it with me. So I sit and work. And it turns out you can wrap your head around quite a sizable piece of your ms in that amount of time, when there's nothing to do but concentrate on it. However, I think I might go nuts if I had to do it more than once a week. And I'm pretty sure I wouldn't last that long if I didn't have to wait for son #2 to get out of class. If it was up to me, I'd probably leave whenever I felt restless. But with forced compliance, I have to ignore the restlessness and bring my attention back to the ms. It's a choice between that or staring at a wooden carrel wall for a few hours.

Have been working on filling in some missing pieces in the middle of the book. I don't really know what needs to go in there, so I'm mostly just messing around, trying stuff out, dabbling. It would be nice to have focus and purpose, but if I'm lucky maybe something I'm doing now will eventually lead to focus and purpose. If not, the pages of dabbling will have to be scrapped.

But you know, if so, wtf else is new? It's not like I haven't scrapped a goodly portion of what I've worked on in the past couple of years. I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I wrote something and it just worked. I'd probably be scared if that happened. I'd be looking up, waiting for the asteroid that was about to strike and turn me and my computer into a flaming crater.

Trying to work myself up to writing. Am suddenly overwhelmed with the pointlessness of it all. I look at the ms and think, WTF am I doing?

Nobody's going to care. Nobody's interested in your puttering around in boring subtleties of personal relationships. They might be interested if you'd kill somebody off, or have characters beat each other up. But what you're writing is about as interesting to read as a checkbook ledger. You might as well spend your time watching reruns of Wife Swap. That'll be more fun, and you won't have to labor over something that nobody's ever going to care to read anyway. The end result will be the same whether you work on your stupid ms or not. Go on, give in, plunk yourself down in front of the TV with the remote. Go on--give in to Wife Swap!

Okay, enough of that. To work, dammit! Mush! Mush!