Dear friends —

When I am possessed by a novel, several things happen: my mouth grows dry, my heart flutters, my fingers fly across my keyboard, and I forget about things such as plot and narrative structure. I obsess about character and setting and prose and I often forget the other important ingredients that go into making a good story. Often, when I just write, stories settle themselves into agreeable patterns.

My space opera is a different beast.

I have been completely ignoring the structure of this novel, just hunkering down and writing scenes that popped into my head. And, while the writing thrills me, I haven’t been happy, not precisely, with the way events are unfolding. They have become primarily vehicles for the things I want my characters to experience, to think, to say, to feel.

And so I’ve stopped. Writing, that is. I’ve stopped and I’ve turned to plotting.

The last time I plotted, I was still a child, precociously writing a high fantasy at twelve. As high fantasies are necessarily complex and complicated and involve politics and wars and secrets, I plotted out an entire trilogy. And then I stopped writing it and moved on to having feelings about the rest of my life.

I have, thus, mostly associated the sitting down and hammering out of a plot as the thing that kills stories. It scares me.

But my space opera needed a map to guide it along, and so I’ve spooled out the threads that will run through the story. I’ve set out to create a narrative structure that does what it ought to — the slow simmer of building tension, punctuated with climaxes, minor and major. I have been sure to think through the reasons behind the plot much more thoroughly.

And so I must now return to the first page of my story. There is a lot that can be salvaged — one scene, in its entirety. Dialogue. Situations that can be repositioned. But there are other detail that need addressing: my choice of narrators is chief among them.

This is the thing, dear ones: when you’re used to spitting out stories and having them come out, fully-formed and ready to fight, it’s hard to sit down and plan ahead of time. I’ve been spoiled. I have also been lazy.

Back to the foundational work, my lovelies. Wish me luck.

Yours,

Florence

Am I doing that, writing about books I love and working on my really fun thesis?

Well, sort of. But mostly, I’m writing a book.

Shoot.

So this is my problem: I may have a compulsion. It may be an addiction. Because I tried — honestly, I really, really did — to stuff this novel deep down in my body. Like, in my toes. Where it would take ages for it to work its way back up to my heart, sink its spacey tendrils into my flesh, and make me get it out. I tried, but the bastard was quick and clever and I can’t stop it. So, sure, I’m doing some research. I’ve got it mostly done. I still need to read a few books (a few books? why, that’s nothing!) and I’m already 33 000 words into this shiny novel and I don’t want to stop.

Part of me thought, when I finished Sigil, that I’d never feel that way again. Like there was this force welling up inside of me and I had to just let the story pummel its way through me and onto the page. I figured, once in a lifetime. After all, I did write a novel in about three weeks.

But then my space opera exploded out of me and I have spent the past several days obsessing. I think about it in the shower. When I’m buying groceries. Drinking tea. Making supper. Vacuuming. I think about it when I’m underlining pertinent sections from academic tomes. I think about it when I’m writing it.

All. of. the. time.

So, my options are kind of like this: 1) repress! (not really an option. I’m working with Foucault for my thesis and we all know how repression works out), 2) write like a mad woman!, or 3) try to strike a balance and maintain some semblance of sanity. I’m hoping for option three, but the likelihood of me maintaining some grasp on reality while trying to write both a thesis and a novel seems, at best, unlikely.

But, then, knowing me, I should wrap up the novel-writing in a week or so. And then I can write my thesis, having been refreshed (possessed?) by my book.

This happened the last time I wrote a thesis, too. I guess, if I want to be a productive writer, I need to give myself a ridiculous deadline, which I then need to panic about because I’ve been taken over, body and mind, by a story that demands my attention. A recipe, I think, for a healthy life.

In other news, it’s spring. And I am now an aunt.

See the full gallery on Posterous

(1. spring in the park, 2. Callan, who thinks very little of you)

The end.

Dearest readers —

Winter has ended. Spring changes the shape of this city where I live — blossoms explode across bare branches, before the earliest of leaves even begin contemplating budding. I plant bulbs and rooted herbs and wait for the verdant wall to spring up around my sea shanty. All the while, when my head is meant to bend to study, to writing out thoughts and analyses, I have been occupied elsewhere. My heart has shifted its allegiance.

I have been writing.

I am 33 000 words into my space opera, sadly still without a name to call its own. My writing has been frantic, frenetic, because I know I have hardly any time in which to get this done. The research I’m meant to complete lurches along, in dribs and drabs, but the force of this novel barrels its way through me, a river rushing through the cracks in a dam. There is only so long I can hold it back. My will has been tested; it has been shattered.

What can I tell you, about this thing that I’m writing? It’s about criminals, and space, and whales that are engines. It’s about Empire and genes and colonialism, sirens and quills, water worlds, cities on moons. Mostly, it’s about nine damaged and disillusioned youth, each broken in their own way, somehow coming together under the guiding hand of circumstance.

And so my newest novel, a young adult science fiction novel with a plot that spins and contorts itself into peculiar shapes, is becoming a real thing, not just a thing inside of my head. This is very exciting. I am excited and worried, that I won’t do this story justice, that it will consume me. Because this is the thing, dear ones, about writing stories: as much as they are a barrier between you and the cold, mean world outside, they also open you up to wicked things. They can eat you whole.

It’s the balance that’s the key. Which is why I’m bracing myself to dive back into my research. And maybe, maybe if I finish reading that next book, I’ll allow myself to crawl back on board my spaceship with my beautiful, sad characters. And we’ll see what happens next.

Yours,

Florence