Wow. I've been blogging for officially over one year now. Time it does fly, yes?
When I started this blog, it was because of the Cherries. You remember that, don't you? If not, don't feel you have to go back to the beginning. But I did. I spent the day reading through all of my old blog posts, as a way of re-walking this last year, and trying to see how far I've come from where I was. I do that sometimes. Just like I sometimes will spend days reading the same post, picking it apart, re-writing it in my head, trying to make it better. Please tell me I'm not the only one!
Anyhow, in this massive re-read of all old stuff, I remembered something. This is really supposed to be a 'writing blog'. It seems that in using this as more of a way to document the goings-on (I just LOVE that phrase!) in my life, I've not always used this place as a warehouse for writing-type-stuff. That's gotta change. My last post is proof of that.
Now, on first perusal, if you actually read that entire last post, you would maybe think that it had nothing to do with writing, except in that I used an awful lot of words. You may even think that on the sixth or eleventh perusal, but only if you actually made it to that many perusals. Like I did. But if that's what you thought, you'd be wrong. Like I was.
Then I got my head surgically removed from my nether-regions and took another look at that post. And another look at my current work. Take a guess at what I found. Ok, be a spoilsport and just sit there. You don't have to guess. I'll tell you.
That last post needs to be in my story. No, not the whole post. And really, not even a whole lot of the words. But the feeling? Yeah, that's got to be in there.
So, I'm going in yet another new direction with my WIP. Because the first direction was too scattered, being my initial try with Nano. And my second direction ended up being like something someone should have posted a huge WRONG WAY sign on. I had the best of intentions with the second direction. It came from the right place. But it was just the wrong direction to try to take this particular story.
But I didn't know that. Until I wrote my last post. And I saw what my story was missing. I need something, or more specifically someONE, to be the link for my MC, between who she WAS, and who she IS, in order to illustrate who she is GOING TO BE. I can't do this in a prologue, infodump is BAD, and really, backstory needs to stay in my own little head. But the reader really needs to see who she was in order to understand who she is, and appreciate who she is becoming. The best way that I see for doing that is to include a person that has known her for all of her days. This has to be a person with whom she still acts like who she was, and struggles to remember who she is now when she is around, but also a person who totally believes in who she will become.
But, unlike in my very own little life, that person will not be her Grams.
I think.
4 comments:
that sounds great.
and why not mirror some of you in her?
and it can be the gran. :)
-OH
You know, I was thinking that your last post was very well written. In fact this blog might have had more of an effect on your writing than you know. If nothing else it gives you an excuse to play around with words. Practice, if you will.
Dee, you've made a difference.
Tonight I was on the phone with my mother. We were speaking about how wonderful it was that she had written down memories of her life with my father, and I gathered up my courage to say "You know, I know nothing about either of my grandfathers." (Both of them died decades before I was born.)
There was a silence on her end, and then she said, cautiously, "I could write down things I remember about my father."
Dee, this is a huge step forward. Everything I've gathered about this man adds up to him being an unpleasant alcoholic. But I get the feeling my mother actually has some positive memories of him to add to this. I'm mean heck, there's got to be something positive about this man, yes? No one is all negative. He must have at least had some charm to persuade my grandmother to marry him.
Now all I have to do is persuade one of my father's two remaining sisters to find something positive to say about their father, and I'll be set.
Thank you for helping me set this in motion.
Mary, that's all you, babe. You're the one with the courage. CBs are just so amazing!
I have a letter from my Great-Grams. It's over 20 years old. I was working on a family tree project at school and called her and asked her to help. In her spider-web writing, filled with long skinny figures and big, fat figures, she spilled a history that amazed me, things I'd never even heard whispered before. of course, I couldn't verify any of that then. It was enough, for me, just to have that letter though, of HER memories of MY history.
Sometimes, it's enough just to ask.
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