As I hoped yesterday, today was a much better writing day. I woke up around 6:30 and spent a half hour drinking coffee and reading The Last Slave Ship, and then I ate some oatmeal (just because my cholesterol is down doesn’t mean I’m out of the woods!) before heading into the office. I was at my desk and ready to work by 7:30 am.
I began reading my novel-in-progress from its first page, trying to find a way back into it after a bit of a break over the past few weeks of work travel and vacation. As I read, I made notes in the manuscript about what was needed: more info. about the character, a sharper sense of setting, more context around sequences of events, more historical/cultural context about the present moment. Each note provided me an opportunity to reenter the novel with new ideas that would illuminate old pages. I often find this is the only way I can get back into something after stepping away from it. It’s hard for me just to pick up at the last sentence and continue on. I feel like I need to step back into the existing pages with fresh eyes and fresh ideas.
While this was unfolding, I had a major breakthrough about one of the novel’s main characters. Since I began working on the novel, I had decided that the character would be of a certain profession and that he was coming home as part of that profession. But I don’t know much - if anything - about that profession. Instead of building the character, I was building a model of the kind of professional this man is. He felt flat and hollow, and I couldn’t figure out why.
Today, I decided that the man would be coming home for a different reason aside from work, and once I made that decision the character completely opened up on the page. He became a human instead of someone who works a job and has a career.
I didn’t get any real writing done, but I got a lot of work done today, and sometimes that’s as good as or better than getting new words on the page. The ideas have to be there first, and today the ideas were flying. The words will come next. Right?
Late in the morning my friend and fellow writer Kevin Maurer stopped by our office. We’ve been friends for years and have worked on numerous projects together, from essays to television show pilots. When we’re together we spend a lot of time talking about writing and the writing business. One night, based on one of those conversations over a few beers, I went home and wrote a series of tweets that ended up being retweeted thousands of times by authors like Neil Gaiman. Several websites republished it, including Charlotte Lit. You can read the essay version of the tweets here. Kevin and I are back at it, working on a tv show we’re hoping to start filming this fall. Stay tuned. Fingers crossed.
I left the office and went by the library (two days in a row?!) to pick up another book I had on hold, and then I went home and ate lunch, took a quick shower, and headed downtown for an interview at WHQR Studios for an interview show called Coastline, where a local host named Rachel Lewis Hilburn speaks with everyone from politicians to actors to community members. She interviewed me about This Is Working and the role creativity plays in my life. It was a fun hour, and it made me believe even more in what I’m trying to do with this creative community. You can listen to the interview here. It’ll be on tomorrow’s episode of Coastline and will run again on Sunday.
This evening, we went by Mallory’s brother’s house for cake to celebrate his birthday with his family, and then we headed to Carolina Beach in the hopes that Mallory could get a few shots of flooding during the king tide for a series on climate change that she’s working on with a journalist. Now, I’m back home and putting off getting the girls to bed. Mallory just left to head downtown to catch some shots of flooding there.
Tomorrow, I’ll be back at the desk, reimagining a character I thought I knew. Onward.