Ok.
On my ME page, I noted that I was doing this primarily due to the notion of "It's about damn' time!"
I did not take on Nano to make a 50k word count, although that is our collective goal. More to the point, I am doing this to make a Bucket List lifetime achievement: to start, and complete, a novel.
So, having said that, this is the manner in which I write. My hope is that you all will join in. I am always seeking new ways to improve my writing (or typing, if you prefer... thanks to Truman Capote... "That's not writing, that's just typing!").
My first and primary influence would have to be Mary Shelley. She started
- Frankenstein
with a pair of core images; the creator looking at his creation with a growing sense of dread and fleeing and; the creation gazing upon the creator.
I always have a core image, a central visual icon that I refer back to while pieceing together a story. While madly typing the current attempt, I had none in particular. While putting together the intial piece (a depressed man travels to the old Tiger Stadium to commit suicide by illegally entering the job site and wait for the structure to be brought down onto him), I pulled some images from the internet of the final scene. This failed. Miserably. It is NOT what the story wanted, so I had to push it aside, and see what the story wanted.
I then recalled a drawing I'd done over twenty years ago. I drew a man, standing inside a square, looking out across an open field. On the other side was a house, with an identical person staring back. From that day, when I completed the drawing, I knew that it was one man, looking across a distance at himself. He knew that other man was himself, and he was aware that the other version of himself was equally aware of the situation.
From that memory came the genesis of what is (as of today, 11/5/09) some 14k words that is The Thrid Event.
That core image is what got me over the Epic Fail of less than 1000 words on 11/4/09. Once I drew a focus, I was off again, and everything fell back into place (for now... 25 days from now, I may have a ho' nuther thang going on... further bulletins as events warrant).
My second influence would have to be Anne Rivers Siddons'
- The House Next Door.
This story, imho, is one of the finest examples of plot that a horror novel could offer. Being the tale of a haunted house, she touched on so many things that are of Urban Legend status that is remains a favorite.
The main focus of the novel is a couple whose home is next to a new, strange home. The design is such that it is unusual but still attractive, and they watch as the events transpire. We are in the box seats to the urban legend of how a house becomes haunted. (I had that bad word count day, and didn't know where to go, so I thought about that particular novel, went back and haunted a house briefly. I then opened the story today, picked up where I left off, and Awaaaay Weeee Go!!)
The third influence would have to be Shirley Jackson. Her opening for
- The Haunting Of Hill House
has got to be, again imho, one of the finest examples of descriptive writing I have ever had the pleasure to encounter. It is precise, concise and poetic, and it creates an atmosphere that is totally unshakeable and she does it in one paragraph that consists of all of two or three sentences.
That, imho, is sheer, unquestioned genius. Along with her brilliance of prose, I would have to also point to Uncle Ray Bradbury, who writes Epic Poems that he brilliantly hides in the form of a novel. (I have never been able to finish
- Dandelion Wine
simply because his prose is so flawless that I find myself lost in my own childhood within the first few pages...)
The last influence, although surely there are many, many more, would be everyone's favorite whipping boy from Maine, Mr. Stephen King (husband of Tabitha King, accomplished novelist in her own... write).
I'd never heard of either Shirley Jackson (other than ) or Ms. Siddons until he mentioned them in
- Danse Macabre
. He is a man possessed of the notion that writing is a task to be taken with the greatest seriousness.
Well, yes. I think we'd all agree with that...
He has a voice in every novel and story he writes. Sometimes, he fails. I am the second to admit that, the first being himself. Finding that voice, creating that sense of Being There, is what makes him (imho) one of the reasons his books consistently end up at the top of the best seller lists.
Well, there you are. Makes me wish I could think of some way to copy/paste this into the word count, but I refuse (of course!).... I did start an Afterword, mostly in homage to Mr. King. It will NOT be counted toward my word count, but ol' Steve likes to drop a little line at the end of his tale to let us all know from whence his tale began.
It also got my fingers limbered up, and thus, on 11/1/09, I jumped into the deep end of the pool, and thought, well, by Jesus, I am in for the duration...
ON TO 50K!!!
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