Sunday, March 21, 2010

The Novel: Good Days & Bad Days

My good friend Jordyn is also an aspiring novelist and together we press through all the hardships and celebrations that come with writing. Mostly hardships. And we listen to each other as we bang our heads on the table repetitively, hoping the words will leak out our ears and onto the page. We talk each other up and through things, and we realize that writing makes us bipolar. We will love it and we will hate it and none of that will stay consistent.

There are good days and there are bad days, and basically, this is what I sound like when I am writing.

On a bad day:
Aaaauuuugggghhhh. Just aaaauuuugggghhhh.

On a good day: (like today)
Jordyn: Yeah. I've planned a lot for this though, so I don't know. I feel like I'm kind of diving in through and it's like I don't quite know how to swim. You know?
Jez: I think that's kind of what writing a novel is like, honestly. It's undiscovered territory and we are without a clear map, so we have to experiment and take chances and hope the next step we take doesn't land us in a nest of scorpions or take us over the edge of a cliff.
Jordyn: Well that's terrifying.
Jez: But it's exciting, because we're the first humans ever to walk that path, ever to see that flower, ever to drink from that pure spring, untainted by chemical run-off. It's an adventure and we are explorers.

Also, if you're interested, you can follow Jordyn's journey through her recent novel (about spies!) here.

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