Blogger's Lament

I seem to have developed that worst of afflictions, resistance to my own blog. In an era when mastery of social media is an obligatory art, I find myself willing to do almost anything except blog. Foolishly, I gave myself three hungry blogs to feed and maintain. This gives me that much more to resist, neglect, and feel guilty about.

Underlying my resistance to spending time in this fashion is my belief that no one really cares. I know the writer/agent/editor axis holds that building a platform is the end-all-be-all to sales. But I question the reliability of this assumption. I question it because I myself do not seek online contact with the authors of the books I read. I don't have time. I barely have time to read their books. And there's nothing more I want from them apart from the pleasure of reading their work.

I follow any number of wonderful writers on Twitter, each of whom slavishly maintains a blog. But do I read them? No. I can't possibly. And they don't read mine, either. They're too busy writing. Which is as it should be.

A Writer's Work

I'm returned from my delightful travels, and once the thank you's are written and the heap of laundry's done, I'll be ready to plunge back into work, though I think work is not the best word to describe writing. We call it work because it's hard and requires the sort of foresight, vision, planning, dedication and application that work requires. And yet, on the best of days, it's fun -- sheer, heady fun: the word that pops up out of nowhere to perfectly express our intent; the idea we didn't know we had. Even when we get it wrong, it's fun.

Margaret Mitchell was a Scorpio

Being a Scorpio, I've decided, is a detriment to a writer. As a Scorpio myself, I see all the characters in their varied complexity, I see their full histories and desires, I sense all the levels and layers to their lives and stories, and to corral all this, to simplify it and give it a clean, linear path, is very difficult for me. I'm constantly weaving elaborate webs in which I myself get caught.

But then, Sylvia Plath was born the same day as I, and she knew how to distill a complex thought. Dylan Thomas, a lion in my eyes, shares my birth date. Margaret Mitchell managed her complicated story quite well, as did Scorpios Marianne Moore, George Eliot, Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Albert Camus, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and the esteemed Margaret Atwood, among others. Anne Sexton, John Keats, and Ezra Pound were Scorpios. And John Irving! I mean, when I think about it, "Garp" couldn't have been written by other than a Scorpio.

I feel better now. If they can/could do it, so can I.

Back-Story Blues

The first screenplay I ever wrote turned out to be the easiest. It was born out of my frustration with a novel I couldn't manage. As a first-time novelist, I'd tackled a vast, multi-generational tale that I was in no way equipped to handle. The main story centered on a flawed female protagonist who falls in love against her will with an equally damaged man. This, the main story, was the one I found so difficult to write.

The back stories, on the other hand -- the stories of the generations that gave rise to this one -- flowed out of my pen effortlessly. With natural conflict and even some high-stakes drama, they practically wrote themselves.

Why was this the case? How are they any different? A story is a story, after all. Was I merely choking on the main story because it was the one that mattered, the hub around which all the other stories constellated? I still don't understand why I find then so easy to write, and now so impossible.

My solution to the problem with that novel was to take the main story and turn it into a screenplay, if only as an exercise. I was betting that the currency, pace and economy of a script would lend a freshness and urgency to the main story that was lacking in my novel. And it did. I'm very happy with that piece of work, all in all.

Ironically, I've now gone back to try my hand again with the original novel, and guess what's giving me fits? The back stories. Maybe it's time I turned them into screenplays, too.

Story vs. Plot

A memo was published recently, purportedly written by David Mamet to the writing staff of his now-defunct tv show, The Unit. In it, Mamet explains what makes for a compelling hour of television, and what does not. Essentially, he says what everyone says about dramatic scene writing [Caps his]:

EVERY SCENE MUST BE DRAMATIC. THAT MEANS: THE MAIN CHARACTER MUST HAVE A SIMPLE, STRAIGHTFORWARD, PRESSING NEED WHICH IMPELS HIM OR HER TO SHOW UP IN THE SCENE.

THIS NEED IS WHY THEY CAME. IT IS WHAT THE SCENE IS ABOUT. THEIR ATTEMPT TO GET THIS NEED MET WILL LEAD, AT THE END OF THE SCENE,TO FAILURE - THIS IS HOW THE SCENE IS OVER. IT, THIS FAILURE, WILL, THEN, OF NECESSITY, PROPEL US INTO THE NEXT SCENE.

ALL THESE ATTEMPTS, TAKEN TOGETHER, WILL, OVER THE COURSE OF THE EPISODE, CONSTITUTE THE PLOT.

I know it's true. It must be true. Yet I subscribe to Martin Scorsese's view: "Plot is interesting once. Story is interesting over and over again." This too is true.

Does leaning toward plot mean sacrificing story? Aren't some movies and/or novels heavier on plot than story? Aren't some heavier on story than plot? And don't some readers/viewers prefer one, while others prefer the other?

I know what you'll say: the best works balance the two. Do they? I'm reading War and Peace at the moment, which is all about story, and not at all about plot. It's story that endures, not plot. Yet, for a story to endure, it must be very well crafted indeed. And there's the rub.

A New Day, A New Blog

I have a fiction blog, The Misadventures of Jane, where I post pieces I'm working on. I have a music blog, It Still Moves, where I write exclusively about music. What I didn't have was a place, other than my numerous journals, where I could go to talk about writing and all the other things that interest me in life. This is that place.