Getting ready to start novel #2
As I’ve mentioned before, I have quite a collection of novels sitting up in my head. With the first one down in a reasonable form - I do have some changes to make to it, but I want to let it sit just a little longer - it’s time for me to get started on the second.
Because a sense of place and culture is a really important part of a story for me, the novels in my head are all connected with different places and cultures that I’ve experienced. That means that first novel is set in Japan, the first place I lived outside Australia, and the logical step is that the second will be the story idea I have in mind for Slovakia, the country I moved to after Japan. For no apparent reason other than the logic of chronology, I can’t imagine writing these novels in any other order.
In the past couple of days, I’ve started digging into my notes and research for what I simply call “the Slovakia novel”. While I was living there, I made quite a few novel-related notes and also collected newspaper articles that seemed relevant. I’m surprised, somehow, at how much material is there. What’s missing, unfortunately, is any idea at all of the real storyline. I have characters, I have places, I have scenes, but there is no idea at all of how to create a novel with all this stuff.
I’d hoped to get some good mind space to work this out over the weekend but now I’m scheduling a big brainstorm for Wednesday this week (my first non-teaching day). I’m really enthusiastic about the idea, but can’t seem to bring myself to think about the plot of the novel just off the cuff. I tried to think about it in the shower, always a good spot for me, but I just can’t. I’m hoping that a concentrated effort with a large piece of paper and a quiet house will do the trick. I know that when I create the right conditions to be creative, it almost always works, so I’m looking forward to Wednesday morning and am trusting that my subconscious is working on it in the background, ready to provide me with plenty of “a-ha!” moments.
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[...] blog with the tag “a whole lot of procrastination”. Despite my repeated promises to plan my second novel I have made barely any progress. But I know if I don’t get some serious words happening this [...]