Writer's Block

THE NOVELIST IN ME IS THWARTED. I have a first-rate idea. (Honestly Jeffrey Archer and maybe even Dan Brown would kill for this idea.) But I didn't originally know where to go with it. I know the vague outline of the story and precisely where it goes and how it finishes. (It is based upon a real historical person.) I don't actually need to do that much research as the facts surrounding this person's life are so very sketchy (and even then in dispute) that I have pretty much a blank canvas upon which to build a book of my own.... Only the first chapter (which to my credit (as it never felt like it would get done) I did actually finish after a fashion really is like something written by a 13 year old with literacy problems (it almost degrades into shopping-list language in parts: talk about "1st draft taken to extremes"...) then I got stumped over how I was going to tell the story. Originally I wanted to narrate in the 3rd person but solely from the viewpoint of my main character. Now I'm thinking I'll need to rotate viewpoints among everyone surrounding this person to get the tale told right. This stuff is crucially important because you have to start as you mean to go on. A novel that broke the rule (ie was single viewpoint to half way through, then went into constant rotation would (unless you were really arty about it and had some specific reason why) probably get rejected on that fact alone. Because it's artistically unsatisfactory.... Then I kept telling myself I had to have the entire thing plotted out before I could really make a start. I have written novels before (unpublished, obviously otherwise I would hopefully not be a glorified gutter junkie living in emergency accommodation...) anyhow I'd forgotten what I did, which was actually to plan out between four and ten chapters in advance and write the book in small sections like that. I have to know what I'm trying to say so I can say it. I hate flying by the seat of my pants. Not that inpiration doesn't strike and I won't run with it. But I need to know what I'm supposed to be saying otherwise I just can't work. So what I do next is plan out each chapter blow-by-blow, shopping-list style. There is a certain way of slotting a page of novel-writing together in that you weave narrative with dialogue, description and introspection. Once you get used to doing this it comes as easily as writing a note to the milkman. I know I can do this... it just is not happening for me. One thing I used to tell myself, realizing I was afraid most of all of trying but failing was to "fail in style" ~ meaning take the risk, be extra-funky, don't hold back and if you fail you fail. But that unfortunate wording became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I'm trying to rephrase my maxim but again words won't fit (call myself a writer and cannot pick out the apt words ~ duhhhhr!). Something more like something ventured; everything gained would be a better one but it's still not spot on....

So that's me. That's where I'm "at". I got places to go and I'm itching to go there. So wish me bon voyage!...

MUSIC
hey do you remember this one? the music from FAME as sung by Irene Cara...