Four more critiques of One-Two, and I might be beginning to see the issues that I need to address... important, because addressing these issues will be vital to addressing the entire Manassas universe. The comments and suggestions and criticisms have all been spot-on and so very appreciated.
(Pause to discuss how many insects we should order. "We could handle 500 in that aquarium." Yeah, we are buying bugs again.)
Here are some of the hurdles I have with Manassas. 1. I love the universe. I think this makes me particularly blind to issues. 2. The time line is shifty. It could not be described as linear. 3. Neither could the plot. (Although, it is true that a line on a mobius strip is a real line, and so if this plot is an inside-out ouroboros, which is really interesting mathematically, the line itself exists. It's just bendy.)
4. The magic of Manassas really does represent the dark reality shifts in families. You can leave your house and get a clear head for a little while about toxic behavior patterns; you can even convince yourself that it doesn't exist, but when you step back over the threshold, the old patterns take hold yet again. There is no escaping the darkness of family dysfunction, and yet if you give it up, you give up the family. You give up life and everything important. This is a good and important subject, but it takes wrestling and great concentration to get "right". I'm nowhere near perfection yet. Believe me.
5. There are a lot of Manassas stories to tell.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
A whopping 46 words yesterday, the first day of my work year. Okay, so I did a little organization and a little research and a little existential musing, which does take time.
I swear, one needs to look no further than the mirror to find all the character development needed to write any kind of fiction. Yesterday, I grumped around because -- and don't laugh, you know you all have these idiocies yourselves, or at least I comfort myself with thinking that you do -- because my dishtowel basket in the kitchen keeps getting things put in it that are not dishtowels.
"Ah, maybe she's a neatnik."
No. I'm a convenience-nik. I want to grab a dishtowel entirely unimpeded by chocolate bars or avocados or someone's 7-11 receipt. If something spills, I want there to be NO barrier to my hand grabbing a clean towel to mop up. All this is very boring. But when I'm stalking around fuming, and no one has any idea why, and I'm refusing to say why, because that would sound silly, well, the dialogue that ensues INSTEAD is very interesting.
And good kind Marsh turns into snarly incomprehensible Marsh, which is probably where Stevenson got the idea in the first place.
(P.S. I got better.)
I swear, one needs to look no further than the mirror to find all the character development needed to write any kind of fiction. Yesterday, I grumped around because -- and don't laugh, you know you all have these idiocies yourselves, or at least I comfort myself with thinking that you do -- because my dishtowel basket in the kitchen keeps getting things put in it that are not dishtowels.
"Ah, maybe she's a neatnik."
No. I'm a convenience-nik. I want to grab a dishtowel entirely unimpeded by chocolate bars or avocados or someone's 7-11 receipt. If something spills, I want there to be NO barrier to my hand grabbing a clean towel to mop up. All this is very boring. But when I'm stalking around fuming, and no one has any idea why, and I'm refusing to say why, because that would sound silly, well, the dialogue that ensues INSTEAD is very interesting.
And good kind Marsh turns into snarly incomprehensible Marsh, which is probably where Stevenson got the idea in the first place.
(P.S. I got better.)
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