![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hobgoblinnThe boy and I have started a new book-- A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L'Engle. One of my childhood favorites, and it lends itself to reading aloud beautifully. I'm surprised how fluently he's reading it-- it's a higher level than he usually can manage, but the story is interesting so early, that he's getting sucked into it, and overcoming his tendency to get tired and give up.
But I couldn't believe how it starts: "It was a dark and stormy night." Only Madeline L'Engle could make That work!
It got me to thinking about That Novel I intend to write this November. Obviously, there are some things one oughtn't do in a novel. I certainly don't intend to inadvertently take the Bulwer-Lytton prize for worst opening line, for instance.
But I also wonder where it's set down in stone that a novel Has to follow a single set of characters, or tell a story with a clear beginning, middle and end?
I've never made it all the way through any James Joyce, (hey, he's 20th century. I'm only 20th-21st century by accident, and under protest), but it seems to me that his stream of consciousness and seemingly random events, unified in time, and eventually in a narrative voice, have more in common with musical organizing principles than literary ones.
I'll back off Joyce, and pick an example where I'm on steadier ground-- poetry, and TS Elliot. I was convinced in grad school that thinking of the Four Quartets or The Wasteland in terms of a musical composition-- themes, echoes, both sound and sense, recombining themes in a kind of development juxtaposing them with different ideas from earlier in the work-- organizing principles you might find in a symphony-- was all much more interesting and fruitful ground than worrying over whether Elliot was an anti-Semite who wanted to sleep with his mother.
Can I just mention again how much I hated academia?
I've been completely unable to come up with a "story" for NaNoWriMo. But I keep getting these flashes of ideas that seem to be related-- not in a narrative way, but kind of facets of themes. I was thinking earlier today about my struggles with facing that bad things happened to me, they were not my fault, and I WAS NOT THEN, NOR AM I NOW able to control what other people do. That message seems to me worth communicating.
And then, I read today about why the highway I use to cross the River was shut down yesterday morning-- a truck driver, aged 57, had been driving too fast in the rain, and was killed when his rig left the overpass and fell onto the city street below. A split second decision, an instant of inattention, even a decision made at the time with the best of intentions, can change a life irrevocably, or end it. Not neatly, as stories end. But more real, and more commonly than we like to think. And that guy could be me-- tomorrow, or 17 years from now. We don't get to pick when and how we go-- not usually.
I certainly don't want to write something pretentious and Artistic (gah!) but something about these ideas, and about how we tell ourselves stories to make sense of such things, much as our earliest ancestors did, has captured my attention.
And since I don't have a Plot idea anyway, I think I could write 50K words on stuff like this in a month. What am I up to here? 600 something words or so?
Good grief. No Wonder nobody's reading my journal!
I'll just get back to my notes on a class I'm preparing at work on software testing. About which I know slightly less than nothing. Fun times.
But I couldn't believe how it starts: "It was a dark and stormy night." Only Madeline L'Engle could make That work!
It got me to thinking about That Novel I intend to write this November. Obviously, there are some things one oughtn't do in a novel. I certainly don't intend to inadvertently take the Bulwer-Lytton prize for worst opening line, for instance.
But I also wonder where it's set down in stone that a novel Has to follow a single set of characters, or tell a story with a clear beginning, middle and end?
I've never made it all the way through any James Joyce, (hey, he's 20th century. I'm only 20th-21st century by accident, and under protest), but it seems to me that his stream of consciousness and seemingly random events, unified in time, and eventually in a narrative voice, have more in common with musical organizing principles than literary ones.
I'll back off Joyce, and pick an example where I'm on steadier ground-- poetry, and TS Elliot. I was convinced in grad school that thinking of the Four Quartets or The Wasteland in terms of a musical composition-- themes, echoes, both sound and sense, recombining themes in a kind of development juxtaposing them with different ideas from earlier in the work-- organizing principles you might find in a symphony-- was all much more interesting and fruitful ground than worrying over whether Elliot was an anti-Semite who wanted to sleep with his mother.
Can I just mention again how much I hated academia?
I've been completely unable to come up with a "story" for NaNoWriMo. But I keep getting these flashes of ideas that seem to be related-- not in a narrative way, but kind of facets of themes. I was thinking earlier today about my struggles with facing that bad things happened to me, they were not my fault, and I WAS NOT THEN, NOR AM I NOW able to control what other people do. That message seems to me worth communicating.
And then, I read today about why the highway I use to cross the River was shut down yesterday morning-- a truck driver, aged 57, had been driving too fast in the rain, and was killed when his rig left the overpass and fell onto the city street below. A split second decision, an instant of inattention, even a decision made at the time with the best of intentions, can change a life irrevocably, or end it. Not neatly, as stories end. But more real, and more commonly than we like to think. And that guy could be me-- tomorrow, or 17 years from now. We don't get to pick when and how we go-- not usually.
I certainly don't want to write something pretentious and Artistic (gah!) but something about these ideas, and about how we tell ourselves stories to make sense of such things, much as our earliest ancestors did, has captured my attention.
And since I don't have a Plot idea anyway, I think I could write 50K words on stuff like this in a month. What am I up to here? 600 something words or so?
Good grief. No Wonder nobody's reading my journal!
I'll just get back to my notes on a class I'm preparing at work on software testing. About which I know slightly less than nothing. Fun times.
