1) Story. Is there a strong enough story to compel me to write this novel? Isn't that what I value in writing above all else? It's without a doubt what draws me to my other historical-based projects. I find the stories of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, the creation of the Rite of Spring, the exploration of the Grand Canyon to be terribly fascinating. And the challenge is conveying that to a reader. But why do I want to write about the Brooklyn Bridge and 1872 and all that? Where's the story? I have just characters and context. Why do I want to write this story? I know why I want to write stories in general: to educate, to delight, to inspire. But why this story in particular? Why is it just a lingering idea, and not a burning obsession that I have to see finished? There are so many parts that I need to write still; and many parts that I have no idea I’ll eventually write. And there’s an exciting facet to each of those. The drive to flesh out what is just a vision—it’s not always easy or brilliant, there’s no other way to get it out of my head. And then in that action, I can take turns and twists I would never have planned.
2) Writing. I thought I had a break through a few weeks ago. Or rather a new perspective. And I thought this might develop into a strategy. It hasn't. So, I don't highly prioritize the act of writing in my life. I put more effort into things like work, hobbies, sleep, relaxing, reading, listening to music, depressing thoughts, planning ahead to avoid indecision, general procrastination, "doing things" in the City, the Internet ... stuff like that. This would all be great and necessary to balance out my disciplined writing--except that doesn't exist. I would rather do what's easy and most readily gratifying. But writing is one of the few things I kind of really good at--and also like doing. You'd think that combination would be like a spark to fuel. But you and I know that oxygen is necessary--that's the life blood of a fire. And I starve my fire of oxygen. I thought I could just substitute writing for those moments when I might gravitate to another activity. Sure, the novel won't be finished today, but the little bit you do now--even if it's crap--get's you that much closer. It's entirely about considering the long-term value of what I'm doing with my time versus the short. Until now, I've only lived with a short-term mind-set. Because it's easy, and I have the luxury to do that (I also happen to have the luxury to lead a life free of war & famine & poverty & and illness ... which is nice.) Call it laziness or "following the path of least resistance" or whatever. I know it well. I even wrote a play about it, sort of. Writing this novel is not just an opportunity to tell a story, but to figure out what it is to lead a life worth living.
3) Overwhelming sources. I recently purchased a fantastic book at the Strand, something I really wanted but didn't know existed: an anthology of nineteenth-century illustrations of New York from the pages of Harper's Weekly and other newspapers. These engravings are amazing depictions of the exact period I'm trying to evoke. But suddenly I'm flooded with information about culture and daily life than I was ever aware of--and I feel that I somehow need to include it all. I need to reference such and such event, set a scene in this cool location, reference this song or activity or individual that was in vogue, or relevant, or embedded within the cultural consciousness of the time. In this book I flip a page and learn something or see an entire scene to be written--yet feel paralyzed with the thought of how to transcribe it. But as a novelist this shouldn't be my job anyways. If a reader wants a history lesson, they can find it somewhere else in another book. What should be inspiring, stymies me instead.
I recently read a brief essay on Shakespeare by an actor who claims to have written the entire oeuvre of the Bard. Impossible, certainly (even for a hundred monkeys at a hundred typewriters). But it's actually a clever observation on Shakespeare's dramatic writing. Shakespeare not only assumed that certain stories were common knowledge, but description is sparse in the text. The audience of a play would be provided with costuming and just a semblance of setting, and of course live actors performing the characters. But a reader of Shakespeare's plays has to bring all that to the page himself. And thus, you end up being Shakespeare's writing partner. Tim used this to bring to my attention what may be my tendency to create a fully-fleshed out, three-dimensional sense of place and time and context with each page of the novel. He's read only little of what I've written, but I'm sure he's still right. Even though this is a historical time period that may be unfamiliar to a reader, I have to trust that they would be able to meet me part-way. By relying on their imagination, there would be less of a burden on the words, and the writing could have a freedom and lightness. This isn't a movie. I can't show everything. And to attempt to do so would be unproductive, and bad writing. Simply, with an engaged audience participating, less is more.
4) Make it more like a play. Although I never finished the last
What I'm trying to say, it that in situations when I just don't know what to write (which is pretty much every time I sit down to work on this project) I should consider a potential scene as part of a script. It can be fleshed out with details and such during editing, but to get the thing written and characters developing, this is one possible trick I could use.
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