First up, name that closing line.
Secondly, sorry I’ve been incommunicado. I’ve been horrifically ill most of this week. Fevers, aches, pains, insomnia, sweat, hallucinations and a sore throat.
It’s not been pleasant. I haven’t actually been this ill since I was 11 and had to go to Christmas dinner with my extended family in a dressing gown whilst hugging a cushion.
I’m mostly better now, I even went to work yesterday. But yeah, I’ve been locked in my room smelly, doped up, ostracised and going slightly mad.
It’s been an interesting week.
Anyway, I’m left with a dilemma. The more hallucinatory feverishness of Saturday night (no sleep whatsoever…it all got a bit fucked) led me to think I want to change my Nano idea, stop it being about Two-Spirit Third Gender Native Americans and instead turn it into a Naked Lunch inspired (NB I haven’t read the book) piece about a mild dystopia (actually very much like our world, with the obsession with looks and appearances, image and surface) where a drug called (possibly) Dysphoria gains popularity. The idea is that it’s marketed as something to make you be the body and person you want to be…but the experience will be more like melting into deformed parodies of self. I’ve got some wonderful images floating around that just might work. A lot of it pretty dark and disturbing. But I think that’s what I need.
Now, my problem is, it’ll be harder work than the Two Spirit idea….but it would probably be better. And I do have something closer to a plot coming along, rather than just a vague concept.
Also, I worry that it’s something a bit too ‘literary’ to do in such a reckless manner. I mean. 50,000 words of harsh dystopian anti-erotica might lead to one incredibly depressive November. Not to mention the fact that I’m ‘in charge’ this year. Co-MLing the Brighton area with a certain Tielserrath. Making the month even more manic, if that’s possible.
I’m looking forward to it, but I’m also terrified.
Anyway, back to the point.
What do people think I should be rush writing? Safe fantasy or dark dystopia. Both are interesting ideas, both are about subverting boundaries and structures to ways of thought (particularly with regard to gender…as per usual). Neither are as well worked out as last years idea, but that’s kind of what I want…I want to seat of my pants this one to see what happens. It might work…it might not. I guess we’ll see. (Plus I’ve still got over a month (just) to think about all this.
Which way should I go? Dysphoria or Two Spirit. (I’m still trying to work out if there’s anyway of combining the two without destroying the core components, but I don’t think I’ll be able to pull it off.)
Any thoughts here?
So that’s where you were. Sorry about the Fevers, aches, pains, insomnia, sweat, hallucinations and sore throat. But apparently some good came of it.
You can decide if this is stupid, but if both stories sound connectable to me. Sort of like parallel interconnected plots running through each other once in a while or …like Sylvie and Bruno type thing. ..or something…
Interesting…
That was my first thought, try and work them together…but I think that’ll only end up damaging both of them. It’s a tone question. One’s very dark and sexual, the other one was going to be fairly kid friendly. I just don’t think they tie up together.
I might just need to rethink the Two Spirit angle. My original plan was to bounce between past and present anyway, have two people lead similar lives in parallell….so maybe the present life just needs to be much darker.
Lots of thinking will be done before november is upon us.
kid friendly? Far as I remember kids can have pretty perverse imaginations and vv, combine the two and you got a weird oil and water mix. Could be beautiful.
Or may be it was just me.
But why can’t it be? Does the theme have to be so terribly obvious? Perhaps if you start with the themes at the back of your head they’ll emerge in the writing either way. You never know how these writing things work. Write from the gut, I say.
Or may be you’ll land up with something even better.
So why can’t it be? Like goth cutie, or Lord of the Flies, or something…yoiu can always eliminate bits that don’t work.
Well…the thing is, that the scene that’s glued into my head is of the main character having sex whilst drugged up. It’s all body parts re-arranging and morphing around each other. That’s a big part of the Naked Lunch connection. Something to do with an unnatural connection to sexuality caused through warped body perception. Hot, sticky, and frankly disgustingly perverse sex as a critically important scene in the book.
That’s not kid friendly even with the weirdest kids (I’m thinking of me here).
But yeah, we’ll see how it works. I’ve worked out a way to get some of it in there, just a change of perspective and an odd dream sequence to open. Might end up going more that way than I expect. The themes are so wrapped up (and already under the surface hopefully) in both ideas that maybe there’s no way to seperate them.
We’ll see.
Well, in Stephen King’s novel ‘It’ I do remember a group of pre-pubescent kids, eleven year olds I think, have group sex, well no…not like an interactive group, more like one girl and four boys taking turns, something about connecting them together, nothing particularly lustful. Anyways, I thought it was a stupid concept though the rest of the book was pretty good. So I don’t see why you’re worrying about kid-friendly unless you’re audience is that way.
Just write it and see what happens.
BTW, I know how you feel, there’s a bit of an organic bit in my book that I feel is right but sounds gross.
I’ve never read ‘it’, though the tv version scared the crap out of me when I was little. It was weird. I watched the first half of the first half and had nightmares for the next year or so. Then I watched the whole thing, and thought it was contrived, tedious and not remotely effecting. Weird.
Anyway. I guess audience doesn’t matter until I get it out there…it just seems a shame to change a family fantasy into something so much darker, when it could be two seperate things that might be more coherent.
Anyway, I’m still in the composting stage of all my writing, so I’m sure the good ideas will rise to the top and be usable again if I want to later.
And judging from what little I’ve read of your rude bits…I’m sure you managed to make it come out right.
That…did…not…sound….how…it…was…meant….to.
Um…thanks?
It was supposed to be a compliment. Honest.
But still, no need to get the laundry out here.
It is a struggle though. Not feeling like anything rude in writing is somehow exploitative…and it’s hard to make it sound believable honest and….I don’t know….right.
More challenges ahead….especially difficult because of the surrealistic nature of what I’m attempting.
I’m feeling very creative at the moment and I think it’s just because I’m not drinking. I need to keep this up but I know I won’t last.
Aww…but you will, I took a year to start writing decently. You won’t even take that long. Composting is a great idea. Don’t yank out anything too soon. Make notes so you don’t forget.
I got someone new to read my drafts, he’s one of those really brainy guys who can adapt and he thinks my focus group is not necessarily female. He’s a big Asimov, Arthur C Clarke fan. He’s not judgin me by those standards tho, just independently, also glad I was able to hold his interest, and he wants to read more, which is good news.
The second part is harder. Emotionally I’m not finding it hard to put myself in Dicks shoes, just working out politics, war strategies and describing battle scenes that’s gettin my goat. The architecture wasn’t too much a headache.
I’m scaredz :(
I’m definitely a composter…I’m just worried that one day I’m gonna turn around, say ‘time to write’ and realised I’ve just walked into a truck or something. Slow cooking….perhaps not a metaphor to mix with compost, but who knows.
Tis good to have a good reader, a variety of them. I think he may be right about women not being your only crowd, but then, if you right in a balanced way then it’s bound to be accessible to everyone, even if in intention that means it feels like you’re writing to women specifically.
It’s like that thing where my efforts to be gender neutral on here meant that more people assumed I was female than not. It’s one of those weird subtle effects of living in a patriarchy. Not so much oppression as inferred suggestion….or something.
Maybe.
As for getting into dick shoes. I’ve not had any totally reprehensible character’s to get into…but I think I can get into the nasty mindset. It’s just a case of cordonning off a space in your head. Not easy…but doable.
Watch some sicko horror films and stuff and see if you can numben yourself.
Although actually…that’s a horrible idea….but you never know…the strangest things are needed to inspire sometimes.
I couldn’t make Dick as much of an ass as I intended, but hateable. Like I said, not evil for the sake of being evil, the guy’s gots a plan.
I hate to admit I’ve grown rather fond of him, as of all my other characters. May be it’s because I wrote him or something.
Might have something to do with it. It’s not easy to not get involved with people you wrap yourself up in and know inside out. Even if you know they are not appealing, people you know well are still end up a big part of your life….especially the fictional ones.
Wow, that’s deep. I might quote you on that. In fact you are the quote of the moment.
Oooh. That makes me feel speshul.
The last time I was quoted was in A Level Psychology, when, apparently, several of my classmates made reference to a study by me. The study didn’t exist, they just needed to reference something to get full marks for a bit of knowledge that they couldn’t attribute for a real study. As far as I can tell nobody got busted.
So I am a psychological researcher don’t you know.
Thanks dear.
Hey you spelt spayshull wrong.
That is some story. I wish I had thought of fictional references in my college days.
You’re welcome…
But my spayshull awareness is excellent.
Sometimes.