Checking In
Hey everybody. I just want to check in and apologize for the lack of activity on the blog this week. I started my second residency at Goddard College on Sunday, and they’ve got us going pretty good, so there’s not a lot of time to do the blogging thing. Sorry about that.
Things are going well, though. Except for the fact that I slept through my advisor’s first meeting with his new group of students (I have the same advisor as last semester). I swear, it wasn’t my fault. It was the alarm clock. I set it and it didn’t go off. Seriously. It was set for A.M. It was turned on. There was volume. It just didn’t go off. Not my fault. Not that it really mattered, though, ’cause my advisor was cool about it.
That happened yesterday. It pretty much put a damper on the whole morning. In the afternoon, I had my one-on-one meeting with my advisor, which went very well. We set up a plan to get me through the next semester and help me overcome my weakness in regards to the writing process (i.e., not being able to stick to one story until its natural end). The short of it? This next semester is going to be as frustrating as all fuck. But in a good way.
I’ve only been to one workshop so far. On plotting, which was pretty good. It was basically a review of the mechanicals, but there was some good advice in there too. The best? Well, you can usually solve most of your plot problems by making sure that every scene allows the dynamic of the Given Circumstances to run free. The Given Circumstances are what is known before the story starts: the who, what, where, and when. If you get several chapters deep into your manuscript, and you run into the brick wall, the issue is probably not with what comes just before the wall, but with what comes way back on page one, in your Given Circumstances. You might have thought your main character was a lawyer. But what if you make him a tarot-card reader? Will that get you over, around, or through the wall?
It’s the kind of advice that is scary, because it usually means a significant re-write, but if that’s what it takes to stay true to the story — if, in fact, despite what you think he is, your character is, indeed, a tarot-card reader, then it’s because that’s what the story needs him to be. This is one of those times when you need to hear Elmer Fudd singing the writer’s mantra in the back of your mind: Kill your darlings, Kill your darlings…
Today, I’m participating in the reading of two plays for a couple of friends of mine who are going into their final semester. The first (a screenplay, actually) is a kind of scientific thriller and the second (a stage play) is a dark comedy about three generations of Jewish men. I’ve read both of them already, and they’re pretty good. I’m looking forward to hearing them aloud. Plus, I got starring roles in both of them! The male lead in the screenplay, and the youngest son in the stage play. Should be fun.
There’s also a workshop today on style that I might go to, but I might also take that time to get some more writing done. My advisor gave us a prompt that we need to have done by tomorrow morning, and I’d like to see if I can get the thing in decent shape before dinner, so I can put it through the rinse cycle before I go to sleep.
Maybe if you’re lucky, I’ll post the result tomorrow.
Again, sorry for slacking, but a boy’s got business to attend to, you know.