What’s kicking Otterites?
So I’ve been rereading some PJ and pondering the writing efforts of Francis and Robert, trying to figure out if it is something I want to try also. The guys of course are MONSTER encouraging, as they are good men of good hearts and love to hear of someone stretching and reaching into something he’s not done before.
I do have an idea percolating in my head about a novel. I’ve turned the shovel a few times on a premise, some general plot lines and scenes, and some characters. I find my thoughts drifting to these ideas pretty regularly through my day now, jiggling it into focus. I find the character sketches to be the thing capturing my processor cycles mostly. A happy distraction as it were.
If I do undertake some fiction, there will be a couple of goals to reach. Of course, first it will have to be an interesting story worth telling. Beyond that, I will be going for realism, a grounding in ways things actually work. The other thing that will be important to me is to try to make the characters more than cardboard cutouts. Even good novels sometimes have characters that aren’t fleshed out, or that seem to fit only for the purpose they serve. I want to make sure my characters, even tangential ones, will seem like real people who could inhabit the real world.
So that is a challenge I’ve set for myself. The only way to see if I’m up to it is to actually sit down and write. That’s the main advice I get from Robert and Francis, just get started. For now though, Mondays are my outlet to get something out of my brain and out to you. Undisturbed time is needed get this going, and right now there’s not much of that for me. I need to force myself to squeeze some out of my day. Robert and Francis have written here several times about their creative processes, and I’m sure this will stoke them again to comment. I’m pretty much in awe of what they’ve accomplished so far, considering their also busy lives. They’ll kick me in the pants for not thinking I have time to get started.
I have some days off coming at work, so hopefully that gives me the window to get rolling. Then perhaps like Robert I’ll sign up for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) for 2022. 50,000 words in a month. Get it done by the end of 2022. Boom.
