The Zone
I'm in The Zone.
Not sure how I got there.
I had started my novel INVISIBLE GIRL, due out next June, a minimum of three times. And every time, though it wasn't BAD . . . something wasn't right. Dialogue would stiffen even as my fingers typed. I couldn't wrap myself around one of the major characters--a cop. A lifelong distrust of law enforcement (what can I say . . . the rebel in me) probably didn't help matters.
My editor also insisted that I add a mother character. I've always explored father-daughter relationships, but for some reason, the mother in most of my novels was dead. Or so difficult her daughter had nothing to do with her (as in Spanish Disco). Oddly enough, I really LIKE my mom a lot. So I didn't consider it some deep, dark Freudian thing . . . maybe just authorial laziness. With just ONE parent, it was one less thing to explore in the book. Who knows?
Well, I added a mother to INVISIBLE GIRL. Still nothing. It helped. It helped quite a bit, but still . . . like a chef tasting a sauce, something was missing.
My writers' group was helpful. Jon told me get lost in the past more, to not worry, when I wrote about the past in the book (which has scenes from Vietnam and Laos) about how long the scenes went on. Then I did something I NEVER do. I wrote a scene that I had no idea if it would make the book. I just wrote it because it happened to the characters. It wasn't a long scene, but it was sort of poignant. And I just tacked it on to the end of the working manuscript, this single scene in Atlantic City.
And then, a combination of those three things: adding the mother character, not worrying about the scenes from the past intruding on the present, and writing about something that happened without knowing if it would end up in the final cut of the novel . . . well, the dam burst.
Somehow I entered that zone when you just KNOW you are writing on all cylinders and the book is turning out the way you want--even better than you could have imagined. I've written some scenes that left me with goose bumps, and a scene or two that made me cry.
I wish I knew what it was that caused me to enter The Zone, but I am so glad I am there. I am writing 30 pages a day some days . . . and it's my last thought before I fall asleep and my first thought after morning prayers.
So I hope that the Creative Gods stamp my passport and visa and let me stay for a while . . . .
Not sure how I got there.
I had started my novel INVISIBLE GIRL, due out next June, a minimum of three times. And every time, though it wasn't BAD . . . something wasn't right. Dialogue would stiffen even as my fingers typed. I couldn't wrap myself around one of the major characters--a cop. A lifelong distrust of law enforcement (what can I say . . . the rebel in me) probably didn't help matters.
My editor also insisted that I add a mother character. I've always explored father-daughter relationships, but for some reason, the mother in most of my novels was dead. Or so difficult her daughter had nothing to do with her (as in Spanish Disco). Oddly enough, I really LIKE my mom a lot. So I didn't consider it some deep, dark Freudian thing . . . maybe just authorial laziness. With just ONE parent, it was one less thing to explore in the book. Who knows?
Well, I added a mother to INVISIBLE GIRL. Still nothing. It helped. It helped quite a bit, but still . . . like a chef tasting a sauce, something was missing.
My writers' group was helpful. Jon told me get lost in the past more, to not worry, when I wrote about the past in the book (which has scenes from Vietnam and Laos) about how long the scenes went on. Then I did something I NEVER do. I wrote a scene that I had no idea if it would make the book. I just wrote it because it happened to the characters. It wasn't a long scene, but it was sort of poignant. And I just tacked it on to the end of the working manuscript, this single scene in Atlantic City.
And then, a combination of those three things: adding the mother character, not worrying about the scenes from the past intruding on the present, and writing about something that happened without knowing if it would end up in the final cut of the novel . . . well, the dam burst.
Somehow I entered that zone when you just KNOW you are writing on all cylinders and the book is turning out the way you want--even better than you could have imagined. I've written some scenes that left me with goose bumps, and a scene or two that made me cry.
I wish I knew what it was that caused me to enter The Zone, but I am so glad I am there. I am writing 30 pages a day some days . . . and it's my last thought before I fall asleep and my first thought after morning prayers.
So I hope that the Creative Gods stamp my passport and visa and let me stay for a while . . . .
posted by Erica Orloff at 11:13 AM
2 Comments:
This is soooo true!!
YO
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