A novel idea...write a...novel?

If you familiar with Julia Cameron, you might know that she is of the opinion that you must be willing to make bad art to make good art.

Life, so it seems folks, rewards productivity, it all about doing, if you do it (Don't look down at your shoes, you might think this is a clear case of plagiarism)

It will come the desire, passion or if you like inspiration (in etymology 'to be of god'), so don't wait to be inspired, should we wait for god? What if he's just running late? Too late god, I'm inspired, I'm off!

Carpe Diem

The day you don't feel like producing, that's the day you really should do it, that was my inspiration for running yesterday and now another thought has crept into my universe.

I started reading Annie Proulx, her first first novel 'Postcards' and the first few chapters are difficult to grasp, it's was like the fat guy scrambling over the obstacle course in some war movie, minus the drill Sargent. Oh, you can laugh, but this is a serious novel, the review said good things, so why was it such an effort?

Read the damn novel!

I liked the post card idea, i send people postcards myself, they are such a novelty to send and receive, i just don't think the first few maximised the benefit of the idea for the story

Last night i was struggling with this novel before i put the light out for my grown up regular 6 hours sleep,  i put the light out as i prepared to put the world on pause for a period

And i switched the light back on and wrote this in my notebook:

First time novels

You must be prepared to make bad art to make good art, reading Annie Proulx and i think (sorry Annie) its rubbish, if this was organic matter you could fertilize your vegetable patch, but no, nothing much fertile there and if there was ever an incentive to start writing, this is it, which reminds me of Alexandre Dumas first novel, it was bad too.


 In the preface the young author did say he was 20 years old and didn't have much experience in the world yet and it took a lifetime to write a great character, and you could see signs of 'The count of Monte Cristo' in that first book

He needed to write it (the bad novel) for one of the greatest (and true) stories ever written to be wrote, its like it was somehow lurking within him, in the shadows, waiting to be exposed?

And like the first guy to run a mile in under 5 minutes, as soon as he did it everyone started to do it

 Well folks that's what i wrote last night, this morning i saw a video by Marcus du Sautoy on Ted.com about symmetry and the Marcus said this

In everything… uniformity is undesirable. Leaving something incomplete makes it interesting, and gives one the feeling that there is room for growth… Even when building the imperial palace, they always leave one place unfinished

— Japanese Essays In Idleness, 14th Century

 I had a definite feeling i could contribute (for better or worse, till death do us part) to the English language, it could grow, like some bread, that will soon be ready for the oven?

By pasting my series of words into translate.google.com, who knows? Others could gleam insights into the universe (internal and external) of only i made a start and got the writing circus on the road?


Roll up, roll up!!

And i have been quietly contemplating this all day, just how i would go about it, not in a conventional sense, but more in the idea that Tom Robbins would with quirky characters that cover Zen topics, and those topics are 'explored', through the characters or Émile Zola would have done in his Ragoun series.

Introducing Zola

For those not familiar with the Zolas Rougon series, there is 20 books in the series, each book explores a topics like:

• Workers conditions in coal mines at the time,
• Poverty
• Alcoholism,
• Interfering in human nature to prolong life with the book Dr Pascal

I'm pretty sure if i picked the right aspects i wanted to cover, like a mechanic looking at lots of small bits of metal on the floor, a purring engine would be heard in no time before you could get the milk from the fridge.
(i once saw a bus full of people in Laos that looked like they were going to go at any second with 2 guys looking at the entire engine out the front, the fact that they had little bits and parts in front of the bus seemed chaotic and hilarious, depending on which side of the steering wheel you were positioned)   

Tom Robbins

So i have been ticking this over during the day, reading Annie's Postcards and now that I'm half way through, the book has picked up tremendously, from the first few chapters i read when i had the burst of confidence till the middle of the book, it would appear Annie has found her writing voice, and i'm somewhat losing confidence.

Maybe her novel is like a new born horse struggling to walk and before you can say 'I love you in Helvetica', the novel idea is slowly galloping out of sight?

Who loves you?

I once read if you re write any novel eight times, you will have a best seller, Jeffery Archer writes his novels by pen and rewrites them a few times.

The lesson for me, i think as a reader is if Annie had rewritten the first few chapters in the same style she found her self writing midway, the experience as a reader would have been greatly enhanced

Like a great orator, you have to be considerate of the people that are listening to you, this means what ever i do, i should consider rewriting, so it's all consistent, now i know what it's like reading that, i wouldn't want anyone feeling like i did and having to turn any damn light on to write a commentary of my lack of consistency, or worse my careless string of words caused someone (including myself) a restless night  

So this is the idea, i will give it until September and until i will get producing
I think i will fashion myself a butterfly net, to get those words and catch me some words!