Been a long time since I used this blog, may as well dust it off.
Following some internet friends from parts elsewhere, this November I'm going to attempt to go through the designated modules of this National Novel Writing Month outline, the theory being that structure might help to nail down something coherent, and deadlines induce productivity. It had been the case with Inktober, but this is a different medium entirely, and while words are in some cases freeing, they are also more abstract in conveyance.
Anywho as Gertrude said before Polonius got stabbed in the curtains, more matter, and less art. Let's chronicle the process.
Week 1: Sparking an Idea
1) Make a List of Places and Things That Make You Feel Excited, Inspired, or Curious
Right off the bad I may have constrained myself in needing to answer something, and so in response to what I interpreted as the question "What is this story about," I heard rumblings of old college classes echoing in my thoughts. The answer to this question can be broken down in a few ways and I found myself wanting, depending on how I'd interpreted the question.
1) What happens in this story?
As the story has not been written, inspiration is fickle, and I try not to get too excited about things, I couldn't formulate any neat one-word answers to this, only rambling. However, curiosity, there's a great many things I'd considered in, at the risk of sounding pretentious, the high-concept stuff.
2) What do you want to say?
There are a great many things I feel strongly about, yet I wouldn't feel quite right about making this story an author's moral tract. The concerns for the issues of the moment have a way of forcing stories into allegory or dating them immediately, which while useful when there's a point to be made, I don't have a soapbox to stand on right now, so let's just try to have fun.
3) What are the themes of this story?
Back to the high-concept stuff, painting a swathe of ideas with the broadest brush would at least get me a start. And so I present...
My craptacular list:
Wishes,
fantasy, illusion, delusion, perception, magic, faith, belief,
pathos, collective consciousness, inner psychology, manifestation,
schema, projecting root concepts, sublimation defense
mechanisms, denial, will, reason, dynamic interplay between self and
world, blending
inner and outer conflict, assertion of the ego, validation of the
self, dreams into nightmares, semiotics (performance) of the self as
defined by the contexts/constraints (conformity) of the world
2) Circle Nine Things You'd be Excited to Include in Your Novel
Following the rubric, I played mad libs with craptacular list to try and sting together a sense of what I wanted to write about.
Novel
Idea 1:
|
Performance
of the self as defined by context of the world...
|
...used
as a defense mechanism...
|
...to
make dreams into nightmares
|
Novel
Idea 2:
|
Assertion
of the ego...
|
...into
the delusion...
|
...of
fantasy
|
Novel
Idea 3:
|
Manifestation
of the collective consciousness…
|
...in
an interplay between self and the world...
|
...but
in the denial of reason validating will.
|
Within the sea of pretentious, suface level Psych/Phil dual-minor stuff, at the moment i think Idea 3 might have some legs.
3) Pick One of the Novel Ideas and Freewrite to Explore the Idea
As a bit of a slacker, I've done a great deal of 'prewriting' before. The average person calls this process 'daydreaming', but among friends who also are 'guys with a story'
So I ran a track from the Tekken 7 OST and started chickenpecking until a germ of an idea came around.
“Dreams
come true” is a broad idea, and realizing it in reality,
manifesting it, is commonly used to get the ball rolling on the path
there. As the cliché goes, it is the journey, not the destination,
that offer fulfillment and meaning.
All
too human is the need for instant gratification. Whether it is a
fulfillment of a momentary whim or to turn the tide on terrible
fortunes, the ability to manifest will into reality is a boon. With
an ego untempered by the journey, with urges lashing out to destroy
to spite creation, this would cause a horrible imbalance.
Gary
was once a poor unfortunate soul who by chance, fate had conspired to
grant him the powers to realize his dreams on a whim. All he would
need to do is will it, and so would it be, the power of all things
with but a mere thought. However, because he has a small imagination,
many urges unfulfilled without outlets, what started as trepidation
and uncertainty with the power of manifestation gradually turns into
solipsism that leaves him more isolated than before. Who could be
lonelier than a god caged off in his own heaven?
So far this sounds like something you'd read off the back of a video cover. I gotta sell myself on it though or it may very well be that the blogs will drive most of the writing this month, we shall see.
