The Child Inside

First of all, a huge thanks for the linkage by Kung Fu Monkey, which probably assures that one or two other people might see my ramblings. I've returned the favor, so if you're here cruising for writing advice, I'd suggest checking out his blog instead. =p He's got some great articles and he's a blast to read. Plus, he's got real experience in the field. So, yeah. Go. Abandon me. I won't cry. Much.

I've also included links to my LJ blog for my novel project,
Path of the Just. My recent surge of writing on the book is actually the subject of today's post, which I'll get to shortly. You can also find a link to Sylver Sword Studios, the home of my better half, who is a tremendous artist and writer. Sylver Sword is also the home of the eternally under construction Path of the Just web site. If the site is finished in the near future, I'll link it. I'll then sprinkle salt for all the ice that's just formed from hell freezing over.

So, after idling on the book for quite some time, things have finally started coming together in a frightening way. The characters are jumping off the page, the dialogue is clicking, and the action sequences are coming out pretty good. So, I thought, what better subject for this entry than how it happened?

Well... to be fair, I get the feeling the semester nearing an end had a lot to do with it. Let's face it, when you're trying to memorize the taxonomy of marine invertibrates and trying to figure out exactly what it is a rough endoplastic reticulum does, and looking forward to the day you can get back to animal behavior, it's a little hard to focus on writing. Another problem was that a particularly nasty problem came up in Chapter 22, and I wasn't sure how to deal with it. Finally, an epiphany came and I got through it, and since then, I've torn through six chapters in less than a week, and I suspect more will follow today, tomorrow and Saturday.

But, a big part of this came by letting the child inside run rampant.

Now, I'm not talking about some psychology blah-blah-blah. This was a piece of advice I got in my first college writing class: The writer needs two minds. One is the child, which writes the story in the first place. Then the adult comes in and ruins all the fun. Or something like that. It was something I tried to do, for the longest time, but I could never get that analytical part of my mind to shut down. Besides, I didn't trust the kid. He ate paste and shoved pencils up his nose, and that's probably the last person I want touching a story. So, I never really paid attention.

It was a recent discussion about movies with a friend that made it click. To me, when you go to see some films, you're looking for that experience that makes you feel like a kid again. You maybe don't completely check your brain at the door, but that sense of wonder you felt when you were first shown the constellations, you want to capture that. You want your reader to believe in this world you've created. And, the more I look at it, the more I realize it requires more than research. Think of, say, Spiderman or Lord of the Rings. Sure, there was a lot of work that went into creating those worlds, but if you can't find that sense of wonder in them, what's the point? You can spend five hours in the library figuring out the scientific basis for a character doing something, but if you can't see yourself swinging through the city streets on a web line, how much is that research worth?

So, as I've been writing lately, I've been letting go of that analytical side. I've been thinking, "What would just be COOL?" And, yeah, at the same time, I feel like I'm doing a lot of character development, description, all that stuff that comes with the territory. But if I want to throw in a line that's lifted from a favorite movie, or put in a weird idea from an old story, I'm feeling free to. And, as a result, some real interesting concepts have come about. I've actually come up with a way to really deepen the characterization of a major character, all through this kind of playing around. And, as a result, I can see myself in this world. I'm excited about this world. And darned if everything else right now, with a few exceptions, is stuff that happens between writing.

So, I'm just letting myself have fun. The kid's got control of the playground, and unless it involves running to the store and getting an Elmer's buffet, I'm letting him run with it.

After all, the adult's watching from the porch, with an amused smirk, realizing he can change it in revision if he has to.