Metatext.
So I forgot to post yesterday. Oops. As it is, I didn’t meet my goal of writing another 1666 words yesterday. I wrote maybe 500 words before I realized that I was really tired and needed to go to sleep, especially since I’d committed to going to the gym in the morning.
In any case, my latest thoughts on my novel are that I have way too much internal monologue and not enough of a story. I just read a chapter in Writing Down The Bones about that classic English teacherism, “show, don’t tell.” Jeez, how many times did I say that to my own students? I definitely need to show more, if not tell less. So, my next step is to somehow glean from my writing thus far an actual story. I think it might be helpful at this point for me to map out a story, even if I don’t follow the map exactly.
Also, last night, as a writing exercise, I wrote a poem. It’s been a good long while since I wrote a halfway decent poem, and I’m not totally embarrassed by this one, so I’ll share it with you. (The exercise I gave myself was to rewrite 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, by Wallace Stevens.)
13 Ways of Looking at Myself
I
Hollow Ears
Perceive No Sound
But Eyes Take All
II
The Gift of Sound
Opens a Window Into
The World
III
The World Grows
As Sound Becomes
A Burden
IV
The Burden Is A
Cacaophony Of
Sensations
V
The Mind Reels
As The Cacaophony
Levels Its Chaos
VI
Quiet Is Sought
And Ears Become
Hollow
VII
But Hollow Ears
Do Not Empty
The Mind
VIII
How To Reclaim
The Innocence of Silence
Is The Task
IX
The Task Threatens
To Prove Futile
And There Is Despair
X
Hope Comes To
Chase Away Despair
And Futility
XI
Learn To Turn Off
The Mind And
Innocence Will Follow
XII
In Innocence There
Is Faith and Love
But Ears Are Not Hollow
XIII
Eyes Take All
Heart Takes All
Sound Subsides
