I’ve been trying as hard as I can to stick to the one story over the last couple of weeks, and, as I have written elsewhere, I have done better than I usually do, sticking pretty much not only just to the one story, but also to the one book, The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright. I don’t know how far Modafinil has helped me in this, nor how far I will continue in this vein. I have had such spurts before, finishing the first drafts of a few stories by dedicating myself to them for a while to the exclusion of as much else as possible.
Inevitably when I do this I come across my own weaknesses. Since though my flitfulness has given me something, developing my judgement in terms of story ideas, donnees, themselves, as I pick and choose and refine the stories that constantly force themselves forward again and again, still, it has done nothing for my realisation of those ideas. I have learnt nothing about structuring a story, pacing, ellipsis, still less - since those times I do persist in a story I am ever conscious of the moving of time and so, conscious of not frittering it away or pausing to think of my approach, and consequently too often push on when I am tired or pursuing some less than ideal line - what to leave in and what to include.
This is true too with The Enthusiast, which has developed from a minimalist donnee that goes back years and years and which, much as with the original idea for Family Fortunes in which a rape occurs when a couple go back to her place only to find she has been burgled, has since been taken out of the nurturing soil of its original conception. Family Fortunes, as an idea if not as an artifact transplanted very well, time will tell how far this will be the case with The Enthusiast. Essentially, the idea for this is that a man sees smoke pouring out of a garage and wonders if there is a fire, or if someone is doing themselves in in their car. This, I think, was how the donnee came to me those years ago. I think, but cannot be sure, that this mistaken belief led, in the original, to a friendship with an elderly couple, or a single old person in this house. In fact, I have little idea as to whether this was the original intention. No doubt I have notes somewhere about it. I tend always to believe on looking back over these half remembered donnees in that old Beatnik mantra first thought best thought which I don’t otherwise have much time for: they were perfect when they first occurred to me, now lost forever. The portion of the original idea that got transplanted into the Enthusiast perhaps as much as an exercise as anything else - that is, I think it was tagged on to a throwaway idea, one that I felt could be handled experimentally if only to get to the end of a story, an idea I didn’t think much of, and which could be used and abused - became within this story an excresence as I believed it could not have been in the original conception. It became a story, an event in the life of my protagonist, a failed restauranteur, a backstory such as I build up far too much for my own belief that much that happens in life is inconsequential happenstance, contingency. And in this I came to see that perhaps the story that formed around it was in fact more interesting.
This is, of course, where time comes in. If only I had more time to work on a story. To take it in wrong directions. To pick and choose. To experiment. If only I didn’t feel such pressure of time to get it right first time. A story could really become something that way. This is in part where some of my restlessness comes in. I cannot tolerate thse wrong turns. I can see how much time it will take to correct them and become disillusioned.
In any case, with The Enthusiast, the story developed in such a way that the story doesn’t get told. I could see early on, in getting to the revelation, the opening up and telling of the story that had made our protagonist’s mind up about things, to pursue his dream, he bottles it. The circumstances aren’t right. The story becomes a damp squib, a edge between him and his new lover, something he dwells on their first night together. I had, I think, decided at this point that this could be a story in Liquid Loves, the title I had decided on for a collection dealing with the insecurity and difficulties associated with contemporary love as described by Sigmunt Beauman[]. Here again, perhaps, I was being directed away from the drive of the story itself. In any case, this structure, as I go on with the story, no longer seems appropriate, and I can see I am going to have to rewrite it and really have a think about how to take a different angle.
Yesterday I had a day to write. Unfortunately, I allowed myself to get waylaid. Having got up at 8:30, I started work on The Enthusiast at 15:44! I suspect this is representative. One thing I did before getting down to writing was write a post about an idea for a darts player who has lost the ability to let go of the dart. The story, sorry, donne, was provoked by my realisation that I have a real problem getting down to the writing of whatever project is, or should be, most important to me at any one time. I plan and plan, make infinite notes, but never get down to the writing itself. Yesterday, I started reading up on Candida. Important, yes, but ideal for a break from writing, which should always be the first task I settle down to. My Dad then came round and started digging up the garden to plant potatoes. I felt obliged to help. Indeed, I even enjoyed it. I spoke to M at one point and she was justifiably upset that I was doing so. Not only had I not told her we would be digging up the garden - she never set foot in it or talked about it and so I didn’t think she would mind - but she also knew that I wanted so much time to write, and that I was insufferable when I didn’t get it, and had gone out to give me the time I needed.
And indeed, when she did get back I was reluctant to come away from the computer. When she came into my room late, at half seven at the earliest, having been away since before seven o’clock that morning, I felt that she was intruding and didn’t want to make even basic conversation. I resented her presence.
We broke up later that night. Still she had given me more time at the computer. Still I felt aggrieved. I came down when I was too tired to write - if I had been doing any of that at all - and started to read or do something. She was working on her NVQ. I had at one point promised her a pleasant evening together by text. Once again I reneged. When she asked what was wrong I told her I didn’t much want to be around her. That I was an incorrigible loner and wanted to be doing my own thing all the time. She didn’t say much, made a phone call, changed out of her pyjamas and walked out to spend the night at a friend’s place.
And so I smoked a lot and started on that second take on an intro for ‘Chutzpah’. I don’t much like it, but it did resolve a few things about what this amorphous novel - a version of the long imagined ‘The Life and Opinions of Master Kidderminster” - could be. The introduction of the editor character and her interjections in particular.
I do have to work on form, on structure. I must make notes on more stories, just as I set myself to do as one of my targets written down in The Looming Tower.