Writing for winter

[kitchen_kink]

To me, it seems the process of writing a long piece is a bit like the process of putting together a patchwork quilt, then trying to turn it into a knitted blanket or woven tapestry. I start, usually, not so much with an idea as with a character and a voice. I start at the ostensible beginning, writing in the voice of the character or in third person around the character, describing her, building her, giving her surroundings, interests, relatinoships, place. Then I decide what situation to put her in. More often than not, other characters arise, situations develop, and more than one story starts to wind through the narrative. And before I know it, I have one storyline about a regular girl in love, and another about that same regular girl being dragged into an epic struggle of supernatural intrigue. It's all stitched together like a quilt made of little bursts of story, anecdote, description and dialogue, and then I need to tear apart all the little patches into threads and weave them together.

It's this last part that's so unbearably difficult for me, that I think is the reason I often start long projects and don't finish them. I go back and look at them, analyze them, enjoy the fact that some passages (sometimes, as now, even many passages) make me laugh aloud or move me, but I can't stand the idea of tearing them apart, filling in the blank spaces, rearranging them to make them work as a coherent narrative. Sometimes I think I should stick to short stories, but often when I try it they come out long, like mini-novellas that want expansion.

Ah well. Back to work.