On The Table Today

From a creative stand point, it hasn’t been that great a day so far (Though admittedly, the day is young, and I hope to rectify this in a few hours) since the bulk of it has so far been taking up with tweaking and confirming the contents of the script I’m toiling away on. No one can accuse me of slacking on work obligations. Yay!

But novel wise things are going a wee bit slow, which I kind of expected since it’s one of those transitions. I’m about to enter one of the “set piece” chapters where some major stuff is introduced and for me these chapters either go by blindingly fast or excruciatingly slow depending on the whimsey of the muses. It’s a sadistic day in muse land, so I’m still just ramping up to it. I need to close off the previous chapter before I can start on it, and I’m still having a debate as to whether to set in London, as I’d originally planned, or Bangkok Thailand as one of the characters went and said in my head contrary to my expectations.

This happens to me a lot.

The way my writing seems to work is very much in the intuitive sense. While I usually have some kind of rough structure or idea in my head about how the story is going to go, I usually don’t actually get down to the specifics until it’s time to sit down and Write The Damn Thing. When that happens, mostly I just mentally hit the “Play” button on my internal DVD player and watch the movie that unspools in my head, then write it down, frequently hitting the rewind and pause buttons to take advantage of the multi-angle feature and focus on the images my imaginary DVD is throwing at me. Of course, one of the “draw backs” of sitting back and watching a movie I had nothing to do with is the fact that things will be said–or things will occur–that run counter my expectations and then I sit there thinking “Where the hell did that come from?”

Past experience has taught me that trying to force the movie the way I want it is not a good idea, since the movie will play out as it wants to (Or as my subconscious wants it to. Agh. Too many layers…) meaning that if I ignore a particular factor, some consequence relating to it will likely pop up again later in the movie and I am well and truly screwed. I’m sure I’ll get into the swing of things again later, and not have to worry about nagging myself about not having written anything today. Or so I hope…

I’m also taking the time to rewatch Band of Brothers and man, if ever a movie made you not want to join the military and fight for honor and glory, this is it.

The first time I watched it was an overwhelming experience that pretty much demanded I marathon the whole thing. It left me emotionally exhausted and at the same time really, really glad I wasn’t a soldier. This time, I’m being much more leisurely and taking the time to appreciate the little things about it with a ration of 1-2 episodes per day, and it’s making me even more profoundly grateful that I’m not a soldier the second time ’round.

While there is definite merit in the idea that the bonds you form in the heat of combat are unlike any you will experience in the rest of your life, personally I think I can live without it. Especially if it means I don’t have to kill anyone, or watch said amazing friends get blown up in heavy artillery barrages or get taken out by a well placed sniper round.

On second viewing it’s still an amazing experience and a quaint reminder of a time when America was a proud nation universally loved and respected by all. It’s amazing what a few decades can do…