NN is for Next Novel
Today’s writing prompt is my response to choosing the theme for my next novel.
Which Novel – A Disclaimer
At present, I am still seeking representation for the novel recently completed. And I’m told the best way to be using my time is to be writing the next novel, especially as I love it.
However, I’m taking an artist break to think through the choices, a situation forced on me by a dip in my health, one that means I have to REST, REST, REST. It has also caused me to stop thinking creatively. Don’t you just hate it when brain fog descends?
What Next Then?
I had two novels semi-planned that I thought I’d be choosing between. Then a proverbial bee sat upon my bonnet. Or did a spanner get muddled in my writing cogs? Whatever the mangled idiom, in response to my dilemma, I’ve created the acrostic below.
What Themes Do I Really Know?
Writers have been advised to “write what you know” (as attributed to Mark Twain, and debated ever since). A single thought does not, surely, pop into an author’s head one morning and arrive as a fully-formed novel by teatime.
Our own knowledge and experiences are the raw materials that we creatively hone with the writing tools of imagination and research. My own raw materials wait in 3 pigeonholes:
- History – the events, places, experiences, relationships that are unique to me
- Health – my particular area of (uninvited) expertise that might appeal to fellow travellers on their own medical journey
- Heart – how my responses to my history and health have shaped me, how I prioritise for them, and how I’ve stayed sane (officially)
What About Any Lack of Knowledge?
Drawing on my experience alone could severely limit the potential of a story. I must set my truth in the care of suitable characters. They must inhabit a credible world where plot, player and place combine to produce pure joy for the reader (even when happiness-ever-after is not a straightforward outcome).
My writing tool chest includes:
- a love of research topics and settings
- an enjoyment of character creation
- spending time with future what ifs in mind rather than simply recalling the past’s what was
This is because:
- my life experience is undoubtedly my universal truth, and there’s a message for my, as yet unfound, readership tucked away in my soul
- my job is to release that message into active fiction, rather than autobiography
- my work will be in creative story form, rather than factual discussion
Where Is All this Heading?
Somewhere interesting and exciting, I trust, because whatever this Artist Break entails, the upshot won’t become a novel until it has been conceived, gestated and born. Currently, it is a twinkle in my own eye, an inkling, the seed of an idea. The Brain Fog is lifting as I write this piece, leaving behind a cool and rested mind that is fertile with creativity that cannot be rushed.
Please wish me well! I’d like to hear how authors begin their novels long before they write a single word, before they plot, or before they set off on a proverbial seat of the pants writing discovery.
More writing practice at ABC Alliterative Title Challenge.
