I am in uncharted territory!

The book is developing well, over 22,000 words written so far, but I am working in what I can only call a freeform style. I have a series of ideas that I want to write and a number of themes that I am going to explore, but at the moment there is no real plot. Charlie, the protagonist, is moving from one encounter to another with a series of characters that vary from the mundane to the almost ethereal. Each episode gives me a chance to discuss a facet of reality in what is to me a rather fascinating way. As no one else has yet ready any of this, and that includes my inquisitive wife who usually gets to see everything first, I have no idea if any of it is going to be equally fascinating to anyone else! I suppose at this stage, a kind of firstand half draft point, it really does not matter. Getting the ideas down in black and white, that is what matters!

Whatever kind of book you are writing it is the ideas that are important. From them everything else should flow. I have had some ideas that although they seemed very good in the first moment of having them, turned out not to have the depth or vibrancy to make it to the large scale of the novel. Some were turned into short stories, although that is not a medium I spend much time on. Most of the others just get forgotten; they lacked what it takes to survive! I have plenty of ideas for Pomerania, some of them taken from my ‘might make a good short-story list’.

One aspect that is proving both rewarding and painful at the same time is writing from my own experiences as a disabled person. I cannot include everything that I would wish to, simply because the necessary contexts are not likely to arise within what I understand to be both the fabric and the landscape of the story. I always avoid contriving a scene just to fit a particular point into it. Yes, I know, it could be argued that all writing is contrived, but good writing never appears to be artificial or strained to the reader. It is that definition of contrived to which I am referring. I am happy to say that in the past, I have been disciplined enough to remove such scenes from my work at the editing stage. Mostly, these occurred because I was developing an idea at the time and was trying too hard to capture everything that I associated with it. It is the old artist knowing when to stop thing again. I have written several scenes that describe my struggles with impaired mobility caused by a rare muscle condition. I was hoping that they would be at least cathartic to me. I did a brief revision of a piece and I am not sure if the writing is honest enough yet. That is something I will consider in the rewrite I expect.

Research is not taking up much of my time. This is probably because the character of the story does not rest too much on factual events. Most of it is taken from my life experience, which I already know pretty well as it is. I do kind of miss doing the research, but it is a small price to pay for writing something that is entirely new and fresh to me.