Averil Dean's Blog, page 10

Wolf

How is that each book is harder to write than the one before? How many pages are wasted, pushed to a corner of the desk with edges lifted by the breeze of my passing? How much vodka will it take. How many packets of headband kush, ribbons and clouds and tarry-sweet fogs, and words that dissolve in the vapor? How many tantrums. Long walks. Floods and droughts and lightless Sundays. Trickles from the wrist, gouts from the jugular. How many small rebellions, diversions, mutinies, revolts? Teeth...

Gingerbread

Can I just say how much fun I’m having at our new address? I am like a little girl playing houses. I’ve alphabetized my library, rearranged the furniture, brought in houseplants and candles and squashy pillows for the couch. In contrast to our last rental, where everything seemed to be in the wrong place, this house is laid out exactly right. I have an armchair in the bedroom. A light in the hallway. And closets, dear god, closets for days. The kitchen is Formica-clad and fitted with old appl...

Butterflies

Still here, still stuck. I’ve turned this story every which way and I can see, I think, how to write it. The question now becomes, Do I want to?

The problem with writing is that it takes so long. By the time you’ve worked out all the details of voice and story and structure, you may find yourself bled dry of all your creative energy and the inquisitive spirit that makes a story come alive. You get bogged down, sluggish; having paved your road, you are now too exhausted to walk it. You look at...

Rock

This Chris Rock interview is too good to keep to myself.

Life Drawing

My book and I are at an impasse. I have it in mind to write this fucker from a first person POV, as a retrospective account of a childhood tragedy and the effect it has on the character’s life. The fucker insists that certain events and perspectives be included, some of which couldn’t have been witnessed by the narrator. Not an impossible thing—I could use the sort of structure Gillian Flynn used in Dark Places, in which the first and third person accounts are given in alternating chapters, b...

Balls

Let’s play a game, want to? Ask the magic eight ball a question, give it a shake, and report back.

Me: Eight ball, will Bill Maher ever again be funny as a stand-up comedian?

Ball:

Sorry, Bill. I love you anyway.

Peer

This morning I looked at my manuscript for the first time in almost a week. It’s still there, still sucks, and no one has finished it for me while I wasn’t looking. The doubts I had about structure are bubbling to the surface and I think I hate the sound of my voice. Also, I interrupt my sentences constantly and have developed a love affair with the word “peer.” Everybody’s peering at this or that. God forbid they should simply look. Other pet peeves include overuse of the colon, semicolon, a...

Keys

Yesterday after work I went to our new house. A key had been left under the mat, so I let myself in and spent a good hour poking around, opening drawers, giving little Izzy a chance to sniff the corners and get her bearings. The homeowner had left a lovely, warm welcome letter and all sorts of tidbits about how to work the alarm system, water heater, furnace, and sprinklers. She gave us a primer on the neighbors, who all sound wonderful, and said that the fellow who built the house in 1971 kn...

Happy Idiot

New music, anyone?

The Undoing

Hello? Are you still there? I’ve been trying hard this past month to get some pages under my pen, and I think I’m doing okay. I sure as shit can’t write at the speed of NaNo, but I’ve settled into a groove and am pointed in more or less the right direction. The characters are taking their first full breaths. The story has a shape. All that’s left now is to keep putting in the hours.

My previous book, Blackbird, is undergoing a transformation. MIRA has moved back the pub date a whole year to Ja...