Lately, I haven’t been writing in the blog nearly as often as I normally do.
I got it into my head a little while ago that I wanted to try and write some short stories, try my hand at that. I have a writer’s brain, I think in snippets of text. Instead of getting out of the car and going inside like a normal person, I end up holding an internal dialogue with myself, complete with narrative monologue: “Gravel crunched under her heels as she carefully picked her way up the pitted driveway.”
Seriously, it’s just not normal.
Since I decided to try writing some stories I’ve found my evenings tangled up with a notebook, pen, and a scowl. Apparently, I should get one of those type-to-text programs that let you talk to your computer while it does the typing for you, because I kind of fail at writing stories, at least when it comes to good old-fashioned pen to paper writing.
As odd as this may sound, no, strike that, anyone who reads my blog knows that I’m a tall glass o’crazy OCD, I can’t bring myself to type my stories into Word like a normal human being because I want to write my stories in Scrivener.
“So get Scrivener and quit your whining,” you say. That would require my laptop to be a Mac, and I am the annoyed owner of a PC. And yes, I am really so OCD (or maybe I’ve been dating Ian long enough to have his “Do it right, or don’t do it at all” attitude rub off on me), that if I can’t write in the program that makes me giddy and excited, I don’t want to start typing in a different program and have to transfer it all later, in a gajillion years when I finally have my Macbook.
So far I have three stories going at the same time. I have a fairly concise storyline for one, a fantastic beginning for the second, and a scene that would make my 5th grade teacher proud for the third. Turns out that writing in the third person is fairly strange, and if you’re a stickler for not lying like I am, writing a fictional story in the first person is distractingly difficult.
One of the stories involves driving on the Mass Turnpike, and is told in the first person. Every time I attempt to write something along the lines of, “I did ______,” it’s quickly followed by thoughts of how whatever statement I’ve made is technically not true, and then a lot of debating over whether anyone who reads the story will think it’s based on reality and judge me for my character’s actions.
I can see why so many writers lose their minds and end up dead in the gutter.
Beyond my ridiculous internal debating over how honest I need to be while writing what is basically an elaborate lie, life has been pretty awesome lately, and I am feeling grateful all-around for August. I don’t know what climbed up July’s skirt, but I’m awful glad to be done with her for another 11-ish months.
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2 Responses to “Scrivener, how I long for thee”
There’s a fantasy series with a race who take telling the truth really, really, omg really seriously. Implying that someone lied is enough for a duel to the death. Even they have the Permitted Lie; bards & storytellers have it. Let yourself have it; permission to lie for the story, that is. Not both barrels of truthiness.
The last person who read my novel thought it was totally autobiographical…which parts of it were, yes, but a lot of it wasn’t. I purposely wrote the first novel in 3rd person b/c I didn’t want people to think it was autobiographical, then I sent it to an agent and she told me it needed to be in 1st person…go figure.