The conundrum

I’m thinking about doing NaNoWriMo again this year and my problem is that I don’t know what to write.

Julia Cameron says that “writing is the art of taking dictation, not giving it. When I listen to what I hear and simply jot that down, the flow of ideas is not mine to generate but to transcribe. When, on the other hand, I struggle to write, it is because I am trying to speak on the page rather than listen there.”¹ It may seem a bit touchy-feely but I believe what she says is true.

This is not to say that there isn’t concrete work a writer does (what did people wear in the 1970s? What was sex education like in public schools? How do home equity loans work? What’s the geography of the place where these people live? These are all constraints that must be researched). More, though, is that it’s like meditation, like opening your mind and listening the characters talk to you. And there in lies my dilemma. I’ve “got” two ideas for novels this year, and only one set of characters is talking.

For one book, a fantasy novel, I can see my heroine (my main character, really, since this would be a book of heroes and big themes) as plain as if she were standing in front of me. Brash, jaw jutted out in defiance, so young yet so full of herself, a warrior in the making.

For the other book, a mystery, I can see my heroine (perhaps she’s not supposed to be my main character but she’s the one that spoke first) but there isn’t much to her. She’s afraid, hiding in her own skin, hoping to become invisible to avoid being hurt. And yet, she can’t seem to disengage, to not need people. When I try to see her she looks back at me with these flat eyes, a look that says “Really, you don’t want to know me. If I convince you of that, I won’t have to worry what you think of me.”

The fantasy novel tugs, and has been tugging since last year’s NaNo; the mystery novel just seems to sort of lay there, more saleable, it’s true, and requiring less research (what would peasant farmers with no “technology” do during the winter besides try not to die? What do they eat? How cold does it get in this place? It’s all more than daunting).

The main character for the fantasy novel came to me again today, while I was vacuuming the couch no less. Can I afford to ignore her for another year, or is it time to be a big girl writer and take a real plunge?

¹ Julia Cameron, The Right to Write (New York: Penguin Putnam, 1998), “Let Yourself Listen”, 10.