Saturday, August 2, 2008

My blog is back~!!!

I'm hugely relieved! My blog was locked and they said it might take 20 days, so now I am thrilled!

After strugglng so hard with this new novel, I went back to the other novel I was working on-showed it to a few people, and all were excited (or at least, very, very kind) so now I'm newly obsessed. It's a much simpler structure with a strong through line, so I'm putting the other complex novel on the back burner for now until I figure out how to do it. Sometimes just obsessing and stressing about something shows you the way into the story, which happened with this one. And the comments of some very smart, tough writer friends--one in particular whom I can never thank enough-- also helped quite a bit, too.

We spent the day at the Fear Exhibit at one of my favorite places in the world, The Liberty Science Center. You could test your fear of falling, loud noises, electric shock, but where were tests for fear of clowns or giant squids or having to drive a car? Where was the exhibit about fear of demons or ghosts or another 8 years with Bush?

I know I always tell my writing students to write about what obsesses them, but it isn't a bad idea to also write about what you fear.

3 comments:

Jean Medeiros said...

Mmmm...so your blog unlocked around the same time your novel problem unlocked? Coincidence or a Twilight Zone moment?

Congratulations on finding your way back to your other novel. If you're newly obsessed, I'm sure it's worthy.

Are there tests for fear of the Fear Exhibit? Writing what you fear is great advice, but another 8 Bush years is just TOO scary to even think about.

xo Jean

Jean Medeiros said...

Oh and happy birthday to Max!! Hope you had a great celebration weekend with lots of happiness and cake!

Any luck with Fred??

Clea Simon said...

Happy birthday to Max and congrats on the novel breakthrough! I wonder if having the guts to go to an exhibit on fear helped? I don't know that I'd have been able to do that!