Whenever I look at the documents that comprise the beginning of my next novel I always wonder why I'm not spending more time on it. It's still a regular occurrence.
It's easy to say that it's the intervention of university, and how it falls under the ironic spell of education getting in the way of my progress (although I've been learning quite a bit about literature, and how to write properly). But it's more than that...
...it's a matter of continually developing style, for one. It's been said that an author's life doesn't lie in their deeds and accomplishments, but instead the progression of their writing style.
This is a disturbing idea to me - how perception of the level of dedication and what you have to sacrifice reaches the level of your actual accomplishments outside of writing taking a back seat to the writing itself. If I get married, is that of lesser importance than the inspiration to write that I would garner from getting married?
The reading public might think so. My work would be of more importance to them than my wife herself, so it's logical. But that wouldn't be the same for me, it's possible I'd hold my marriage in higher regard than my work. Which is a very complex subject that I probably shouldn't expound on with no knowledge, it's actually kind of humorous.
Inspiration is another factor... in the back of my mind I believe that something has to happen which hasn't previously happened. A couple of years ago I wasn't in university, and just worked as a dishwasher and read and wrote. I know I can write with the same intensity, yet something feels like it has to happen. But at the same time, I believe that's whimsical thinking as well - it's just as simple as sitting down to the computers and my notebooks and working.
As I've mentioned before, Flannery O'Connor wrote in an essay that the best writers she knew also painted, because it gave them a method of seeing. I paint, although sporadically - I've been doing so since I was ten. And a couple of years ago, during the same time span when I just worked, read and wrote, I also painted. I'll post pictures of my work in the future.
Science shouldn't be a mystery... .
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