Today (the day of the writing, not the posting) is the 22nd of July.
Hello there
This is my first blog entry from Spain and the writing of my second novel, provisionally titled, ‘Extraneros’ which in Spanish means ‘Foreigners / Strangers’. It’s the double significance that makes it the right title for this book, though for reasons that you’ll just have to wait to learn more of.
The process so far has gone pretty well. My wife and I came out here last week to a house in a white village in Andalucia. I wanted to be
a) In Spain
b) Hot
c) Isolated - with absolutely nothing else to do but write.
For the first week, my wife and I had a nice relaxing time, doing nothing much other than chilling out and trying to tan our deathly white skins to healthier, pinker hues.
The first thing I learned when I arrived was that I had neglected to pack my notes on the plot of the novel. So I had to re-write them all out from memory. This wasn’t altogether a bad thing as it meant I had to thoroughly re-examine the story and the people in it.
Then, on Saturday, my wife went back to Dublin, leaving me here on my own. In theory, this was my great idea. That theory being I’d write and therefore I’d wind up with a novel at the end of it all. However, I have to admit, I’m finding it a bit difficult. Not the writing, that’s coming along well enough. I finished my first draught of Chapters One and two today. It’s rough – and it needs a lot of refinement, but it’s out of my head and onto the page (ten pages of Windows A4 to be precise). So, that’s great.
The first part of writing a story, for me at least, is the hardest. Setting up the world and populating it with people. People who are, at the beginning, as strange to me as they are to readers when they begin the book: I know who the characters are and what they’re doing, but that’s all. But then, by Chapter 3, the characters begin to come to life, creating their own dialogue, doing the things they want to do and eschewing the things they don’t - whether or not I want them done or not.
This happened this evening, as I was closing Chapter 2 and starting Chapter 3, I suddenly fell through the screen and into the world of the story. The characters were doing and saying their own things. The people I had envisaged started to become the people they are and I simply found myself tagging along, writing down the things they say and do and hoping they don’t see me and get all self-conscious and start doing what they think I want them to again. It’s weird, fun and sort of exciting – especially since I’ve got two weeks of undisturbed solitude to work in. But that’s also the problem.
The difficult bit is the being alone. Solitude, isolation: think about that for a moment. When was the last time you were really, completely, alone? No spouse, no kids, no mates, no work colleagues: just you, alone. Weird isn’t it? I haven’t gone mad yet, but it does feel mighty strange.
I’ll leave you today with that thought. I’m alone in a foreign country, and I’m feeling mighty strange. A book is coming out of me, and although I’ve got a plot to work to, I get the feeling that over the course of the next few weeks, ‘plot’ is something I’ll probably be losing – and maybe in more ways than one.
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