{"id":52,"date":"2011-06-02T23:00:10","date_gmt":"2011-06-03T06:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lindacollison.com\/blog\/?p=52"},"modified":"2011-11-03T21:27:39","modified_gmt":"2011-11-04T04:27:39","slug":"today-is-a-good-day-to-die-or-start-a-novel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/today-is-a-good-day-to-die-or-start-a-novel\/","title":{"rendered":"Today is a good day to die (or start a novel)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It feels a little like stepping off\u00a0the bowsprit into the deep, and watching the boat sail away.<\/p>\n<p>Today I began free writing the new (yet untitled) novel, longhand, in a wide-lined composition book.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It feels scary, but less so in longhand on a schoolgirl&#8217;s notebook than directly onto the computer.\u00a0 I\u00a0can write notes\u00a0in the margins, I can doodle, I can line through but not delete or obliterate.\u00a0\u00a0 My\u00a0composition book is my flotation device.\u00a0 (I&#8217;m not a good swimmer!)<\/p>\n<p>My writing\u00a0process, like my swimming or skiing, has always been effective, exhilarating, but\u00a0awkward to watch.\u00a0 A little out of control.\u00a0 Not exactly precise.\u00a0\u00a0 But I&#8217;m getting somewhere.<\/p>\n<p>When I write I feel like I&#8217;m\u00a0gasping, grasping, flailing, drowning; until I write that one electrifying paragraph, that one sentence that feels like <em>yes!\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0It&#8217;s\u00a0the spark of life itself; God reaching down out of the clouds of the Sistine Chapel with outstretched hand.\u00a0 I know those words will come and that\u00a0faith keeps me paddling,\u00a0keeps me from giving up.<\/p>\n<p>After the first draft, which might be little more than a\u00a0narrative outline with fragments of dialogue thrown in,\u00a0I&#8217;ll put\u00a0it onto the computer,\u00a0adding\u00a0as I go.\u00a0 Then I&#8217;ll have\u00a0a\u00a0rough draft, which will feel like a rough <em>raft <\/em>on that deep frightening ocean of subconsciousness.\u00a0 All I have to do then is fashion a sail and try to find my way home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It feels a little like stepping off\u00a0the bowsprit into the [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-52","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing-and-publishing","tag-writing-process"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":643,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions\/643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}