A short story to go along with my Poetry Friday choice, The Engine Driver by The Decemberists:
"And I am a writer, writer of fictions
I am the heart that you call home
And I've written pages upon pages
Trying to rid you from my bones"
When I was about 2/3rds of the way through the first novel I'd ever completed, I realized that even though I had set out to write a young YA inspired by one of Walter Benjamin's essays, it had also morphed into a prolonged metaphor for one of my past relationships. (Honestly, I was both disappointed and excited when I realized this.)
Anybody else's projects morph midway through?
Friday, October 31, 2008
Poetry Friday: The Decemberists "The Engine Driver"
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5 comments:
Mine don't really morph, but there is always a point when I realize that my book is going to fall way short of my vision for it. That always crushes me, but I keep going.
My novels haven't morphed plotwise during the writing process, but the halfway point is about where I start to realize what major themes are at play. Then when I go through the first revision I tease up more elements in support of those themes.
While I haven't written a novel, my poems often take the same sort of unexpected and unintentional autobiographical turn. Good lyric to illustrate that (I'm a huge Decemberists fan).
And who knows what the reader takes from it-- no matter what you intended or how it morphed! :-)
Thanks for participating in Poetry Friday at PoetryforChildren this Halloween! Stop by any time...
Sylvia
Chris - I think most people second guess their own work... but you just have to keep going, you know? I'll read something one day and think "this is brilliant!" and read the same thing the next day and think "this is a flaming pile of doo!" Actually, maybe this just means my self-critic is bi-polar?
J.W. - I find that I go back and play up elements/themes more deliberately in my revisions now than I used to. (Sometimes I forget that what I have in my head isn't always on the paper!)
John - Have you seen the covers of THE MYSTERIOUS BENEDICT SOCIETY books? Same illustrator does the cover art for the Decemberists albums.
Thanks for stopping by Sylvia! Enjoying poetry friday, gives me one more excuse to type out whatever song lyric is going through my head. :)
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