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How dark the mind?
Oct. 20th, 2003 01:28 pmLast night was full of the most unsettling, disturbing dreams I've had since I was little. Thank gods I only remember bits and pieces. Something that did stand out was the dream in which the Muppets were fighting a land war. Yes, the Muppets. I was running through a bomb shelter asking people who were carrying around aluminum tin plates if enough body parts had been gathered in said tins. I watched a scene where Kermit limped through a battlefield and found Fozzie's head with pieces blown off. Like I said, unsettling and disturbing. Reflective? Maybe. The Muppets are an American culture thing, and we are struggling through a land war.
I am coming up on a terribly difficult moment, and I'm not sure who will completely understand. There's a scene in the novel that will involve Dana and Ian in a painful, tormented confrontation that will rip and tear and scream through their souls, and mine. It will call into being every emotion I can force myself to face, everything I thought I knew about my own self and the way I love. It's going to be the "Harry Potter character death scene" equivalent, but worse; because while JK Rowling cried after killing the character, I will be crying because I'm doing something to two separate characters that will fuse them violently together forever--and at the same time permanently alienate a vital connection. If loving someone means letting go, then how am I supposed to pull off this ultimate feat of complete and total merging that includes a sacrifice that I can't even bear to think about? I could just drop it and change the scene, but that wouldn't be true to the story, to me. This will hurt me. This will scar me. But it will also reflect things inside me that I didn't think I could ever show. After all, "Stormfall" is nothing if not a reflection of me and my personal evolution.
However, my problem will be trying to get it all out the way I want. It may sound beautiful and perfect in my head, but any writer knows the sheer frustration of having beautiful words shift and spasm and crumble on your fingers. I need to plot out every word, every quiver of voice and face, more precisely than I have ever done for a work of fiction. I am terrified beyond terror that it just will not come the way I want and need. I am especially terrified that people won't appreciate it, indeed the whole book. My worst, worst mundane fear.
This may have to spur a sit-down and very long deep talk with my beloved and with a few others, if they're willing to be sounding boards and beta-readers. To say that it's a powerful scene is an understatement. I'm going to need outside strength. Wish me luck.
I am coming up on a terribly difficult moment, and I'm not sure who will completely understand. There's a scene in the novel that will involve Dana and Ian in a painful, tormented confrontation that will rip and tear and scream through their souls, and mine. It will call into being every emotion I can force myself to face, everything I thought I knew about my own self and the way I love. It's going to be the "Harry Potter character death scene" equivalent, but worse; because while JK Rowling cried after killing the character, I will be crying because I'm doing something to two separate characters that will fuse them violently together forever--and at the same time permanently alienate a vital connection. If loving someone means letting go, then how am I supposed to pull off this ultimate feat of complete and total merging that includes a sacrifice that I can't even bear to think about? I could just drop it and change the scene, but that wouldn't be true to the story, to me. This will hurt me. This will scar me. But it will also reflect things inside me that I didn't think I could ever show. After all, "Stormfall" is nothing if not a reflection of me and my personal evolution.
However, my problem will be trying to get it all out the way I want. It may sound beautiful and perfect in my head, but any writer knows the sheer frustration of having beautiful words shift and spasm and crumble on your fingers. I need to plot out every word, every quiver of voice and face, more precisely than I have ever done for a work of fiction. I am terrified beyond terror that it just will not come the way I want and need. I am especially terrified that people won't appreciate it, indeed the whole book. My worst, worst mundane fear.
This may have to spur a sit-down and very long deep talk with my beloved and with a few others, if they're willing to be sounding boards and beta-readers. To say that it's a powerful scene is an understatement. I'm going to need outside strength. Wish me luck.
