Ana’s Tale
Most writers abide by this rule: You can’t interrupt a project in place just because a sexier idea comes along. I clearly do not entertain such a rule, because I am working on two major projects now instead of just one.
Yesterday, I went journal shopping (Note the journal posed next to Fable in the thumbnail). The thing is, it’s been so long since I have had an idea for a novel that I am practically giddy as I turn the journal over and over in my hands. The book does not have a title yet — it’s been sneaking around my brain calling itself Project Trains — and it doesn’t have a protagonist’s name. Tentatively, she is named Ana. Her world will fill the pages of the dark blue journal; she will splash her paint on the walls of my skull.
This is not the blog to talk about the querying of my first novel (which is, frankly, heartbreaking), but it is to say that I feel that things are coming together even if I am not accepted to graduate school and never get published. I’m truly happy to just be working, to be alive with the music that books offer. I won’t say much about this book’s plot just yet. I will only say that it is a speculative retelling. And, yes, I was in the midst of Project Guernica when Ana poked along, sticking her head in the window of my psychological workshop.
This week, I am focusing on research for both Project Guernica and Project Trains. I am fortunate that, at the moment, I can do this full-time, but juggling two books is a big ask. However, I don’t think that I have enough common sense to be afraid of the task ahead. I’m all lightning shredding up the sky, all water soothing the jagged flesh of the land. Having been a bit depressed over querying, I feel like I have finally reached a point of peace, a point where I can do what needs to be done because I genuinely love what I do and that is all.
So, anyway: Ana’s tale will be set in Revolutionary Mexico. I have a bevy of journal articles ready for whenever my printer decides to get its act together. Compared to Project Guernica, which I suspect will be rather short, Project Trains is, judging by its growing outline, going to be rather protracted. Long books, short books, it is all a quest.
I’ve had conversations with my incredible, remarkable friend, Mika, about life’s journeys. A watershed moment in my development as a person was my mother’s introduction of Joseph Campbell and the Hero’s Journey into my aimless life. Because, truly, when I realized that we are not different from the stories we read about, that we in real life must quest out, too, I was reborn in a certain reverence for the power and the passion of doing what you can do in this world, of being all you can be. I try to treat life as this quest, and gathering stories like pebbles in my pocket, I am taking Project Guernica and Project Trains with me.
I’ve had equally wonderful conversations with Kateland about why we create, why I write, why we read. We both agreed that we don’t feel, in this stage of life, that we are competing with other people, that we have grown happy and content to be in our thirties. And this is very true, and it is also something that I pore over, these conversations with friends. I know that I for one am not the only one rebuilding my life, and I am so happy to make language and literature the foundation upon which I construct.
This has been a bit all-over-the-place blog, so I will close it out by saying that I am working on two novels because of a sense of unburdened curiosity and deep, divine, happiness. Ana’s tale is about to unfold, and I will massage the ink into the page with my trusty fountain pen and a mug of tea.
