Reflecting on Being Heavy with Novel
What’s happening to me? I am pregnant with a novel. I feel it growing, swelling inside my literary belly. In the last few days it has even started to kick. I only dreamed I might do this someday, give birth to a book. The kicking is what really surprises me. When I first decided to become literarily pregnant, I worried it would arrive still-born, a lot of words: uninspired, boring, the result of an amateur’s wishful thinking. I suppose that still might happen. But this last week or so, I’ve been getting these feelings, this unmistakable quickening, the whispers and hints of a real story that someone might possibly want to read. I anticipate the labor with curious interest, a growing expectation, and not a little dread. I suspect birthing a 50,000 word novel will not be painless, though I want to deliver it as naturally as possible.
The Synopsis
The name of the story is Marigold Man. It’s about a regular joe named Paul, anonymous office worker by day and gardener by other times who discovers the incredible fecundity of marigolds: one plant produces hundreds of seeds, each of which can produce hundreds more. He hatches (or plants) a plan to change (or at least brighten a bit) the world with marigolds. He starts his revolution solo, planting seeds wherever he can, but soon discovers his noble but (frankly) pathetic efforts barely make a dent. The world is still the shallow, practical, prosaic place it has always been. He finds a group of (somewhat) like-minded people who, next planting season, join the quest. This small group, by the third year, becomes almost an army (a word Paul hates because it’s the antithesis of everything marigold), an unlikely congregation of marigold planters, determined optimists who only want a world with a dab of color and poetry. What’s so wrong about that? His revolution grows to sizes and takes him to places he never dreamed he’d go, so much so that he almost loses himself and everything he really values in the process.
About November Blogging
I have 20 dishes under the warming lamps: essays, letters, poems, a few ducks, of course, and more already prepared, already cooked, sitting lined up for easy serving on this blog during November. Because all my writing time and energy will be bent on the book, I will not be able to write and post as usual. I had first thought to serve big, thick slabs of novel text on these cyber pages, but wiser heads prevailed and I won’t. We can all be relieved. Part of the idea of slamming down 50,000 words in a month is not worrying about what anybody might think, but just turning on the creative spigot and letting it flow. Knowing it was being read, I couldn’t relax and simply write. Also, it would be filled with typos and wordings I certainly would edit or delete later. I think I’ll post a few snippets to this blog , like maybe the first few paragraphs, and a few later brief passages, but not much. It’s like when my wife is gone for a few days to take care of Rider or visit other family: she makes a few large batches of an entree (like chili) and freezes portions of it for me to eat while she’s gone. That’s how The Life Literary will be for the next month. It may not be quite fresh, but frankly, after I’ve thawed that bowl of chili and sprinkled in a little cheese, it tastes pretty darned good.
