My First Novel--Sort of

We often wonder where people get their ideas. A lot of authors write books about where they get theirs and where you can look to get yours.

Surprisingly, or not, mine came to me in a dream. I woke up at 6 a.m. with it all very clear in my head. All I had to do was rush downstairs to my laptop, and get the idea typed in the machine before it flew out of my head, as most dreams do.

So, I quickly left my soft, warm bed and raced down to the cellar. The hardest part was waiting for my laptop to boot up. Obviously I can get in gear faster than my HP. When I was finally able to get into Word, I started banging away. That day Laura Buttons was the title. That came in the dream as well, and though I didn't know what it meant, if anything, I felt I had to be true to the dream or loose the gift of the story.

In two days I had written 15 chapters. As often happens, the story morphed into something different than what it started to be about. For the better as far as I can tell.

Well, a year and a half later I'm still trying to figure out where to go from here. I've taken in-class and on-line writing classes. I've bought many books on writing novels, but I'm still at a standstill. Actually I know how I want it to end, I just don't know how to get there from here.

Red herrings and smoking guns are devices I want to use, but I'm still working out how to incorporate them. There's a long way to go, but I've even done some rewrites so the character descriptions more closely fit the actors I envision playing the two major roles. I'll tell you how that came about.

I went to dinner with a friend last summer to a place called The Middle of Nowhere Diner. Isn't that just the neatest name. It's quite well-known for the portion sizes and the great tasting food, but it's also the kind of eatery you might drive by when you saw it. If you didn't know it was there, you might miss it since it's not much to look at.

My friend and I sat in a booth in the first section. There were little windows in the wall so you could see into the next room. While waiting for my meal, I looked through the window and saw a man with his arm drapped over an elderly woman's shoulder while someone was taking their picture. Since the diner is in Rhode Island, in a very touristy area, I figured they were probably tourists. I looked away. Something in my brain was nagging at me about the guy so I looked again. Was I ever surprised! It was James Woods, the actor. No doubt the lady also recognized him and wanted her picture taken with him. I'd never seen him in person, but was familar with his work and liked him as an actor. Right than and there I decided I wanted him to play the role of sheriff in my yet-to-be-completed story. As our waitress walked by, I asked her if that was James Woods. She confirmed that he was and that he often ate there. He actually lives not too far from the diner and his mother lives near me in CT.

This has been quite a digression from the original start to this hub, but it does tie in to my novel and was a fun detour. Nothing like jumping the gun.

Now that I've read books on writing books and taken classes about fiction writing, I'm more lost than before I started my novel now called the Night Jar. It was actually the on-line class that threw me for a loop. Funny saying. I wonder what that means. Guess I'll have to look it up.

The minute I started reading about the hook, backstory, trigger, crisis, the protagonist and antogonist, the plot and the epiphany, I knew I was in trouble. How naive of me to think I could sit down and write a novel. I became stuck in a quagmire of format and structural glue, and I haven't moved forward since.

So what's a writer to do? Well, for one, persevere--keep on keeping on, put one foot in front of the other, hang in there, don't give up, etc., etc., etc. I've set my sights on moving forward; I'll read more books, and I'll write more hubs. I'm not ready to toss in the towel, but I'm sure I'll be using it to wipe the sweat from my brow as I exercise my poetic license. Hopefully a good workout with my pen will give me the break through I need. I've voiced my resolve so now I've got to go with it.

One, two, three write.

One, two, three stretch.

One, two, three write. . . .