supercalifragilisticexpirevelations!

yesterday was a good day writing-wise. several revelations and even though not a soul is reading this blog yet, i just couldn't wait to discuss them ad nauseam here. i may have to post this in multiple parts as i am currently Nairing my bikini line in preparation for a pool party later today and i don't think i can squeeze it all into the 10 minutes before the timer goes off and i have to jump in the shower. just a little window into my life there. ;)

revelation number one: i have a natural talent for dialogue writing. this, of course, remains to be proven since i still haven't actually started officially writing the book but i'm going to go with it for now. dialogue is one of those key traits of a writer that can really make or break a book for me, so i'm pretty keyed up about my dialogue writing skills. but i realized yesterday that for as long as i can remember, i have been composing dialogue in my mind as a hobby. is this bizarre? i think it might be, but no longer care since it will further my craft! yeah!

so, pretty much constantly, i will imagine conversations between real people i know about either real or imaginary topics, purely for my own amusement and to help hone my conversational skills. usually, i create several versions of the dialogue. i've become so practiced with this, that it's not unusual for one of my invented conversations to actually take place in real life. which used to freak me out, but now just sort of makes me feel like i have a superhero power, albeit a geeky one.

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hello again. it's now sunday night. no new revelations since yesterday except that jaegermeister and red bull are a disgusting, disgusting combination. anyhoo... Back to writing revelations.

so, yeah. Revelation number one was that i have this dialogue machine running in my head all the time and this will be a mighty helpful tool for The Book (as I'm now referring to it).

revelation number two: i observe people constantly. When i say observe, i don't just mean 'oh look, that woman is wearing a green sweater and that man talks with a lisp and eights is that the worst comb over you've ever seen?' i mean i study people. i take little snapshots of their lives, drink in every detail i can about them and then think about what those details mean about them as people, about their relationships, the rest of their lives, etc. For example, in the time it takes me to walk past a couple arguing in a department store, I'll have gathered enough information to imagine several layers of their relationship, who each of them are as people, what each of them might say to their respective friends about the disagreement, how they might apologize to each other later, how they will act towards each other until they apologize, etc.

i have also done this as long as i can remember -- kind of like the dialogue thing, both for my personal amusement and to further my study of human kind. i was in the process of observing a coworker on Friday when i thought, 'i should work this observation into a character somehow'. And then i realized that not only did i have a dialogue creation machine running in my mind, i had a characterization machine as well! Whoa-hoe! This whole writing thing might just work after all! {insert crazed laughter here}

revelation number three: i have GOT to start writing this shit down. i have all these passing observations and thoughts on characters and snippets of dialogue running through my head throughout the day and have stupidly been operating under the assumption that if my brain can manufacture them once, it can manufacture them again on command. not so. i bought a small notebook that i now carry in my purse and have gotten more diligent this weekend about running directly to it when even the littlest Book related thought crosses my mind.

of course, that creates a new problem for me, which is: how the fuck am i going to organize all these random notes and thoughts into something that actually makes sense? all i have right now are a bunch of notes (in several different places) about The Book. plot notes are mixed in with character notes are mixed in with scene notes are mixed in with writing method notes are mixed in with dialogue notes are mixed in with journaling. AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!

ok. new plan. This week's goal is to go to barnes and noble and check out the reference section to see if there are any writing reference books that are worth buying and to also surf the web for recommendations. i have no idea what the fuck I'm doing and although it sounds wonderful, sheer determination and a spark of talent are not a published writer going to make. i need professional help! if only people were actually reading this blog, someone might even be able to make a suggestion... *sigh*