Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Writing and the Warp of Grief

With my teaching done for the spring, I've begun to try to work on a new project. It's an idea I've had since last summer.

Though I initially thought about it with great hope, the idea has gone through some shape-shifting during the last few seasons as I have faced grief after my youngest son took his life. Now, a lot of grief has entered into the picture, and I've begun to layer this into my original idea. I'm not sure if I am doing this because I now feel partitioned off from the normal patterns of life I see around me, norms I view from a slant, and my hope is that in writing about this loss, I will make it more a part of the "norm."

I'm not sure what is going on with this.

I have also found that in keeping a journal over the last seven months, a second project has sort of emerged and even forced itself onto my desk because it seems so useful, so practical in ways that the fiction is not. So I am caught between two projects. The problem will be to make a decision and go with it.

As for the novel, the problem is that I don't see a clear story arch in this new material about grief. I don't see the character who is a survivor getting "better." I'm thinking that perhaps this is something that I should simply go with, because the material will provide a counterpoint to the main story arch, where there is change and movement. The problem is that I know that audiences can lose patience with a lack of clear story direction.

Choosing the Right Plan
 I've written about my new idea for a second novel in other places. It is called Radio Eden, and it concerns four men who take their pastor's sermon about Eden literally and go out to find the "real" Eden. In the process, they are taken hostage by a terrorist group. The novel focuses on the pastor who gave that sermon and how he and his congregation react after the men are taken hostage.

There are two other story arcs in this tale, one told by a young pregnant woman, and the other by a young man involved in theater. I also had a third story arc--this was my character who was a survivor of his son's suicide. I've gone back and forth about this. I've thought about putting that story in one of the other arcs.

I'm still in the planning stages of all of this. And I am not someone who outlines very much. I tend to draft with a scratch outline. This is my way of writing my way into the material, and sometimes I write my way into a corner.

Writing about Grief
As for the new problem child, the one that has emerged from keeping a journal about my grief process, it appears to be something that is nonfictional and is emerging in a pretty clear form and voice. This is my dilemma. I seem to be facing a choice between writing fiction and nonfiction, between a project that seems large and is still taking shape, and a project that is already clear in both shape and purpose.

Perhaps, as some people will always suggest, it is a matter of doing both, of clarifying ideas and feelings in both genres.

If that is to be the case, I should find a lot of time for both. I can see how this could work, especially if the nonfiction idea is as focused as it seems.

I know that John Lennon has been quoted widely on the idea that "Life is what happens while we are making other plans." That seems to be the case here. I'm not all that good at drawing lines between my creative projects and the life that feeds them. I'm not trying to make lemons out of lemonade, or some other cliche. The goal is to try to do something with what remains.

Perhaps next month I will have some answers.

Thank you for reading.