Method to my Madness Monday: Build Your Story/Build Your Barge

Building your story is like building a floating concert hall: neither one comes finished.

This is kind of what Aunt Olga's barge looked like when she bought it.

                This is the beginning of Saved by the Music, chapter two – when Willow (aka me) sees the interior of the barge her aunt wants to convert into a concert hall:

 

                Maybe the inside looked better.

                Aunt Agatha yanked open the thick metal door of the cabin.

                Any hopes I had were swept away in an explosion of dirt and dust. Particles went up my nose and down my throat, sending me into a coughing and sneezing fit.  “Sorry, Love. I’ll have to remember to clean up around this door,” Aunt Agatha said.

                Once the cloud and I cleared, I saw a cavern, big and dark and spooky. That’s all it was — one huge, bleak steel room, about the size of my school gym, with a regular sized door at either end, and gigantic sliding doors on each side. The walls, floor and ceiling were covered with grime. Piles of wood cluttered the room, plus other construction-type junk.

                “What do you think?” Aunt Agatha chirped, propping the door open with a crowbar. “Isn’t she a beaut?”

                I cleared my throat. “It’s not what I pictured.”

                She laughed. “What is?” She tweaked my nose. “You didn’t think the place came all finished, did you?”

            Your story doesn’t come all finished, either.

            Just as my aunt saw the potential in the dreary cavern, so must the writer see his completed work through the jumbled mess in his mind.

            Aunt Olga enjoyed restoring each piece of wood for the walls and the floor. She reveled in painting the roof. The whole project was a labor of love. And she was no spring chicken.

            So here’s a clue: If you don’t love the writing process – maybe you’re not a writer.

            Sure, there’s frustrating moments. Many.

            Soooooo many.

            “Oh my god,” you may scream, “I have to revise that #?!@!?# scene again?”

            But once you sit down and work on it, you’re happy. This is what you were meant to do! The fun is in the revision. In finding “le mot juste,” as Flaubert called it: The perfect word.

            If you don’t enjoy going over the same sentence seventeen times (bare minimum) to make sure it sings, you might want to reconsider your path.

            Go find something else that makes you heart sing – life is too short.

            But if you identify with these words, then go forth and write! Build your scenes, bird by bird (once again, I urge you to read Anne Lamott’s beautiful book.)

             You are the pig who built his house out of bricks, not straw or sticks.

You are taking the time to build the strongest story ever!!!

           

             Remember my aunt and her dark cavern.

            She believed she could build it into a concert hall.

             See the metaphor?

“Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right.”

-Henry Ford

If you'd like to read my novel Saved by the Music, here's the link for Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Saved-Music-Selene-Castrovilla/dp/1934813141/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1322498010&sr=1-2

There's a lot going on in this cover, if you look closely. See the face, the music strings, the skyline, the water...and the barge?