I've been a terrible writer this week, and there is no excuse. Sure, I've spent time with each of my characters and prattled on about my plot, but to tell you the truth, I'm stuck. I'm stuck in the rut of character preparation. Really, it all makes sense. Not only is preparation comfortable, it's what my life has become. Up until just last week, I was pursuing my undergraduate degree in preparation for my career. Ever since Scott popped the question in August, admittedly most of my downtime has been spent in preparation for the wedding, and for us to move into our apartment. The first thing that I learned in my introductory level course in broadcast and cinematic arts was that the most important part of any production is the pre-production, or preparation and, this week, as I've struggled to write even a paragraph of cohesive sentences, I've tried to keep that in mind.
I went to a magic show once, when I was about eight or nine. I had heard that there would be a magician who would produce a scarf of primary colors and impossible length from their mouth, and wind the silk slowly around their knuckles until their hands were bound like a Chinese finger trap, and the show did not disappoint. I sat in the third row and watched succinct colors pass between trained lips and teeth in the order of red, blue, yellow, green (why green is so often included alongside the primary colors, I have never figured out), but when it came time for the audience to clap, my hands were slack on my bare knees. I felt like cotton candy, weightless in the hand and heavy in the stomach. On the ride home, I pretended to fall asleep in the car. My mother was convinced I was sulking because I hadn't won a goldfish at the ring-toss game (she on the other hand, I'm sure, was thrilled), but in reality, I was considering the life of someone outside of what I had seen of them for the first time. I pressed my cheek to the window and wondered about the first time the magician had tried to swallow a scarf and regurgitate it so perfectly. Had he choked? Did he ever want to give up? It was in that profound moment that I realized that the presentation of life had nothing on the preparation.
I believe that character drives plot, and therefore, that how I construct my characters must ultimately control the direction of my fiction. However, no matter how many times I've fought myself this week, said to myself you're not stuck, I felt well, stuck. It was this morning when I realized that you could spent forever in pre-production, and never feel ready. I could spend my life deciding on character birthdays or the first name of a secondary character's ex-wife (okay, I guess that last one is pretty important) or I could gather the essentials and move forward. The caveat to writing on your own is that there is no deadline to abide to, and therefore, no set bracket of time to spend in pre-production. I don't regret this week I've spent pondering the lives my fictional characters, but an unshakable reality has certainly dawned: Their lives, those lives I have spent countless hours constructing, will mean almost nothing unless I introduce them to others, by fulfilling their stories and giving them the best effort I can give. Don't get me wrong, I'll be considering the possibilities of the name of that secondary character's ex-wife on the way into work this evening but when I get back home, it's time to open up that Word document and keep moving.
