ManicDDaily

All pancakes one pancake?

So far, I seem to be opting for the artistic in my nanowrimo novel.  I have to confess that I think this is nearly always a mistake,

No offense to you true artists out there, but art is very difficult to sustain in a novel.  “Artistry” is even harder.

By “artistry”, I mean (at least in my case) a certain kind of dissonant fragmentation (i.e. modern artistry, post-war, post-a-bunch-of wars).     It can work wonderfully in visual art, and even in a poem, but in something that takes a while to absorb–say a novel (you have to read it)–there had better be something very very good there, some hook.

Agh!

Weirdly enough, I have also been listening to a great deal of Fred Astaire.   (Dancing makes me happy!)   Fred Astaire illustrates amazing artistry, not particularly “high” as in “highbrow” (only high-stepping.)

He is silly, clever;  even his most abstract dance maneuvers fold into a kind of narrative–they have a beautiful symmetry.

And yet, even though I really do believe in that kind of symmetry, I am not pursuing it, or, for that matter, a plot, a plan, a maneuver.  Rather, I am trusting in my unconscious as I write, right now.  It’s not “automatic writing” a la Yeats, but just what comes next and next and next, (in my brain, not in any time sequence.)  I’m basically layering with whatever my brain ladles out.    My only hope is that there will prove to be a connection in the sense that, in one brain, all pancakes are (sort of) one pancake.  But, well–if all pancakes are one pancake, then what is a “short stack?”

Agh! (aghaghagh!)   (short stack of aghs.)