The Weeks’ Posts
Slow Bewildered Avalanche, A Primer
Recollect the Night We Meet - A sequence from Avalanche
Output
14,115 words (26 pages [5,304] + 8,811 typed)
12/14 days (.857 WrPCT)
Average Words Per Day: 1,176/day
Longest Day: 7/16/24 - 2,590 words (2 pages [408] + 2,182 typed)
The Still Bleepin’ Counts Award: 7/22/24 - 204 words (1 page [204])
During the first week, I spent whatever free time I had putting together the primer. It honestly felt really good to kinda synthesize all the different thoughts I’ve had about the journey of writing the novel. It was really my first time bringing out all that I’ve gone through while putting Avalanche together. I was brimming with things to tell, and ultimately had to cap my word count lest it gets unwieldy(er). There was gonna be a whole section about why it’s called Avalanche, but I had already completed the three-act structure of the article. Following my update you can read this outtake.
But so, the whole first week was the primer. Then the second week—Avalanche week here on the stack—was supposed to be about getting forward with Avalanche once more. I was instead met with a series of false starts. As evidenced by my wrPCT, I wrote nearly every day but it never felt like I had enough time to really stretch my mind out. It reached a point later in the week where I felt completely discouraged from even journaling because it hadn’t really been going anywhere.
Then finally over the weekend I had a second. I got a little farther ahead in the manuscript, but I definitely need to find a way to not feel stalled out this coming week. I’m writing a big-massive sequence and I’m kinda lost in the morass of it. I’m still learning how to work through extended sequences, and part of what I’m learning is how to maintain interest in the writing of it. I feel kinda bored and ready to move on, but we’ve only really gotten through the first bit of the first act. I’ve been working on it for over a month, and I think right now I need to work on something else, be it a different storyline in Avalanche, or a new short story, or anything really.
Maybe I should work on something with Virginia and Llewellyn, or Edith and Sam. I need to mix things up this week so that I can return to Levi and Maribel renewed & refreshed.
But, so, What is the story of the title?
Initially, the novel was called Somewhere inBetween. This title fit well for the final-summer aspects of Sam’s story, but as the idea expanded it became too narrow of a title. I needed to pocket it and find an apt title that encompassed the whole idea.
But, like, how? In writing, it’s always the simplest things that require the most effort. This is why the 300-word summary in the primer took more time and effort than my discursion about the writing process. And it’s the same with titles.
So I was on the hunt for a title that worked when one of my friends told me about an interview they saw with Serj Tankian where he talked about “Chop Suey,” and how he came upon the prayer that’s in the song. In short, he picked a random book and opened to a random page. I thought to myself, “If that can make a song go platinum, then maybe it’s worth trying.”
At home, I went to Rumi’s <Big Red Book> which I’d been rooting around in for inspiration, searching in the soil for truffles. In this case, my directions were clear: open to a random page and see what’s there. It wasn’t a random book, but it was one that I thought might have a decent title.
So I did the Serj Tankian and opened to a random page: [picture of page]
The first poem my eyes fell upon was called “Back to Being.” Admittedly, I didn’t really like it—and the poem itself didn’t resonate with the vibes of my novel.
I looked to the opposite page and found Avalanche:
The slow bewildered Avalanche chasing after God is the Greenaway family. And Maribel/Virginia/Edith is Shams leading them up the mountain road. When this all hit me, I knew it was the right title because it glues everything together.
Input
Book: Europe Central by William T. Vollmann
Pages Read: 58
7/14 days (.500 rPCT)
8 pages/day
It’s crazy that I can read a 100 pages in a week, then take nearly a month to get through the next hundred pages. Everything in Europe Central’s still about the same as it moves through different inter-related characters. I’m kinda swimming through it right now and trying to keep the handle on all the details. I’m determined to continue, but it’s been hard getting into it lately. I just need to hunker down and get back into the rhythm of reading again. It will definitely help my writing too if I’m reading nearly every day.