Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now

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recent posts

  • More from a master

    Yesterday, my blog delved into the mysteries of character building in a novel. I went, as I often do to E.M. Forster, who describes it so well in “Aspects of the Novel,” a book published in 1927. My beat-up copy was published in 1955. I think I found it at a used bookstore in the mid ’80s. I have a newer edition (it’s still in publication almost 100 years after its first printing) but it doesn’t have all my notes and underlines, so I somehow go back to this beat-up copy.

    I really can’t open it even just to pull one little quote out without getting sucked in by his humor and his wisdom. So a few more words from Forster, these about the importance of story:

    We are all like Scheherazade’s husband, in that we want to know what happens next. That is universal and that is why the backbone of a novel has to be a story. … Story can only have one merit: that of making the audience want to know what happens next. And conversely it can only have one fault: that of making the audience not want to know what happens next. These are the only two criticisms that can be made on the story … It is the lowest and simplest of literary organisms. Yet it is the highest factor common to all the very complicated organisms known as novels.

  • Parachuting in

    Starting a new writing project is like being dropped into a lush landscape with all kinds of amazing plants, animals, people, all of them fascinating and exciting, all jostling in joyous creative cacophony with hidden plots just waiting to be uncovered. It starts off so crowded, I have to get out the machete and start hacking away, or the excesses will bury the story. The overgrowth hides the path that will lead to the spectacular view. A book can have many things, but it can’t have everything.

    I am about 15,000 words in and I finally see the plot arch for the first third of this story. Also, I may be finding the narrative voice. Still iffy on that. And speaking of voices, a small gang of key characters is in competition to be the lead character. I’m surprised that I haven’t sorted this out yet.

    So many things to think about. Where is true north for this story? I’m beginning to see the path. And this may sound strange to those who don’t muck around trying to craft a compelling 80,000-word narrative, but it’s the characters — characters I have invented — who will reveal to me where they’re going next.

    Novelist E.M. Forster — whose book about writing fiction, Aspects of the Novel has been on my shelf for decades — has this to say about characters:

    The characters arrive when evoked, but full of the spirit of mutiny. For they have these numerous parallels with people like ourselves. They try to live their own lives and are consequently often engaged in a treason against the main scheme of the book. They “run away,” they “get out of hand”: they are creations inside a creation, and often inharmonious towards it; if they are given complete freedom they kick the book to pieces, and if they are kept too sternly in check, they revenge themselves by dying and destroy it by intestinal decay.

    My characters are still full of great rambunctious energy. Listening to them and taming some of that energy is the current pleasure.

  • Visit with an old friend

    Dancers moving to music in a dance studio.
    Dance trainer Ann Christiansen leading the routine ride.

    Can’t remember the last time I danced the routine “Ride.” I have such good memories of dancing this Nia routine during the first Covid summer, when we were all isolating and anxious. Our wonderful dance teacher Dael Parsons found a park with a mostly unused basket ball area, so we danced there twice a week, sunny mornings, joyful music.

    I was just getting my Nia energy, and Ride had a fine mix of moves, both powerful and light-hearted.

    I’ve been droopy the last few days. It’s easy to forget that dancing can bail me out of that. But I remembered this morning and found Ride on Nia’s website. I love how the routine leads off with singer Ingrid Chavez’ song “Ride”, which is all about the highs and lows in life: That’s the rollercoaster, the higher you go, the harder you fall so just ride with it.

    I needed to dance to that message today. I was low energy, and I just rode with it.