I’m looking for good books or movies about creative geniuses who go insane – like “Amadeus” or “Black Swan.” I know that those two movies are very different, but there is that theme of “brilliant person pushed to the brink for his/her art” in both of them. Any thoughts?

(Painting by Odilon Redon.)

I have been reading a lot. In fact, I would like to be reading right now. I think this weekend I am instituting a holiday: Reading Day, a day spent on the sofa with THIS BOOK and some tea. And chocolates. Bliss!

My current reading list (though I always change my mind on what to read next):

Mortal Love by Elizabeth Hand (Just finished this. Not YA but so wonderful. I’m sure I didn’t understand it all…but such lovely writing, I couldn’t put it down)
Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake
Matched by Ally Conde
Waking the Moon by Elizabeth Hand
Mechanique by Genevieve Valentine
Cinder by Marissa Meyer

I read for entertainment, but also to learn about writing and to be inspired. I really don’t know what happens next in my book…I’m hoping that reading everything I can get my hands on will help generate some ideas. If you know of any books of the “girl gets an opportunity to go away on an adventure” persuasion, let me know. Boarding school books? Haunted castles? These are the adventures I want to read about. And anything else that you thought was wonderful.

Anyhow, the other night we noticed “A Study in Pink: The Pilot” on the DVD. A Study in Pink is the first episode of the series, but this was the pilot episode – a one hour show they produced, shared with BBC, and were told that yes, this is great. But it was so good that they wanted three 90 minute movies, as opposed to more episodes of a one hour show. They couldn’t just add another 30 minutes to what they had, that wouldn’t work. So they had to dismantle the whole thing and rethink it.

So they revisited A Study in Pink, revisited the script, the plot, the subplots. That is evident from watching the pilot. They rethought where specific scenes should take place, which shots should be used, how the dialogue would be delivered. Even the scenery is altered (221B Baker Street gets some fantastic new wallpaper). In some scenes, the pilot is very much like the first episode. But in other cases it’s much different, and the longer version is far superior. Not only did they get much better cameras for the 90 minute version, they had that luxury of revisiting and reworking the entire script.

This was a good lesson for me, courtesy of the genius minds who recreated Sherlock Holmes for the 21st century. Revision may be a lot of work – a lot of reworking what you already thought you had done. But it’s not a drag, it’s not a pain. It’s a second chance to make something terrific into something brilliant.

* I’ve been steadily working my way through the pile of books I’ve amassed. Some of them have been useful and I took notes. Others I perused but decided not to spend much time with them. It feels good to see that pile shrink, it was starting to bug me.

* I’ve been writing relatively steadily all week. Just come home and write a scene before dinner. That’s all. Just one scene. You can do it. And when you’re done, yes, you can watch Angel on Netflix.

My future challenge: I already know there are things I want to change and develop in what I’ve already written, but I don’t think now is the time to backtrack. Now might be the time to forge ahead. Take note of all my future changes and keep moving into the book. I’m sure that more changes and ideas will be added to that list as I continue, anyhow. And I don’t want to get stuck in that loop of constantly nitpicking Part One and ignoring the fact that I have no Part Two or Three. I might take a break to read a novel (I have a hard time writing a novel and reading one at the same time – especially if it’s YA) and brainstorm ideas for Part Two. But limit the time spend brainstorming and make sure to get back to work before long – I know a good Avoidance strategy when I hear it!

* Procrastination/Distraction (aka, Netflix)
* Impatience (leads to inefficient use of time and general crazy head)
* Boredom (you’re bored with your book? well fix it. you’re boring yourself.)
* Ignoring the blessings of the muse (yes there is a lot of work to do and it looks ugly right now, but there might be some very lovely things about this book if you would just sit down and WRITE IT already.)
* Envy (yes, I know, it’s in the Big Seven but I think it belongs here, too. We do harm to ourselves as writers when we compare our in-progress work to the finished, polished, published works of other writers. It’s not fair to us or our works in progress.)
* Avoidance (Just sit down, just sit down in the chair and write. Just do it. Pretty please. No–no more internet research! No more note-taking or outlining! No!)
* Giving up

They are all thematically linked, of course. I was thinking of procrastination lately (most likely while procrastinating). I came across a meditation CD that would supposedly cure a person of this sin. But it begs the question – how would I not procrastinate from actually listening to the CD? It’s a conundrum.

I think I’ve been suffering most keenly from…wait, from ALL OF THESE. SIMULTANEOUSLY. The one that I realized recently was Avoidance, which is vaguely different from Procrastination. For me, Procrastination is “okay, time to write. Oh, but I’m hungry, why don’t I have a snack first. And while I have my snack, I’ll watch Angel on Netflix. And when I’m done with that, I’ll get another snack and browse Netflix for random movies.”

While procrastination is obviously bad, avoidance can be just as insidious – though it is dressed up in the best intentions. For example, I have a strong urge to scour library shelves and online catalogs in search for books to read to “research” my book. This results in a stockpile of books that I intended to read for research – which I have yet to do. I haven’t had time, I’m too busy trolling the internet for other books I must read! If I were actually reading these books, that would be called research, fair enough. But the endless searching is Avoidance – maybe even Resistance to sitting down and getting any work done? It creates real problems – it takes time away from writing, it adds these to-read books to my already-overwhelming to do list, AND – most dangerous of all – I’m convincing myself that I CAN’T write this book right now. Apparently I just don’t have the correct words or information or something or other in me, and I need to spend time SEARCHING for it before I start writing. I could search forever. I could find the most perfect research books. But even if I were to read these illuminating volumes, that still leaves the writing of my book. Which I have been avoiding.

So what am I going to do about this? I’ll report my plan of attack in my next post.

I am back at work but still reading and researching and letting ideas germinate. Thinking a lot about how best to balance work and writing and life in general. If anyone has any thoughts on this, please let me know. I need to keep the writing going even during a normal work week.

So I took a little break. Did the aforementioned snacking and reading and whatnot. Then I went back to it and yes, it has some problems, some still unanswered questions. But it isn’t all bad, I don’t think. Not all of it. There’s something here I can work with.

I could continue down the path of “Writing is hard! This is stupid! It’s not good enough I hate it I quit!” That path is wide open and all too easy to take (along with drowning in Netflix and ice cream and my own misery). But perhaps for now I will choose optimism. You can choose these things, you know. The book is far from perfect, far from done. Far from even figured out yet. I really don’t know what it will be. But I’m ready to stick around for a while and find out.

In other news, I visited the MFA yesterday. I’m now a huge fan of Odilon Redon and Randolphe Bresdin – very beautiful black and white fantastical etchings, a few of Redon’s are dedicated to Edgar Allan Poe (that’s the sound of worlds colliding). Above is The Reader, Redon’s portrait of his teacher, Bresdin. So peaceful, so thoughtful…It’s a relatively small exhibit of their work (along with a million other things that I loved there which I will talk more of later) but it’s only there for a few more days so if you are in the neighborhood I highly recommend it.