Zany Zadie and some Musings on Repurposing Frustration

Today I had what many writers think of as a “fallow” day. Monkey mind pulling me along the normative world, everything rational and ordered. Work was engaging, but very specific, and had nothing to do with my creative work…my raison d’ etre, my muse.

Or did it? Somewhere between the Online Professional Personal Trainer Tool client and the Crouton folks, I drifted into dream space, back to my novel. Frustration, actually, was the guide that wrote itself all over one of the characters in Underground. Frustration I felt at myself for not carving time with the page translated to frustration Farrell had with living someone else’s life.

Frustration squeezed from my body, poured into a template, and then repurposed for use with my character. Which, ironically, fairly well describes the process I use when moving from client to client writing marketing copy.

On another note, I’m reading Zadie Smith’s “On Beauty” for my book group, and attempting to dissect it for the way Smith handles her crowd of characters. I’ve found it a long climb so far, and I’ve only reached page 87. But. I think the story is about to improve (or at least move a bit more rapidly) so I will keep you posted!

(And, to all you Zadie fans---I’m trying to like her narrative style, really! I mean, if she’s good enough to garner spectacular reviews about the globe, the fault of my impatience must reside with me!)