I slogged my way through the resolution for The Novel, and it felt so unnatural that I had to go back to the outline and see how I was going to get the main character from Point A to Point Z.
This was a big job, too big for the iPad. This was a job for the whiteboard. The whiteboard, the dry erase marker, the the yardstick for the straight lines, the index cards, the numbered Ziplock snack bags in which to put the index cards of scenes and imagery to be taped to the right side of the whiteboard to augment the dry-erase notes of the progress of the … not one … but two themes.
All this happened, and then, at nine in the evening I was sitting in the office chair making a final note about the resolution. The big whiteboard was tilted against the wall, the resolution was at the bottom of the whiteboard, and instead of getting of the chair, I just leaned down to make my note at floor level. While I was sitting in an office chair. I don’t know what it is about office chairs that make me forget the fundamentals of physics, but of course as a I leaned my top part over to make a note by my ankle, the chair slid out from under me and I fell forward.
I was fine, the whiteboard was fine, but when I slid down the whiteboard my shoulder wiped out everything from the midpoint to the last plot point.
Happily, none of it was inspired, and it wasn’t too hard to re-create. Not the early works of Hemingway. Still, it might have been a disaster.
4 responses to “Rewriting the Novel: a Brief Setback”
I love whiteboards (and spreadsheets, for behold, I am a nerdy weirdo), but *yes* they are very vulnerable to accidental sleeve-wipes. I’ve never taken one down with my shoulder, though! That’s impressive. (I assume you’ve snapped a photo of the map For Posterity and/or in case Gary decides, somehow, that he needs to use the whiteboard for something and wipes the chart out?)
KC – not a chance. It is my whiteboard; he has his own much smaller whiteboard.
We have shared whiteboard custody at this time, but since the whiteboard is predominately in use to explain concepts/constructs to the other person, it works just fine. (I mean: it also occasionally holds random calendar notes – like the current list of all canning dates of pickles, so that we know when their requisite six weeks of brine-soaking are complete – but so far: mostly explaining things that don’t explain well orally to the other person.)
That said, I was mildly annoyed that after a couple of decades of wanting to own a magnetic whiteboard: a whiteboard was purchased and it is not magnetic, sigh. But it is a whiteboard! So that is exciting to “I’d rather have a whiteboard than a dozen long-stemmed roses” nerdy me, anyway. (magnetic whiteboards are just so much easier for some uses! you don’t have to depend as heavily on sticky notes!)
And if I ever write a novel, we’ll have to work out custody somehow…
KC – it IS SO DISAPPOINTING when the whiteboard isn’t magnetic. I got mine for free so I can’t complain, but yes.