Eileen R. Tabios is a poet working in multiple genres and in-between. She also loves books by writing, reading, publishing, critiquing, romancing and advocating for them. This blog will feature her bibliophilic activities with posts on current book engagements and links to her books and projects related to books.

Thursday, June 29, 2017

GEARING UP TO RETURN TO THE NOVEL


After spending every day of 2016 writing a novel -- and writing a book about writing that novel ... that is not yet written -- I spent the first half of 2017 basically ignoring the manuscript, though I'd occasionally think about it.

I did know that I needed to clear space to devote to editing/re-writing the first draft--it's a massive undertaking. For such to happen, I'd have to finish one last poetry manuscript to get it out of my In-Box. Well, I finished this last week!


And still I hemmed and hawed about returning to the novel until yesterday when I finished Clare Messud's brilliant novel, THE WOMAN UPSTAIRS -- a novel synchronistically about an artist who was fearful *going for it*, the same impetus I require for completing the long-form novel.


Sometimes, one needs to be tipped into writing by the reading of another's brilliant book. So it was with Clare Messud--here's an excerpt:


I chose the above excerpt, btw, because that moment Messud describes is, for me, not something from "school or college" but something that arises when I'm writing/making a poem. Perhaps that's why I'm prolific -- I revel in the poem's extraordinary experience. Anyway, ...

... my gratitude to Clare Messud. This is the novel that's reinvigorated me into the next stage of the novel-writing:




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