Room

I spent last night and early morning reading Emma Donoghue’s novel, Room. The protagonist is a 5-year old boy and it’s written from his point of view. I thought if I couldn’t do much in the way of writing, I may as well read/research for my novel. Since I have some young characters in my story, I thought this book would help give me ideas on how language is used in the mouth of a young child. But this novel doesn’t seem to work for me for that purpose. Wait, that’s not quite right. On the one hand, the fact that this child has a limited world view works really well. So there is some leeway in the way words and language are manipulated. However, this heavy-handed version of child’s point of view is difficult on this reader. I found myself trying to skim through parts to get past the very young introverted portion of the character. It’s a difficult balance. At times, the language is ballooned but those are the times that I am pulled out of the story.

I am a big fan of Emma Donoghue and this is not a review of her book…I am looking at the craft of this particular novel in relationship to the science fiction story that I am trying to write. My mind is circling around the “what next?” of my story and the answer right now is “I don’t know.” At times, I really want to give it up and just move on to work on some poetry or a short story just to get me writing again. In fact, this blog entry is helpful to understand the way I’m thinking about this story that I’m trying to develop.

This week, I worked on some loose sketches for some painting projects down the line. Playing with some color helped to chill out this frustrated mood I’ve been in. It’s not completely gone but the bad mood is not the only thing I see now. The last couple of days have been bittery cold here in New York City. The wind burns the edges of my face but the cold feels good. It reminds me that I am alive and awake and I can move forward with my novel. 


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