Coffee Novelist

Your relationship with a piece has many layers. As you move through the layers, you see clearer and it sinks into your system. And then you liberate yourself in a healthy way from the technical necessities of the piece. That is when you make music.”    Anne-Sophie Mutter, a world-renowned German violinist

 

Layers

I found this quote in an article I was reading on my phone about ten minutes before ISO’s production of Mozart & the Chevalier. There is a movie out with the same title, but this was the live symphony performance which was just about to start.

I really enjoyed being in the old theatre seeing live music on a frigid Friday evening in January. The work week I endured working outside would have made Earnest Shackleton proud.  I wore lots of layers to keep warm. Could be why the quote resonated. I don’t think so. I didn’t finish reading the article as the house lights went down and put my phone away as requested.

 

I am not a big fan of reviews of any sort. It just doesn’t make sense to me to think I would experience Chicken Carbonara, Romeo & Juliet, or Porky’s in a way remotely close to how anyone else would.

 

I ain’t trying to prove a point but I say that because I spent a lot of the concert imaging the musicians in their street clothes and sweats practicing, practicing, and practicing the music the needed to in order be ready when it was time to hit the stage in their black gear. I even wondered if they had to buy their own performance night outfits. I suspect that they do. All part of getting through the layers.

Layers upon layers

It takes time to do anything of value. Time in sweats, practicing, moving through the layers, getting familiar with what you are working on. That is why I liked the quote so much, I suppose. It is how I go about my writing practice. I’m in sweats now, writing this post before writing a bit more of the Trier goes to London.

 

My relationship with the novel is in a good place. We know each other well by now. My favorite characters have emerged from the layers. I have an end in sight but that can change as it gets closer. The technical necessities come later. I know what they are already. They are the performance night blacks, and I will also have to pay for them: editor, proofreader, cover design and all that. Which is not what the violinist is referring to, I know. And, hey, I get that she’s talking about a piece of music. To me, it’s all mental energy to start with and it’s my post, so there you go.

For me, for now

In a few minutes, I will start to find out what the novel wants me to do for this layer, this next paragraph, page and stage of our relationship. We’ve been together long enough now that I can be who I am, and the novel can do the same. The stuff I have to pay for, the technical necessities, don’t matter at all. Nor does a single craft book, blog, podcast, beta-reader or Stephen King.

This relationship is between the manuscript and me. This relationship is only for me, for now. After the technical necessities, it is all yours.

 

 

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