Torn Between Four Novels

 Wendall -- every other Thursday

I’m stuck.

 

For 35 years, I’ve believed that you have to write every day. And I have. Not always well, but I realized early on that if I showed up every day, then every third or fourth day I might write something worthwhile. I couldn’t just wait for the worthwhile days—they didn’t come without the worthless ones.

 

I even wrote every morning while I was traveling. Here's my favorite spot in Brisbane.

 

I’ve always tried to start every morning, early, to be sure I got my writing done before I started in on my full time job—teaching and lecturing on screenwriting and helping other writers figure out their voices and their stories.

 

Finally, I guess the burden of trying to think for myself and help so many others at the same time has gotten the better of me.

 

It feels a little bit like being on the tea cups ride at Disneyland, spinning around and dizzy in the same place. . .

 

I seem to be paralyzed with indecision about what to write next. So, I am trying to get my mojo back by doing my favorite part of the writing process—research. Of course, since I am researching four projects at once, it’s also possible I’m making the problem worse.

 

I love research, probably too much. I remember doing my first research project ever, in fourth grade, on the history of Hawai’i. I can still remember how much I loved learning about Queen Liliʻuokalani and, as my education continued, and the libraries got bigger and more beautiful, the delights of learning about things and places that were new to me has never really gotten old.

 

The Wilson Library and Archive at my alma mater, The University of North Carolina.

 

I can honestly say I have spent some of my happiest days ever in libraries, and my particular delight in working in the Humanities Reading Room in the British Library wound up informing two major subplots in my novel, Fogged Off.

 

The exterior of the "new" British Library.

 

The Humanities Reading Room.

Even though we are lucky to have the internet for research, I still prefer doing it in person, with primary sources, surrounded by real books, documents, and photos and making at least some of my notes by hand, in a proper notebook. Of course, all my old notebooks don’t have a convenient “search” function, but I always learn something by going back through them.

 

Some of my favorite Edwardian headlines.

 

A real life trial I'm drawing from.

 

My "inspired by" real life advocate's office in the Inns of Court.

 

Here are a few more documents, books, and photos for my current(?) projects.

 

My aunt at NBC Radio City in Los Angeles in 1942.

And at the Brown Derby.

One of my favorite books on 40s LA.

Something else that's bubbling.

I'm doing research on Paris, both on 19th century ex-pats. . .

 

And in 2006/2007. . .

Aquarium de Paris.

And, of course, on some of its inhabitants.

Wish me luck!!!

---Wendall