| | I picked up No Plot? No Problem! yesterday at my neighborhood Borders, which is only a five-mile walk down 29. I figure it'll help me with the novel I'm working on, presently called "That Novel I'm Working On" or "Prodigy" for short. Since I started flipping through the book I actually feel like I'm taking the writing seriously. I'm mapping out the plot by putting each scene from the story on an index card (example: "Nick dreams he's joined Tom and the 'punks under the staircase' he now hangs out with"). I also drew up a giant map of the main character's neighborhood, a fictional community somewhere in the vast parking lots of Silver Spring called "Shady Oak."
If I said I hadn't based Shady Oak on Stonegate, I'd be lying through my teeth. It's not that I have a grudge against the Stonegate-ers . . . it's just big, close-knit neighborhoods (what I remember Shannon called a "neighborhoody neighborhood") are good fodder for novels. Like The Stepford Wives. Certainly it has nothing to do with the fact that in 7th grade I worked on a project with someone who lived in Stonegate and found his family incredibly unwelcoming and stuck-up. Or the fact that in 8th grade I went to a party in Stonegate [actually, it was South Stonegate] and got humiliated. I'm over that. (Never mind that in 10th grade I repeatedly trashed Stonegate, calling it exclusive and snotty.)
That and since I'm feeling so anti-establishment I also got Green Day's American Idiot. (Orgasmic grunt/sigh) It's really sweet. Better than any Green Day I've heard before. And you have to listen to it straight through - none of that "put the CD player on random" crap. They're telling a story through song! Oh, rapture!
Check out the map of Bizarro Stonegate - er, "Shady Oak" at http://newsuburb.tripod.com/picofweek/. Do it. |
| | Posted 2/27/2005 9:56 PM - 1 view - 2 comments
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