The Novel of My Heart

It is important that I write the novel of my heart. What does this mean? Well, it’s a phrase that’s been kicking around in my head for a couple of years now. It’s similar to “Writing your id”. It’s basically writing the images, characters and themes that call to me. The scenes that flash over and over again in my head.

Why is it important that I do this? Well, my debut novel is going to be one that I read and reread a thousand times. I’m going to pull it to pieces, I’m going to fix it up. I need to be as sure as I can be that I won’t get bored with it and give up. The story needs to be worth it. I want the final product to be something I am immensely proud of.

So, what is the novel of my heart? Once again, I come back to free writing. Free writing will tell me what I want to know more often than not. 

What is the novel of my heart? The theme has got to be loving someone you don’t know. That is always the theme. The main character is a woman in her thirties. I don’t know what there is to say… The setting will have to be London. But that’s more practical than it is the needs of my heart. 

What else is there to say? Crashing waves on a beach at night. What else? The iron grey sea. Where are these scenes taking place? Brighton, probably. A heroine with moonstone grey eyes. A sapphic love interest.

Something historical. Time travel. Something supernatural. An impossible love. Ugh, this isn’t getting me anywhere. I don’t know what I’m doing. Not a love story. A crime or a horror. A layered book like Agatha Christie’s Five Little Pigs. Lots of different narrators, lots of different versions of events.

Is that what we’re doing? I don’t know.

This was less positive than I was hoping. Things can’t always be positive or brimming with imagination. It’s funny, though, the story in my mind’s eye only has two main characters. Not lots of narrators, as I’ve written here. Which will win out? Which is a reflection of my heart? Who knows!