La peur

La peur (Fr.)/ Fear (Eng.) noun: a feeling of agitation and anxiety caused by the presence or imminence of danger.

Charlotte Rampling: The Look on Nowness.com.

Today is Day Three of a 30-day challenge to write a 50,000-word novel (National Novel Writing Month).To keep on the pace, I should write approximately 1,700 words per day. To say that I am behind that pace is an understatement. I spent Day One in a drunken state hoping that the wine would deliver me with a story idea, a brilliant character, a setting. Something. Anything. Instead it gifted me a hellacious hangover and zero words. Day Two I was too hungover to write, although I did birth a rather long (dare I say 1,700 words long?) mental list of reason why quitting was a good, no a great idea.

This morning I awoke to a fabulous bit of advice in my inbox... "Just plan to write a 50,000-word pile of hot steaming shit." Which is what I have now officially begun to do.

"Write what you know" I once heard said about the writing process. After too much coffee and a bowl of fruit,  I have written 2,936 words about the first time I tried living in Paris, back in 2006. Only 47,064 steaming hot words left to excrete.

Is there a story line here? A plot? Interesting character development? I have no freaking idea.

"There's an animal excitement about confronting situations where you have no idea what the outcome will be. When you're presenting yourself in front of crowds... what can happen. There's a challenge element to the exposure which is quite, well it's almost erotic. In a sense challenging your senses to that, you're pushing yourself to go dangerously into places. But that's what fuels most interesting things. Fear."

- Charlotte Rampling, for The Nowness