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Chaos & Complex Systems Seminar
Writing a novel
Date: Tuesday, September 2nd
Time: 12:05 pm - 1:00 pm
Place: 4274 Chamberlin Hall (Refreshments will be served)
Speaker: Russell Gardner, Jr., Freelance scholar after psychiatry career without present institutional affiliation
Abstract: Many people write novels. For example, I find many columns of the New York Times seem to have writers as intended readership (or those who wish to write). My own focus started suddenly on a late night near the end of February, 2012. In O’Hare Airport, standing on the tarmac I suddenly decided to include myself amongst the group, and from that moment began. I tell how this happened, and how I have tried to attain compositional skills in fiction, including lessons from books, conversations and trial runs, and now formal courses sponsored by the Madison Writers Studio taught by two novelists (MadisonWriters.com). At the time of this abstract, I am half through a year-long course entitled “Novel in a Year.” It involves writing 25-pages per month (in my case, sequential chapters) to accumulate by year’s end in a first draft. The structure itself has helped me. Previously I’ve felt stymied with lengthy prose of any kind, and suspect that it will stand me in good stead for efforts in the future.

In this presentation I plan to relate:

How the process began for me,
Fixed narrative features, roles of chance and imagination, "what's next?"
Characters, plot, and “center” or “novelist’s mysterious question,”
“Novel novel” vs “Old novel,”
Social relations in writing process, and
Fiction-writing vis-à-vis psychoanalysis.

Host: Clint Sprott
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