To keep writing
About a year ago, a text came to me that felt like a good opening for a new script. It would then be the third story about Algot, who is also called Beatrice, and who I have already written about in Rockrose Resort and in the upcoming book The Beetle in the Tree. I had an idea that Algot and his friend Mona should be allowed to meet again after they left Rockrose Resort. Or rather, they demanded it from me.
I would like to have an overarching idea about a script, something that transcends the plot itself. We can call it shape. I wrote the beetle in the tree with an idea in the back of my mind about a “presence in absence”. For the third part in the series, an idea about “expectations and disappointments” came to me, which can now serve as a theme for the external form of the script.
So I had an introduction that felt good, I had the plot ready for me in broad strokes and I had a pre-idea. Also, it would be about characters I already knew. Still, it stopped. I had to put the project aside to devote myself to other things instead. It was only a few days ago that it suddenly got going again and I was able to continue writing on the script.
A good idea can turn into a lousy result if you are not careful. I would like to call it caring about one’s text and one’s idea – not neglecting it. On the other hand, you have to write for it to become something. Write, write, write! is a common call to anyone who wants to get started. Yes, you can do that. But in this case, it didn’t work. It was like I had to wait for the right opportunity.
And anyone who writes themselves knows how strange this is – once it flows. Where does it come from? Why do I suddenly know what is going to happen, or rather; what is it in me that invents what I write down? I believe that creation is usually an intuitive, more than an intellectual act. I don’t sit and think out the plot bit by bit, the plot happens on the paper while I write it down.
It is all very strange!
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Mattias Kvick is an author and illustrator