DIP is the endearing term I use to refer to my next novel. For years, the DIP was the last page in the file where I list all my project ideas
—just one short paragraph with a pitch and a footnote saying I wasn't yet good enough to undertake it. I'm still not good enough, but I've been fiddling with it in my spare time
for years now. It kept me pretty busy in New York: for some reason, writing about Catalonia in English and from 6,000 kilometers makes it more interesting. And it's going to be weird, and personal, and different from anything I've done before, and there are bits I'm really proud of so far but right now they're like fragments in a shipwreck. But my editor likes it, so it's going to be the next novel.
I often think that the research, the notes, maybe even the plotboards are a writer's excuse to delay the actual work of
phrasing what's in your head. If I'm right, then this thing here is a big waste of time. But it's cute.
The white squares represent units I haven't written yet. The colored squares are units I've written
—kind of. The struck-out squares are those that I'm happy with. When all the squares are filled and struck-out, the novel will be ready.
Good thing we're writing TV projects in the meantime.
