I cracked the 10,000-word mark today. Just barely.
I’m pleased that this thing I have willed into being is coming to life and there is a beating heart in there.
I'm not too fond of stories with a lot of table setting. I don’t think anyone does. Modern television and movies have led us to believe there is a need for table setting - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, for example - and perhaps there is in this weird new world of informational tsunamis.
A book should hop right into itself. The Sun Also Rises did to a certain extent, though the opening pages about Cohn were a bit of table setting. Hemingway got it right with the Snows of Kilimanjaro and so much more. More right than I ever will.
What I like about my writing now, the birthing of Journey, American, is that even transactional characters are alive for me now. I think transactional characters are the ones you have to have to make things happen. Getting from A to B just can’t happen without that injection of flavor from that certain person who is great or flawed in just the right way.
In this young phase of my novel, this person is named Johnny Benedeadly. I love his name and, though he is a self-absorbed narcissist, I love him, too. He is the type you love to hate - so good-looking and great at what he does.
If he can be flicked off the stage in the interest of moving the story forward, then he is invaluable.
I have also been able to introduce my version of Louise Brooks, the Journey, American version of her life. She is a main character and I wasn’t sure how to introduce her in a believable way. Tonight, at least, I believe I have.
It is hot in Santa Fe. Windy, too. The threat of fire stands over us like a giant we all choose to ignore because that is all we can do in our time. The truth smacks in the face so much these days that we are moving through our days punchdrunk and not remembering to miss what it felt like not to be.
I'm hooked ~