Friday, June 24, 2005
Back to work
No, I don't mean the 9-5 (which is really an 8-4). I found my missing notepad of character sketches. That combined with the rival talk from a couple of days ago gave me all the motivation I needed to get things going again. Well, everything except the going. The spark's there, but it's not a fire yet.
Two Iraqi voices from a radio interview this morning:
"You're risking your life to go outside at night, but you have to go. What else can you do?"
"Yes, going out is a defiance of the authorities, but what can you do?"
These people are living in what NPR called "another season of water shortages, no electricity, and bombs." There used to be a blogger who wrote from there, but I haven't read her blog in a while and I can't look up the link right now. But just imagine what it's like to grow up in that.
That's what I'm writing now. Not literally, of course, but in a round-about, extrapolated way. Imagine characters who have survived a terrible war working with ones who have no concept of violence. That's a little bit of this piece.
A very little bit.
I'm such the epoch writer. Short stories kill me. Sometimes writing scene-by-scene might create a short story structure, but generally speaking I can't help but rub my hands and grin as I drop in little bits of bait that pull the reader through dozens of pages of questions. Discovering a novel should be an exploration. Some parts might warrent hours, other mere minutes. But shouldn't the journey be just as fun as the destination? ¶ 0 comments
Two Iraqi voices from a radio interview this morning:
"You're risking your life to go outside at night, but you have to go. What else can you do?"
"Yes, going out is a defiance of the authorities, but what can you do?"
These people are living in what NPR called "another season of water shortages, no electricity, and bombs." There used to be a blogger who wrote from there, but I haven't read her blog in a while and I can't look up the link right now. But just imagine what it's like to grow up in that.
That's what I'm writing now. Not literally, of course, but in a round-about, extrapolated way. Imagine characters who have survived a terrible war working with ones who have no concept of violence. That's a little bit of this piece.
A very little bit.
I'm such the epoch writer. Short stories kill me. Sometimes writing scene-by-scene might create a short story structure, but generally speaking I can't help but rub my hands and grin as I drop in little bits of bait that pull the reader through dozens of pages of questions. Discovering a novel should be an exploration. Some parts might warrent hours, other mere minutes. But shouldn't the journey be just as fun as the destination? ¶ 0 comments
