lookingland (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lookingland) wrote2007-05-30 06:27 pm
lookingland) wrote2007-05-30 06:27 pm
Entry tags:
i just can't seem to catch up, rest-wise ~
i am fragged and dreading the long weekend ahead. worse, i'm getting very little done.
Day 30 (eeek!): Goodie Proctor remains sans title
i have cut over 2,000 words from Reverend Razor's sermon (some of which i will recycle for a later scene), but it's still too long. as i slog through it again and again i can't really tell if i think it's too long because i know what it says and have read it ten thousand times or if it's actually just fine. i suspect a radical rewrite before all is said and done since i am sure there's more i can cut.
i wrote about 700 words this morning, which is not a lot, but it's a start getting back into things. the outline is plumping out (it's not great, but the basic structure is there). right now my biggest dilemma is how much i want to use flashbacks or whether i should just keep everything in the "now".
i think i can be clever about melding the two, but i want to be careful to keep things from getting static. a whole book that takes place in a confined space can get rather claustrophobic. even if i send the fellas to Willards for the occasional libation, they're still trapped at a table talking.
aside from the Hanty letter books angst, i've managed to get just about everything else i need at this point. Kat has an account that hopefully will arrive from innerliberry loan shortly. then it's just a question of whether to pursue Mr. Poppet's yale address or let that particular seed fall on the hard stone (after spending $50 for Hanty's stuff, i'm thinking another $45 for Poppet's may be off the deep end).
last night i read Poppet's address to the 4th Pennsylvania Cavalry and found it typically Poppetish: maddeningly modest and completely unrevealing. i continue to have a sense of this person as being steady, dependable, fiscally conscientious for others (local bank president for a long while) but generous with his own money (he was consistently one of the highest contributors to the veteran association of which he served in various capacities ~ including as president ~ for the remainder of his life). he liked to travel (and did so extensively), but was perhaps a little bland ~ highly intelligent, yet very reserved (which makes his closing argument and even his Lehigh address even all the more remarkable perhaps).
his conduct at the trial seems to indicate a sort of lethargic fatalism. he gets slapped down consistently for introducing "incompetent" testimony (which really isn't) and doesn't argue too much when told his behavior is beneath dignity. he allows the court to insult him quite a bit, in fact (and boy do they ever). he doesn't pursue cross-examinations beyond making a point for the record (in other words, he doesn't waste his energy putting up much of a fight like Mr. Ew). this tells me he either doesn't care (which i seriously doubt is the case), or, knowing the case is hopeless, he doesn't wish to prolong the effort needlessly.
while Mr. Ew and the court wind up squabbling constantly, it's interesting how little allowance they give Poppet to do anything ! no, you can't have more time to call more witnesses. no you can't cross-examine someone who's been dismissed for the prosecution now that new evidence has been introduced. no, you can't have an extension because your witness failed to show (more on this later). no, you can't enter into evidence any testimony that might be remotely heresay even though the prosecution's entire case is a pile of heresay and confabulation.
Poppet only voices one objection throughout the trial that i am aware of (and which he later reverses only to be objected to by the court ~ something i still haven't quite figured out). It's interesting to note that Poppet is the only "assigned" counsel at the dock, which makes it all the more treacherous. he didn't want the job, he let them convince him to take it (would love to know how they managed that ~ he agreed on the understanding that it was "temporary" but really should have seen that he'd get stuck with it. my theory: he was too "nice" to put his foot down).
one can't help wonder if he got roped into defending Client A because he was a pushover for hard luck cases (who paid the bill???), and that he similarly took on the second client merely out of some weird sense of duty. it's also possible that the court (or certain members of it) simply thought Poppet wouldn't waste his time actually building a case since they had no intention of making any judgment that doesn't result in a hanging. so it was more like: Poppet, we need counsel ~ just stand in and call a few witnesses and we can all go home. maybe they didn't expect him to put up a fight ~ and really, it doesn't seem like he started to put up a fight until his client began cooperating with him, which was awfully late in the game.
it's really quite appalling the way the court treats his case (he spends a lot of time arguing precendence because they won't let him talk). in truth Poppet doesn't ever seem to really rise against their obvious biases (getting mired down in witnesses who don't show, who backstab him on the stand, and more). except in his final defense ~ then he takes a strong stand. but it's eloquence largely wasted on an audience whose minds are already made up (except for Kat perhaps, who appears to have been genuinely moved by his plea).
i won't get into it now, but i criticized Poppet harshly once before about some of his bizarre decisions throughout the trial, but i've found (studying more closely) that there was method to his madness ~ and that reporters will go far to say what the prisoners on the dock are doing, but they rarely say anything about the counsel for the defense. in piecing together what little we can know about Poppet's angles, it's clear that he was working just as hard as the other defenders (if not in some cases harder) for clients who had, from the start, pretty much no hope whatsoever for reprieve.
i think it was Gat who dismissed the counselors as a bunch of uninteresting nobodies. i think he misspoke on that account. and even i occasionally forget that Poppet was a cavalryman with a lot of initiative who proved a brave soldier in battle, hated his desk job in Washington because it took him away from the action, and only quit the army because he got sick (typhoid or malaria or somesuch). he was hardly a nobody. the army wasn't in the habit of making brigadier-generals out of nancies.
another possible title in the running: If Not for His Sake.
Poppet contributed $100 toward
this monument at Gettysburg
Day 30 (eeek!): Goodie Proctor remains sans title
i have cut over 2,000 words from Reverend Razor's sermon (some of which i will recycle for a later scene), but it's still too long. as i slog through it again and again i can't really tell if i think it's too long because i know what it says and have read it ten thousand times or if it's actually just fine. i suspect a radical rewrite before all is said and done since i am sure there's more i can cut.
i wrote about 700 words this morning, which is not a lot, but it's a start getting back into things. the outline is plumping out (it's not great, but the basic structure is there). right now my biggest dilemma is how much i want to use flashbacks or whether i should just keep everything in the "now".
i think i can be clever about melding the two, but i want to be careful to keep things from getting static. a whole book that takes place in a confined space can get rather claustrophobic. even if i send the fellas to Willards for the occasional libation, they're still trapped at a table talking.
aside from the Hanty letter books angst, i've managed to get just about everything else i need at this point. Kat has an account that hopefully will arrive from innerliberry loan shortly. then it's just a question of whether to pursue Mr. Poppet's yale address or let that particular seed fall on the hard stone (after spending $50 for Hanty's stuff, i'm thinking another $45 for Poppet's may be off the deep end).
last night i read Poppet's address to the 4th Pennsylvania Cavalry and found it typically Poppetish: maddeningly modest and completely unrevealing. i continue to have a sense of this person as being steady, dependable, fiscally conscientious for others (local bank president for a long while) but generous with his own money (he was consistently one of the highest contributors to the veteran association of which he served in various capacities ~ including as president ~ for the remainder of his life). he liked to travel (and did so extensively), but was perhaps a little bland ~ highly intelligent, yet very reserved (which makes his closing argument and even his Lehigh address even all the more remarkable perhaps).
his conduct at the trial seems to indicate a sort of lethargic fatalism. he gets slapped down consistently for introducing "incompetent" testimony (which really isn't) and doesn't argue too much when told his behavior is beneath dignity. he allows the court to insult him quite a bit, in fact (and boy do they ever). he doesn't pursue cross-examinations beyond making a point for the record (in other words, he doesn't waste his energy putting up much of a fight like Mr. Ew). this tells me he either doesn't care (which i seriously doubt is the case), or, knowing the case is hopeless, he doesn't wish to prolong the effort needlessly.
while Mr. Ew and the court wind up squabbling constantly, it's interesting how little allowance they give Poppet to do anything ! no, you can't have more time to call more witnesses. no you can't cross-examine someone who's been dismissed for the prosecution now that new evidence has been introduced. no, you can't have an extension because your witness failed to show (more on this later). no, you can't enter into evidence any testimony that might be remotely heresay even though the prosecution's entire case is a pile of heresay and confabulation.
Poppet only voices one objection throughout the trial that i am aware of (and which he later reverses only to be objected to by the court ~ something i still haven't quite figured out). It's interesting to note that Poppet is the only "assigned" counsel at the dock, which makes it all the more treacherous. he didn't want the job, he let them convince him to take it (would love to know how they managed that ~ he agreed on the understanding that it was "temporary" but really should have seen that he'd get stuck with it. my theory: he was too "nice" to put his foot down).
one can't help wonder if he got roped into defending Client A because he was a pushover for hard luck cases (who paid the bill???), and that he similarly took on the second client merely out of some weird sense of duty. it's also possible that the court (or certain members of it) simply thought Poppet wouldn't waste his time actually building a case since they had no intention of making any judgment that doesn't result in a hanging. so it was more like: Poppet, we need counsel ~ just stand in and call a few witnesses and we can all go home. maybe they didn't expect him to put up a fight ~ and really, it doesn't seem like he started to put up a fight until his client began cooperating with him, which was awfully late in the game.
it's really quite appalling the way the court treats his case (he spends a lot of time arguing precendence because they won't let him talk). in truth Poppet doesn't ever seem to really rise against their obvious biases (getting mired down in witnesses who don't show, who backstab him on the stand, and more). except in his final defense ~ then he takes a strong stand. but it's eloquence largely wasted on an audience whose minds are already made up (except for Kat perhaps, who appears to have been genuinely moved by his plea).
i won't get into it now, but i criticized Poppet harshly once before about some of his bizarre decisions throughout the trial, but i've found (studying more closely) that there was method to his madness ~ and that reporters will go far to say what the prisoners on the dock are doing, but they rarely say anything about the counsel for the defense. in piecing together what little we can know about Poppet's angles, it's clear that he was working just as hard as the other defenders (if not in some cases harder) for clients who had, from the start, pretty much no hope whatsoever for reprieve.
i think it was Gat who dismissed the counselors as a bunch of uninteresting nobodies. i think he misspoke on that account. and even i occasionally forget that Poppet was a cavalryman with a lot of initiative who proved a brave soldier in battle, hated his desk job in Washington because it took him away from the action, and only quit the army because he got sick (typhoid or malaria or somesuch). he was hardly a nobody. the army wasn't in the habit of making brigadier-generals out of nancies.
another possible title in the running: If Not for His Sake.
Poppet contributed $100 toward
this monument at Gettysburg