tale of the take ~

[lookingland]

i spent half the day working on Eleison and half the day working on In Pursuance of Said Conspiracy. I got some fits and farts done for the first and roughly 10,897 words for the second.

p.s. all of the cuts in this post are spoilery (i'm suddenly conscious that people might actually not want to know all the dirty details of what's going to happen).

my brain pretty seriously fried, so i knew i wasn't going to make the 15k mark and actually quit early. i just don't have the stamina of my youth (that, and i just got sorta stymied on stupid little details ~ per usual).

among the scenes i wrote were a sorta shyte-like self-indulgent bit about the Commission booting Comstock and Porter for arguing about the legality of the trial (dunno if this works), a pretty decent opening court day at the end of which Mr. Hanty and Col. McCall have a hilarious exchange that will probably necessarily be cut because it's too ridiculous, and a scene in which Poppet reads the news about Booth catching it in the barn and Chammy attempting suicide.

and here's another place where my thoughts lingered.

seems like historians today agree that Chammy never tried to kill himself; that if he came to some harm while on the Saugus it was at the hands of the guards. originally i took it one step further and implicated Major Eckert (why not? he's dirty, i just know it). but i've lately come to the conclusion that i not only don't think the Chammy ever tried to kill himself, but i don't think any harm came to him on the boat at all. and here's why:

1. the newspaper report is the only report of this incident. reporters are notoriously wrong. Czar NastyOwlFace had just ordered that the hoods be put on, so it's pretty reasonable to assume that the reporters thought there was a reason for this and trumped up the story. corroborating this is the fact that the hoods were put on before the alleged attempt was made and the gardner photos on the deck were taken after the alleged attempt. unless he bloodied the back of his head where the pictures don't show it, he doesn't look like someone who just tried to bash his brains out. it's also just seriously contrary behavior to all of the guard reports that Chammy was pretty easy going, docile, slept a lot, and didn't complain about anything.

2. (and this is maybe even more obvious) ~ if Chammy tried to kill himself, why was it never brought up at the trial? especially if Poppet was trying to mount an insanity defense and specifically called the guards and McCall to testify that Chammy had a suicidal ideation (i.e. expressing a wish to die), why not just bring up the fact of his bashing his own head in? here's why not: it never happened.

so, on the one hand i feel kinda disappointed (but glad for Chammy!). on the other hand, there was still blood on his hood (or stains consistent with blood), and there is some indication that Mr. Hanty seems to have possibly been concerned that Chammy was potentially suicidal. hard to say. having read the reports now, i don't explicitly get that impression, just more of a sense that he was mindful of preventing any possibility of mishap. but those kinds of extreme measures were in place with davis as well, so it's not unusual.

if i leave the suicide in the story, i have to find a reason Poppet would ignore it and that seems unlikely (i've been through a dozen possible scenarios and they're all too cloak and dagger). if i cut the suicide attempt, i lose some of the vicious mystery of the "man who can break iron across his own forearm".

perhaps the easiest thing to do would be to have Chammy tell Poppet that he never tried to kill himself and play it down in a way that Poppet thinks it's a dead end. just dunno if that makes Poppet too gullible (he doesn't believe most of what Chammy says, why would he believe this?)

the other possibility (and this is the really far-fetched one: betty says Chammy was docile and woggly because he was traumatized (and had his head smashed in). i still think it's possible he was docile because he was drugged. he had a mood change somewhere between getting arrested and arriving at the arsenol and nothing explains his weird behavior in the court room. either he was really seriously disaffected or there was something wrong with him physically. the fact that no one who ever met him thought he was right in the head intellectually tells you that something about the way he expressed himself was pretty messed up. but then again, it was pretty messed up when he was arrested in march prior to the assassination too, so who knows, really, what his damage was.

nonetheless, i would really be interested in finding out if there were interrogation or torture methods in this era that involved narcotics.

overall i didn't get as much court stuff done, didn't write that scene with Nicolay that i've had in my head forever in a day, and know i shouldn't be disappointed, having written 50 pages yesterday, and yet looking toward this saturday (my looming deadine), and i know that there will be no complete draft in muddville.

that, and this book is ridiculously long (for me ~ it's pushing 300 at this point).

i'd like to get the following done at least:

1. baste in (even crudely) all the trial stuff that's thus far missing (which is, unfortunately, a lot ~ and the biggies: Looey, all of Client A's witnesses, and some major legal blither ~ particularly from Ewing).

2. do something with the closing argument (i've been putting this off, but it's not going to go away). i'm seriously considering just editing it as much as i can (it's dang tight, but i think i can trim some of the stuff that's not actually factual: about the slaves and about meeting Booth in Richmond, stuff like that, that we know is Poppet just filling in where he couldn't get answers), and then slapping it in there as "Closing Argument" and just letting Poppet speak for himself. it seems almost ridiculous and definitely intrusive to try to dramatize the moment with superfluous "business" unless i want to make it ridiculous.

3. write the execution (this has been done by so many writers that it skeers me). i'm really not sure how to make it fresh or how to keep it from tipping over into melodrama. there are "obvious" moments that need to be included (the conversation with Rath, the speak by Gillette, etc.), but i'm still seriously thinking about goofing off with the whole hat thing, just to make a point of it (i'm a bad'un).

i just realized that i haven't really thought about how to end this thing. i have all the epilogues planned out, but the actual end? i know Poppet leaves the arsenal amidst the crowd grousing and perhaps that's enough (i mean, what else is there to say within the scope of this story?). the aftermath gets covered in the epilogues (all hundred and eighty six of them ~ seriously, there are way too many characters in this story ~ hahahahahaha).

anyway, that's my story and i'm sticking to it (for now).

picture of the day: i posted images of the arsenal the other day, well here's greenleaf point today. the federal penitentiary has been gone for a long time, though the site is still a military installation (as evinced by the golf course, obviously).



i believe the yard
where the execution took place
is now a tennis court.

happy thursday all!

: D

Comments

[cathellisen.livejournal.com]

Not knowing anything about this execution or how it was performed, have you seen how Norman Mailer tackles the Gary Gilmore execution in The Executioner's Song?

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

i have!

are you tryin' to make me even more nervous?

hahahahahahahaha ~

there's a part of me that is actially thinking of just watching it from Poppet's eyes, quoting some line he has about the sacred and the profane, and not getting too grisly about the details.

i mean, at the end of the day, in some ways, the details seem so gratuitous.

i dunno. i may try it both ways, see what fits.

[hides from mailer]

: D

[cathellisen.livejournal.com]

Ha, I was meaning just er, "steal" from the greats...

I just remember it because it was both detached, and *not*, which i thought might work for what you want.

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

well that's a very good point ~ maybe i'll grab it at the library today and give it a quick study (it's been a bazillion years). i might also check out Styron's execution of Nat Turner (another book i haven't read in a bazillion years) ~ i can't recall how he handles it, but i'm sure he does it well.

thanks for the tip!

: D