lookingland (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lookingland) wrote2007-07-06 06:29 am
lookingland) wrote2007-07-06 06:29 am
Entry tags:
idle morning meditations ~
yesterday i get a notice that the Hyndman book is about due back. Hyndman, i think: do i still have that one? where is it? what did i do with it? have i made copies? i do a quick search everywhere and can't find it. i submit a renewel online because i don't want it to be overdue. then later i do a more thorough search and find it at the bottom of a pile of books by my bed. good grief.
i have 23 books out from the library. several of them (like Fairfax's Georgetown memoir), i've had out for almost a year on renewels (it's okay, no one but me would ever want it). i recently returned about five books that i still want to read but which weren't relevent to what i'm doing, so i surrendered them. i'm assuming the other 23 are around here somewhere. in piles. there are four at the left of this computer. three at the right. i see another three on my other desk and i'm pretty sure there are about three on the kitchen table and about eight in my bedroom. i should return Poppet's memoir since i bought my own copy (they're sitting in my bedroom like reunited twins ~ mine's prettier though ~ hahahahaha).
so, it turns out that 10,897 words isn't really all that much in terms of content, really. at least not the 10,897 words that i squeezed out wednesday.
my favorite bits are with Mr. Hanty. none of them are remotely historically accurate. particularly not the one of him daydreaming about his naked wife (!). honestly, sometimes you get on a writing roll and who knows what will tumble out ~
the odd thing, though, is that i was going to delete this non-moment, when i stopped and paused and thought about it. i don't object to Mr. Hanty waxing in a heat about Sallie (who's to say he didn't in his idle moments?). and the scene is well-written (better written than some of the other nonsense i managed). so why not leave it? Hanty wants to get back home to his wife and kids (and Sallie is adamant that he does; she's more than a little fed up with his absences and he's really only been home long enough in the last four years to see two of his children buried and to knock her up a couple of times ~ in fact she's five months preggers with their fifth child while all of this is taking place). so why shouldn't he be thinking about her anyway? sounds perfectly logical to me. and better than staring at the Commissioners all the live long day.
anyway, the point is: i like the discursion away from the immediacy of the trial. i mean, that's what's interesting about all this: the fact that these are real people who have aspirations and idosyncrasies. I think Hanty is going to be a ketchup junkie too. just because. Poppet trims the crust off his toast, which i think is weird, but what can you do?
i had seriously considered (and i can't remember whether i stated this before), writing everything "between" the historical reality ~ like playing court reporter for the "consequential" matters, but really focusing on what's going on between: like the story of the dog (which, i remind myself, is where the whole idea came from: the "poppet"?).
it's a much more voyeuristic approach to the story and maybe one i would feel less pressured to write. because the "facts" would truly become more subjective on some level ~ and people wouldn't be land-locked into trying to understand the history ~ they'd just be following the footsteps of people going about their loaded little lives.
sometimes i think i have to be a history nazi before i can let the reins slacken a little and have fun with a thing. maybe it's time to make this fun and stop worrying about the continuity so much. the book shouldn't be about the insider information. it should be about the characters in conflict.
i dunno what it is about me that i have to start a book 187 times before i figure out how i want to tell its story. but i guess there's no fighting processes.
not sure how to proceed from here. maybe now that i have all the history under control, it would be best to outline the story arcs for the characters and focus on their journeys for a while.
tomorrow's the deadline. let's see what kind of rabbit comes out of the hat.
: o p
picture of the day to be posted later.
i have 23 books out from the library. several of them (like Fairfax's Georgetown memoir), i've had out for almost a year on renewels (it's okay, no one but me would ever want it). i recently returned about five books that i still want to read but which weren't relevent to what i'm doing, so i surrendered them. i'm assuming the other 23 are around here somewhere. in piles. there are four at the left of this computer. three at the right. i see another three on my other desk and i'm pretty sure there are about three on the kitchen table and about eight in my bedroom. i should return Poppet's memoir since i bought my own copy (they're sitting in my bedroom like reunited twins ~ mine's prettier though ~ hahahahaha).
so, it turns out that 10,897 words isn't really all that much in terms of content, really. at least not the 10,897 words that i squeezed out wednesday.
my favorite bits are with Mr. Hanty. none of them are remotely historically accurate. particularly not the one of him daydreaming about his naked wife (!). honestly, sometimes you get on a writing roll and who knows what will tumble out ~
the odd thing, though, is that i was going to delete this non-moment, when i stopped and paused and thought about it. i don't object to Mr. Hanty waxing in a heat about Sallie (who's to say he didn't in his idle moments?). and the scene is well-written (better written than some of the other nonsense i managed). so why not leave it? Hanty wants to get back home to his wife and kids (and Sallie is adamant that he does; she's more than a little fed up with his absences and he's really only been home long enough in the last four years to see two of his children buried and to knock her up a couple of times ~ in fact she's five months preggers with their fifth child while all of this is taking place). so why shouldn't he be thinking about her anyway? sounds perfectly logical to me. and better than staring at the Commissioners all the live long day.
anyway, the point is: i like the discursion away from the immediacy of the trial. i mean, that's what's interesting about all this: the fact that these are real people who have aspirations and idosyncrasies. I think Hanty is going to be a ketchup junkie too. just because. Poppet trims the crust off his toast, which i think is weird, but what can you do?
i had seriously considered (and i can't remember whether i stated this before), writing everything "between" the historical reality ~ like playing court reporter for the "consequential" matters, but really focusing on what's going on between: like the story of the dog (which, i remind myself, is where the whole idea came from: the "poppet"?).
it's a much more voyeuristic approach to the story and maybe one i would feel less pressured to write. because the "facts" would truly become more subjective on some level ~ and people wouldn't be land-locked into trying to understand the history ~ they'd just be following the footsteps of people going about their loaded little lives.
sometimes i think i have to be a history nazi before i can let the reins slacken a little and have fun with a thing. maybe it's time to make this fun and stop worrying about the continuity so much. the book shouldn't be about the insider information. it should be about the characters in conflict.
i dunno what it is about me that i have to start a book 187 times before i figure out how i want to tell its story. but i guess there's no fighting processes.
not sure how to proceed from here. maybe now that i have all the history under control, it would be best to outline the story arcs for the characters and focus on their journeys for a while.
tomorrow's the deadline. let's see what kind of rabbit comes out of the hat.
: o p
picture of the day to be posted later.