I Make my Way through this Darkness
I blasted through my latest plot clot and I'm firmly out of the Horse Latitudes. I'll hit 75,000 words tomorrow night, and if I'm lucky, 80,000 by the weekend.
The characters have left Albany. Everyplace else in the book is somewhere I know well and have recently visited. So I think the research phase, at least for this draft, is closing, too.
I'm very happy because the end is now in sight. That last 40,000 words should roll off the keyboard very quickly.
The only downside is that I haven't been able to listen to much Springsteen lately (but I've quoted him in the title of this post, so now I feel better).
My protagonist needs outlaw country. Bruce at his best lets us hope. There's no promise that everything will work out in the end, but there's always that chance.
This story... has less hope. Lots of things in the protag's life are broken, and they're not getting fixed any time soon. He can hope for tomorrow at this point, but that's about it.
So, in the rotation: Johnny Cash's prison albums (Folsom and San Quentin), plus a lot of dark, dark Merle Haggard, and a liberal dose of Kristofferson's early stuff that he wrote while he was drinking... about lost love and dead people. When my protag is about to pick himself up off the floor, I switch to Waylon Jennings or Hank Williams Jr. or George Jones... and like one of Pavlov's dogs, my protag wallows in misery.
The plot is flying now, so that depressing country music is magic.
One final note. For those of you keeping score at home: Daughter and the Saint no longer have strep. But Oldest Son does.
Adam
The characters have left Albany. Everyplace else in the book is somewhere I know well and have recently visited. So I think the research phase, at least for this draft, is closing, too.
I'm very happy because the end is now in sight. That last 40,000 words should roll off the keyboard very quickly.
The only downside is that I haven't been able to listen to much Springsteen lately (but I've quoted him in the title of this post, so now I feel better).
My protagonist needs outlaw country. Bruce at his best lets us hope. There's no promise that everything will work out in the end, but there's always that chance.
This story... has less hope. Lots of things in the protag's life are broken, and they're not getting fixed any time soon. He can hope for tomorrow at this point, but that's about it.
So, in the rotation: Johnny Cash's prison albums (Folsom and San Quentin), plus a lot of dark, dark Merle Haggard, and a liberal dose of Kristofferson's early stuff that he wrote while he was drinking... about lost love and dead people. When my protag is about to pick himself up off the floor, I switch to Waylon Jennings or Hank Williams Jr. or George Jones... and like one of Pavlov's dogs, my protag wallows in misery.
The plot is flying now, so that depressing country music is magic.
One final note. For those of you keeping score at home: Daughter and the Saint no longer have strep. But Oldest Son does.
Adam
Labels: Bruce Springsteen, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, The Manuscript
posted by Adam Hurtubise at 10:19 PM
1 Comments:
I've been sick the last week, sore throat and hacking great wads of stuff. The boy came down with it Sunday. Took him to the doctor yesterday...strep.
Now we're both on antibiotics. I should have seen to mine sooner. I got a nasty viral pneumonia to go with it.
Good on you, with the word count, Adam. Hopefully things settle down and you can keep plowing ahead.
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