“Before they moved the TV down here I was pretty much all alone by my lonesome a good deal of the time. People was in and out, but for the most part didn’t really pay me no never mind. Course I was in better shape back then, younger, chugging along pretty good even if I was getting up in years. And don’t think that I’m complaining cause I ain’t. I like my own company just fine; it gives you time to think.
But then they fixed up the room right next to my own so the whole family could have a place to assemble, and they made it real nice and cozy, too. And what with the TV down here, well suddenly I had me a whole lot of company, and these folks who had breezed in and out of my room for all that time before was living their lives right in front of my eyes, so to speak.
I had me a family, for the first time ever.”
Those two paragraphs + 1 sentence = the majority of the writing that I have done on my 3rd novel in the past several days. The good news is: I like those paragraphs. The bad news is: obvious. It’s two paragraphs.
I have to make some decisions about the structure of this work before I can go much further. In the meantime, I keep tinkering around with the beginning, the part that I know, the part of the creative picture that is clear, while I continue to grope around in the near-darkness pursuing other parts of the picture — the ones that have blurred, the ones that I am trying to stare at, the ones I am trying to sneak up on while they least expect it.
Agony. Ecstasy. Repeat.
Hi, Barbara:
I have been reading and enjoying your blogs. I read …Green Shirt and was very impressed. I like the passage you pulled out to honor the solstice, the body being unknown by future lovers as the turf where babies were made, a family launched. About these two beginnings: I like that the first one grounded me as a reader, where we were, the characters names, but the second had a richness that was very compelling. Maybe you could incorporate that grounding info into the second so that we know sooner the name of the new mother and who Madeline is. My two cents.
Anyway, I have been clopping along with my own writing, taking novel in progress classes, being part of a writers group. Agony + ecstasy, indeed.
I gather that Taylor is back in Chicago for now, so no more trips to Boston anticipated?
Hope all is well.
Debbie
Debbie!
So great to hear from you! And so very glad you read and liked Green shirt, AND that you are proceeding with your own writing journey as well.
Yes, Taylor and Michelle are back. And raising Michelle’s little sister’s baby. As his foster parents. Long, tragic story; but now there is a 7-month-old, totally awesome baby boy. I take care of him 1-2 days a week. It’s a work in progress, to say the very very least.