Alcoholism and Sneakers
My second job, mercifully, had no work for me today. By today, I mean yesterday, but I haven’t slept yet. This freed up a chunk of hours I’d normally not have for writing on a Saturday. It tends to be my biggest writing day, but this week it was a bonanza. This does not mean I cranked out five thousand words. I very much did not.
I had to do extensive research on medieval ships. I’m not a writer that’s going to give you pages of descriptions of settings. The characters and action and dialogue come first for me, but they need to inhabit a plausible sketch. I know much more about carracks than I did this morning. If I know one thing about carracks, this is still true.
I found some diagrams that were on Pinterest, which meant I needed a fucking Pinterest. This rolled into looking at hot dudes on Pinterest for inspiration for a hot dude character, which was time well-spent as far as I’m concerned. Looking at men is a bit of a strength of mine. By the way, long-haired men rule, and when my book comes out, I’ve got a ton of them for you. You’re welcome in advance.
Once I got my main characters on the ship, I needed to write extensively about alcoholism. More accurately, I needed to write extensively about how alcoholism feels. My expertise about alcoholism exceeds even my expertise about hot dudes and again: I know me some hot dude stuff.
In recovery now for over eight years, still I found it difficult to bring novelty to my paragraphs about the struggle with the drink. Perhaps this is a sign of my wellness. Let’s go with that. Anyhow, my initial attack was far too cute. I became frustrated. A friend called. I needed a reset.
We went out for dinner. After eating, we shopped. I bought sneakers, tight Adidas shell toes in black and orange. That felt nice. So I bought a shirt and some shorts and another shirt. Then I had enough ice cream to choke a whale. A whale breaching in a far too showy fashion alongside a carrack.
Speaking of showiness, back home and to the writing I went. High on late stage capitalism and peppermint stick sundae, I found myself unable to do anything other than type what alcoholism felt like to me, personally. It’s why I wanted this particular character to have these troubles, right? To write a bit about alcoholism through an alcoholic’s eyes. So I wrote about alcoholism through mine, naked and plain. What I can still remember about it, anyways. I’m grateful I have to reach so far back for those memories.
I’ve gotten past, at least in terms of this first draft and at least in terms of these couple of scenes, descriptions of the lunacy of perpetual drunkenness. Now, I’ve got my main character and his love interest standing alone at night at the bow of the ship. One of the two has the longest hair.
PHOTO: Between the sneakers and the ice cream, we stopped at a lake. It was perhaps about the temperature of the sun’s corona today and we thought it might be cooler in the woods along the water. It wasn’t, even as the sun set.
PROGRESS REPORT: Around 1,500 words today and very near 20,000 total.