Chapter 1 is a Good Place to Start...
This blog is the nothingness into which I will scream and spit and swear as I write my first novel. I am 44 years old. I have written many poems. I think two of them were good. When I say good, I mean not toilet paper, strictly speaking. I have taken several whacks at the same book. Each time I’ve gotten a third of the way in and found myself lost. This blog is not about that book. Fuck that book. Fuck it hard and don’t buy it dinner but maybe come back to it one day because of masochism.
Making up stories (fragments, at least) is a ritual I use to help me fall asleep at night. Sleep is—well, it’s been elusive on and off in my life. And it’s precious. I work 60 hours a week. Oh, did I mention I’m trying to write a novel? In my ritual, I kept returning to the same two characters and their relationship over and over again. I experimented on them like a deranged social scientist. I learned how they reacted to this peril and to that choice. They were tested rigorously. Soon enough (if a couple years is soon enough) there was a world built around them. They had circumstances. Challenges. Stuff going on. Inside my head. There’s stuff going on inside my head, folks.
I love these characters and I think I will enjoy seeing where they take me and who they want to be. Other people have sprung up around them. They all deserve a book. They deserve a good book, but they’re going to have to take the book I give them. The bags I will get under my eyes will be a small price to pay for taking them out of my head and onto the page. I’m kidding, of course. I already have bags under my eyes.
I make no promises about how frequently I will write here. I will write here when I have the time and feel the need. I make no promises about the timeline of completing the novel. I certainly make no promises about the quality of the book. But I will finish a draft of this book if it kills me. Unless, of course, it kills me.
I am much too old to do this and much too old not to do this.
PROGRESS REPORT: Over the last week, I have stolen enough time from my life to plot out the major beats of the story. Some pretty rugged outlining has been completed, which proves that the title of this blog post is a big fat lie. All major and some minor characters have pretty decent descriptions. The first draft of the opening scene of the first chapter is written, along with a couple of important bits of dialogue/monologue which will come later down the line.