a better beginning

Once, I was all but convinced that there would come a morning when I would wake, not in the same bed in which I had gone to sleep the night before, but in my own past.  With a second chance.  I even knew the most likely time and place because so few points in my life hold strong sense memory, one stands out.  It would have been a little too late for changing the person I am at root, but from that morning waking in a strange bed, with brilliant May sunlight on an amber wood floor and the smell of toast and coffee, the sound of women’s voices in the next room, and a television with distressed excitement telling of death I could make a better beginning.

Baby

“Hey. You seen Baby?”
“Whose baby are you looking for, Christmas? My girls are both at home with their mama, and if Shan has gotten around to finishing off her production, nobody has told me about it.”
“Lee, I know you are not stupid. That means you’re just being an ass. I’m looking for that little foreign girl comes in here all the time. You know who I’m talking about. I just can’t get her name. Baby.”
“Bousseh.”
“Bossy. Baby. Whatever. I need to talk to her. Where is she?”
“Dammed if I know, Christmas, I haven’t seen her.”

EYESing And The Body Electric

Ever notice when you’re having trouble sleeping just how strangely your mind can begin working? This morning–puns. Guess it was because of the upcoming surgeries that I had EYES in mind. Wound up with the idea for a series of bad pun mystery novel titles. Fr instance: Eyes and Snow, Eyes Cubed, Eyes Teased, Eyes Stand Corrected, My Myself and Eyes, Eyes Cubed, Eyes Slash, Eyes Surrender. And on and on. Then there came the Teas: Iced Tease, Tease and Sympathy, Tiny Little Tease, Black Tease, Green Tease. And Snow: (a spin off from the Eyes and Snow story) Snow Business: Show Business, Snow’s Shoes, Snow on the Ground, Snow in the Forecast, Snow Matter. The worst of the lot were the icing puns EyeSing and the Body Electric, EyeSing on the Cake, Of Thee EyeSing. yesss, I did get up in the middle of the damn early morning and write down all of those–and more.

Writing…Period

I am having trouble.  It is the fucking voice.   It is like writing underwater.  Or with a cold.  When I re-read what I have done, my ears stop up.  The story is so drearily flat.  My character is as goddam passive as I am.

It is difficult to envision activity.  Purposeful movement toward a goal.  Hell, it’s hard enough to imagine goals.  I ran across something the other day when I was looking at writing quotes (instead of writing).  It  was so perfectly apt I had to go back and find it.

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.  ~G.K. Chesterton

The novel is all MST3K-variety “rock climbing”.  Variations of the same scene, running in a continuous loop, and no progress.  Hell, I’m not even killing words with it.

This is almost as bad as the second year’s book.  In that case, I had more of a character in mind and not much of a glimmer as to a plot.  Now, there is something of a plot, not so much story, and the character refuses to deliniate herself.

I know what she ought to be like.  It’s in the notes. Stubborn bitch seems to want to stay there.

Voice

Back in the right rear of my brain there is a voice that keeps saying–rather exasperatedly–I don’t know why you don’t let me tell the story. (She would punch the me more forcefully than that if there were any way.) Thing is, she has no identifying marks. There is no character to go with. Just that–pardon me, rather bitchy–voice. She is cynical, dry, ironic, observant. She knows everything that’s going on, but is only going to tell what suits her. Smartass, hateful creature.

I thought at first it might be the cat, but the cat is male, and this is definitely female. Also, there is the omniscience. The cat has some special information, being a more-or-less mystical creature with some past lives to tap into, but he is mortal now, and bound by space and time. So he is out, but this voice is someone definitely just as catty.

I do wonder if anyone reading would be able to tolerate more than a few paragraphs now and then from such an irritating being. I mean, irritating to me. You might find her charming. Depends on what she is telling you. She is holding back on me, which pisses me off to no end. Characters ought not behave like that. [Granted, she is not, technically, a character. There is no role for her in the story that I know of .]

I ought to just sit back and let her talk and see what she comes out with, but I’m afraid that if she gets started, I might not be able to shut her up.