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Here And Back Again
Oct. 16th, 2012 03:19 pmNo writing today--this was one of those days where I had to remind myself that it's always vastly better to catch a big historical mistake in your work (or two, as the case may be) before the book goes to press, even if you've written something like 20,000 words of storyline based on those errors.
Easily avoidable errors, too--I'd forgotten a couple of important bits in Geronimo's autobiography, and violated my own rule about "spot research" when I didn't go back over it before writing the young Geronimo into the story. Ah well. It's just a matter of figuring out how to do the rewrites, so I spent today's writing time running potential new plotlines and corrections through my head while sorting out stacks of a few hundred ancient and medieval history books that have been staring at me for weeks.
Anyway, I didn't spend this past week in the 19th century. I'd been tossing around the idea of writing a prologue for Arizona for as long as I've been writing it, but nothing gelled in my head. Then I thought about experimenting with taking the final present-day chapter and chopping it up to make the book a frame story. The first slice would be the prologue; most of the rest would be "interludes" before (most of) the historical chapters, tying in with that chapter somehow, and then the wrap-up would become the final chapter. I usually have difficulty telling if something I write is any good right of the bat--it needs at least a few weeks to sit and simmer--but I suspect I'll be keeping what I've done so far.
Below is a Progress Report for Sunday, when I knocked out the prologue's second half. The title, "Water in the Desert", is just a working one until I think of something a bit more specific.
PROGRESS REPORT FOR 10/14/12
New Words: 3300. Arizona-born / current Washington D.C. resident Angelica Yahzi gets a close up look at the southern border with the help of a Shadow Wolf federal agent named Luis Kicking Horse.
Total Words: 196400.
Reason For Stopping: Finished the prologue, and had to get ready for work.
Book Year: Unspecified present day.
Mammalian Assistance: Vegas guarding his box pile.
Exercise: Walked Tucker around the neighborhood in the morning, then walked down to campus.
Stimulants: Dr. Pepper.
Today's Opening Passage(s): “Don’t wear shorts, unless you want to cover your legs in suntan lotion,” Florinda told me when I wandered into the kitchen following the smell of bacon and eggs. “Long pants made of cotton if you have them. And a wide-brimmed hat.”
We ate leisurely—meals were the only time Florinda relaxed—and then were off.
Daylight reminded me of how brown everything in the desert can be. Some yards had grass—I didn’t want to think how much water that required—but most were dirt and sand. The same was true for the city. Most of the green came from the saguaro cacti, the tall multi-armed ones people picture when they think of the American desert. Saguaros crowned the ridges and almost every yard—once planted the same way Washington landscapers used trees, now a protected species houses were built around, when there was any money to build. Occasional cottonwood trees grew along waterways, including those without water, as well as the stubbornly deep-rooted mesquite trees everybody wanted to use for barbecues but whose thorny limbs nobody wanted on their property.
Darling Du Jour: (Kicking Horse) stood akimbo surveying the land with a fearless respect I envied, amid this windless, waterless place as a lone man in the eye of a sun-drenched hurricane. All at once I could see it: The hundreds of generations blending together, names long forgotten, bones swept away, but leaving rare traces behind: spear points in mammoth bones, stones hand-shaped to grind corn, shards of pottery, rusted spurs, lead bullets, small stone piles marking trails beneath the sprawling needled branches of an ocotillo cactus. The body of a man who offered water to those following that ancient highway.
Non-Research / Review Books In Progress: Strays Like Us by Richard Peck; Who Murdered Chaucer? by Terry Jones, et. al.; The War that Killed Achilles by Caroline Alexander.
Easily avoidable errors, too--I'd forgotten a couple of important bits in Geronimo's autobiography, and violated my own rule about "spot research" when I didn't go back over it before writing the young Geronimo into the story. Ah well. It's just a matter of figuring out how to do the rewrites, so I spent today's writing time running potential new plotlines and corrections through my head while sorting out stacks of a few hundred ancient and medieval history books that have been staring at me for weeks.
Anyway, I didn't spend this past week in the 19th century. I'd been tossing around the idea of writing a prologue for Arizona for as long as I've been writing it, but nothing gelled in my head. Then I thought about experimenting with taking the final present-day chapter and chopping it up to make the book a frame story. The first slice would be the prologue; most of the rest would be "interludes" before (most of) the historical chapters, tying in with that chapter somehow, and then the wrap-up would become the final chapter. I usually have difficulty telling if something I write is any good right of the bat--it needs at least a few weeks to sit and simmer--but I suspect I'll be keeping what I've done so far.
Below is a Progress Report for Sunday, when I knocked out the prologue's second half. The title, "Water in the Desert", is just a working one until I think of something a bit more specific.
New Words: 3300. Arizona-born / current Washington D.C. resident Angelica Yahzi gets a close up look at the southern border with the help of a Shadow Wolf federal agent named Luis Kicking Horse.
Total Words: 196400.
Reason For Stopping: Finished the prologue, and had to get ready for work.
Book Year: Unspecified present day.
Mammalian Assistance: Vegas guarding his box pile.
Exercise: Walked Tucker around the neighborhood in the morning, then walked down to campus.
Stimulants: Dr. Pepper.
Today's Opening Passage(s): “Don’t wear shorts, unless you want to cover your legs in suntan lotion,” Florinda told me when I wandered into the kitchen following the smell of bacon and eggs. “Long pants made of cotton if you have them. And a wide-brimmed hat.”
We ate leisurely—meals were the only time Florinda relaxed—and then were off.
Daylight reminded me of how brown everything in the desert can be. Some yards had grass—I didn’t want to think how much water that required—but most were dirt and sand. The same was true for the city. Most of the green came from the saguaro cacti, the tall multi-armed ones people picture when they think of the American desert. Saguaros crowned the ridges and almost every yard—once planted the same way Washington landscapers used trees, now a protected species houses were built around, when there was any money to build. Occasional cottonwood trees grew along waterways, including those without water, as well as the stubbornly deep-rooted mesquite trees everybody wanted to use for barbecues but whose thorny limbs nobody wanted on their property.
Darling Du Jour: (Kicking Horse) stood akimbo surveying the land with a fearless respect I envied, amid this windless, waterless place as a lone man in the eye of a sun-drenched hurricane. All at once I could see it: The hundreds of generations blending together, names long forgotten, bones swept away, but leaving rare traces behind: spear points in mammoth bones, stones hand-shaped to grind corn, shards of pottery, rusted spurs, lead bullets, small stone piles marking trails beneath the sprawling needled branches of an ocotillo cactus. The body of a man who offered water to those following that ancient highway.
Non-Research / Review Books In Progress: Strays Like Us by Richard Peck; Who Murdered Chaucer? by Terry Jones, et. al.; The War that Killed Achilles by Caroline Alexander.
