Derry, Northern Ireland

Derry, Northern Ireland
A book I'm working on is set in this town.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

So what do I sink my claws into now?

Since they're so well sharpened and in need of connecting with something of flesh and blood...emphasis on the latter. What I'm putting into POS right now seems so inconsequential, I wonder if I'm wasting time. I have a deadline to meet and won't be able to unless I push harder...and yet...it's almost like this is helping to emphasize the quiet before the storm was not all that quiet.

I have over 45000 words (for everything I've written in this part) and 197 pages. I probably have at least 125 pages to add, still, to connect all the chapters I've written, and that's a conservative estimate. It may be more like 150, because I'm in the middle of September 1968 and Brendan's met some boys who are out to make trouble and have fun doing it. Which puts an interesting spin on this chapter, but adds a lot more to the overall story's length...and maybe depth. Hopefully.

Adding to this is a series of posts put up on Crime Scene NI, the blog by Gerard Brennan. On it, he talks about why he writes (the link is below and it's a fun read) and it got me to wondering why I do it. I've tried to explain my reasoning before, but it crystalized suddenly for me in one sentence that popped into my brain -- "To build a world where people mean something."

However, that's not always a positive thing. People can have meaning in good ways but also in bad ones. Curt's meaning, for instance, in HTRASG, is hardly positive...at least, not until the end. And that's still ambiguous. And in BC, what Eric winds up doing to Bobby, a guy he's never met, also has extreme meaning in both a positive and negative sense both for him and for Bobby, and even for their attacker.

Hm...I think I need to think this through more carefully, once I have the time. Meanwhile, I bought "Cold, Cold Ground" based on Gerard's recommendation. If it gets here before I leave for San Francisco, I'll take it with me. If not...it'll be here for me to look forward to.

And until then...I keep aiming to get done by the 5th. God, my back hurts from this "burden."

2 comments:

Michael said...

I'm honestly just enamored with the cat picture.

JamTheCat said...

It's supposed to be a gif showing it filing its claws, but I can't get it to work on my blog.