Monday, October 5, 2009

Thoughts in the wee small hours of the mornin' ...

"... four in the mornin'
crapped-out, yawning,
longing my life away ... "

Okay, so the "longing my life away" part is a little melodramatic, even for me, but the ungodly hour tends to magnify every feeling ... I am longing to go back to bed, though.

The early rising is the price I pay for the school that Sister Baby attends. She is in a special program that allows her to attend school in the suburbs and she goes to one of the top school districts in the state ... probably in the country. The difference between her current school and the very obviously disadvantaged Boston public schools tweaks my sense of justice and I occasionally feel guilty for winning the lottery that put her where she is ... but mostly I feel lucky. Maybe a tirade about the inequality in the system at a later time ..,

See, I feel better already ... just a little writing and I'm already beginning to resemble a human being again. That doesn't usually begin to happen until sometime after 8:00!


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====But now we interrupt this program for the morning routine. Time to wake the girl and get her ready. After that I will be completely human ... perhaps even downright amiable. The li'l girl tends to have that effect on me. ============================================

So ... wham-o ... now it's like 13 hours later! I have regained and expended all the energy required to get me through the day and I am tired all over again. A little frustrating ... but I've taken the ol' laptop and set it up in the only quiet room in the house (the kitchen -- after dinner, of course) in the hopes that I might catch some random train of thought before the last one leaves the station tonight ...

Well ... I got nothing.

Oh, wait ... here's something. I can tell you about the new character I'm writing. His name is Calloway Nickel. He's the me I might have been had circumstances been slightly different. Soemtimes he's the me I wish I was and sometimes he's the me I'm glad I'm not and then there are times when he is the me I might yet become. I think I need him to tell some of the stories that have been stuck in the back of my head for decades ... so far, he's scraped a couple off the top.

The other sort of new character I have is Miracle DeVries ... who is nothing like me. She is ... how can I explain it? She is a combination of some of the women who have influenced me (positively) over the years ... She's very cool and likable. I think that's important. I've got to like someone to write them.

Actually ... that may not be a good thing. One of the things I strggle with is making the characters I don't like seem like anything more than cartoon bad guys. They tend to talk and act like characters from old sit-coms and melo dramas. Gotta work on that one, I guess.



4 comments:

Vallypee said...

I don't care what you write, Van, just keep on doing it. I love the intimate style of your blog posts, and your words have a lyricism about them I find quite captivating. If you write short stories or books or articles, let me know where I can find them? Please?

Vallypee said...

PS, readers need characters they can like and relate to as well. We always identify with the sympathetic characters, and less with the unpleasant ones, but you're right, both have to be equally real if they are whole people and not just seen from the main character's point of view.

VanO said...

Thanks Val ... can't find 'em yet. They're all in my head and on my hard drive and scattered among about 30 different composition books around my house and office. Trying to organize and produce something readable ... your encouragement helps.

I need to be better about reading your story blog. I'll try.

Vallypee said...

Well, you'll have me queuing up to read them when you get them compiled;-) Is that enough motivation? There are several of me I can recruit...haha.