1000 Days

I’ve chosen to spend my free Sunday morning reformatting an old laptop hard drive. I’m thus constrained to writing on the phone unless I’m planning on writing later tonight. Ha ha.

Rod Taylor’s Here, There, or Anywhere is my theme music for the moment.

Read a blog yesterday with several college writing prompts for real life. It wasn’t funny after the first couple. Essentially everything after the first was repeating the punchline. The post got me to thinking about a whole host of writing I don’t do here on 1000 Days. I’m not sure how to define it except to say the results show a clear attention to purpose and a thoughtful effort.

Instructive writing. A conveyance.

I’m about inventive writing here. My writing presumes that I’ve digested much of the world around me and that I’ve developed the skills to concoct from that meal a new thing for you to enjoy.

I wonder if I’d have more success writing more towards a purpose than creatively?

165 words on day 513

“You say, ‘Jun-kata’s body surfaced near the Silver Dock.’ I would say—we would say—’Jun-kata surfaced near the Silver Dock.’”

“So you don’t believe in a soul?”

“You asked that before I think. I…I don’t understand this word ‘believe’.”

“Feel…or think…or, you know, believe. You don’t think Jun-kata has a soul?”

“Have a soul? Jun-kata is a soul. I don’t have to think or to feel that he has one. He is one. He doesn’t have one somewhere else. It’s right there. Him. Jun-kata.”

92 words on day 512

Let’s not kid ourselves that yesterday, today, and the next two tomorrow’s worn of 1000 Days are going to be anything but full on placeholding suckage.

If it turns out I write a single word worth reading I’ll alert you somehow. Two words strung together. I guess its pretty unlikely I could ruin a single standalone word.

Streaming worked well yesterday so here goes the same for tonight…

I’m on the front porch. Night chirps nearby and gushes further out along the several paved quarter section lines we call roads. I’m outside. I shouldn’t be angry. I’m trying not to be but I’ve stubbed my thumb throwing a fit when I couldn’t get a cabinet door closed. I suppose the ache is my punishment. I suppose this uncomfortable bench is my Purgatory.

Is going inside once I’m done my Heaven or my Hell?

Today I’m anticipating not being able to write until the end of the day, but I’d like to get started this morning. Warm up the fingers with a little pointless stream of conciousness patter.

Maybe I should have arranged for a 1-minute drill? Those never turn up anything I’ve used later. MAybe once. LEt go with the stream thing.

I’m listening to Rench, an alternative Country group, sing “Oh Sleeper” from their Elkhorn Riders album. The girl, who they rarely feature, is singing. I wish she got more play than she does, but I sense she not a regular. Or if she is a regular I’m in capable of telling when a girl is playing the mandolin. Seems likely.

Deeper in this house, outside our office, my children oscilate between play and joy and screaming at each other. The nanny has arrived earlier than usual so they are both joyful and screaming. The nanny is early because my wife is off for the weekend and headed to the airport at nearly the same time I’m dropping some of the kids off at school. We needed a wee bit of overlap today and tomorrow. We got it.

Of course this single parenting weekend of mine is the reason I’ll be half-past useless on 1000 Days for this and the next four.

223 words on day 510

“Planning?” Roundmartin asked back in the same tone you might question someone just now calling you a motherfucker. Then he went mellow again accepting his fate. “Planning? Planning. Scheming even I suppose. If you could call what I’ve been up to planning certainly you could call it scheming? And if you called it—this—scheming you might as well come right out and call me the bad guy. That’s where you’ve set me in your story. In your plans,” he paused to slather the bit in the original motherfucker tone, “Isn’t it Gane. Isn’t it Holy Man?”

Gane said nothing. Charming didn’t hesitate, “You burnt all of this out looking for me. You killed all these people. My friends. Just to find me. And you couldn’t even do that. Well here I am.” Her Song encompassing gesture sagged but then angered back up to a chest pointing accusation.

“Nice manners.” Roundmartin never looked at Charming he continued stared at Brother Gane. “You might inform her that we like to play this game with a bit more…I don’t know…finesse? I’d have hoped you’d have brought her up better. When one entrusts his baby girl to the care of another they develop…expectations. You know?”

209 words on day 509

This escape from The Song scene continues to brainworm me. I think it’s my first plot point according to the structure I’m conforming to during the construction of this story.

The mobile nature of the scene gives me several locations to work through. The need for there to be questions later on gives me need to be careful how I write and what I include. Ultimately the flight from The Song is genuine, but I need enough uncertainty that Charming can later doubt her experience.

Maybe doubting the truth is typical for her. This seems like reasonably likely accompaniment to her difficulty fitting in to new places; her desires to please people or show off. There’s a good pattern. She keeps her head down hoping to be accepted for herself then when she’s not—or feels she’s not—she acts out or shows off. That gives me a nice ebb and flow to work with.

Back on scene…

This scene is split in two parts: first, the Mayor chatting with Gane regarding what will likely happen with Charming and Gane’s escape planning; second, Charming deciding to go with Gane and finally her being abandoned on the edge of the Benhá River. My purpose is to split Charming from The Song when she might not have otherwise left. I have to give the circumstances just enough uncertainty that Charming can interpret them differently as needed. This is the first (near) direct attack by the opposition on Charming, so I need a motivating reason and a mechanism to exert that force remotely but not precisely.

I also need to have a place for Gane’s experiences after he leave Charming. A minor plot action revealed to Charming later. Potentially I can have the imprecise nature of the attack be interpretable as an attack on Gane or both he and her. Hmmmm. Ze plot, she thickens.

314 words on day 508