Writing
during a pandemic has been difficult for me. I get these cheery emails with
writing prompts and seldom open them. Why? Because I don’t want to be uplifted,
sidetracked—no, more distractions are not welcome at this point. I have a
self-imposed deadline coming up. I must have an ending for my novel. The going
has been tough enough as it is. So, sorry guys, I know you all mean well.
I do have
something for my ending blocked out. It’s a fine workable ending with the
potential to neatly tie up all the loose ends from plot and subplots. But I’m
sorry to say my characters aren’t talking to me yet, not giving me the dialog I
need.
Plus, everything
is taking too much time. For instance, it took two weeks of subconscious
stewing over the name of a new festival to come up with an answer that makes
sense, that works on more than one level. I spent much of that time walking and
thinking and waiting for inspiration. Of course, I’ll have to patch up the text
when I do the next full edit, but I needed something solid to begin with.
This second
Bishop Hill mystery contains quite a few stories: legends, second-hand
accounts, and outright lies. I needed to find a way to draw them all together
and I’m hoping the name of the festival that I came up with will do the trick.
The business
with using Bishop Hill stories isn’t new. I had some in the first book. I’ve
expanded on the theme for the second. My stories could never hold a candle to those
of The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix Harrow. (I listened to the
audio book.) I must rely on my own interpretations of life in a small town—with
a few fictionalized nudges of course. One must remember that conflict makes
things interesting. One person thinking to themselves is fine; drag in the
differing POV of another person and the dramatic happens. That’s why I’m going
to call my gathering of historians, artists, and vendors the Bishop Hill
Treasure Hunter’s Invitational … for now at least.
No comments:
Post a Comment