Another Karen Said
Glimmer
The glimmer of a character
the thread of a tale
fires up yearning
that maybe I won’t fail
another cup of coffee
and time spent offline
trying to hear a story
from people in my mind
Friday’s Theme Music
Yeah, a free association flow today ended up with this song. It started with writing.
Yesterday morning…stalled on writing a scene. Overthinking it, my home-grown inner writing coach screamed. “Do it!”
Despite that exhortation, I resisted and fiddled. Knowing self, though, finally opened doc, went to scene, started reading and fiddling with words. Then, ah…sweet relief as sentences flowed in and out.
Then, pop: revelation. Surprise. Unseen connections and directions illuminated. Go: write like crazy.
Done with the one-handed writing for the day, the writing continued in my gray space — the brain, yeah, but also those nano vacancies visited while watching TV, petting a cat, searching the sky, scrolling the news — and new nuances proliferated. As it happened (continuing in dream material), it came at last as another piece in the characters’ stained- glass personae: desire.
Who they think they are, claim to be, try to be, fail to be, are seen to be, were before, dream to be, and are said to be punched together.
So, today’s theme music is U2’s “Desire” from 1988.
Sidetracked
I’ve been sidetracked on side stories while pursing the novel-in-progress.
These side stories are about the characters and the quintessential question, who are they? They’re entertaining but time and energy consuming.
One of the characters is Tink. I knew his companion, Deca, very well, and was coming to know his friend, Belt.
Not Tink. I’ve been wrestling with Tink’s character. I couldn’t get a handle on him. Part of me worried about this Tink because of other characters known as Tink, like Tink on “Lovejoy”, the tinker in rhymes and titles like “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”, or Tink as in Tinkerbell from Peter Pan. Didn’t want my Tink to be like those Tinks. My Tink’s name is not short for Tinker; it’s not short for anything. He is Tink, has always been called Tink, and doesn’t know who came up with it.
So, busy on other matters this morning, and suddenly his voice arrived. No fanfare, just there, flashing into my head. Sudden subsequent spurts of excitement were enjoyed: aha, that’s Tink.
Love those eureka moments. Think that’s what I live for as a writer, getting the answer to these queries I’ve created for myself. I always thought the scenes with Emma Thompson as Karen Eiffel in Stranger than Fiction (2006) when she’s wrestling with what should happen. The restlessness, obsession, irritation, and contempt personified what I sometimes experience.
Got my coffee. Time for Tink and I to write like crazy, at least one more time.
