Just a quick Tuesday update.
Well, it died. Our computer that is. I'm looking around for a Mac repair person to replace the hard drive. This should not concern you (I wasn't really worried that it would) except that there will be no pictures to accompany this post.
The shingling of the cabin has begun. Rick and I got the rest of the decking on the roof, blacked it all in (put down tar paper), and roofed up one side nearly to the ridge. Let me just say that having never laid dimensional shingles before, that they are worlds easier to lay than traditional tabbed shingles--- no rain grooves to line up. That, and they resemble cedar shakes. All in all, whoever designed them deserves a serious pat on the back. I also need to admit that I keep finding myself on roofs, and a sick part of me likes it. I always swear I'll never do it again, but something in me likes the work.
Today there are tornado warnings all over the place, and I'm a little worried about that side of the roof that only has tar paper stapled to it. It wouldn't really be a big deal if it gets blown off, but I'd just as soon not have to re-do that job. We'll see I guess.
As for the writing, I made some headway this week on a new story. I'm working on the When-Al-meets-Amy part of the story. What's both nice and troubling about this section of the story is that no one really knows anything about it. It was over 125 years ago and no living relative has ever heard the story, and there aren't exactly census records for such things. I suppose this means no one will be able to tell me that I'm getting it wrong. On the other hand, I almost certainly will get little right about it. My philosophy on the matter is-- take what facts you have, imagine the rest. It's the best you can do. You might brush up against some part of the truth. At the very least you'll know more than you did before. I only hope I can do them some justice.
It's an interesting conundrum really. Part of me just wants to base a story loosely on their lives, change names and free things up to take more license. but a bigger part of me wants to follow my original intent, to try and write their stories as accurately as I can. It makes it a much harder task in some ways. First you have to learn all you can about your subjects, learn it so well that you can get a sense of the "essence" of the story (hopefully). Then comes the telling part, which is difficult for a whole other set of reasons. A. making time to sit down and write. B. being able to get in the right frame of mind. C. writing is hard.
It's also exciting. I read a while back that writing was a process of discovery. At the time, I didn't relate to that very strongly. Most of the writing I had done was straightforward non-fiction stuff and a dabbling of poems. The kind of writing where you pretty much have an idea of what you're trying to say before you say it. Writing a story, even a "true-fiction" one, is a whole different animal. It really is about discovery. It's been interesting and fun to find out what the writing will look like at the end of each session, because at the outset I only have a vague idea of where it's headed. Sometimes I'm amazed and sometimes I'm aghast, but I'm always surprised.
But before I can get back to that process of discovery in earnest, I have to fix my computer.
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