tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15302273.post115392543945822514..comments2023-10-08T04:31:20.162-04:00Comments on The Secret Thread: Literature & Spiritual Life: TEASER: Excerpt from Chapter 1 of Mutt's novel - no quotes, for Duke's benefitDuke Altumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17494561267128023739noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15302273.post-1154014822078013692006-07-27T11:40:00.000-04:002006-07-27T11:40:00.000-04:00Yeah, exactly Aura... anything but that.This is a ...Yeah, exactly Aura... anything but that.<BR/><BR/>This is a real interesting teaser, Mutt. Good work. And it is WORK! Reading through this makes me realize again just what a painstaking and (probably) agonizing process it is to write a novel. Think about it: on one level, you're worried about the prose -- the quality of it, the sound of it, the tone. On another, you're concerned with flow -- is the narrative pace right? Does the story move along in the current of its own momentum? On yet another, there are the nuts and bolts, the historical details of the story that are so crucial to the overall effect. You can't just say Walter's standing there in his wedding suit. What did such suits look like back then? The car that pulls up in front of the church, the Cadillac... how do you describe it? Well, you have to know what a 1920's Caddy would look like. It goes on and on and on. And these are only a few paragraphs!!!<BR/><BR/>All of this points to what I had said in my previous post... you need to have some serious chutzpah and creative drive to do this. You need to somehow find not only the initial motivation, but infinitely more crucial than that, the <I>ongoing</I> motivation to see it through to its conclusion. Where does that come from? Well, Mutt's been examining such questions for a while now on this blog. I'm not going to go back over covered terrain. But it's very interesting to see some early fruit from the hours and hours of tilling you've been doing in the field...<BR/><BR/>On my first read of this, I have to say that nothing really sounded out of whack, or implausible, given the time and place. Now of course I'm no expert on 1920's Indiana, so that comment carries limited weight... but when reading something like this, it's key that you don't trip up immediately because you feel like the historical details aren't right, or that the writer just isn't up to the task of re-creating the period. I didn't get that feeling here at all, at least, not yet...<BR/><BR/>Thanks for sharing these early glimpses. It sure seems to me that the novel is off and running. Real easy for us to say, sure... but then would you want your readers to be saying, "This thing seems stalled," right out of the gate? I don't think so...<BR/><BR/>Oh and BTW, thanks for ditching the quotes, and calling a spade a spade. Good of you to finally liberate this novel from the millstone-like quotes shackling its neck!!!Duke Altumhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17494561267128023739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15302273.post-1153956895054835102006-07-26T19:34:00.000-04:002006-07-26T19:34:00.000-04:00Aura, it sounds like a lame title but it is actual...Aura, it sounds like a lame title but it is actually the headline from the local IN newspaper from my great-grandfather's wedding. There was a little article in the newspaper that my Dad looked up one year about their wedding and the headline just said, "Sweet Music, Pretty Flowers". I kind of stole it for this as I am going to have a clip from the fictional Brogan wedding run in the paper of my fictional town of Bentonville, IN.Mutt Ploughmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07886850428991826645noreply@blogger.com