Coffee, Sammy Clemens, & Muse
As a noted a few hours ago I was hanging out in a coffee shop listening to some pretty decent music by a folk style artist (incidentally by the name David Butler) and comparing that people watching socializing experience to that of what occurs in a bar. I have realized a few additional difference now that is a little after 1:00 a.m. in the morning - not that I did not know these differences prior to this point mind you, but here for brevity in my favorite, the list:
- The bars stay open (in Lexington at least) until 4:00, the coffee shops close at 11:00
- The social scene in the bars these days ramps up at 10:00ish, when the “younger” crowd starts to come in force; the coffee shop social scene is left to underage geeks who are sitting there with laptops playing WOW and Mafia Wars and talking about girls (not to) on their FaceBook profiles (unfortunately I have to admit, I could relate in some strange way to the later group just about as well).
- By 1:00 or 2:00 at the bar, I am pretty much ready to go home and sleep; by 1:00 or 2:00 after the coffee shop I have been home two or three hours, written every email I had thought about, read 70 more pages in one of the five or six books I am currently reading, and I am pretty much caffeinated wide awake and wondering where Pinky is so I can take over the world.
That is exactly where I find myself at this point. And as I could not find Pinky, I tried Bitzer, but she gave me puzzling looks when I asked about taking over the world. So, that leaves me to inflict myself further upon those of you out there in the blog world. The good news, I did put in three chapters of my current book before decided I was not going to fall easily into slumber. Even better news, I am currently about half way through a biography by Ron Powers of Sam Clemens, perhaps better know by his alias Mark Twain.
As I have been reading this over the last few days I have realized one thing if nothing else - Mr. Clemens was quiet the character and it is really only because of his being quiet the character that he was anything of a writer. And even at that, he was not so much a great writer, as more of a great story teller, in my own humble opinion - though an opinion with which more then a few modern critics agree. Beyond that, I realize that very similar to myself, a lot of the time he did not make the best of choices - and though I have not had all the experiences he had - nor indeed did he have all the ones I have been blessed to experience - we both have more then a few off color bits of personal past experiences. A for instance of Sam’s was hiding out from authorities and running off to California during the start of the little ugly incident in the 19th century here in America, as well as drinking oft to excess, and lets not forget being arrested for fighting and all but run out of town on multiple occasions for over-extending his credit.
What all this has gotten me to thinking about is the ideas I have I had in the back of my head for quiet some time to actually give my hand at writing a book. Except for a couple of very select folks that I have shared such a thought with on occasion in the past, I bet that caught most of you by surprise. Maybe not, who knows. Anyway, in actual fact I have at least three ideas in my head for books. Actually, the first idea, which is now nearly twenty years has a folder of notes, an outline in a notebook, and a few other things like that. Now that I type this I can’t help but think that I may have mentioned this here in this blog shortly after I started it in some small manner or another.
Regardless, I got started a bit on this idea of actually taking one of them fruition last November during the National Novel Writing Month. The idea there is get busy and write, with the idea being that if you can 2,000 words a day - you have a 60,000 word novel (about the average for a shorter novel these days) written when you are done. I ended though getting busy and had to much on my mind and on my proverbial plate to really go full bore with it - that I didn’t really know about it until mid-November.
Now however, as I sit here tonight, full of coffee and feeling like Sam Clemens can be such a screw up and eventually become the Mark Twain that we know him as today with seemingly a prolific ability to turn out a great yarn - then why can’t I? I will take it one step further - I have a muse - or at least an inspiration. In a different place I have a journal where my muse has recently been inspiring me to churn out 2,000-3,000 words of mostly private thoughts almost daily. Granted, Sam may have had such inspirations with the loss of a brother and a denied love - but at least my take on it is by the time he actually wrote some of his more breakthrough works he was well past those things. Regardless, I am inspired and intend to act on it while the fire burns.
My biggest hurdle I face this eve is deciding which of the two ideas that are more fully fleshed out to actually pursue. I lean toward the second, without the notes written - a work of historical fiction. Set in an era right as Twain begins to achieve his first real noteworthiness on the west coast. Though of course, writing what I know, it would be set in Kentucky, involving the Shakers, the Orphan Brigrade of Breckinridge, Morgans Cavalry, Perryville and the loss of Kentucky to the Confederates, and of course tobacco, spirits, women, and horses. I like think something like a Benard Cornwell historical fiction novel - but with more of a romance element to it - and a little bit more of a romantic feel in the vein of the romances of the 14th and 15th century too - for anyone that knows I mean by that.
As I lean this direction though, I start compare the ideas. The other, set in a fiction fantasy setting really has no limitations. Where if I write a historical fiction, I want the facts to first ring true and second reflect and authenticity of the actual time period and what people were doing. Which of course means doing a bit of research. Do not think that would be a burden - indeed that would be a joy for me. To much of a joy perhaps - I can get lost in Wiki Link Hell for hours at a time with historical subjects if I am not careful. But my bigger concern is that will slow down the process of actually writing by trying to make sure that everything is perfect from a historical perspective, no “farbiness” if you will, from the very beginning.
So what does this all mean? Well, it is my intent, while I am hot onto this idea to try and write upwards of an average of 1,000 words daily toward an overall goal of something in the range of 60-100,000 total words. Some days I may not write and others I will hopefully put 2-3,000 on paper, er, computer screen. As I am writing things, I think, I will also make notes on occasion here on the blog as to the progress - to journal the process and keep me at the process. At that pace, in three months (or just as the NaNoWriMo starts in November) I should be polishing and pulling together any loose ends. Who knows, maybe I will just self publish it here online in some such format as that as well, once it is complete. Anyway, one last lifting of my coffee mug to Sammy and most especially my Muse and I think I am then off to skim The Orphan Brigrade, by, if I am not mistaken, Davis - so that I can start pulling my plot elements into the right order with the time-line of actual events.
