



Building By Deleting

I’m continuing to work on the novel-in-progress, April Showers 1921. Its challenges remain remaining and satisfying with a few dips into frustrating.

I’ve recently re-discovered the joy of deleting to build and improve the tale. When I began with the concept, it had a bajillion directions that it could take. I wrote about half of them, writing two to three thousand word chapters about the directions, exploring the characters, plot, and arcs. That resulted in a complex novel with a complicated plot, and extensive raw material. As I neared completion of the first draft, I met the muses at a crossroads. We agreed that some matters needed clarified and changed.

With mostly their guidance, I went through, exploring that first mess. Sometimes I attempted to work something into the mix, mostly because I enjoyed the passage. But, as often noted, sometimes killing favorite scenes help. As I deleted them (putting them into another documented that was a collection of these things…just in case…), I discovered how much the process sharpened my insights into the characters, situation, storylines, plots, and arc. With more focused insights, my writing and story-telling became crisper. My direction was better defined; I had more understanding of the final destination.

All of this wasn’t done overnight, but through several days of frequently frustrating searching and thinking. Sometimes I went backwards and then had to retrace my steps.

Now I’ve gone on into thinking of this mass as more like a giant piece, waiting to be sculpted molded, or carved. Unlike working in clay, wood, stone, or other hard, substantial materials, the novel’s characteristics change, depending upon how, where, and why they fit. Some pieces of the novel are solid. Only fine chiseling and polishing are needed. Other sections are thick, and I carve whole chunks away. Some are softer and more pliable, demanding shaping to improve coherency, pacing, motivation, and story-telling.

The process of writing and thinking about writing a novel often intrigues me as much as the novel-in-progress. As every novel is unique, so is the process used to write it.



Hitchfloof (floofinition) – housepet’s mode of traveling by soliciting rides.

In use: “Beginning when he was a three pound puppy recovering from his horrid early life, the husky started hitchfloofing. Whenever they got up in the morning, the dog would jump up and go to one of them. Standing up on his hind legs with his front legs reaching up for them, he demanded to be carried around the house for a few minutes. Now that they were fifty years old and he was fifty-five pounds, it was harder to accommodate him.

“But they did.”

Sunday’s Theme Music

Rocking out to Bare Naked Ladies “One Week” (1998) in my mindstream as I walked today. Why them? Not sure of the stream’s origins. Here are the lines that were in my mind:

Chickity China the Chinese chicken
You have a drumstick and your brain stops tickin’
Watchin’ X-Files with no lights on
We’re dans la maison
I hope the Smoking Man’s in this one
Like Harrison Ford I’m getting frantic
Like Sting I’m tantric
Like Snickers, guaranteed to satisfy

h/t to

The song’s weird rap lyrics, strung around the fight between a couple, appeals to me because of its insights. The guy singing it knows how this fight went, and he knows how reconciliation will go, and he’s laughing at it. Most of us develop these insights into relationships. We know the little steps followed between growing annoyance, rising anger, the fight or disagreement, and the subsequent make-up.

It might be today’s sunny weather that kicked this song into the stream. We were house shopping in California when this song was released and rose in 1998. The connections could be that I was thinking, it’s a a beautiful day. Not being satisfied with that, I went on, flashing on sunshine splashing off waves and lamenting, I wish I was at the ocean. That triggered memories of glorious days in Half Moon Bay, where we eventually bought a place to live.

Or, maybe all that is just bullshit, and my mind just heard a noise that triggered the song, and so it began.

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