Less than a quarter awake with two stories in my head which
I am certain I have written: skinny impoverished black girl reaches the front of a queue to be
given ... clothes? Food? Entry? Three, four places behind (written a half a
day or something later) a black boy, darker skinned whose tale is only part-defined.
I spend time trying to bring the two together.
Trying to recall the words I used.
But the more awake I am the more the words
dissolve, until I’m left with two well-washed and frayed squares of cotton, on
which the words have changed themselves - hers become milk chocolate coloured stripes,
his faded into dots of semaphore, which I am unable to translate.
I've often wondered how you keep your characters and stories, the depth of your imagination, in line, in order, well behaved, so to speak.
ReplyDeleteSo.. when I read this post the first thing that came to me was... what's your very favorite story right now? And let that be the thing to focus on... and when they're ready, the stories will knock you over and talk to you really loud! <3
Kristine, in truth I don't think I ever wrote these ... was just surprised that they turned to patchwork pieces. Most of the time my characters are easy to remember ... but someone said (of NWOV) that they didn't have much character so I'm not as good as I should be at getting them on to paper.
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