storytelling

I find this pretty funny, I have to admit. Back in November I posted about Tied to the Tracks here, saying with utter confidence that I had settled on names for all but one of the characters. Now, in May, with 150 pages of this manuscript finished, I realize almost every name has changed.

This fits, really, given the way the characters have evolved, some of them in directions I hadn't anticipated. In surprising directions, even. Some characters I thought I wouldn't ever much like have demanded my grudging admiration; others I thought I'd be able to write with ease are still not completely letting me into their heads. John Grant (the primary character opposite Angeline Mangiamele) is ticked at me because I keep complicating his life, and John doesn't like complications. I can almost feel him pacing back and forth wondering how to get the best of me, so he can return to a peaceful life. Mwah-ha-ha-ha. Not a chance.

I don't know if I've ever mentioned the movies Pleasantville or The Purple Rose of Cairo (and I'm in too much of a hurry to do a search) -- but I have a real fondness for movies that are successful in portraying the fluid, hazy boundary between the story, the storyteller, and the audience.

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I have quite a large readership in Germany and Austria, and while I don't have the sense that many of them read this weblog, I thought I'd put this up, just in case: The German edition of Fire Along the Sky will be (according to an email from my editor there, this morning) out in the early spring of 2005.

I've been writing quite well just recently and so I'm going to go do that, now. Later today, if time permits, I'll be posting a little bit about Tied to the Tracks.

Posted by at 8:18 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)