Overall I’m making some progress, but each day has its ups and downs. Today was one of the downs (more because I spent a great deal of the day cracking a problem at work, then following up with a nice dinner date with my wife), but hopefully I’m going to get caught up over the next few days and through the weekend, when I’ve got some long plane flights to write on.
No excerpt: a lot of reorganizing today to get pieces in place so the story flows forward smoothly. I do write out of order, quite a bit, but the pieces must all make sense in order so that when I sit down to work on one the past concepts all build to and constrain the current moment, and the current moment supports the future concepts going forward.
Oh, okay, maybe one excerpt; I may have actually shown this before, but now I’ve written up the backstory for this:
“Here, Cinnamon,” I said, reaching for her with the Santa Claus cap. “Wear this—”
“No,” Cinnamon growled, jerking away. “I ain’t wearing no Santa Claus shit.”
I blinked. Most children I knew loved Santa Claus. Loved Christmas. So did most people, for that matter. Sure, I knew a few grinches, but not even they would have turned down a Santa Claus cap, much less snarled and swatted at it. This was something more.
“I’m guessing,” I said gently, “it isn’t disgust at his square fashion sense.”
“New word’s jank,” Cinnamon said, wrapping her arms around herself, turning away.
I put the hat down and walked out onto the porch, sitting on the sofa, stretching my long arms out over its back and my long legs out to the bottom rungs of the bannister. After a minute, Cinnamon joined me, curling up next to me, leaning her head on my shoulder.
“Sorry, Mom,” she said. “Santa Claus is a son of a bitch.”
That is all for now.
-the Centaur
