Skip to main content

Writing: Beating Off the Rust

Well, I'm writing again. Started with a scene that popped into mind and am just making things up as I go along. No idea whatsoever what this tale is about, or where it's going, or if I'll even bother to finish it, or if it'll even capture my imagination in such a way as to hurl me along in its current. So far, however, I'm interested. In any event, I wanted to write something, to lube and prime the old imagination and beat the rust off my storytelling gears.

At the very least, I rather like the suspicious mood and disquietude of the opening. It provides for a good hook, I think, which is needed in the opening paragraphs of any tale. For no reason whatsoever, I decided to go with Portuguese names for my characters. It'll be interesting to see what sort of trouble Ezequiel, Ovídio, Teófilo, and Zita find themselves in as the tale progresses.

Comments

  1. Those are not very common names; I'm curious to see what sort of troubles you'll put them through. :) I'm happy you started a new story! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I did a search on Portuguese names, but what got that started is that I read somewhere — I forget where — the name Ezequiel and I learned that it's Portuguese. My search for Portuguese names was prompted by my wanting to confirm that I had remembered the correct spelling.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Goals 2010

I've been wondering if I should do a goal post for this blog or not. One thing I hadn't considered when I decided to use this template was my goals, and where I'd stuff 'em. With my previous template, I had a sidebar in which to stuff 'em. I suppose I could stuff 'em in one of the three columns down below, but that'll likely mean rearranging things. And then there's the goals themselves. I typically write a post rehearsing the previous year's goals, noting where I succeeded and where I failed, and I usually failed more often than succeeded. This year there shall be no rehearsal of last year's goals. I failed miserably. Enough said. Ah, what the hell. I must be insane. Here's some dumbass goals: Find a job. Goal: A–S–A–fucking–P! Yeah, employment would be nice. Lose weight. Goal: 150-159 lbs (68,0-72,1 kgs). This might actually happen . . . sometime during the next century! Of course, it would help if I actually did something to make it ha...

Public Enemies

My, oh my, how the world has changed. John Dillinger, America's first "Public Enemy Number One," is the man whose pursuit pretty much led to the founding, or should I say "funding," of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which, at the time, was known as the Division of Investigation. The Wikipedia article on Melvin Pervis notes that J. Edgar Hoover became jealous of the fame Pervis gained following the death of Dillinger, "downgrad[ing] him, [which lead to] Purvis leaving the FBI" in 1935. Pervis died in 1960 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. "The FBI investigated the shooting and labeled it a suicide, though the official coroner's report did not find sufficient evidence to label the cause of death as such. It was later determined that Purvis may have shot himself accidentally while trying to extract a tracer bullet jammed in the pistol. He was 56 years old." Excellent movie.

Bucket List (Recap)

Back in January 2008, I posted a list of 25 items that I called a "Bucket List." In my original post, I referenced this article at the New York Times . The title "Bucket List" comes from the movie of the same title starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman and is a reference to the idiom "kick the bucket." In other words, the items on a "Bucket List" are those things you wish to do before you start pushing up daisies, to use yet another idiom. One of my goals for this year was to accomplish one of the things on my "Bucket List," so it only seemed appropriate to recap the list. To wit: Get a novel published/make my living as a writer. Technically, "get a novel published" is a dream, not a goal, as it involves something I have no control over. But "make my living as a writer"? I have some measure of control over that, as there are things I can do to move in that direction. Learn to fly a plane. I've always wante...