What is the date you began writing this piece of fiction and the date when you completely finished the piece of fiction? I began writing DEAD BECKONING on June 27, 2019. However, given that this is a work of historical fiction, I spent a couple of years doing extensive research before “putting pen to paper” (metaphorically…see below). I completed the work on January 11, 2021.
Where did you do most of your writing for this fiction work? And please describe in detail. And can you please include a photo? I split my time between a lake house in a small town in the North Georgia mountains (Blue Ridge) and a condominium in a 98-year-old historic building in Atlanta (The Biltmore House).
I did most of my writing for DEAD BECKONING in my home library in Blue Ridge. I am most inspired to write when I am surrounded by books that I love.
What were your writing habits while writing this work- did you drink something as you wrote, listen to music, write in pen and paper, directly on laptop; specific time of day? I am a morning person. I do my best writing in the wee hours before sunrise. However, as I have grown older, and with writing as a full-time endeavor now, I find myself spending more time writing throughout the day and into the early evening.
I am also a coffee person. My beverage of choice when I write is any espresso drink (straight espresso, cappuccino, latte, Americano). That said, I will admit to enjoying a nice glass of wine occasionally.
I sometimes listen to classical music when I write.
I compose on a Macbook Pro, but I review/edit with pen and paper.
Please include just one excerpt and include page numbers as reference. This one excerpt can be as short or as long as you prefer.
Chapter 10
ELLA BASS
Wormwood and Melancholy
(excerpts from pages 88-92 – some sections have been redacted for brevity)
THAT SAME SATURDAY AFTERNOON, ELLA FELT THE strident drumming of the four o’clock Georgia Central steam train as it pulled out of the Union Depot and made its way through the rail yard, bound for Albany by way of Macon. She and her children sat in the first passenger car. The baggage car, just in front of them and to the rear of the tender, carried her husband’s remains.
With John and the others by her side she opened her well-worn Bible, which she had held firmly clenched in her hands since boarding the train. Her husband had passed by that very same rail yard in the predawn hours of countless mornings as he walked to work. He had known the area well. He would have seen the trains pulling out of the station headed for Washington, or Nashville, or Charleston, or points beyond. Or perhaps Albany. He would have taken in the smells and the sounds of the coal-fired engines. The soot would have darkened his crisp, white shirt. But not on this day.
The train rolled into the Albany station. Ella’s thoughts jolted back to the present. Surely Baker would have been as enthusiastic about the Atlanta exposition, scheduled to open in just two weeks, as he had been about the New Orleans fair. It occurred to her that no one had mentioned the souvenir token being on Baker’s person when he was discovered lying on the sidewalk. She wondered if it had been lost or perhaps stolen.
Two carriages awaited her as she descended the steps from the train car. One would transport her and the children the sixty miles to Thomasville. The other would follow behind with the casket. Returning to Thomasville was bittersweet. She had not been back since her father’s death three years earlier. At that time she had pleaded with her mother to move to Atlanta, but her mother had chosen instead to remain with extended kin in Thomasville.
On Monday morning, less than two days after she and her children arrived with Baker’s remains, Ella stood on a windswept bluff at the McKinnon family cemetery at Laurel Hill, on the northeastern edge of town. She watched as Wiley, Robert, and Jesse Bass, her cousin George, and two of Baker’s Thomasville friends lowered the wooden casket into the red clay earth, next to the graves of her deceased family members. Next to Baby Florence.
She replayed the events of a mere three mornings prior. Things had happened so quickly. Images flew through her mind like fleeting projectiles, each one fading into the next. Baker’s diminishing silhouette through the fogged window. The gunshot. The stranger at the door. Running down Ellis Street with John. The back of the ambulance. Her cheek against Baker’s cold face. The feather pillow. The wool covers. The clock on the bedroom wall. Twelve twenty. Friday afternoon.
On the following Wednesday, Ella and her children returned home on the morning Georgia Central train to an empty house on Ellis Street and to the bitter redolence of wormwood and melancholy.
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Why is this excerpt so emotional for you as a writer to write? And can you describe your own emotional experience of writing this specific excerpt? This chapter touched me as I was writing it because it so well captures the poignancy and melancholy that Ella Bass felt as she traveled with her children from Atlanta to Thomasville, Georgia, to bury her husband. It also conveys a sense of palpable uncertainty about the future.
My writing is always driven primarily by my characters as opposed to plot. My characters live inside me, speak to me, and guide my hand. I experience their emotions through their voice and actions.
Were there any deletions from this excerpt that you can share with us? And can you please include a photo of your marked up rough drafts of this excerpt. I typically go through several reviews with a small group of writers with whom I meet regularly but, as I recall, there were no significant deletions from earlier drafts for this particular excerpt.
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Most of the INSIDE THE EMOTION OF FICTION links can be found at the very end of the below feature:
http://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2021/03/stephenson-holts-arranged-marriage-is.html