What is the date you began writing this piece of fiction and the date when you completely finished the piece of fiction? I know this shockingly exactly. I started it on February 21, 2013 (LEFT), reached 50,000 words on May 6, 2013 (RIGHT), and finished it a little later that summer.
I don’t actually keep close track of those sorts of things, but I remember it specifically in this instance because I was following the advice of author Chuck Wendig to write at least 300 words a day, rain or shine, and you’ll crank out a novel sooner than you think. It worked!
Click on the below link to read about Chuck Wendig
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Wendig
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 did almost all of the writing for this at the home office in my old house. Here we have a photo and a key.
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 often drink while writing. And editing. (Take that, Hemingway!) I don’t really listen to music while writing any more. I used to, and I know some people swear by it, but I just can’t concentrate with it anymore. I do write directly on a laptop. And it’s less about the specific time of day than whenever I can sneak in some writing time.
Please include just one excerpt and include page numbers as reference. This one excerpt can be as short or as long as you prefer.
This excerpt comes from the first chapter, pp. 1-5 or so.
The biggest mistake 1LT Bickham Deth ever made was wearing scarlet socks to a funeral.
The trip was supposed to be three days: two funerals and a travel day in between. To be safe, Deth had packed all five pairs of black dress socks that he owned and threw in the red pair for kicks. That three day trip, though, had already ballooned into two weeks on the road, pinballing between Norman, Muskogee, OKC, and all points in between.
They had done ten funerals in that time, and Deth had cycled through all of his black socks twice. He had already done his laundry once at one of those quarter-devouring hotel Laundromats and he hoped against hope that Mortuary Affairs would finally call him home to that miserable den of iniquity known as Lawton, OK.
The Coalhouse funeral put paid to that dream.
“They’ve got another one for us, sir,” SFC Bela Packs advised Deth with a sigh, hanging up his cell phone on the casualty center.
“I think I’ve figured out why they put me on permanent funeral detail, Sergeant,” Deth said, not bothering to grunt his acknowledgement of the Saturday engagement.
“There’s no such thing as permanent funeral detail, sir,” Packs replied with absolutely no conviction.
“It’s because of my name.”
“Deth?”
He nodded. “I think they mixed up my file with the Grim Reaper’s. Somewhere, right now, on the front lines in Iraq a guy in a black bathrobe is leading a platoon that’s supposed to be mine.”
Packs scowled a little bit, but only a little bit. He had been at the depressing business of folding flags at veterans’ funerals off-and-on for over eighteen months. Of course, over the length of his career he had also been to Iraq, Germany, Korea, Texas, California, and Washington. Deth, on the other hand, had spent every day of his two-and-a-half years in the army in Oklahoma (excepting the occasional Arkansas runs) and every minute of those days on funeral detail.
When it came to the army, Packs was the expert. When it came to planting bodies, Deth was king.
***
They smoked together silently for a while. The cold morning warmed up gradually. In a moment, Deth would feel obliged to seek shade. “What was it like Over There?”
“In Eye-rack?” Packs pronounced the first part of “Iraq” the same way he pronounced the first part of “Italian.” Deth nodded.
“Hot.”
That was the standard answer. Not just from Packs but from anyone Deth had ever asked, under any circumstances. Whether they elaborated further or not, that was always the first thing they said. He waited. This was the first time he had asked Packs about his wartime experience, although he had heard all about his time in Germany and Korea. Deth wasn’t exactly sure what had prompted him to ask about the desert today.
“I ever tell you about Major Brannigan?” Packs asked, squinting out of his left eye as though he had smoke in it.
Deth perked up. “I don’t think so,” he said.
Packs nodded and tapped ash off his cigarette in time to each individual nod. He raised his arm, palm horizontal, as high as he could reach it.
“Son of a bitch was about as tall as a Georgia pine tree,” Packs said, “Excuse my French, sir, especially about a superior officer, but it’s deserved. He was a real son of a bitch.”
“Not at all, Sergeant,” Deth said, “I asked.”
“Eyebrows you could rappel off of,” Packs continued, “And a stupid expression on his face, no matter what he was doing.”
“Like a troll,” Deth mused.
“Huh?”
“Oh, uh, well, did you ever see The Lord of the Rings?”
Packs shook his hands in the air as though warding off an evil spirit. “I don’t go in for that kind of stuff.”
Deth shrugged. He should have known better. He hoped he hadn’t thrown Packs off his story. Judging by Packs’s vacant stare, he had though. “Major Brannigan…” Deth prompted.
“Right, right,” Packs said, nodding copiously and taking another drag from his cigarette, “So this big dumb buffoon, I don’t know who gave him a gold leaf, but he couldn’t lead his way out of a paper bag.”
Click on the below link to purchase BROKEN-DOWN HEROES OF THE WESTERN NIGHT from Amazon.
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? I hesitate to describe this novel as a roman a clef. It is and it’s not. I know a lot of people will just assume that it’s a thinly veiled version of my real-life experiences. And while some of that has leaked into the story, it’s so much more. It’s very much a story about stories, as pretentious as that sounds, and since it’s a story about stories that I’ve been told, I can still remember the times and places where I was told (or, in a vanishingly few instances, experienced) those stories.
I have experienced something like this many times: sitting by a government vehicle, smoking, waiting for a funeral to start. And this was at a time when cell phones existed almost solely to make phone calls, so we really had to talk to each other. The emotional component of writing this was putting myself back, completely, in that place and time. Remembering the smells, the feel of the cloth on my skin, the thoughts that were running through a young lieutenant’s mind.
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