I have the idea, I know the direction the story will go, I know the scenes and interactions that will occur between character, I am certain of the conflicts and resolutions, but it is the minutiae between it all that causes the most problems for me.

Sometimes it is easy getting an idea out. Action tends to be easy, if messy, but sometime there is frustration in finding the right words to fill in the empty spaces between things. Dialogue can be fun, but I am trying to limit dialogue for the sake of mood.

One of the things I learned writing the first part of the story was how to expand on ideas by including philosophical asides to better flesh out the underlining theme or motivations of the characters and story. But you can’t always lean on that, say, when your main character is moving to point b.

It’s odd. I’ve always been a verbose writer.  I remember in college writing short stories for my writing classes, and turning a ten-page assignment into a 30-page to 40-page story. But long-form writing is so different than short-form stuff. It require so much  more padding, you can’t just spew it all out at once. There is so much more involved in setting mood, theme, and plot, and then juggling it all as you move forward (and this is the reason why I put aside my last project after three attempts that reached about or over 100 pages in length). There are things that happen later in a story that I desperately want to write now, but know that if I do, I will have to force the rest of the story to shape itself into that later bit. And that’s really tough. It slows my writing down to a crawl. Instead of stretches of dozens of pages written, I can only eke about a paragraph out.

Not that I am anywhere near his artistic level, but I keep thinking of Kafka and The Trial.  While he died before finishing the story, he wrote sections (like the chapter, Cathedral) that are amazing pieces of prose but float in the nether because he never connected it to the story proper. In the last never-to-be-published novel I wrote, I had done the same sorts of things.  Wrote vast stretched of prose from later points in the story, and then worked hard at trying to get it all to connect (mostly to disjointed failure). Sometimes it would be weeks before I’d get anywhere between islands of completed bits.

Maybe it is just human nature to take shortcuts to the good parts of things. Or maybe I just need more experience at writing.

So this is how it is going to work: each part is related to the other but with a different tone and different points of view. Part one is about the artist and the girl, part two is about Adeline. Part three is also planned, but I won’t discuss it until I get there.

What’s in store for part two? Adeline has her own set of secrets and challenges to face, and while not the most interesting character in part one, I’m gonna make her shine in part two. The story will continue to work in the realm of “Magical Realism” or “Modern Fairytale” but with stories like Little Red Riding Hood and Snow White as a guide than the hero’s journey of the Artist.

Why Adeline?  I’ve always been fascinated with characters and points of view. We often only get to view someone in one dimension, especially in stories, and I like to see if there is more. Everyone has wants, needs, strengths, weaknesses, and I want the challenge of turning someone defined by others or physical description into a 3-dimensional character. When I created Adeline—the first character I actually named in part one’s earliest draft—she was a device to move plot and direct other characters. I want there to be more. I named her. She deserves more depth because she has a name. Alejandro got a name and depth. Adeline remained a shell.

Not anymore.

So that is where I am going now with my new story. Talking bundles of wood, vivid dreams that have an effect on the real world, and characters driven by other experiences that we’d see as delusional can exist and have their own internal working logics.

My home is decorated with books. A whole wall is bookshelves. I have boxes of books that still hide away in my parents basement because I have no room to store them in my tiny home. I love books. But once I started commuting regularly by train, I discovered their limits. It isn’t easy reading a book with one hand, especially when the other hand is keeping you from falling ten feet across a crowded subway car.

So I got a Kindle. And now, I couldn’t imagine not having one. I can do several things with the Kindle that I can’t do with a normal book—or at least, can’t do as easily. 1) I can hide what I am reading. No one has to know what trashy fantasy novel or space opera I am reading, or if I decide to read something controversial, I don’t have to hide the cover from wandering eyes. Yes, shallow of me, but that’s how it is. 2) I can read one-handed. This became especially helpful when I had to wear a cast on my left arm over the summer. 3) I carry a small library within the reader. I can go away on vacation and only pack the kindle and still have a number of books to read. Or, I can always have my favorite books with me if I feel inclined to read one of my most loved passages.  I wonder if I am the only one who really does that. . .

I’m not sold on back-lit readers, however. They hurt my eyes, and my eyes suck. I have a hard time driving at night because headlights from incoming cars cause my eyes to water and hurt. Doesn’t feel very good to stare at back-lit stuff. My eyes tend to cloud over when I do. Can’t stand staring at computer screens for a long time, even though work requires it. Nice to rest those eyes sometimes, and eInk is nearly as good as real ink on paper. Especially when not back-lit.

I still buy real paper, but save it for when I find a book I want to live permanently on my shelf. This all will/does probably make me sound really pretentious. Oh well.

• 2666 – Robert Bolaño
• The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman – Laurence Stern
• Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami
• My Name is Red – Orhan Pamuk
• What is the What – Dave Eggers
• Moby Dick – Herman Melville

Some of these will be difficult (I am looking at you, Murakami. I like your weirdness, I like your language, but I wish you’d actually come up with a story or at least try to wrangle in the mess you spill out onto paper), but I will finish most of these!  I swear.