Over the weekend I wrote the entire first chapter's first draft, about 6100 words. Lots of sex and not a huge amount of exposition. Some of the writing struck me as a little flat but I should be able to fix that.
Now it's Wednesday, and I'm spending the day at home on a sick day. I have little energy but I think I can still make notes on the second chapter.
The second chapter has to accomplish a few things. First, I have to get Hap and at least some of the others a lot closer to arriving at the cabin. Originally I had everyone arrive at the same time, but when Cris suggested that it would be interesting to suggest remoteness by setting the cabin way out on Lake Chelan, so that you'd have to take the ferry to get there, I decided Hap would meet a subset of the other characters in Chelan. And a little after that, I decided it might be good for me to have him pick up Shaun in Wenatchee on the way to Chelan. (Why Shaun? Because he doesn't have a car, and has to take the train. Must have some explanation of why he didn't ride all the way with Hap in the first place.)
So the idea would be to introduce Shaun first, then two more characters whom they meet up with at the hotel in Chelan: Bart and Seth. Don, Greg and Denny are already up at the cabin, so they're introduced when the first four get there. This has the obvious benefit of allowing me to introduce characters one by one, and especially to be clear about Shaun, since he's one of the characters I have a hard time getting my mind around and, indeed, not mix up with Denny.
... took a nap. When I got up, I had a sudden clear idea what Denny looks like. When A. and I went to the Sigur Ros concert there was a couple sitting in front of us in the front row. They were clearly some kind of royalty in that context -- I imagined the guy was a programming executive for a rock radio station, but for all I know he could have been the lead singer for some famous band. I say they looked like royalty because they were both around 30, chicly and expensively dressed, and very attractive. The woman was dark and gorgeous but in a slightly puffy and damaged way, as if she had been drop-dead gorgeous three or four years earlier before all the drugs. The guy was similarly ragged-looking and slightly puffy, with the requisite stubble on his pale, clammy skin and some kind of shaggy haircut that wouldn't have looked out of place on Neil Young in 1969 or 1989. He was very tall, and he wore a red satin shirt under a black or charcoal grey blazer, and he had a somewhat hulking walk that his height and weight gain contributed to. He looked extremely self-centered, and like someone who would sit in a nightclub for hours with a sullen expression doing nothing while his girlfriend chatted with everyone. So this will be my model for Denny. This is good, since earlier I had in mind my old housemate Larry but he didn't have the gravitas that Denny needs.
Okay, back to thinking about the action of the chapter.
a. road
b. Wenatchee station
c. Shaun -- the first thing he does is ask for money so he can go in and pay at cafe
d. Exposition about Shaun told by narrator
e. Dialogue -- very brief and indirect -- about where they're going
f. Chelan hotel -- check in with Bart and Seth -- all have dinner
The difficult thing will be working sex into this chapter. I should have some kind of sex story told by Shaun in the car.
Now it's Wednesday, and I'm spending the day at home on a sick day. I have little energy but I think I can still make notes on the second chapter.
The second chapter has to accomplish a few things. First, I have to get Hap and at least some of the others a lot closer to arriving at the cabin. Originally I had everyone arrive at the same time, but when Cris suggested that it would be interesting to suggest remoteness by setting the cabin way out on Lake Chelan, so that you'd have to take the ferry to get there, I decided Hap would meet a subset of the other characters in Chelan. And a little after that, I decided it might be good for me to have him pick up Shaun in Wenatchee on the way to Chelan. (Why Shaun? Because he doesn't have a car, and has to take the train. Must have some explanation of why he didn't ride all the way with Hap in the first place.)
So the idea would be to introduce Shaun first, then two more characters whom they meet up with at the hotel in Chelan: Bart and Seth. Don, Greg and Denny are already up at the cabin, so they're introduced when the first four get there. This has the obvious benefit of allowing me to introduce characters one by one, and especially to be clear about Shaun, since he's one of the characters I have a hard time getting my mind around and, indeed, not mix up with Denny.
... took a nap. When I got up, I had a sudden clear idea what Denny looks like. When A. and I went to the Sigur Ros concert there was a couple sitting in front of us in the front row. They were clearly some kind of royalty in that context -- I imagined the guy was a programming executive for a rock radio station, but for all I know he could have been the lead singer for some famous band. I say they looked like royalty because they were both around 30, chicly and expensively dressed, and very attractive. The woman was dark and gorgeous but in a slightly puffy and damaged way, as if she had been drop-dead gorgeous three or four years earlier before all the drugs. The guy was similarly ragged-looking and slightly puffy, with the requisite stubble on his pale, clammy skin and some kind of shaggy haircut that wouldn't have looked out of place on Neil Young in 1969 or 1989. He was very tall, and he wore a red satin shirt under a black or charcoal grey blazer, and he had a somewhat hulking walk that his height and weight gain contributed to. He looked extremely self-centered, and like someone who would sit in a nightclub for hours with a sullen expression doing nothing while his girlfriend chatted with everyone. So this will be my model for Denny. This is good, since earlier I had in mind my old housemate Larry but he didn't have the gravitas that Denny needs.
Okay, back to thinking about the action of the chapter.
a. road
b. Wenatchee station
c. Shaun -- the first thing he does is ask for money so he can go in and pay at cafe
d. Exposition about Shaun told by narrator
e. Dialogue -- very brief and indirect -- about where they're going
f. Chelan hotel -- check in with Bart and Seth -- all have dinner
The difficult thing will be working sex into this chapter. I should have some kind of sex story told by Shaun in the car.