Right, I handled that with no problem. I got all the way home with Hap and Meeghan about to go to bed for the final time (in the book).

When I went to bed last night I told myself to think about Chapter 10, the chapter where Hap relates his failed marriage to Cara. All along I've been thinking that the best thing I have in real life to use is , of course, my failed marriage to C___. Most of the external details will change, i.e. the whole foreigner-green card marriage aspect, but I want to keep the intimate details. I've never written about C___ before and this is an opportunity to do it in a respectful and complete way. I want especially to use the tender details I remember about her body and her reactions during sex, and also to use her emotional goodness and sweetness. The one thing I don’t have is the exact way they break up, though I might simply use what is close to the truth: instead of Je___, use the affair with S___ that broke up my relationship with S___.

It's 9:00 a.m., I'm going to the store and I'm coming right back to do this.
3:35 -- I worked until about 2 pm, writing 2500 words. I thought I wrote a great first draft of that chapter. It was a little shorter than I expected it to be, but it’s so heavy that it doesn’t have to go on for long. Lots of sex too.

I'm so close now to finishing the draft. All I have to do is write the ending. Of course, I got started on it yesterday but didn’t really get there... I got right up to it... but I think I need to back off and start fresh, at least for the part that's set back in San Francisco. I liked the last scene with Denny on the boat, where I quoted from "Masculin-Feminin."

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