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day 13, session 1: 16439

And see, I thought I’d posted something on Friday. Huh.
Still haven’t left Paris. Who knew Paris would be so difficult to write?
I’d love to leave Paris and get back to New Jersey today. If I can get him home and into OSS training, that would be great.

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day ten, session three, 14405

4579 words today which isn’t bad at all. Wasn’t too hard either; not with writing in sessions.

Hoping I can get some details to add in as well, but the first three chapters are down at least. I need things that will happen in Istanbul, which is tough since it’s really just supposed to be a desk job.

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day ten, sessions one and two – 12680

So now it starts to flow again. Even scenes I couldn’t write before and just skipped are going smoothly.

Today’s target is 16666 words. I am unlikely to hit that, but I should make another 1k words today.

Tomorrow will likely be handwritten so I will see how far I can get with that. That’s often enjoyable but slow.

The next sticking point will likely be Istanbul around 30-35k words. Not looking forward to that.

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day nine, 9826

Sweet merciful crap, but it’s been painful. Still, FINALLY I’m out of 1939, and to May 1940. Tomorrow the Battle for France begins.

Here are some things I did to combat the writer’s block I’ve had for the past few days.
-asked most of my friends with art training about their school experiences;
-Nichole told me to give him block, which helped
-running,
-watched lots of tv
-ate donuts
-long walks
-wrote about 5-600 words in French.
It seems like writing in French helps whenever there is a stoppage in, you know, the French bits. Duh. Kind of makes sense doesn’t it?

He also wrote a long letter about how nothing he did was right and that he was homesick. I felt the first one; remembered the second from my own experiences in France. No matter how much I loved it, still….

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Things I wish I’d seen earlier.

Have to go back to the Lysander, the SOE stopped using the Halifax in ’42….

Futurians: how awesomely perfect are they? I feel like I need to work them in somehow. The 39 World’s Fair is all over the other book. Kind of early though, wonder if he could get in.

His father is so a Theosophist. Not unknown in that social class, would put him in contact with someone from downtown like his mother (who is more of the Goldman school). I like the idea of the mother bringing the rabble-rousing radical communism, and the father bringing a tempering of pacifism and a spiritual overview to them.

Lastly: it’s odd considering that this was, in no way, the inspiration for the characters–but there was more of me and my sister in the scene i wrote about Gene and Reed than anything else I’ve written.

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day four, 5266

I dreamed about my story last night. That was… disconcerting a bit.

I am very happy that I feel like I am getting things together in such a way that I have enough structure to propel me forward but not so much that I feel trapped, locked in, and the story has nothing to tell me.

I write as much for my characters to surprise me as anything else.

It always seems so mystical and strange that the characters write the story except that for me, they do. I’m not sure how it psychologically synthesizes, but Gene told me that I needed to write his own story or the story that I told last year wouldn’t make sense.

And now I know how he afforded all those radios on that FBI salary. I always wondered.

I appreciate him letting me in on his secrets.