Indulge

I have not worked on my revisions to my second novel in several days. I spent Wednesday working on a paper for my Body Politics class, and then throughout Wednesday and Thursday I did allow myself to write scenes between my characters that wouldn't occur until 2018.

The first scene involved a mother, a father, a brother and a sister reacting to some unsettling news... and the fun was toying with their relationships. Mastering a father's disbelief, a mother's pragmatism, a brother's tendency to mock the situation and the narrator's teenage angst. A friend of mine comments that for an only child I tend to get many of these conversations very real, and I made a funny remark.

It's occurred to me that maybe they are real and I am imaginary.

My brain swirling with gender questions led to that conversation, and it had a very satisfactory conclusion. That gender identity and biological sex don't have to mean what we think they do. And since I have an outline for a story involving this young character that happens when she's 9, it's scary to think that there may be another in my head for "five years later." Isn't writing organic that way?

Of course, many of these ideas spurred by readings and homework never come to fruition. I haven't finished the short story about Mémère d'Amille taking in Jewish children during WWII, although I started it.

I read Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides during the last three days. Well-written, very rich in Greek culture, but the narrator glosses over his/her own situation, which leaves me wondering what the manuscript meant to achieve... I was disappointed that my questions were never answered and in a tome as thick as this, well, how do I end up so empty from the text?

What you read influences what you write. Both in style and theme. So, what do you read? Do you challenge yourself? We grow with the words, whether we write them or consume them.

A tale of two brothers

I wonder if two brothers on the phone to talk about their mother's experiences with a "ghost" would taunt each other about the circumstances at the time of their father's death. They were due for mandatory conscription when Pop died, the older already in the service counting bananas in Guadeloupe and the younger got a deferment. The question becomes...

Is it pointless to include it in the scene, or does it strengthen their relationship as brothers OR does it also show, indirectly, the younger brother's capacity to accept responsibility since he got the deferment to care for his mother and grandmother after his father's death (which of course he already had a student deferment when he dropped out of school to care for his mother and grandmother after his father's death).

The scene intersperses some humor, and I would think some realism to an otherwise emotional time. I don't want to ruin the pace of the novel...

Edmond is the older brother, Étienne the younger (remember him? I promise, I will write something that doesn't involve him). Edmond has recently graduated from university and has opted for a volunteer assignment rather than the shorter traditional military service. Étienne, to this day, never served his country. Ironically, his wife has. But in a capacity similar to Edmond. She actually nationalized some banks for the Mitterrand administration... but anyway...

So, Étienne has seen a ghost, talked to the ghost and interacted with the ghost. He does not believe in ghosts but he knows his mother insisted their father haunted the workshop after he died. Étienne and his brother thought their mother a tad touched with grief, and attributed the ghost to that. And now Étienne calls his brother to find out what he should do.

"Hello?" Edmond answered.

"Edmond, it's your brother. I have a problem. Adelaide," Étienne paced. "She's haunting my bathroom. I have a ghost."

"Étienne… There's no such thing as ghosts. Maybe you should call Mom."

"I know, it sounds crazy. Do you remember Mom insisting Dad was there, in the workshop?"

"No, Étienne. I was in Guadeloupe, sacrificing for the motherland."

"Sacrifice. Two years in the accounting office of a banana plantation in the Caribbean. Only you could land—"

So do I allow them to tease each other? or do I stick to business?