In The Flow of Time – August 29, 2024 The compass rose, what else is there? Well, street numbers of course. There are alternatives. On the Hawaiian islands, the central part of each island is higher (volcanoes), sloping down toward the sea. So directions are based on that geographic reality…. Continue reading
In The Flow of Time – August 28, 2024 An interesting thing happened on the way down the Mississippi. Silt. The river carries vast quantities of it. It flows and it floods. When it floods, water spread over the land and drops silt. I always knew that. What I didn’t… Continue reading
In The Flow of Time – August 27, 2024 All y’all may need to organize an intervention. I’m plotting the novel. I’m not even sure this chapter will make it in, but I like it. It’s got color. It is in 1815, inside the St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans…. Continue reading
In The Flow of Time – August 26, 2024 I’m reading a marvelous non-fiction work built off the journals of the Societé d’Economie, which started in New Orleans in 1836, and lasted to the 1950s. Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood did not disappoint. It is… Continue reading
In The Flow of Time – August 24, 2024 How history makes it into fiction. I can’t write a novel in this time without at least mentioning a pivotal battle in the history of the United States. Yes, it happened after the peace treaty had been signed, before anyone involved… Continue reading
In The Flow of Time – August 21, 2024 Oh my god. Sometimes imagination becomes real. Back on July 7, I wrote about my plan to have a jazz funeral in the story. With only a little twitch, I can have a jazz funeral when her husband dies. Cool. Today… Continue reading
In The Flow of Time – August 16, 2024 I am starting to plot, which really means, I’m making up a story. It’s fiction! I have this truly massive pile of facts that exists in and around antebellum New Orleans. I’ll make stuff up or move stuff around to stick… Continue reading
In The Flow of Time – August 13, 2024 Ah, history, she can teach a thing or two… I doubt this event will make it into the story, but… it is instructional. We flash back to June 2 1858, the Know Nothing “riot” in New Orleans. Armed men under the… Continue reading
In The Flow of Time – August 10, 2024 I thought I’d try to convey the random (?) fun of burrowing down rabbit holes. I’m not taking notes about how I do it when I’m doing it. So this story is really a “like this” exposition, not a precise accounting… Continue reading
In The Flow of Time – August 10, 2024 Life is full of “stuff” like music, song, dancing, games… so as part of understanding the world I’m going to write about, I look into all sorts of topics. Some are more “tangential,” not part of the central narrative. So I’m… Continue reading
