Plus ça change – March 16, 2026
A funny thing happened on the way to the keyboard this morning. We’ll see how it turns out. Writer boy wasn’t feeling particularly motivated.
There are, of course, ups and downs. I’m reminded of an earlier career writing deeply technical training materials for software developers. A brand new technology would show up on my doorstep. Astonishing stuff from the dawn of the personal computer era. Let’s put video inside an application. Or, I know, let’s implement drag and drop. Each time that happened I knew, just KNEW, at some point that this is the time I would fail miserably. Nope.
The chapter just finished is good, but wasn’t planned. I’m chewing on the next one, it’s not going well. The whole premise is weak. There is way too much preaching (literal and metaphorical). There isn’t enough human. I got that feedback from my darling first reader as well, not about the non-existent chapter, on the general overall, especially as it relates to Père Antoine. Sigh, but there’s a story here, I know there is. A good story.
The weather conspires. It is a decidedly grey morning with a forecast for rain, followed by periods of rain, showers, and then rain. That’s the whole week. I mean, I’d go for a walk in the beautiful spring weather, to procrastinate, but that path seems closed.
So in the pre-dawn dark I’m looking at Dancer, and at my thoughts for Mother. I do have an idea. I sorta touched on this idea in Dancer. Let me go look. Oh yeah, there it is. I can lift a paragraph, not a big deal, a minor change in the scene to adapt to the disappearance of a tiny tidbit. I can turn that paragraph into a whole chapter in Mother. It will have Père Antoine, Marie’s healing skills, the ambiance of the seedy flophouses, brothels, and shady gambling establishments for sailors on the waterfront on Gallatin Street. Oh, and the genuine human kindness for which Marie is legend.
The AUTHOR has grandiose ideas for “meaning” and “power” and “policy.” Marie has other ideas. All the shit the AUTHOR thinks, that needs to emerge from her life.
And in the space of half an hour I switch from “what’s the point” to “oooohhh.” And by the way, that weak chapter? I can keep that. It becomes very, very different, a small moment in her care for the old man who is her mentor and confessor. Because he’s approaching 80, and like all of us he dies. And I realize, because now I’m actually fucking listening to Marie, I’m going to have to write his deathbed scene. Because she is there, she is with him when he dies, and her life is forever changed because he’s gone.
Shit. I can do that. There will be tears.
