Day Eleven

Michigan has dipped into chilly temperatures early this year. This has left a number of people like myself with allergy and cold issues. Even though I am pretty much over what I had last week the fatigue of illness remains. With that said, I was sluggish last night. I wrote for a couple of hours and made some progress but not as much as I’d hoped to. This morning I feel okay but being constantly thrown together with sick people at work the illness seems to be recycling it’s self a bit.

However, I must work. A friend of mine bought me this cute little block of paper and I am keeping count. I am snuggled up in bed with my laptop right now but everyday before I leave the house I write down how many days I have left. At this point I believe we have 77 days left. With that said, in sickness or health, I have to get something done.

What I did accomplish last night was getting more of Jonah’s part of the story down. I want to flesh out the scenes from his childhood and early adult life more. As I was doing that I did find some lighthearted parts and some calming portraits of life. It was nice to write about the Dubois’ living in their sub-arctic homeland. Tracing the journey of a young man from northern Quebec to Boston is exciting and at times, funny. Maybe there are enough light parts. I think I will wait until the end before I start taking things out. The story came to me this way so let’s just wait to change anything.

As I mentioned before, a few years back I did some pretty extensive research on northern Quebec and the Cote-Nord region of that province. Last night I was able to recover some of those passages and weave them into the narrative. Those weavings helped me sculpted a new part of the story that I had barely touched before. I am striving to have some balance between the characters. I need to keep the voices controlled and work on evening them out. How much do we want to hear from Ian? It is important to hear something from him but not more than we hear from Jonah. I don’t want to slip in and out of voices too much because that can be confusing. However, I want to be in the right voice at the right time. That is key.

This morning I am getting a slightly later start than yesterday but I feel well enough to really get something done before 9:15. I work again this morning so I have a limited amount of time in the a.m. That is okay. I will do what I can. It is 7:50 now so I better get going. Off to see what Jonah has to say.