Sunday, March 06, 2005
Burning the Candles
HAPPY MOTHERS' DAY, ENA!!
I had the best Sunday morning I could have hoped for. We stayed in bed until 1pm. The room was warm and outside a blue sky peeked through from behind the curtains. The only sound I could hear was from the birds in the apple tree in the front garden.
No noise. No kids. No hassle. No rushing. No anything except wishing it would last as long as possible.
Total, and utter bliss.
Eventually I did get up and allowed Gail to sleep on. The antibiotics are beginning to do their job but they have made her very drowsy. I got up and showered then made her breakfast in bed: a nice cup of tea and a bacon and egg sandwich - her favourite.
Gail went over to her Mums to collect Laura and give her a card, then she got the choccies and card I got Laura to give to Gail. Then I rang my own Mum but she was out with my sister. So many Mum’s!
I worked on Hunting Jack in the afternoon having decided the immediate plot of the issues waiting to be written. I got a lot done considering; 1 issue edited and 3 new issues written.
It’s all coming together nicely. I am conscious of other impending work with KIC and of my other GDR’s but I’m happy with the progress I’m making. This month’s plan is ‘so far, so good’.
Gail and I watched a DVD of Bob arley I got for her birthday. It is a live concert filmed at the Rainbow Rooms in London. One of the extras was a documentary of Nine Mile where his Mausoleum is located and in Kingston at his Museum. We were there in 2003 for our honeymoon and I found Bob's Mausoleum a very moving experience. I can't explain it, but being in there with him and his brother had me well choked up and emotional.
Anyway, the guide we had that day was a man called Yotto. He works for the Bob Marley foundation and is a true Rastafarian with distictive gold teeth and voice. He was hilarious and takled about bob as if he were his own brother. Which, in his eyes, he more or less was. We spent half a day with the man learning about Rastafarianism and Bob's life and teachings through his music. Imagine our surprise when we turned on the DVD documentary and it was him that was narrating! The only difference was the absence of a huge and long-burning spliff.
I wrote deep into the night and by about 2am I had taken HJ to new levels. I can feel the changes in the characters and their shifts in outlook and mentality. It feels like it is comnig together and Jackie feels it too. Things are becoming more real than ever, exposed and a raw truth is unfolding. Lots to do though, and I can see it unfolding in a very tense way. Got to keeop the writing tighter than ever and make sure it works.
My main worry is that I am not fully reflecting Jackie’s personality in the prose. It’s all fine and well him being real to me, but I worry constantly whether he is real to my readers or whether he is an empty character with no features of interest.
