This will probably be my longest entry. Well, actually, I can’t know that for sure. I am just in the beginning stages of writing this novel so everything is up in the air right now. Anything could happen… As they say.
When I was younger, I wrote a lot. All of the time, actually. If I wasn’t with friends or boyfriends, I was in my room, at my desk, on my computer, writing. Writing poems and songs, stories, blog entries (Greatest Journal and Live Journal), once I attempted a novel. I have it printed out someone where, hidden in a box in my parents’ garage. I can’t wait to get it out someday, far into the future. Not that it is much, It exists as a modest thirty pages of something resembling a roughdraftbrainstorm!
Much like this novel exists now. Fifty six pages, typed, from the beginning sentence on. Only this is a true rough draft. Some parts have been written and not looked over again. Other parts I have written and rewritten and consider ready for the printing press (is that too bold to admit publicly?). The rest of the novel exists in snippets. Some short sentences, other are generous chunks of chapters, then there is everything in between. These parts are not typed up and are written on two legal pads that I keep in a, I don’t know, binder, I guess, that my mother found at her office. It Is leather, or fake leather, I can’t tell the difference, it is tagged with the Seattle Mariners brand, it has a zipper and holds pencils and other documents. It is awesome.
The rest is written up in a red journal that I once covered in a bunch of Strawberry Shortcake stickers I bought from a little girl at a gas station in Costa Rica. I bought the journal In Costa Rica too! But that is for another entry I guess. I'll take a picture of it soon, I don't have it with me now.
I say all I have said to really only say one thing… Now, at 23 and I going to write with the gusto I did at 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, even 18... I stopped when I developed a fear, a hesitation, an apprehension, but I am going to write my way through it. I am going to have confidence in myself once again.
Every free moment I will write. I am not going to give myself a certain amount of words or pages (though I will track them, to help me feel the progress) but when I am not cooking, working, or tending to my husband, I will be writing whether it be in this journal/blog, on a legal pad or in the journal, or anywhere, really. I am just going to make myself write.
So, I have been reading different tips about motivating yourself to write, which is what I really need because the story is alive in my head but a mess on paper. I need to focus, and to do that I need confidence. One of the suggestions was to keep a journal. So, here I am that, that is what this is. Lets see if it works.
Another suggestion was to write a press release of sorts. A cover letter you would send to an editor, is the idea. For my first entry I wanted to include that. Remind you, it is just a rough draft. As I transcribe it I have to search through the scattered text for meaning. I’ll attach a photo. I actually really enjoyed this exercise and it did boost my self confidence. It made me realize that I really did have a good grasp on my story.
HERE GOES:
A tale of three women and how love and magic shaped their lives. At the center of the story, Beatriz, who is raised by her mother and aunt atop a cliff over looking the Pacific Ocean in southern Oregon.
The opening of the novel is the story of a tragic love affair that takes place between, Angela and Peter, Beatriz parent’s. At one time, the love between them was brilliant and all consuming but turns violent in the end. Angela leaves him shortly before Beatriz is to turn six, to live with her sister in the house she grew up in. As Angela leaves her home in Washington state on the boarder of Canada and drives the eleven hours to her sister’s house during which she reflects on the first week she met Peter. A year unravels before she puts Beatriz into school, during this time she reflects on her love affair and marriage.
The second part of begins in the first person in the voice of Beatriz the day she is turning 13 years old and the summer of her first kiss and her first love. When the summer comes to an end longer jumps in time will occur, spanning different time frames, told in third person or by Beatriz. As Beatriz grows we learn about her life and teenage love affairs as well as about the life of her mother and aunt Janine.
The third part of the novel opens where the second leaves off, Beatriz has moved out of the house she grew up in and is attempting to “make it on her own.” Albeit with much help from those around her, especially her mother and aunt. The town she has grown up overlooking has become a regular tourist attraction. At twenty one years old she rents commercial and domestic space from a couple in town who own a popular flower shop. When the couple becomes pregnant they downsize and Beatriz begins to run a fusion café/flower shop. During the summer they cater to honeymooners, surfers, college kids from the near by University. During the winter they still cater to many tourists, artists, writers, musicians who are all looking for inspiration in her town and in her coffee shop. The story focuses on Beatriz’s coffee shop and her lovers. The most impressionable love affair Beatriz suffers is with a young writer from Spain. When they meet each other her shop has become an exclusive, high end restaurant attracting wealthy business. During the early morning it still remains a popular and award winning café and bakery. Beatriz runs the café and bakery, her business partner and best friend, Leo, a young ostracized gay man runs the exclusive restaurant at night with her help as waitress.
Strong Themes are love, lust, femininity, motherhood, daughterhood, sisterhood, sex, magic, food, writing, literature, friendship, language
Controversial sub themes are sadomasochism, graphic sex, graphic violence, some drug use
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Simply this is a story about love, what it means to love and feel love. How it feels to be a woman. And, how it feels to be alive. I want the experience to be real but the story to be whimsical, magical. Like a modern day fair tale.
I leave you with my favorite line I have written today! Good night!
“Angela had never been brave, often she had been reckless, but there is a difference. In her past naivety she had made cumbersome life decisions. Regarding her education, her profession, and her residence but she had never made any grand resolve regarding her heart. She hadn’t dared.” (Still not sure about that last sentence…. We’ll see)
