Two Monitors

 

The twin monitor setup is finally doing something for me. I have the basic structure of Sometimes a Fox nailed down now, and even more importantly, figured out how I am telling the story. I dropped Drea almost completely out of the picture, for instance, meaning the only out-of-chronology material of the main narrative is Penny's flashbacks on her first night in Paris.

Jonathan Huxley still has his memoirs, of course, and today I heavily expanded the Bateau-Lavoir scene. I am even more strongly tempted to watch a couple of documentaries on Picasso, especially the young Picasso, in addition to at least something on Rodin (something other than a whole bunch of short subjects on the Gates of Hell, which I have watched.)

In any case, I had the text open on one monitor, and two different mind maps open on the other as I flipped back and forth nailing down more of the mid-scale structure. There was a lot more of that to be planned than I thought there was -- and there's still more to go. Heck, I haven't entirely decided on the chapters to finish up the part I'm writing on now!

But I've been diving back and forth anyhow, mostly taking out big chunks of text (something I'm going to pay for later, as I try to make up my page count) and progressively cleaning up after the various surgeries. It more-or-less is contiguous manuscript up to the Pompidou and the 22K mark now.

That is to say, I'm back up to where I was four months ago. And barely a third of the way through a novel I started well over a year ago.

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At least I've had some mild success with my "quick Jollof rice" recipe. Tomato paste does not work in the rice cooker; tomato sauce or, even better, petite diced tomatoes. Funny, how all the recipes I turn to most often these days are a crazy mixture of spices. I can't help thinking jollof rice came together as a "throw everything spicy you have into the pot because otherwise it isn't hot enough." But the recipes generally call for chillies, garlic, ginger, pepper, and curry. Plus butter, oil, onion, bell pepper, tomato, beef stock, beef boullion...