Gosh darn, I'm so excited about this book -- I've just sat down and written out all the chapter outlines tonight. It's not that easy really, because I want it to be good, and I want it to be entertaining as well as informative and interesting. I think of ways to bring in the audience, to relate to them, or to have them be able to relate to my characters. I'm trying to jump way outside of my own comfort zone for this one. In doing so I'm taking a bit of a risk. I'm about to express myself through literary license and say things I don't personally believe or adhere to. Not everything I say in the book will be different from what I believe, but I'm allowing my characters to be more liberal-minded than I am - - and in some ways that's actually a good thing.
What I won't do is compromise. I won't say or have my characters do things I would never want to see done - that's not going to happen, but I will have one or two of them create for themselves, and for others, a means of which to reach the edges of the audience that may or may not feel that my style of writing is within their wheelhouse when it comes to what they choose to read. I want people to read the story and to catch the underlying meaning(s) that I think the world needs to feel and know.
It's not about religion, though this book will have a centralized base of morality and one of the main characters is my own pastor! He's a real person living in the present, but in my book, he's the same guy living in that present. Most of the stories about him will be true, but he may have to help me to put some of the pieces together so I'm not overstepping - - I do say he's spent years tearing open coconuts with his hands and cracking them on the concrete! He really is barefoot most of the time, and he really does climb into the mango trees in his own yard and pick the ripe fruits to sell to have money for the church!
There will be about 30 chapters and I have lined them up as best I can. I'm going to have flashbacks, and chapters or paragraphs where I go completely off into left field to make a point. One chapter will be a story I (Jude Stringfellow) wrote a few years back - - yes, Jude Stringfellow will make an appearance in the book - - my book -- that's pretty cool, right? The lead character will be a mix of me and others - - she's not me. I'm not her, but she is one of my distant cousins -- we determine that. That's how she, Leigh Madsen, finds out about Charlie Garrett in the first place. Jude Stringfellow writes about him and in her DNA searching, Leigh finds Jude and they talk - - Jude shares with Leigh a story she wrote, and the story is in the book - - again, pretty cool.
The book takes place now, in the present time, and very recent events will be mentioned in the book to bring to light that it is in the present and not something written of yesteryear. There is enough fiction to go around too, fiction like the name of a hurricane that never existed, the name of a student from Tulane who never existed, and the name of a town in Missouri that never existed - - it's fun being a writer. I wouldn't change it for anything. I say what I want when I want, and no one can stop me - - well, you know, no one has to buy the damn things either, but I still write them! Mathew Conner, my lead male character felt the same way about his profession too - - he was forced out of the profession, but the passion remains. He may not be a television chef now, but he still cooks! He still has it! No one can take that from him!
OK, enough about the outline - it's done. I'll start on Chapter 2 tomorrow, and maybe get it and Chapter 3 written after work. If I can keep up that pace the book will be written faster than most, but again, I don't want to push myself -- I want to be sure I say what I want to say. I could probably make the book 700 pages but I know no one would want to buy something that lengthy...maybe 350. We'll go with 350. That's a good number. I can bring it down to that. We can make this happen! (By "we" I do mean me. Yep...me.) See you on the other side!!
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