Writing, 8/30

I wish I were in Ireland this summer for this. J.M. Synge was one (of many) discoveries I made there, what, five years ago now, and one that still lingers with me. Visiting the Aran Islands and then reading about them, so starkly and vividly in his prose, I realized I could write about my home, Iowa, in the same way (not as good, mind you). We went to the theater nearly every week we were there and those were some of the best times I had, even if it was hot as hell in some of those old places. I fell in love at a theater in Dublin, I had my heart broken at one. The theater is Dublin for me, in so many ways.

I wrote - or weaved - fifteen pages in Chapter 9 of the Angel Book tonight, bringing it up to 222 official pages (lots more material there waiting to be sewn in). I feel very excited and unsure about this chapter; in a book of somewhat unusual construction, this one takes on quite a bit. I wanted to do something different and dramatic in it, something befitting the SHOCKING REVELATION that takes place in it, and I ended up splicing it together, somewhat cinematically, with another chapter altogether. I found they matched each other very well, and the tension and strain in one bounced right off the other. At least I hope so.

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