Loveday Writing

Today I actually managed to make progress and write 1,597 words and most of these words were Michael’s letter to Lorraine.

Michael is Lorraine’s oldest child and I based him on his namesake–my father. I felt that Michael was the only child who could talk to Lorraine about his father’s death as he was the oldest and essentially had to take over his role. With Michael’s letter/story, I wanted to explore the perspective of being the oldest in a large family, and the consequences of having to grow up fast.

It wasn’t easy writing his letter, out of all of the characters, Michael is one of the characters I know quite well, but what I found difficult was channeling his voice, as I don’t normally write from the perspective of a 32 year old man. The more I wrote Michael’s letter, the more I understood him and the structure of my novel became clear.

Chronologically, the next character to tell their story will be second-born, Lucas—31 years old, professional dancer, choreographer of Lorraine and Travis’ first dance, and a proud gay man. Lucas is another character I know quite well.

Michael’s letter came to a total of 1,498 words, the remaining 99 words comprise of the title pages for the prologue, chapter 1 and chapter 2, as well as the beginning of Lucas’ letter to Lorraine.

 

Stay tuned…