Suicide, the novel – Part 4
Another week has passed and I’m still working on Chapter 3. The word count is up to 7,500+, but I’m still on Chapter 3. I have to keep reminding myself that the first two times down this course I was writing all this early stuff on lined tablets and transcribing (and editing) all of that into the computer on the weekends. I prefer writing on the computer and that is why I bought the laptop. It allows me to take the novel wherever I go and I hope I'll be going somewhere soon.
Although I am working on Chapter 3, I'm actually working on a different Chapter 3. The flashback to 2 years ago needed more fill; and, I’m beginning to think it needs to go on for 2 or 3 more chapters. This event is supposed to begin to explain why Arne is so screwed up in the head, but Chapter 2 as initially written didn’t explain shit, even after adding additional material. So I need to add at least another chapter’s worth of material to give further substance to his present insanity. Of course, there has be other flashbacks for further evidence of his instability, but those have yet to be devised.
After all, this is all made up. This is all about one man's life and the horrible way he lived it. In the end, or at least one of the ends I've come up with, he's seventy-something when he runs into his youngest son in Rawlins, Wyoming. They're both passing through, going in opposite directions. Arne recognizes Johnny first and is tempted to just walk on by, but doesn't. In another ending, Arne dies attempting to fake his suicide. In another ending, his current family dies trying to stop him from committing suicide. That would be very tragic and devastating to Arne, but it might be a viable ending, too. We'll have to see where this thing leads me.
For review, Arne is troubled by thinking his parents’ and sister’s deaths were his fault, even though he was only five years old at the time. Also, he is trouble by his first wife’s death from cancer and his younger brother’s death of AIDS. Both of them practically died in Arne’s arms. The children of his first marriage are grown, but live on the other side of the country; the son and his family in southeastern Missouri and his daughter in the New York City metro area.
Arne’s current wife and children have gone off leaving him alone on his birthday. His best friend from grade school through college is having a fling or whatever with a young twenty-something graduate student from Berkeley named Boris Something-ich.
And, so, Arne takes off driving to who knows where. For him at that moment it is a solution. Not a very good solution, but a solution all the same.
I think when he arrives at wherever he’s going, Arne will come to a decision about himself that will impact his future, the current time of the story where he is trying to kill himself, but ends up seeing others die.
The solution to his current problem will be to run away, too, but it will be done in a more accomplished manner, more like he actually committed suicide, actually died and went on to the great beyond, or wherever people’s souls go.
Personally, I think souls come back for another go as the Hindus and Buddhists believe, but with the general increase in worldwide populations, reincarnation doesn’t work unless souls are being promoted from other animals. I suppose if the increase in people is balanced against a corresponding decrease in other animal populations reincarnation will work, but who’s to say what really happens. All of this thinking about spirits, souls, and gods, may simply be our mind's way of dealing with a life that is not threaten by predators. When death is not a daily risk, what is to say our minds didn't come with a solution that make sense if you don't think about it too hard.
After all, thinking may simply be a result of an evolutionary mistake and we’re all going to die when the next asteroid strikes.
Although I am working on Chapter 3, I'm actually working on a different Chapter 3. The flashback to 2 years ago needed more fill; and, I’m beginning to think it needs to go on for 2 or 3 more chapters. This event is supposed to begin to explain why Arne is so screwed up in the head, but Chapter 2 as initially written didn’t explain shit, even after adding additional material. So I need to add at least another chapter’s worth of material to give further substance to his present insanity. Of course, there has be other flashbacks for further evidence of his instability, but those have yet to be devised.
After all, this is all made up. This is all about one man's life and the horrible way he lived it. In the end, or at least one of the ends I've come up with, he's seventy-something when he runs into his youngest son in Rawlins, Wyoming. They're both passing through, going in opposite directions. Arne recognizes Johnny first and is tempted to just walk on by, but doesn't. In another ending, Arne dies attempting to fake his suicide. In another ending, his current family dies trying to stop him from committing suicide. That would be very tragic and devastating to Arne, but it might be a viable ending, too. We'll have to see where this thing leads me.
For review, Arne is troubled by thinking his parents’ and sister’s deaths were his fault, even though he was only five years old at the time. Also, he is trouble by his first wife’s death from cancer and his younger brother’s death of AIDS. Both of them practically died in Arne’s arms. The children of his first marriage are grown, but live on the other side of the country; the son and his family in southeastern Missouri and his daughter in the New York City metro area.
Arne’s current wife and children have gone off leaving him alone on his birthday. His best friend from grade school through college is having a fling or whatever with a young twenty-something graduate student from Berkeley named Boris Something-ich.
And, so, Arne takes off driving to who knows where. For him at that moment it is a solution. Not a very good solution, but a solution all the same.
I think when he arrives at wherever he’s going, Arne will come to a decision about himself that will impact his future, the current time of the story where he is trying to kill himself, but ends up seeing others die.
The solution to his current problem will be to run away, too, but it will be done in a more accomplished manner, more like he actually committed suicide, actually died and went on to the great beyond, or wherever people’s souls go.
Personally, I think souls come back for another go as the Hindus and Buddhists believe, but with the general increase in worldwide populations, reincarnation doesn’t work unless souls are being promoted from other animals. I suppose if the increase in people is balanced against a corresponding decrease in other animal populations reincarnation will work, but who’s to say what really happens. All of this thinking about spirits, souls, and gods, may simply be our mind's way of dealing with a life that is not threaten by predators. When death is not a daily risk, what is to say our minds didn't come with a solution that make sense if you don't think about it too hard.
After all, thinking may simply be a result of an evolutionary mistake and we’re all going to die when the next asteroid strikes.
posted by Carl Holiday at
8:39 AM
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