(no subject)
right now i'm in a fit of writing and i'm pleased with what i'm making happen in my story. and yet, i'm not just letting myself go. if this is what i seriously want to do (and seriously, seriously it's all) i need to get over the fear of not being able to write and then when i am not being able to let myself write.
i write because it's the hardest thing i've ever done.
here's my first page (single spaced):
When they talk about the men that built that nation, they’re talking partly about me. I’ve worked on a bunch of the bridges, as well as some of them giant buildings in every city from New York to San Francisco. Anyhow, I rode across the border to New York in the first place with Angus Tarbell in his old Ford pick-up. That thing was already starting to rust out when we hit the road, and by the time we made it to New York it was sputtering, but we made it anyways. The ride out was long, and that car sure as hell wasn’t made from the same steel we’d end up working with, but I didn’t mind any. Mostly I watched the country go by out the window, and now I think about how with all the building I’ve done in them places I watched go by I may as well call this place home.
Mary was none too happy when I decided to pick up and leave, especially seeing as it’d been only a few months after we lost Dominick. She figured with the Depression and all there wouldn’t be no more jobs in New York than at home, but I reckoned there was no way to figure without seeing. I also figured I was more likely to get a job in America with all them cities than I was in that small one where I lived. That morning I packed up to leave Mary was still sleeping, but I found a note she’d left me along with some food for the trip.
John, the note said, maybe a man losing his boy ain’t the same as a mother, but I’d hoped you’d stay where we know the people and the living. But since you can’t, you’d may as well call for me when you get settled and I’ll come try to make a home for us wherever you end up.
That was long ago, and I’ve been living down in America for years now, working mostly in the big city or around Hartford as of late to keep my traveling expenses light. I haven’t been back to the reservation but for a day or two in the past few years, but I know it’s exactly the way I picture it to have changed and stayed the same. And that picture ain’t nothing like the one I imagined when Mary first got pregnant. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen with her thick, dark hair and skin that was browned constantly from the outdoors. When I first left Caughnawaga I used to be homesick all the time. I would feel so lonesome for something of home that I would spend hours of my time and much of my money driving back to the reservation from North Gawanus on the weekends, just to see Mary.
Thinking of the reservation used to remind me of her, but now thinking of her reminds me of there. And it seems the longer I stay away the longer I want to stay away for good. The truth is that I can’t think of a reason that I’d want to go back to the reservation. After being on a rivet gang for so long I can’t think of myself sitting around not working. But I know I wouldn’t be happy keeping in one place no matter where it is after all this roaming I’ve been doing, and I figure since that’s the case that I may as well go back.
it's wild writing about a person with an experience as far away form my own as possible. it's completely confusing and liberating at the same time.
i write because it's the hardest thing i've ever done.
here's my first page (single spaced):
When they talk about the men that built that nation, they’re talking partly about me. I’ve worked on a bunch of the bridges, as well as some of them giant buildings in every city from New York to San Francisco. Anyhow, I rode across the border to New York in the first place with Angus Tarbell in his old Ford pick-up. That thing was already starting to rust out when we hit the road, and by the time we made it to New York it was sputtering, but we made it anyways. The ride out was long, and that car sure as hell wasn’t made from the same steel we’d end up working with, but I didn’t mind any. Mostly I watched the country go by out the window, and now I think about how with all the building I’ve done in them places I watched go by I may as well call this place home.
Mary was none too happy when I decided to pick up and leave, especially seeing as it’d been only a few months after we lost Dominick. She figured with the Depression and all there wouldn’t be no more jobs in New York than at home, but I reckoned there was no way to figure without seeing. I also figured I was more likely to get a job in America with all them cities than I was in that small one where I lived. That morning I packed up to leave Mary was still sleeping, but I found a note she’d left me along with some food for the trip.
John, the note said, maybe a man losing his boy ain’t the same as a mother, but I’d hoped you’d stay where we know the people and the living. But since you can’t, you’d may as well call for me when you get settled and I’ll come try to make a home for us wherever you end up.
That was long ago, and I’ve been living down in America for years now, working mostly in the big city or around Hartford as of late to keep my traveling expenses light. I haven’t been back to the reservation but for a day or two in the past few years, but I know it’s exactly the way I picture it to have changed and stayed the same. And that picture ain’t nothing like the one I imagined when Mary first got pregnant. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen with her thick, dark hair and skin that was browned constantly from the outdoors. When I first left Caughnawaga I used to be homesick all the time. I would feel so lonesome for something of home that I would spend hours of my time and much of my money driving back to the reservation from North Gawanus on the weekends, just to see Mary.
Thinking of the reservation used to remind me of her, but now thinking of her reminds me of there. And it seems the longer I stay away the longer I want to stay away for good. The truth is that I can’t think of a reason that I’d want to go back to the reservation. After being on a rivet gang for so long I can’t think of myself sitting around not working. But I know I wouldn’t be happy keeping in one place no matter where it is after all this roaming I’ve been doing, and I figure since that’s the case that I may as well go back.
it's wild writing about a person with an experience as far away form my own as possible. it's completely confusing and liberating at the same time.