A LAST CHANCE POWER DRIVE
The creative process is a crooked path with many forks that the writer must pursue or pass up along the way to the final destination, whatever that might be. You don't choose the path. It chooses you. You just have to let it.
That's why my main character ended up owning a 1971 Olds 442. It wasn't there when I started writing; now it forms the core of the ending, a suicide rap into the truth behind a runaway American dream.
This particular path ran from Bruce Springsteen to "Born To Run" to muscle cars to a memory of an old buddy in 'Nam who was fixated on the Olds 442, a car he planned to buy as soon as he got home.
I could understand his need for speed. After I got back to the world it wasn't long before I bought my own suicide death trap machine. I had this tremendous energy inside me that could only find release at the edge, a high speed run down a winding road leaning the bike deep into the curves. That’s not where I am now, but those feelings are still there, waiting for that one last chance power drive into destiny.
In a way, that's the point of the book, to explore the ways in which ordinary people respond to extraordinary events. We are a delicate balance of instincts, memories and intelligence. Each of us carries within us our own unique blend, so the outcome can never be guessed ahead of time. Unless we understand what was there before, can we ever understand what came after?
Look at Haiti. A lot of folks thought the Haitians would descend into chaos after the earthquake. By and large it didn't happen. We underestimated the character of the Haitian people because we didn't understand where they had been so we couldn't know how they would handle things. Looks like they did okay. Better than okay.
I can only hope that when my time comes, folks will look back and think the same about me. He did okay. As for the guy in my book . . . well that remains to be seen.
January 24, 2010
| blog comments powered by Disqus |
