The first day of my ninety (90) day writing program was tough. Not because the assignment was difficult, but because I know that when I’m done and when I have a new novel, I’m gonna want to publish the thing and then the fun will stop. I love writing, but I’m not crazy about trying to convince people that they should buy my books. In my deluded mind, everything I write is worthy of outselling every single book on the planet. Shouldn’t people just know that my books are that good without me having to tell them?
Still, in spite of my frustration with selling a book that isn’t even written yet, I began the ninety (90) days. The first assignment was to mine childhood or other memories in an attempt to find an inception of a story that can grow into a novel. I didn’t do it exactly that way. I’ve had an idea for a story bubbling around in my brain for a while now and I decided that I’d work on mining that story’s main character’s memories.
The story that’s boiling is about a heroin user that has to reclaim his artistic prowess in order to buy back his seven (7) year old daughter from a drug dealer that kidnapped her. The heroin user’s name is Mikey Morales: He’s a twenty-eight (28) year old dude who started his adult life as an artistic phenom. His work had already been featured in New York galleries by the time his was twenty-five (25). But, as these things go, he soon found himself sailing on an opiate cloud. Even though his work made money, his addiction took his talent along with everything else he had earned.
Soon, Mikey found himself in debt to a local dealer known as “Pato” because he looked like a cartoon duck (“Pato” is the Spanish word for “Duck”). Pato, like most dealers, is a greedy and lustful prick who has no heart or soul. He took Mikey’s daughter in lieu of payment and is holding her for, not only Mikey’s debt, but also including interest accrued at a one hundred percent (100%) rate.
So, I mined Mikey’s memories and they’re pretty good…
Later tonight I’ll work on Day 2’s assignment…
Writing is nothing but fun…
