Forming the Storm Front - TWIW - 6/16/25 - 6/29/25
Ending, Beginning, Noodling
Output - Data
Total: 11,387 words (33 pages [6,732] + 4,655 typed)
Days of Writing: 14/14 days (1.000 WrPCT) [Better than any major league team]
AWD: 813/day
Words Added to Avalanche: 20
Ratio: negligible
Longest Day: 6/21/25 - 2,136 words (3 pages [612] + 1,524 typed)
The Still Bleepin’ Counts Award: 6/29/25 - 21 words typed
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Output - Synthesis
Grind, Push, Perpetuate - Last Week's Update
It felt like a lot happened, and a little happened—like a glacier, where the output is only a pinpoint of what lies beneath. After we polished off the Pouring of Time, printed it, and added it to the manuscript, we moved on to the next scene, Storm Front—one in which the note card had only a once-true, vague idea on its notecard—“The blessing of the railroad and telegraph.”
In the Pouring of Time, I changed the plot such that neither the railroad nor telegraph have reached the city yet—rather, Levi fights to bless the first delivery of mail set to arrive in that April of 1876. My idea for the scene was never entirely focused, and that was evinced by having both the railroad and telegraph to bless. Now, it’s something a bit smaller in action but larger in dramatic implication.
Yet, still, all I had was a vague idea for a nucleus and what felt like a million electrons bouncing around trying to get my attention. So instead of trying to make linear progress, and funnel all these electrons all at once, I noodled for a week. I sat down and I dicked around and I discovered the idea the best that I could.
What came about from this was my dissatisfaction that everything was, once again, too Levi-focused, like, at this point in the storyline we really need another check-in with Maribel come six months after she tried to leave. I did not want to fall into the stodgy “Say the thing, do the thing” trap of boring writing, either, and having the city council scene followed by the blessing of the post office would’ve exuded this trope.
Through all the wandering, I was getting closer: it needs to be from Maribel’s POV; it needs to take place after the city council meeting, but before the blessing of the post office; it needs to offer an update on her ageless plight, on the rumors a’swirlin’ among the community; and, after eight months narrated by Levi, we must hear her voice again. True to my process, I turned this list into questions, broke it down into acorns, and await their germination.
So the noodling and the asking and all the wandering around in my novel’s garden of forking paths led to a pretty clear idea of the next two scenes: Maribel gets called a bruja on he way to the post office, and Levi blesses the mail as the storm of the century roils up from the south. Maribel will narrate the former, and Levi the latter. As a bridge between the two, the mail man appears with exhausted horses to help Maribel and gives her a ride to the post office.
I got the note cards for both of them cleared up, and spent the second week readying the Scene Details sheet for Maribel’s scene, “Storm Front.”
I’ve got it all ready, and it’s all becoming clear. I am very excited to nearly be done with this storyline. I’ll admit it’s been tough holding back on my eagerness to start in on Llewellyn and Virginia’s story in the 1950s. At the same time, holding it all in will have us bubbled up to burst when we are finally free to start in with it. I’m sure it’ll be an exciting journey to share with y’all.
Input - Synthesis
When I set out to read Omensetter’s Luck, I thought I would find an analogue for Levi in Rev. Jethro Furber since I did during my first read through in 2021, during the writing of the first draft when wrath and brimstone played a much larger role.
In the time that’s passed, in the Levi that’s grown, I see now an antipode rather than an analogue. Levi’s gone from a Furber-like preacher who manipulates people with guilt, shame, and embarrassment to a pastor focused on lovingkindness toward both nature & man.
All of Levi’s brimstone kinda leaked out unintentionally during the writing of the second draft, and he was refilled with a clearer form of Light, one that you can root for—cuz Furber definitely ain’t a character you can root for: he’s more one you’re dragged along with as he uses God to justify his malicious obsession with Brackett Omensetter.
Furber is a bloviating mess of a man, one who spent his childhood sheltered into being mostly entertained by Old Testament violence. Levi is a Desert Father who, as a child, was drawn to the New Testament: all the stories of lambs and animals, all of the kindness Jesus expressed, how this kindness was synthesized and somewhat confused by the books that followed—and when he finally reached Revelation he wondered how the God of Love could bring such great wrath—surely it was only a fever dream, an allegory for our folly, an amplification about our need for redemption. Jethro Furber sees only red. Levi Greenaway only sees, well, green.
But I’m still loving Omensetter’s Luck. It is demanding and difficult and kinda offputting and exhausting at times, but it is never, ever predictable. Even during this second read through, Gass’ world is one where anything feels possible—and that anything will happen. There’s also a great Bradbury-esque balance in the prose between long discursions and short conversations—interested in everything, but focused on only what’s important. It allows you to breathe and roll through a couple pages before you’re thrust back into the streaming consciousness of the mad preacher.
Input - Data
Book: Omensetter’s Luck by William H. Christ Gass
Starting Page: 123
Ending Page: 200
Days Read: 4
Pages Read: 77
APD: 19.25
4/14 days (.285 rPCT) [Pacing the Colorado Rockies]
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