A Pilgrim’s Digression

I added three chapters to “Rented Space” last night. Chapters 9 thru 11 are now on-line. Ten and Eleven are relatively brief. Ten might end up cannibalized for other chapters, I don’t know yet. Here are the links to just those chapters for those who want only to read the most recent parts:

Chapter nine

Chapter ten

Chapter eleven

Chapter eleven presents Crabbe’s night thoughts in a fashion similar to what I did with Carolyn in chapter five. This raises a question about my characterizations. It’s fun writing these bits. Stream of consciousness writing is like picking at a loose thread on your sweater and pulling it until the whole thing unravels. However, I have only my own sweater to pick at, and I wonder if my portrayal of the inner thoughts of Carolyn and Crabbe are too similar, or if they seem like the subconscious workings of two distinct characters.

Carolyn and Crabbe have definitely grown to be the two main foci of the story, the pivots around which the plot turns. So I worry about how I portray Carolyn; I want her to be convincing. I worry that her night thoughts are too sex-obsessed for a woman. Well, I am sex obsessed, and as I said I only have my own mind to work with. I don’t know how “normal” I am, or if my “normal” is normal for a woman. Probably no. Probably definitely no.

Crabbe is a different story. I think his thoughts are mostly appropriate to him, but I wonder if some of Carolyn’s thoughts are appropriate to her. Especially the thing about the german shepherd. That’s something Crabbe would think of, it seems to me.

Not that women don’t think of sex frequently; I think they do. To what extent, I don’t know. However, the brain is a sexual organ, and I think when relaxed in those last ten minutes or so before sleep takes us and in the dreams that follow, most thoughts/fantasies/dreams can in some way be interpreted as sexual response. But that may be “psychological reductivism” as Crabbe calls it. I don’t know.

Anyway, I need some advice on that. Is Carolyn a convincing female character?

At some point, too, I am going to have to figure out a better organizational strategy. I had hoped the “new page” tag would allow me to keep adding chapters indefinitely, each one in sync with the online “page” numbers. But of course that didn’t work. After seven pages, I had to start a new blog entry for chapter eight. Now the “pages” are out of sync in chapters 8 though 11. Don’t know exactly what to do about that. What a mess.

In the meantime, while I work out the organizational details, here are links to previous chapters (in reverse chronological order) for those who want to catch up.

Chapter Eight

Chapter Seven

Chapter Six

Chapter Five

Chapter Four

Chapter Three

Chapter Two

Chapter One