Inspiration!
Inspiration struck. I could hardly get the words down on paper fast enough. Then I would stop and rearrange the books on my shelf and go back to writing. Each time I re-read what I wrote I made changes that (I felt) substantially improved upon my phrasing. I was excited and thrilled feeling the creative juices flowing again.
Here’s how my new novel began:
The driver angled around a dog sleeping in the middle of the road. Like a drunk that couldn’t find his way home after a drinking binge, the mutt barely wrinkled its nose at the passing big block hemi rumbling down the hard-packed dirt street during the pre-dawn sultry African morning.
The muscle car reminded one of the American movie Dukes of Hazard, where a pair of long-haired local pretty boys from the 1970s were constantly getting into trouble with the law while they raced around in their hot rod saving all the maidens in distress, young and old alike. The color of the vintage hotrod was the same as the one in the movie, but in place of the two large yellow numbers ‘01’ painted on the side was a comic strip roadrunner. The incongruity of the scene would not be lost on anyone seeing the jacked-up hardtop painted bright orange as it passed by the extreme poverty and third world filth in the remote village.
The driver sat hunched over the steering wheel sipping steaming hot coffee from a ceramic mug as he tooled slowly up the dusty street. He kept the RPMs low so as not to disturb anyone as he made his way to a one-room mud hut that he’d converted into a garage. There, he kept the towns people’s battered Toyota Land Rovers and Chinese-made Shanghais and Feng Huangs running with skilled hands.
Here’s how my new novel began:
The driver angled around a dog sleeping in the middle of the road. Like a drunk that couldn’t find his way home after a drinking binge, the mutt barely wrinkled its nose at the passing big block hemi rumbling down the hard-packed dirt street during the pre-dawn sultry African morning.
The muscle car reminded one of the American movie Dukes of Hazard, where a pair of long-haired local pretty boys from the 1970s were constantly getting into trouble with the law while they raced around in their hot rod saving all the maidens in distress, young and old alike. The color of the vintage hotrod was the same as the one in the movie, but in place of the two large yellow numbers ‘01’ painted on the side was a comic strip roadrunner. The incongruity of the scene would not be lost on anyone seeing the jacked-up hardtop painted bright orange as it passed by the extreme poverty and third world filth in the remote village.
The driver sat hunched over the steering wheel sipping steaming hot coffee from a ceramic mug as he tooled slowly up the dusty street. He kept the RPMs low so as not to disturb anyone as he made his way to a one-room mud hut that he’d converted into a garage. There, he kept the towns people’s battered Toyota Land Rovers and Chinese-made Shanghais and Feng Huangs running with skilled hands.
posted by elkdreamer at 7:42 AM
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