Darn it

 

Steam Punk is drilling strong supple roots of story. I'm being dragged along against my will, perfectly happy to do something else, like, uh...

 

This is hardly fair. (Gadant: "There is no such thing as fair.")

 

I don't even want to outline it. You know how much work is involved in sketching 1000 pages of drama that has to make sense, every chapter a jewel? Hah. Makes me think of Herbert Lom, the mad genius stuffing cotton in his ears, then torturing the Professor's daughter until she screams, by screeching a blackboard with an evil looking iron gauntlet that has long claws. Her father can't stand to hear the screams and agrees to build Project Looking Glass, so Lom (former Inspector Dreyfus) can threaten the entire world with destruction unless they kill Clousseau. I can still see the movie, every scene, haven't screened it in years. That's what story can do. I'm tempted to bend the slender green shoot of Steam Punk, make it a romp with a comic spine. Comedy goes in a circle. Clousseau remains Clousseau to the very end, unchanged, a hapless nitwit, a joke on all concerned. Darn it. Comedy ain't drama.

 

In drama, as in life, characters don't remain unchanged. They are profoundly transformed by whatever their moral choices and a theme require. They face life and death decisions that cannot be made twice or undone, and if they survive there is a high price to pay. Life changes people.

 

That's not exactly what a major literary novel should be about, although it's true that people suffer.

 

"Life is a headache!" a tired gay black guy in London said, rolling his eyes at the time and heroism he expended to produce an Afro-Dizziac Hair Show that I filmed at the Empire, used the whole stage and filled runways with pro dancers and leggy girls in fabulous hairstyles and fashions, animated lighting, music, packed audience, British Afro pop stars with upbeat screenworthy comments and an edge of exasperation that black people needed special makeup. The event was sponsored by Loreal.

 

See what I'm doing? Stalling. If I don't rabbit more trivia, I'll have to start writing. The depth and length of it will be hell, 1000 pages, 250 scenes, 15 memorable characters who matter. More than a year of uninterrupted work. Time off for mental collapse once in a while. Shoulders sag in a deep sigh.