Nanowrimo - Day Twenty Four (Revelations)

I've been working all morning on the novel, pushing deeper into the fourth main, and as of yet unexplored, character.  This process has given me a sudden revelation about what it is I'm struggling with.  I'd created four characters, two men and two women who are distinctly different from one another, when I realized a certain duality of identities that unites them.  As I wrote Misty, the second female character, I realized that she stood in bold contrast to Katie in a significant way.

Misty is the whore.  Katie is the virgin.  These aren't labels that have to do with their sexuality, but, rather, have to do with their self-conceptions, their identities.  This made me reflect on the men I've created.  There is a similar dichotomy to John and Willy.  Willy is the sissy, and John is the silent stoic.  While the whore and the virgin, or the Madonna, have been explored in academic arenas, I don't have a simple dichotomy for the male side of the spectrum.  I came up with "sissy" and "silent stoic," but I don't find these terms altogether representative of what it is I'm after.  In a way, it doesn't matter if I have the exact terms pegged down. I've come to realize that these concepts are going to be played out directly in the pages of this book. 

This realization is not an insubstantial one.  It means I have a better idea of my characters, of themes and concepts that will be played out, and a greater sense of the conflicts that each of my characters will face.  I now have a better understanding of the forces that will conspire against each of these characters and how the journey of the novel will unfold.

This is exciting.  Now, while all of this material will not appear directly in the content of the book, I feel like I have a stronger sense of what the novel is trying to express.  I don't say I have a greater control of the novel, but I maybe have a glimpse inside the DNA of the story.  I can see parts of its larger structure and I might be able to better identify when passages of the book are expressing that DNA or need to hit the cutting room floor. 

Huzzah to process.  Huzzah to unconscious revelation.  Huzzah to putting my butt in the seat and making myself available to this kind of stuff. 

Back to the writing.  I still have to catch up on my word count.

Word Count for the morning: 1,670
Total Word Count: 37,011
Sample Sentence/Sentences: (You need to know that Misty got beaten up by Willy in a moment of sexual frustration.  He deadened one of her teeth in the process.)

                Having woken up from her nap on the seventh day, she stood in front of the mirror and watched her graying tooth.  While it didn’t visibly progress as she watched it, she fantasized that she could see the shadow spread throughout the tooth from some central point inside.  She saw the shadow spread from the tooth and into her gums, shading the pink into a grotesque blackness that made her shudder.  Yet, she could not look away.  She held herself in the frame of the mirror and saw the shadow spread from her gums to her tongue, felt the shadow slide like a syrupy thickness down her throat and into her stomach. 

                Something in her stomach aggravated the darkness and sent it into a new flurry of activity.  It caused a bloated hollowness that seemed to seep through her stomach’s lining and radiate outwards until the whole of her body was infected with darkness.  When she imagined herself fully converted to a creature of shadow, permeated down to a cellular level, she made a choking sound that broke suddenly into sobs.  She hadn’t cried since the day it happened, but this fantasy showed her that she was touchable.  She was vulnerable, something she would have insisted wasn’t true only a week ago.  She finally tore her gaze from the mirror and sat down on the cold tile of the bathroom.  She pulled her legs up to her chest, buried her face into her knees and weathered the storm of her own grief over her lost beauty.