N3

In this site’s “About,” I exaggerate that “bad planning and disorganization” is basically how I go about writing. It’s true…

Unless I am forced by circumstances.

Here and there on this site, I keep plugging my 54K-word novel Lostine, but never reveal it to you outside of a couple of chapters.

Last Fall, I began a novel that I am calling “N3”. For years, I dodged starting into the intimidating N3 concept: N3 is a 19-years-later sequel to Lostine.

My N3 problem is Lostine is just one of those sublime stories that are sometimes “conducted” to some writers. “Conducted” is the only usage I can think of for this  paragraph’s context. What I mean is that in my inception and writing of Lostine, I was just a conduit. I was over in north-eastern Oregon and I saw Joseph’s grave at the foot of Wallowa Lake. I had also seen a sign telling me a two-horse town we had driven through was called “Lostine.” That time of year, the air itself over there is animated; it takes on a wild feel, its smell is unprocessed. So w

So we drove on up to Powatka Ridge and set up our hunting camp. But I never could escape the obvious-to-me fact that “Lostine” – the name-sake of that little town back there - I knew she – Lostine - must have been something!  Setting-up camp, while the other guys were talking equipment, ODF&W and dinner, I was alone with a shovel, digging the latrine through compact, small rocks and thinking about the persona of the original Lostine. I was separated from the others by what I knew was the fact of the original Lostine. That was the exact inception of the story that I was given.

So now, as an artist, from the novel-writing point-of-view, I stand in Lostine’s shadow. Lostine was the first story of any kind I had written in fifty years. I had no idea how to write a novel. Lostine wrote itself, and so I still don’t know how to write a novel. From the Lostine experience, I did learn how – in order to be any good at all – a novel-length story should make people feel.

Sure, I have exaggerated here and there that I completed a novel called Mothership – the intended prequel to Lostine. I had a blast writing most of the 80K words in Mothership, but I knew early-on that I was writing two stories at once and I never could circumvent that artistic flaw and so that whole flatcar-load of paper is on the RIP(Repair In Progress) Track.

N3: Imagine an original woman Lostine over there way north-east of La Grande, Oregon. Put her on a horse in 1840 riding up to a group of Nez-Perce. She didn’t try to be one of them. She just didn’t answer to anybody but them. Whoever she cherished had to, also, be willing to answer to the Nez-Perce. N3’s Lostine is the same kind of inevitable loyalty. N3’s Lostine, though, drives a Beamer. This sort of fictional character intimidates me, but I am pulled into the story just to have the opportunity to try to describe her.

To aid myself in coping with N3, I have synopsized each of N3’s chapters as I have roughed them. Being pulled through the story, I frequently have had to go back and re-write earlier chapters to support the direction the story is taking. Which all implies I have developed some method.

What “type” of story is N3? Have you ever read Persuasion, by Jane Austen? That story reconciles a couple about eight years after their engagement was broken-off by the advice of an influential society lady to whom the bride made the mistake of listening too long.  N3 is muchly similar, but without any manners and best-feet-forward. Chet, N3’s narrator has hit bottom in his life and finds himself working as construction labor on a mansion restoration project owned by an early-thirties woman Architect – Lostine.

I know exactly how the story ends – so to speak. I know the very last sentence: “There was no stink to it.”

And you might ask yourself, “Why is he writing this ‘N3’?” Lostine is waiting for me to tell it. She’s patient with me, but not infinitely.