The Scene of Doom

I've come to the conclusion that writing is to be done in private. We write and write, whatever is inside us. We write until we can write no more and must reemerge from our writing cave in search of sustenance (beer, pizza, ramen), only to do it again the next day. And the next. And the next.

I tend to get very grumpy when I'm writing. It's really best for everybody involved to be far, far away from me when I'm in the thick of writing a complex scene or doing a massive overhaul of a section. the littlest thing can send me storming out of the room (like, say, my roommate laughing at something on The Daily Show while I'm trying to take notes while watching old newsreels and figure out how I'm going to incorporate fact and fiction.) and I just have to remember to resist the compulsion to throw my computer out the window whenever it eats a file I worked on three days ago. And hug my roommate and let him know I'm not mad at him.

Yesterday, I wrote the ending of the heart of the novel, where four major events happen all at once.

I had always intended it to be this way, but it took approximately twelve hours longer than it should have. My computer ate the part of this section I had been working on a few days before.

But it's over.

Bobby Kennedy has given his speech at the Ambassador Hotel and everyone who has been working on the campaign (including Ben the leading man) is at Jimmy's (a real bar in the neighborhood of Hyde Park in Chicago) celebrating his likely win.

Moments after Kennedy says, "And now it's on to Chicago and let's win this." Ben's father comes into the bar and tells Ben his wife is in labor. And they go on to the hospital.

Kate the wife is in labor. Ben is pacing the waiting room (since men weren't really allowed in the delivery room) and as a nurse comes in and tells him his wife has had the baby, he happens to see on the television in the nurse's station that Bobby Kennedy has been assassinated. His father grips his shoulders and tells him to take care of her.

After he spends some time with her, he sees his brother Phil, who has been in long-term treatment in the psych ward at a VA Hospital because he was suffering from severe PTSD and tried to kill himself.

The scene (and the entire heart of the novel) ends when Phil and his girl Diane, Ben, and the professor are standing around Kate's bed talking to her and the baby.

It took forever. And now on to Part Four, which has each character in turn asking themselves "what next?". I'm excited.