This week I pulled up a project I had finished the rough draft of in December and had reread the last couple months. I thought I was ready to start the rewrite and was hit with a wall of work I forgot about.
My first novel it had been worse, I had left great sections out of it with one sentence of: “write an adventure about this,” and then continued on the main narrative. I had wrote in a tense I thought was necessary till I learned my natural writing style first person tense was something I enjoy in other books. In that rewrite, I had to puzzle through a subplot, some character motivations and figuring out a dad joke. Yeah, guess which took the longest to figure out. The dad joke. I never was satisfied with that but left it as it was.
One of the things I enjoy about reading is being someone else and feeling like I am in their life and experiencing it so books with rich detail of sights, sounds and textures I gravitate towards. Because of this when I was also rewriting I took surfing lessons. My main character had surfed I ended up changing it to paddleboarding which I had found after the trip to learn to surf. Even though I believe I have a great imagination there is this thing about actual experience that helps you know what to punctuate in something to make it ring true for readers. Especially one’s with shared experience.
The main character of this piece smokes cigars.
It is something he uses in his magic and in conversation. It is a part of his essence in a scene as it were. I started the story with it. I stared at the first paragraph and paled. Yeah, for a rough write it is, ok detail. But, wait he was going to have to have a signature cigar and reasons why that involved taste and scent.
I have never had a desire to smoke anything.
Let alone know anyone who smokes cigars.
I reached out to my step-father and then one of my father’s friends.
Ended up reading an article. I had watched several videos on how to light a cigar and I listened to people talk about it. I realized I was going to have to deep dive this. Like the surfing.
So when I was able I went to a smoke shop. I have never been in one before.
When I was young there was tobacco and those products everywhere even vending machines. And any shop that specialized in smoking was all about tobacco. These days I live in Oregon and more then tobacco is legal to smoke.
I had googled shops that sell cigars, hoping I could find someone who has smoked some and and have a few conversations. I knew I would buy a few. So I could smell them and then light them and smell that. We will see if I put one in my mouth I may need to and well I will probably vomit pretty bad.
The shop was only 7 minutes from my house. Nope, I never really registered it before. It did use to be a wood stove shop. I pulled in to the parking lot reviewing in my head what to ask, and see where it goes.
I did a minuscule pause at the door when I saw the line of glass bongs in various sizes and shapes lining the walls. I was surprised on how clean the air was and the vibe was friendly. Two young men looked at me and greatly me in a friendly way.
So, I asked for help and explained. Went over the type of character I was doing research for. They were both intrigued and volunteered a lot. Unfortunately the cigars they had available were all too modern for the character I developed but I did buy two cigars to pay for their time and figured I can use them to compare when I find what I looking for….at least practice lighting them.
I will keep you posted on this project. So far it has dubious start. My nose itches when I smell the cigars I have, and well; I get slight headache from the smell.
(The thing is though when I was around 5 or 6 my mother had a boss that used to give her the empty cigar boxes he had to give me. And I remember them having a pleasant smell.)
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