Figs! What do I do with them? I walked past them three times yesterday, and in the end I couldn't resist them. My grandmother and I used to pick figs from a tree across the road when I was young, so these figs were a nostalgic call-back to that era... to that Ruby Lavender era in Halleluia, Mississippi. And... now what?
I'm going to say I didn't overdo it, that this is just my method, because I also, yesterday, pulled out Hang The Moon, the second novel in the Sixties Trilogy. Here it is, all angles and bones, a mish-mash of secrets, dead ends and characters who broke my heart and made me laugh with delight -- here is a new world to create for readers, as I learn to reign in all this material, to fashion it, stir it, and knead it, like bread, and let it rise to a glorious shape, bake to a deep, golden brown.
It's okay to overdo it at first. I always do. I love going back to a draft (or a pile of tomatoes). I stand there with my hands on my hips and stare at it. Then I make some tsking sounds and begin to sift through it, knowing that I'm just about to get to the good part.Now. About those figs.... ?
