I don’t have an illustration to accompany this post. I Google-image-searched pictures of vacant-eyed, 19th century female circus animal trainers, but there was nothing satisfactory. For some reason I looked through the works of Odilon Redon, the late 19th/early 20th century French surrealist painter, draftsman and printmaker, whom I have admired since I was a teenager, and though many of his works carry the right sort of atmosphere, none of them were a perfect match for what’s going on in chapter 9. I might be able to use some of them when I’m posting about Part 3, though. They have exactly the right sort of surreal, religious, desolate feel for much of what’s going to be taking place between chapters 11 and 15.
While I’m making associations with other people that make creative stuff, I’ll just mention that my soundtrack for chapter 9 has been Tim Hecker: an amazing ambient musician who produces work that spends most of its time being extremely intense, which isn’t a word you’d usually associate with ambient music. I’ve been listening to his albums: Virgins, Ravedeath 1972 and Harmony in Ultraviolet, and I’m hooked. Its not the kind of stuff you want to sing along to in the car, but for keeping me in the right sort of mood to write about two melancholy lovers heading inexorably towards the existential abyss, it’s just the thing. Björk’s 2015 album: Vulnicura has also been receiving a lot of play. Its wonderful.
The story now sits at 47,490 words, total. Chapter 9 has dealt with the start of the downward journey for our two hapless protagonists. The law is on their trail, hunters are after them, and their ties to each other are fraying. Also, poor Valentina’s situation is becoming clearer as she descends into some sort of possessed madness. We seem to be gaining pace toward some decisive and possibly awful event, ending Chapter 10 and Part 2. 🙂
More soon.
desperate nothings 