The Civil War books pile up, my red pen furiously underlining things I can use in the new novel. I’ve been re-viewed the Ken Burns DVDs, and starting in on Gary Gallagher’s course for The Teaching Company.
I’ve also had swimming about in my head how best to structure this story, whether or not the Greek Gods will come into it, especially Ares, the Greek God of war, oh surely he must. There’s so much good material. Gallagher says every day some book or pamphlet is published; it’s the most written about period in American history.
But you can be damned sure that Robert Devereaux’s vision is going to be unique, and I can feel finally the real fire coming back in to my efforts toward fiction–which is precisely what makes or breaks a book from the outset.
Without that fire, what’s the point?
Yesterday, I finished reading The Real Lincoln. Will need to look again at the commentary about it on the web, but still, even if the author is pushing an agenda that’s causing skew in his vision, there’s still plenty to use here.
We have been handed such a load of bullshit about how great a Prez honest Abe was. But this, and the book about Taney and Lincoln, and the People’s History of the Civil War fill in the practical politics of his situation.
Seeing him as some saint is death to the truth of this novel.
Okay, enough of that.
The day it doth beckon!