rtw 185. 11/15/10

windows. free associate. view at different times. character through a window.


just last night, i was thinking about something...

i was painting in my kitchen all day, then it got dark out, and i happened to look out my kitchen window. i had it open to air our paint fumes.


right when i looked out, i simultaneously saw four neighbors behind the building i live in.

one through his window, two through an open door, and on his roof deck.

it was such a nice day for mid-november, and i thought it was interesting that six months after i moved in, i noticed things for the first time. the woman on the second floor, same as me, in the house directly behind me was in her kitchen with her back to me in front of her open door. she was cutting something down, it was big, like a yucca. she had this huge knife.

to her left, on the second floor, an older man was in his laundry room. i saw him through his open window. he opened his door and came out onto his back deck.

to her right, also on the second floor, a man in his forties, came out his open back door and was on his deck on the phone.

i had never noticed the deck on the rooftop of that building, and there was another man, under a trellis lit by christmas lights, just walking around.


as it is with 'room to write', tonight i opened to three different exercises, and was simultaneously struck by all of them.

one was wishes. which i already did, but it took a few minutes of being struck by it to remember. and without re-reading it, i want to do it again. because my wishes now are different, but variations on the same thing.

as they always are.

part of me wants to ignore the desire to write it again. and part of me doesn't.

the second one is one called 'i once was...but now...'

that is next.

but the third one was called 'windows'.

it reminded me of this idea i had a long time ago for another novel, mixed with this excitement for remembering yesterday's experience with open windows and open doors.


i'm going to start the story line here.


essentially, it's a story i thought of, one day, driving with ever. i looked over at a stoplight, and saw the passenger in a car on my left, and a driver on my right.

and it made me think that it would be cool to write a story that involved four lives (or maybe only the three), intertwined by a stoplight. each person knowing the others' stories just by glimpsing them.

i'm sure something like this has been written before, but saying as i don't watch movies much (until the last week), and i don't read much, i don't know of a specific one.

the passenger was going to be a girl. the girl i saw looked sad, and i tried to think of her as someone in a bad relationship.

the driver was a guy. i didn't know where to go with him.

and then my character, as the passenger was going to have a story.

i didn't know how to tie them together.


i think this is my next project...

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