Love Me to the Bone
Draft 1
Words Added: 1,145
What Happened in the Story: Continuing on consecutive scenes, on the way back to her apartment, Madeline hears the chime that marks the passing of a day. Her train ticket now says 2, and a new chapter is begun: Day 2. I doubt I’ll put in every single day, but I like the idea of marking chapters by the count to 365, the total number of days she has in Requiem. She finds her requested supplies, thank goodness!, and gets cracking, which is way easier when you don’t get hungry and don’t get tired. She bangs out her magnum opus, a file of 43 pages of notes for her colleagues, and indexes it and tabs it, and it’s freaking beautiful. Then she takes this back to the Dead Letter Office, begs it to deliver the document quickly to her company, and lets it drop down the chute and out of her hands. The chime rings again, and we break for the next chapter: Day 3.
Additional Notes: Didn’t think I’d get a chance to write much today. My brain just wasn’t turning on this morning, and I couldn’t quite lock down what I wanted to get into words, which is always a sign I need to think a bit more. Rarely does jumping into a scene without a clear idea of what the heck it’s supposed to be about helped me, and usually leads to scenes that get cut later because I hadn’t even thought about why they were there.
So what to do? I listened to music for a bit, not my usual playlist, because none of those songs quite fit the mood I was looking for. I sifted through other music I had on my computer, some very old, some less so, trying to get a feel for what I needed. In the end, I needed GirlBoss music, Florence & the Machine, St. Vincent, and Shiny Toy Guns, something with some drive and intensity to mirror her own emotional state. She’s got SHIT to do! It’s got to be done now! She needs to pump herself up!
I also found some songs I think will be great to suit Devon when he appears, and I suspect they’ll spend some time sharing music together, because his vibe is very much more Family Band, Empathy Test, Broken Bells, Anberlin, and The Midnight. I’d love to include some specific album names in the book, because I’m really, really loving it when I come across media or films referenced in books and stories that I can follow up on if I so choose–kind of an anti-algorithm recommendation system.
Also finished watching Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express, and now I’m describing this book as if Wong Kar-wai made a movie about skeleton lovers in the afterlife. Its vibe is SPOT ON–atmospheric, romantic, listless, longing–and Wong can be a bit weird in his own work. Gosh, what I wouldn’t do to see Madeline in a cute dress slow-mo walking through the skeleton city in Wong’s characteristic style! It’d be so freaking gorgeous, I’d break down in tears. Faye Wong would absolutely kill as a Madeline casting, too, and now I have to work not to see Tony Leung as the soul-crushed Devon.
Thanks for following along, and I hope you enjoy the ride! I’ll try and make these daily updates (on writing days), but I’ll probably miss a few now and then. Sorry about that in advance, but I’ll do my best to be consistent. If you’re craving some personal stakes in this process, feel free to toss me a “You Can Do It!” donation at my Ko-fi shop! I’m going to need a lot of coffee for this…