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Incomplete thoughts and starvation regimes
Some more writing on the book last night. I finally wrote one of the major plot events: my protagonist's first sexual experience.
Actually, to be precise, I wrote half of this major plot event. Here's a secret: Never stop writing at a logical stopping point - the end of a scene, the end of a chapter, whatever. It will make it harder to start again. Always stop in the middle of something if you can.
I say "if you can" because writing is a slow, cerebral form of sex, and the temptation to go all the way is sometimes impossible to resist. If I stopped in the middle every time, didn't sometimes finish a sequence neatly with a metaphorical flourish of my pen and look at it and think, "There - I have written it and it's good," I'd be depriving myself of most of the fun of writing. Stopping in the middle is like coitus interruptus. It means you're more likely to want to have sex again later, but that's about the only positive thing you can say for it.
I'm sorry that the quote on the right is so grim, but you have to admit it's striking. It's from a special section in the Economist on North Korea. North Korea is doing worse than you can possibly imagine, in more ways than you can imagine.
It's always a bad sign when complete economic and social collapse is the best of the possible outcomes. The bad outcome will be if the US finally loses patience and invades the place. Estimates say that 50,000 US soldiers and probably ten times that many South Korean soldiers would die. The rest of North Korea gets a ration of five to ten ounces of rice a day, when they can get it, but the army actually has food and equipment.
This is going to be the kind of day where my eyes hurt all day and my brain feels tired. I can tell. The only thing to do with days like those is survive them.
I am worried about the quality of the book, and I need reassurance. I probably shouldn't be reading depressing articles about North Korea, should I?
Well, I was never known for my good judgment.
© Columbine
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A family talking to a journalist for the first time since escaping to the mountains in China [from North Korea] say they left because they had run out of hope. The mother, in her 50's, had visited a neighbour, who had been due to give birth. There was no sign of the baby. The woman had something boiling in a pot on the stove. She said it was a rabbit. It wasn't.
-The Economist, 10 July
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