Winter Dreams pt. 7

Winter Dreams pt. 7

By Asa Montreaux

*

The next morning, at 6:00 am, Amory roused himself, feeling unable to continue sleeping while these great ideas continued to swirl in his mind. It was time to write. To get the great ideas down on paper.

It was just like in the triangle club, when he had smoked cigarette after cigarette, writing from the end of classes until the next morning. Presently he smoked a cigarette, and typed furiously on his typewriter, the same one he had used in college at Princeton.  

Starting a novel did not mean just hammering out page after page of the story, but it sort of meant that. The first two chapters Amory new by heart just after the drive home from Richard’s cabin. After that, it was a process of stopping to outline, furiously typing notes on each scene, and then furiously typing out the scenes themselves. 

In terms of the work itself, it was part the best literary work of his career, part the best thriller everyone had ever read. That was what he aimed to write. 

In a way, it was the most excruciatingly difficult work. Every second, you were using all your creativity to come up with the most interesting scene, in the best language. You wanted to quit, but partly from the cigarettes, and of course the coffee, and because of the sheer determination to write the great novel, you kept writing. You’d think it go on forever, but then your free, and you spend months living it up, and searching for that inspiration for the next great novel.  

It was coming together. The main character, Hercule Poirot, had that ego and confidence that made him a typical character of Amory’s. He was a hero – he had all the skills to solve any crime, and he could do anything in the field of forensic science on the world stage. There was a man whose superior position in his field Amory meant to draw from to shape Hercule, and it was Richard Diver. 

Richard was excellent at solving problems. He had that intellectual ability that made him able to find answers where no else had. It made him worth writing about. Amory vaguely wondered whether he should ask Richard about writing a book about him. He’d make for a fascinating study. And if Richard’s new book proved successful, it’d be a highly compelling piece. A semi-fictional novel, about the most successful psychiatrist in the world. Now that would be great literature. This is assuming it worked out, as Richard’s new discoveries easily could make him the preeminent scholar in psychology.

The possibility titillated Amory’s mind. Think of the money, the champagne, the admiration, that could result from such a work of fiction. It was unbelievable. Sometimes the power of fiction, represented by what the earnings could bring to him, made Amory revere Literature.

For now, he just worked little bits of Richard into the character. And he also used Richard’s theories to craft the plot, and especially, all the little mini-points of the plot. He used the completed plot Richard had given him to the tee. Everything else was just how to get from one point to the next. 

For the character Edward Ratchett, Amory used bits of himself, though the character was driven by an avarice and immorality that Amory strongly felt was not himself. The character also was far stupider than Amory -- this was more or less confirmable. Amory lovingly wrote sections where the character boozed, and seduced woman. 

For the female character Mary Debenham, Amory used bits of Genevra. Though much of what made up the character had to do with her function in the plot. What caused her to do what she needed to do for the plot, as well as what caused her psychological motivations, had to do more with what cultural elements informed her character, rather than the parts informed by Genevra.

Amory checked the clock and it was 2 in the morning. The next time he checked the clock, it was 6 in the morning. Just like at Princeton, he had written through the entire night again. 

What he had come up with was almost a hundred pages. Written in his best hand, at least the best given how short a time he had written it in. There would be plenty of time for editing later. But it was one hell of a start. Perhaps a third of the novel, already written. 

Amory went to bed. He found Genevra dozing heavily, perhaps still a little drunk. He undressed quietly, and then got in bed beside her. He noticed she had set the alarm for a little later, 8 30, and he thought that would do fine for him. He fell asleep.

*