A Horse of a Particular Color
I’m 50K words into my current project, a novel, working title “Seven Texas Tales (a novel).” That puts me at about halfway done, and at the rate I’m going, I should be wrapping up a first rough draft by the end of the year.
For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been struggling with two problems: (1) A scene begging to be written, but with no real significance to the story as a whole, and (2) A plot problem that was resisting all attempts at defenestration. You know where this is going, right? I finally figured out that problem 1 was exactly the trebuchet I needed to rid myself of problem 2.
That’s a good day in novel writing.
Another interesting coincidence: A young man in my novel steals a horse. I decide that he names the horse Moses. Why Moses? I’m not sure—the name just kind of popped into my character’s head. Moses needs a color. I see him in my mind’s eye, but I don’t know enough about horse lingo to know what to call a horse of that color, so I look at a bunch of horses online, and find a “chestnut” horse that looks a whole lot like my Moses. I mean, my character’s Moses.
Next comes trying to describe what it is about Moses that makes my character decide to steal him. Something about the way the morning sun glints off his hide. Glints off his hide like a shiny brass . . . what? So I decide to look at famous things made of brass. What pops up, near, if not at the top of the list? A brass sculpture by Michelangelo . . . of Moses.
So here’s a very quick sketch of a very little bit of that sculpture—sorry man, but I’ve got a novel to write.

Why does bronze Moses have horns? You'll have to ask Mike.
By the way, did I ever tell you, there’s a bunch of free (FREE) short stories and essays by me and my friends available online? You can find them here:
https://coryluspress.com/short-stories/
For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been struggling with two problems: (1) A scene begging to be written, but with no real significance to the story as a whole, and (2) A plot problem that was resisting all attempts at defenestration. You know where this is going, right? I finally figured out that problem 1 was exactly the trebuchet I needed to rid myself of problem 2.
That’s a good day in novel writing.
Another interesting coincidence: A young man in my novel steals a horse. I decide that he names the horse Moses. Why Moses? I’m not sure—the name just kind of popped into my character’s head. Moses needs a color. I see him in my mind’s eye, but I don’t know enough about horse lingo to know what to call a horse of that color, so I look at a bunch of horses online, and find a “chestnut” horse that looks a whole lot like my Moses. I mean, my character’s Moses.
Next comes trying to describe what it is about Moses that makes my character decide to steal him. Something about the way the morning sun glints off his hide. Glints off his hide like a shiny brass . . . what? So I decide to look at famous things made of brass. What pops up, near, if not at the top of the list? A brass sculpture by Michelangelo . . . of Moses.
So here’s a very quick sketch of a very little bit of that sculpture—sorry man, but I’ve got a novel to write.

Why does bronze Moses have horns? You'll have to ask Mike.
By the way, did I ever tell you, there’s a bunch of free (FREE) short stories and essays by me and my friends available online? You can find them here:
https://coryluspress.com/short-stories/
Published on August 05, 2018 18:57
•
Tags:
bronze, horse, michelangelo, writing
No comments have been added yet.