Joseph is a Bastard

Joseph isn't a real person. Probably never was, but I'm writing a story about him, anyway.

He started as a story my Grandma told me, about some distant cousin who left the farm and travelled all the way to Australia, where he found a wife. They did what couples did, and before long she was pregnant. When the baby was born, it had dark skin and kinky hair, and she threw him out with the kid. Eventually he made his way back to Wisconsin and raised his daughter with his family around him.

I know how unlikely that was, say, around World War I, but there was something so...mythical...about the story, and the way she told it, that it has stuck with me ever since. And I've wanted to commit it to paper. I've tried half a dozen times, and failed miserably. Joseph is the stuff of tall tales in one. In another he's a dopey rube. Grrr.

So I chucked all those and started fresh: Spring Green, Wisconsin, 1910. Well, that's gonna change. Gotta be a little closer to World War I, because that is a time period that would allow a man raised in a small farm town to travel that extensively. Fine.

Joseph is a responsibility taker, which is something I can relate to, to a point. He covers his kid brother's ass while he's out day dreaming. He helps out the neighbors. He commiserates with his kid sister over the restrictions adolescence has imposed on her all too suddenly. He's a good guy. His mother is a little straight laced, but means well. His dad likes to drink, and means well. Somehow they always wind up at odds with each other, and Joseph is in the middle.

I've gotten as far as introducing the characters and have been stuck for months. Why the hell would Joseph leave a family he's obviously so committed to? Stuck, stuck, stuck. I was stunned enough when I found myself writing fiction again. But to immediately be stuck was even worse. I thought college had trained me out of writing fiction, and that it would be all analytical all the time forever and ever amen. Well, I cranked out a couple fanfic epics (I'm not proud. Well, a little) and thought, "hey, self, why don't we try Joseph one more time."

This time it's better....and that's not just me saying that. The family and Joseph come off a great deal more genuine. I have some hard core research to do.

But all of that comes to nothing when I don't know how the hell I'm gonna get this dude off the farm! I'm thinking I might kill someone off so that he has to leave the farm in order to send money home. Then he gets caught up in the draft and ends up over seas, where he meets the darling little wife. The rest, as it were, will be history. The beginning is here:

http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1165607

***

In between angsting about how I'm going to write this story, I've been trying to get out from under all the administrative bull shit that seems to pile up around me. Kerry has had finals and a court date, I've been researching L&I practices and labor laws for a friend (getting a jump on that legal research thing), trying to figure out what classes I might take in fall, along with finding a job before the one I have runs out. Therefore I've been terribly remiss in my fiction writing.

This is probably all farting into a stiff breeze, however. I have no readers. I'm like the dude on short wave radio in the middle of the desert. An occassional fellow all nighter will pass by, but not really pay much attention to the blather that I'm splattering on the page. So what? Who gives a shit? I don't know if I do or not, because creativity doesn't exist in a vacuum, but I'm not sure how I feel about the whole "public journal" thing, any how. Thought I'd try it and find out.

Maybe if I was a littel more conventional and discussed things people were interested in I'd really get to take this out for a test ride. Until then...

Good night and good luck.