Writing Journal

Craaaaaaaaap.
In February of 2014, I took the train from Omaha to SLC and back.  The return trip is the entire basis for my novel.  I've known since it happened that this story needs to be told, and now I'm wishing I had actually finished it last year.  Because.....one of the people I met on the train introduced himself as "Chiraq."  That's what he asked us to call him because, in his own words, the part of Chicago (south side) he was from was more violent that Iraq.  When I asked him what he did for work (as a small talk question), he said that he was in the, uh, distribution business.  (nudge, nudge) One of my college classmates posted a status about how he wasn't going to "knock Chi-raq" until he had "seen it."  Figuring it was a movie, I went to imdb, and, sho' enough, that was one of the featured trailers on the site.  Directed by Spike Lee, due to come out December 4.  A modern-day adaptation of the Greek play "Lysistrata" about the violence in Chicago's Southside.

One more odd bit of insight about tonight's learned lesson is that I was on the floor in the living room, avoiding writing, and realizing just how white-washed my movie collection is.  The only movies I have that my MC could possibly even come close to identifying with is Akeelah the Bee and Drumline, which stars Nick Cannon, who is playing the character Chi-raq in the movie.

....and now, after a bit more research into the term, I've found some homework to do.
Namely, watching this.
I also have to put up my map to track Lawrence's journey by train and I realized today at work that I forgot to assign them all families.  Like, I know that Lawrence has an older brother who doesn't live with their mom and I think a younger sibling or two, Chiraq has step grandkids, and Zoeyanna has a younger brother, a stepdad, and a mother. But do they have names?  Not yet in my NaNo world.
And I also only have only about half of the timeline up on my wall/storyboard.  Have to finish that before too long.
Yeeesh.