Testing, testing, one, two, three.
So it's January 15th. I'm walking to work just passing the bus stop across street from the Chevron at Hopkins and the Alameda. And it's 9.25 in the morning. I wanted to talk about connecting Rosa to her creative writing class. It's a seminar style class so it's got maybe like the most dozen students in it. Let's say about seven or eight and you know the instructor. I'm going to say it's a grad student, not a professor. And maybe it's a lecture style. I don't know but he randomly picks a few of the people in the room and he's you know doing a kind of demonstration on the strength of constructing your characters in the story. So when you're a person who is a science fiction writer and just says hey what was your story again? Oh right. Tell me about what would so and so what would this one character like? Drice Starfinder. Some silly what would he be doing right now? And the girl instantly starts describing how he would be yet blah blah blah and do it yet blah blah blah. So yes but don't forget that when we talk about our characters we if there isn't a you know maybe maybe in her case. She wasn't emphasizing his interaction with other characters. And so it goes on to the next one's this guy. And he asked him okay so what would what's one of the characters in one of your stories. And he forgets what she wrote. Oh right. Flight of horse. Yeah so what would what would Florence be doing right now? Oh and she's dead. So okay well. Care to talk about what she's doing in the afterlife or maybe we can do that maybe. Another character. What's that like pick another character. It's called horse what's horse doing. And she kind of stalls doesn't really know. And moves on. That's when we get an introduction to Rosa as attempting to write a novel. And putting her in the context of Texas in college. And trying to work her way through college at the Dawson County paper. So yeah. Lab noise. Stop this.
And that's what so back to Rosa that's what leads the reader to the present where Rosa's sitting in the newspaper service desk and or classifieds desk and staring at her character outline and the red ink on the page saying yes but and not strong enough you know something that an instructor would write that's clearly just not good enough and then all of a sudden she hears a knock at the door and the gentleman walks in and this is where we have to describe and it's it's essentially horse she doesn't know until she puts his actually he fills it out on the half of the oil company that he works for and on his way out she um she says hey you didn't uh include a name he's like yeah it's the oil and she says I know it has to be a person's name it has to be associated with someone and that's when he uh that's when he tells her to horse or perhaps you know she maybe that's not the best way to do it maybe she has to find out after he leaves and so you know he leaves and then she finds out oh it's horse and he's got a horse with a horse. with a last name and his address is in midland and so she goes to midland and uh that's when she discovers he's um just given notice and uh returned his furniture at the rental company or perhaps it was uh a furnished apartment um and then and then she asks what did he leave a forwarding address and that's when she finds out he lives in Houston so she arranges to go to Houston thank lunch Hmm for a little
So I'm struggling with what motivates her to go to Houston and then buy a ticket to Egypt. Is it an escape? If it's an escape she's already got problems. But if it's an attempt to write a story, then it's much more interesting but it's got to be worth something. Is it, you know, we have to show that she... If the show that she believes that her story is worth more than anything. And so what do you do? And that's when she just full on buys the ticket. And goes buys the one way ticket to Egypt. Why does she buy a one way if she's willing to? Well, so that's when it's staring her in the face. See, she was trying to write Florence's story. And she just magically came up with the fact that her son's name must be Horse. And she knew that Florence lived in Namisa and left one day. But she didn't know that she came back or that her son would come back. And so what do you do when faced with this opportunity to chase down something that you have? It was just a personal project but turns out to be true essentially. I mean, she was fictionalizing Florence's story. But in her attempt to fictionalize it, it became true. I think that's the power. What do you do when fiction and truth dance before you? Horse's fiction Florence is truth. And so that's what is the ultimate motivator for her. So she is trying to rely on her kind of that same hunch, that same creative impulse that made her name Florence's son Horse. What was it? And so when she did, what was going on? And that's when it's that same impulse. There has to be kind of like a no-stradamus moment where she gets a twitch or something very unusual has to happen. And something out of place. That maybe it's that feeling that a bird is flying above your head and you turn around and there's no one there. She hears wings flapping. The flutter. She feels the flutter of wings to turn around. Didn't hear it but she feels it. And only to find that no one's there. And so that's what she feels again when she's in front of the travel agent. And he's telling her not to do it, not to spend her money on the trip. This will end very badly for you. And either how does she convince him or maybe he just doesn't care. Either way she buys the ticket. That's it. So there's a couple of good moments for dialogue here. There's the dialogue obviously in the classroom. There's a dialogue between Rosa and Horace in the newspaper. And then there's the dialogue between Rosa and Tarek. The travel agent. And then again the dialogue between Rosa and Horace on the plane. Okay, I'm at my work now.