Not quite as blank as all that [with PS]

The blank  page icon that is today's wordless post may have given the impression that I have gone blank. 

(But maybe I have just gone clear. I mean, if I were a Scientologist. Which I am not. And I haven't. Gone clear, that is.) *

Actually I spent the post-treadmill part of the morning working on background for my projected novel about the boy with wings. This includes coming up with a list of characters with names and at least a bit of back story; a setting in time and place (the recent past in a small town in central Texas); and possible plot points or subplots. None of this is set in stone, of course. But I am trying to get the gears turning a little so that when I begin writing on November 1, I can begin with something.

The narrator and his daughter, who are the main characters in the novel in my mind at this point, are taking on flesh. 

("What?" you say. "Isn't the boy with wings the main character?" Well, no. He is the focus of the story in my head, but he is not the protagonist as such.) 

The minor characters are still mostly stick figures with name tags. I have to be careful with the names, because in the WhoVille stories, I opt for names that are bad puns or that are evocative of something. In this story, I do not want that to happen. WhoVille is an intentionally quirky and amusing place. Blakesfield, Texas is not. Not in the same way, at least.

This evening we have the second of the introductory sessions for people who may be interested in participating in NaNoWriMo. I suspect there will be fewer people at this session. But I was pleasantly surprised at the turnout for the first session. Who knows?

* According to the relevant article on Wikipedia -- okay, you pays your money and you takes your chances --

Clear in Dianetics and Scientology is one of two levels a practitioner can achieve on the way to personal salvation. A state of Clear is reached when a person becomes free of the influence of engrams, unwanted emotions or painful traumas not readily available to the conscious mind. Scientologists believe that human beings accumulate anxieties, psychosomatic illnesses, and aberration due to receiving engrams throughout their lives. By applying dianetics, every single person can reach Clear.
A person is said to be a Clear when he "no longer has his own reactive mind and therefore suffers none of the ill effects that the reactive mind can cause." A Clear is said to be "at cause over" (in control of) their "mental energy" (their thoughts), and able to think clearly even when faced with the very situation that in earlier times caused them difficulty. The next level of spiritual development is that of an Operating Thetan. A person who has not reached a state of Clear is called a "pre-clear."

By this standard, such as it is, I am totally pre-clear, which is to say happily muddled. 

PS: There is a verse in one of my favorite Leonard Cohen songs, Famous Blue Raincoat, that references going clear, likely in the context of going clean from drugs.

Yes, and Jane came by with a lock of your hair.
She said that you gave it to her
That night that you planned to go clear.
Did you ever go clear?