After I finished the first draft, I found it really hard to step away and leave the damn thing alone. Every bit of advice I could find about what you’re supposed to do when you finish your first draft said that the best thing to do was to walk away for about a week or so and give yourself room to breathe, and damn did I try. No dice. It kept calling me back to it and I kept editing and poking it, so I decided to make plans to get out of the house and make sure I had something else to capture my attention.
Enter the car show. Rod and custom, to be exact. See, when I was a kid, hot rod shows were a hell of a big deal. George Barris was still alive and all of his creations made the regular rounds to all of the shows. The General Lee, the Batmobile, the original Deuce Coupe (from the Beach Boys song), plus favourites from the Hot Wheels lineup like TwinMill and the Red Baron. Add to that all of the custom vans and far out fiberglass creations of the late seventies, and it was a wonderland. I normally left the show with about ten pounds of magazines and would spend the next few weeks in my room trying in vain to recreate what I saw with crayons and Lego.
This… was not that kind of experience. Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of good examples of restored classics on the floor, but only two or three vehicles that could back up the title of custom. That, and there was a distinct air of good-old-boy-ism about the place. People wandering the floor with “Fuck Trudeau” shirts and a DJ that seemed to take every opportunity to cast shade on the people wearing masks at the event… all five of them. What used to be a wonderland of inspiration for me ended up being a big slap in the face that reminded me I live in a town that falls mostly on the right side of the spectrum.
That being said, a couple of days after the show I was able to shake it off and get a bunch more done, beating the fear that had been building in me that I’d messed it all up somehow. All that’s left now is to start the new day job in a couple of weeks and hopefully get this thing edited into something presentable. Oh, and find an agent maybe. How does one do that?
