unfinished novel syndrome

Along with this little experiment in literary torture, I have a baseball blog that I’ve been busily neglecting – but that’s another story entirely.  The point is, a few years ago, one of the other blogs that we share space with decided to play a winter-long, baseball-related version of the game show, Jeopardy, essentially utilizing the comments section as the area for “questions”.  During the game, there was a category called ‘Subjective’, which essentially meant that, whatever was asked of the players, the judgment regarding the distribution of points would be our host’s alone.  No facts, no dates, just a qualitative assessment.  When the 800 point answer in that category was chosen, the following “answer” appeared on the site:

As judged by the host on the morning of November 12, 2005, the best opening paragraph from a fictional novel entitled “Tim Salmon in America”

That was it.  Write the first paragraph of a novel, put it in the comments, and let the judgment begin.  Here’s my shot:

Laxminarayana Vishnuvardhana saw his turn was next. The line had been long, and the hot wait excruciating, if not unlike the lines and waits in Mumbai. He pulled out a worn, yellowing paperback. It was a book his brother had given him when he first arrived. He had said, “These pages contain all you need to know. Read them. Learn them. Know them in your heart. For here, in this book, is your new home. Here, in this book, is America.” He gazed for a moment at the cover, slowly ran his finger over the word “Street,” and turned carefully to the page he had marked with a folded corner. There was the name, circled in black ink. He would have only one chance to get it right. He had practiced it over and over again, speaking into a mirror, watching his mouth form the words, correcting little failures, and trying again until it was perfect. Perfect once. Perfect one hundred times. Perfect one thousand times. It would be who he was for the rest of his life. One doesn’t skimp on re-birth, and now his time had come. The functionary gestured, waking him from his daydream. “Name please,” she said, and slowly he articulated his response: “Tim Salmon.” And so he was.

I wound up with the points, but now I had this paragraph.  What the hell to do with it?  I like it.  I think I can build something around it, something worth reading.  I just don’t know how.  I’ve written snippets of scenes, not even complete scenes, and I don’t know how any of it ties together.  I also question whether I have the discipline to follow through on such a long-term endeavor.

But here we are, I’ve shared this, and I suppose I’ve done it for a reason.  I’ll try to share some more, work some parts into shape, and see where it takes me.  This is an experiment, after all, so why not use this space as a lab?  Buckle up.  I haven’t a clue where we’re going.