New Orleans railroads and other writing updates
New Orleans railroads are my latest distraction
Krauss: The New Orleans Value Store (available 25-Sep-2017)
New Orleans Railroads – writing prompts
Now that Krauss: The New Orleans Value Store is in “pre-release” mode, I’ve been back at the fiction for a month or so. Trusted Talents is moving along again, as Ren and Mike are well into their next adventure. The Dragons (note the plural!) updated me on The Trio. There are notes everywhere that will come together as I hear from AM, David, and the kid who gets his phone set on fire occasionally.
Staying focused is always a challenge for me. The original idea for Hidden Talents developed back when was writing the Streetcar book. It was a way to procrastinate, and I’m very good at that. Now, Talents is the main project. That means I have distractions for procrastination! My biggest distraction from writing is my model railroad. I’ve turned it into a writing project as well, so that’s something. When I set the trains back up, I named the layout the Pontchartrain Railroad, like the old “Smokey Mary” train that ran on Elysian Fields, from Chartres Street to the lake.
Model Railroading in #themetrys
Passenger trains fascinate me. Even in these days of Amtrak, there’s a magic to them. New Orleans is a passenger railroad hub. A number of railroads converge on the Crescent City. For decades, The Crescent Limited (now the Amtrak Crescent) came down from New York City, on the Louisville and Nashville and Southern Railroad tracks. Travelers could spend a day or two in New Orleans, then continue west to Los Angeles on the Southern Pacific’s Sunset Limited. (The Sunset Limited is also still around.) There was even a time where Pullman-owned sleeper cars came down on the Crescent, then connected to the Sunset Limited, making a transcontinental through route.
So much writing potential here! I run the trains and ideas come in. Romance, drama, intrigue. Lots of stories involving African-Americans, since the Pullman Porters kept the passenger system going for decades. It’s great daydreaming potential.
Now, what if Mike and Ren and the Assembly had access to a private rail car? 🙂
