More Musings & Thoughts for October 27, 2020, or: NaNoWriMo 2020 – We Have a Dramatis Personae…or Part of One, Anyway

Hello again, Dear Reader. It’s now early afternoon here in New Hometown, Florida. Currently, the temperature outside is 86˚F (30˚C) under mostly cloudy skies. With the wind blowing from the east at 11 MPH (17 KM/H) and humidity at 72%, the feels-like temperature is 97˚F (36˚C). The rest of the afternoon will be partly sunny, and the chance of rain in the evening seems to have gone almost close to 0%; the forecast for tonight calls for partly cloudy skies. The low in the overnight hours is expected to reach 75˚F (24˚C).

I went for a walk this morning before the sun was out in full force. The temperature was still in the high 70s, and there was a brisk easterly breeze, so I had pleasant walking conditions. I didn’t take a book with me to read on a park bench; I considered it before I left the house, but I decided not to. I didn’t want to stay outside longer than 20 minutes, plus I didn’t know if my favorite bench was dry or wet from last night’s showers.

Instead, I decided to walk past the park and go almost to the end of the east-west road that is connected to the “curving road” in front of the house where I live. (I hate having to be so vague about my exact whereabouts; someday I’ll explain why I have to be so mysterious.)  On the westward (outbound) leg, I had a “tail wind” of 11 MPH (17 KM/H) from the east, so I walked relatively faster than on the way back home. I walked a third of a mile (according to Google Maps), although I think it took me longer than five minutes to reach my “stopping place.”  (I didn’t take my phone with me this time, so I can’t be sure of that.)

On the way back, though, the 11 MPH (17 KM/H) breeze was a “head wind,” and even though it was a cooling breeze that mitigated the effects of the rising temperature, it did slow me down some; to me, it felt as though the wind was trying to get me to stay outside rather than come back inside to the house.

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As I mentioned earlier in Musings & Thoughts for Tuesday, October 27, 2020, or: Getting Into the NaNoWriMo Mindset, I have to start writing The Tonic of Their Victory: A Novel of Normandy on Sunday, November 1, but I don’t have all of the reference works that I need, so I decided to at least start a Dramatis Personae list and start naming a handful of the characters in my story, which is in the historical fiction genre.

Here is what I have so far:

Dramatis Personae

Fictional

Lt. Col. William “Bill” Crossley, USA, CO, 1st Bn., 117th Infantry Regiment

Major Robert Kovacs, XO, 1st Bn., 117th Infantry Regiment

Capt. Thomas Hess, S-2 (Intelligence), 1st Bn., 117th Infantry Regiment

Alan D. Grant, War Correspondent, Federated News Service

Capt. Frederick “Fred” Jones, CO, A “Able” Company, 1st Bn., 117th Infantry Regiment

Capt. Jordan Hunt, CO, B “Baker” Company, 1st Bn., 117th Infantry Regiment

Capt. Mark Prieto, CO, C “Charlie” Company

1st Lt. Jeff Wilder, CO, 1st Platoon, A Co., 1st Bn., 117th Infantry Regiment

1st. Lt. Marcos Sendon, CO, 2nd Platoon,  A Co., 1st Bn., 117th Infantry Regiment

2nd Lt. Claude Cox, CO, 3rd Platoon, A Co., 1st Bn., 117th Infantry Regiment

Historical

Col. Henry E. Kelly, USA, CO, 117th Infantry Regiment

Maj. Gen. Leland S. Hobbs, USA, CO, 30th Infantry Division 

Ernie Pyle, War Correspondent

Ernest Hemingway, War Correspondent

Robert “Bob” Capa, Photographer, LIFE magazine

And that’s it for the cast of characters, at least for the moment. I will come up with more characters and names as the project moves along. I definitely need to create quite a few more, especially some German and French characters; The Tonic of Their Victory is, after all, a war story, and it is set in Normandy, so…yes. The Dramatis Personae list is definitely in need of expansion!

As for the rest of my Tuesday….

After I add a few more names (and roles) to the Dramatis Personae list, I will probably go to another part of the house and read for a while. I’ll probably read a couple of chapters from The Guns at Last Light: The War in Northwest Europe, 1944-1945 by Rick Atkinson or the more focused Normandy ’44: D-Day and the Epic 77-Day Battle for France by James Holland. I could do that in this room; I have a couch and the lighting isn’t too bad. But I spend way too much time in one room, more so ever since my study also became my bedroom, so I like to find different spots in the house to read in.

That’s about all the news I have for the moment. If I can, I’ll post again later tonight. Until then, stay safe, stay healthy, and please, be kind to each other.