It’s official. We are getting married on Aug. 27, 2011, at my 50th birthday bash. Yikes. I can’t believe it’s real.
Bauer’s Ridge — the Novella?
Bauer’s Ridge could be rewritten/redirected as a novella with a romantic crisis. It doesn’t have to be a mystery. Or it can still contain the death of Ruth but not the big investigation. I want Ruth go be a central character by her relationship with DW, and I want the revelation about their relationship to come at the end and show that people are often mistaken – but . . . but what?
I need to find the disc it’s on. Thank God I put it on a disc, even though it’s a floppy. I need to repoen it as a Word document and find out how many words it contains.
The “connection” would obviously be Kissie. Bauer’s Ridge is based loosely on Upper Perk, and that’s where Kissie supposedly lives. Maybe Kelly Benz knows her.
Dan-Love
Of late, I tend to go on so much about Colbert that I forget to rant and storm about my love for Dan Konviser. It’s always there, and within my head it’s always in the foreground. Dan and I go together like salt & pepper, Lea & Perrins, Jon & Stephen, assault & battery, or socks & shoes. He is the laughter in my life, the light upon my path, the pepper in the potato chowder of my bland existance, the helium in my balloon, the remote control to my emotional electronics; my partner, my lover, and my best friend.
We’re a team.
The Lie Detector Test
Colbert has returned from London and gives no explanation for his absence.
I didn’t have time to think, and whether Colbert did I can’t say. It may be that he had drilled himself on vampire attacks. Rob sprang forward and thrust him aside with a blow so hard his body knocked over two chairs, and by the time Colbert leaped, glassesless, onto the vampire’s back, the creature’s fangs were deep in my neck and I, still conscious, felt the blood running down my flesh. Rob was groaning and holding me in a grip like iron, totally disregarding Colbert’s hands in his hair and his screaming, “Stop! Stop! You don’t have to kill her! Stop now! It’s me you want!”
I was touched by the proofs of his compassion, and as I rose out of my body I did what I had wanted to do all afternoon — stroked his cheek and ran my hand across the top of his head. He had fallen off Rob’s back, and Rob now turned to face him. His mouth and chin were stained with my blood and his eyes were shining like lamps. Colbert, his face bathed in red light, was staring at my body, tears forming in his eyes. He breathed in sharply and said, “It wasn’t necessary.”
“Silence, mortal,” said Rob. He did not wipe his face, but he did not stop the human as he came to my body and straightened out my limbs, pulled down the skirt that had been pushed up revealing my underwear, and made the Sign of the Cross. I knelt beside him and said, Thank you, but he did not reply.
Connections
Okay, working on story #5, working title Connections. It’s about the sister of R. L. Jones, living on Roanoke island with her son, and at some point Bobby will enter the nararative — either in person, by letter, phone call, or what have you. He is supposed to answer the question How do I get there from here? with something like, “You face that direction and walk,” or, “If you’ve been led off the path, well, you head for the goal from this spot instead of that one.”
Maybe Darwin has a mid-life crisis. I had wanted to portray her as looking forward to the freedom of the empty nest — she’s obviously very connected to her kids. Does she feel it’s too late to realize her dreams? That’s kind of hackneyed. Is ther some other crisis — death of R.L.? I don’t want to kill her sister! I won’t do it! Maybe a series of bad news — R. L. in rehab again, R. L. off the radar. I don’t want R. L. to be in this story!
I need to decide R.L.’s name. I think I decided on Rachel. Rachel Leigh Jones.
I have a note page with, among other things, a list of things that connect. I am going to sprinkle them liberally into the story, possibly as a motif among the narrative describing Darwin feeling rudderless or adrift.
Linked Together
It would be more to the point to have all the stories linked if there were some theme running through them. I could do alcoholism if I hadn’t already done the final edit on Of Wings and Sapwood. But maybe the very idea of “linked” could be the link. I am toying with a story taking place on Roanoke Island, featuring the Jones woman’s sister, and somehow incorporating the concept of Jane Cornwell. That would create a link between Lethe and Wings, the former of which currently has no relationship to any of the others. It doesn’t have to have a big scene or a featured role with one of the Angels like the other two do.
Great (?) idea: write a story whose very theme is the connectedness of all things. Hmmm. The connectedness of all stories? All people? Things repeat themselves, as Prof. Jones says?
Relations and Connections. By blood, by marriage.
Connecticut. Use Connecticut. Ha, ha, K’Nex! Connected at the hip. Conjoined twins. Bridges — from an island to the mainland, or an island to a barrier island. Letters, phone calls, psychic phenomena.
I just noticed, dammit, that I have two women being rescued out of poverty. I don’t want that. Maybe I’ll make a point of having Bobby tell the sister that (choose R-name) has left him. I want the reader to like her, but I don’t want to actually hold put hope that she’s going to be okay. She’s a late-stage alcoholic.
I’m going to pursue the idea of Connectedness. After all, we are all connected.
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