Tag: Fiction

Trying to Write

I’m 20 to 40 pages shy of finishing the sixth edit of this second novel. I want to make sure the characters are fleshed out. The plot is staying the same. Because it’s somewhat based on a past life. I also want the protagonist to go on a journey and achieve something, no matter how insignificant. There has to be some progress. I definitely spend way too much time cooking and driving around in my car, and not enough time Writing. At this point in my life, if I could go back to a land line, I would do that, too. Cell phones are almost a curse. My uncle had Consumer Cellular, like a flip phone. Texts still came through, but it just looked way less bothersome and addictive than my dumb smart phone. I found one book in his house that we both have in common (besides Angels Carry the Sun– he had that, of course)– It was called There is a River, a biography of Edgar Cayce. I have it one my nightstand, partially-read, perpetually unfinished. Uncle Michael had a lot of partially-read books, too. I listened to a song of his tonight that I don’t remember him playing at gigs. “Grand Canyon Line.” I think I was was seven when Armchair Boogie came out. I love the way Pasta’s voice sounds in the background on “Be Kind to Me.” Everything came together perfectly, in a way that seemed accidental–which made it more perfect! Always loved that song. And I always loved the way some old piano somewhere in Vermont would sound. They were tuned somehow to sound more deep and resonant or something. I loved pushing the bottom pedals. Uncle Michael’s piano STILL sounds that way. Nobody else’s pianos ever sound like that. I don’t get it.

I am going to get this damn book done. I know it’s not going to be like the first book. It’s a whole different animal. And that’s okay. Tomorrow I will be thoroughly dedicated.

I Got My McSweeney’s Lunchbox!

I finally opened yesterday’s mail and it was NOT a friggin’ COVID test! YAY!! I feel like I’m 10 years old again and it feels great! Author cards and everything! I wonder if they’re anything like Whacky Packs. I wonder if there’s gum inside. I wonder if the authors have haughtily arched eyebrows or big crusty teeth?!

Yesterday I slogged and skimmed through the Middle Ages. My character Giselle should be able to learn to read because her dad is very progressive and with the decline of the feudal system and the increase in capitalistic town wealth which benefited royal coffers, the time was favoring individual endeavor to some extent. Good King Louis the IX had helped start the Sorbonne when he heard some whining about poor kids not being able to become doctors. So I don’t see why, as a vintner’s daughter, Giselle could’t learn to read. So, we got that taken care of. Now. Does the plot require her to read? I bet I could think of a great reason for her to read. It’ll come to me. If I could just work Wacky Packs in somehow. That would be fun! And easy. This book goes back and forth between contemporary time and 15c cuz, baby, it’s about reincarnation. I can do WHATEVER I WANT!!!!!

I Retired So Now I Have to Hurry the Hell Up and Write Before it’s Too Late

It’s totally bizarre not to be driving around suburbia knocking on doors for The County anymore. I left in July. And was very busy with family obligations for awhile there. But. But now I just want to become more and more myself until I metamorphosis into a psychedelic butterfly. I was always secretly a psychedelic butterfly. I finished the sixth edit of Don’t Get Burned. The next day I read through the first three chapters really quickly and said, “Woah, Bessie, this is reading for fun, not edit #7. You have to Start Over and Slow Down.” But the fact that I COULD just read three chapters so quickly is heartening. It means I’m almost done! Which I’ve been lamely saying for years. But I AM ALMOST DONE. I REALLY AM. And if I don’t finish this book by July then I am just a sad sack of procrastination that deserves no literary whipped cream. Or whatever. But damn it, I DO deserve literary whipped cream. I have been sick for several days, but maybe tomorrow I will be able to get myself moving. I have to because I am officially OLD. I could die at any moment. Barbara Kingsolver has written a bunch of books and I am barely at 1.75 books. It’s terrifying. For someone who always knew writing was her passion, I’ve had a very poor output. Phoebe, do not shame yourself. Angels Carry the Sun was a really good book. Maybe luck just wasn’t on your side with some things. Luck changes. I keep thinking about that Tom Petty song, “Even the Losers.” It resonates cuz everyone feels like a bunch of losers, lol. I dreamed I accidentally walked off with someone else’s Nobel Prize in Lit, and I was just pressing this medal against my forehead in a state of extreme angst. So silly. There is hope for me yet. Maybe not Nobel Prize hope, but hope. I AM NOT DEAD YET.

The Life You Save May Be Your Own

Finished A Widow for One Year. It was alright. Now I picked up two books that I bought at Flannery O’Connor’s house in Savannah, GA several years ago. It must have been just her childhood home because it was right in town, one could see the Catholic church from at least one of the upstairs windows, I remember. The house in Wildcat was on a farm. Anyway, the books I’m reading are The Life You Save May Be Your Own by Paul Elie and The Violent Bear It Away by Flannery O’Connor. So far I LOVE the second. A welfare worker had to go through snaggly backwoods to try and check on this kidnapped baby. It sort of reminded me of my lovely livelihood. I have great pity and fondness for social workers, bureaucrats, and civil servants of low order. Kafka, Whitman, Bukowski. Maybe they would have been poets/writers that I could actually handle, I don’t know. Of course, Whitman is practically in my family tree with Dr. O.K. Sammis being his childhood friend. Jeannie Olivia Berry Sammis was somebody. My grandmother’s grandma was Kate Sammis. Kate Sammis was one of Dr OK’s many daughters. And Dr OK was Whitman’s friend. Look it up online if ya don’t believe me.