The Gilded Cage, Evelyn De Morgan
38,943, Loose Daddy. Took my time getting out of bed this morning ’cause I could feel the narrative flow slowing to a trickle, and my hold on Loose Daddy slackening. I browsed a bit in Rosenfeld, read about contemplative scenes, wrote in my journal, and that was enough to water the dry ground of anxiety and resistance. Didn’t write much but a little writing is better than no writing at all.
The Copper Urn, Jean-Baptiste Simeon Chardin
My spa day was fabulous! I’m still glowing. Can definitely become addicted to Swedish massages and European facials. Since the place is within walking distance, I’ll be taking advantage of the half hour massages and the mini-facials when the mood strikes. Another nice thing about this particular spa, it is small and family-owned–the mother is a professional massage therapist and esthetician, her daughter runs the reception desk, and they have a small staff of professionals. Unlike the big spas, you’re not just another number walking in the door.
Today’s plan is to work on Sweet Taboo and do the Lady Moon revisions. Then, for LM, I must research markets. So far I’ve not been in the mood to drive down to the Cinemark and see any of the movies I’d like to see. Maybe I’ll make it out to see IRON MAN today; maybe not. Netflix is my friend.
Snow White, Marianne Stokes
Where are my words? Why aren’t they golden? Silver? Brass? Why are they clay? But clay can be shaped, baked, glazed and painted. Clay can have strength and symmetry and tell a story as subtle as light. I know that Loose Daddy will require several rewrites. I can feel it in the voiceless words that are not good enough, in the words that ought to be said, the words that wait to be written, but are still lost in the silence of thought.
Met with Janet yesterday. We reviewed our progress over shrimp fajitas. I had my usual Cadillac margarita. Afterward, made a stop at Patricia’s, chin wagged for a while, and she loaned me Cocaine Chronicles, an anthology of narcotic-themed tales, edited by Gary Phillips and Jervey Tervalon. Read it last night, and the only story I disliked was Nina Revoyr’s Golden Pacific. Well written, but the awfulness of human perversity contained in the story disgusted me and made me sad. I didn’t enjoy it with the same open-minded sensibility as I did the others. The most beautifully written and poignant story in the book is Susan Straight’s Poinciana.
Have my spa appointment at 11 this morning and I am looking forward to hours of pampering, to sending the mind on a little vacation.
Idle Hours, Henry Siddons Mowbray
38,536/Loose Daddy. If the storm clouds quit crying over So Cal today, I may make it to my monthly writer’s lunch meeting with Janet. Otherwise, I’ll stay home and spend some time with Sweet Taboo. Randall and Deidre are looking at me like I killed their cat. (They don’t even own a cat!)
Going through the files this morning, looking for a folder I could re-use, I found my children’s picturebook story, Lady Moon. This one went off to an editor at HarperCollins in 2004. She gave me a wonderful critique and thought the story lent itself well to illustration. So, I’m going to revise it and send it out again as soon as I find another market.
Also, I have to write an introduction to my e-mail interview with my friend Janet Cornelow who writes paranormal, fantasy and historical romance as Janet Quinn. So…coming soon.
The long weekend’s here! Yay! Sunday is Spa Day! And I plan to see PRINCE CASPIAN, IRONMAN, and INDIANA JONES AND THE CRYSTAL SKULL. Somehow, I’m going to fit them all in.
Summer, John Atkinson Grimshaw
37,547/Loose Daddy. It was a tad difficult getting out of bed this morning. The alarm shrieked at me and I spent a few seconds seriously considering choking it to death, instead I politely pushed its little button and it politely shut-up. It was 5 a.m.
In the kitchen, I discovered my Cuisinart coffee grinder’s bean basket had somehow broken its neck. I guess it choked on the last bean. Luckily, I’d kept my little Mr. Coffee grinder and it was happy to come out from the back of the cabinet and be in the shine of the kitchen light once more.
I wake up Mac in a much gentler manner than that damned clock in the bedroom, open up Loose Daddy, and wonder why the hell Tyrell won’t get his butt out of the car and into the employment office in an effortless manner. At OMG-thirty in the morning, transitions are a bitch.
Somehow, by 6:30 a.m., a whole paragraph goes down. Got to stop and get ready for the zombie run. Yay me.
Oh, last night, I finished Thomas Perry’s The Butcher’s Boy. Damn good book. Edgar winner. Do find. Do read. And I’m halfway through The Smartest Guys in the Room. I’m working my way through the TBR stack.
How ’bout that–found a John Atkinson Grimshaw that doesn’t make me think of suicide!
Untitled, Salvador Dali
Thanks to Devon for her suggestions which are helping me find the door in the story wall that’ll make Chapter 7 of Sweet Taboo real. A recent acquaintance commented to me that she wanted to have a writing community, to connect with others who write, to be able to share the joys and frustrations of creating stories. I realized that, after years of writing alone, that the internet has been my gateway into the writing community. It’s a nice neighborhood–a good place to be. I plan to stay.
The story wall…we work hard to build it well, and then we see, when we step back to study and admire our handiwork, that we’ve walled ourselves in. That would be me. So now I hunt for the door in the wall that I know is there. It’s a part of the bricks; all it needs is the right touch to show itself.
Netflix Nights–finally watched There Will Be Blood. Outstanding performance by Daniel Day-Lewis, a well-done movie, but I did not like the story. Still, I think I’ll read Upton Sinclair’s novel, Oil, upon which the movie is based. Also, a couple weeks ago, watched Chocolat, the luminous Juliette Binoche (my favorite European actress) paired with the incomparable Johnny Depp–loved it.
While Sweet Taboo wanders through the mind-meadow, I’ve been busy re-writing Loose Daddy. It’s coming along.
The Water Carriers, Henry Ryland
37,340, Loose Daddy. Had to recreate a paragraph somehow lost during yesterday morning’s work. Don’t know how that happened, but the recreation is probably better than the first writing anyway. Maybe. I hate when hard-won words disappear into the twilight zone. That happens when the brain has to wake up at OMG-thirty in the morning.
Judy’s picking me up today for the literary luncheon and then later this afternoon I’m meeting my paternal half-sister Alesia and her husband Michael who’re in town. Sunday they leave out of Long Beach port for their Mexican Riviera cruise. We’ll have dinner together this evening and walk about the Pike and Shoreline Village for a bit. It’s hot today, going to be a lovely warm evening.
My laundry’s done and I’m working on Loose Daddy until it’s time to get ready for the luncheon.
Cherries in Porcelain Bowl, Osias Beert
Loose Daddy : 37,146; so the going is good, and I’ve written much more than I thought.
At the Stream, Philip Hermogenes Calderon
I have been these past few weeks reconnecting with my literary novel, Loose Daddy, word by word. I finished the first draft in 2004 and it’s been in the files every since until I recently sent it off to a professional editor. His comments reinvigorated me for the book. I was at first uncertain about what I had to do and what could possibly come of it, but I’ve expanded the narrative by a couple thousand words so far, and the story is taking on the pleasant feel of a walk through a familiar forest.
I’m gradually slipping back into Tyrell’s state of mind. Tyrell’s challenge is to make a life for himself and his family. He’s young, already a father at 22, and it’s difficult; he doesn’t know if he can jump the fences laid out before him; he doesn’t know if he wants to. It is interesting how when a person is given a choice of doing something about a situation or doing nothing–the person often chooses to do nothing, and turns a deaf ear to the Call. While thinking about this, I felt a burst of excitement because I’m going to have to follow Tyrell through the forest, and even though it’s a familiar forest, there are places in it I didn’t go before.
Yesterday my sisters, nieces and I visited Mom’s grave. We took her roses, big fat cabbage roses in peach and scarlet and elegant American beauties in hearts-blood red swooning in fern. Riverside National Cemetery was sunny, breeze-swept, and full of other families paying respects and leaving behind bouquets of roses and lilies and tulips. We told Mom we loved her and missed her, and my four-year old niece asked if grandma was down there beneath the plaque, and we said yes. I was very glad to have given Mom roses every Mother’s Day. When going through a collection of old photos my sisters and I found the papery petals of aged rose blossoms.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
