Skip to main content

A New Emphasis On Acceptence

 In anticipation of my novel's publication, 26 Women, I'm trying to get more people to open and read my blog. I find a difference between people who open my email and those that click the link and go to the Blog entry. I need to increase both data points.

So with that in mind, I'll open this week with a pet photo. This not my cat, but the shot is cute, and I'm determined to widen my audience.

Instagram Photo from South Korea

This week I've had long conversations with family members. My oldest daughter and I marveled over our good fortune to have such cute littles in the clan: her grandchildren, my great-grandchildren.

Boden Hatampa

Brixton Sieve

Ledger & Jonny Sieve

Enough pandering with surefire attention-getters.

Coming soon to this space:

Shortly I will be sharing with you a project I'm working on that evolved from an observation from one person and kind of a challenge from another. 

My editor, Pam Frautschi, mentioned to me as we were taking the rough edges off of my novel that I was writing like it was a stage play rather than a novel. By that, she meant I included a lot of stage directions in my story.

As an exercise, I took a piece I've been working on, copied, and pasted it into a formatting program for writing screen and stage plays. I proceeded to format the dialogue, the stage directions, and cut the rest of it. Without getting into the weeds about how much 'he said - she said' got cut, and how scene-setting absorbed a lot of the stunningly poetic language of my prose, I was amazed how little I completely cut. 

Given the limits of a stage play, my script is too long by about 15-20 pages. And to be completely fair, I did revamp a couple of elements of the story to simplify the sets and costume requirements. The other revelation is, I think the story is better as a play.

Correction: In last week's blog, I misspelled the last name of Pam Frautschi. As both a friend and editor, Pam deserves better. 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

One of my latest efforts. Sketch: The Lady Is Blue Gouache 9 X 12 Reporting: I enjoyed a pleasant evening with my friend Michelle Mooney. I took her out for dinner to celebrate her birthday and to thank her for the many first-rate haircuts she's given me. We were surprised at the number of people who dined alfresco in the balmy night air. Whatever we've done to please Mother Nature, she had deemed acceptable by giving us a shot of summer just when late fall weather was wrapping her fingers around our throat. If I have one complaint about the friendly confines of The County Claire, it's the noise level that makes it difficult to converse. The rumble is an acoustical problem with the customers speaking in normal conversational tones. This is without audible TV showing some game or background music selected by a dance DJ.  I know! We should have eaten outside, where the only noise is the occasional 14 bus snorting by.   Maybe It's Me Since my two soccer teams are not doing...
Post a Comment
Read more

Watching the Oldies

Note: Last week's post was late. There is a reason. Read on.  Classic Film: From Here To Eternity The film opens in Hawaii in 1941. The film stars Bur Lancaster, Mongomery Clift, Deborah Carr and Donna Reed. It is before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The only scene I remember is a scene many people who never watched the entire film have seen. It shows Bert Lancaster and Deborah Carr lying on a sandy beach, kissing as an incoming washed over them. Given the popularity of that scene, it was amazing to me that that iconic image is only seconds long in the film. The story is about the innocence of army personnel with no idea what's coming. Lancaster literally runs the squad while his Captain lets him take charge so he can campaign for his promotion and cheat on his wife.  To make up for the disrespect he has for his commanding officer, Lancaster beds his Captain's officer's wife only to fall in love with her.  Clift's character suffers the humiliation of an offic...
Post a Comment
Read more

Once A Young Man

 My late friend Jack had a saying that's lost on young people; it sure was lost on me. With his version of a Finnish accent, he'd say, " We are too soon old and too late, smart." I've never heard anybody answer the question about returning and reliving their youth that didn't include the covariate that they would know what they know now. Maturation and accepting the onset of the later years of our life goes a long way to mellowing our passions. Chicago Bear fans are less intimidating, and the members of the opposite sex who are age appropriate are far more appealing than we might have thought in our youth. Yes, I will admit some men still try to relive their youth in ways that defy logic. This facet of two late smart prevents athletes from realizing when their best years are behind them. More men than women seem to delude themselves into believing that members of the opposite sex half their age are suitable mates.  I'm not going to deny that some of us old...
Post a Comment
Read more