"They told me the dead come here for different reasons: to connect with loved ones, to talk with someone who will listen. Some come for resolution . . . some for revenge."
I set aside an hour today to edit audio. Half of that time was dedicated to "Three-Time Visitor," which is kind of pointless, since it's too short for a solo release and will have to be part of a Dead & Breakfast collection (although I'm thinking six stories is probably enough). It takes place in the fictional Vernon, Idaho, and I don't really know the state. There's a character from Coeur d'Alene who talks about her body being found in a river, but I didn't decide which river it would be, so I wrote both Snake and Salmon, figuring I'd decide in the future.
But editing the audio file is that moment, when I HAVE to decide, and I think I'm going to say . . . Salmon.
Oh, and I've already published "Three-Time Visitor" in text, so I guess I'd better make the decision and fix it.*
Because Marshal Latham lives in Idaho, I asked him a year or so back where Vernon might be, and it seems like I picked a spot on the map where Vernon is located, so that I could refer to it when people were driving there, or shopping around it, or had to go to the hospital in a nearby town. Unfortunately, I no longer remember where it was on the map (and neither does Marshal--not that he ever saw the map). Now, it's giving me a headache, since in the scene I wrote yesterday, Rowan is driving west on a road toward Vernon, and Mason asks exactly where she is. And I ought to figure out what the road would be, since I just keep on writing these stories.
The quote at the top of this post is from Melina, the ghost in "Three-Time Visitor." She's supposed to be a sexy ghost, and when I did the voice on the audio version, I imagined Kathleen Turner in BODY HEAT, specifically the moment when she says, "You're not too smart. I like that in a man." Turner had a breathy, low-for-a-woman voice, and I can hear myself trying to sound female, but also lowering my own voice when I do her lines. That may not amuse you, but it's funny to hear me try.
I have always had a thing for female, sexy ghosts. Maybe because of that scene in GHOSTBUSTERS (you know the one), not due to having encountered them before, darn it. But I've written a couple of stories about them. It seems like the opposite of the super frightening, hellish ghost: the kind of thing where you wake up, knowing there's a presence in the room, but when you open your eyes, you are glad that you did . . . instead of the kind that makes you turn your bed into a waterbed.
You hear me say this a lot, but I'm not sure how good the story is. It's long, that much can be said for it (it's an hour long edited, and we're only on the second visit). I like the bit where the ghost tells her story, and then the tale takes a bigger turn that carries it to the end of the narrative.
I looked back at when I was recording the audio of this (was it really back in June? It's taken me seven months to edit this thing?), and I mentioned on these pages something very similar: that I wasn't sure it was working or that anyone would like it. The more things stay the same, the more things stay the same, huh?
I get discouraged pretty often, which is a sad state of affairs for someone as old (and near to death) as I am. But I feel good when I stretch myself on stories like this one, writing about subjects I really know nothing about.**
Sit-ups Today: 200
Sit-ups In January: 1203
Push-ups Today: 121
Push-ups In January: 864
I got some work done tonight, like I try to do every Sunday night (something has to pay for that new Star Wars book that just came out and I'll never get to). The end of the night, when only I was awake, arrived, and I hadn't written a single word. But I was determined to. I also hadn't had anything to eat since lunch. So, I told myself to sit down and if I wrote a thousand words, I could eat some rice and beans (hey, I like 'em) and watch my favorite episode of "30 Rock," the one about Leap Day. As a reward.
I drank some Coke-Zero to keep myself awake (meaning I'll surely still be up at three) and typed the payoff scene to what I set up a half-dozen "Dead & Breakfast" stories ago, not having any idea how it would resolve. And it went well. I even did an extra hundred sit-ups during commercial breaks on "30 Rock" (sadly, the Taylor Swift Capital One ad did not play, but the same two State Farm commercials I've seen every episode did play).
Words Today: 1207
Words In January: 6237
I didn't say much about the new Wonder Woman movie when it came out. Mostly, I was surprised by how vehemently against it people have been. I thought it was quite good because they give Diana a bit of vulnerability and physical weakness. Basically, she's a god, right? And what, exactly, would happen to a god if the U.S. and Soviet Union annihilated each other with nuclear weapons? Would it muss her perfect hair, maybe cover that skin of hers with a layer of ash?
Or maybe she was losing her powers at that point and could've been wiped out, I dunno.
Along those lines, I've always wanted to write a story from the perspective of a Steve Trevor, or a Jerro the Merboy (the Atlantean that was in love with Supergirl), or a Jane Foster (or the way Lois Lane used to be written, I suppose), a regular human that is in love with a god. I finally saw I saw the frankly pretty awful SUPERGIRL movie from 1984 around this time (circa 2001), where Hart Bochner's character falls in love with Kara, and I think this prompted me to want to write the story . . . which I never did.
The thing that fascinates me is that two different worlds thing. The idea is that you are a mere mortal, with all the flaws and imperfections and banality of ordinariness . . . but you meet this creature that has none of that, that seems like a higher being of beauty and grace and power beyond what us mortals experience every day. How can she look at you as anything more than a pet, or a collection of weaknesses, or at best, a little brother that she has to look out for, but could never be on the same level as?
And even though you know all that, you feel what you feel, and knowing it could never work out (would Kara and Diana and Thor and Captain America even age like a normal person would?), you can't turn off your heart. It's something that I've felt, to a lesser extent, and maybe someday I'll give writing about that a shot.
*I checked, and indeed, I had both Snake and Salmon still written there. I doubt anybody noticed, if anybody's actually read that story.
**Which reminds me, I had the ghost refer to I-95 in the story, and when I was editing it just now, I felt like that was too modern a reference for someone who died in 1960. So I changed it to US-95, which sounds more like what my grandfather would've called it.
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