April Sweeps - Day 66

Today's Day 66.  Only six hundred to go.

I went to the park today, sat there, not getting out of my car, and either only wrote two paragraphs or crapped myself, then drove away.  Heck, it might have been both.

In other words, not a very productive trip to the park.

Oh, I found out yesterday just what rarefied air I am apparently breathing.  Only eight states have not yet gone into lockdown.  I worry if being able to jog is worth it.

Folks are saying this will be the worst week of the pandemic (here in the States, at least), and that we should stay home, lock-down or no.  And wear masks.  And try not to touch ourselves, late at night.

I mentioned the impromptu wedding I saw in the park the other day, and tried to imagine myself in a relationship, engaged to be married . . . and then this happens.  I wondered how it would feel, to not have the opportunity available to gather with family and friends, and whether I'd do a miniature version (like I'd seen by The Dirty Pond), or whether I'd suggest we postpone the thing until June or August or something.  I don't know what I'd do, because my imagination is not fanciful enough.

But one of the ghosts I've mentioned a couple of times in my Dead & Breakfast stories (oh no, you're saying, there he goes again...) is referred to in "Sucker For Mystery" as The Lonely Bride, who is in her wedding dress, wandering the halls downstairs (where Rooms 1 through 4 are located).  She first shows up, I believe, in "Fatherless Child," but I believe she's seen at various times throughout the year, because either she had her honeymoon at the Noble Oaks Bed & Breakfast . . . or maybe worse, she was SUPPOSED to have her honeymoon there, but never quite made it.

I'm absolutely certain I'm stealing the idea from the Bride at the end of the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland, because I had the Read Along Record as a child, and it featured both the bride (in her original, more terrifying incarnation) as well as the Hatbox Ghost, who was, until just a couple of years ago, a bit of lost lore of the Haunted Mansion.  But there's a story there, in the back of my mind, inspired by seeing this wedding and pondering it ever since.  A story about . . . what?

(I believe this is actually the Bridal Ghost from Disneyland--yeah)

Well, if you're a girl who gets engaged, and has been looking forward to your wedding ever since you were four or five, and the wedding gets axed at the eleventh hour due to a fudgin' PANDEMIC, well, that's a kick to the salchichas.  But imagine dying on your way to your wedding, or being murdered by the bridegroom, or maybe you were supposed to get married until your fiance killed himself after the Stock Market Crash of '29 and you'd already bought the dress.

I think there's a story in that somewhere.  Heck, it could be a woman newly-divorced that goes to the bed and breakfast (but why?  Why do people go to a B&B unless there's someone they want to share it with--ostensibly naked?  It's a question I keep asking myself when I write these things, because Marshal already beat me to writing about a young couple on their honeymoon), and encounters the Lonely Bride, and the two of them hang out together, share some chocolates or tears or a bit of Sapphic experimentation.

I could even come up with a way of giving the Bride closure by having someone (another guest?  Mason Bradley, in a rented tux?  the actual ghost of the man she was supposed to have married?) walk down the downstairs hall with her to The Wedding March playing from somebody's phone, giving her the nuptials she never got to have in life.  Oh, and a bunch of the spirits that permanently haunt Noble Oaks could stand there, bearing witness to the ceremony, enabling the Lonely Bride to smile, toss the bouquet (Meechelle could catch it, in her good hand), and move on to the next phase of the Afterlife.

I like that idea a lot.  I especially like the sigh of relief my characters let out when they're all done, aware that they have done a Good Thing . . . when Natalie leans in by Mason's ear and says, "Is a marriage really binding if it's not been consummated?"  And, well, what does that mean, exactly, for the ghost?

Anyway, I digress.  I came here to the park today to write, because I really half-assed it yesterday, only getting a couple hundred words and recording nothing, despite staying up to three working on other stuff.  I haven't done the stairs, and because it's a cold, overcast day, there's only a couple of die-hards using the park for exercise, as well as a few ducks that are wandering around in front of my car.  I told myself I'd come here and write for half an hour, and I guess I've blogged and edited in that time (I got Chapter 13 of Lara 2 edited, and it ended up being a minute and a half, which is all kinds of pitiful.

I gave myself a few minutes to write before podcasting tonight (got together--virtually--with Marshal Latham, Renee Chambliss, and Biggie Anklevich), and wrote a scene I liked enough that I went back to it after the podcasting and worked a little more.  You never know exactly how many words a session equals until you count them.  Often, the number is much higher than it feels like.

Words Today: 1276
Words in April: 5,860



P.S. Every day this month I'm posting one of these:

Day 6. "Dancing With Myself" by Billy Idol.  Not much to say about that.