I got to talk about the story I've been working on last night at Writer's Group.
(Note: the organizer of the informal group has secured a website, and yesterday afternoon we worked on designing a format for downloading poetry, graphic work, short stories, and works-in-progress to the upcoming site. I'm excited.)
I was looking something up yesterday, and pulled the LONDON A-Z off the shelves, and flipping through the pages for the first time in years I found this piece of notebook paper. I know exactly where I was when I wrote this: sitting in the cafe at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Tenth Hell started as a short story, morphed into a graphic novel, and now has come back and is taking shape as a sort of novelette. It's worthwhile noting this piece of paper is from, at this point, 16 years ago.
I was sitting with a cup of white coffee, trying to collect my thoughts and figure out what I was going to do when I returned to 'reality', otherwise known as the USA. I had just written the title 'Tenth Hell' when an elderly man interrupted me, and the story he told me is one I shared with The Lovely Canadian a while ago.
It is fun to find scraps of paper such as this, turning up where and when you least expect them.
ReplyDeleteIt also makes me wonder about Nicole....
Nicole? A friend.
ReplyDeleteA long time ago.
But wacko how? My mind reels, with all that you have seen and experienced (and have shared in your wtitings), what it might take to call a social acquaintance "wacko". Or was she quirky, squirrely, unique in the fun to watch, too crazy to live with kind of way, or truly out there.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I seem to recall when I first found your blog that you had published a graphic novel somewhere, but I could be mistaken. I recall a dark mystery detective kind of story, or perhaps my sleeping meds are kicking in...
How wacko? Not all that wacko, actually. But she epitomized the kind of person who is not really creative or driven, but has an intense desire to be 'in a scene' of such things.
ReplyDeleteI hated that about so much of the artistic circles I tried to be in, in that it seemed like way too many of the people in them were far more interested in presenting themselves as 'artists' and 'writers' than actually, you know, doing any work.
So it took me a while to figure out that Nicole had no interest in creativity herself, but loved the 'buzz' of creative things. I found this confusing and baffling, and finally told her to go be a dental hygienist or dog groomer and stop trying to be something she wasn't.
In that callous statement, to someone who really was a friend, you may see the cruelty to people I often display. She was very nice to me, a behavior I did not reciprocate.
Snippets of BRONZEVILLE may be seen over at the companion blog to this one, to which a link can now be found at the top right.