Gin Glasses

My new fluffy romance  that I’m writing is called Gin Glasses, beautiful huh?   That sentence was full of lies.  1. It’s not a fluffy romance, I have a very hard time writing those…I don’t write fluffy romance stories. 2. It’s not a beautiful story, at least not at first.

The idea for Gin Glasses came to me after watching Alfred Hitchcock’s movie “Notorious”.  It’s a good movie and I recommend you all watch it.   Now, all that I’ve really taken from the movie is the main characters.  An alcoholic girl and an older man.

Her name is Chelsea Sweet, she’s twenty years old.  At the age of fifteen she ran away from an abusive father and since then she’s been living on the road or with friends.  At the moment she lives with her best friend May and some other girls. Her motto is: “Live fast, love hard, be strong.”  She drinks, smokes, and her longest relationship was a month.  Chelsea is the soul of a party, you never see her without a smile, so it’s hard for people to know how broken she is inside.

His name is James Melville, he’s almost forty, and been through a divorce but he has no kids. He meets Chelsea by accident but he can’t seem to put her out of his mind.  He sees a pretty face but eyes that hold a disparate longing for love.

James is one of my favorite male characters ever.  He’s sweet and kind, he knows that what Chelsea is doing is only leading her to destruction, but he’s not judging her.  He wants to help her because he’s a gentleman, and she brings out his protective side.

Chelsea likes James because he’s quite and sensible, but at the same time he likes to have fun.  At first she tries her hardest to scandalize him and push him away.  But thankfully for her sake he stays.  She breaks her own heart before she lets him have it.

When I Write the Ridiculous

Today I was going through some of my writing and found some funny things, and some random things, some good things and some bad things. Anyway here’s a peek at some things I’ve written over the years.

Today I saw a man with shorts that looked like a kid’s picture book. ~Letters From A Lady Writer

Meeting a new character is like falling in love.  They say hello and you catch your breath, your head is filled with ideas of what could happen.  ~Letters From A Lady Writer

Today was a normal day. I went to a lonely funeral. Three and a half people, for the sniveling little boy does not count as a whole person. ~Killer Balloons 

 

Here lies the mortal remains of Anastasia and Adolf van Lichen

Faithful members of The Merry Picnickers of St. Petersburg

They will be remembered and replaced

Died April 7 1857   ~The Merry Picnickers of St. Petersburg 

His name was Emery Miles, and he was a writer.  In his small apartment, which was in Manhattan, he had piles of paper everywhere.  Short stories, diary entries, finished novels, novels hoping to be finished.  He was a man of words.  ~Dancing Ballerinas 

Here I am,

 I watch my lad melt away, like a shower of rain,

 He melts into the sea,

 I can feel him,

 Humming with the tune of my heart and the sea,

 Peace my lad, peace and sleep. ~A Song by the Shore of the Sea 

Sometimes I Write Free Verse

Skeleton

Life was caught,
In between fright,
And grasps of love.
Idle faces smashed against glass,
Curious ears listening at key holes,
Breath ebbed away.
“I don’t want to die!”
Said the sunken skeleton man.

Hallows

All these people with false dreams,

Hallow places fake velocity,

Dream stops besides petrol stops,

Hallow area

The spaces between my feet,

On sandy beaches and cotton-candy sunsets,

My heart is hallow.

Toes

I sat down one day,

To count my fingers and toes,

Maybe one day I would forget,

What’s most important,

Hello Toes. 

Dreams

Beside the dreams,

Were broken stars,

The kind that cut you,

If you hold them to close.

She or I?

For me, one of the most difficult things about starting a new story, is trying to decided what point of view to write it in.  Do I do first person? To allow my reader to see into the characters head, to give my reader the ability to feel my character in a unique way.

Just the day before yesterday, Seemoyn Ardalyonovich said to me, “Are you ever, Ivan Ivanych, going to be sober?” A strange thing to ask. I didn’t take offence, I’m a quite man; but you see they’ve let me out to be quite mad. An artist happened to paint a portrait of me: “After all,” he says, you are a man of letters.”  ~Notes of a Certain Person, Frydor Dostoevsky.

Or do I write in third person?  So that I can write the feelings of all the characters, and give a different perspective.

An exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S- Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K-  bridge. He had successfully avoided meeting his landlady on the staircase.  Crime and Punishment, Frydor Dostoevsky.

I love both points of view, actually give me any well written book with good characters, and I love the point of view.  I also like it when people explore the art of telling stories.
So what are your thoughts? What point of view do you like?

Cheerio!

They Went on a Holiday

Here’s a little whimsy for you. 🙂

“They Went on a Holiday”

His eyes are hidden by large rimmed sunglasses. You can see his handsome face in the rearview mirror, curly dark hair and beard, blue and white striped shirt. Her hand is out the window. The landscapes of Crete flow by them. She’s not one for being a tourist, she spends her time walking. He’s not one for anything more than the bar, she doesn’t know exactly what he does. They went on a holiday.

She dances barefoot in the bedroom till she hears raised voices.  Thunk. Her ipad hits the floor. She looks out from a crack in the door. He’s talking to two people. He’s angry. Suddenly the house makes her claustrophobic.

Crouched, fingering the sand, the tide slowly comes in, the salt sticks to her skin. They went on a holiday but never spoke to each other.

Passing in the hall like strangers. Why does she stay with him? It’s the opinion, formed over a month by the locals, that she’s crazy. Such wide blue eyes. Such a penetrating look. Silent. Follow her around you ghosts. Tell what you can.  She’s not silent. She hums. Trailing, mixing, interweaving melodies. This is how she communicates. He doesn’t understand. Even though they went on a holiday.

Playing hopscotch with little brown children. The sun warms her bones. Sweet silence. She breathes it in.  Sitting in the smoky room, the pounding music, the blurred faces, they make her ache. Sadness so deep she can’t breath, unfriendly waves threatening to take her under. She finds herself in Crete. In the green hills, in this place of wild flowers, in the crashing waves. He’s packing, they leave in the morning. Her bags are outside on the porch. The moon is full. She can’t sleep. She pulls on a dress and sits outside. The waves, they call her name. The sweet silence of the place, how can she ever go back? She takes a walk and never comes back. He moves to Greece without a second thought.  They went on a holiday, it was the best thing they ever did.

I Read “Letters To a Young Poet”

       September 10, 2013

My Dear Sir,

Your letters sir, moved me deeply, I shall never forget them. I found many gems of writing, and many gems about writing. I admire those writers whose every word is beautiful and poetic, no matter what the topic.  Above all I admire your sympathy to the human condition.  You wrote letters to a man who barely knew, and you wrote to him with all your heart. Your advice was genuine and useful.

So I think the reason I am writing this ‘’answer’’ your letters is because I found in you a kindred spirit. A soul in whom my own soul finds peace and delight. Perhaps I am writing to you because I searched and questioned and like you have said: I write because “I must”.

I have to write this letter to you, even though you will never read it.

The last letter you wrote was in 1908, and the letters were published 1929, it’s been 84 years since that day.  How many people have you inspired since then? How many, like me, have responded to your “Letters to a Young Poet”?

You may never know the answer to my questions. You’ll never answer my questions.

I wonder if you’ll ever know how many writers and weavers of words you have inspired…

Never mind that, I will end my letter by saying this:

Thank you Rainer Maria Rilke.

Much Fondness,

A writer