Here I am with two published books in progress, and yet nose still to the grindstone. Why is this? I have fulfilled my dream to be published (okay, the dream was to be published by age 30, but I have always been a late bloomer). And yet, I still want to write, write, write!
Recently, I posed the question to KYOWA, my writing group. What is the greater tragedy? The story never written? Or, the story written, but never published? I made peace with the answer a long time ago. The greater tragedy is the story never written. If the story gets published, certainly, that is icing on the cake, but to be able to give birth to those characters and have their lives lovingly crafted on paper (or on computer screen) is a joy. I love it. I truly do!
Here is a bit of my current work in progress:
The first time I saw the love of my life he had a mangy beard, hair well past his shoulders and, I was pretty sure hadn't had a shower in a week. He was, for all intents and purposes, homeless. I guess you could call him a diamond in the rough. But, hey, he was a step up from my last boyfriend who had a problem with illegal substances and seemed to think I wouldn't have a problem with him showing up at my job and helping himself to $4,000 in company checks. Did I mention that when the police were tearing up my apartment looking for the money, they found 10 kilograms of Indiana gold? I don't know what the heck it is, but it had a street value of, you guessed it, roughly $4,000. The creep. Not only did I lose said job, but I got arrested too. I have a record now - theft and possession. I'm completely innocent! Geez, where is the justice, I ask you!
Doesn't my sterling record of my first thirty years count for anything??!! Where was I? Oh, yeah. John Bowman. My teeth are clenching even now. Can I pick 'em or what? Anyhow, he's ancient history so I don't want to revisit THAT whole disaster, except to let you know how I ended up doing community service in Clavania for five hours a day, then working the graveyard shift at the freakin'
Waffle House. Yes, a bachelor's in accounting and what do I have to show for it? "Can I get you some more tea, sir?" Oh, well, I am sure it is character-building anyway.
So, here I am working at the community center in Clavania and I've sworn off men (that goes without saying, right?). As I'm passing out apple sauce snack packs to the after school hoodlums, I'm thinking of Hamlet's advice to Ophelia: "Get thee to a nunnery" for myself. Who knows? Maybe if Ophelia had taken his advice, things would have turned out better for her. But I digress.
