Reactions to the frick and frig debate. . .

. . .continue to arrive.  Our language with its bevy of Anglo-Saxonisms is truly an ever-changing marvel.  I certainly don't believe in saturating one's speech or prose with the profane, but sometimes an actual or euphemistic bit of the "blue" is the only thing that will fit.  Should I post a poll on the relative merits of "shoot" vs. "sugar?"

The family is beginning to arrive.  One sister-in-law and one mother-in-law are here.  The mother-in-law naps while the sister-in-law is off pilfering wild flowers with the wife.  Later today, the daughter and son-in-law will arrive, and we will barbecue Zweigel's Hot Dogs.  Made in Rochester, they are the ultimate tube steak.  To be truly great they need to be served with mustard, onions and Bill Gray's Hot Sauce.

        I did a bit of rewriting this morning.  I went back and straightened out a conversation that had been bothering me since I wrote it 2 years ago.  In doing so, I think I made the character a bit less self-important, which was my intention. 

        The font I'm blogging with is called "Lucida Grande."  Whenever I scroll down to it, I can't help but think of a large Spanish woman.

I really need to blog tonight. . .

. . .because a bunch of family are coming in for the weekend.  We're having a New Year party in May as I spent most of January in the hospital.  So I won't have much time to be bloggin'.

What to write about that has to do with writing?  I'm really chugging along on TISHA.  I'm going to make my self-imposed deadline.  Today, I took one of my favorite characters into a situation that really bothered me.  I didn't like writing it.

It's just the whole God-playing aspect of writing, again.  You create your characters, decide what they will look like, decide if they will be happy, decide if they will find love, decide, as Charles Dickens said, whether he (or she) will be the hero of his (or her) own life, or if someone else will take that role.

At a conference I attended at the University of Rochester about 20 years ago, I wrote a piece about having a meeting with a character that I had created.  The character asked me why I did what I did to him, and I was forced to answer..  When I wrote it, people really liked it.  I wish I hadn't lost it somewhere, but it was created in those pre-computer days when you had to keep track of all your notebooks.

     Maybe someday, I'll use the idea again.

Without a doubt. . .

. . .the most commented upon blog I have ever posted was the friggin' controversy.  Who would have guessed that so many people would have a frickin' opinion on this topic.  The one that I appreciated the most came from Cathy Carpenter, who was my student, oh, 38 or 39 years ago.  Cathy said that the OED, if you don't know what it is look up, gives the nod to "frig" as the word of choice when you're providing a euphemism for you know what.  Cathy also recalled that when I was a young teacher, I uttered the statement, that something was "way the far away from here."  I do not plan to started using "far" in place of "frig."

     Those who are drama oriented, remember that next Tues. and Wed., 6/2 & 3, are scheduled for ARTHUR REDUX auditions.  The location is the community room of the library, and the time is from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m.  I hope to see lots of new faces and lots of old faces.  Well, not literally old, or perhaps, that is what I mean.  Lindsay Whalen won't be with us this summer.  She's doing LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS in Rochester.  Luke Mohr won't either as he is teaching and studying for his Phd. at UMass Amherst.  We will really miss both Lindsay and Luke, but only Luke gave freely of his hair whenever it was needed.  I'm also really sorry that Karen Bundle, who lots of you know or maybe had as a teacher, and who was in the cast of BLUE MOON GRILLE, passed away last week.  She was a great person, and she really loved the theatre.

     I made real progress on TISHA AND THE GIANT today.  I actually may meet my deadline.

Is it friggin'. . .

. . .or is it frickin'?  This is my dilemma.  When you write dialogue to be spoken by teenagers, you need to use one or the other now and then, unless you want to get really down and dirty.  Now, I personal favor friggin'.  There's a funny movie starring Michael Keaton.  In it, there's a gangster from some exotic locale, who can't deal with American profanity.   He's always talking about farging iceholes and bastidges.  Maybe I should go with that?  No fargin' way!  My answer to the question in TISHA is to have the villain say frickin', which is not what he would say, but I don't like to use those @**&#*%@** symbols for cursing.  Then I have everybody else say friggin', because I like most of the other characters and I am a friggin' man, myself.

      Hey, what the frig!  I had to have something to blog about today.

Last weekend we saw Wolverine. . .

. . .and this weekend we went to STAR TREK.  It was great.  I was never in any way a Trekkie.  I remember watching it occasionally when it was first on , and I was in college.  But I was more devoted to MISSION IMPOSSIBLE than to Captain Kirk and the Enterprise.  Linda and I both loved this new one, though.  Zachary Quinto, who is the villain you love to hate, Sylar, on HEROES, was amazing as Spock.  And STAR TREK features the hottest Uhura in the galaxy, and she's hot for Spock, no less.

Got to set myself a deadline for getting TISHA AND THE GIANT into shape.  I'll give myself two more weeks, which means it will probably take a month.  I may have blogged before that I am going to try to find an agent for this manuscript.  That should be an interesting challenge.

Last night was. . .

. . .the practice reading of ARTHUR REDUX.  I thought it went very well.  I was happy.  Most of the jokes were laughed at, and I think that ultimately the theme was clear.  Kudos to some great readers  including the "Family Hess" without whom I believe SUMMERPLAY might crash and burn.  I hope all who attended last night, and more, will audition.

     The practice read is so important to me.  I need to hear the play as it will sound on stage.  I always make some discoveries.  For example, it was pointed out to me that "dreamboat" is no longer viable slang, nor is being at "sixes and sevens."  I will make these corrections, although, I might point to yesterday's blog on the danger of overly current slang.

     In college, I, and a couple of hundred others, took A History of the Cinema, otherwise known as "Thursday Night at the Movies For Credit."  It was a great class, taught by a terrific professor named Dr. Arthur Lennig.  I remember one night when we were discussing some film we had watched, a French film, I think, and Dr. Lennig mentioned a scene in which Louise, the heroine, heard her name wafting on the wind.  Dr. Lennig asked us, "What does this scene prove?"  We had no idea.  He grinned and said, "It proves that 'every little breeze, seems to whisper Louise."  No one laughed.  All 400 eyes just stared at him.  He smiled and said, "I guess that one is from before your time."

    In the 30's or 40's there was a popular song with the "Louise" lyric.  Only none of us knew it.  I always worry that my entire play will be greeted by such an empty stare.  Last night's practice proved that that won't happen, but it pointed out some "little breezes" as well.

    On a totally different but important note to me, I went to the cardiologist today.  Some of you know that two years ago I found I was suffering from cardiomyopathy.  Simply, might heart didn't pump as much blood as it should.  The average heart moves about 55% of the blood in a chamber in one beat.  When I was sick, my heart was moving 28%.  Eventually, it built up to 45%, which was good, about 80% of normal.  But today at the cardiologist, I found out that my heart is now moving 60%, which is at the high end of normal.  This hardly ever happens.  So we are pretty joyous, and for those of you who offered sympathy, kind words, and prayers for me along the way, we thank you!

P.S. to Jake:  I shouldn't have pushed you to audition last night, my friend.  You have a big summer coming up and must do what is best for you.

The actors from THE COSBY SHOW. . .

. . .were on the Today Show yesterday.  It was interesting seeing them, how they had changed or stayed the same.   Of course, Bill was his irascible self, dressed in a bright sweater and wearing his omnipresent shades.  Theo was there and little Rudy, who is now a gorgeous grown-up women.  One of the interviewers asked them if THE COSBY SHOW was a show about a black family.  They all agreed that it wasn't about a family of any color, just about a family.

     Then Cliff/Bill began to talk about the need to make your writing universal, at least, he suggested, when writing good scripts for TV.  A writer has to be careful not to use current slang or too many pop cultural references for fear of making their story too specific to a certain time. That makes sense, and I try to do it as much as I can.  For example, it's better to say "they were watching a reality show," than to say, "they were watching THE BACHELORETTE."  Your modern characters can safely read MOBY DICK or TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, because those titles will always be recognized.  It's probably best not to use THE SHACK or TWILIGHT in a story you hope will remain unfettered by time, even for 8 or 10 years.  I wrote in TISHA AND THE GIANT that they were watching one of those romantic, "Lifetime Network" movies.  I'd probably be better off changing to "one of those sappy, romantic cable channels."

     When I wrote my first play A GIRL OF TWO WORLDS, I had a bunch of cultural references.  One character told another character, who was acting like a little bitch, "that 90210 auditions were over."  If I were to rewrite GIRL, I'd certainly change that reference and a bunch of others.

     An example of a specific cultural reference in a classic plays comes from the comedy ARSENIC AND OLD LACE.  A AND OL was written in the early 40's, but is still performed all around the country.  A line that drama critic Mortimer Brewster says is, "He was feeling a little Pirandello."  People of the 40's, who attended Broadway plays, were familiar with the works of playwright Luigi Pirandello.  But now that line falls flat.

      I suppose that this ties in with yesterday's post.  I wonder if Bill Cosby would think that  mentioning twittering or instant messaging in a story would hurt its universal appeal.

P.S. to Jake:  How'd you like that subtle shot at TWILIGHT!

Technology changes so quickly. . .

. . .that it really affects the way I write.  I started writing TISHA about 4 or 5 years ago, long before people were texting their fingers off, and long before virtually every teenager had a camera phone.  So during my first draft, the kids used their cells only as calling devices.

     To update the cellphone practices, I have gone back through the manuscript and added a variety of references to texting and even a reference to twitter.  But doing those things was only part of the problem.  

     It was absolutely necessary that the character Becky use one of those little throwaway cameras which used to be so popular.  What to do?  I decided to have her phone stolen while she was off with her friends on a road trip, which, because she is a recorder of such events, forced her to purchase one of those little box Fuji's.  Actually, it worked out well, because I am going to use the pilfered cell later in the story.    

     What also cracks me up is how those 4 or 5 years ago, I made Tisha a blogger before her time.  People didn't even know that blogging, or "web-logging," existed then.  Bloggers just kept personal diaries to share with their friends.  One of the big things was to do Friday Fives.  That involved answering five questions about yourself on your blog each Friday.

      I used a real Friday Five list that I found on-line for Tisha to communicate how she feels about her mom.  It was a better way than simply using exposition.

      I guess it's also rather ironic is that these 5 years later, I've become a blogger, too. 

The following three items came from the Friday Five at the beginning of TISHA AND THE GIANT:

Friday Five--September 8 (The first Friday of my senior year of high school)

1.  Have you ever had braces?  Any other tooth trauma?

I had braces from 7th grade until the end of 10th grade, and I wear my retainer religiously.  My biggest tooth trauma involved my wisdom teeth.  I had to get them extracted last spring because they were threatening to misarrange my teeth that I had just finished having straightened the year before.  I could have waited for summer to have it done, but I liked the idea of missing a few days of school, so I scheduled it for the end of May.  It was pretty traumatic all right.  I had to have an IV and be put out and everything because all four of them were impacted.  So, I was a complete mess for a couple of days, and I looked like a very large, very blonde chipmunk.  Then I got dry sockets, and suffered even more.   My mom was wonderful and so patient with all my moaning and complaining.  She was constantly bringing me soup and ice cream and asking me how I was doing.  Finally, my mouth felt better, and I went back to school.  You probably think my trauma was now over.  Wrong!!  Three days after I went back to school, my mom left my dad and me.  That’s right.  She ran off with some guy whose name is Earl and who lives hundreds of miles away in Philadelphia,  no less, the City of Brotherly Love.  Now that was traumatic.  And here is what I have been thinking about all this time.  If I had waited until the summer or even to the fall to have my wisdom teeth removed, would my mom still have left.  Because it appears to me that she stayed with us until I had recovered from my wisdom tooth trauma, and if I had put off that trauma, I wonder if she would still be here.  Because maybe if she had had a couple of more months to think about it, she would have decided that she and Earl weren’t such a good idea after all.  Is that a stupid thought?  I don’t know.

2.  Ever broken any bones?

No.  Except I almost fractured my skull.  (More about that later!)

3.  Ever had stitches?

Yes.  Besides my wisdom tooth ones, I got stitches just this last July 21st when I was playing soccer on my traveling team.  I might have been playing a little out of control.  We were in the penalty area.  I tried to head the ball, but I ended up heading the keeper’s knee cap, and we were both going about a hundred miles an hour.  Ultimate result:   I was knocked out for three minutes, and when I woke up the keeper was still crying because her knee hurt so much.  I guess I have a hard head.  Not that hard though, because I had a big time concussion and was in the hospital for five days.  The doctors said I was lucky I didn’t fracture my skull.  (See Question #2).   I had to stay in bed for another five days at home.  I mean really in bed.  Bed pan and all.  My grandma came from Cleveland and took care of me when I was home, because my mom was in Hawaii with the ass from Philadelphia.  My mom didn’t even know that I had totally concussed my brain.  In answer to the original question, I had four stitches just in front of my temple on the left side of my head, where my head met her knee.  

No conflict. . .

. . .can be complete without an antagonist.  Tisha and Kevin are the protagonists of T AND G, and the antagonist or villain is the Lump.

     I would have liked to describe Donald Lompos in a more slobbering manner, but for now less is more.

     

The Lump’s Prologue

That same afternoon, the Lump, who would not become the Lump for almost 2 months, and was then called just Donald Lompos, was in a bar in McKinley Hills.  The bar had cold air conditioning and cold beer, which were all that the Lump needed that day.  He was reading the newspaper in the light from a Matt’s Beer sign.  The sports section contained line scores for all the summer soccer league games, and the Lump read the results of the Hampton/Carriageville game.  It noted that T. Olsen had had one assist.  “T. Olsen.  That’s you, Tisha,” the Lump said, and drew a circle with a red pen around her name.

    

Kevin Conley, the Giant,. . .

. . .has been a really fun character to bring to life.  There's an irony about the Giant.  In a tenth grade, super crush sort of way, he is stalking Tisha.  Then he appoints himself her protector when he realizes a real stalker is after her.  So Tisha is being double-stalked, one stalker good, one stalker evil.  As the story develops, the Giant matures in both positive and negative ways.  The following is The Giant's Prologue, the second prologue in TISHA AND THE GIANT.

The Giant’s Prologue

The same afternoon that Tisha was suffering in the dirt, the Giant, who was yet to have that name or identity, was having a farting contest with his sister.  They were playing Racko at the kitchen table, and the Giant had farted sort of by mistake. April, who was 10, laughed and grimaced.  The Giant, proud of his fart, grinned and listened to the house.  His grandpa was snoring on the living room couch, and his mom and dad were talking way out in the front yard.  It was a perfect time to fart for pleasure, and to make things even better, their mom had made them eat cabbage for lunch.

“Bet you can’t blow one like that,” the Giant challenged April.

April grinned and grunted and produced a little squeak which cracked both of them up.

“Listen to this one,” the Giant grinned, groaned, and ripped off a beauty. “Superfart!” 

         April was laughing so hard, tears were running down her face. 

“You’re laughing so hard you don’t know how bad it stinks,” the Giant said and waved his hands in front of his face.  April laughed even harder.  He loved to see his little sister laugh.   “Here comes another!” The Giant scrunched up his face and strained and grunted and “prrrrrrrrip,” out came another monster of a fart.  it was then the Giant saw that April’s face was all pale, and her mouth was open but not laughing.  The Giant knew who was behind him and what was going to happen without even turning around.

“Where’s your manners?” his dad growled, and the Giant braced himself.  His dad smacked him so hard right in the ear that the Giant fell off his chair.  His ear hurt awful, but he waited for more, and his dad kicked him in the butt.  

April ran away from the table crying.  The Giant’s mom was standing by the kitchen door, her hand to her mouth.  From the living room, Grandpa called, “What the H is goin’ on?”

The Giant didn’t make a sound.  He just waited for more, and more came, and when he knew it was over, he got to his feet and hurried to his room.  There he remained behind his closed door, wiping the blood off his ear, and rubbing the sore spots on his bottom.  But he did not cry.

Sometime, later that afternoon, the Giant decided he was a superhero and his name was the Giant.  He was big and strong and helped people.  And he never cried.

  Having decided that, the Giant went to his desk, and from the bottom drawer, he took out his secret notebook, opened it, and wrote “Tisha” five times very slowly and deliberately.  He looked at the name repeated 5 times, and again realized that he had really crappy penmanship.  But he had a really good imagination; his teachers always told him that .  And now he was a superhero.

He put his notebook away in the back of the bottom drawer, just like he had done after writing Tisha’s name 5 times every day that summer.  The porch door slammed, and it seemed to shake the house.  His dad had come back from the store, where he had gone to buy a case of beer.  The Giant curled up on his bed and began reading his new SPIDERMAN comic, very glad that he was now a superhero.  His house was a good house to be a superhero in.

Watched the Origin of WOLVERINE. . .

. . .today. It was good.   I like those X-Men movies.  Linda likes Hugh Jackman no matter what he's in.  He's right up there with Mark Harmon of NCIS on her list of hot screen favorites.

    We also went to Dominick's for dinner.  Great food, although we arrived there at 6:30 and didn't eat until 20 minutes after 8.

     None of this has anything to do with writing.  Since, I'll be writing about my finishing of TISHA and of my search for an agent to look at it over the next few weeks, I decided that I'll introduce you to the 3 main characters with the Three Prologues that begin the book.  Today's the day for Tisha's intro.

     

   

Tisha’s Prologue

Tisha tore down the left side of the field.  Carriageville didn’t have an electronic scoreboard, so she had no way of telling how much time was left in the game, but she was sure the clock had to be down under three minutes.

The temperature was 92 degrees under a blazing July sun, and her headband was plastered to her forehead.  The Carriageville field was so dusty, that she could taste grit in her mouth.  It crunched between her teeth.  No visible clock, the stifling heat, and the dust, all combined to trouble her, not annoy her exactly, because Tisha seldom got annoyed, but it troubled her and made her want to score and win this stupid, hot, dusty game on this crappy, hot, dusty field..

She focused on the defender in front of her, not wanting to go offside, and at the same time watched Martha and Becky from the corner of her eye.  Becky had the ball, and she toed a perfect cross to Martha.  Martha controlled the pass in stride as a Carriageville defender came up on her.  She foot-faked to the right and took the ball left, juking the defender.  Two more steps and Martha lofted a soft pass into the penalty area right in front of the inexperienced C’ville goalkeeper.  That pass, Tisha immediately decided, was hers, and she would score.  She accelerated to the right, her defender backpedaling furiously to cut her off.

Split second decision time.  Tisha realized she had to head the ball or the keeper would get to it.  She concentrated on the white sphere as it arched lazily down toward her and saw the bright yellow of the Carriageville goalie’s jersey in the left corner of her vision.

Suddenly, she was sure she couldn’t get there in time.  Her jaws clamped tightly, she launched herself, head first, toward the ball, anyway.  Her body sliced past her defender.  She saw the keeper racing toward the ball, saw the panic in the keeper’s eyes as she flew through the air toward her, saw the keeper raise her knee in misguided self-defense.  . .saw the ball and stretched toward it, got her forehead on it. . .saw the keeper’s knee just before it smashed into the side of her head. . .then for 5 minutes, she didn’t see anything.

When Tisha woke up, her head felt  like it had been whacked with a hammer.  Someone was crying and later on Becky would tell her that the someone had been the Carriageville goalie.   Tisha’s hard head had done a major number on the poor kid’s knee.  Not as major as her knee had done on Tisha’s head, though.  A lady in a white shirt, who Tisha didn’t know, was shining a a light into her eyes and saying something to her.  The light bothered her so she tried to twist her head away, and for a moment, looked to her side.  Her white headband was crumpled in the dust, soaked red with her blood.  What had happened, Tish wondered.    How come she was here on this dirty ground?  She wanted to cry, but she was tired of crying.  She had cried too much lately but she couldn’t remember why.  Her dad was standing above her, looking sad.  Tisha seemed to remember that he looked that way a lot.  Tish wanted to say,” Hey, Daddy, my head hurts. How come?” but she couldn’t get her mouth to work with her brain.   She wanted her mom.  Where was her mom, anyway?  Then things started to get a little clearer, and she remembered.  She’s in friggin’ Hawaii.  Then she couldn’t help it, and she started to cry.

Tomorrow I'll introduce the Giant.

We opened our pool today, . . .

. . .which is always a nice kind of summer thing to do although it doesn't have anything to do with writing.  It could have had something to do with the great Anglo-Saxon oral tradition of cursing, though, because the pump decided not to work.  But, I decided not to turn the air blue with oaths, when the pool was such a pretty blue even without a pump moving the water.  

     I am happily back to rewriting TISHA AND THE GIANT.  There's one section that I haven't got to yet, which really needs to be rewritten, I think.  In the story, the 15 year old boy who calls himself the GIANT and imagines he is a superhero,  (he's not delusional--just simple, sweet, and possessed of an overactive imagination) is the only one aware that Tisha, his math tutor and the subject of his huge crush, is being stalked by a psycho, who saw her picture next to a column she wrote for the local newspaper.  Because he knows no one will believe him, and because he has made himself responsible for Tisha, he decides he must do battle with the psycho, who he calls the Lump.  On a Friday night, he knows where the Lump is waiting for Tisha and goes there in his homemade giant costume, which consists of an overly large t-shirt and a store bought mask,.  He also carries a lead pipe which he imagines is a mace.  He read about maces in a book about knights and battles.  

     My problem is that for this story to work the Giant must defeat the Lump, kill him, in fact, because otherwise the Lump will certainly kill the Giant.  And how to write that scene well, challenges me.  Over the next couple of days, I think I'll probably post some snippets from that section of TISHA and hope that some of you phantom readers out there will comment on the snippets' effectiveness.

I launched the script. . .

. . .of ARTHUR REDUX yesterday to 50 or so drama folk throughout the Chitt. area.  I can only repeat that I have never had a harder time with a play.  I wanted to write about leadership and about the call to greatness.  I wanted to write about how a person's importance to others may come as a complete surprise to them.  There's a quote that goes something like, "some seek greatness, while others have greatness thrust upon them."  That quote is kind of what I wanted to write about.  I hope I have.  I continue to rewrite the final scene.  Even after I sent out the pdf's of ARTHUR, I went back to the original script and made another change.  I always think that plays are organic, growing and changing in every step of development.  For me, ARTHUR REDUX is a prime example.  I can't wait until we read it through next Wednesday.

    Now that I have joined it, I don't find myself looking at Facebook very often, but I did this morning.  I found three cool things.  #1.  Jon Stine has graduated from med. school.  Way to go, Jon!  #2.  Kristen Wolf is living in NYC, and as she waits for the coming good weather,  she anticipated the "warm, sweet winds of debauchery!"  Man, I wish I wrote that line!  #3.  Jake, based on a comment Beth Berger made, I am glad to see you are still fighting the good fight against the obnoxiously banal vampire/runway models of TWILIGHT!

Years ago. . .

. . .I remember reading about how writers would rewrite and rewrite for weeks and even months before finally being happy with their work.  Back in those days of heavy self-confidence, I couldn't imagine ever rewriting to such an extent.  Now I understand. I am rewriting things to the point of distraction, but I'm glad that I am.

     Got back from Rochester at 2:00.  Picked up Lucy at the B&B for dogs at 2:30.  Sat down to rewrite the final scene of  ARTHUR REDUX at 3:00.  Wrote til 4:20.  Rode my exercise bike for 42 minutes, the length of one episode of "24" Season 1 on DVD.  Did 100 ab crunches on a stability ball.  Took a shower.  Ate.  Back writing at 6:20.  Wrote until 8:35.  Am final pleased with the final scene.  I'll launch it tomorrow by PDF for those who are interested. 

     I received LASSIE AND THE MYSTERY OF BLACKBERRY BOG yesterday.  My newly acquired copy is just like the one I had back in the 50's, except the pages are kind of yellow and smell a little musty.  On the cover was a little sticker that listed the price as 59 cents.  Perhaps my memory isn't so bad after all.

I am now. . .

. . .the proud owner of 4 more Whitman books.  I won the E-bay auction in which I bid, and for $10 + shipping, I'll soon receive a Rin Tin Tin, a Roy Rogers, a Gene Autry, and a Hopalong Cassidy.  

      I continue to struggle with the final scene in ARTHUR REDUX.  I do have a finished version of the scene, but it isn't really what I want it to be.  I'm basically happy with the first act and the first scene in Act II, but bringing it to just the right ending is tough.

     The read-through is on May 20, so I am determined to have it done by the 13th.  But I've said stuff like that before, and I won't get anything done tomorrow on Mom's Day. Wish me luck.

It's 11 p.m. so. . .

. . .I won't be wordy.  We received 170 entries in response to the OZ short story ending contest.  That's really fantastic.  Interestingly enough and logically enough, 144 entries came from kids in 3rd to 8th grade, 20 came from adults, and only 6 came from high school kids.  I guess that suggests that kids love Oz when they're little, get sick of it in h.s., and come back, in limited numbers, as adults.

     After writing about Whitman books yesterday, I decided to do a little research on them and discovered that they only cost 50 cents, not 59 cents as I remember.   I wonder if the retailers in Webster jacked up the price 9 cents.  This is a bit of information about these books that I found on-line:

The Whitman Publishing Co. published the 8 inch books known as 50-cent juveniles. These books provide a snapshot of popular culture from the years they were published, the 1910s to the 1970s. They were published in a variety of series such as Whitman Classics, Adventures For Boys, Mysteries, and the most notable, the Authorized Editions, which were gleaned from radio, screen, comic strips, and TV series.

     It's the authorized edition, the tv/movie tie-ins that interest me.  So I went searching for titles on E-bay, opened a Paypal acct., and bid on a group of 4.  I'll find out tomorrow if my $10 bid wins.  Then I went searching specifically for LASSIE AND THE MYSTERY OF BLACKBERRY BOG, and I found 3 copies for sale.  One is at this moment being shipped to me for the total price, including shipping, of $7.90.  The search will go on.

 

My love of writing. . .

. . .was probably the product of my love of being read to when I was a little kid, and, of course, of my love of reading on my own, ever since I got good at it.  The first "books" that I read were comic books.  I loved all the Walt Disney and Looney Tunes comics, and remember reading them with a flashlight under the covers of my bed when we lived in an apartment behind my grandmother's house in Penfield, NY.   Dating it until then, means I was reading my first comics when I was 3 or 4.  I think the first novel I read was the Hardy Boys' mystery, THE SIGN OF THE CROOKED ARROW.  Believe it or not, that book, which must be about 52 or 53 years old, sits with 11 of its brother Hardy Boy Books, on a shelf in our front hallway. 

     There is an equally good chance that the first novel I read was called LASSIE AND THE MYSTERY OF BLACKBERRY BOG.  It was a tv show tie-in book back when Lassie was teamed up with Jeff.  This was before the Lassie and Timmy days.  (You have to have been alive, a kid,  and cognizant in the 50's to know what I'm ranting about.)  I don't remember anything about the story.  There must have been a bog in it and a collie.  I do remember, though, that it was published by the Whitman Company.  I had a bunch of Whitman books.  They had colorful cardboard covers and sold for about 59 cents, which wasn't bad for the middle to late 50's. Hardy Boys books cost a buck each then.  Now, Hardy Boy books were sold in bookstores, while Whitman books were sold in 5 and Dime stories, making them the poor relatives of  50's kid lit.  I loved those Whitman books, and all that I owned are gone, save for ANNETTE AND THE DESERT INN MYSTERY.  This is sad, because even though Annette was hot to 10 and 12 year old guys then, I'm sure I didn't buy this book.  I bet it was my sister's.  Until a few years ago, I had a copy of a Gene Autry Whitman book, THE MYSTERY OF GHOST RANCH, or something.  Somehow it has disappeared, but I'm still looking.  After all I never finished reading it.  It was too scary, so I never got past Chapter 3.  That was when the ghost appeared.  I remember he wore a sombrero.

     So, what today's post leads to is the fact that I am now collecting Whitman books.  I just started and finding good ones isn't easy.  In Little Falls, I found two Whitman's in an antique shop.  I paid 6 bucks each for what once cost 59 cents.  The titles:  POLLY FRENCH TAKES CHARGE and DONNA P{ARKER AT CHERRYVALE!  Two more girl books!  So I have Annette, Polly, and Donna on my shelf.  In a Cape Cod shop, I found one:  THE MYSTERY OF THE DOUBLE KIDNAPPING, A Power Boys Adventure.  I had never heard of the Power Boys, but at least it was a boy book.  I checked the copyright date.  1966!!  Lord, I was in college then.  This wasn't a Whitman book of my youth.  I should have guessed because the cover art was dull and crappy.  Whitman must have been selling out.  I bought it anyway.  It cost $4.75.  Today, I bought two Whitmans at the Sullivan Library used bookstore.  Check it out.  It's a great place!  They were "classic" Whitmans.  Really!  They were editions of the classic LITTLE WOMEN and the classic LITTLE MEN.  Three bucks for the women and 4 bucks for the men.  My collection remains heavy in chick lit.

     So, to search I will continue for Whitman books that really are like I remember them.  Westerns, adventures, tv tie-in books and such.  And I accept the fact that they will cost more than 59 cents.

I finished writing. . .

. . .ARTHUR REDUX yesterday, and today I started rewriting it.  ARTHUR is the 10th full-length play I have written, and I think, the very hardest one to complete.  And I'm still not happy with the final scene, but there's something nice about completing a long piece of writing. When I finished last night, I went and sat in my chair, had a good dose of Jack Bauer on 24, and felt a little empty, a little drained.  Finishing something big is good, even if you realize you aren't really done.

      Today, I did some rewriting on Act One, and on the first scene of Act Two.  When I finally make it to where I am going, the end of a play, I can then go back and fix up the getting there. Until I finish a play, I'm never really sure how exactly it will end.  I have to go to the end with with my characters to find out.  Then I have to go back and make sure that everything that happened along the way makes sense, and add some things to improve the sense of it all. 

     Characters are for me by far the most important aspect of any play.  They are a lot more important than plot or mood or story arcs or whatever.  It's the people who make it.  My favorite characters in ARTHUR REDUX are Emily and Asa, and all along I thought they would be Arthur and Merlin.  Who would have guessed?

I'm back on Sunday. . .

rather than on Saturday as I thought I would.  It has been a busy weekend.  I hate it when my writing (Lions Club Newsletters, meeting minutes and such) gets in the way of my writing.

     I worked on ARTHUR REDUX for a bit this evening.   I am well into the final scene, and with luck, I will finish tomorrow.  I will definitely choose a day for a read-through and days for auditions tomorrow, post them here, and send them to everyone on the SUMMERPLAY e-mail list.

     One of my favorite movies is ANIMAL HOUSE.  I was watching a DVR'd BONES episode yesterday, a show which I don't always watch, and discovered that it was a clever take-off on ANIMAL HOUSE.  Instead of Dean Wormer, the dean was Dean Warmer, but his wife still went to bed with one of the students.  One of the campus goodie twoshoes was named Greg Harmalard.  In AH it was Greg Marmalard.  The fraternity had a toga party.  Booth's brother had a motorcycle like D. Day's.  A character dressed up as an otter.  It was more fun watching for AH references than paying attention to the story.  Those of you who have never had the pleasure of watching ANIMAL HOUSE won't know what I am talking about.  Sorry.

         And now for the first time the character list for ARTHUR REDUX, available first to the readers of THE BLUE MOON GRILLE.  The setting is Cape Cod in the summer of 2009.  The cast includes:  Arthur--King of All England and somehow in current Mass., Merlin--Arthur's teacher and wizard (These characters are in their 40's or 50's, or perhaps younger or older.)

Captain Asa Elbridge, innkeeper of the Avalon Inn, Phoebe, his unpleasant sister-in-law, Patience, Modesty, and Chastity, his three daughters in their late teens or early 20's.  Abel, Oscar and Klaus, their fisherman boyfriends.  Members of the Mordred Society including:  Dr. Fuller Krupp; his wife Mabel; Corpulenta and Lucretia, the Pendergast sisters, Charlie Sloot, and Simon Corn.  (Save for the Krupp's who should be 40ish, the others are of varying ages). Fay Morgan, journalist with a secret and one hot mama.  The hotel staff including:  Stu the bartender: Nellie, the chambermaid; Katie, the summer intern; and Emily Leo, the manager of the gift shop.  Plus Rex Cooper Emily's boyfriend.  (Emily and Rex are in their 20's, Katie is 20ish, and Nellie and Stu are whatever.)

The new car is. . ..

. . .in our garage right now.  It looks great.  The top's down, but it's raining.

     I got a wonderful FACEBOOK message from Sarah D. R. today.  I was truly touched.

     Not much writing happening, hoy, (that's today in Espanol for you French students.  My sinuses are driving me insane.  Stuffy head.  Drippy ears.  Ah, shut up and quit complaining.

     We were going to go to the movies tonight to see STATE OF PLAY, but two blockbusters are opening, WOLVERINE and something else, so I imagine we'll stay away til the crowds thin.  This will give me time to go back to work on ARTHUR.  Maybe, I can finish it by Monday, although I have to do the Lions Club Newsletter this weekend, too.

     Great news!  We had over 100 entries in the OZ finish the short story contest.  I'm really looking forward to reading them.

      I'll be back tomorrow to comment on my ARTHUR progress.