In my new novel, What’s Left, she’s retelling much she’s heard from others.
As Cassia might say, while describing the story she’s telling:
Look, if I’m telling you something, it’s happening now. I don’t care if the event took place a hundred years ago, when I evoke it, it’s all happening now, right in front of us. Anyone mind if it’s for the umpteenth time? Or if I’m quoting someone else in my own voice? It’s all coming through my mouth, so it’s me, too. Pay attention. OK? Now listen! Especially you, Baba.
~*~
As an author, I had to ask myself the question. Now it’s your turn for input.
Is it fair to put secondhand dialogue – even hearsay – in separate quotation marks? Or is it some other blending of voices?
There’s a word for these. Phobias. Maybe you know the particular terms for each one.
You pass a police car sitting beside a highway and automatically look in the rear-view mirror, clueless to any possible offense.
Spiders or rats, just because others in my household freak out at the slightest suspicion.
Any missing item. I’ll go squirrelly trying to find it.
Saying the wrong thing … after the fact. Just what was it, anyway? How could that possibly have been offensive?
I’m going to be late – or even miss it altogether. An airline flight, a crucial appointment, or just a big meeting, maybe even where I’m the featured attraction. But interruptions keep me from getting started out the door. And then there’s the possibility of bad traffic.
Some undiagnosed affliction. Like cancer.
Being powerless or helpless. Especially in the face of bureaucracy or injustice.
Losing my keys.
Can’t find the car. Not just a parking lot, either.
Getting locked out of the house when everyone else is away.
~*~
’Fess up now. Add to the list.
Oh, yes, daisies!
Of course, this is totally unrelated to the theme. Just another thing on my mind.
As Cassia investigates the workings of her extended family, she finds that much of its vitality has resulted from the colorful members in her father’s generation who freely chose to join in. She could say their role was as important as the siblings who were born into the family.
Her father, her uncle Graham, and aunts Pia and Yin all advance the family fortune. It’s a powerful ring, one where they all get along together. Is it too much to expect? Or more good luck?
Carmichael’s, the restaurant her family owns in my new novel, has me looking more closely at others.
What happened to the hippies? (That is: Where did they go?)
That question seeded my newest novel, What’s Left. The book, to be candid, has grown into something much bigger, and I hope more relevant to more readers. It’s about what’s happened to Cassia, born a decade after the hippies faded into, well, wherever.
Earlier this year, I updated the cover and tweaked the contents of my novel Hometown News.
I liked the new image, of a house on fire rather than one of a girl in autumn leaves. The story is, after all, about a community in crisis rather than the delights of living in idyllic repose.
The new image, however, challenged the use of placing the book title and author. The colors jump all over the place, and I just couldn’t figure out a way to drop the words in effectively. Well, you can see what I did. Still, I felt ambivalent about the results.
And then, a few weeks ago, I was looking at my revised lineup at Smashwords and sensed this one just didn’t quite match the style or tone of the others. Time for a few tweaks.
So here’s what we have now:
Hometown News
After this:
Hometown News
Which replaced this one:
Hometown News
The covers of my Smashwords editions originally paid homage to Richard Brautigan’s classic books of the ’60s, each of which had a portrait of a pretty young woman.
They won’t coexist. They strangle any competition. At heart they’re boa constrictors with stubborn roots. And if that won’t work, they’ll just suffocate it.
Yes, grass. When it gets in the garden beds, it pushes everything else out.
Ground ivy. We have two types all over the place.
Virginia creeper.
Multiflora roses.
Japanese honeysuckle.
Goutweed (St. Jerome wort?).
Stealth maples. Don’t laugh. Twice in two decades a pleasant little shade garden reverted to forest.
Japanese knotweed.
Dandelions, with their deep roots. Ditto for Queen Ann’s Lace.
Mint comes close. We have both spearmint, east of the house, and peppermint west of the Smoking Garden. But sometimes it comes in handy. Especially for folks who want contractors bags filled to brimming.
~*~
What would you add to the list?
Virginia creeper is an attractive weed … until it starts smothering everything it’s overrunning.
Nearly every novelist of the last half-century, at least, must have had moments of dreaming of a screen adaptation. (And, yes, nearly every one that was adapted was never as good as the book. Oh, well.)
As a critical aside, we’ve seen too many novels that were thinly disguised screenplays. Yet while my new novel was created as a purely literary effort, I’m impressed by great cinema.
If we had a movie version of What’s Left, who would you have play Cassia’s aunt Pia?
She’d have to project so many dimensions!
~*~
Greek Orthodox icon of the Virgin Mary of Mount Athos (and details) created by Father Vasileios Pavlatos in Kefalonia, Greece using the technique of Pyrography. (Via Wikimedia Commons.)
Looking at my new lineup at Smashwords, I felt one cover just didn’t match.
The first round of my editions there had covers that were an homage to Richard Brautigan’s classic books of the ’60s, each of which had a portrait of a pretty young woman.
As I looked at the cover image, though, it felt dated. Looking closer, I realized it also didn’t reflect the edginess of the contents. I wanted something more compelling than a woman in quiet reflection.
