4/27/2006

The Writing Life...It Ain't All It's Cracked Up To Be- But It Is Cracked!

Okay, I'm a writer. This is my blog. Authors are "supposed" to be writing about their work. Who knew?! All this time I've been writing about my life...which sometimes includes my work but most often winds up being a stream-of-consciousness rant about whatever happens to be going on at the time.

Today I will be responsible. I will write about my work.


http://www.dinermuseum.org/dinersforsale/diner30/dinerforsale30.php

There it is...up there...what I'm working on. I've fallen in love with diner life.

What is wrong with me?

They request a proposal for a ghost hunter and what do I get? A diner!

I wander around the house thinking...hummmm....ghost hunter...what up with that?!

I eat some of the Easter candy that I've carefully stashed in the freezer so I won't eat it and voila! I come up with a diner.

The candy, in particular the malted milk ball eggs, is a magnificent help because next I come up with a memory of a man in the laundramat when I was in college. He had a tin foil triangle on his head and was speaking from the payphone to his mother.

"You gotta help me out here, Ma! The CIA is closing in. They know I'm in contact with the aliens."

Okay, now I've got a diner and a crazy guy with a tin foil triangle on his head.

Then I get a retro, shell pink, nubby fabric-ed Coco Channel suit and a pillbox hat...and a blonde. Tall. Leggy. And Geeze...she's got her masters in Social Work. And she lives in Philly where she has, of all things, a talk show.

Where are the freaking ghosts I ask you?

Next I get the Chicken Lady. She's wearing the tin foil hat and holding a chicken.

I keep eating Easter candy. I think there's a connection between the malted milk ball eggs and the chicken sitting in the crazy lady's lap.

And this is literally how I work. I walk around and now and then I look at one of the kids and say..."What if...?" And they do their best to answer me, even though they're thinking I'm nuts. Thank God, my son Ben is an expert on aliens, technology and Mormans (Go figure!) He tells me a lot of alien theory.

My other son just rolls his eyes and says, "Everybody writes about tin foil triangles, Mother! It's been done...a lot!"

Where was I and what exactly has he been reading?!

And then there's the diner...and a ghost named Abe who has hemmoroids. This is not my choice, he just pops into my head and asks for a small walk-on part...actually, he demands a small walk on part. As does the Marilyn Monroe/Gwen Steffani wanna-be ghost and the VW van.

But I can't write. Not yet. Not until someone starts talking to me and gives me the first line. Then the picture will start to roll, the "flash-forwards" as I call them will begin to fall into place, and I will sit back and enjoy the movie.

So, I guess you can see why I don't write much about my writing. Who would believe me?!

P.S Lately I've been reading the stats about where my blog readers come from and now I'm curious...Who are you guys? It would be wonderful to know. Maybe you could post a comment or drop me a line as I have no clue how to attach a guest book to this thing!