lily's coffee cup

Lily's favorite coffee cup sat on the old quilted placemat she had once put together by hand when they first moved to the schoolbus life. Hunter had said it was time for them to leave the craziness and hypocrisy of the world and to go make their own life together. Lily was all for that. Her life as a teacher was over; she was so tired of all the work, the grading, the reading, the senselessness of teaching people how to write research papers. She was glad to go. More people should, she thought.

jail friends

Everybody on the inside needs somebody on the outside. That's true. Make a pact with your friend to accept your collect calls from jail just in case you ever happen to end up there--unexpecteds like that do happen to people. You have to research which phone service the facility uses to accept collect calls on a cell phone, but it can be done so just have patience and realize how worth your effort is is to someone who feels they have no contact with the world. Also, inmates in jail, not prison, but jail, need people to put say 20 or 40 bucks on their commissary account so they can buy paper, stamps, envelopes, to write to loved ones. Some inside don't have anyone on the outside they can write to, so adopting a jail pen pal is not a bad idea either. You can find out how by contacting your local sheriff's office or city jail. Just ask how you can write to current inmates and have your letter delivered to a man or a woman. Just write current events and things you think about--inmates on the inside crave news of the outside and in jails there aren't any TV sets. Jail is a whole different world than prison is and not enough people know that. So make yourself aware and do something about this ongoing problem. Did you know that people who get arrested at home don't even get to change clothes before they are cuffed and led out? That means some people in jail don't have proper clothes, socks, underwear, tee shirts, etc. So think about this issue. It's worth some thought.

Hunter returns home...

Hunter looked at himself in the mirror and stopped, suddenly. I don't even remember who you are, Lily. I don't remember you. He instantly panicked. Hunter had become a successful businessman after getting out of jail for going on a rampage after Lily died. His stash of money had come in handy; he invested well and had been living a worldy life in society as a hob knobber, ever the popular guy that he always had been. The mirror told him to go home, to go back to the schoolbus, back to where Lily was, to a place he could find himself again. He looked at his fancy clothes and felt a sense of shame overwhelm him. He needed to go home. He tied up some loose ends and got in the car for the five hour drive to the river, back to where he had been the happiest in his life. when Lily was alive, when Lily was so ready to give birth to their first child. Oh, Lily, he thought as he sped down the backroads, Lily I am so sorry but now I am coming back home to you. Wait for me, wait, I'm on my way. Hunter shook his head. No, Lily wouldn't be waiting with fresh bread and a fruit salad and a good hot cup of coffee. Lily was gone. Gone. She could not return. Oh those days when Hunter would be on the river....knowing Lily was back at the schoolbus fiddling in the garden or crocheting something new for the baby to come. Sometimes she would spend hours just walking and taking photographs. If not for Lily's photographs being so popular and such good money makers, they would not have been able to fund their life away from society, but somehow they managed to exist mostly from the river and the land and the garden and the bread and the great artesian well water just a walk away from their kitchen bus. Hunter was lost in thought as he drove closer to the homeground. He saw the road, the driveway, and turned. It felt like a million miles until he saw the first bright look at yellow. His old bus. He parked, got out of the car, started to walk to his old home and then fell to the ground weeping. My God, he said aloud, he yelled, My God why did you let this happen? When he woke up an hour later, he was spent, tired, weary and in need of a hot meal. He pried open the door to the kitchen bus. How could everything look the same, he wondered? Was he caught in some kind of time warp? Would Lily magically appear now and welcome him home like she used to with her bright smile and sweet kiss? To be in her arms again was all Hunter wanted. He started a small fire and made some coffee. He put some beans to cooking and found some deer jerky to tide him over until his meal was ready. Hunter was home again. He knew he would never leave. The world would have to do without him again. He had a story to tell, a story that needed to be heard. He would start from scratch again alone. He became the wilderness king then and vowed never to leave the grounds where his precious and beautiful Lily was buried. That kind of love could sustain him even through his loneliness. He would be fine. He would thrive. The sound of boiling water and the smell of northern beans brought him back to the bus, to his real time thoughts. Just eat for now he told himself. The rest will take care of itself.

jail talk continued

I know, I remember, he said tenderly. Lily moved up closer to Hunter as the wind had picked up. Do you think we can make it upriver in this wind, she asked him. Of course she already knew it was a dumb question: with Hunter, all things were possible. He just had a way about him of getting through whatever came up. Yeah, we'll make it he reassured her. Then ice began to fall from the sky. It's hailing, it's hailing, Lily shouted. Hurry and get us to shore! And they rode that way, next to each other under a falling ice sky all the way back to the schoolbus, to their home, their haven, their world. There, nothing, no one, could or would intrude. They had set themselves off from the world and they loved each other and they had woodstoves, and a nice kitchen bus and warm blankets and quilts and three cats. They listened to music every morning with their coffee and then at night before lying down in each other's arms, they'd listen to music again and fall into a world of their own making.

Jail talk

They fell in love while he was in jail, over the phone. It wasn't that they hadn't already loved each other, just that they spoke it when he was in jail. Lily would have done anything to get Hunter out but there was a 10,000 cash only bond and her hands were tied. Hunter understood. He knew Lily would stand by him through just about anything he could throw at her.She loved Hunter with all her heart. She remembered their first meeting--opening day of trout season. She noticed him fishing near where she was and later in line to claim a prize, they spoke to compliment each other's catches. They traded names and numbers right away; they felt an instant attraction. Their love had blossomed slowly but beautifully and now, now Lily was going to give birth! A home birth, too, all natural, in the water, artesian water. They swam daily for pleasure and exercise, the river being their second home, their precious and cozy schoolbuses being their first.
Lily, what are you thinking about? Hunter asked out of his usual curiosity. Nothing much, just about how it was for me when you were in jail. How you'd call me collect twelve times a day just to say hello. I love you very much, Lily, you'd say.
to be continued....this was just a freewriting trying to get back into the new story....

the issue of names

i've been thinking all day about names to call the characters and so far I have come up with for the guy Crane, Hunter, Aaron, Bill, and for the woman, Lily or Emily. I think I like Lily and Hunter. When he was ten, they called him Hunter. When he was twenty, he was living as a hunter. to be continued.....stay tuned Okay I'm back. Now, today I thought of using the name Stone. ALso, title of the novel could be The River Junkie. It would have a double meaning cause the characters have drugs in their lives--prescription medication for chronic pain. that would be another theme in the novel--the issue of chronic pain and all its ways of impacting a person's life as well as all the people in that person's life. I think I will use the name Lily for the woman. And she was so much like a flower, like a strand of sunlight beaming onto a blossom. she was beautiful like no one else. Inside and out. Dialogue. Background info. I feel overwhelmed again, as if i am good about coming up with ideas but just cannot follow through. why not, anne? Because you are lazy? Troubled? conflicted? Unmotivated? I see the way I want to live and I write about it but in reality I don't even cook dinner every night! I live in a fantasy world, that much is true. That's what I am trying to organize onto paper, into words. There is so much advice I need and want. I am going to call Joe Benevento or write to him. I am sure he will have some things to say. Need a mentor right now, and lots of moral support and a clear direction. Let the housework go in the name of writing. Let the dishes gather crust; let the vegetables in the fridge go rotten. All in the name of trying to write. All without any clearcut knowledge of what the outcome and possible profit to me would be. I need to consult the writer's marker, so that's what I will do next. to be continued

Uh-Oh and social relevance of new novel

Uh Oh. I wanted to title the novel The Riverking but after I had my heart set on that I researched the title on Google and found out that alice hoffman already wrote a mystery murder novel of that title which has already been made into a movie. So I need to talk to some knowledgeable people about whether I can use the same title. I have heard that titles themselves cannot be copyrighted. this is a bummer because my play called Fool's Gold can't be called that anymore either since there was a major movie out a couple years ago by that title....well more research is needed plus I have to come up with back up titles. As for the social relevance of the novel, some of the themes are going to deal with Americans with disabilities, the stereotypes and stigmas, the politics of disability, the disappearance of spirituality and religion from many contemporary American's lives, the legalization of marijuana, drug use and abuse, alcoholism, interpersonal relationship success and self-help, and the struggle within many people, especially men, about being part of larger society and keeping a regular haircut and job versus going back to nature and living in the wilderness.

The Riverking

When I was at the creek earlier, I got inspired by the sight of water, sound of water, trees, fish swimming, the sky so blue, the sun, the kingfisher bird i saw....I was thinking about the novel idea and some of the descriptions for each schoolbus setting, and the reasons why they decided to go live by the river. Well, when should the part about her getting bit by the water moccasin and dying in his arms in the river be in the organization of the novel? Halfway through so the last part is all about how the man becomes The Riverking after he loses the woman in the river. He withdraws completely from society, has his supplies brought in once every few weeks by an old friend.....he lives mostly though on fish he catches every day.And then one day he decides to go back to the world from which he came. He shaves and cleans up and gets some clothes and shoes for going to town. He goes to visit his parents. He applies for a job. He goes to a Starbucks. He buys a telescope. He rents a one bedroom loft and starts taking nature photographs and selling them to National Geographic and such. And then he looks in the mirror one day and doesn't remember who she used to be. That scares him so he drives out to the schoolbus property in his nice clothes and he goes to her gravesite and somehow that's where it ends with a montage of their lives together, what he had, what he lost, and the question is will he go back to town or stay in the schoolbus world again?

setting for the novel...

the main setting takes place on a piece of property above the river on some bluffs with lots of trees and flowers and a huge garden fenced in by a fence they built to keep some critters out. Three old schoolbuses are organized together to create a three part dwelling: one bus is hers, one is his, and then the community bus where there is a big kitchen and lots of hanging plants and a nice old oriental rug well worn but expensive that they got at an auction for only twenty bucks. Each schoolbus has an awning built over the front door so they can go outside and sit even when it's raining. Each bus has a small woodstove and when all three are cranked up in the coldest cold of winter everything inside is toasty and warm, very cozy. The floors of the buses are hardwood that they installed little by little from scraps at people's houses where they worked together sometimes doing odd jobs when they could.
The river property is in the midwest, in Missouri, in Washington county. The name of the river is Big River. They have a small boat with an outboard and two canoes and a kayak stored in a shed they built away from the schoolbus homes. the year is 2010. They have lived at the river for five years. There is lots of background about the stories of each of the characters' lives, but the main part of the novel is centered around what takes place at the river and then of course the ending is tragic and sad but beautiful nonetheless. People read it; people watch the movies like that. It's possible that I have been sitting on a gold mine with some of my love stories and just didn't take them seriously enough to try to finish them and send them out. Those days are about to come to an end. Next I have to sketch out some plot lines and some character sketches to flesh out the people's backgrounds. Plus I have to come up with good names for them and a name for the town they go shopping in. Both characters are disabled, too, so there is a political element to the novel in that they face stigma in society for their disabilities so that contributed to why they set up their lives at the river. So exciting and so much more to come!!!!

a vision

They lived by the river in three old schoolbusses. Yellow ones at the beginning, but now custom painted and decorated. Hers was filled with art and flowers, his with trophy fish and taxidermized deer. They lived in harmony with nature, eating things they grew in a huge garden and fresh fish and meat like squirrel and once in a while even opposum. It was a beautiful life until when she was eight months pregnant and they were swimming in the river she got bit by a water moccasin and they couldn't make it to the hospital and she died in his arms in the river and like the great hunter that he was he cut out her heart and buried it in a tin in the dirt. It's my new idea for a novel. I'm working out who the characters are, how they get to a place called schoolbusville. How they get along and interact. I don't even think I know how to write a novel. I just write a lot of descriptive stuff and it doesn't go anywhere. I don't know what to do, how to proceed. I guess to just freewrite for a while and see what happens. I don't know if I should incorporate the school bus by the river idea into my last attempt at a novel with Barney and Lisa in what I titled The Crazy of Wind. Maybe that's how the old story would end. With her dying in his arms in the river. How tragic and how sad it is that readers thrive on stuff like that. It's partly why I have resisted my natural ability to write that kind of story because I don't want to promote unrealistic fantasy of love type thinking because I think that damages women's abilities to have realistic relationships with men....that has always been my experience, my theory. But some are encouraging me to just write what I know, so I'm going to use my blog for that for a little while and see how that works out.

I love the peace and silent noise of water

slippers in sunlight

A pair of old slippers in a square of sunlight brought such joy to my yesterday but I forgot to write my blog so I'm writing it today instead. I know I am behind; I have set some goals that I do not seem capable of reaching. I can't understand why I am so unable to focus on my writing. It confuses me. I am a good writer and i like to write so why am I avoiding it or failing to do it everyday? I can't really call myself a writer, can I? My friends say I am a writer anyway, but there are a couple of friends I know of like Joe Benevento who would say that if I wanted to write i would just write and not write about not writing!!!

Slippers in a square of sunlight, oh you have walked on many floors, carpets, dirt, tents...you have been part of my life for more than twenty years. I have taken you to all the places in this world I have traveled to. I have worn you with boots to hide you but still felt comfort from you deep inside the boot!

MY daughter is coming home in a week; she has been with her Grandma visiting. I bought us a tent and am equipping us for camping and fishing this summer. It's her last summer before turning 18 next year. This year will be her seventeenth birthday which just blows my mind, actually, since I still see her and hear her at every young little age she used to be....I have loved her all along and am really looking forward to the summer. And to writing every day I can. Which should be EVERY DAY.