Maureen has a new group going that is supposed to trigger imagination and help the writer begin a new project. I am so stuck, it isn’t even funny. I have three choices:
- The story Mike and I worked on while lying on inflatable mattresses in Traverse Bay, about the girl who lives at a lifesaving station in 1911 and gets involved with spies, including a British intelligence agent disguised as a Russian countess. It would require a lot of research and possibly a road trip.
- The novel I wrote about Esther and Carol and me, about their search for love and my efforts to stop Alix from getting married. It was supposed to be comical. I remember parts of it as being funny. That’s the query I sent to Ms. Snark. She wrote back, pointing out that there was nothing at stake. What would happen if my characters didn’t get what they wanted? Good question.
- The novel I wrote in high school about Gypsies and a soldier just returning from World War I to his home on a horse farm in Ohio. I know nothing about horse farms. That one was mostly about sex. Thrilling when you’re 15, less so when you grow up.
I feel left out. Everyone else is scribbling away with their new ideas, and there I sit trying every technique Maureen suggests to spark imagination. Clustering. Asking the Universe for help, or whatever it is when you write down your question, go to bed and wake up with an answer, messing around with index cards. I got nothing.
Too bad I already wrote a memoir. I used myself up.
My mother has a brain tumor. She can no longer open her eyes or swallow easily, and she has trouble talking so that she can easily be understood. She’s in hospice care. It’s breaking my heart.
Photo: medicinal chocolate.
Susan Hall-Balduf 