As many of you know, I have been writing about Wilma, a retired librarian for a number of years. I will have a spurt of I know what to write, and start writing as fast as I can. The reason to write when I'm in a creative moment, is because a lot of the time my "creative genius" goes dark! In other words, I got "na da" to put on a page, zip, zilch, nothing.
Long ago, when Wilma was first born in my head, I promised Jeff that I would buy him a bigger, faster plane if I ever sold Wilma's story for more than $1.50. Obviously, if I never write anything, then there's nothing to sell. It's sort of like hoping you win the lottery, but you haven't bought a ticket.
Yesterday, instead of doing some mundane chore around the house, I took Wilma out for a spin - pulled her out of my computer's memory where she was safely stored. Initially, Wilma was going to find a missing diary of Abraham Lincoln, and for that story line I had written previously hundreds of pages.
But, once I opened up my "book", I thought of something better than Lincoln. The "book" is called "The 200 Year Separation" and it's about Wilma and a slave named Jonas. Based on my notebook, in which I have written down pages and pages of facts involving slaves, I must have at one time or another, thought about making a slave part of Wilma's story.
I charged ahead yesterday filled with new optimism and wrote feverishly for several hours. After reading and rewriting, I was very pleased with my new first few chapters. Wilma, is still an old lady who doesn't care what anybody thinks about her. She is a widow who lives primarily on toast (heavily buttered), coffee (hot or cold doesn't matter) and ice cream! My kind of girl.
Wilma's husband has left her a letter telling her about a safety deposit box at the bank, that she knows nothing about. Inside that box is the diary of a slave named Jonas, who was brought to America by ship in the 1800's.
So that's the basic premise of my story. The tricky part comes when Wilma and Jonas connect 200 years apart, hence the title. I have to get Jonas out of the south and into Baltimore, which is where a lot of slaves headed because then they could take ships to Canada. And, I have to get Wilma to discover some clue (for lack of a better word) about Jonas. Anyway, that's what I accomplished yesterday.
It's not a pretty day outside, but it's dry which means that the paw prints in the house will only be dusty not muddy, and I'll take that any day of the week!
Happy Saturday.
P
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