NaNoWriMo November 6th

That meant, after today, Lucia only had three more days of medication left.

It was amazing how well Lucia kept track of her medicine. Once Isabel obtained it, and put it in the cabinet above the microwave in their small room, Lucia took care of it until it was almost gone, and then she told her mother she would need more. Isabel would then ask for money from her husband, Hector, who would give her some money for it from what he had earned. Now Hector was gone, caught by the police and put in jail, where he would be until he served his time or they turned him over to immigration and he got sent back to Mexico.

As they turned to go into the food court, Isabel sighed out loud and Lucia asked her if something was the matter.

"Life is just hard," Isabel said. "It is always so hard."

"Why do you say that? Because Papa is gone?"

"Yes, that and a hundred other things. It is a constant struggle." She sighed again.

Lucia, laboring to walk there beside her mother, reached up with her left hand and patted Isabel's back. "But last night you told me not to worry; you said it would all work out. You mean it won't work out?"

"It's got to," Isabel said. "What other choice is there?"

A thousand things kept going through Isabel's mind, though, including where she was going to get enough money to pay for the medicine Lucia needed starting Sunday.

It had been hard enough the last time they hadn't had enough money to take Lucia to the doctor, who insisted on seeing her first before renewing her prescriptions, and her medicine had run out. They always told him to leave, perhaps, things have changed, and Lucia wouldn't be medicine anymore. The partial paralysis was enough of a burden without the epilepsy, and they didn't think God would go on making Lucia suffer so much with seizures on top of everything else.

Then, after a while, when Lucia eventually did go into a seizure, despite their hopes and beliefs, and it went on and on and wouldn't stop and couldn't be controlled, they had taken her to the emergency room at the hospital --- which had been a trial in and of itself in trying to get her there on the bus without somebody calling the police. They're the medical attendants and doctors finally got Lucia's seizure under control and gave Lucia a prescription that could be filled.

Of course, as soon as things were under control, the hospital discharged Lucia, because Isabel and Hector had no money to pay, and they didn't have any insurance, either. Besides, the hospital said they were not in the United States with documentation that permitted them to be there or get anything more than emergency medical care.

The mall in the food court opened at 10 AM and closed at 9 PM. Isabel always showed up a half-hour to an hour early, and they were always there at least a half hour to an hour after closing. It made for a long day, but there were worse things than living in a mall half of your day. They had all they needed there for all those hours: shelter --- which included warmth in the winter and air conditioning in the summer ---, restrooms, food --- more than they could ever consume ---, entertainment, and security --- not only security and general, but the mall was a good place for Isabel to be able to work and at the same time keep track of Lucia while Lucia was safe and had things to do. On the other hand, it came at the price of Isabel's hard work. During the 11 to 12 hours Isabel worked there, she worked as hard as she possibly could, always worried that she would be criticized and let go from some or all of her assignments except for the few minutes when she took time to check on Lucia during the day or to eat with her.

NaNoWriMo Excerpt from November 5th

The elevator doors opened, and he let her go first and followed behind her. She headed out toward the mall with him catching up and walking beside her, stride for stride. Most of the people were gone now --- there were a few older people walking their routes around the perimeter of the mall to keep in shape --- and some of the businesses were shutting down.

"So how's the life of an accountant, anyway?" he asked. "Do you like it? I once considered doing that, but I think I'm more of a salesman type of a person. I have to keep myself connected with people."

"It's okay." She didn't see salesman as people types, but what does she know? "I'm an accountant. I suppose the stereotype fits in my case. I've never considered myself much of a people person. Or, for that matter, much of a family person. My personality is not like that. I like the notion of tallying numbers and the accurate reporting of them. I'm not opposed to trying to ferret out mistakes or overcoming the tendency of businessmen to try to overstate their net worth or hide their income for nefarious reasons. I also like keeping track of the funding and expenditures of exempt organizations, governmental entities, and, at times, even estates and trusts."

They rounded the corner of the bookstore --- it was closed now, so there was no cutting through it, like Mary Lou usually did. They headed down the hall toward the food court. Hardly anyone was out and about. A lot of the businesses were dark, their security gates down.

"You do any reading?" Bob asked, spurred on Mary Lou guessed by the books on display in the window of the bookstore. "Anything besides accounting books?" he laughed.

"Oh yeah, I do. How about you?"

"Yeah, I like easy reading. For a while, I read everything John Grisham wrote. I'm not much of a fan of Stephen King, though. You?"

"I like mysteries. Sue Grafton. Robert B. Parker. A few of Dean Koontz's books. Others too. Joyce Carol Oates if I'm feeling more intellectual, which isn't that often."

The food court was coming into view. Mary Lou scanned it quickly with her eyes. The big-screen TV kept blaring away, even though nobody was there watching it.

She didn't see the young woman anywhere. They walked on and Mary Lou glanced over into an alcove and there they were, both the older and younger women, eating some food on two trays from one of the fast food restaurants, talking with each other without the stress and strain their faces and eyes that had been there earlier. They clearly looked happier than they had when she had seen them earlier that evening. Something must've happened to them; they must've gotten some bad news or something.

Bob asked me if I had read Life of Pi, and I told him I hadn't, but that everybody had told me I should read it. I asked him what it was about and he gave me an elevator summary. We continued on, walking all the way through the mall and out the doors onto City Creek Boulevard.

"Do you mind if we go to Club Orion?" Bob asked.

"That's fine," Mary Lou answered. She didn't really care where they went. She had never been to Club Orion, although she had heard of it. She wasn't a social individual, she didn't like to drink, and she only got out occasionally and then usually only when she had to in order to meet the expectations of somebody else, like now. She was a homebody. It was as simple as that. In fact, she wasn't sure why she was accompanying Bob to Club Orion now, other than he seemed to need her to go with him. He hadn't said so in so many words, but there was something in his demeanor that made her think he really needed her there to talk to. It probably wasn't a good idea, especially because it might be his father's case she would be working on with Goodrich, but she had accepted his invitation and they were on their way. Wasn't he married now? Hadn't she heard that? What the hell was she doing? What the hell was he?

It was chilly out. The day had been beautiful, the dark blue autumn sky, cloudless, a gentle wind stirring up a few fallen leaves that hadn't been raked up and hauled off.

"It's just up here," Bob said, "on the right, in University Excelsior Hotel."

"Good," she said with a shiver, "I'm getting cold."

"Well, they know how to fix that up," he said and opened the door for her, and she passed through it. He led the way to a table; she set her purse and the folder she had brought with her to take home down on it. He helped her with her jacket, putting it on the chair back and pulling the chair out for her to sit down.

"So what are you working on?" he asked. "Anything interesting?"

She laughed, thinking how ironic it would be if she ended up working with Goodrich on Senator Orr. "Well, right now I'm helping manage an audit on one of the big public utilities in town --- can't say which one, for privacy's sake --- and trying to keep up with a few smaller clients, who always seem to need some direction relative to income taxes. One client's being audited by the wonderful Internal Revenue Service, and I have to represent them. The usual stuff. What about you?"

"Unfortunately, these days in my business there's been a big drop-off in the number of clients we are getting."

That didn't seem like a surprise with the economy in a shambles.

"And the firm has had to lay off a lot of people. I've had to tell a few people in my crew they were being laid off. It's kind of hard to do that, telling guys and gals whose families rely on them to bring home the bacon that they are being laid off.

"Also, the firm has cut my pay and, at the same time, expected me to work more hours. It's this whole damned economy thing. Damn Republicans! They ran the economy into the ground, them and their greedy constituency on Wall Street and in the towers of corporate self-indulgence in the financial sectors back east."

"Sounds like you're doing quite well for yourself, though, with that firm. I think we are the same age, aren't we? And whether we are or not, it seems to me like you've done quite well to have your own crew already, in a management position already. Not bad."

"It's more luck than anything else."

NaNoWriMo Excerpt from Yesterday

Mary Lou had already decided on fish for today's meal, so she headed for Skipper's, planning to order a few strips of deep-fried breaded halibut and a salad.

"Do you want a drink with it?" the attendant asked as she ordered.

"Yes," Mary Lou said, "I want a small Diet Coke, and I want it for here."

"You don't want it to go?"

"No thank you." She grabbed some napkins, a straw, and some tartar sauce to and put it on her tray. She hadn't seen the young girl yet, so she started looking around. One section of the eating area had a big screen TV for people to watch who didn't have anything better to do as they ate their fast food. Sometimes, the young girl would be sitting there, watching something on the television, her book of word searches set aside, but not usually. Typically, the television was on and tuned to the news or some talk show fanatic on Fox or a cable station. She had noticed that, if the girl was watching the television, it was usually tuned to something other than the news or a talk show. Sean Hannity was on now though, so it was unlikely the young woman would be sitting there watching him.

Skipper's finished her order, and she took her tray and started walking around the perimeter of the food court, looking for the young woman. She went all the way around, but she didn't see her. She started around again. She walked more slowly this time, scanning up and down the aisles, looking at every table. The young woman usually wasn't this hard this to spot. Mary Lou went all the way around again, but she still didn't see the young woman. She thought it was weird that the girl wasn't anywhere around. That had never happened before whenever she'd looked for the girl.

There was a corridor that led to another entryway with not much else along it, which the mall had used to extend the food court area, placing a few tables here and there. Mary Lou had never noticed the girl sitting there before, though, but she decided that she would check to make certain she wasn't there and started walking in that direction. She kept going, looking, but not seeing the girl. Then finally, she saw her, but she wasn't alone. She was sitting there with the older woman, and they were both crying.

Mary Lou decided to stay off at a distance. Somewhere where she could watch them, but that wasn't too close to disturb them or make them get up and leave. She wondered what could be wrong with the two women. Something must've happened to make them cry like that. It made Mary Lou feel so badly. She didn't know exactly why she felt that way, however. The young girl didn't really mean anything to Mary Lou --- she wasn't related to her in any meaningful way; she was just somebody at the mall every day, like Mary Lou was. Well, not really, not at all like Mary Lou was. Of course, Mary Lou felt sorry for the girl. Her life looked miserable and unhappy. The girl was handicapped --- seriously handicapped --- and the food court seemed to be the girl's prison. Her minimum security prison. Mary Lou was interested, because the girl seemed to be always present there, waiting while the older woman worked, doing her word searches or, on occasion, watching the mall television. And yesterday, for the first time, Mary Lou had talked to the girl. And the girl had seemed so sweet.

The breaded and deep-fried fish didn't taste as good as it usually did. The green salad seemed to wilt before her eyes, and the ranch dressing on it seemed grainy. She fed it to herself, but all she wanted to focus on where the two women down the way mopping up their tears with paper towels from the public bathroom, trying to comfort each other's sorrows.

Mary Lou wondered how long the pair of women stayed in the mall every day. It seemed as if there were always there whenever Mary Lou was around, but Mary Lou also realized that she hadn't been observing the situation with the two women closely until just lately. Maybe after work today, she would come back here to see if the two were still here in the food court after nine o'clock. If they were, maybe she would see then if there was an opportunity to sit down beside the young woman and get her name. Maybe she should stop by the bookstore on the way back to the office and buy a new book of word searches for the young woman. Maybe she would like that.

It was time to return to the office. When she got there, she would check with Bill Telford's secretary to see if he was available, to find out if she would be working for Mark Goodrich. If Goodrich had agreed to Mary Lou's condition, she would remain nearby, perhaps, even remain in the same building but up a few floors. That would be nice.

She gathered the refuse from her meal carefully onto a tray, picked it up, and took it to the garbage can and dumped it. She placed the tray on top of the garbage can, glanced around one more time to see the two women sitting at the table back there, then turned and walked away.

NaNoWriMo Excerpt from Yesterday

It seemed to her rather rapid for him to suggest that they were now friends. Well, even if they weren't friends yet, what could it hurt to comply with his request? "Okay, Bill," she said. "What's this all about? Tell me?"

"As you know, Mark is a defense attorney with some pretty high-profile clientele. Recently, a friend of mine hired him. You'd recognize my friend's name if I mentioned it, even though you probably don't know him personally or about him through me. He's high profile in the community. Hell, he's high profile in the state and nation. In any event, my friend --- who will remain unnamed here until I determine whether or not you are interested in this project --- hired Mark prospectively. That is, nothing has come out about anything this friend has ever done that would require a defense lawyer. But it is likely to come out in the near future. A lot of it involves issues of accounting and taxation. Mark needs a good accountant, one who doesn't have a recognizable name or some blaring reputation. Somebody who can fly under the radar, so to speak."

The waiter came and took their order. Mary Lou ordered her coffee black. She didn't usually order it that way, but it was looking like black might keep her awake and be more appropriate for this particular conversation. Bill ordered his entrée and then asked Mary Lou if she didn't want a piece of pie or something. She told him the coffee would be enough, for now, but then, as the waiter turned to leave, she said, "How about a muffin? A blueberry one would be nice." The waiter wrote it down and left.

"So I would work for Mark Goodrich and not our firm? In essence, you'd be letting me go? Or would it be an arrangement through our company for him? How would that all work?"

"What we can arrange," Bill Telford said, "is a paid leave of absence from the accounting firm for now, and you would be a freelancer --- self-employed --- in your work for Goodrich. In other words, you would stand to make double what you're making now --- at least double."

"Okay. That sounds okay, as long as I'm not losing my position with the firm, of course, unless you or somebody else in the firm thinks I should. The big thing is, I want some assurance that my work is valued, and that this isn't just an attempt to slough me off."

"No, no, it's not that at all. Everybody here thinks you do great work. That's why I'm coming to you. You're the best person for this project."

Mary Lou still wondered why it was him coming to her and not somebody else in the firm. It seemed peculiar for the head of the firm --- in particular, this man who held all the power and didn't know her that well --- to come to her with this, ah . . . project, especially, since he didn't normally do this kind of stuff anymore. It almost seemed like a personal piece of business. But then again, it seemed apparent that they wanted to keep it out of the spotlight of the media.

"Okay. And it is accounting and tax knowledge that is required? What can you tell me about what I'll be doing?"

"Like I said before, not much. Not much, that is until I get a commitment that this is something that you will do."

"But the devil is in the detail, as you know. How is it possible for me to make a sound decision on such scant information?"

"Look, Mary Lou. I'm the founder and an executive partner in this accounting firm. Under my leadership it has grown and developed into what it is today: one of the most prestigious firms in the Intermountain West. It's me that's coming to you with this proposition, not some underling, not someone less established with the firm. It's me, William Telford. Shouldn't that count for something? I look at it this way: if you feel comfortable and safe working for the firm --- and you have worked here now for a couple of years --- and I'm promising that you will be able to retain your position with the firm and be able to retain even your pay and return here when this other project is finished, why wouldn't you do it? Can't you just place your trust in me? "

NaNoWriMo Is Off

At the last minute, I decided to sign up and this is an excerpt from the end of yesterday's writing. Since one of the major goals of NaNoWriMo is killing the internal editor, the writing won't be that great --- not that it ever is --- because it's just streaming out of my mind without much (any) thought or planning. So, here it is in all its gory detail. (It was written the day after Halloween.)

 

Now, whenever Mary Lou came to eat, or even when she came just to get coffee or a snack some other time of the day, usually earlier, and whether or not she came alone or not, she looked for the young woman. It was as automatic as coming here was, and it wasn't that hard to spot the young girl now. She was so familiar, and the girl's habits were quite common to Mary Lou now too.

The young woman was seated over by Chick-fil-A today, bent over her magazine, pencil in her hand. The older woman was not in sight.

The two women were Latinas, or so it seemed to Mary Lou. The older one clearly had a Spanish accent when she spoke English. Mary Lou had overheard her speaking to an employee at the Donald's one day. And Mary Lou thought she had heard the older one speak Spanish to the younger one and the younger one speak in Spanish back one day when Mary Lou had encountered them standing up and talking near the entrance to the ladies room when she came out.

The older one was clearly in charge. The younger one seemed to follow the orders of the older one in precise detail. It seemed quite evident.

They both wore their hair very short, in a pageboy style.

The younger one was handicapped.

The older one solicited work and kept busy, right there in the mall, mostly in the food court, but also up and down the entire mall. Even just outside. One day, Mary Lou had observed the older one helping unload a truck just outside the food court entrance. It was always for menial tasks; things she would do for anyone who paid her cash or in kind: taking out the garbage for establishments, running orders here and there --- her own freelance delivery service ---, sweeping, vacuuming, cleaning tables, washing windows, refurbishing condiment stations, whatever.

Meanwhile, the younger one sat at some table, usually with a drink or a bottle of water at hand, and worked word searches; at least, that's what Mary Lou thought they were. Mary Lou had walked past the young woman a couple of times, trying to check things out more closely. It looked like she was working in one of those word search books as she passed behind her.

"I want the orange chicken," she said when she got up to the counter. "I also want a medium Diet Coke."

"Do you want it to go or to stay?"

"To stay."

It only took a few seconds for the attendant to scoop up some rice, cover it with orange chicken, sprinkle it with a few more sesame seeds, and hand it, along with her Diet Coke, to her on a tray. By that time Mary Lou had made a decision. She would go back to the table she had previously selected, grab her book and jacket and move to the table where the younger woman was sitting.

She took the tray. "Thank you," she said.

"You're very welcome."

Mary Lou moved quickly to the old table and gathered her stuff and strode off toward the new table where the young girl was sitting. By then, the food court was alive with hungry people, active, talkative, and noisy. There were no empty tables by then. You had to share if you wanted to sit down. She walked off toward the Chick-fil-A area, looking for the young woman. There she was, and her table was empty, except for her.

It hadn't taken Mary Lou very long after she had started observing the young woman to notice that something was physically wrong with her. That had been a month or so ago, when Mary Lou had made the discovery that something was wrong with the young woman's right side. Mary Lou hadn't been sitting too far away from the young woman that day, and it had been quite easy to observe her.

It was clear that the young woman was left-handed. She only held her pencil in her left hand and never in her right one, which didn't appear to work correctly. Also, the right one was malformed, or it seemed to be. It wasn't that it was missing any of its digits, though, or that there seemed to be scar tissue from an injury or anything like that. It just seemed smaller, less agile, and more curled up. Not as functional.

In subsequent days, Mary Lou had observed that not only was something wrong with the young woman's hand, but also something was wrong with her arm and leg on the same right side. Mary Lou had watched as the young woman's older companion had come over to talk to her, and then watched as the younger woman had stood up and walked to the restroom. There was a distinctive limp as she went. Her foot was canted in and seemed twisted. Her gait was distinctly different than a normal person's.

Not only was something wrong with her body, but something seemed to be wrong with her otherwise. It was as if she was having occasional blackouts. Maybe they were seizures or something akin to. She would blank out mentally at the weirdest times and without any reason or explanation for it. She would be sitting there, working on her word search, or sometimes taking a break from her word search just to look around the mall, when suddenly, she would blank out. Her pencil would drop from her hand, her face would distort, and sometimes she would stiffen and tremble a bit. It would go on a minute or two and then she would be fine. She would pick up a pencil and go back to work on the puzzle.

"May I sit down?" Mary Lou said when she reached the table.

The young woman looked up and nodded at her. "Please do," was all she said. She smiled and looked back at her word-search magazine.

Mary Lou didn't recall ever having seen anyone sitting at a table sitting with the young woman besides her older companion, who only did so occasionally.

"What's that?" Mary Lou said. "Is that some kind of a puzzle book?"

"Uh-huh," said the young woman, "it's a word search. I like to do word searches."

"How does it work?" Mary Lou asked.

The young woman turned the book around to let Mary Lou look at it. "See," the young woman said, "each of the puzzles has a theme. This one I'm working on is kitchen utensils. Here's a list of the kitchen utensil words that might be in this puzzle. So in this here grid of letters" --- and she pointed at it with her left hand --- "you try to find any one of those words and circle it, like this one here." She pointed at the word microwave, which she had circled in the grid. It was spelled out from the bottom to the top, on a diagonal.

"Oh, I see," Mary Lou said. "Interesting. And you like to do that?"

"Uh-huh. It doesn't seem like I ever get tired of it. Well, sometimes, I guess, but not usually."

"Well, my name is Mary Lou. I'm glad that you let me sit here to eat my supper. The food court is kind of crowded today. More than usual. Have you eaten already? I hate to eat in front of you."

Musings

I want to do some thinking. Some imagining, if you will.

I see myself --- well, not myself, really, but a character --- in a mall, maybe in the food court. Yeah, in the food court. That's it. Sitting down, having lunch. Taking a break from work.

A worker named Mary Lou. Not necessarily a worker in the food court, but often there, taking a break from her job in one of the mall stores. Maybe she's even a manager of one of the stores. But in the food court, she is an observer. She at always have her nose in a book --- although she is a reader and occasionally has a book or a magazine with her to look at and read a bit. She doesn't always sit down with somebody else to exchange pleasantries as she eats, although she isn't antisocial or anything like it either. She is just comfortable with her own company and an observer of mankind. This female is in her thirties. She has dark hair, nicely coiffed, and she sports a very pleasant smile. She watches her weight and applies her makeup carefully.

Over the long haul, she has observed two women in the food court quite often when she is there; one, she thinks, is the mother of the other one. They are both Latinas, she thinks. [You need a good description of two women who are Latinas.] In fact, if she had to guess, she would surmise that they are both undocumented individuals, in the United States without a legal reason to be there. [Why does she think that?]

The younger of the two is handicapped, while the other one is not.

The younger one appears to be partially paralyzed on her right side. She can walk okay, although she has a slight limp, and she can use her right hand, although only in a limited way. She also is epileptic. Mary Lou has observed the girl, who she guesses is in her twenties, a multitude of times for over a period of several months now. She has watched her sit there with a soft drink at a table while the older of the two goes off, scrounging for piecemeal work in a fast food eating establishments there and, perhaps, at times, even handouts. Sometimes, the younger of the two has a seizure. She has a variety of different kinds: from simply blanking out momentarily --- from Mary Lou's observation, the most common ---, to making faces and writhing --- which Mary Lou has seen a couple of times, to an all-out grand mal feature --- which Mary Lou has observed just once.

The older woman's name is Isabel and the younger woman, the handicapped one, is Lucia.

I really need to think about where I want to set this. It seems like if I set it in Utah, the place I know best, it gets rejected automatically by agents and editors. Maybe that's just paranoid, but that type of paranoia and seems to have some justification from what I've heard and experienced. Where else might I set it? It seems to me, stories set in New York City seem to have the greatest play in the literary world. I suppose that comes from the prejudices of those who market literature in America, literary agents, who for the most part live in New York.

I've never really lived in New York and don't have a flavor for it. I've lived in Germany. However, that was many many years ago and the premise for this story isn't conducive with setting it there. I've lived in Chicago, temporarily, for only a few months, so I don't have a great deal of experience there, although I have some. Again, that was over thirty years ago, though. After that, I lived in Rockford for a couple of years and then in California for less than a year. Then I lived in Idaho in two cities, Twin Falls for a couple of years and then Boise for six. Otherwise, I've lived in Utah. I lived here growing up and it's looking like I'll live here to die. I like Utah, but maybe it's just because it's familiar. I've had stints in various cities around the nation. Los Angeles. Miami. Dallas and Houston. San Antonio. Portland and Seattle. Minneapolis. Baltimore. Philadelphia and many others I probably haven't remembered.

One place I'm not very familiar with is the American South. You know, places like Alabama and Tennessee. The South is such a vivid setting for so many successful authors. Harper Lee and William Faulkner. So many others. John Grisham. I have been to Atlanta Georgia and to North Carolina. I've also been to Maine --- can't mention the name without thinking of Stephen King --- and New Hampshire. Beautiful territory.

All of these places, yet the place I want to really set my story is here in this valley in this city. Why is that? I guess it's just my nature. Too bad there is such prejudice about this place and its people, justified or not.

The Ramblings of a Madman

Nothing motivates me to put down words today. I'm like a dried up water source. Of course, nothing ever motivates you to put down words, does it? Well, no, that isn't quite true, is it? Emotions do. They can cause you to want to speak out. At least, that's my experience. When I feel strong emotions I am more motivated to speak out. Of course, I guess just as easily they can cause you to want to bury your head in a pillow and wallow in your grief.

So where are my deep emotions today? Everything seems flat and not very important. Perhaps it's because I have some kind of bug bugging me. It's one that visits every so often, the one that causes me trouble speaking and gives me that persistent cough. I had the runs --- not that anyone wants to know --- earlier today, and I've had this borderline indigestion or acid reflux. Writers can't afford to let little things like those prevent them from putting down important thoughts or even unimportant ones. You have to be persistent in writing whether you feel like it or not, whether some burning emotion drives you to do it or is totally lacking. It may have an effect upon what you put down, but that shouldn't prevent you from doing it.

I've been contemplating whether or not I should attempt to write a novel in November and tracking my success at doing so on the Internet at the site that sponsors doing that. Last night a fellow critique or indicated she might give it a whirl this year. Last year, the president of the local chapter of the Society for Children's Writers and Illustrators participated and I believe completed the novel during November. Of course, she had a contract to fulfill and I gave her an incentive and motivation I wouldn't have. On the other hand, since she is published and I am not, that mere thought alone ought to give me incentive and motivation to proceed. All you have to do to succeed is to write about 1700 words a day, and I don't suppose that is too big a feat. Not considering in the few minutes I've rambled on here I've written over 375 words. And mostly it's about nothing. Lacking all imagination. Devoid of all emotion. Boring. I can do that. I'm good at boring.

I'd have to start a whole new novel. I've had some ideas but randomly exploring them in my mind they don't seem that viable. The analog I was using is basically the tragedy and I would rather make it not so much a tragedy. Although, some of the nicest pieces I've read have been tragedies.

They say write what you know about. That has to be a mistake or an overgeneralization. Otherwise, it's almost as if I couldn't write about anything, because I'm not sure of anything most of the time. I just don't know anything. The reason for that is because life is in flux. It is changing, constantly, and everything to do with it is changing, too. How can you be sure about anything that is so dynamic like that? How can you be certain you know anything about anything? Now, thinking about that analysis, it is not very comforting or very satisfying. I would rather have the confidence to say I know this or that about this or that. Nonetheless, I don't. It would be dishonest to say I did.

I remember when my son was young --- that would be my older son --- and he was at church, or, rather, he had just come from church, and he would say something like, "They talked about the pioneers and their ancestors. I don't know anything about my ancestors." He said what he said because he is an adopted boy. At the time, he didn't know anything at all about his biological parents or ancestry. Of course, we reassured him that he was certainly part of our family and his grandparents and ancestors included ours. Nonetheless he knew and so did we that wasn't quite on the mark.

There is a table, a long table, in fact. It is so long, there must be several tables pushed together in a row. A group of people sit there along the benches next to the table eating. It looks like some kind of a celebration, a big picnic to commemorate this or that. The table is cluttered with plates made of paper and the people are holding plastic forks, cutting through cake, and reaching for this or that with another hand. These people at this table do not look like me. I am an old white man. These people are dark, Native Americans perhaps, maybe Latinos, I don't know. They are happy and the food is satisfying them. The group includes men and women. The men have more smiles on their faces then the women do. The women seem serious, focused, and intent. Maybe they're just more hungry. I don't see any children.

The stainless steel lids of the pans on the table draw my vision to them. They are distinctive. Perhaps it's the way they reflect the light.