Catching Up

Well, it’s been a while, so let’s do some catching up.

Third shelf from the top in the right-hand corner.

Frankfurt Book Fair

The Urban Mermaid packed her bags and went to Frankfurt, Germany for the annual book fair. This is said to be the largest event of this kind in the world. I don’t know yet if this business trip resulted in any big orders for Book # 1. Only time will tell.

Banging away on book # 2

Chapter 13, the one that refused to be written, is under construction. I hope to have it done by Friday; sooner if any flashes of inspiration hit me.

Meanwhile, I’m busily correcting goof-ups such as a scene I wrote earlier. The scene takes place after a pivotal moment in the story, but the characters are acting like that moment has not happened yet. I have absolutely no idea what I was thinking at the time. The scene can’t be used as is, but I don’t want to put it in the circular file[1]. Right now, I’m doing a bit of editorial triage to see if the scene can be modified and used elsewhere.

I wrote a number of scenes in advance of the main authorial effort. Now that the book is coming together, I must take – more like find, actually – those scenes and insert them in the various chapters. This involves a bit of tinkering in both the scene and the chapter it belongs to. Finally, there’s smoothing things over so it appears to be seamless.

A high honour

I recently had dinner at the mountainside home of an old colleague and her husband. This former workmate is also a fan of Urban Mermaid and told me that I had written with an authentic woman’s voice. Since I’ve been a guy most of my life, I’m not sure where the female voice came from, but I am grateful for the compliment nonetheless.

Finally

You may remember the chapter in Urban Mermaid where Peter proposes to Penelope[2]. Peter locks himself in the bathroom to steel himself for what he must do. He finds comfort in his grandfather’s stories from World War II and imagines himself jumping with the 101^st Airborne on D-Day.

The Iowa Gold Star Military Museum[3] recently opened its World War II gallery which includes a mock-up of Airborne soldiers, jumping from a C-47. Much of the work on that exhibit, as well as the rest of the gallery, was done by the friend from college who’s mentioned in Footnote #1.

[1]This is a shout-out to a friend from college who now lives in Iowa. He wrote a somewhat regular column called The Circular File for the campus newspaper. The official name of the paper was The Decree, but everyone called it The Debris.

[2] Actually, Penelope proposes to Peter first, but he’s distracted by some surprising news and her proposal goes right over his head.

[3] Iowa Gold Star Military Museum, 7105 Northwest 70th Avenue, Johnston, IA 50131  Phone: (515) 252-4531   https://www.goldstarmuseum.iowa.gov