The photo is my handsome son, Nick . . .I suppose by the time I get to the point where I can begin the actual writing of Misdemeanors & Felonies I'll have everything settled in my mind. I really want to use real names, but I think maybe it will be easier if I don't. And the story is going to be hard enough to write without added problems. I realize that all my rambling on about "voice" and "characters" and how hard the damn thing is going to be to write is getting monotonous and I plan to quit my whining. It's just that I don't know about this. I mean, this is the story I have been preparing myself for forty-some-odd-years to write and now that the time has come to either write the damn thing or hang my head in mortified shame. I shan't (love that word) hang my head, I will write the story, hopefully I will write it so those who find themselves between the pages will not feel harshly about how I portray them.
A little history lesson: The idea for writing of Misdemeanors & Felonies came about in the early sixties as I began my odyssey across America in search of whatever the rest of those lonely road followers look for. I hadn't given it a name, this quest I was on. I only knew that I could not stay in my hometown of Taylor, Arkansas (Three Corners in the book). I grew up with a severe case of inferiority complex concerning that town and all the inhabitants of it. It is hard to explain, but I felt ashamed of who I was and thought everybody in town looked at me with judgemental eyes. Was I wrong to think this? I don't know. I doubt it, because I have the same feelings even today, and that is probably why I have not been back to my hometown in twenty years.
As I traveled the roads, highways and byways of America in those crazy years and the thought that I would someday write a story about what I had done. What I thought I would write and what I am eventually going to write are nothing alike. In the beginning I had thought I would write the story of a boy who left home and stayed gone for many years, but one day he eventually made it back there. He was the latest of many prodigal sons to return home and I wrote two novels with that concept in mind, Homecoming and Three Corners. Neither one of them was what I had envisioned and I was beginning to believe I was never going to write the story.
Then Patricia, my daughter I hadn't seen in thirty-eight years, found me and Misdemeanors & Felonies reared it's head and said, "Hey! YOU! This is what you were supposed to write. So it is. It will be about a man who made so many mistakes and did so many bad things that I'm afraid the reader might learn to hate him. I hope not, because Patricia, Nick and Paula need to understand why they were without a father as they grew into the beautiful and handsome people they are.
The note taking will go on for at least another week. Then the outline, and finally the story . . .
My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621
A little history lesson: The idea for writing of Misdemeanors & Felonies came about in the early sixties as I began my odyssey across America in search of whatever the rest of those lonely road followers look for. I hadn't given it a name, this quest I was on. I only knew that I could not stay in my hometown of Taylor, Arkansas (Three Corners in the book). I grew up with a severe case of inferiority complex concerning that town and all the inhabitants of it. It is hard to explain, but I felt ashamed of who I was and thought everybody in town looked at me with judgemental eyes. Was I wrong to think this? I don't know. I doubt it, because I have the same feelings even today, and that is probably why I have not been back to my hometown in twenty years.
As I traveled the roads, highways and byways of America in those crazy years and the thought that I would someday write a story about what I had done. What I thought I would write and what I am eventually going to write are nothing alike. In the beginning I had thought I would write the story of a boy who left home and stayed gone for many years, but one day he eventually made it back there. He was the latest of many prodigal sons to return home and I wrote two novels with that concept in mind, Homecoming and Three Corners. Neither one of them was what I had envisioned and I was beginning to believe I was never going to write the story.
Then Patricia, my daughter I hadn't seen in thirty-eight years, found me and Misdemeanors & Felonies reared it's head and said, "Hey! YOU! This is what you were supposed to write. So it is. It will be about a man who made so many mistakes and did so many bad things that I'm afraid the reader might learn to hate him. I hope not, because Patricia, Nick and Paula need to understand why they were without a father as they grew into the beautiful and handsome people they are.
The note taking will go on for at least another week. Then the outline, and finally the story . . .
My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621
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