Tulsa Weather

It's about 80 degrees in Tulsa today and I wish was there. I love warm weather and almost always almost warm up in it. Tomorrow I'll check the web for places of interest in Tulsa, and will also look at a map of the State of Oklahoma. We leave in not quite a month.

I have spent the day so far writing, working on chapter 3 of my book. After reading Prose's book on reading and writing, I understand more about the task I'm faced with. Write once, re-write a thousand times. I have done one re-write, which included the large task of putting the book into the first person Dorothea (age 50) perspective with a sidekick being third person omnisient voice for the things that Dorothea cannot see or hear. I had envisioned the book being written from first person Rebecca (age 13), but that's too hard for this first-time novel writer. It's possible that I'll do the whole book in third person omniscient. There's a lot of work to be done. My questions continue: Who saw what? Who knows what? Why did she do that?

Do you know that when you read, the story is more believable if the writer adds detail? I saw a movie recently where the story was too tragic to want to believe, and yet one of the main characters, in one of the most difficult scenes, ordered key lime pie and a Tab. I knew that I was seeing the re-enactment of something that had truly happened. It was the detail of what she ordered that did it for me.

What is there to see in Tulsa?

Pegalou checks in

This is my first post. I just spent a few days at the Whiteley Center on beautiful San Juan Island, writing the crisis chapter of my book. The crisis always occurs 90% of the way through a novel. My novel's crisis went well, with no resolution, but everyone's to blame, they're talking straight out of their subconscious, and nobody's talking about the same thing. Yes, that's right, it's about a family. I have wanted to write a happy ending, but the thing is that in a novel, your reader absolutely must "buy" the reality that the writer is putting her into and who would buy that a novel about a family has a happy ending? Perhaps I will just let the thing end.

So, in a month, Kathy, Rosemary and I are packing up my father's car and heading to Tulsa. I have no idea what to expect, but am wise enough to know that whatever I picture won't happen. It's an American road trip, so things are unpredictable.

Marc would like the idea of us seeing red dirt country. I'm not a big country music fan and I don't know the difference between red dirt country music and other-colored dirt country music. What I know is that Marc loved what he loved, and he was a big proponent of red dirt. He was an expert in it, too.

Many of our more entertaining exchanges were based on a common characteristic - we both have bent senses of humor. We both liked South Park, although my line and when I turn off the program are different than his line and what had to be crossed for him to turn off the t.v.

I miss Marc and always will. But I will look out the window of my father's car and see the Oklahoma and Texas landscape, and know that what I am seeing is what Marc Ringwood saw.

Friday, April 25th

Rosemary has joined in as a contributor. We're still waiting for Peggy to recouperate from her week at the Whitely Center and then, perhaps, she'll join us.