Amorella standing on the top floor of the wonderful Uffico Museum looking down on the Arno River and the medieval Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge). Richard is immediately reminded of the famous old store-sided London Bridge across the Thames to Southwark.
I was. That London Bridge burnt down. I am thankful the World War II German officer in charge did not destroy the bridge as he was ordered. Good for him and his sense of historical objects.
Florence is a beautiful city and I was struck by how the sunlight penetrates and reflects. No wonder this was and still is as a Mecca for artists. One of my favorite pictures is the one to the left. It appears (to me) that we are standing in front of a painting, but there we are standing near the middle of the bridge looking downstream.
We traversed many of the museums and churches as many other first time tourists. Even so, for all we saw, this is one of my favorite most unforgettable views of the city.
Need I remind you this is not a travel journal orndorff. You dropped this photo in, it is not one I chose. (At least you are not apologizing for doing so.)
Like the first, this next picture is the one I chose. I did so because beyond museums and favorite views this shows three satisfied friends sitting after having a very good gelato down near the bridge. Ice cream is a favorite of the four who have been friends since college days.
Old friends are important. Richard is thinking about all those old friends he had growing up through high school and wonders if he should list them all. Then what about those from college days, his neighbors, the special colleagues from his teaching days, and his many former students, they are old friends in their own individual ways as far as he is concerned because he shared his life with them and they shared a part of their own with him.
Sometimes I think the Heaven in the books should be set up like Facebook, at least in principle. Sometimes I think Heaven is like that – that Facebook came about because the mechanics, the concepts, are from the invisible world.
I really don’t think the billions of Dead are as far away as people put them. In consciousness we are all in the same room, at least I would like it to be that way, and as such, why not? Fiction is a joy. Amorella conjured up HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither out of my head. Heaven is friends as far as I am concerned.
That’s the way it is in book four, The Rebellion orndorff. Friends want to go home, to go back to Earth to tell the Living how it is being Dead. The Dead want to share with the Living. How do you set up such a rebellious plan in the days of the first Ten Thousand Dead? Who do you negotiate with?
Traditionally speaking, they would negotiate with an Angel I suppose.
In the books orndorff, they negotiate with me. How’s that?
Whoa. That’s pretty heady stuff, Amorella. I remember some mention of this in either the notes or somewhere in the first three books or maybe even in the earlier false start of book four. I get on a roll in research and writing and run the fingers thinking you are writing and then eventually I just stop cold. It was not you at all, just me on a letter-lined roll, a kind of easy literary ecstasy across and down the page.
Writing is a process orndorff, you know that. All those post graduate hours at Miami University on the Ohio Writing Project – what you call a false start is but “percolating”. You need more conscious background for book four and this blog helps provide it. You feel better sharing because sharing makes you free, and I work when your mind is free. You have to write what you know, or in your case, what you intuitively feel. The unconscious works its way out between the lines. Change of plans, I will show the story, not Merlyn.
What use was there in having his character work its way back into life from the dreaming dead man he was? It took Merlyn three books to return as a living consciousness.
And, it will take you the next three books to become more conscious of the Dead, orndorff.
I see a dark humor brewing in this.
That is the plan, boy. The story of the rebellion is mine, but the humor is all your own. And, the joy will be to share it with your friends who are interested, only this time online, just as you did with the first three books. – Amorella.
I don't want anyone reading this to feel obligated to read on.
You are not asking your friends to read anything, orndorff. No one has to read it, but it will be online if one wishes to read, that's all.
I can live with that.
Really now, who would have guessed.
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