Sunday afternoon. Carol is taking her walk
presently. You are sitting center/north facing west at Rose Hill Cemetery. The
Whitaker mausoleum is just to your southwest. Partly cloudy sky with a good
breeze, the temperature is supposed to be in the low eighties – a very pleasant
autumn day. You had lunch at Smashburgers and talked about going to Florida in
November, so it is something to look forward to. You have yet to use your new
bath and suggested to Carol that she use it first. You also bought some liquid
body wash to use in the new tub, as liquid soap does not leave a scum
(something you did not know until last week). – Amorella
1447 hours. The many small
American flags wave between and below the tombstones. They have been out since
Memorial Day. I had a thought last night about just completing “Diplomat’s
Pouch” segments and making them one book. This is after watching a new show
titled “Falling Waters” about three people who share their ‘private’ dreams. It
was okay but hard to follow – it reminded me of the Merlyn books and they would
be a lot easier to understand if each ‘segment’ was a book in itself. (1453)
I mentioned this to you some time ago but
you were not interested in doing too much about it. – Amorella
1454 hours. That’s because
that wasn’t the original point. This is Merlyn’s book of dreams not mine. The
TV show though was too complicated – the complications took precedent over the
story plotline. In some ways I’m losing interest. I thought I might have
something to say through Merlyn but it seems that whatever I have thought of
others have thought of and demonstrated first.
Because of a funeral at the south end you
decided to move to Pine Hill Lakes far north lot facing west just in the shade.
Carol is finishing her last ten minutes of walk going south and up the hill to
the earth dam and then returning. – Amorella
1507 hours. The obituary draft
got me realizing that mostly my professional productive life is over. It really
ended in 2003 when I stopped teaching full time.
You are mostly fiction these days, boy,
whether you like it or not. – Amorella
1510 hours. I don’t mind. I
keep myself occupied writing on the blog. You know, eventually, if Owen and
Brennan skim over some of it they will know a little bit more about what made
Papa tick (that is, if they are ever interested). What happens though is that ‘life’
take on its own meaning and purpose and people don’t have time – school
(friends) and sports, then junior high school (friends), sports and girls, then
on to high school learning and friends and university learning and friends, and/or
full time work learning and friends – somewhere in there or after is the proverbial
‘love, marriage and the baby carriage’ – lots of room for an ever-changing mix
of conformity and individuality along the way. That’s pretty much life’s natural
direction as we understand it; no matter what modern, somewhat stable culture
in which one is born and raised. (1526)
You are home. The wind has died down a bit
and it feels humid, at least to you. – Amorella
1605 hours. I’ll probably do
my exercises in a bit, and if it cools down I’ll turn off the air and open the
windows. Since I’m not doing much book-wise, maybe it’s time to give a closer
look to at least finishing Diplomat’s Pouch, that’s what I’ll call it.
You’ll need an introduction by Diplomat and
it will have to be from her and her mother and father’s perspective with no
mention of Merlyn. – Amorella
1609 hours. This is a new
twist, no mention of Merlyn. I don’t think I like that so much.
If you
complete Diplomat’s Pouch you can then work on Grandma’s Stories
next. Merlyn can fit in there. The focus can be on the continuity of the Dead
balancing out the continuity of the Living, something of that sort. – Amorella
1614 hours.
I’ll consider the development of two books alone.
Diplomat’s Pouch first. – Amorella
1617 hours. For Uncle Ernie.
Mostly you’ll need to clear the MacAir of
the other material. You have two storage disks where it is already stored. – Amorella
1619 hours. That’s true, plus
I have what’s on the blog. This would
certainly lighten my load.
It might be better if you take
the material you have now for the Merlyn books as they are and put them in a
central storage first, then erase them from the laptop. – Amorella
1625 hours. You anticipated
my underlying apprehension on just deleting material.
You both watched NBC News and a
catch-up “Blindspot”, Carol is watching the first of the season “Hawaii Five-0”.
You deleted material and now have only three folders and a document on your
desktop. – Amorella
2039 hours. Now I remember
one of the problems with Diplomat’s Pouch. It will only be about 35,000
words, hardly even a novella. – I just reviewed some definitions online and the
majority say a novella is between thirty and forty thousands words while the
shortest of novels may be forty thousand words. Forty-seven ‘segments’ at 750
words per segment equals an average of 35,250 words. Even at 800 words a
segment it is a average of 37,600 words; a 1000 words a segment is 47,000
words, still, a short novel. I have been struggling to cut each segment
drastically, and I have kept to this goal. Adding up to 300 words per segment
sounds bloated, it is bloated. Yet, at this moment I prefer a short novel
instead a novella.
What about including “The Dead” within D’s Pouch
much like your first book, Stuck? That is, Diplomat sees the Dead of
both species as a way to solidify the cultural concepts of Earth and
ThreePlanets. After all that is one of the themes already. - Amorella
**
**
Stuck Paperback – Oct 19
2001
By O. H. Richards
Hello, this is Friendly. I am a human-like marsupial who
has a pouch. I write an entertaining satire about you humans and us aliens.
This is the Soki. I exist within Friendly, and I write about the metaphysics of
how it is to be dead in Friendly’s book.
Most Helpful
Customer Reviews on Amazon.com
5.0 out of 5 stars Dedicated To A Lifetime Of Wonderful Students Dec 19 2001
By Zachary Moore - Published on Amazon.com Format: Paperback
"Stuck"
is the culmination of the long and glorious teaching career of Richards, better
known to his students as 'Mr. O'. It is a return to the carefree days of Brit
Lit and all the lectures on Shakespeare, Milton, and metaphysics delivered from
his imitable lectern. Most especially, however, it is a return to the wonderful
rambling dissertations and stories that were tangentially spawned by those
lectures. Make no mistake, "Stuck" is an excellent book in its own
right- a curiously original inspection of humanity with a curiously original
science-fiction wrapping. Spiced with fascinating characters and remarkable
plot devices, Richards' first effort as an author demands several more to come.
Selected and edited from Amazon dot com
**
**
2125 hours.
I am surprised Amazon still has a post on Stuck with a review by Zach,
one of my former students who graduated from Mason in 1997 with our daughter
and in 2005 earned his doctorate in Pathobiology and Molecular Medicine at the
University of Cincinnati. To be honest I forgot about the Soki, that is his
name until I looked this up. The Soki is you, Amorella, that is, you played the
Soki’s part.
Carol called you outside a few minutes ago
to see the extraordinary brightness of this Hunter’s Moon. You are glad she
did. – Amorella
2140 hours. Indeed, I am.
Most cool. It was behind the clouds and five minutes later it was ‘standing’ in
its glor
y, so bright you could hardly note the stars in its direction.
2142 hours.
I don’t know about bringing back the Soki as a character but could easily be
added, probably the simplest way to do so.
This should be done in the Preface, which
has to be written by Diplomat about the adventures of the family she was born
into. No segment should be more than twelve hundred words. – Amorella
2150 hours.
I think a thousand words.
Let’s see how it works out for a few
chapters. – Amorella
2152 hours. I can’t argue
with that.
Mull it over. Remember, you are under no
obligation here, orndorff. You will feel better about your work as a writer,
however, if you freshen the first Merlyn books into something else again,
something more like the tone of Stuck. Post. – Amorella
2155 hours. Why haven’t I
thought about doing this before?
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