Memory Lane

So, I recently re-read my ebook, Crossroad Blues. I wanted to see how it played out on Kindle, correct any formatting errors, etc. I did find a few (corrected now), which was good.

Thing is, I also found something more.

I started out reading with my editor's hat on. But as the book progressed, I found myself actually sucked in to my own work. It was a strange experience: on the one hand, I wrote the damn thing. On the other, I couldn't wait to see what happened next.

Not to pat myself on the back, but Crossroad Blues hums. I love the pace of it, the action, the murderous intensity of Maeve, the overwhelming arrogance of Jack Terraboone and the sheer creepy monstrosity that is Harlan Winters.

I read that book, and I hated the novel I'm working on. Right now I'm lurching from scene to scene. I can see revelations coming, but I have to write my way through where I am before I can get there. If where I am even leads me there at all. My current novel is nothing like the streamlined mayhem of Crossroad Blues.

And then I remembered:

At one point, Jack Terrabonne had a wife. She was the real genius, stifled by her husband's success and terrified of his fixer, Harlan.

At one point, Kane was in a love triangle with Maeve and Beth. Sometimes he was with Maeve and attracted to Beth. Sometimes vice versa.

At one point, Harlan Winters was a dapper little gray man, sharp and slick and looking to capitalize on his employer's indiscretions.

By the end of the book, things changed...

Jack's wife left. There were some great scenes between her and Harlan, real scary stuff. But as Harlan developed, I realized there was no way in hell he'd keep his hands off something he wanted. She shows up off-stage as a soon-to-be-ex, with a younger boyfriend, a hit album and a scandalous photo spread in (I think it was) Vanity Fair. It was the least I could do for a woman who suffered so much only to be written out.

As Kane revealed himself, I realized I was writing a Western. He's the classic cool-eyed stranger in town, a gunslinger who doesn't pack a gun. He was honest and decent and upright, a solid moral point in a wicked, wicked world.

That guy couldn't be in a love triangle. I lost scenes where he met Maeve and traveled with her for a time. Where he found himself disgusted by her wickedness (back then she wanted to hook a rich man, which is how she fell afoul of Jack) and was increasingly attracted to local girl Beth. I lost something like 30,000 words of that plotline.

And Harlan. What to say about Harlan...

He started out dapper and smooth. In those days, Jack's sexual appetites led to the death of the French girl and Harlan stepped in. He covered up the crime and began to extort Jack for his own purposes. There were some mighty nice scenes where the balance of power in that house shifted.

And I cut them all.

The Harlan who stepped up about halfway through the book was half based on a ruthless predator in my family, and half based on a family friend who used to babysit me-- a man now wanted for questioning in the rape and murder of one of his neighbors.

What I'm getting at is, Crossroad Blues came to be streamlined. It grew into something fast-paced and coherent.

This memory, this process, helped me. My current novel is nowhere near such a mess as that one was- and look how that turned out!

A Fragmentary Ghost

Lila's gone in the new draft. Everything's different between Dan and Brian. This wee fragment -- unedited, not even spellchecked -- is the only airing her ghost will ever ever see....

Watching Brian do his thing wasn’t exactly exciting. After awhile, he looked up from his keyboard and told me to get lost, he’d call when he had anything.

So I dropped in to see Lila.

Her room was a big change from Brian’s. There was light and air for one thing, and a view of trees out her window, the first leaves already shading to red and gold. Her room smelled like candlewax and sandalwood incense, and her walls were hung with posters of the Misfits and the Distillers, a shirtless Henry Rollins and a vampire girl in a corset. Mixed in, you could still see traces of the little girl that was: stuffed animals on a shelf over her bed, a couple of pony toys and karate trophies on the dresser and an old friendship bracelet, fraying at the ends.

Lila surprised me when I came over. On the phone she’d told me to give her ten minutes, but when I showed up she was just sitting on her bed tapping away in her FaceBook account. She flipped the laptop closed as soon as she saw me, flashed a smile that was wet and red warm. She wore a ripped tee shirt and a pleated mini that was very nearly a belt, and I could swear I caught a faint hint of perfume when she took my hand and pulled me to sit down beside her. For someone who’d been sitting around doing nothing, the hair was damp at her temples from perspiration.

We sat together on the bed. Our weight on the mattress pulled it down in the middle, pushed the warmth of Lila’s body up against my shoulder.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey.”

Her eyes were full of something I could not define. As I watched her expression solidified into something I knew all too well: pain.

She thumped herself back against the pillows, arms folded, staring at the wall.

“Shouldn’t you be off with your Little Golden Whore?”

“We kind of broke up last night.”

Lila snorted, It was an ugly, ugly sound.

“Told you she’d use you and throw you away.”

“It was, it was kind of a mutual thing.”

“Yeah, right.”

“You used to be friends with her, didn’t you?”

“Is that why you came over, to pump me for information?”

“Why are you so mad? What’s Stacey Burrell ever done to you?”

“You even care she’s making a fool of you?”

“I think she might be in some kind of trouble,” I said.

“So leave her to it. She’ll be fine-- she’s Stacey freaking Burrell.”

“You and her and Blaire, you guys used to be really tight.”

“When we were like six.”

“No, it was longer than that, I think. Didn’t the three of you get caught picking flowers at the
library when we were twelve or thirteen?”

For the first time, since I’d walked in, a smile ghosted across Lila’s lips.

“It was Mrs Paulson, the librarian’s yard, and we were eleven.”

“You guys were good friends for such a long time. What happened?”

Lila heaved a sigh and unfolded her arms. One hand picked at the hem of her skirt.

“I don’t know. Life, I guess. They got boobs and I got these. Blaire got a nose job and Stacey looked like Stacey always looked. Next thing I knew, they were running around with juniors and seniors and college guys, and I was still picking flowers.”

I thought of Brian back in his dark and smelly room, doing me a favor because I asked. When we were little, the differences between us hadn’t been any kind of a big deal. But somewhere along the way, the baseball team made me their pitcher and Brian moved deeper into his own world.

A piece at a time, we stopped calling, stopped hanging out. I’d missed him, but there was always more important stuff going on. I wondered if he felt the same sense of loss.