Forgotten step

I forgot a very important step between writing and editing--letting the story sit! So I'm leaving the Obit story alone for a while. Instead I'm writing a first draft of another story I've been thinking about for a while. This one is about a woman who goes home to see her parents after a break-up, but doesn't find the consolation she needs there. I'm not really sure what will happen. I guess that's the fun of the first draft!

I'm also gearing up for NaNoWriMo. I can't wait!

New story

I sent out my first MFA package on Monday--god, what a good feeling it was to put that in the mail. This is my first mentor who is requiring mailed packets as opposed to emailed, and while it does add another layer to the process (printing and getting to the P.O.), I also got a more tangible sigh of relief when I dropped that sucker in the box, and can imagine it moving across the state.

But, as the saying goes, there's no rest for the weary, so I'm thinking about my next new story already. This one will be about a woman who's at the tail end of a divorce. She moves from Manhattan to Boston to escape memories and the possibility of running into her ex. She's been fairly exiled the first 2 months she's been there--it's cold and she's depressed so she doesn't try to go out and meet people.

The story will start on a spring day when she's finally going to the book club run by a friend of a friend of hers from Manhattan. The friend had been trying to get her to go since she moved--she thought the main character and the book club woman would hit it off. I'm not 100% sure where the story goes from here--I think what will happen is that these two women will become friends, and after the main character reveals a lot about her marriage and the reason for its failure (the main one being that her husband cheated), she then learns that this new friends of her had been "the other woman" in the not so recent past. The main character has to digest this info, and somehow get over the feeling of being betrayed all over again.

Any thoughts, directions, questions are most welcome!

New story

Though this week has been insane, I have given my brain a small chance to rest in that I didn't make myself think about the new
story I plan to write for my last submission of the semester. When I think about a story, it's pretty much all I can think of. Even when I'm not "working," part of my brain is sorting through things I see and do to see if any of them might berelevant to my story in some way.

Now the time has come to start the thinking process hard core. I want to begin writing on Monday, using my new but so-far-trusty method of writing forward for 2 hours at a time (meaning no going back to edit or reread).

My new story will be a mystery of sorts, inspired by, I assume, Brian, who loves mystery books, movies, and radio dramas. Here's the basic premise. I'd love to hear what you think!

A woman comes home early from a meditation retreat (for a yet to be
determined reason--maybe everyone was coming down with a stomach bug
and they suggested everyone leave). She didn't have her cell phone or
any way of communicating with her husband, as part of the desire to get
away from it all. She and her husband had been having problems (of some
sort, though nothing super serious), and the retreat was a time to get
away and think on her own for a week. She comes home and finds her
husband is not there. The house is fine, though some of his personal
affects are missing. And there's mail all over the kitchen floor, but
that's normal because their cat always knocks it off the table, where
her husband leaves it.

She calls some friends, no one has heard from him. He works for himself, so there's no office to check with. After the requisite 24 hours, she calls the police. They are very snide with her and imply that he obviously ran off, probably with another woman. Though she knows how it looks, she knows that that is not true. Despite what was going on between them, she knows he would never do something like that. The cops all but laugh at her. She goes to a private detective who basically does the same thing. She's getting angrier and angrier, and also starting to doubt herself and her husband, though most of the time she is still convinced.

Something else has to happen at this point, but I'm not sure what. Maybe she ransacks the house for clues of an affair or... something. She probably also has frustrating phone calls with family and friends. Eventually she finds a detective who believes her, and her sense of relief is amazing. I want that to be the climax of the story--that finding someone who believes her, and believes in her marriage is the important thing. The denouement will be when her husband comes home--he had gone
to help his brother on his fishing boat, and had left a note that the cat knocked off the counter with the pile of mail. His phone had fallen into the water, which is why she couldn't reach him, and he hadn't bothered calling because she wasn't supposed to be home yet anyway.

Themes will be: trusting your gut, trusting in marriage (even when it's hard),
and the relief that can come when someone believes you.

If you have thoughts on the idea, ways to make it better, what to have happen in the middle... or anything... please comment!

Newsworthy inspiration

I'm nowhere near done with the story I need to hand in on Friday. But while I was battling insomnia last night, I decided on the situation that will be the basis of my next story: A beekeeper will be travelling cross country with her bees when she gets stuck in a blizzard. She will take shelter in the only house nearby, and then... I don't know. I'm guessing something will happen and someone will learn something. :) I think the young woman's dad will have recently died, and she's taking over the job they used to do together. The house she visits will have a teenage daughter who finds her job fascinating and kind of repulsive.

The inspiration for the story? A great NY Times article on the dying art of beekeeping and how (cheaper) honey imported from other countries means that beekeepers have to schlep their bees around the country to sell their pollinating skills.