This is going to be a three part blog just warning you right now. I had an idea for a story pop in to my head but as I worked it out it turned in to two very different stories and I couldn't decide which to pursue. My friend Raquel suggested I do it all, top to bottom, explain the idea, and where it went. So that's what you are getting. Today is explanation and then the next two blogs will be the stories and you can see how one idea changes depending on what story it ends up in.
So anyway...where did this one come from? Story ideas are funny things. They sometimes drop out of the sky whole and complete and I just write the story as I "saw" it. Sometimes it's an amalgamation of random thoughts that just happened to blend at the right time in to a story. Most of the time it's an idea that sparks and takes off. I don't usually do any actual writing, cursor to screen writing, until I've "written" the story a few times in my head. Worked out how I want it to go. Seen the people, heard them talking. Maybe talked a few things out to myself. So if you see me driving down the road in my car talking out loud don't assume I have the Bluetooth connected, most likely I'm just working on dialog.
So this idea started with someone else's story. Or I thought at first that it did. But after I read that story I had a rush of ideas and memories come to me and I realized it had been brewing in the back of my head for years and had recently been moving it's way forward.
Three specific instances hit almost at once. First being working in an office with a couple who was married but not to each other and watching the face of one half of the couple as the other half announced they were leaving their spouse. Seeing a clandestine relationship that had "rules" change before my eyes. And knowing that the reaction had been involuntary, after all this was an affair they were having, not something for public knowledge. But now the dynamic changed. They were no longer two married people having an affair, both with equal parts to lose, they were one married person and one single person. I wasn't doing any writing at the time but I still tucked this away for later. The drama and comedy of this moment was too good not to keep.
The second one was talking with a friend of mine a few years ago about a friend of his mothers who had recently lost her boyfriend. Now saying boyfriend sounds weird because the woman was in her 70s, but they weren't married. In fact he had been married to someone else.Their relationship had been an open secret among their friends, but still an affair. When he died his family hadn't let the "other woman" know. She found out by chance, after the funeral. So she never even had a chance to go. Not that she probably would have. But she was grieving for her loss and it was difficult for people to know what to say. We have all been conditioned to be repulsed by the other woman or other man, but does it mean their love was any less real? That their grief is any less heartbreaking?
Then on to Brent's grandmother. Do you remember his uncle? Well his uncle was a year older than Brent and didn't share fathers with Brent's mother. His father was a man that Dona taught with and researched with at WMU. And he happened to be married. Now Kalamazoo is a small town so I am sure this was completely scandalous and I would LOVE to have all of the stories about this but I don't. But some of the pieces I do have are that his family knew about her, how could they not since she had his son? And she took his name even though they weren't married. And he never divorced his wife even though he and Dona were a public couple. In his obituary his wife and their kids (not Sheldon) are mentioned. In his wife's obituary the fact that he preceded her in death is mentioned. No divorce.
Add these to the idea I've had in my head for YEARS for a story for a woman who's lover shows up at her door after his wife kicks him out and she doesn't want him. Though I found out that there is a book out there with that idea, I need to read it and make sure it's not just the same book...anyway...
So as all of these things started forming again in my head I had a vision of a deep blue eye slowly filling with an unshed tear. Poetic vision, poetic lines about the blue of the ocean with the wave of a tear...So I started writing a story.
Then I was working on a piece in my head that I wasn't happy with the flow and it became a different story.
Which led me to this blog. And hopefully now that I've done all the set up I will be able to pull both stories together this week and you can see how one idea can take a turn in to two different pieces.
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