DONE!
It felt so magical and fitting that I at last finished the revisions on the new novel yesterday and it would have been my very best buddy's 50th birthday (had he lived -- he passed away 10 years ago already. I find this really hard to believe).
On his 40th birthday, I was visiting him in a nursing home. I spent the day with him, feeding him, wheeling him all over the grounds in his wheel chair, helping him smoke cigarettes, talking to him about how exciting it was to have my first book coming out in France. By then he was suffering from very severe dementia brought on by AIDS, but in there behind his eyes, he was aware of everything and he was following everything I was saying. He could still talk to me but not very much. Mostly he just looked at me very intensely.
On the wall of his room at the nursing home, he had a color photo of me in my wedding dress. Well, I mean, me at my wedding -- one of those formal bride photos. By then, the photo was 6 years old. He hadn't been able to make my wedding because he used to work in the movies and was filming on location when my wedding was going on elsewhere. When he finally received the photo, it was fall of 93. He left a message on my answering machine: "You are so beautiful! I can't believe I couldn't be there!" (He'd been on some god-awful shoot with Mickie Rourke, where it was, like, 110 degrees in the dirt & broiling sun everyday and Mickie was on that head-first, downhill tumble to insanity-ville.) Anyway, right after I played Paul's phone message, my husband came home to our incredibly beautiful apartment in Manhattan; it was very, very late. I had baked him some cookies that looked like jack o' lanterns because it was almost Halloween, and he said, "River Phoenix is dead." I was absolutely dumbfounded by this; I loved River Phoenix. "No way," I kept saying. "There is just no way."
But...yes way, as it turns out. All kinds of things that you never believe are going to happen actually happen. And then time flies on, doesn't it, gang?
I wound up talking to Paul in my head all day yesterday and on into the night. I was lying awake until about 3 AM, which is unheard of for me since I am usually up at 5 or 6 AM. But I just couldn't sleep. It felt too exciting. The manuscript was 560 pages when I finally sent it back to my agent yesterday afternoon. And I still don't really know how I managed to write that darn thing. From start to finish, the project took me 9 years. (I wrote 4 other novels and god knows how many novellas and short stories in the meantime, but I was in so over my head when I began writing and researching Twilight of the Immortal that it really did take me all of 9 years to turn it into the book it needed to be.)
I love old Hollywood so much. (Well, old, old, OLD Hollywood! The novel takes place between 1916 and 1927.) Anyway, I hope I did it justice.
Meanwhile... today is my cosmic twin's birthday! Yay! Peitor Angell is 51 today. As loyal readers of this lofty blog are well aware, he almost died from a heart valve complication a few months ago, but survived. And by all professional accounts, his survival was miraculous. (He had the same thing that John Ritter died from so suddenly a few years ago.) Anyway, Peitor and Graham are on holiday in Italy right now. During the night (while I was laying awake, talking to Paul in my head for hours, actually), Peitor emailed me some photos of the view from their hotel room in Florence. I regale you with one of the photos here:
It is also Johnny Depp's birthday today, and as fate would have it, my new issue of Vanity Fair was in my mailbox yesterday. I still don't like that cover photo, but the interview was very interesting.
On that note, gang; guess who has to write a synopsis around here? Guess who has to take 560 pages and distill its essence down to 3 pages? 3 pages that will make you want to stop whatever you're doing and pick up a 560 page book.... That would be moi, folks. Yuck. I hate writing synopses. But on we go. Thanks for visiting, gang! Hope dreams are kissing you all over today, wherever you are!
On his 40th birthday, I was visiting him in a nursing home. I spent the day with him, feeding him, wheeling him all over the grounds in his wheel chair, helping him smoke cigarettes, talking to him about how exciting it was to have my first book coming out in France. By then he was suffering from very severe dementia brought on by AIDS, but in there behind his eyes, he was aware of everything and he was following everything I was saying. He could still talk to me but not very much. Mostly he just looked at me very intensely.
On the wall of his room at the nursing home, he had a color photo of me in my wedding dress. Well, I mean, me at my wedding -- one of those formal bride photos. By then, the photo was 6 years old. He hadn't been able to make my wedding because he used to work in the movies and was filming on location when my wedding was going on elsewhere. When he finally received the photo, it was fall of 93. He left a message on my answering machine: "You are so beautiful! I can't believe I couldn't be there!" (He'd been on some god-awful shoot with Mickie Rourke, where it was, like, 110 degrees in the dirt & broiling sun everyday and Mickie was on that head-first, downhill tumble to insanity-ville.) Anyway, right after I played Paul's phone message, my husband came home to our incredibly beautiful apartment in Manhattan; it was very, very late. I had baked him some cookies that looked like jack o' lanterns because it was almost Halloween, and he said, "River Phoenix is dead." I was absolutely dumbfounded by this; I loved River Phoenix. "No way," I kept saying. "There is just no way."
But...yes way, as it turns out. All kinds of things that you never believe are going to happen actually happen. And then time flies on, doesn't it, gang?
I wound up talking to Paul in my head all day yesterday and on into the night. I was lying awake until about 3 AM, which is unheard of for me since I am usually up at 5 or 6 AM. But I just couldn't sleep. It felt too exciting. The manuscript was 560 pages when I finally sent it back to my agent yesterday afternoon. And I still don't really know how I managed to write that darn thing. From start to finish, the project took me 9 years. (I wrote 4 other novels and god knows how many novellas and short stories in the meantime, but I was in so over my head when I began writing and researching Twilight of the Immortal that it really did take me all of 9 years to turn it into the book it needed to be.)
I love old Hollywood so much. (Well, old, old, OLD Hollywood! The novel takes place between 1916 and 1927.) Anyway, I hope I did it justice.
Meanwhile... today is my cosmic twin's birthday! Yay! Peitor Angell is 51 today. As loyal readers of this lofty blog are well aware, he almost died from a heart valve complication a few months ago, but survived. And by all professional accounts, his survival was miraculous. (He had the same thing that John Ritter died from so suddenly a few years ago.) Anyway, Peitor and Graham are on holiday in Italy right now. During the night (while I was laying awake, talking to Paul in my head for hours, actually), Peitor emailed me some photos of the view from their hotel room in Florence. I regale you with one of the photos here:
It is also Johnny Depp's birthday today, and as fate would have it, my new issue of Vanity Fair was in my mailbox yesterday. I still don't like that cover photo, but the interview was very interesting.
On that note, gang; guess who has to write a synopsis around here? Guess who has to take 560 pages and distill its essence down to 3 pages? 3 pages that will make you want to stop whatever you're doing and pick up a 560 page book.... That would be moi, folks. Yuck. I hate writing synopses. But on we go. Thanks for visiting, gang! Hope dreams are kissing you all over today, wherever you are!
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