Tag: novels

Tiny Tuesday!


Lately, because I’ve been messing around with my dolls, I’ve felt a compulsion to sew. I don’t think I’d realized how many of my sewing supplies were lost in the Harvey flood, including several bins of wet fabric, and hundreds of beads and tiny doll-scale buttons in containers full of water. It was all too overwhelming to think about cleaning and sanitizing when there were so many higher-priority tasks during that time. I was also working sixty-plus-hour weeks. So I let that swamp-water-logged shit go.

I’ve slowly begun replacing a few supplies when the mood strikes and the prices are good. These include packages of buttons and bundles of fabric amounts in small-scale prints.

I won’t sew right now. I’m determined to finish the third book in the Neverending Saga before mid-June. Has anyone noticed how months have raced by this year as compared to last year?

My characters and my words and my dolls and my sewing notions are good company for these rainy days we’re having while Tom is busy at work in the home office and the dogs are busy worshipping Tom while he works in the home office. =)

Hope you’re finding good things in which to lose yourself–or at least some good trouble.

Tiny Tuesday!

Where to begin…

I suppose January/February of last year? When I was haunting a local antique mall and being fascinated by porcelain miniatures of buildings in Prague. They were a wonderful inspiration for my writing, and I snatched up their full stock before (1) the pandemic hit in earnest, and I isolated at home, and (2) I no longer had the disposable income, having been laid off, to indulge myself in such a way.

I posted a few of the little buildings. A friend subsequently told me she blew right past those posts because she had no interest in them. That’s fine. I recently looked at my stats for the first time in years and was surprised by how many people read this random, meandering blog. “They” say write the book you want to read. I guess I write the blog I want to read, and I appreciate everyone else who reads here and am always interested in receiving comments.

I was in Walgreen’s the other day (I seem to be going there more often) when I spotted these coloring books.

They have drawings to color on both front and back sides of each sheet. I prefer single-sided drawings, because I pull them to save in a sketch book. Since these were only a dollar, I bought two of each so I’d be able to take advantage of every drawing.


In “Cities of the World,” there was Prague! I have a miniature that resembles the building on the left. Even if it’s not exact, I’ve located the information for my little porcelain building. It’s one of the buildings of the Prague City Insurance Company at Starom?stské nám?stí 932/6, Old Town, 110 00 Prague 1, Czech Republic.

If you’ve been willing to stick with me through this post, below is a gift from me to you from the second novel in the Neverending Saga. The Director is remembering a time after he’d been in an accident and was slowly recovering. As for The Artist…

Prague City Insurance

He was still in the wheelchair then, but an aide went with him to assist him, and [the artist] was indefatigable as she made sure he missed out on nothing. He loved Prague’s architecture and people and shops. When she worked, he went with her to her warehouse of a studio. The radio was always turned low to classical music, and when he wasn’t watching her paint, he read or paged through the art books she stacked up for him. Each night after dinner and a few passionate hours in his hotel suite, she left him in the care of his aide.

© Becky Cochrane

This is why I’m intrigued by Prague and my miniature buildings…the reason for research…why I love what I do. My blog isn’t for everyone. My novels aren’t, either. Approval, understanding, interested readers, enthusiasm–these are all lovely. But my love of research and where it takes me, and my love of story and characters: They are a gift to me from myself.

I don’t know if this is true of everyone who creates.

Busy doin’ nothin’

What I’ve been doing hasn’t actually been nothing, but that title goes with the song I’m posting at the end. Over Friday and Saturday, I did yard work on the bed of shrubbery next to our driveway and cleaned up some more of winter’s gift of leaves and spring’s gift of other tree stuff from our front walkways.

I’ve also continued the purging and reorganizing of several bins and files. I created these two large piles of paper to go to a shredding company next week.

As for the Neverending Saga, I MAY have finally figured out an angle for the chapter I’m writing. Too soon to say, because I’ve already made several false starts that ended up deleted. Hopefully tomorrow, I’ll get on paper what I mentally wrote while I was coloring today. I finished this mandala that my mother-in-law drew as a birthday gift for me. It’s brighter than the photo makes it look, but too much flash washed it out.

Inspired by bossa nova, Brian Wilson’s song was on the Beach Boys’ 1968 album Friends. About the minutiae of a day in the life, I once decided “Busy Doin’ Nothin'” was the forerunner to Suzanne Vega’s song “Tom’s Diner” from 1987, and that song’s parody, “Jeannie’s Diner” by Mark Jonathan Davis in 1990. You can find both of those latter songs on YouTube (along with the Beach Boys, below).

Tiny Tuesday!

A few days ago, I unrolled the posters that have remained with me through the years. Goodness knows how many I didn’t keep, but I still have a few I may blog about now and then.

Among them, I found this mini poster of Jon Bon Jovi. It’s perforated, so I tore it out of something, but I think it’s too big to have been in a magazine or album. Regardless, he was a beautiful man then and remains a beautiful man today.

I never saw Bon Jovi live, but I remember one time Tom and I were going somewhere with Lynne and Craig. They had a big van, and I’d always sit all the way in the back like I was part of a band or something and needed solitude to create. This is because when I’m traveling, I’m almost always writing something in my head, whether it’s a scene for fiction, a poem, or a song. Even a single verse in a lyric can keep me occupied for a while.

On this little journey of perhaps an hour or so, I feel like I heard “Wanted Dead or Alive” more than once. Maybe I was listening through my old Walkman or something. It was not a new song then, because it came out in ’86 and this would have been ’89 or later, after we moved to Texas.

I always love songs by artists about being on the road, because they feed into the sensibility of the characters I write. (In fact, I’m almost finished with the third book in the Neverending Saga, and the next book will begin with The Musician on a mini tour.)

Out of the albums I was able to save after Harvey flooded us, I have these.

While writing this post, I listened to the song on You Tube, and one of the comments left there made me laugh:

Dr: You have 3 mins left to live
Me: Play Bon Jovi – Wanted Dead or Alive (Official Music Video)
Dr: But that’s 4 mins and 9 seconds
God: I’ll allow

Oh là là

I haven’t been sleeping well the last few days, so I started redoing the Writing Sanctuary–the guest bedroom where I write and color and think and apparently give myself panic attacks for no apparent reason.

So… new bedding, and for some reason, the only thing I could find that I liked is French-themed. Which is fine. France is almost like another character in the Neverending Saga.


Tom said he figures this is a prelude to my saying we have to travel to France to do research. That’s fine, too, except for the flying thing and pandemics and…

Also messed around with the bookcase I face daily while I write so I’d have some new things to look at to inspire me.

That’s it. That’s the whole post. Except it felt like something just bit me on the back. I hope it’s not a scorpion. SEE? Shit like that is what keeps me awake.

Arty

I’m not sure I ever shared these on here. I did a couple of art pieces for friends at the end of last year.


“Bloom” — I took a canvas I painted in 2011, “Everyone Has a Meadow,” and used it to create a custom piece for him.


“Her Heart Holds the Key” — I began this piece for her in 2016 and was able to finish it finally.

I’m hoping to do more art this year. And pitch two novels to publishers. And keep working on The Neverending Saga (nearing the end of the third book!). And get my COVID vaccinations.

Rusty

When I was redoing my necklace/bracelets, I texted Lynne a group of charms I was going to put on one bracelet and said, “Bet you’d never guess the theme of this bracelet. And it ain’t Texas.”

She answered, “It might ‘rust.'”

She was referencing one of the four main characters in my second unpublished novel, and I had been sure she would say, “the second book.”

However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Rusty is possibly one of the most vivid and dominating characters I’ve written because she is so full of contradictions. In a book balanced with three other major characters, which also includes two VERY strong characters who don’t even have POVs in this novel, she has to have a really strong voice to hold her own.

She is at once fragile but unbreakable, teeming with emotional conflict but very sure of who and what she loves, mystical and yet able to cut right through the bullshit to the bare bones of an experience.

I realized how strong her voice is when I found this journal. It was an accidental find–I was actually looking for notes on my first unpublished novel.

Every page contains songs Rusty wrote. I am not a songwriter, but it doesn’t matter. Rusty’s songs gave me instant recall of the journey she takes in that novel though I haven’t read it for many years.

If wishes could come true, my late friend Riley would be here with me, because I know he could turn these songs into something special, both by extracting only the lyrics he wanted then by putting music to them. He may be the only person I’d be brave enough to hand this flood-damaged book to and say, “Please make magic for me.”

I’ve never been as courageous as Rusty–probably why I needed to write her.

Button Sunday


I’m a somewhat lackluster Pink Floyd listener. It’s not them; it’s me. Still, there are some songs I like a lot, and “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” is one of them. There are specific people the song makes me think of (though the band wrote it as an homage to their bandmate, the late Syd Barrett, as all good songs should, it taps into its listeners’ own feelings, in this case of loss and regret).

Though the following three people are not part of my Crazy Diamond Crew, certainly they were all jewels to me and the people who love them. I honor their memory and am grateful to have known them.


It was my good fortune that the best friend I made at twelve, Lynne, had a whole family of sisters, a brother, aunts, uncles, and cousins who took me in as one of their own. Lynne’s mother Elnora mothered me and I loved her. Elnora had two sisters: Audrey, who fed me, tolerated me, and taught me progressive rummy; and Lil, pictured above trying to hold onto Jess, who was the aunt who got right down amongst us.

Lil was a friend, an accomplice in our shenanigans, and she made the best chocolate pound cake and fried potatoes (we call them “Lil Fries”) ever. Her home was always open, her heart was always giving, and she had the best laugh. Many qualities of these ladies were borrowed for Phillip’s aunts in Three Fortunes in One Cookie. Lil was the last of them. Though she lived far away, her son kept up our tradition of sharing Christmas cards to keep me updated on her declining health. The sisters are all reunited now, and I’m going to imagine them enjoying fish fries with catfish, corn, Lil fries, and Audrey’s divine hushpuppies, long-running card games, and snappy conversations like the ones in my memory.


We knew him online as “Rob,” “Really Rob,” “Cody Frizbee Jr.,” and “Smiling Bagel.” His friends and family knew him as Bob and Uncle Bob. I dubbed him St. Louis’s Ambassador because his posts and photos about his home city made me want to visit there so much. He loved opera, books, and art. He had a talent for growing things and liked to cook and bake. During the time that I knew him, he loved his dog Nickie DaDoggé and his cat Oskar LaChat. When they were gone, he adopted his fabulous dog Mlle. Renee in 2009. I absolutely loved his stories about and pictures of Renee. In addition to being online friends, we exchanged many letters, cards, and gifts through the years. Though I never was able to meet him in person, I’m grateful he became part of our online group of friends and my life. I’m not sure who has Renee now, but I know Rob, Nickie, and Oskar will be her family again one day at the Rainbow Bridge. Thank you, Rob, for your many kindnesses, your friendship, and your loyalty as a reader.


Some people coast through your life for a brief time and change it forever. I was a bit player in this story, and it’s not mine to tell. But this gentleman had such a profound effect on our lives that I borrowed part of his name for one of my characters. The character, though unpublished, is still with me always and is one of my muses. The person whose name he took has been gone from our lives for a long time; he actually died a couple of years ago, but we only just found out. It’s not really a goodbye when you remain so alive in my memory and my work, but I do mourn on behalf of all those who lost you as a daily presence in their lives.

Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun. Shine on you crazy diamond.

Legacy Writing 365:247

Just had a super long conversation by phone with Timmy, talking about a range of things, including writing. He’s been working on a manuscript that I’m so looking forward to reading when it’s ready. I also told him the current project I’ve undertaken, which involves this:

Since Tim and I have the rights to both of our out-of-print Alyson books, The Deal and Three Fortunes in One Cookie, we’ve thought about making them available as ebooks. However, our electronic versions of the books are pre copy and line edits: What I have on the computer does not match the published novels. So the first step is to get a good electronic version. It’s slow going to compare the minuscule print of the book to the version on my monitor. So far I’ve been surprised by one typo–ours–which no one at Alyson ever caught. I knew there were a couple of mistakes in the book, but this is one that had escaped my notice until now.

It’s been so long since I read Three Fortunes that it’s hard not to get caught up in the story–that slows me down, too. But once this part is over, Tim has said, with an odd gleam in his eyes, that he wants to do a content edit. I’m not sure what this means. I know the plot won’t change, but I’m wondering if he plans to eliminate a friend or two? Scary!

Maybe this is a good time to whip out a photo of Tim sitting beneath the branches of the Friendship Oak in 2004. I just checked on the 500-plus years old Friendship, who got beaten up so badly by Katrina, and she’s growing and thriving. The legend is that those who enter her shadow will remain friends for a lifetime. That’s good news for many people, including Tim and me, as well as some characters in Three Fortunes.

Speaking of friends, that little clip on the copy of the book in the top picture was given to me by my friend/roommate Debbie decades ago. It’s been used as a chip clip, but it’s really a clip for holding a recipe card on the counter while I’m cooking. I’ve used it for that many times. It’s serving a good purpose as a page clip, which should work for a few more chapters.

The best friendships endure when we value the ways we grow and change as well as our history together. So if Three Fortunes needs some changes, I’m on board. One thing you can be sure WILL change on any future edition of the novel:


This cover will be no more.