Haven’t posted in a few days, got really involved with writing the new Danny chapters, there are twelve in total for him now, plus a couple new ones for myself.
Now for some editing. Am currently up to date with my life, but the parole hearing is this Friday, so any damn thing can happen. They won’t make their decision for a couple weeks, and I may not know one way or the other until November, when, if he’s going to get out, he’ll be released.
Still makes me crazy that they don’t intend to notify me ahead of time, one way or the other. In for another couple years, or, by the way, he got out yesterday. I’ll be addressing that for sure on Friday.

A couple days later and I’ve written then typed two more chapters for Danny. I’ve also edited the first six of the eleven chapters I’ve got for him so far.
Am leaning towards not having a third character now. Have lots of notes for that now non-existent voice, but most of it Danny can say as well. Bouncing back and forth between us is enough.
He has way more to say in this book that he did in the first. Perhaps the reason why it hasn’t been picked up yet by an agent is that it may not be finished. Not ready to go back to it, but I can see that I will. Still working on this, waiting to see how the hearing turns out.

The Danny chapter I started yesterday ended up being two. It was already too long when I left it, and this morning I decided it wasn’t done, so now it’s twice as long but separated.
Actually, there’s a natural division; in the first half, he talks about my circumstances. He’s concerned about how they’ll affect Kitty, and how, with our similar backgrounds, we, as people turned out so differently.

She tells him, in a loving moment, that he, their relationship, is the difference. She has him, and I don’t. Well, I do, since I’m making him up, but it’s not far from the truth. The second, now new, chapter is about them, and why love matters, how it can make that difference.

Hand wrote the next section of the new Danny chapter this morning, and then typed the whole thing this afternoon. Linking him up with my story, he says things I can’t about myself.
Gossipy stuff, things that would be too self-indulgent or too filled with self-pity if I say them myself.
But they work coming out of his mouth, as observations. And truth be told, I’m sure people are saying the exact same things about me anyway. My situation is chitchat-worthy; enough friends ask how I am in that overly concerned tone that I realize it’s common knowledge.

Danny’s back, woke up thinking about a new scene for him, he is the most vocal of all the characters. Can’t conjure him up, but he does make himself known.
Not sure where this new scene is going, if it’s just a brief interlude or the beginning of something longer, more chapters even. I could end the book with him either way, and I’m having trouble making a connection with the third character.
Needs to be three, But I keep changing my mind as to who it will be. Eillen's the logical choice, and there’s Kitty. And I have Mercedes as the wild card, but until I decide on who, there’s me as well as Danny.

There were two victims in the incident my project is about, myself as well as the woman I was working for. I usually leave her out of it when I tell the story, but I’ve got her permission to include her now that I’m writing about it.
Names have changed; even the assailant has an alias. Every thing else is factual and as close to the truth as I can recall it.
Today I wrote a chapter about a session with my DA counselor in which I realized I might not have been his primary target. He cased us out the week before and she did most of the talking because I was afraid of him. I've always thought he assumed I was alone the day he came back for the attack, and was surprised when she suddenly came out of her office. I’m not so sure anymore - now I think it was her.

Still typing, spent the morning on the food stamp office episode, it is hard to believe that was only 2 months ago, I was so upset then I burst into tears, grabbed my papers and threatened to throw myself in the river because the woman doing my intake was an idiot.
Lucky she was so oblivious, as the words came out of my mouth, I realized they could have been my one way ticket to Bellevue. All she heard was an old white bitch get uppity with her.
Much better now, still broke, still have the hearing in 2 weeks, but I had a 45-minute phone interview with a gallery in a town that is at least 1000 miles away from here. Totally not New York, and not the Cape either, it could happen though, have a good feeling about this.

Been typing, rather feverishly, am now almost current with the true part of the project. Today it was a mix of my second session with the DA counselor and stories from when I was 12.
I didn’t post yesterday because I was feeling cranky and sick of my complaining. Typed the part about when I first looked my assailant up online found out about the parole hearing.
But then, after a trip to the gym and then a nice long sauna, I came home and watched WHIP IT, the fabulous roller derby film Drew Barrymore directed that stars Ellen Page, Marcia Gay Hardin (who is perfection) and Juliette Lewis, among other great performances. Loved it, very endearing, like Ms Barrymore - Netflix it immediately.

Hand wrote and then typed the chapter leading up to discovering I would have to deal with my assailant being up for parole and all the scrambling I’ve done recently.
How I was disappointed to not get the job of my dreams on Cape Cod, and how I lost a really good one here. But I also wrote about completing J’S Girls and starting the new project.
Then I took a two and a half hour walk, all the way up to the brand new park that just opened up passed Chelsea Piers, fabulous job, gorgeous landscaping, and then back down to North Moore where they are in the middle of the renovation and then home. Needed it, I feel better; I’ve got someplace new to walk to besides the High Line.

Typed a new chapter about 9/11 today using a previous version of it. Still on the fence about if it goes with this project or not. While my life flows from one event into the next, what makes sense to me might throw you.
And thanks Alex, for noticing how strange it was of my father not to include my brother or me on my mother’s headstone. Says a lot about him, the old narcissist, actually.
So, twenty-two chapters in the computer, three more in the works, several more planned. Then I have to wait for life to catch up to see how it ends. Does he get out? Will I have to move? When and where?

Good day for writing, way too hot, a big storm brewing, happy to stay inside. Wrote about an unfortunate love story episode of mine. Aren’t they all? This dude, who I once considered the love of my life, faked his death.
Yeah, oh well and whatever. Always something going on at my house, more fodder for the novel. Might as well make use of it instead feeling sorry for myself. Or embarrassed.
Been posting shots on my other blog of my mother’s grave at the National Cemetery in Arlington. Odd the big controversy that has stirred up about mis-marked graves there, but I’m pretty sure hers is right, but neither my brother nor I are mentioned on her headstone.

Got a confirmation reminder letter from the parole board about the hearing in the mail today. As if I could forget. Makes it more real, I guess.
Hand wrote a chapter today, progress. It’s an interesting process, fitting my real life and self into the fictional world I’ve created. I like being referred to as a friend of Kitty and Danny’s by this new narrator. Since my character only tells the facts, I don’t mention them at all.
Seattle has been suggested as a potential relocation destination, so has Santa Fe. Never been to either one, LA is the only place on the West Coast I’ve visited. Got my tattoo on Sunset in 1980, laughed a lot that vacation. I stood in Marilyn Monroe’s footprints and got a copy of her dressing room key ring, Fox Lot 4 - #5, I still use it today.

Perhaps I’ve tap danced around the real issue enough. When I was DC last week, Steve asked me about the gory details regarding the parole hearing, which I’m not sure I should broadcast out into the ether yet. But I get it, the question.
It’s sufficient to know someone with a long felony record assaulted me in a violent manner. The idea he’s up for parole is astonishing. Mix in how I found this out while researching the new project, plus my options of protection being to testify or leave town, the whole thing is extraordinary.
What my NYC friends don’t want to hear is the relocation theory. They can’t understand that I might want to go. But as I discussed with my counselor at the DA’s office today, it'd be easier to have a plan instead of panic if he gets out in November. I’ll keep working on the book but am open to suggestions, if you have any, of where to go.

I started working on the new character today, some is from scratch and some of it is pieced together from what I edited out of my own character's observations of Kitty and Danny's fictional life that was written before I decided my section needed to be the truth. Still in notebook form, nothing is typed yet.
Have to play with her voice a little; she may sound too much like me. Well, they all do, even Danny, who curses like a sailor, which I am known to do. I find I do it more though when I’m working on him, I noticed I said the F word a lot last week.
Also not sure what this new character will talk about, she’s meant to be a bridge between my autobiographical story and the world I created in J’S GIRLS. She will tell all the things I’d like to say but are not necessarily factual, or what I know people think about my situation with the assault and the impending parole hearing in July.

I’ve been away a few days, visiting the DC area. Didn’t get much writing done, although I had some really good ideas about what to do next since I’m done with Danny for a while.
Saw old college friends, and the first leg of the trip was to see my mother’s grave in the National Cemetery in Arlington. Enormous, place quite beautiful. Photos to be posted on my Maureen Donegal blogsite. Check them out.
Have settled on Eileen, Kitty’s AA sponsor, as the third character. She will be the link between my autobiographical story and Danny. She, of course, is a fictional figure but also reality based the way he is too.

Finished the first round of typed chapters for Danny. Spell checked but not edited yet. May print it to take with me while I’m away. Or maybe not. Let it marinate for a while.
Could just go with what my character has to say next. Danny broke that up nicely, good place to stop. Move on to the current situation, my finding about the parole hearing and meltdown.
Because it was, two months ago, when I found out. Stirred Danny back up, thought I was done with him in J’S GIRLS, but obviously I wasn’t. Perhaps I needed a nice cop to protect me from my feelings.

Typed more Danny yesterday, almost caught up with my character in the time frame sequence. Not sure what to do next. There’s the third character, Eileen, I’ve thought of introducing, or I could bring Kitty into it, although she would probably just be echoing what Danny has said, so that might be too much.
In the meantime, I have found a bird babysitter so I get to take part of my sojourn into the past, stir up some of that. Plan to visit my mother’s grave as well, put some flowers on it.
Haven’t been to her grave since she was buried there in 1971. Too far away, from me as well as the rest of her family; but it should have an interesting effect on what I’m writing. The travel, the trip, the visit.

Danny roll continues, typed two chapters from the edited notebook today. Read the next one in preparation for typing tomorrow and had some great ideas for changes to make before I begin.
Was trying to visit Alex and Patricia the end of this week, do an old college buddy road trip, but couldn’t find a babysitter for my parrot. Steve had a funny suggestion for a story about being trapped by a bird that has voice control over a security system.
Actually, it’s not all that far from the truth. Pacino, that’s the parrot, has absolute rule over this roost. Now if he’d just get a job, I could write and he could be boss, and life as we know it would be perfect.