So he’s in for two more years, I found out a little over an hour ago. It’s a huge relief, I've been struggling with depression but now I can move forward. I don’t know to what yet, but I can stay in New York for a while, although thinking about leaving has been engaging.
I have been working on Kitty’s new chapters, she has four, the last one is not quite finished yet, but what I have for her ties her story with Danny up nicely and she also reflects on my situation as an observer. Still a lot of work to do, but I'm up for it.
I got a copy of the victim impact hearing transcript last week, and oddly enough, I sounded just like Danny in it. I knew he was my favorite character, but he sounds more like me than I do. Interesting.

Been working on the new Kitty chapter, days in the making but now typed into the computer and emailed to myself. That’s my new trick; it’s a great way to saved documents, much easier than constantly burning them to a disc.
I had a great deal of editing to do, and I had to get her voice back since I haven’t worked with her for months. She has to sound different from Danny, but since they’re a couple and have the same stories, they have to sound alike too.
Waiting on the transcripts from my victim impact statement hearing. The big parole board meeting is only two weeks away. That should motivate me, one way or the other, to get the story written. Finally.

Woke up this morning thinking about Kitty talking about Danny, I got up and wrote it down. It was only a little over half a page, but it was very clear and concise. My original plan was for three voices, so perhaps it will be Kitty after all.
I don’t understand my reluctance to write about my experience at the victim impact hearing, what with all the drama around it, how upset I was dreading it, it’s curious I can’t bring myself put it down on paper. Yet.
The transcript will probably take care of that, get me in touch with the feelings I had that morning. I think I was so stunned to find out he was in the wheelchair, I’m still trying process that. I’ll get there, eventually, and until then, I can just get started working with Kitty.

Just typed another chapter for Danny into the computer, I think it’ll be his last one. He talks about the victim impact hearing I went to and wanting to be at the parole hearing as well.
He also talks about the therapy he and Kitty are doing to prepare for the trial of person who shot her. Love Danny, sorry to have to let him go, but I already know when I’m done with this project I’ll be going back to beef up J’s Girls.
But first I have to finish this one, start writing my experience at the hearing. Have sent off for a transcript of that meeting and have also requested a copy of the transcript for the parole board hearing that my assailant will be at; I’m told I’m entitled to see it. Not sure if I'll put them verbatim into the book, which is, at least my character’s part, factual. I want readers to know I am telling the absolute truth.

A week, Friday to Thursday, since the parole hearing; still haven’t done any serious writing about it. Today perhaps, usually takes me about a week to know what I’m feeling.
It’s in my journal, and here too of course, and rolling around in my brain when I’m sleeping. I’ve had countless conversations about it, but addressing the topic in my own voice for the book just hasn’t been happening.
Hearing Danny though, finished the editing on his other chapters; they’re all typed and ready to read now, so maybe I should start with him. Still have to wait until the first week of August to find out the parole board’s decision, which is better than November; let’s hope it doesn’t take that long for my character to start speaking up again.

The next step, besides revising the new Danny chapters, I think I’m sending him and Kitty to therapy, is to get a copy of, or the number on, the police report of my assault.
Which, given it was in 1984, is almost impossible. I’ll get a copy of the transcript from the hearing on Friday, which is helpful, but this police report thing is a major trip down the rabbit hole. I spent over an hour on a series of phone calls with people explaining why they couldn’t do it, but finally I got a woman who found it interesting, that’s the trick, get them interested, and she spent another hour on her computer rooting around for me.
Because, apparently, according to the parole board people, I may be eligible for financial compensation or at least relocation money, but first I need that copy of the police report to fill out their application.

Yes, I’ve been neglecting this blog, but not the writing. Mostly I’ve been editing the new Danny chapters, which once I read them, were too repetitive, so I’m cutting them down.
As far as my life goes, that’s been quite enlightening. Even for me, living it. I’m glad I took two friends with me when I met the Parole Board Commissioner, because what he said was so over the top that I need witnesses to confirm it’s the truth.
The reason my assailant’s up for parole early is he’s now paralyzed from the waist down and in a wheelchair. Poetic justice, and before I had time to feel sorry for him, they read his file into the record and I got to hear more of his crimes and one involved a woman who was 7 months pregnant. So, still digesting, but no he gets no pity from me.