A: Tequila!

Q: What did you get for your second shot?

Seems like a weird question. What you want to know for? You gonna tell me my efficacy rate sucks or list some weirdass side-effect bullshit?

Because if that’s the game, count me in motherfucker

Who knows? Some of us might go full-on Grey Gardens while others may only develop a tendency toward plaid (hope I’m not in that group). Some might lose their taste for boozy (come to think of it, plaid does match my eyes) or be suddenly unable to tell acute cat from an isosceles triangle, and if you’ll let me do just one more before you throw your phone into the lake, others might have adverse reactions to Eat Prey Love (good one spellcheck) to which I happen to have a pre-existing condition.

Gak

I’ve been working on something of a serious nature lately which has kept me busy and away from writing here. I tried a couple of times, you know, to crack out a good headline because that’s what gets these posts rolling but if I am unable to whip one off right away, I don’t stick around.

I have no patience for my unfunny self

So a couple of weeks ago I was thinking of a story I wrote within The Whispering Gentlemen that was from the point of view of an Elephant called Neptune and I decided to give it another read so I searched on my computer and a million versions of The Whispering Gentlemen came up.

The oldest was dated 2012.

At the risk of repeating myself, Gak

And I got three rocks* in my stomach thinking that this much-loved (by me) novel might be my practice novel after all which is such a shame because it’s a unique and deeply moving (to me) story although I know there are flaws in my telling of it.

I’ve got the what ifs and the if onlys fucking galore

But the task of editing it is monumental – I don’t mind the hard work but I do mind the time – so I *gulp* abandoned it a couple of years ago in favour of exploring new ideas and projects, including this blog which I actually started because of something a publisher told me, in a Whispering Gentlemen rejection letter, that I had to work on my online presence because, fair or not he said, it is just as important to an author as writing books.

But anyway. I feel lousy about dropping it.

I wake up thinking of the characters sometimes and by thinking of I mean haunted by

Last year I didn’t know about Netflix Canada’s call for submissions but this year I am sending the Clutterbucks pilot – untouched – because I like it just the way it is. A rare thing. I read the guidelines and saw that you can send in two submissions as long as they are in different categories and something started to bubble.

So I am rewriting The Whispering Gentlemen as a screenplay. Again, Gak

I decided this not in spite of the August 5 deadline but because of it. So it’s working out and I got a nice little tumble of excitement in my stomach about it again, and some knots to be sure, but I’m grateful and happy to give it two summer months.

I mean I’ve been on benders longer than that

It’s difficult but also easy and here’s why.

SHERRY
(to you)
It feels as if I have lived this story. 
(beat)
It’s as if I am recalling my actual memories rather than rewriting invented sentences about pretend people. 

If you feel like reading the first chapter (less than a 5 minute read) of the prose version, it’s here, and then next time, I’ll link up the screenplay version and you can tell me if it works and by works I mean if you get a picture of it in your head which is what it’s all about with prose, and with the screenplay, I try to get the picture to be moving as in motion but also moving as in nudging something in the vicinity of your heart.