Ab Ovo Usque Ad Mala

And I know my [book] would look alright

If I could see it on the silver screen.

It has been a great day. I’m going to write that in my journal when I am done click clacking these words away here. I received a wonderful bit of mail and drank some gross green tea. Now, as I have cleaned my apartment in anticipation of being out of town for a few days, I sit, pen in hand, and contemplate the next steps for my little story. Yes, that involves more index cards.

My mother wrote scripts for theater and television. I was never more proud of her than I was on a trip to Minnesota to see her play, Sweet, being performed at a theater outside of Duluth. Her stories were radiant, tough as nails, and jarring. They were the stories of women and secret keepers and red high heels. She liked nothing more than to find a woman reviled by history and rethink her status. One such play was a reconsideration of Jezebel. It is not a surprise that Project Guernica is dedicated to her in this particular lens, but what may be of salient interest here in this blog is that I am writing my first teleplay, and I will do it while clutching the sacred items that I took from her: A pair of dragonfly earrings. A magic rock, perfectly triangular. A figurine of a goddess.

From soup to nuts, I am adapting my book, the one on its query quest, into a miniseries.

There is no real reason for this. It is an exercise in medium, that’s all. Like any writer, I do daydream what it would be like for the book to be brought to life on television — my own thoughts are that it would be better as an animated production. But this foray into adapting the book into a limited series has twofold goals. The first is that I have always envisioned the manuscript to be described as cinematic by any reader who ventures into its plethora of pages. The second is that I want to do an autopsy on the story, to see where the pacing is, whether the characters can sustain a viewer’s attention. All of this is to get a bigger handle on the story. I will play music on its ribcage, see what those sounds look like.

And this is important for the third book in the series, but that is a blog for another day when spoilers would be more appropriate. Let us just say that I want this series to be lush, filmic, almost like a cinematography of competing colors and pastels like ghosts.

So, the index cards. I bought another package when I went to Walmart again. I’ve written a screenplay for a ghost story that I have had in my head for eons. But movies are different from television. I am, from start of the book to the end, thinking that it would be five or six episodes. I am working on the beat sheet first. This gives me some idea of where the story’s waistline falls, where its curves take over and its characters are bent this way and that, like a funnel. I’m not sure what the runtime will be per episode yet.

I’m writing this blog because I also want people to know that, if I could turn back time, I would ask my mother to do the teleplay. She would have done a far better job than I can ever do. I miss her. Every day, but especially when I have the index cards gathered around me as though they were children and I was holding a puppet for story hour. Her way with words was beautiful. I dream about her sometimes, and I always want to make her proud. This is my attempt to do that.

My novel features a lot of things. Found families that are at once quirky and dysfunctional. Vindictive angels. A god who doesn’t want to be found. A heartbroken portal. An all-female quest. Chicanx steampunk. Talking, magical orbs. A cosmic war between siblings. A lovely bit of architecture. And apple seeds. The folk stories are threaded throughout the narrative, all of the apple seeds. I wonder if anyone will ever read this book on shelves, or else find this show on Netflix.

I wrote in my diary some time ago that I don’t care if this is ever a bestseller. And that is, so sincerely, the truth. I wrote it because it is my attempt to reclaim my own mind, and I wrote it because that is what I do. I only want a book that one person, just one, would love as much as I love the stories that have shaped me. From beginning to end. I’m always glad to be with these characters as I dive into Project Platelet, which is book two (at present, I’m trying to come out one major plot knot).

Anyway, I wish any reader (Hi, Vicki!) the best going forward with all the stories that exist, from the opening to the closing.