The wife has been looking around town with her husband for a new house for investment. They search high and low and keep looking until he finds exactly what it is that he's been looking for. It was not bad. Not bad at all.
She asks about the settlement on it, but he's very vague on details. But he's a busy man. Very very busy.
And suddenly he announces to her that he's decided he and the wife will have an 'amicable separation'. Oh? says she. Amicable? Look up dictionary. This doesn't describe the situation at all. So what can be used instead? And he swears on a stack of bibles that under no circumstances is there another woman.
Wife is only one to believe him because she always has. Everyone else is exchanging glances. He starts decorating house with a joyful pride which is almost indecent. Is the wife that awful to live with? After all there hadn't been any complaints up until that moment that could be discussed. Nor indeed ever discussed on any meaningful level. Just a wham bam, he's gone ma'am.
Well, at least give the wife a key since she owns half of the darned thing. Key willingly given. A couple of weeks later the house is entered by some nefarious burglar, but strangely the burglar hasn't taken anything. Ooooh. Very spooky. Is this going to be a suspense novel? But the locks have to be changed since there were no signs of a breakin.
So confounding as this is, the husband is assumed to be going through some sort of midlife crisis. Then through a calamitous set of circumstances the wife finds out quite accidentally that there is a mistress. And that a woman had moved in to live in the new love nest. The very same little nest he and his wife had been looking for investment purposes.
Caught! So the plan had been all along to live in it with the mistress and still to look like the good guy. But he got caught with the proverbials. (oh how this plot is thickening along nicely)
So the wife gets very angry and shoots off emails then collapses in total grief. This is, after all, worse than being a widow, no dead body to mourn. No self esteem since she's so ghastly to live with.
So in self defence he shoots back an email which is so nasty it upsets his hitherto very closely knit family. And he's like John Wayne shootin' from the hip. Bang Bang Bang. Ah'm gonna keep ma little woman. She's my trophy. She's closer to his eldest son in age than she is to him. In fact had fate been different it could have been her that could get to keep the son as a prize rather than the father. He tells us how we all going to get to know each other and play ball in the park and that things are going to be just fine and dandy. We might even have a Penney family day picnic. Spend Xmases together under the Xmas tree unwrapping pressies, hugging each other with so much love and understanding.
This plot is bubbling along nicely. Lots of little nuances here and there to play with.
But his children are very upset and write back what they really feel. And tell him that they no more believe he'd only just met the woman, than fly.
But clues start to build, like little pieces of jigsaw puzzle. Turns out he's been having an affair with an employee while he's been off in foreign parts, and that it has been such a cozy arrangement. She's been on a posting overseas but you see, she's due back and he has to find a little love nest for the love birds.
And now they live and work together every day. Off goes a little alarm bell in the morning and out of bed they hop. Kellog Cornflakes and coffee then skip off to work. Then at the end of the day it's dinner and bedtime.
And they live happily ever after.
I do so love a romance. I wonder if I can turn this into a comedy?
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
My best friend - A sorry tail...
Yes. I have a sorry tail to tell. I waved goodbye to it not too long ago and I ache. The tail belongs to my ex best friend.
The one with the tag in the front of the book that claims him as my rock. The one to whom I dedicated my first anthology story.
The tail end of a marriage full of love 35 years of total love and dedication.
But I have two new best friends.
My darling children. I've discovered what a beautiful bunch of people my ex-best friend made.
They are bewildered and as skittled as am I. We were such a tight little family and now we've been skittled by a huge bowling ball.
It hurts like hell, it sure does. Hurts so much that I think I have writer's block for the first time in my life. I can't do it at the moment, partly because I am basically a writer of comedy. And I can't really find anything funny in life at the moment.
How long will this take to get over? I don't know. My dreams are horrendous. Loss of self esteem is so big I never knew it could get to be this big. Are the days long? Yes. Am I forever beginning to jigsaw things into one piece? Dunno, but little bits of evidence of the lead up are beginning to fall into place, and I can sort of work out about what time the ex-best friend was buying the bowling ball.
Do I hate the woman who took him? Yes I wish she'd fall off a mountain or get crushed by an avalanche, or that if she is on a boat it will sink, but it's not really her that I know I should be angry with.
Have my children got huge issues to deal with? A huge yes...on what is a relationship, since their whole belief system has been crushed. OH YES! To them we were almost an institution. Like a building that could never fall.
At the moment if you asked me what I feel like - I'd cryptically tell you like Pompeii.
If you understand that then you are on the same wavelength as me and you understand.
The one with the tag in the front of the book that claims him as my rock. The one to whom I dedicated my first anthology story.
The tail end of a marriage full of love 35 years of total love and dedication.
But I have two new best friends.
My darling children. I've discovered what a beautiful bunch of people my ex-best friend made.
They are bewildered and as skittled as am I. We were such a tight little family and now we've been skittled by a huge bowling ball.
It hurts like hell, it sure does. Hurts so much that I think I have writer's block for the first time in my life. I can't do it at the moment, partly because I am basically a writer of comedy. And I can't really find anything funny in life at the moment.
How long will this take to get over? I don't know. My dreams are horrendous. Loss of self esteem is so big I never knew it could get to be this big. Are the days long? Yes. Am I forever beginning to jigsaw things into one piece? Dunno, but little bits of evidence of the lead up are beginning to fall into place, and I can sort of work out about what time the ex-best friend was buying the bowling ball.
Do I hate the woman who took him? Yes I wish she'd fall off a mountain or get crushed by an avalanche, or that if she is on a boat it will sink, but it's not really her that I know I should be angry with.
Have my children got huge issues to deal with? A huge yes...on what is a relationship, since their whole belief system has been crushed. OH YES! To them we were almost an institution. Like a building that could never fall.
At the moment if you asked me what I feel like - I'd cryptically tell you like Pompeii.
If you understand that then you are on the same wavelength as me and you understand.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
To all you gorgeous gazillions of fans out there in the world, those of you lurking faithfully for a word of wisdom from your guru Zara Penney, the site is a growing darling. Yes.
A whole Zara Penney dot com. Just for me.
It's growing right under my nose and I'm loving it. It's my very own darling. It's like a little launch to which I can invite all my friends. From there one can blog me or tease me. One can keep me company when I edit.
I haven't had this much fun since... since...
The release date of our anthology.
November 21. Don't forget it.
A whole Zara Penney dot com. Just for me.
It's growing right under my nose and I'm loving it. It's my very own darling. It's like a little launch to which I can invite all my friends. From there one can blog me or tease me. One can keep me company when I edit.
I haven't had this much fun since... since...
The release date of our anthology.
November 21. Don't forget it.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Edit is over.
Well darlings! All of you people who don't read my blog. The edit is done. I know I have one more in me but I'm leaving some space between that event and myself for the time being.
I guess I am waiting now until the others have finished and we present it to the publisher ready for the galleys.
I feel in a strange mood. My little doggette Baby, has gone to the vet for desexing. I just cannot bear the thought of a little of little darlings, birthing, mess and problems associated with a litter. And I will never forget the experience of having a female rottweiler on heat and a silkie terrier in love with his large black diva.
The house was boarded up like the scene in Les Miserables during the siege of Paris, and darling Chester could not be dissuaged. We bought him a little pair of pants but they didn't work, so we bought a pack of baby disposable nappies and found them abandoned constantly. That was a nightmare episode. So unhappy me is sitting here lady in waiting for the news that Baby is ready to come home.
Now that the new anthology has been finished and landing in at almost 20,000 k's, I go on to edit my WIP which is 60,000 k's.
My critique group also has a Challengemeister with a mission... set us challenges to keep our collective muses (musai?) bustling along. Zee is currently a lady of leisure luxuriating in summer break from her daily slog as professor of english whipping hearts and minds into literates of the written word...
So I'm expecting to be busy.
I guess I am waiting now until the others have finished and we present it to the publisher ready for the galleys.
I feel in a strange mood. My little doggette Baby, has gone to the vet for desexing. I just cannot bear the thought of a little of little darlings, birthing, mess and problems associated with a litter. And I will never forget the experience of having a female rottweiler on heat and a silkie terrier in love with his large black diva.
The house was boarded up like the scene in Les Miserables during the siege of Paris, and darling Chester could not be dissuaged. We bought him a little pair of pants but they didn't work, so we bought a pack of baby disposable nappies and found them abandoned constantly. That was a nightmare episode. So unhappy me is sitting here lady in waiting for the news that Baby is ready to come home.
Now that the new anthology has been finished and landing in at almost 20,000 k's, I go on to edit my WIP which is 60,000 k's.
My critique group also has a Challengemeister with a mission... set us challenges to keep our collective muses (musai?) bustling along. Zee is currently a lady of leisure luxuriating in summer break from her daily slog as professor of english whipping hearts and minds into literates of the written word...
So I'm expecting to be busy.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Thursday 13
Since I'm writing a regency at the moment I am so into Regency - let me give you some Regencyisms...
This stuff is so full of character... it makes a comedy very easy going and what a rollicking little to-do I am having...
Can you guess?
1. Queer in the attic. (As Seinfeld would say, nothing wrong with that.)
2. Stick a spoon in the wall.
3. Long Meg
4. Touched in the upper works
5. Leg shackled.
6. Parson's mousetrap
7. Cut direct, cut sublime, cut infernal.
8. Cyprian
9. A mushroom.
10. Taradiddle
11. Make a cake
12. more hair than a wit
13. Maggot in the head
How'd you go? This is a reverse quiz. The more you guess the more I have to tell you to 'get a life' unless you are full of so many IQ digits - this was just the last thing you needed before you emerged as a 'know it all'.
Following is a translation for the dummies.
1. Peculiar or crazy.
2. To die. Originally meant "took up residence" from the fact that in primitive times a leather strap was often nailed to the wall near the fireplace as a place to keep items like spoons. Eventually it came to mean "die", probably because the fireplace pouch - stuff went in and never came out - (read as junk pile or third draw in the kitchen).
3. A tall woman. Long Meg was a notorious woman from Henry VIII and the subjects of ballads and stories of the time.
4. Crazy
5. Married
6. Marriage
7. Well cut direct, really would conjur up thoughts of director/movie. But to the regency people this was the ultimate insult. Look the other way - social murder. Cut surblime is to look up to Heaven. and obviously Cut infernal is look down or tie or stoop to adjust a shoe.
8. A women who gave sexual favors for payment ie., mistress or courtesan.(Aphrodite the Goddess of Love from the island of Cyprus.)
9. A sudden rise to eminence and riches as would a mushroom grow in the night.
10. A lie.
11. Make a fool of yourself. (*Half-baked)
12. Not very smart.
13. A strange notion
As a fan of how English changes it's meaning over time, language developing - this is quite a fascinating transition.
This stuff is so full of character... it makes a comedy very easy going and what a rollicking little to-do I am having...
Can you guess?
1. Queer in the attic. (As Seinfeld would say, nothing wrong with that.)
2. Stick a spoon in the wall.
3. Long Meg
4. Touched in the upper works
5. Leg shackled.
6. Parson's mousetrap
7. Cut direct, cut sublime, cut infernal.
8. Cyprian
9. A mushroom.
10. Taradiddle
11. Make a cake
12. more hair than a wit
13. Maggot in the head
How'd you go? This is a reverse quiz. The more you guess the more I have to tell you to 'get a life' unless you are full of so many IQ digits - this was just the last thing you needed before you emerged as a 'know it all'.
Following is a translation for the dummies.
1. Peculiar or crazy.
2. To die. Originally meant "took up residence" from the fact that in primitive times a leather strap was often nailed to the wall near the fireplace as a place to keep items like spoons. Eventually it came to mean "die", probably because the fireplace pouch - stuff went in and never came out - (read as junk pile or third draw in the kitchen).
3. A tall woman. Long Meg was a notorious woman from Henry VIII and the subjects of ballads and stories of the time.
4. Crazy
5. Married
6. Marriage
7. Well cut direct, really would conjur up thoughts of director/movie. But to the regency people this was the ultimate insult. Look the other way - social murder. Cut surblime is to look up to Heaven. and obviously Cut infernal is look down or tie or stoop to adjust a shoe.
8. A women who gave sexual favors for payment ie., mistress or courtesan.(Aphrodite the Goddess of Love from the island of Cyprus.)
9. A sudden rise to eminence and riches as would a mushroom grow in the night.
10. A lie.
11. Make a fool of yourself. (*Half-baked)
12. Not very smart.
13. A strange notion
As a fan of how English changes it's meaning over time, language developing - this is quite a fascinating transition.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Jis' one of dem days when...
I woke up tired.
The dog peed in the hallway.
It's a Monday.
Read my emails, even the junkmail, cos there was nothing substantial there.
The dog is even a little energyless.
They are cutting a tree down across the road. Poor tree. It was a question of
the tree or the house. The dwelling won. But there's going to be an empty space on the street. Poor tree - just sitting there minding it's own business.
Need to carry on with edits. No energy.
Laundry basket overrun with clothes and a dog who's doing a degree of underwear at the University of Life.
Need to ring vet.
Cold KFC for lunch.
No inspiration.
No. Depression it isn't. Just slow roasted procrastination.
BUT
The sun is shining.
Decided to write and illustrate a graphic novel.
And it's a perfect day to wash/edit/eat KFC/ringing vets/seek inspiration/in other words:
What's the prob Bob?
The dog peed in the hallway.
It's a Monday.
Read my emails, even the junkmail, cos there was nothing substantial there.
The dog is even a little energyless.
They are cutting a tree down across the road. Poor tree. It was a question of
the tree or the house. The dwelling won. But there's going to be an empty space on the street. Poor tree - just sitting there minding it's own business.
Need to carry on with edits. No energy.
Laundry basket overrun with clothes and a dog who's doing a degree of underwear at the University of Life.
Need to ring vet.
Cold KFC for lunch.
No inspiration.
No. Depression it isn't. Just slow roasted procrastination.
BUT
The sun is shining.
Decided to write and illustrate a graphic novel.
And it's a perfect day to wash/edit/eat KFC/ringing vets/seek inspiration/in other words:
What's the prob Bob?
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