Day 71; Be Brave Project; Parties, Pumpkins and Plot

More party invitations coming in, and also much BBP related Plot work is progressing--which makes me feel wonderful and very, very encouraged.

But first, of course, we will turn to food:

My cousin in London makes the most "more-ish" pumpkin bread, which people there thought was an absolutely bizarre and wondrous thing. . .she would give loaves of it to her dry cleaners, to her house cleaner, to her neighbors. It was a way of bringing a little of the mid-west to south-west London and it helped to make her very popular indeed.

And I have been craving the stuff--that moist texture, the very slight and piquant taste of autumn that comes with squash, the cinnamon and ginger combination. Oh my. . .but I didn't have a recipe, apart from ones I'd look up on the internet that contained something like 1/2 cup of oil.

Now really. You're making a bread that contains moist mushy squash--how much damn oil do you need? I ended up hauling out my old recipe for Low-Fat Banana Bread and adapting it. It worked Beautifully--and only one tablespoon of fat in the entire loaf. Bring out the butter, cos' I've got calories to burn!

Low Fat Pumpkin Bread

2 large eggs

3/4 cup of sugar--half brown, half white granulated

1 can pumpkin

1/3 cup of buttermilk--if you don't have buttermilk, use 1/3 c milk + 1 teaspoon vinegar.

1 Tablespoon vegetable oil

1 Tablespoon vanilla extract

1 3/4 c flour

2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon clove

1/4 teaspoon ginger

1/2 teaspoon salt

(1 tablespoon grated orange rind)

(1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts--tossed in a handful of flour so they don't sink in the dough as it cooks)

Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees. Grease 8x 4x 2.5 inch bread pan. Beat two eggs and the sugar in a bowl until thick and frothy. Mix in pumpkin, buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Sift flour, baking powder and soda, salt and spices--blend gently. If you are adding nuts and orange rind, fold into the batter. Pour into bread pan.

Bake for approximately one hour, or until a knife draws out clean. Turn out onto rack and cool.

Delicious! I took a thick slice to the library yesterday, and it was a very nice quiet but satisfying lunch. Came home and had some more. . .and will be doing the same today.

I do like my Fridays: The gym is empty and much of the fierce competition for machines is gone. The library is also considerably emptier, and today I think I will do some shopping so I have some McIntosh apples in the house.

Last night I was invited to another party, but this one is being thrown by someone in AA--so there's no being trapped between red-wine drinkers and asked to carry their bill at the end of the night. December 7th, from 4 to 8 in the evening: Very, very civilized and I am looking forward to it, almost. No, I think I actually am. Doesn't hurt that it's only 12 blocks from my house.

Excellent. Now I can turn down 1/2 of my invitations, accept 1/2, and not feel like a complete isolating loser. And in regards to the Be Brave Project, I think that I am moving forward at a better pace than I perhaps usually believe. I am working hard on Plot for my book, and coming up with some good ideas, I think. I am beginning to believe that quiet focused work will sort of pull together a plot that is out there already, just sort of waiting to be connected. . .

I don't know. That sound weird; I was at a meeting last night thinking about it, and it seemed that all of my tension and panic about plotting and writing and failing failing failing was such a waste of energy, so superfluous--when the plot was already written, in a way, and all I have to do again is adapt it. . .

Maybe better not to talk about that too much, as I don't want to ruin that sensation.

Anyway, I'm working on plot. I'm all paid up with the IRS. I have health insurance. I'm seeing the doctor again next week, gave blood tests, have appointment for mammogram. I do really hope it all turns out well. Dental stuff is on-going, but manageable.

My life has changed since starting this in July--all I have to do is look over my right shoulder at the skyline of the UWS, and I can see that.

Day 47, The Be Brave Project; All the King's Horses, Plus Movement on the Novel Front

Howzat for an original title? Cos' things are falling apart here in North America, you see, and now in Europe. Failed European conference over the weekend resulted in Monday's blood bath at the NYSE, and yesterday was worse. I read last night that Iceland's money is worth 40% of what it had been the week before.

The Wall Street Journal has cut their on-line staff, the New York Times has 86'd its "Metro" section due to costs, Los Angeles Times cut their staff by 75 people, and papers are discussing the "long slow bleed of journalists out of NY's capital" after the New York Sun folded last week.

I only got this home because the guy living here was relocated back to California, due to his office being shut down. . .let's hope I can continue to earn enough to live here. It is very very cheap for NYC, but if there's no work there's no rent.

In short, this might be the perfect time to stay home and work on a book. Looks like plenty of others will be doing the same.

At least I know how to wait tables. Just hope there are some customers.

Anyway: 2 months' worth of money is what I have, so I'd better get cracking on the book.

What do you want the book to be?

Novel, first person narrative by a woman. Film noir voice, hard-boiled. . .dark atmosphere, comic undertones, lively description, a sense of what it feels like to live nowadays but always poured through that noir filter.

Length: 250 pages. The least I can get away with.

Plot, as far as I know: Augusta Gunn, aged 35. Ageing cage dancer recently moved over into management but still working the floor sometimes. She lives in a family owned apartment in _________. Every day she wakes out of a blackout, puts on a filmy old robe and negligee, fixes a cuppa joe and obsessively watches old films on tv. . .every day she does every thing she can to not think about her past. The man she loved and (this is where a lot of research needs to be done), the child she thinks she lost/killed.

Or perhaps she should think she killed the man??? Probably should go with that.

Anyway, one night she's at work, out on the floor, swinging in a cage in the strobe light that makes her still look young, that highlights her body parts like packaged meat; a flash of thigh, a dead white expanse of arm--and then she thinks she sees him.
Her ex husband.

She stands above him, shouting for his attention, but he keeps looking around. She screams, her face Toulouse Lautrec-ed in the garish light, over the throbbing tech beat--for some reason he turns and looks upward--he sees her. And then turns and pushes his way out of the club.

So that would be the first 1/3 of the first act, pretty much--the status quo and what happens to change that status quo.

And if Augusta did think she killed him (maybe the child thing is just too dark, though it is extremely similar to what happens in Women's films of the 1930's when kids were offed for sentiment and plot development all the time, and also to make depression-era mothers feel better about their secret resentment of their children's stranglehold on their lives)--she's going to start investigating what really happened.

Which means that she'd recreate that last night they were together in her memory. She'd start asking people who were around that evening questions. She'd really focus on whoever told her the guy was dead, and what evidence they'd come up with that convinced her it was true.

She would have required evidence: She is hard boiled but extremely sentimental beneath. Who provided the evidence? And why? Booze has made her selfish and lazy, but it has also increased the sentiment--there will be times when she gets choked up over the littlest things. Think of John Self in Money.

OK. That's good work for today! Tomorrow I will try to move forward.

-Create a document that is the plot synopsis.

-Use structure model you used for screenplay adaptation.

• think of screenplay length, but 2x as long.
• screenplay structure works with this, as cinema (and "partiality of perception" is woven into this book.
• take screenplay structure work to library today and work on it.
• draw up map for structure.