Stuff and Nonsense

I'm taking a break from doing something I didn't expect to enjoy: writing a "movie treatment" of The Unnameables.

My agent, the shoe-obsessed and professionally optimistic Kate Schafer Testerman, asked me to write this treatment so that she and others can dangle it enticingly in front of people who work in LA. Being professionally skeptical, I'm not holding my breath.

But it turns out that writing a film-oriented version of your book is an excellent exercise in "show, don't tell." All the worries and fears my protagonist keeps in his head now have to be out where the camera can see them. I'm considering doing a film treatment of The Filioli before I've even finished it, just to see what it does to my brain.

In other news, The Unnameables has officially been released from the warehouse. I am going to my first event as An Author in a mere two weeks. It's a "Focus on New England" author showcase at Barnes & Noble, 9 Marketplace Drive, Augusta, Maine. Wednesday, September 10, 6 p.m.

Last night I went to supper at my friend Kim's house, joined by her husband, Tom, and Michele Corbeil, pictured in the last post with brownies and knitting. She brought brownies. I ate one. The ecstacy has lasted 18 hours, so far, although I did boost it at noon with a piece of Lindt dark chocolate with mint. (Michele warned that these brownies trigger the binge reflex. I will eat a peach--trousers unrolled--and see if that stops it.)

The trouser bit is a stupid T.S. Elliott joke. Told you I was a nerd. J. Alfred Prufrock, I think, although who the hell knows and I'm not looking it up.

Hot water update: We now find we can get along turning on the furnace for two or three hours every other day. There's enough hot water on the in-between day to do the dishes, although not to shower or do laundry. A cold sponge-bath can be very refreshing, at least in August.

Trouble is: I'm going to have the torn meniscus in my knee repaired just when winter is coming on (November, I hope). I'll have to avoid stairs for six weeks, which means I have to move into the guest room on the first floor, for which the furnace is the only heat source. I plan to make use of space heaters, but still it's a blow to the checkbook.