The guy next to be in the coffeehouse  is probably wondering why I’m watching a youtube video video of a Catholic funeral mass. Research for a novel. You can’t just make up liturgy and ritual in your head. Especially when you’re a rabbi’s wife.

I’ve knocked out 1,000 words while listening to a dulcimer/guitar duo sing a lot of Woody Guthrie and songs about trains. I was knocked out of the coffee house last night by what I guess was a Heavy Metal band (it was too loud to tell) whose drummer played every song exactly the same. He effectively emptied the whole place. I don’t think that was the intention.

My troupe will be performing under the auspices* of the National Theatre program that brings entertainment to shelters, etc. This makes me feel warm all over (really).

*one of the more sophisticated words in my vocabulary

So I’m in Charlottesville doing research for a novel. Eating and walking around a lot,* but not putting many words on paper** And then I had a Eureka moment.*** I write in a coffeehouse when I’m home. As I write this, I’m finishing a latte at Shenandoah Joe’s. The words are flowing! Pavlov’s dogs had nothing on me.

*It’s research, honest.

**Not literally. Don’t be so picky.

***Not the vacuum cleaner kind. I don’t vacuum…or iron

Donald Barthelme. He said it was a shame my parents didn’t let me read comic books when I was a kid, though he said it in a much funnier way.*

This is an absolutely true story, because, seriously, who could make this up?

*Because he was funny. DUH.

I’ve decided to treat myself to an extra latte every time I write another thousand words. Productivity is expensive.

Adrienne Barbeau. We toured together in Fiddler. She played Hodel. I didn’t.* She was Carol in Maude and the original Rizzo in the B’way production of Grease. Katie Hanley was also in that production. She was my best friend in kindergarten.**

*Hey, it was my very first Equity show.

**Absolutely true and possibly an early influence on my theatrical  career.

Just hit the 40,000 word* mark on a first draft of a novel I started in late August. I don’t know if this is evidence of a surge of creativity, or a total loss of perspective.

*Only a few of which are ‘blah, blah, blah’

I believe I’ve been visited by a spider. That’s the only explanation I can come up with* for 1 visitor=65 views.

*Or it could be one person with OCD

Two thousand of them written in the last two days. Does this mean I’m so in love with the story it’s flowing, or so in love I’ve lost any sense of judgment?*

*Or both.