“Story behind the story” 

My son and I are long-time equestrians, which of course has nothing to do with opening galleries or sculpture, and not even a passing acquaintance with the Big Apple. But it has everything to do with reinventing myself after 30+ years as an analytical chemist.
My son, who hangs with ladies of a certain age at endurance competitions (horse stuff), has a conversation that goes something like this:
“Hey Kevin. Where’s your Mom? Didn’t she come with this weekend?”
“Nah, she’s home doing stuff.”
“How’s she been doing?”
“She’s really grooving on early retirement.”
“What’s she doin’ to keep herself busy?”
“Oh, she’s writing porn.”
Now, you’d think that would be a real conversation showstopper but au contraire. That one gets me phone calls and emails out the yin-yang with oodles of offers to “test read” my stuff – check for punctuation, that kind of thing. The guys make me more attractive offers so I’m not so much worried about a pulse anymore. It’s more in the line of self-defense training.
My motto is one I lifted, unrepentant, from USA, the cable channel: Characters welcome. Blessed with amazing, talented, quirky friends from both the right and left-sided brain functions, I find that their clones, their shadows, their alter-egos have taken up residence in my sub-conscious, renting apartments, if you will. What is even more entertaining is that they often sub-let to strangers and more often than not we have a chance meeting, or they drop a stray phrase, give me a tilt of the head just so, and in that instant I have a new main character. I sat down to write a story about a girl in college, a swimmer, but David peeked out and said ‘hey’ and I loved the smell of acetone and the sounds of hammering emanating from his ‘apartment’ so much that he took center stage - and Sculpting David was borne, hatched, created. I write about people who matter to me. I write about places I know well - NYC is only 70 miles away and I catalogue frequent visitor miles for Broadway shows, museums, shopping and my latest ‘most favorite’ … ComicCon:NYC . I may be a country girl but my roots have serious side shoots into the urban jungle.
As for my real estate venture? I always have vacancies … and remember, sub-letting is encouraged.