Finishing my novel: Fiction

That's right, I'm doing that NaNoWriMo thing: Camp 2023

Starting with July 1, I’ll be spending the month with the goal of finishing my novel, titled Watching the Detectives. Yes, named for the Elvis Costello song (and the quite nice Duran Duran cover—my Gen X is showing). (Song and lyrics at the bottom.) The story idea is based upon the song’s lyrics and upon two real true crime cases; please forgive me for not sharing which two at this time. The book will be dedicated to these two young women, and I will be arranging to give some of the proceeds to a relevant charity; I am thinking perhaps SOSA. SOSA’s work with stopping predators online is not precisely relevant to the plot, but I deeply admire their work and the personal hit it takes, and they operate on donations and their own money. If you want to help, they have how individual donations break down to resources listed on their website. I would also like to donate some proceeds to the two victims’ families, or their foundations.

I’m going to share small sections and perhaps outlines and character breakdowns, as well as updates on how it is going, to the free feed. If I post longer chunks it will be behind the paywall. If you want to hear me read from earlier drafts, you can listen to episodes 14, 28, and 57 of the podcast.

Yes, that means I have been working on this for quite some time. Disability and chronic illness are bitches, my friends. For example, I just carried my laptop and several things I had printed out to establish a more cohesive timeline from my home office to my bedroom. They are next door to each other. I probably gained ten or twenty steps on my watch’s rings. And yet, when I reached my room, I involuntarily faceplanted on my bed, just barely moving my poor laptop out of the way, then had to stay in that ungraceful position while my legs shook and my body wondered how it actually works. So dignified. And to think I took thirteen years of ballet, two or three of those en pointe.

POTS and Ehlers-Danlos run my life. I have lost days and even weeks lying in bed all day with pain so high I can’t move and vertigo like a bad trip, unable to do anything but listen to audiobooks and other podcasts, infuriated with my body and brain. That’s why my podcast’s episode count is lower than it should be you would think. I have been writing a lot on here lately, but I have been pushing through vertigo and some such symptoms I won’t complain about because I am stubborn.

So, this has been a looooong project. Hopefully, knock on my head, I can get the word count I want this month. I would like 70,000 words, up from the delightfully satisfyingly number 37,371, but I am going to shave that down to 60,000. That’s 22,629 in 31 days: average of 730 words a day. I love this book so much that I can totally do that, once I finalize this timeline work, which won’t take any time.

Now, before we get down to brass tacks and I share the prologue with you, I’d like to take this opportunity to highlight a missing person who is always in the back of my mind, because I could have been her:

Kristen Deborah Modafferi, b. born June 1, 1979; disappeared June 23, 1997. We attended the same high school (I was a member of the first graduating class of Providence High School in Charlotte, NC in 1990; she graduated in 1996) and the same college: North Carolina State University (my undergrad). She went alone to San Francisco to study after her freshman year at N. C. State. I was alone in Boston for grad school after graduating from State in three years (18 and 21). She has never been found.

Disappearance_of_Kristen_Modafferi

If you have any information, please contact the investigative agencies listed on her NamUs page.

As you can see, I take true crime very seriously, and I take it very seriously that I was inspired by two real cases, which aren’t entertainment on 20/20 and on podcasts for armchair detectives to play with, not for me. They involved deep, unbelievable pain. I know.

As I discussed in episode 12, Wonder Woman and Highway 29, my best friend from childhood was murdered by a stalker. Anisa Jamal Matthews. I’ll spare you the details here. My details are that I found out on GOOGLE. I hadn’t talked to her in a little while, and I wanted to see how art school was going. And I looked her up, expecting to see accolades and even a gallery show. I saw news reports and a pending art scholarship in her name. I found out on a fucking search engine that the little girl who loudly claimed the shy girl the first day of kindergarten had been murdered. So I understand the gravity of what I am doing. Hence the privacy of my inspiration for now, and hence the charity work.

This resonates with me everyday. The first part of the title refers to the fact that, when I went to see Wonder Woman, I started getting upset at the realization that Anisa would have loved that movie, then I realized she had missed all of the LOTR movies, and then that she died the year the first Harry Potter book was published, so she missed all of it—she never got to see or read about Hermione punching that guy, Anisa would have punched him—and all of the novels and movies from 2000 on that she would have gotten high on flashed in front of my eyes and I nearly threw up. So I am being solemn about my responsiblity in this.

Where else am I coming from writing this? My experience as a therapist, and my experience as a victim of crime myself. And my experience with mental illness, I’ll be honest. I will most likely elaborate as I go on. If I had anything to hide, I wouldn’t have this podcast.

If you are an eagle-eyed consumer of true crime, you might recognize one of the cases. Don’t bring it up here, please. Just let it lie, out of respect. I want to do this the right way.

Now that I have purged all that unexpected writing, and thank you for reading it, let’s get to the fiction part.

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the NaNoWriMo Camp page for Watching the Detectives

my goal: 60,000 words in the manuscript by the end of July

current word count right now, June 30th: 37,371 words

I’ll be updating the mundanities, like word count and such, in my Notes, so you aren’t overwhelmed with emails about this and other things—Notes are only in the app and on the website. I don’t want my lovely readers and listeners running for the hills because I am hosing them down with Too Many Emails. Comments are allowed in Notes, as well, so come talk to me, please. And help remind me to take breaks, please, so there are no more faceplants.

lyrics, by Elvis Costello:

Nice girls not one with a defect
Cellophane shrink-wrapped, so correct
Red dogs under illegal legs
She looks so good that he gets down and begs

She is watching the detectives
"Ooh, he's so cute!"
She is watching the detectives
When they shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot
They beat him up until the teardrops start
But he can't be wounded 'cause he's got no heart

Long shot of that jumping sign
Visible shivers running down my spine
Cut the baby taking off her clothes
Close-up of the sign that says "We never close"
You snatch a tune, you match a cigarette
She pulls the eyes out with a face like a magnet
I don't know how much more of this I can take
She's filing her nails while they're dragging the lake

She is watching the detectives
"Ooh, he's so cute!"
She is watching the detectives
When they shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot
They beat him up until the teardrops start
But he can't be wounded 'cause he's got no heart

You think you're alone until you realize you're in it
Now fear is here to stay. Love is here for a visit
They call it instant justice when it's past the legal limit
Someone's scratching at the window. I wonder who is it?
The detectives come to check if you belong to the parents
Who are ready to hear the worst about their daughter's disappearance
Though it nearly took a miracle to get you to stay
It only took my little fingers to blow you away

Just like watching the detectives
"Don't get cute!"
It's just like watching the detectives
I get so angry when the teardrops start
But he can't be wounded 'cause he's got no heart
Watching the detectives
It's just like watching the detectives

And here’s the prologue. I hope you enjoy. Please feel free to give me your thoughts as I go through this writing journey. I’ll be writing with Bob Ford as well on our project; this is going to be fun!

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Watching the Detectives

If you know something, say nothing, and use to forget.

“Mother?” 

Gwendolyn’s iPhone pinballed, flailing in the mounds of down comforter where it had been thrown post-phone-call, its digital feelings hurt. Constant companion abused and discarded.

“Mo-ther!”

The phone’s case’s Swarovski crystals pouted and caught what little autumn sunlight filtered through Gwendy's bedroom's window, streaking little useless bits of sparkle across the walls as they screamed for attention, as they always did. 

Daylight Savings Time, Gwendy thought wildly. 

It was next weekend already. Not next, this.

After the weekend of the party, we lose an hour. 

Only last weekend, a lifetime ago. The end of Fall Break.

Spring Forward, Fall Back. 

She pictured herself falling from a stunt

Fall Back

falling off a simple partner hold, arms pinwheeling helplessly in the hot competition spotlights. For just a minute she could see and hear it so clearly, more so than her own well-turned-out bedroom: the harrowing fall to the spring-loaded mat floor

Spring Forward

neither her partner nor her safety spotter catching her, her team and the hyped crowd all chanting “Spring! Forward! Fall! Back! Spring! Forward!” as she sprawled there, injured and humiliated—

From downstairs, she heard the clattering jangle of the house phone’s ring, that antique pay phone that her dad had argued with and seduced until it not only worked, but was compliant with NoVaTele standards. She loved its look—bulky and black, take-no-shit, something right out of an old Bogie movie—but its ringer could be heard on the fucking moon. 

Jarring. 

Overload. 

Something else telling her how to feel and what to do and when.

Its ring usually startled her, jolting her like an unwanted touch. She was so grateful for its clatter-jangle now, it woke her up and brought her back from her ruined, dangerous stunt. 

PTSD. It must be PTSD. We all probably have it, after--

After the weekend of the party--

She knew who it probably was on the phone, which was just as much of a fright as her imagined fall. He had called her only just now. She had always thought other kids’ dads would no longer be as intimidating once she was in college, would no longer have that Father Aura, that looming Masculine No. And most dads had lost it. 

But BeeGee’s father was a different beast. He made her feel two feet tall and like that little pudgy girl in the awful itchy private school uniform all over again, trying urgently not to pee her pants, trying just as urgently to think of what the grownups wanted her to say this time.

She defeatedly dropped to her bed, making her phone bounce dejectedly again and the crystals tinkle-shine a little again on the walls like time passing way too fast, and waited like the Good Girl she was.

She didn’t have to wait long at all.

Footsteps on the stairs, not her mother’s studied and confident state-attorney-in-expensive heels stride, one measured step at a time

let them know you are never in a hurry and never worried, Gwendolyn

but a clattering, clumpy rush. Abigail Harrison appeared in the doorway, her wild eyes looking as if she had just awoken from a nightmare, the worst nightmare

—a stock market crash, perhaps, or a shady accountant. 

Mother was also a particular beast with particular appetites. Money, reputation, being right.

Abigail, Mother, took one long drink from the wine glass in her hand, seemingly for fortification, steadying the still-sloshing red wine inside as she did so with her other hand on the expensive crystal stem. Gwendy looked to her nightstand drawer, full of anxiety-killing food hidden beneath and in cheerfully orange Ulta bags. She too could sloppily imbibe once Mother left—

“Gwendolyn? You will not believe who just called me—“

“Mr. Burchett," she interrupted. She never interrupted her mother, but she could feel the blood rush still of that imagined plummet to the competition mat, the blood rush still of Amos Burchett's voice unexpectedly in her cell phone when BeeGee's name came up on the screen. 

Dear God, BeeGee's name had come up on the screen, and that had frightened her, too, probably most of all. She had thought BeeGee was calling her. That maybe BeeGee was—

okay

alive

not dead

Ever the cautious attorney first, parent last: “What exactly did he say to you?”

Gwendy paused, and took a circular breath like she did before training and cheerleading competition: breathe in five, hold six, breathe out seven, before answering. “He told me—“ She cleared her throat, remembered whom she was talking to, and about. “—he asked me not to talk to the police or the press. And to stop posting online. To go dark for a little while.”

Her mother nodded, leaning against the doorjamb, that worry wrinkle she fought tirelessly starting to fight back again. Time for a spa injection, Gwendy thought, and took a little satisfaction from the image of a needle stabbing her mother dead between the eyes in some posh room somewhere. Stab stab, freeze freeze. 

“Same. Speak to no one who is trying to find Beatrice. Help no one, and don’t get involved. Share no information, no photographs, post nothing on social media, don’t even admit to knowing her right now. Pure 'no comment' policy right across the board. Concentrate on what's in front of you: your grades and competition prep and everything else that the college requires of you. That's your job.”

“Mother…?” 

“We have to comply. You know that, Gwendolyn. This is Amos’ show. He’s in charge. Probably best that you take all of your accounts friends-only right now, I mean all of them, yes that includes not posting on the cheerleading team's promotional Facebook page, and for God’s sake don’t accept any new friend requests on any platform, from anyone. They could be from sneaky reporters or detectives or who only knows, the person or persons who took her, even. It’s not safe. The internet just isn't safe right now.” 

Abigail reached past Gwendy, artfully arching her wineglass hand above Gwendy’s head in an addictive arabesque, and retrieved Gwendy’s phone from the comforter’s downy poofs, thrusting the iPhone into Gwendy’s hands and then chinning a firm get-started nod at it with her new firmer chin.

“But, Mother…?” 

She hated sounding like such a vulnerable little girl with her mother, they weren’t like that, but she was seriously spooked, more spooked than when Beatrice had first disappeared a week ago. 

“Why would he do that? Why doesn’t he want us to help find Beatrice?” 

Her nervous stomach rumbled and tumbled; why did she always associate fear and anxiety with hunger. Stupid body, stupid brain. She looked at her nightstand drawer again, trying not to be noticed by Mother.

Gwendy, trying not to look at Mother's wine glass—she could taste that red wine in the back of her throat sticky and deep and with a tinge of bile—and not knowing where to look, let her eyes wander to the photos stuck all around the edges of her vanity mirror, locking on the one of BeeGee, Miss Priss, and herself —Bendy Gwendy—showing off an obnoxiously large cheerleading championship trophy, pretending to fight over it and laughing. Beatrice had one foot planted in her sister's thigh. 

She and the Burchett sisters, Beatrice and Priscilla, all tan legs and überwhite smiles, faces full of youth, future, nothing but time and promise. 

She looked back at her mother, whose face read only attorney, only legal avenues and authority. It was shut to emotion and emotional pleas, as usual, as always.

“Why doesn’t Mr. Burchett want any help finding his own daughter?”