One More Stop: Book Review

"One More Stop"
Lois Walden
Arcadia, 2010
9781906413613 245 pp

Author Lois Walden has an impressive résumé as a singer/songwriter/producer. This debut novel, written in the first person, is a fast read. Her protagonist Loli is at mid-life, still searching for herself. She has an unsatisfying relationship with Simone, who leaves her to work at her career, which sometimes results in long absences. They have an open relationship, which Loli doesn’t remember agreeing to, or doesn’t recall why she agreed to it. After twenty years together, Loli is trying to sort out her feelings for Simone. Interestingly, her mother committed suicide almost twenty years ago as well, and now Loli is battling her own mental illness. Her mother’s voice appears as nursery rhymes, even though neither Loli nor her older sister recall their mother ever reciting rhymes to them.
One of the rhymes Loli hears is the Irish song Molly Malone which turns out to be the name of a bright young student Loli meets in Beatrice, Nebraska. Loli gets hired by a theater company to teach in schools across the country where arts programs have been cut. This is good for them and good for Loli – if she can keep her head together. She struggles along, looking forward to Beatrice because that is also her mother’s name. And when she gets there, there is Molly Malone. Molly has a beautiful mother. Married. But unhappy! In fact, the guy is a real jerk. Maggie and Loli have an affair, keep it secret from Molly who is finding her creative and scholarly self under Loli’s guidance at school. After Beatrice, Loli returns to New York, leaving Molly behind to deal with her bad marriage, and Maggie to continue her struggles in school. She herself has to come to grips with her relationship with Simone, as well as her escalating mental illness in the form of her mother’s voice. Her father is dying. Everything comes to a head, and is resolved.
This reviewer cringed at the ethics (or morals) of messing around in Molly and Maggie’s lives, especially as the protagonist barely knew them and wasn’t going to be around when things got ugly. The author created a protagonist with no apparent awareness of the realities the vast majority of people – particularly women – face in today’s world. This tale is set in a time of budget cuts, and the theater company who hires Loli is struggling, yet Walden writes of daily psychiatric visits, spur of the moment flights, and shoplifting candy bars with her grown sister before jumping into their BMW as if these are routine events available to (and desired by) anyone. It may be Walden’s intent to test the consciousness of her readers. Readers can’t presume the protagonist is anything akin to the author. This is fiction, not memoir, but it may rankle.
One reviewer slammed Walden for writing “unsex[y] sex” but on that issue I have to disagree. While I sometimes thought the sex was gratuitous – I found it realistically sexy, and I was happy to read a drama with a somewhat butch protagonist.
"One More Stop" was a finalist for the 2011 Lambda Literary Award for debut drama. Given Ms. Walden’s track record in her other ventures, her next novel will no doubt be more original, have a swiftly moving plot, and be more mindful of her audience’s realities. I will keep the faith.

Asylum No More

Asylum No More is the title I'm trying out today for my new play. One of my playwright friends suggested Asylum. I like it. I like a few more words.
When you see the above title, what do you picture in your mind, or hear in your head? Do you think no more sanctuary? Or the end of an insane asylum? Maybe both? Both would be ideal. Either one is good.
The one word title could be good as well. Because it means both things: sanctuary and loony bin. My protagonist works at the State Asylum. She helps people escape. By the end of the play, she will leave the asylum forever, and she will also try to put an end to the hospital itself.
I've decided on which characters are necessary for the play. I've outlined it. I've done the 15 beat sheet. I have a working title. In the next couple of days I will begin writing scenes. Today I have a murderous migraine that I can't treat until late tonight because I have an event I cannot miss. The young woman I mentored when she was in high school has finally returned to college as an adult and is graduating from college tonight, and has invited me. I wouldn't dream of missing this special occasion. So today, I'm working on the title only. I'm wondering what your thoughts are about my title? Any suggestions or comments?

Working on the new play

I'd like to be able to put the title of my new play as the title of today's post, but I don't have a title yet. My working title is "the sequel" because it's the sequel to "Blue Roses." Or maybe it's a companion piece to "Blue Roses." In any case, three of the characters from BR are also in the new play. I now have the story, the characters, the beginning, and the end. I have an entire cast of characters, some of whom will not appear onstage, and today I'm going to work out which of them are so critical to the story that they MUST appear onstage.
From there I will continue on building the outline, the 15 beats, and so on. And soon I will begin writing more dialogue. I have the opening image with its few lines already written.
This has been an exciting week, working on the new play. I have visited the ScriptLab website more than a few times, looking at outlines of films. I have watched films that are in the same genre as my new play. I am once again reading Save the Cat! as I religiously follow the rules for writing my script.
What are you working on this week? Do you ever write from an outline? I have found this to be the most freeing thing I've ever done in over 30 years of writing scripts. I always thought it would be the opposite, that it would hamper my creativity. Instead, it's like fashion design: know the rules so you can be free to create something beautiful instead of a hot mess.
I've asked before, and some people told me they never use an outline, but some use mind maps (I have before). Some let the characters show the way. What has been your most successful method? Do tell.

Life and Death

This week I visited with an old friend who is waiting to die. Those are her words. She was diagnosed with breast cancer 6 years ago, had radiation and was pronounced cancer-free. A year later it metastasized to her bones and lungs. She moved into hospice several years ago. She became one of the few people to live longer than expected. Finally she has been given 9-12 months to live, but she is eager for the 6 months mark so she can take advantage of Oregon's Death with Dignity law. Her doctor promised at the outset to help her end her life when she had only 6 months left. For a long time she still had enough quality of life left that she was in no hurry, but this week she told me she is marking time. She sleeps as much as possible to speed up the process.
This morning I learned that another friend, one I haven't seen in years, a much younger friend, died last week of a heart attack, and is at this moment being laid to rest. I missed the service because I learned of it just a little too late. She was a great talent and wonderful spirit. She directed my solo show on my 40th birthday, one I decided to put on for 50 of my closest friends to show "what forty looks like" to the total mortification of my teenage daughter. She had no idea I would strip naked. My director didn't judge me, she helped me do everything to the best of my abilities. I may have been my most creative self under her tutelage. She leaves a great hole in Portland and the world. RIP Carolyn Holzman.
And that is life.
Death. Dying. Holes ripped in our universe, scars left on our hearts as we experience loss of loved ones, and even of those we never knew. Consider 9/11. As we approach the 10th anniversary of the day the World Trade towers came down, the Pentagon was attacked, and Flight 93 was hijacked, we are reminded of lives that were lost, which reactivates all the grief we still have stored in our bodies, our minds, our hearts. My friend Pema Teeter is doing a beautiful thing over on her blog from now till 9/11/11 -- she's writing a story a day to help us all heal, and she's inviting you to write as well. Check it out: http://www.storycharmer.com/

Blue Roses news and Poetry news. NEWS in other words.

I am busy lining up a director for my New York reading of Blue Roses at the Dramatists Guild Friday Night Lights series on October 28, 2011 at 6pm. Stop by if you are in Manhattan that evening. The play runs between 60-75 minutes. You can still make your 8pm show.
I will have finished a first draft of the sequel to Blue Roses by then, which I can pitch at will to anyone who shows interest, and maybe to strangers who will listen, just for practice. (Pitching your story is critical if you're a writer who wants to get produced.)
On the poetry front: I received a late night email from Binge Press and Productions. They want to publish my mini-chapbook "Invert Sugar" of lesbian poems. I'm quite happy about it. They produce these minis, not to make money, but to promote poets. I'll receive 50, fifty!, of these little charmers, plus 100 broadsides of one of the poems from the book to promote myself, and they will sell as many as they can at places like the AWP, book fairs and readings.
Serendipity much? I'll be giving away books and broadsides at my reading, won't I? And handing out business cards, of course. Speaking of which, my new cards sport ALL my social network info: google+, Twitter, blogspot, Facebook, website, email and cell. What do you include on your card?

At least one more time on Government Debt Ceiling issues

What I really want to call this would result in too many swear words, and I hope I have a better vocabulary than that. This country has devolved into one of a rising population below the poverty line, a shrinking middle class, and 1% who controls more than 80% of the money. And that 1% pays little to no taxes. They do not want to pay taxes. They want those of us who live below the poverty line to pay taxes, the shrinking middle class to pay taxes, those who are out of work to pay taxes. They want us to have little to no education, little to no health care, and no Social Security. No Veterans' Benefits. No Welfare. They would be happier if we would all just curl up and die, leaving any property we might own to them.
I have had it with the rich who do not produce jobs, who outsource jobs, who pay no taxes, who do no charity work, who don't believe in social welfare, or the golden rule.
I take back anything I said earlier about being willing to compromise that didn't include taxing the rich. (Did I say that? surely not.) Tax them to the gills, but certainly at least tax them in a way that doesn't include loopholes. Tax and spend! If by spend you mean: Pay our bills, why yes, Senator, that is precisely what I mean. And I note that many of the bills we have run up include a great deal of pork for your state, your home town, your county. I also note you personally have benefited from your lobbyists, your backers, your friends, your cronies. I notice that YOU have healthcare, a paycheck, a home, schools for your children. And who is that pays for those things exactly? Oh that's right: the government. Kiss my foot. And then, raise the debt ceiling!

Social Security Checks

Even if the government does go into default, Social Security still has money in its account to pay benefits. There is no reason not to send out Social Security checks unless the government raids the SS account to pay its other bills -- like payroll to Congress or something it thinks is more important than the old and disabled, or the widows and children of deceased workers.
When the media, or the politicos tell the public that the government isn't going to send out Social Security checks, they do so in order to WAKE US UP. We are now counting down the days until the government runs out of its ability to borrow any more money.
We have not been paying attention, because we do not think we ARE the government. Well, what do we think WE THE PEOPLE OF THESE UNITED STATES means? We elect these representatives, these congress people who are at loggerheads, who don't seem able to reach a compromise so that our government can pay its bills. WE do. YOU and I do. We have to light the fire under their chairs.
We have to write our congress people, sign petitions, call them on the phone, send email, tweet, however you reach your representatives. NOW IS THE TIME. Okay, I'm sorry to be be shouting. I'm a little impatient. With all of us. Especially with our so-called representatives.
We have to get to yes.