Brooding

I've been brooding a lot about NAILS IN MY COFFIN, which I think is the writing project I'll tackle next. I'm brooding about its voice, its rhetorical style. I want something odd, askew, out of place, just the way "seniors" are askew in a youth-oriented culture. I want an ironic subtext infused into the language, almost as a theme song.

Soon, then, it's time to try a first paragraph to see if I can get close. The action, the characters, don't worry me. The tone does.

Also: after the video project I recently cast, and we have a read-through in a couple weeks, I want to try something different. I'm thinking of doing "a series," vignettes with the same two characters, a couple (seniors, married), maybe even visiting Portland, on vacation, and use this backdrop for their darkly comic insights about the contemporary scene. I'd start with them looking at Portlandia. I haven't written enough about that monstrosity. The last time was in my short story The First Stoplight in Wallowa County:

Portland was a city that commissioned Beauty and got Portlandia, a copper statue of a scantily-clad lady holding a pitchfork.

And they'll read the godawful poem about Portlandia, "follow that breath!" -- a perfect line to read as a bus zips by spewing exhaust fumes. I can hardly wait.

I definitely know the female actor I'd want to use and I am leaning toward the male actor as well. I hope they'd be interested.