Cricket and Gray: An Outline

Cricket and Gray
(the first real outline I've written since high school
which, for any math impaired people,  was 23 years ago.)


1. Cricket's father dies
      a. broken shovel digs a grave
      b. death taxes presume
      c. the 45 caliber resume

2. Meet Gray with knife at his throat
      a. neighbors with no benefits
      b. preparing for the job
      c. tangling with the devil

3. The wrath of Ruth
      a. meddling with personal poison
      b. holding up the walls with tape
      c. the radar is a limbo line

4. The convoy with a princess and a prince
      a. Gray guards the priceless "goods"
      b. Cricket babysits the precious "delivery"
      c. delicate females bake petit fours for war

5. Siege
      a. guns wake the guard
      b. Kung Fu is better than bullets
      c. the dowry is saved and virtue is wrapped in cotton

6. A temple of sins waits for the precious
      a. flesh delivered first and fires fail to ignite
      b. syrups for alleyways, medicine for the damned
      c. the long ride home

7. Minstrels at campfire
      a. beast of burden loses shoe south of city
      b. shaky whiskey and Irish ballads
      c. warning comes in morning, with notes

8. The mighty arrest
      a. melancholy reflections
      b. cousin-kissing skeletons
      c. further revelations about a bride

9. The crooked and the crooked waltz
      a. retro mustache takes a fall
      b. if ghosts weren't ghosts, they'd bleed
      c. a Mayoral ball skids with bullets

10. Cricket mends a shot shoulder on the acre
      a. comfrey rising in the season of death
      b. her kingdom for a cuppa
      c. a bunker for a prince


Writing the new book commences.  The first time you write a book it's like the first time you do anything: sharp edges, rounding empty hallways and suddenly smashing into the milling masses, the shock, the deep unquiet hours, the excitement of laying down not knowing if you will rise again, the exploration of your tolerance, the plumming of your black heart to find what still thrives at 3 am. 

Maybe the first time you square dance isn't quite as electric.

It's possible that your first cup of coffee, like mine, wasn't earth shattering.

But I say that writing your first novel is 100 times more life changing and imprinting than the first time you have sex.

The second time you write a book you have your skin on.  You have more purpose but a freer spirit.

I wrote an outline to try and guide my words.  I wrote it to help organize my story, to solidify its direction and I ended up writing it as a kind of abbreviated word roulette. 

Music is integral to my writing.  I cannot write without a soundtrack.  Clearly proof that I'm no Jane Austen.  My first novel was punctuated by my friend Tara's introduction of "The Walkmen" to me,  heavily peppered with Bob Dylan, and my friend Lucille's introduction of "Kitka" to me.

My friend Taj has already underscored the flavor of the new book, nailing the mood with "Devotchka" and most particularly her favorite song "Commerce City Sister"

Cricket and Gray.  Life without petrol.  A pre-apocalyptic story.