Just Saying Hi!

I know,  nobody just says 'Hi' in a blog post anymore!

I 've been working on Concerto for a while,  and i can't stand it anymore!  I've been reading Jane the last couple of days, and I'm totally in love with those twins!  If you haven't looked at Jane,  this is an opportunity to figure out whether you could stand to read any of my stuff.  What Jane has is a number of interesting characters, and not a lot else!  There; I've put my cards on the table.

Concerto, which is intended to summarize-- and finish off-- the Helen story, is very difficult for me. What the plot needs,  and what my heart wants are different, and I'm going to have to write two endings,  which seems totally stupid.

So,  TTYL!

KAY.

Some Computer Questions! And, in praise of Comediennes; And more about Helen's Concerto, the Story

So, I have a few questions!

Normally, I'm pretty sharp about all sorts of computer and software-related matters, but there is one issue that puzzles me, and it has to do with making clear what a folder contains.  I suppose for people who undertake large projects, keeping their files organized is a sort of routine.  But when I open up a folder--such as, for example, the folder in which I keep fragments having to do with Helen's health--I have absolutely scores of files, all having to do with the same topic, such as diabetes, or depression.  To find something I need, I often need to browse numerous files.  Sometimes I have to browse through numerous folders.

Even as I browse, I discover that folders with identical names, sitting in different locations, have quite different contents, and the way I have named them is quite appropriate.  This means I can't rename them, to make their contents any easier to identify.  So my question is this:

Is there some way to put a note in a folder, so that its contents are immediately clear?

For instance, in Beach (Helen at the Beach--which is, in fact, quite an important episode, and not by any means a mere description of a holiday Helen has), there is a file that contains the whole episode, with a magazine article that Kristen happens to stumble upon, which is set out as a table.  There is also a file that contains the same story, but with the little portion that has the table as a graphic.  (Writing for an epub reader is a pain.)

To make things worse, I have the entire Helen saga with the table, and the entire Helen saga with the table in a graphic.  obviously, if I were a professional writer, I would have no end of organizational techniques to manage all these things; and the same goes if I was just naturally an organized person.  So, before all my highly-organized readers get on their hind-legs and howl condemnation about disorganized people (remember, half the population of the earth is probably less organized than you, and they deserve to live, too), let's just be kind to me, and agree that 'organization-improving techniques' are not the issue.  I just want to be able to document what is in a folder. Of course I could just have a file somewhere, say something like _What's in here,_ where I carefully describe the contents of the folder.  I didn't want to take that route just in case there was a feature provided by Microsoft Windows itself (or themselves, as the case may be) that does precisely this.  Or, maybe there is another way of handling the problem, short of packing all the information into the name of the folder, which is disgusting. 

---

I was just watching the Ellen De Generes show, and the guests were Jane Fonda, and Lily Tomlin.  Both of the older actresses are sharp women, and I suppose that Ellen was feeling a little nervous having them on (but perhaps not; Ellen has had incredibly sharp and famous people on her show, and of all people, these two guests are very unlikely to do anything that would show Ellen at a disadvantage), but that's not what I want to talk about.

I was struck by how sharp the two guests were, tossing the ball back and forth, with just the right amount of commentary on the subject!  Many of you probably know about the Jerry Seinfeld series in which he goes around in gorgeous--often vintage--cars, getting coffee with other comedians.  Asked about the show, he said that he really liked the company of other comedians.  They were on his wavelength, and he said that he enjoyed the give-and-take, the banter, and even the put-downs!  I watched two shows: one with Alec Baldwin, and the other with Jimmy Fallon, and they were a riot!  (The Alec Baldwin show was a little enervating; I felt that Baldwin was a little on the defensive, which made the conversation come across as a little too edgy.  With Jimmy Fallon, it was the opposite; the guest (Jimmy) was so sweet and comfortable and self-effacing that I sort of cringed.

Getting back to Fonda and Tomlin: I loved the show hugely, and even when Jane Fonda was sitting quietly, trying to think of a snappy comeback, when it came, sometimes the topic had shifted just slightly, that she had to make an adjustment in mid-flight, which she always managed to do!  Perhaps it is something comedians of both genders learn to do.

Just an Update of the (Progress on) the Helen Conclusion

The Conclusion (Helen's Concerto)  is coming along nicely, but if I spend as much time on it as I should, it will take ages.  I'll probably end up compromising, and spending some time cleaning it up, but publish it with some significant flaws, and proceed to tinker with it over a year or two (but of course, you would automatically have access to those updates on Smashwords.)

The main problem, of course, is that this Conclusion does draw upon numerous characters who knew Helen at one time or another.  Some of the most delicious characters only appear in a single episode, or not in any published episode.  Or, I was too chicken to spell out what happened in detail, and only include a sanitized version of the story; this is what happened in the (actually, still unpublished!) Helen Teaches Calculus.  That story has a lot of explicit sex, and I was reluctant to put it up for that reason.  At this point, I wanted Helen to take the blame for the split between Helen and Rain, because Helen was becoming too much of a nice person.  Unfortunately, in some ways, Helen Teaches Calculus pushes Helen too far in the not nice direction, just as Flowershop Girl does.

As I write this Conclusion though, Calculus becomes important for yet another reason.  The main character, other than Helen, in that episode is a student called Angie.  Helen comes dangerously close to having sex with a student, which is something no professor wants to have happen.  But Angie, and another character, Stephanie Robbins, (who appears in Sharon Vuehl) become important in the conclusion, and unless I include the entire Calculus episode in the Conclusion, poor Angie would be left to bear too much of a responsibility in the conclusion, and make the whole thing less plausible, and dramatically weak.

(Some feeble-minded professors do have sexual relationships with their students, most  professors are tempted, but have the strength of character to resist.  Helen does resist, but it is a close run thing, to quote someone whose name I forget.)  I hate the thought that some readers might jump at the conclusion that Helen did have a sexual relationship with a student, or that I wanted Helen to have a sexual relationship with a student, or that Professors often have sexual relationships with students.  If I ever do publish the Calculus episode, you would have some insight into the whole issue of faculty-student romantic entanglements, and if not an objective perspective, at least my perspective on the issue.

I did say that many professors are tempted, but have the strength to resist.  That last is hard to decide one way or another.  I, for one, was never approached inappropriately by any professor.  But of course, I was no great beauty; would a professor stalk you if you were a babe?

Of course, Helen is suspected of sexual harassment, right after Helga, a parody movie in which the main character, Helga, (played by Helen) has an affair with another woman.  If Helen is a lesbian in the movie, and if she is a confessed lesbian anyway, she is probably harassing her students, the reasoning went.

This is why it is so important that gay and lesbian rights be given: to engage in sex appropriately, to marry, to be allowed to have all reasonable rights that straight people have.  The vast majority of horror stories that have been discovered with sexual harassment have a closet homosexual, or a closet sexual predator at the center of it, such as an In-the-closet teacher, or a priest who is required to be celibate.

I put into Helen's mouth what I feel about the whole issue.

It was the last couple of weeks of classes.  The President had just had a press conference at which he had, with barely restrained anger, said that Westfield was an excellent institution, and that he deplored the baseless accusations that were being made (against the school, and against Dr. Helen Nordstrom).

Helen was persuaded to appear on a news interview.  Was she a lesbian?  Yes, she said; she was bisexual.  Was she a threat to her students?  Absolutely not, she said.  She had never approached a student sexually.

Had she ever had sex with a student?

Helen had thought for a while.

“If it ultimately helps the College and the students,” she said with a tight smile, “I think I could steel myself to answer questions that are a little more invasive than is customary.  But …”

“Dr. Nordstrom, please; I want to make it clear that I don’t want to …”

“Let me finish,” Helen interrupted.  “The students come first, and then the College, and then other lesbians and homosexuals out there in my position.  The more it becomes normal to cross-examine a person like me about my relationships, the more it seems as though we’re perverts and predators.  There’s always a temptation for a teacher to become emotionally involved with her students.  Teaching is an invasive thing, a loving thing.  I sometimes hug my students—when they’re comfortable with it.  But that’s not sex.

“Now, I’m comfortable making the following statement: I have never had a sexual relationship with any student whom I was teaching.  I think any college professor should be able to say that.  To have such a relationship is a betrayal of trust.  But I would refuse to answer a more general question about my sexual habits on principle.  I don’t see myself as a threat to any institution, and I invite you to ask anyone, my friends, my students, my enemies.  Anyone at all.  Every relationship I have had has been based on mutual respect and love.  I have never forced myself on anyone!”

The interviewer nodded, letting Helen wipe her eyes.

Teaching is a loving thing.  It is an invasive thing.  After all, you're trying to persuade your students into thinking in unfamiliar ways, and in more senior classes, these ways, these thought-patterns, might be far removed from those the student came in with, and so it is invasive, but of course, in a benign way.  (Some professors are probably guilty of enjoying this invasion, but one hopes that there are few such professors, and one hopes that his or her colleagues soon straighten him or her out quickly.)   In college and university, ideally, professors engage in this sort of earnest persuasion because they love their subject, and because they are convinced that their perspective is the most productive one for their students.  (Of course, this is a problem in politics and sociology, because often parents do not share the same political or social philosophy as the professor does, as we have seen above!)

I must make clear that I did not deliberately set out to write these stories in this way, with the conscious aim of educating my readers; but having been a teacher myself, I sometimes agonize over the fact that students and their parents, may not understand my motivations.  Why does Miss Brown teach this material, and in this way?  Why does she look so unhinged sometimes?  Ideas matter to teachers, (at least, they should,) and often it is not possible to present the ideas as if the teachers were automatons.  I addressed some of these ideas in an as yet unpublished story called Emily, which I might never publish; it is a little too autobiographical!

Well, the problem with Angie Connors and Stephanie Robbins illustrate the problems I have to deal with in almost every page of the conclusion!  But I'm about two-thirds of the way through.

Kay Hemlock Brown

A Happy New Year!

A Happy New year to all of us!  Let's brace ourselves to stoically endure the inevitable shenanigans that will be inflicted on us.  We can only save ourselves with extreme resilience.  We can do it!

Love to you all,

Kay.

Plans for Finishing the Helen Saga

I'm still at work, finishing up the book that will, I hope, bring the Helen "saga" to completion.  (By now everyone who reads these blog-posts knows that I hadn't planned to ever publish the Helen story, because it was (had been, anyway,) almost pure erotica.  But without my consciously trying, I found myself writing decent prose in the Helen files, and my friends urged me to publish it, at least in small chunks.)

About half the way through the saga, Helen becomes a college professor, and her life settles into a sort of groove, where after each adventure, after she has met each interesting new person, she heads back to her nest, her house near the school at which she teaches.

While still a professor, Helen sneaks off and acts in a few movies under an assumed name, and it's that escapade that influences Helen's life quite drastically.  So, if there was a central plot to the Saga, it was this fact, and its fallout, and that's what is being packed into Helen and Sharon Vuehl.  If you're not desperately interested in how Helen's story works out, that enormous episode (Helen and Sharon) should suffice; you could imagine any ending you wish; it's fiction, anyway.

Many of the people Helen meets and become friends with, however, are characters whom I love; and Elly, Janet's daughter, and Tommy (Tomasina), the child of Grandma Elly's old age, both have interesting side-adventures, and I didn't want to lose them.  Let's face it; I tend to publish the stories I find interesting, and not what my readers would find interesting; not because I'm mean, but because . . . I'm not really an author.

OK, it's time for a rant.  A lot of young authors are trying to write what will sell.  They learn how to do this in college, and some of them are very, very good at it.

Now I, too, want my writing to be read, but it is more for the sake of my pride in those depraved characters that I dreamed up (unfortunately, most of them very similar to each other!  Oh, I hope nobody reads this blog-post; many of you readers will possibly be negatively influenced by my confessions here).

Meanwhile, I was weeping as I butchered the parts of the story that had to be inserted in the the Sharon Vuehl segment, and I was weeping as I read the finished product at home, because of all the darlings that I thought I had killed off.  But nay; many of them live in
Helen at the Beach,
Little John Finds a Friend,
Helen and the Flowershop Girl,
Helen vs. Handel's Messiah,
and the one that I had forgotten:  Helen's Eventful Summer.

To get back to my rant: I personally feel that there is a difference between the craftmanship that goes into creating a highly readable book or novel, in contrast to a piece of writing that seems to want to be written, and which is not crafted carefully at all.  Admittedly, many of the most wonderful books that have been written do involve a great deal of crafting, which is so well done that there is no remaining sign of the craftmanship that has gone into it; one forgets about the art.  I can never hope to write such a piece; I go along, reporting the action, trying to polish it at the sentence level, instead of taking charge of the plot lines.  In literature it isn't so bad; in movies, the straining to make a movie more commercial is so . . . not good.  Sometimes you think, They had to kill off character X right there, because they needed the audience to be horrified, before Y happened, and so on.

Well, you're thinking, those are the words of an author who doesn't have the guts to have anyone killed off in her story.

(Actually, I did.  I had Pat Wallace---Lisa Wallace's mother---commit suicide in the back of a bus while returning from a performance of the COO.  Well, she is dead shortly after Helen begins teaching at Westfield, but I don't mention it anywhere;   It is present only in my handwritten manuscripts.  Helen now has all Pat and Lisa's violins.  Pat has a major role only in Helen Backstory: Cindy, Lisa, etc.)  I had too much happening with Helen in that first year at Westfield, and I had to give up something.  I also gave up Helen's first Carols with the Bands of the Armed Forces event, just because Helen had to go out to Woodford in the UK to meet Evelyn (Rain) Woodford's parents.  I also gave up Helen playing in a celebrity tennis tournament in Virginia, with Sophie Cocteau!)

Well, if you're a writer, I herewith give you full permission to kill off anyone you need to, (fictionally, of course) because I really have no business giving people pointers about how to write.  I leave that to the professionals.  Of course, that (killing off characters) makes your story a little more theatrical; stage plays necessarily have small casts, for practical reasons.  In real life, most people have more than a dozen friends, who interact with the person in meaningful and necessary ways.  And author who (unlike me) wants to focus the action on a small cast has to resort to using clever tricks, such as conflating several characters into one.  I suppose amalgamating is a better word.

To get back to the closing book of the series:  I invariably get sidetracked when I start writing, because I feel the need to justify everything.  There are so many women in the Helen story who need to be given a happy ending; they just cannot be allowed to have that ending with Helen.  Helen will be a burden with so many of them; I want Helen and her woman to be independent and comfortable.  I was trying to make Helen and Maryssa independent and comfortable---and they were, I think, before disaster struck.   Maybe I should just have Helen killed off, and save myself a lot of trouble.  As it is, I'm having trouble keeping myself from writing happy endings for people you readers have never even met!  Yes; I'm hopeless.

By the way, I read that the ACLU was pioneering a two-week boycott of Facebook, to protest their complicity in the Russian propaganda onslaught against the Democrats in 2016.  So I'm not visiting Facebook for at least another week.  But nothing happens on Facebook for me, because nobody knows I'm on there.  (I have a personal page, and I'm not visiting that, either.)

Added later:  I just checked on the statistics provided by Google, and realized that there are more visits when I write political commentary on this blog, rather than when I write about my stories!  So what should I do?  Should I only write political commentary, or should I just settle for a half-dozen readers for each post?  I'm going for the latter.

Kay

The Galactic Voyager : The Epilogue

I promised to write a last installment of the Helen story, right after I finished Helen and Sharon Vuehl.  (I'm confused; I keep thinking that everyone knows what episodes I have published, and which I have not, and of course, neither is the case; some of you haven't obtained some of the more dull-sounding episodes that are available, and none  of you have seen the ones that are not  up on Smashwords, so . . .)  So, anyway, I ought to be working like mad, trying to write that epilogue.

Readers who have only read the Music on the Galactic Voyager are probably wondering what I am talking about, because the Voyager story is essentially a "one-of" story.  What you don't know is that there is an entire series of Helen stories, about a musician and professor on Earth, who has various adventures, including starring in a TV series as a musician called Cecilia Yorke.  The Music on the Galactic Voyager  is simply an expansion of the plot of that TV series, replacing Cecilia Yorke with Helen.  Only, in the Music story, Helen does not have amnesia, and never did, so it is not the same person.  OK, that explains to each sort of reader what the relationship between the two Helens is.

Well, I have been working on the conclusion of the earth-bound Helen saga, and it is a lot of work.  I want to take a brief holiday, and work on the Music on the Galactic Voyager  for a few weeks.  I have a few ideas.

I love symmetry and balance, but if I keep looking for symmetry and balance in the storyline, it will take considerably longer, and everyone will be frustrated, so I'm going to just try to make it satisfying in simple ways.  In particular, I want things to work out nicely for poor little Lena, my favorite.

Wishing all my readers a happy holiday season, and lots of lovely music!

Progress Report: How Helen is Coming Along

To recap:

Helen at Ballet Camp was repaired, but I designed the headers to be in green.  Smashwords hates that, apparently, and they refuse to send the book to their premium publishers (Amazon, Kobo, Nook and such places) unless I de-colorize Ballet Camp, which I'm not going to do.  My goodness; what a reason to censor a book!  I understand that they must have standards, but these standards seem rather arbitrary.

I also noticed problems with Lost Years: Helen and Lalitha; I repaired that, which was, in my mind, a serious episode, and it is now uploaded.

I also fixed some problems with Helen on the Run, and it is on-line.  This is one of my favorite episodes; I urge you to read it!  Please, please!

Helen and Sharon, unlike the other Helen and X stories, is not about Helen having an affair with Sharon.  It is about a complex escapade that Helen and Marsha plan, in which Helen impersonates an entirely fictitious actress, Sharon Vuehl, and acts in several movies.  The masquerade is so amazingly successful that Helen has to deal with a whole set of relationships that various people begin with Sharon, not least her costar Sita Maunder, the sister of the aforementioned Lalitha.  While Helen lays the Sharon escapade to rest fairly quickly, the ghost of Sharon keeps popping up to haunt Helen long afterwards.  Only Marsha, Lorna, Maryssa and eventually Sita, know about the masquerade.

Then, after many awful incidents that take place to hurt and injure Helen, she has a relapse of her brain tumor, and loses her memory, which means that she does not recall ever having been Sharon.

Helen and Sharon is the account of all this, in sort of Novel Form, because I despair of actually writing up the Helen story in a nice rounded form.  The Sharon theme is actually the main plot line of the story, so after this sub-project is completed, I'm going to call it quits.  In theory, I can replace the brief descriptions in each chapter of Sharon with the entire text of where it has been taken from, because I'm trying to strip out all the non-Sharon detail from them, because in a Sharon-centric universe, all this other material would seem irrelevant.

I also started work on the completion of the Helen story.  It is called Helen's Concerto.  Some of the most satisfying parts of Helen that I have written have to do with Helen's life while at Westfield, the college where she goes to teach.  (Readers will only know about the school from occasional references in Helen at the Beach, and Helen and the Flowershop Girl.)

One of the most interesting characters that enter the story in those years, the three years preceding Helen's meeting with Maryssa, is Isolde Wells, a very young violinist and multi-talented instrumentalist from England.  Isolde visits the US, and plays several concertos with the Impromptu Ensemble and Chorus.  Of course, Maryssa, the daughter of Diane Brooks, and Sita, the sister of Lalitha, are also major characters.

Well, I wanted to whine about the difficulty of extracting a thread from a larger work, but I'm running out of whining steam.  A lot of the chapters in Sharon are a little dull, because the excitement often comes from minor characters, which I try to remove.  I should say tried to remove, because the book is now complete, and uploaded, and has evidently not made a single sale!  Well, one reason is that the cover is not very sexy, and another reason is that it isn't free!  (With free books, I don't really know whether anyone has actually read it, though it is reported as a sale by Smashwords.  I suppose I could re-price it at $0.99, which is their minimum price.)  I can't do a sexy cover, because I can't afford professional artwork, nor can I afford (yet) digital artistic production equipment!

Kay