Saturday, 8/14/10 - Estate Sale (a story in the making)

The process of writing a story is not a linear progression from concept to creation. Often, it is a mindful muddling through murk and muck that results in something crisp, clean and clear. What you are about to read is one thought for a story that I dictated into a small hand-held recorder while driving. I have tried to include everything that was vocalized (including the pauses, the mutterings and the stutterings).

This is just the stream-of-consciousness that occurred after the initial thought and the tracery through its twists and turns.

I will write this story one day but it will probably be too long for this blog.

Enjoy,
GFK




Estate Sale

I would like to do a piece on an estate sale where...

... there is a portrait of the person who has died. Ummm. Annnd, it-it-it's a painting,... huh..., it's really quite beautiful. It's well done. Ummm. But, nobody pays any attention to it. It gets knocked over. It gets stepped on.

Ummm. This was the owner... of all the things that they're sorting through trying to find a bargain.

The amount of disrespect... shown... as they, as they rummage through all this person has left behind...

And, I don't know how to tell it.

From whose perspective? Ummm...

Or how to tie in that painting and give you the history on it. Ummm, such that their actions DO become disrespectful. Ummm...

I-i--ah-a-a-a if I tell it from their point it's just, you know, something in their way. If I tell it from the viewpoint .... maybe from the owner! who is dead but watching. Ummm, and - and maybe they're, they're -- ooooooh, that's an interesting thought! Maybe they're directing people to different items.

Maybe they can read people's minds - and, and, maybe not even read their minds but, but know who they are and know what they might be interested in and kinda lead them. Whisper to them that they should look here, open this drawer or, you know, look under this.

But in the process... ooooh! and maybe it's the painting that's actually watching them. And they can't leave until... duh, duh the dead person, their spirit can't leave until after the sale is over or until after the picture is sold - and no one wants it.....

And, maybe there's a conversation that goes on in front of the painting... baaaaaa, some people are talking disrespectfully about ... some of the stuff there and maybe the final comments are about how awful this picture is. How, how...... you know... I don't know, something... something not very nice about, about the picture or the person in the picture.

Ummm...

But, but that might work, that, that might do it. That might give me the opportunity to tie everything together if it's the owner, who's dead, who is now talking and directing people and telling them.... where the good stuff is. Ummm, ... And helping them find those bargains.

And maybe keeping other people away from them. May-maybe there's some people who are mean and, and they don't want them to own their things.

I don't know.

It's....

It could, it could work. We could spend some time on that one. Probably not going to happen in an hour. We'll save that for one of the longer works.

Or, uhhh, the longer thought periods. The work itself might still be quite short b-but it may take some time to get the perspective right and the events - each individual event that, that happens in that ... estate sale... ummm, e-e-each one has to be important, they can't just be, you know, a spoon or a fork, there has to be a story behind it that-that somehow ties to the person who's looking for it.

Ummm, a-a-and we ha-have to weave the two lives together: the-the dead person's life and their belongings with the person who is looking for the bargain and their life and how that plays in with them so that it is seamless. So that the two work together.

That will be a challenge.

An-and all of it building up and culminating in wha-what was hopefully going to be a release for this person who is dead ... but, might not in fact be. B-b-b it might be that the release they were looking for isn't coming.

Ummm, or maybe it is. Maybe, maybe that's it. Maybe they... have tied too much to them self and .... the realization that ... nobody wants them, they just want their things.

That might be the point at which the dead person finds release. It's because they were holding on, hoping for someone to want them and nobody really does.


THAT'S KINDA SAD!

But, ummm, it mi-might be the point of the story is-is to not hang onto yourself so hard.

Ummm, and, you know, to allow people to have the things they want and you can't force yourself on someone.

So, uhhhhhh-I-i-i-I'll work on that one.