Something I wrote

Thought I'd give you all a taste of the book I'm writing. My process is evolving as I go. I've decided to either, a., get thirty single-spaced pages down, which is 60 double, and then trim and edit and write more, b. just keep going, or c. read the first thirty pages to give me an idea of where to go next. Like I said, it's evolving. Anyhoo, here's something I just wrote:


My paternal grandmother’s house was a treasure trove to dig around in, too. Her husband was an alcoholic shopaholic, a disease combination the result of which was 81 acres of land that was peppered with junk cars and boats and trailers and even a school bus, and a two-story, 11-room house and several outbuildings that just almost literally groaned with stuff. And when I say stuff I mean at least three of almost anything you could think of in the world, plus a lot of stuff you might not have given much thought to at all. There were hatboxes, endless hatboxes, with all sorts of hats, hats with feathers (and one covered entirely in feathers), hats with netting, straw hats, bowler hats. There was a whip made out of a rhinoceros tail. A blurry black and white picture of a group of mustached doctors standing around an autopsy table, complete with dead, splayed-open body. Cosmetics from the 1940’s. Cars from the 1950’s. Record albums from the 1960’s. Broken violins. Spare parts good only for watches. Cars good only for spare parts. Shoes without mates. Heels without soles. You never knew what you were going to uncover and I dug around until I was 27 years old and didn’t get to the bottom of it. My father is still going through boxes from the place, three years after he sold it. Just yesterday he handed my grandmother a white cardboard candy box with a poison ring, a Mexican silver bracelet, a stone bead necklace, and two miniature handmade pewter ladles half the size and width of your pinky finger inside.