Every once and a while, you need to re-read your own story, and then try a re-write or two. I’m re-writing the chapter that was this last week.
In the current version, our protagonist has had an incredibly stressful, demanding work week, with high emotional investment. She’s come home alone, exhausted and anxious to an emaciated cat who has been sitting on the stoop of death’s door for months now. She can’t even get a decent night’s sleep because the emaciated cat keeps waking her with his constant need for affection and wet cat food. Her apartment is in total dis-array, and the only things in her fridge are chocolate and butterscotch sauce, a half-empty, totally flat bottle of Perrier, and some mysterious lentil salad that probably should have been pitched weeks ago. She is holding it together with Oreo cookies, and desperately wishing she had someone who loves her to come home to each night.
I’m yanking that sheet from the Smith Corona, smooshing it in one palm and lobbing it into the wastepaper basket.
Instead, I submit the following:
This week, in collaboration with some of the fiercest, brightest most hard-working women she has ever had the pleasure of knowing, our protagonist has staged asuccessful burlesque cabaret, and then went on to help launch the world premiere of a brilliant, innovative new Canadian opera that is the talk of the town. Between high-stakes rehearsals,exhilarating dates with a fascinating new romantic prospect, tete a tetes with her best pal currently residing in Montreal, negotiating deals and donations, and planning big parties with less than 48 hours notice, our protagonist has taken a brief time out today. She indulged in a leisurely bike ride and ended up at a lovely brunch with a new female friend. Then she pedaled over to Kensington market to share a pitcher with two girlfriends and some fantastically candid talk about sex. Tonight she will see the opera, enjoy a bite with a friend, and who knows what else? The world is her oyster, and she’s open to the possibilities that surround her. At the end of the day, she will drop her heels in the pile of sequined costumes and feathers strewn about her eclectic, nostalgic apartment, and drop exhausted but contented into bed, where she will be joined by the handsome feline who is living out his last days surrounded by her fabulousness.
There. That’s better.
To be continued…
