100th Blog Entry

Dear readers,

That does sound very 19th century, doesn't it?

This is my 100th blog entry. Over the past eleven-plus months and 200 pages of writing, I have shared with you chunks of research, family stories, musings, history, short stories that are if not 100% factual at least truthful, observations and discoveries about my paternal great-grandmother Leta's scandalous and remarkable life. I hope you have enjoyed reading the various entries. I also hope you are interested in reading the book, once it's finished.

For this entry, I have a kind of puzzlement. On occasion I have had to seriously contemplate how to approach more sensitive material. After all, some of the people in this story are still living (including myself) and a couple of them are quite sensitive about what I’m sharing. It seems to them that I am airing some family dirty laundry, and that by studying and writing about my great-grandmother's life, I am disrespecting her. On the other hand, I believe that I am attempting to honor her by sharing her incredible story.

But lately I have been considering another aspect of the story that could be construed as far more scandalous, and maybe even a bit embarrassing. The information is highly sensitive.

I think there is a family secret, and it seems to be fitting more and more prominently into the novel, or at least into my background work on it.

I am nearly positive that including this information in the story would be met with quite a lot of resistance and not by only the more sensitive members of my family either. Still I am also thinking that to write about it in a more surreptitious way would be dishonest, not to mention obvious anyway. So that is my current dilemma.

This dilemma will need to be addressed at a later date, however.

I am sad to share that for the next few weeks, Scandalous & Remarkable is going on hiatus. This is because I need to focus my creative energies on my new solo play—Mercy Buckets—which is premiering at the San Francisco Fringe Festival in September. I want the blog writing to be good; I also want the show to be good. With a new day job in the mix, I don't want to take the chance of either one being less than it could.

However, I will be back, for there is much more to Leta’s story to consider and write. Catch you later.