Charlie has lived in many places around the world and has worked as a teacher, computer programmer, corporate executive, auto mechanic, entrepreneur, and farmer. He retired in 2005 and has devoted himself to writing, travel, spiritual growth, tinkering with cars and motorcycles, chasing women, and staying alive.
Years ago, a lady sent me a “Dear John” letter which included the comment that I moved through life like a “GLACIER”. All these years later, I’m starting to understand what she was talking about. For example, the novel I am currently working on, “Esmeralda” started in my mind 20 years ago at a party where I listened in horror to a story being told by a lady guest. The lady boasted of rescuing her 23-year-old son from the potentially horrible embarrassment he risked by offering his girlfriend a gross and preowned engagement ring. I still cringe when I recall this story of a hovering negative mother, and my subconscious mind nagged me about it for years, so I finally wrote a short story about a middle-class, Jewish boy from Connecticut who, as a college music major, goes to Mexico with a group to study folk music in Veracruz, falls in love with a Mexican hooker and is conned into buying an emerald ring for her, from her uncle. When he gets home, he excitedly shows his mom the ring and tells her of his love and marriage plans. And THEN…
Once I start the writing, the story EMERGES, like lava from a volcano. Characters emerge and say and do things that totally surprise me. By the time the story ends, it bears little connection to how it started. Like a GLACIER…
Years ago, I used to race motorcycles, and one day at the track I got set up and ready to race at my home track in Loudon, New Hampshire. The racers camped out next to me included an old geezer who turned out to be the racer’s grandpa. Over the course of the weekend of racing, I chatted with these neighbors and came away with a deep appreciation for the love they had for their grandpa, and also for how much it meant to grandpa to be included…the joy it brought him. Years later I wrote a short story about this, and then…KABOOM! A few years later, like the lava from a volcano… the fictitious grandpa in the short story becomes a complete and complex character in “Track Lessons”.
hmmmm … how about “Keepin’ it real Storytelling”
