Sunday, March 22, 2020

Writers are Socially Distanced and Some Frankenstein

Last weekend, I was supposed to attend the MWW Agent Fest in Muncie, IN.  Of course, this, like so many events, has been postponed until further notice.

Our fiction writing group, too, has gone virtual.

I've been working from home, enjoying the life of my cats, alternating my sweat pants and drinking lots of tea but also working long and undefined hours of work.  Not seeing many people aside from my husband is a lovely break from the typical stress and chaos of my normal life.

On the other hand, I am like many other writers.  Introverted.  Withdrawn.  Not open about my writing or myself.  This silly social distancing is lovely--but I want more time in front of my laptop and with a book.  But this is never different.

These are strange times.  I'm making the most of this (I don't watch much news, so I don't get too upset by any of this), so although I suspect I am becoming more withdrawn and introverted, this feels like a lovely vacation with lots of work.

Anyway, because of my anticipated trip to the Agent Fest and hopeful rescheduled conference, I have been reworking and revising my Frank and Gala stories.

I'm posting my pitch here:

Pitch for Frank and Gala 
There's nothing new under the sun, right?

This is another Dr. Frankenstein story.  Sort of.

Dr. Frankenstein--Dr. David Levison--moves to small-town, southern Minnesota.  He teaches at the local university in the engineering department, and he brings large grants from out East somewhere.  

He is strange.  He is a mystery.

We, the town of Winona, start to talk about Dr. Levison when he starts to do really odd things.  He engineers the introduction of a woman into town.  And we, the local people, spread lots of rumors about Dr. Levison and Sherry, his unexpected monster.

Dr. Levison tells people that Sherry is his perfect woman.  He created her.  Like Pygmalion crafted his perfect woman, Dr. Levison claims he formed Sherry to be his perfect companion.

So we start calling her Galatea, and of course, we call him Dr. Frankenstein.

We tell stories about them.  Some people think she is a robot, and some people think she is a lobtomized metal patient because something is weird about her.  Very off.  She is very beautiful but not right.

These are the stories of Frank and Gala, otherwise known as Dr. David Levison and Sherry.   The stories spread like small pox in county school.  We tell about what happens to them in our little town of Winona and how Dr. Levison's experiment is much worse than we could have imagined, much more devious than we thought.
Any thoughts or comments?  Want to read this?

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