Open book

Like so many authors I am in search of an agent. I had one, a brilliant one based in London with the William Morris Agency. Then they closed the agency in London and Steve Kenis started his own agency without a literary department. So my journey began. First I asked friends who write and several came up with good ideas. Willard Hope suggested I looked under a rock then he had just lost his agent in a very nasty divorce. His wife was his agent had run off with a very young ghost-writer from Philadelphia. Other writer friends recommended I send out query letters. So I did and found most went to the black bin filing cabinet beneath the desk. I needed to be creative and catch the attention of an agent who has the same taste as myself. I placed Madama Butterfly by Puccini in the CD player and let the music wash over my tense body. The tension faded and I began to be inspired only it wasn’t for an agent. An idea for a new book fizzled inside my head. I wrote the idea down k...

I rarely take notice of dreams unless I can use them in a story. The one’s I usually remember are more like a Jackson Pollock painting than a coherent image. So when I had a recurring dream that someone had stolen my underwear from its drawer I realized there was a reason for it. All I can remember in the dream is waking up and find my underwear drawer open and empty. I checked out the dream interpretation on line and found nothing very helpful. In another search I found a very interesting if not simple explanation as to what is a dream. “Dreams are the little dramas our minds make up when the "self" system is not keeping us alert to the world around us.” If this is true then my mind has more dramas than an American daytime soap. Friends often ask me to interrupt their dreams. I use common sense logic as to where they are in their life suggesting the dream is about their current situation. My fear of flying (because I am not in control of the plane) is alw...

French mine artist Marcel Marceau creator of Bip the Clown died in September 2007. I was fortunate to meet him on a live BBC radio four “Woman’s Hour” program. The interviewer was Sue MacGregor along with a family member from the Robert Brothers Circus. Topic was the importance of making people laugh. Marcel told several stories about how he gather the idea’s for Bip the Clown from what he saw on the street. It wasn’t just a man slipping on a banana skin but observation on how people stand and walk. I will always remember him miming standing at a fireplace with a drink in his hand. You believed he really had a drink. When I was teaching others how to learn the art of the clown I would always tell them to look at how people behaviour in public. Marcel said he would sit in a shopping centre in Paris just people watching, how he would love American shopping Malls. When friends say they are bored I suggest they go to the Mall and people watch. It is truly amazing how we hum...

There are times in your life when you think that someone else has a hand in your density. After watching “The Adjustment Bureau” last night I now question if those people exist. It is a beautiful love story, except for a group of men in suits and hats spending their time trying to break up the loving couple. He is destined to be the President of the United States and she a world renowned dancer/chorographer but not together. Creatively brilliant. Matt Damon and Emily Blunt were perfectly cast while Terence Stamp seemed a little wooden. I was hoping they didn’t cop out and make a cheesy ending and they didn’t. During and after watching the film I began to wonder if they the Adjustment Bureau had been playing with my life. Okay I know it’s just a movie but it leaves you thinking and to me that is the sign of a good movie. Be careful which door you open, it could lead you away from your own destiny. I pushed open the revolving door into Corporate America a complet...