Current Projects
I’m currently at work on a sequel to a novel called The Palette. It’s a supernatural thriller, and I’ll quote the proposal copy my agent came up with: “A young woman becomes enmeshed in a secret, surreal worldwide organization that sorts members according to colors on a spectrum.” And this: “Ellie Baker and Luke Martin get caught in the drama occurring between a supernatural, invisible organization called the Palette, and a humanly compromised institution known as Palette Hall.” It’s sort of a modern-day retelling of the Reformation.
One of these days I’ll be back to work on work on my Jonah project. I’m writing a story about Jonah, told on the periphery by the men he sailed with. Obsessively compulsive about research, I cashed in an IRA (Dave Ramsey, look away), hired a research assistant, and flew to Cyprus to study sailing and the Mediterranean waters Jonah got swallowed in. (That’s two sentences ending with a preposition in one paragraph. Somebody cuff me, I’ll go along quietly.) I also went to see what it was like to be thrown off a boat at full sail. (Wasn’t thrown. Jumped. The captain made me wear a lifejacket. Kinda hard to simulate drowning with a lifejacket.) Harder yet to simulate the whole whale deal. I did have my sinuses instantly cleared when I hit the salt water. Didn’t see that coming. Might be as nasty as whale bile. You never know. But I’ll tell you what–a ship at full sail runs from you fast when you’re at sea level. You’re riding a swell and it’s there, you’re down in a trough and it’s gone, you’re on the swell again and it’s tiny on the horizon…then you’re down, and when you rise again, it’s gone. And you’re all alone in the big blue sea for as long as you can tread water.
(Well…not if you’re Tracy from the United States. Then, you have a retrieval boat behind you that you try desperately to ignore so you can stay in the moment and scribble mental notes like a Fury on fire.)
In homage to Homer, who compiled his stuff about Odysseus around the same time Jonah took his famous swim, here are the opening lines to Jonah:
Sing to me, Muse, of the man and his God; Jonah the easterly, his God the westerly, and at their clashing contest, tempest–cyclonic allure.
Completion date for Jonah: unknown. I think I’m halfway done. I usually am.