I had a very quiet weekend, very quiet indeed. We never left the house on Saturday. Both of us were working on books we were enjoying as we lounged on our separate couches and read. He, �Harry Potter and the Sorcerer�s Stone� (book one) and I, �From a Buick 8� by Stephen King. From what I understand it was a beautiful sunny day but we sat in the dim of our apartment reading of far away fantasy places much the same way I used to as a child. By Saturday night My Love had finished the first of the Potter series and had turned the book over to me. I had finished the Stephen King novel by dinner and had spent the evening pestering (in jest) �Are you done yet?� Sunday morning, Potter book in hand, I sun bathed on the patio exposing my pink underbelly (now red) to the unforgiving solar emissions. I found myself halfway through the first year by the time my Darling served up pancakes and savored the final words shortly before dinner stopping only to return DVD�s and select new movies (Band of Brothers) and a short grocery trip. My Love commented on what an easy read the Potter book was and I reminded him that it was, after all, a children�s book and thus should be an easy read for us.

Still this got me thinking. What is it about the book that makes it easy to read? Stephen King books, for the most part, are an easy read for me as well and are by no means children�s books. What is it about these books that make them so easily read? The language is not really simplistic and the concepts are actually quite involved. From what I understand from friends further along in the series (meaning everyone) there is more information in the first book than there appears to be as future books reference history and events from the first novel with some frequency.

How then do you pack your story up in a way that is entertaining, readable and informative? I have written both fiction and non-fiction and I find non-fiction (biographical) so much easier to write. Perhaps it is because I am using my own voice, and perhaps because I am simply relating things as I perceive them, no embellishment required (just the facts, Ma�am) with just a touch of my humoristic bent on the world. Events + insanity + prose = entertainment.

I have always felt the secret to acting is to find the person in the character. This view has led to fights with directors over character interpretation. I found it difficult to make them understand that I could not �play� bitchy. You can not describe a character as a bitch and let it go there. There is no such animal. People are people; they have good days and bad days. Some folks have poor coping skills and/or underdeveloped accountability. Most persons of less than desirable behavior are operating from a position of fear or pain; they are attacking before they are attacked. The outer observed trait is �bitch� but the reality is so much more complex. Insanity is easier to play but still requires reason. Even the insane do what they do for a reason. The reason may be based in delusion but it is a reason none-the-less.

I supposed the success of the book then is based on characters that you care about. They are real children with problems and insecurities facing a big world with only each other to rely on. They live in a wonderful world right in our midst where children can fly, do magic and best of all study and learn. Where even when you think you know black and white you eventually have to admit the gray and all the while these wonderful children (warts and all) grow up before our eyes. It is a universal story (except for a few extreme religious bigots who can not wrap their minds around the idea of imagination and fiction). It takes us away from our lives for a little while and that�s all good, especially when you are young and struggling but also when you are old and struggling.

I wish that I could find that voice in me; the voice that speaks to others and gives them a break from �life as we know it�. I also wouldn�t mind a little extra money (JK Rowling showed us it could be done, and late in life, now didn�t she?) but more importantly I want to justify my existence. I want to be a little more than that crazy girl who never had children and died leaving not a trace to show she ever walked this earth. Most of us leave no footprint beyond our own families (our children) and there is no shame in that but we all want to leave more if we can. I would like to be able to draw my last breath knowing that I at least tried to make a mark.

I wish you Peace

~alison~

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