Hmmm.

So maybe I've just gotten used to publishing live every day; it feels different when I'm just writing on my laptop, on boring old Word, no live audience to produce for.

I had a new story idea; like many of my stories, it's based on a song, one I've tried to write a story about before. I realized today that I could possibly have a much easier time with it if I wrote it as a legend instead of an actual, historical novel, which requires an unfortunate amount of research. Much as I enjoy researching my stories, it's time I don't really have.

So, back again to the concept of 'Peggy-O', one of my favorite Grateful Dead ballads. It's originally a folk song, I think from the war of 1812 during the Siege of New Orleans, but I'm sort of conceptually setting most of the story's action in Charleston.

In brief, a captain in an army stops on his way to a major battle. He falls in love with a local high-ranking girl - pretty Peggy-O. He asks her to marry him, promising to free her people. She refuses, saying he's not rich enough & her mother would be angry. He responds that if he ever returns, he'll burn her city down. Later, word comes back that he's died for love of her - or perhaps for lack of a hospitable station - depending on whether you hear the line as 'he died for a maid' or 'he died for a bed'. Personally I, and I think all good romantics, would vote that he died for a maid.

So, what the hell, I'll post it on here as I write day by day. I also need to work on that poetry manuscript; I suspect this could be my way of procrastinating on that...

Curses! Okay, I'm reminded of the other really good reason for writing on Blogger - it has a better autosave than my word processor, and my laptop's power supply absolutely sucks ass, if you'll forgive the poetic phrase.