Stewing

It’s hard, but I am letting my draft stew. If I feel like I must work on it, I open up my outline and make notes. Right now, all I want to do is sit down and work on it, but instead, I’m going to write this post and work on the quilt.

One thing I’m nervous about is whether it’s derivative, if you’ll read it and be all “Oh, god, this is just like…” whatever. But I had an epiphany at the park. And I think it came from getting the hymnal. I like covers.

If you went through my iPhone and looked at all my music, you’d see I have multiple versions of lots of songs. I like hearing what different people do with the the same source material.

For instance, I’m really digging Town Mountain’s “I’m on Fire,”which is not a song I would have thought of as a bluegrass song, but when you hear them do it, you hear how it can be.

And when Tori sings it, I can’t say that it’s better, but it definitely sounds like her.

Ha, oh lord, check her doing “Whole Lotta Love!”

And so, of all the things I might worry about, as long as I’m not inadvertently plagiarizing anyone–and lord, if there is a lot of fiction out there about ministers’ kids, I don’t remember it and it seems like the kind of thing I’d have turned to–I think a lack of originality is fine. I like it, anyway.

I’m mulling on the title, some, too. I had been calling it The Preachers’ Daughters, because there are a ton in the book. A flock, if you will. But it really is just about one–The Preacher’s Daughter, but then I worry that this doesn’t do enough to warn away the people who might be offended. Like, say, The Satanic Verses, you know what you’re getting into there. “Do I want to read about Satanic things? No, I do not. I will stay away.” So, now, even though it’s not the whole book, I’m wondering about calling it The Devil and the Preacher’s Daughter, which sounds vaguely like an 80s miniseries that would star Kris Kristofferson.

So, I’m leaning towards The Preacher’s Daughter, but I haven’t made up my mind.

The Endangered Great Brainsucking Gallatin/Hendersonville Heron

What they won’t tell you, but I will, is that there lives a highly endangered heron in the sliver of land between Hendersonville and Gallatin. It is endangered because, as its name suggests, it will suck your brain right out of your head.

I bring you the tragic tale of our encounter.

We had gone to Hendersonville to scope out the location for the Satanic sacrifice that happens in the novel. The place JR told us about is indeed perfect. Kind of secluded, but believable that someone would hear something and call the cops. Then we drove to Gallatin and saw this house that made me have to take a million pictures. I was trying to decide when the addition was done, based on the style. I think 40s, but I’m open to suggestions. And it looks like they turned the old outbuilding into a garage. But I was having the most fun looking at all the different brick colors trying to decide if there’d been a porch at some point.

And then we stopped at a park so the dog could poop and there was the heron. Which is not really brainsucking, or is it?