Visited by the Muse

I woke up yesterday morning with the current chapter in Del of Kerao finished in my head. All I had to do was sit down and type it out. I'm hoping the muse hangs around for the last half dozen chapters.

I also started reading, this time Sabatini's King in Prussia, which isn't his best, but is at least interesting -- the youthful Frederick the Great and his brutal father, Frederick Wilhelm. This is the first time I've read it, and there are a lot of characters to keep straight, but I've been to Berlin and Potsdam, Wittemburg, and many of the other locations. I can only imagine traveling to them on horseback or in a carriage.

King in Prussia is my nitey-nite reading, so it's going slower. I read a chapter or two before I go to sleep. In my waking hours I've also re-read Dolly of Palo Pinto. It's been long enough since I published it that I can read it with a bit of objectivity (I think).

I like Dolly. She's a genuine person, a girl I knew as a child, many years ago. The story is fiction, but the Dolly in the book is real, or at least the way I remember her personality.

It hasn't been quite as many years since I was last in Mineral Wells, but it's been a long time -- the year I went to Vietnam. It's probably changed since I was there, but I liked it. There's an actual YK ranch, that I think is near there, but the Y bar K is a product of imagination, partly populated by people I've known. I invented the place, making up the name at random and then not Googling it to see if it was in existence. Probably ranching has changed since I saw it up close, too. It's really a lot of interpolation.

I grew up with the inhabitants of Water Street: I ate Minnie's cooking, heard her holler at a few people, knew Old Sadie and Uncle Ivo and Cindy and Sandy and Randy. I even kissed Yvonne once; we were drunk at the time. The episode with Bella is true. It happened to someone else, under different circumstances. but I'll never forget it. I'll always grieve. I was Nate in that little story.

I don't have Sabatini's gift for description, but I think Dolly is pretty solid as far as characters. If I was to rewrite it from scratch I think I'd develop Elvis more fully. He's approximately a couple men I knew long ago as well, but on rereading he comes across as kind of a straw man, there merely to torment Dolly. That's probably because I knew him too well. I've known enough women who had leech husbands or boyfriends. I've never known anyone who went complete Elvis, but I've known enough people (male and female) who were starring in their own private movie.