Summer sun

Hope your summer is going well.  I realize I have not kept one of my list resolutions -- I have not been good about writing in my blog.  It is hard this year -- I don't want to reflect too much on what has gone on in 2015 -- it has been a terrible cruel year.  Usually I spend these warm lazy summer days reading the news and thinking, "oh, that's something to write about" but this year, it is really hard.  I am embroiled in the paperwork that comes at the end of a life -- any kind of life -- a beautiful one, like my husband's or any other kind.  There are forms to fill out and people to advise and life insurance (if you're wise or lucky, like my husband {wise} or me {lucky, because my husband was wise}) to apply for and huge international companies sending you letters offering their "sincere condolences" (why do they bother?  I know they aren't sincere -- they didn't know him -- or me -- so how can they offer condolences?)  Anyway, suffice it to say, this summer doesn't really feel like a true summer, in many ways.  It's just like a time to be gotten through.

I have finished my romance novel -- the first draft anyway.  I'm not sure of the ending, so I have to sit on it for a while and then go back and see what I think.  In a way, it's an ending, because finally the two people I've been trying to get together have gotten together, but in another way, like in life, it is just the beginning.  Maybe if I decide it's actually an ending, I'll write a whole series about the couple.  I do like them.  The man, James Carpenter, is based on my husband, so of course, he's very sweet and attractive -- perhaps too much so.  As I read, I think that I haven't given him any dark qualities at all.  And I think a romantic hero does need some dark qualities.  I'll give it a week and reread it and see what I think.

I'm still trying to figure out a play for the fall.  Usually I have an idea, but this year, my mind is blank.  I thought of George F. Walker's "The Art of War" but the cast is too small.  I need something with at least fifteen characters and then room for more, if necessary.  I want something serious -- we've done a lot of comedies lately and I'm in the mood for something thought-provoking (not that a comedy can't do that, of course) and hard driving.  There's still a month to get there.  I reread "Blood Relations" by Sharon Pollock but that cast is too small, too.  Most modern plays stick to small casts because they don't want to pay the actors.  At least, I think that's why.

I have been keeping up with the news and of course, one of the stories that is grabbing everyone's attention is the killing of the lion, Cecil, by the American dentist.  I cannot see how anyone could derive pleasure in killing an animal, whether the hunt is legal or not.  To me, it's immoral to kill something for pleasure.  We realize that animals are far more mysterious than we ever imagined -- octopuses have the intelligence of a three year old child, and bears experience awe when watching a sunset and crows can make and use tools.  We don't know what Cecil's thoughts and feelings were, but we can imagine he suffered greatly in the forty hours between the time he was shot by the dentist's arrow and his moment of death when he was dispatched by a gun.  I never liked Jimmy Kimmel much before but I really appreciate what he said about the whole sordid mess.  And his suggestion that people try to make good come out of the tragedy has raised $150,000 for the researchers who are studying lions in the preserve from which Cecil was lured.

I watched the first season of "Sherlock" over the last couple of days.  It stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as Holmes and Watson and they are terrific.  I don't mind the modernization of the Conan Doyle stories.  I find Moriarty an irritation in the original -- I don't think you need him, but Andrew Scott is lovely, especially that face he makes when he's describing what he would look like if Holmes shot him.  He has a wonderful voice.  And I like the idea of a "consulting criminal" as a foil for Holmes's "consulting detective".  I intend to watch the second season when I can get it from the library.  That's all from me for now.  I'll try to be better for the second half of the summer.