Real life intrudes…

A note from the real world:

I had written three quarters of the chapter as outlined above when in the week before Christmas, a burglar/s slipped into the flat we were living in (while the final touches were being put on the new house we had spent much of 2008 building), stole both my and my wife’s computers, our mobile phones, quantities of cash, credit cards, wallets, etc…

The real loss, of course, was the computers, on which my only copy of the unfinished Chapter 3 existed.

The loss of that half-composed piece of writing hit me hard, and I found it difficult to sit down to the project at once. In fact four months passed before I was able to sit down, restructure Chapter Three on paper, and proceed to write it. (This reminds me a little of the story about Laurie Lee, author of Cider with Rosie et al. He’d finished writing the third volume of his memoirs—in longhand—and set out for his publisher’s offices in London, when he left the ms on the underground train—and was never able to find it again. It took him ten years to reconstruct it.)

I was in England by then, travelling about the rivers and canals of that country on our narrowboat Patience, when at last I found the pieces of the puzzle slotting once more into position.

So here are my new notes for Chapter Three, jotted down after I’d at last managed to sweep the cobwebs of the old chapter three from my mind:

Ingredients

The audition. The bitch in the green room. The casting assistant calls Jonathan. Who thanks her for coming. Introduces her to the director as “my special friend: we were in Paris together”. Or, “My special friend: we were held up at gunpoint together…”

The script, which she runs through in the green room, while waiting for her call.

The actual audition. Director gives his instructions while Jonathan looks on. He steps in to give additional tips.

Do we need an early scene of Bronwyn and Juliette over breakfast? Bronwyn anxious to get to work. Juliette nervous as a cat trying to learn her lines. Maybe, despite her disapproval, Bronwyn coaching her. Actually, we can’t have Bronwyn too disapproving. A little jealous rather, maybe fearful that fame and fortune will draw her freind away from her. And she genuinely doesn’t like Jonathan, sensing something in him that is indifferent to people who can’t advance his interests.

Chapter ends with Jonathan popping into her dressing room, telling her it went well, everyone was very impressed, and then doesn’t make a date with her…

While she’s taking her make-up off, Julie overhears Simon in the corridor outside going on about amateurs who think they can waltz into parts etc etc.

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