A Good Trailer Provides Only a Tease & So Also Should Sample Content…
Monday, March 15, 2021
Today was the kind of day that writers dread. It was an afternoon of frustrating pencil scratches, P-ah’ing puffs of eraser shavings, grey leaded smears. I didn’t write well. I struggled to try to articulate the audience for Lenny and Jan’s book. I could not build a strong argument. I went on and on and didn’t make any sense. I felt (and still feel) embarrassed and I am glad that no one was around.
I then turned my attention to the “Sample Content.” Jan’s writing is so good that I could have chosen any parts but I was able to narrow it down to three different paragraphs, two from the introduction and one from Chapter Nine. I will sleep on it and then choose. But I struggled again when it came to Lenny’s photographs. I did not want to “give away” anything so I figured I should choose an image that is not among the selections for the book. But then I got confused. Isn’t a sample supposed to be from what will be in the book? If so, I would have to choose from among 98 images. All of a sudden, I felt protective of Lenny’s art. And I also felt a pang (well, a bit stronger than a pang) of worry that people would not see what I see, that perhaps I have stars in my eyes for these photographs because they were taken by uncle, that the are precious for that reason and mere pictures of tugboats to anyone else.
I stepped away and decided to come back to all of this later. Later came and I did not return to the attic. Maybe it’s okay that I didn’t.
It makes sense that I would stumble now, at a time when I feel so strongly that I need to push forward with things…
* * *
A week or so ago, my dad had a dream and he saw Lenny. He was following him into a loft. He said that Lenny had looked good, real good. And he relayed to me that he felt strongly that Lenny knew about my endeavor to finish his project. My dad felt that it had been a good dream, an encouraging dream. If Lenny knows about what I am doing, perhaps he has been around. I want to believe that if he was around and saw me discouraged, he would give me one of his big bear hugs that always made me smile. People tell me that I don’t smile much.
