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Friday, March 18, 2005

Drayton Reborn

As you may or may not not know or remember, I have been slowly writing a novel and posting the accumulation on a blog called Michael Drayton, Detective Guy. The problem for the average reader, though, was that, in true blog style, it was coming out in bits and pieces and each new bit would displace the bit before it and the only way to read the damn thing was backwards.

I have fixed that. I have created a new blog called Michael Drayton, Detective Guy that has an index as the first page. Each chapter is listed and linked in correct order, so all the reader has to do is click on the link to Chapter One and go from there.

Please feel free to check it out and tell your friends, especially those friends who are editors at prestigious publishing houses. It is a work in progress, so only the first nine chapters are currently posted. However, I have started Chapter Ten and will continue posting completed chapters as they occur. And I'm hoping to give this some serious attention again very soon.

And thanks to those who have kept with me through this.

12 comments:

Leonard said...

Well, Robert, there's actually nothing stopping me from maintaining both sites. I can still add to the one you've come to enjoy piecemeal, as chunks of it develop, and then put the completed version of each chapter on the new one. There's no law about the order, especially not in Rhode Island where law has to do with who you know and order is pronounced "awduh" and is what you do after the waitress asks, "What kin I get faw ya?"

And unlike the entrance to l'Inferno, with me you don't have to leave Hope behind. Or Crosby, either.

Leonard said...

Interestingly, one of the scripts I've written for the radio show uses this premise in the background. In the episode called, "The Road to Hell," a movie by that name pops up in the background on various TVs throughout. It is a Hope & Crosby picture with Crosby as "Virgil" leading "Danny" on a journey much like the one in "The Divine Comedy." Beatrice, of course, would be Dorothy Lamour, but the story never gets that far in my radio play.

Leonard said...

Well, as the Master said, "That's a horse on a bicycle if I ever saw one." Of course, Drayton did once see a horse on a bicycle, when he was a child looking out a lonely window in a grimy building at a parade or a circus or something. Or maybe it was nothing. he's never been sure.

I've never heard Drayton mention Mr. Hardy, but he doesn't talk about his past much. The past makes him hunger for Irish Whiskey and then he spends too much time in the past, too much time remembering. He's heard of people who drink to forget, but has never been able accomplish the feat himself.

Leonard said...

If Fenton Hardy or anybody else is interested, they might want to check out the old Drayton blog, http://draytonnovel.blogspot.com. it's a surprise.

Leonard said...

Robert, I actually agree with Fenton regarding computers and reading. Everything favors books and magazines over computers.

I think Drayton would rather surf a librarian than the 'Net, given the proper circumstances. For, at the end of the day, he is nothing if not a gentleman.

Leonard said...

There was a cartoon that I loved when I was a kid called "Q.T. hush, Private Eye," and he was a detective dog, I believe. Detective dogs can happen. Like so much else in life, it's a matter of faith.

Leonard said...

Ah, yes, Detective Dogs! The frank that plumped when you grilled it. That is, if you had the faith that it would plump. otherwise it would merely bloat.

My association if free, which may explain a few things.

Drayton certainly likes diners, but I don't know that he'd like to be one. Although to have a diner named in one's honor would certainly be a treat. And then it can get torn down, and people will give directions to places by saying, "You know where the Drayton diner used to be? You take a left there." Which is ironic since there wouldn't be any diner left there.

Leonard said...

I thought he invented the Seizure Salad, something about which my wife--who has temporal lobe epilepsy--is familiar.

And now, for the theme song to "the Orange Julius Seizure Show":

Who put the "imp" in Imperial?
It's Julie! Our Julie!
What man is dictatorial material?
It's Julie! Our Julie!
Who saved us all
From the Frenchmen up in Gaul?
Tell me who else
Could so suavely soothe the Celts?
He's pompier than Pompey
And makes Cicero storm and stomp. He
Is the sportiest of sports,
And the leader of our legions
And encompassing cohorts!
Julie!

Leonard said...

Or we could dumb it down and go on AM, ranting about freedom of thought and scaring the bejeebers out as many people as we can.

This program is brought to you by Sheep for Men. Sheep: It's More Than a Fragrance, It's a Lifestyle. Join the expectant crowd gathering now for Sheep for Men!

Leonard said...

Well, you know, the whole gang wants Sheep. The whole crowd, the pack, the herd.

Can I interject a slab from "Boom Dot Bust" here? Mayor P'nisnose is on the phone with Dr. Infermo.

Infermo: The wells are poisoned!
Mayor: You poisened 'em.
Infermo: You made me do it.
Mayor: That's why they elected me. Shiny shiny water.

I don't know why I put this in. It just delights me.

Leonard said...

Yes, Julie was the original top seed knocked off during March Madness. Thornton Wilder wrote a novel called "The Ides of March" that could've been a desert island book for me. I leaned on it heavily when I wrote a radio play called "The Death of Caesar" that the comedy team I was once part of recorded. It featured such dialogue as:

Crowd: Hail, Caesar!

Caesar: Ah, hail yourself.

I should type it up and publish it sometime. Leave it for the ages. (6-12)

Leonard said...

Again, from my play:

Conspirator: I hear he's crossed the Alps from Gaul.

Co-Conspirator: Sheer, unmitigated gall, and I hear he reeks of French cooking.

Email me a mailing address and I'll ship you a copy of the recording of this no-classic along with a few other tidbits. Then you'll be able to understand how I've avoided success in show business this long.