With Barbara Harris — after I get a little further ahead with Christmas in Naples is a Sport — which is going really well — I’ll put those scenes together. There’s an excerpt of DAY TWO in her bucket on my homepage. I could put up the whole thing I took down. I did that because it’s rough. I might put some of that back up. I have to go through the transcripts again.
I just reworked the first feast with the Neapolitans — where the topic sentences come out that never landed: I was given away to a total stranger when I was four and my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s though it was Parkinson’s first when I was ten years old and he didn’t tell anyone. Deep breath, long sentence. EAT. Not true.
I’m also editing the scene where I help a Ukrainian refugee through a terrifying hallucination he had on the run from war. That’s The Year I was Invaded by the Russians. I would do a Bratan scene, you know, the extraordinary thief who goes on an inspiring journey to leave that behind, but the scene with the Ukrainian refugee is more or less ready.
I’m working on a synopsis of Miracle Mile — meditating on how to structure that. Those four years could stand on their own, in some way, with my investigation into what the truth is, or I could do a series of scenes, you know. Someone was playing Amelie in the co-working space so “does she take off” after a stylized Dr. J does this, her father does this, and she arrives in NY, first. I don’t know what to say treatment-wise so I’m thinking about that.
I’m finishing up the scene with the refugee camp manager in the YSL-Jardin Majorelle. There are other scenes from that. He would be the focus. I figured that would become something but that’s a feasible short. It’s already visual, how I’m telling it. It’s pretty much done because there was a short story contest that I missed, but there are contests like that all the time. I’m just finalizing the ending.
Then, this experience I had with a Turkish man could make a really funny rom-com, even a rom-com that goes very wrong. Like, they end up in some crazy story. Maybe they end up together, I don’t know. But that might be really funny. Just the feverish conversation I had with him on google translate — priceless. Him looking at the phone, confused, and turning it to me: “but you’re attractive.”
Me standing there — he’s lying on his sofa couch after a nap, requesting that I come closer to him. No, back-lit. Why? Me getting up in his face, taking a ridiculous seat beside him, I don’t want to do this — my hands moving between us. He’s just lying there. This is so not the way I want to be courted. A hilarious google translate conversation ensues. The Google Translate conversations could be so funny. Even the misunderstandings that occur because of Google Translate. I could also have this experience — to find what it is I’m really looking for — AKA Peter Wright from Only You. Or, I get on the midnight bus two hours outside Istanbul and something else happens since I got on the wrong bus, or they didn’t tell me where to get off, and I ended up doing an all-nighter. So I could end up God knows where — where I’ll meet some Turkish, attractive Turkish, installation artist or a man who works with his hands. And next step. A rom-com between a Turkish man and an American woman could be really fun though. Someone starting over, right? Someone like me. Just take me as a model. In a sense.
That’s what I got today.
I have to get back to Christmas in Naples is a Sport — I’ll probably start posting scenes pretty soon since I’m not going this Christmas. I think that’s fun? Scenes. Even if I’m treating all this now. That’s my plan this Christmas. Chillin, singing, and sharing that, specifically.
I’m almost at a sample again but I want to keep working on it just a touch more so I can get to the chapter outline and be able to show more pages. I have them. I’m just starting to find this formally, so I want to keep going over the next month and change.
The food isn’t quite developed but I get smashed that first feast, you see, so there’s a rhythm to that. The food isn’t the main thing outside of that calzone. But that’s what I mean, I still have to work that out. Oh, yeah, when the meat comes, sure, I can see someone playing with that but I can’t do more than one thing at once, if I’m staying true to my character, a bit. I’ll work that out later. It could just be pizzas and calzones too, not sure. Oh, delicious, I have a moment. WHAT? Again, still building that out because subjects can switch which kicks up my emotional state — that’s good but you want to stay on track, no? For this first scene.
We did begin this conversation during the meal, yes, but it might have been later on…in that I wanted to learn the language. I’m asking them questions. Formally though, I can talk about them, their characters, later on. I’m putting that later right now just because it’s crazy. All at once. That’s what I mean about the book, in thinking about how to structure my journey. You get I’m eager to learn, be, but I just got there, so the language stuff and the music, how they respond, I think, comes a step later. Carmine’s band problem…dunno yet. I’m working that out right now.
I start looking up the history of all this food “ancient this that and the third.” I go into the city, too, à la Eat, Pray, Love? It’s not really like that but I interact with the history and the city itself a little bit. I’m talking formally, how to bring the food in, even, since many hands have gone into some of the food, too…controversially too. But maybe it’s just integrated, mostly, into the scenes themselves.
Carmine and I go into Naples, for example, after this first feast where I get pulverized by football players. “NOT TRUE.” We got to a famous pastry shop. Do I bring in food, probably not yet, but I could. We went to Mario Talarico, though. I started looking stuff up right away, in other words. I’m the one who loves Naples…running around…with Carmine joining me the most…the two of us speaking about his band 24/7.
I’m just thinking step one, step two, though this new treatment is working even if it’s taking me a moment to just build it out. The first feast — checkpoint. I don’t think you expect it — we go from Carmine remembering Anastasia — “Journey to the Past,” this song he could not forget to the song I could never forget, my song, which is Lucio Battisti’s “My Song for Maria.” I’m the girl who didn’t remember who she was…who begins to since they seemed to really remember me. That song ended up being for Rosa, too, so music is as fundamental as family is, here. They welcome me back in song, in a celebration. So you get that straight away since it’s my story. To them, music was my true beginning, and they ended up being quite right. I sing now, again.
I am trying to click into this other job offer I got, but it’s a little tough. I’m just reading and familiarizing myself with it…if I can do it.