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Three cheers for Duke -- and for 'Plotz - the Novel'
(April 6, 2009) -- Well, I am in
basektball heaven this morning. Those who know me know why; those who don't ... well, the Duke Blue Devils won the NCAA championship in basketball by narrowly beating a title-deserving Butler team, 61-59.
The national crown marked the second straight year that an Atlantic Coast Conference team has finished atop the basketball heap. The North Carolina Tar Heels defeated Michigan State 89-72 this time last year. So, forget the UConns, Syracuses, Georgetowns and Villanovas from the Big East, or Kansas and Kentucky. The ACC rules -- as will Duke for 360-some days.
I was up half the night watching video replays, post-game interviews and comments from the ESPN analysts. I even saw former Duke coach Bucky Waters on News 14. Waters was the Duke basketball coach part of the time when I was a sports writer with the Durham Morning Herald and Duke football and basketball was part of my news beat. He looked older, of course, but very dapper.
Well, that's enough written about college basketball.
'Plotz-the Novel' comes to life
My business partner, Sandy Bruney, and I have been friends for nearly 20 years. We both have aspired to become published authors. She has been successful with the publication of "I'd Rather be in California" and her soon-to-be published, "Angels Unaware." I, however, have not achieved the lofty goal -- but I have tried.
Sandy and I had discussed a collaborative effort on a manuscript before, but she was not into sci-fi and fantasy (I'm a dreamer). We did sort of collaborate (along with others) on the script for "Sneydsborough: A Ripple in the River," the Anson County Writers' Club's outdoor drama back in the 1990s. We were working for The Anson Record at the time. In a meeting in my office, we talked about a title for the proposed script and we came up with the "ripple in the river" idea since Sneedsborough was located on the Pee Dee River and the town disappeared in the mid-1800s -- its place in history becoming just a ripple in the river.
Back in May 2009, we were on our way to a Carolinas Writers Conference Oversight Committee meeting on the Polkton campus of South Piedmont Community College. In a casual conversation, after all our Marshall Bruney Media Consultants business matters, the idea to write a novel together emerged. The premise: When is a "murder" not a murder? The plot: two life partners on a vacation meet a scoundrel who is comtemplating suicide to escape his demons and, lo, a staged "murder" (to give him a new life) and the consequences of "the deed."
"Plotz" was born. In follow-up e-mails and discussions, we added characters, events, places, etc. Did our research and came up with an outline. Then we began writing. By September we had a 24-chapter, 114,000-plus manuscript staring us in the face.
Six months later, including rewrite after rewrite, we have a finished manuscript and are in the process of finding an agent who can find us a publisher. We have designed a website -- after all, that's what we do for a living now. For more about "Plotz," click here.
As for the title, you will have to read the book. Sorry.
Some views, notions and ramblings
All this pine pollen has me, along with other allergy suffers, sneezing and wheezing. I went out to get in my green Chevy truck and it had turned yellow! I drove to the post office anyway. When I came out, I halfway expected someone prankster to have printed "Wash Me" on the hood.
Whoever designed the Roman numerals system turned over in his grave recently. I was working a crossword puzzle and the clue was "MDCC minus CLI." Well, I came up with MDXLIX, but only had four spaces on my grid for an answer. The "M," and "D" letters worked across; so did a "L," leaving one space. The clue was "Horus' mother," which was Isis. That left MDIL as the answer. The puzzlemaker had decided that "IL" equalled 49. I disagreed, thinking now anyone can change a long-standing numerical table, but solved "his" crossword version anyway.
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