Dear Whom

Always fun to read other people’s letters, isn’t it, even letters that didn’t get sent because sometimes what you see on facebook at 3am isn’t what’s actually there. So, like, fuck

Dear Jann

I’ve just been to the gym and before my endorphins fizzle, I got an idea.

I wrote a bible for a sit-com, including a 30-minute pilot, but because I don’t know what to do with it, I am turning it into a novel which I know exactly what to do with, and also a play which is where you come in.

It’s interesting that from the get-go I’ve had a face in mind for every character except the lead who I just couldn’t get a grip on if you know what I mean. But last night when I saw your name on Canada Writes you popped right into her shoes.

So before my endorphins fizzle, would you like to read? It’s a great story. Funny. Also fresh, clever, surly and surprising.

You can get a good sense of me and what makes me tic in my blog feelingfunny.ca and then if you like, I’ll send you a PDF in story form first and then the bible if you are really interested.

Signing off before I come to my senses.

Sincerely

Sherry

And then I went to the Canada Writes site on facebook so I could, you know, pm her but there was nothing from Jann Arden. So I supposed she’d taken her post down. Maybe inundated with comments or, you know, people like me. And while I was wondering what to do next, I found the actual post that, at 3am, I thought was hers. It was from new member Jen Ann to whom I extend a gracious welcome.

And then my eyes rolled right back into my head and stayed there

At least now I have someone to picture when I think of my main character, and it’s Jann Arden all the way. She’s perfect. And like, holyfuckingshit, I nearly had her.

So please, if anybody runs into her, let her know I’d like a word

Her character, Daphne, is a comedian and I named her after Daphne Du Maurier because it fit nicely and also because of Rebecca which I’ve read a million times and every time, omg, it’s so good even though I know perfectly well, as in word-for-word, what’s coming. It was written in 1938 and it’s never been out of print. Also Alfred Hitchcock made a movie of the same name but don’t watch it until you’ve read the book because in actual fact Dame Du Maurier was the original master of suspense – her prose is deadly – and you don’t want to spoil it for yourself.

You can practically lick the words off the page. Hmmm. I might delete that sentence. Either that or I’ll make it big and orange and delicious

My Daphne is a morally questionable 57-year-old wheeler-dealer and basically a bombshell but not in the way you think. I just mean she is a bundle of conflict because after all they say write about what you know.

But also I write about what I don’t know because it’s fun to live vicariously through made up characters which is at least a part of the reason I write in the first place. I mean holy shit I just wrote about Daphne’s first stand-up show which was at a Toastmasters class, but still. I got to write the routine and practice it and be nervous right along with her and feel the bum-butterflies and what happens when you spread the curtains and how the chairs are lined up and the lights and your breathing and whether or not your voice will be your voice and the sound your shoes make but the mic’s the perfect height and your first words fall into your mouth and they might bounce a little on their way out but people hear you and it’s like you’re being enveloped in warmth and it occurs to you in a vague way you might be peeing, or dreaming, but there you are and you’re moving and you’re light and you’re funny and suddenly time’s up and you did it and when you get home, there’s Harriet, confused and waiting, your mom but not your mom.

And she’s the reason you do it in the first place. Because when you make her laugh she comes back to you.

“Oh Daphne,” she says, “you make me feel like my old self again.”

So there’s that.