After meeting last week with my brand-new thesis/project adviser, and considering some of the "subliminal" messages I've been receiving over the last few weeks, I have once more revamped my project--or maybe I should say I've settled it. I've been leaning strongly toward fiction, and recreating my diarist's life in story, but I haven't been able to figure out how to include "myself" in the writing--until this weekend!

Although I am creating a fictional character as the protagonist--and one not really based on my own life--I discovered my way into Emily's story, and I am really excited about it! I spent the weekend creating a character sketch and preliminary overview of the basic story (haven't quite gotten to the plot yet, but I'm thinking about it...), and I can see my main character taking shape before my very eyes. She's a little fuzzy yet--I can't quite see what she looks like--but I do know a great deal about her already.
Just to tease her story a bit, I'm going to offer you a peek at her as well...

Character sketch and project outline draft:

Time: present day (spring through summer 2014)

Main character: Elizabeth Jane Benton (goes by Liz or Lizzie for the most part, but her sister sometimes calls her Zizzie J—an old childhood nickname)

Age: fast-approaching 50

Occupation: High School lit teacher; writes historical romance novels under a pen name, but would really rather be writing something “real”

Family: Husband- John (Jack) Benton; daughters- Daisy and Alice; father- Edward Oliver; mother (deceased)- Carol; sister- Charlotte Emily (Charlie) Patterson;

Relationships: Her relationship with her husband is stable, but unsatisfying—as is the rest of her life. She’s an empty-nester (2 grown daughters; no grandkids yet). She no longer enjoys teaching, she rarely speaks to her sister or her widowed father, and feels her writing has lost its “soul.” She’s not depressed—just bored. Her sister is divorced (I’m not sure about her family yet). Lizzie looks forward to the time away from her family to reevaluate her life.

Setting/Location: Lizzie is a CA native, but most of the story takes place during spring-into-summer Iowa (on a farm outside of Manchester—a VERY small town!)

Lizzie's parents met in a college literature class, hence they named their oldest daughter after two of the Bennett sisters from Pride and Prejudice (Elizabeth Jane) and the younger for the Brontë sisters (Charlotte Emily). Lizzie and Jack continued the literary tradition with their own daughters, Daisy (The Great Gatsby) and Alice (Alice in Wonderland).

.... and one more tease to carry you into her story.

“All that is Remembered Joins and Lives…”

Prologue (author’s note)-1^st draft

In many ways, I think I’ve been searching for this story all my life, but at the very least I know its origins lay well before the day I discovered a dusty trunk full of books tucked in the corner of Uncle Dean’s attic. It may have been conceived the day I got the call from my accountant about the property taxes, or when my mother died, or nearly 20 years ago when my uncle left his old Iowa farmhouse to her. It may have even begun the day I claimed an old steamer trunk from the rafters of my grandparent’s garage, hoping to discover some secret treasure inside, but instead finding it empty of all save the musty smell of memory that filled my teenage soul with a powerful longing to discover the past.

All I know for certain is that now it is ready to be written...