Today is the first Saturday in weeks I've had to myself. I usually get a lot of writing done on Saturdays (or at least pretend I will) and try to go to yoga (or at least pretend I will).
I started my day drinking tea in the dining room and reading. I'm reading "Cutting for Stone," which has taken a while to worm its way into my heart but now it's good and truly wormed and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. As I was settling in to a good, long session with the book, the name of a song from the 1920's floated through my mind. It had nothing to do with what I was reading about - a hospital in Ethiopia.
OK, I thought. I will listen to that song when I go take a shower. And then a surge of energy pushed through me. I felt my pulse go up. No, no, no. It's the name of the novel I've been thinking about for the last week or so. Yes! That's it! Perfect!
I almost jumped out of the chair.
My mind started pinballing around, with a rush of images and ideas I almost couldn't keep track of. Paper. I needed paper. Before I forgot any of this.
And the first thing I did was start to list all of things I was going to have to learn more about to do this right:
-- 1920's jazz -- Bix Biederbecke, Paul Whiteman, Louis Armstrong, George Gershwin
-- women's fashion from that time -- Chanel etc. -- and how women's high end clothing was sold in New York
-- what was going on with the Irish Republican Brotherhood and other Irish political things at that time?
-- the Cotton Club, Broadway shows of the 1920's, Tin Pan Alley
-- the early history of World War I -- late 1914 specifically
-- banking and saving practices in the mid-1920's
Wow. This is going to be fun.
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