timwburke

This is the start of Chapter Ten of the horror novel. I have two main characters writing a childrens’ movie which will be a mix of “Wizard of Oz”, “The Blue Bird”, and “Night of the Hunter”.

After dinner, Wilma and I sat on the veranda with a couple of oil lamps to go over that day’s draft. The sun had almost vanished and pulled behind its blue shroud of night. Even though the electric lights had been installed and were brighter, the lamps had a warmer glow and drew fewer moths.
Wilma gave me a mimio of her re-write. I took my blue pencil from my hair, carefully to keep its grease from getting on my lace sleeve.
“So,” I said, “Little Doris’s house is swept away in a flood.”
Wilma pointed her cigarette holder across the estate. “We would bring everything here from the studio. I’m planning the camera placement so that we can use the duck pond for the river.”
“That could work. Then Doris’s house ends up in the River of Dreams and washes up on the riverbank. She wakes up with a bump on her head and finds Princess the cat and Lucky the dog are now people.”
“They have no idea why either. Not yet.”
I turned the smelly mimio page. “The first place they’ve landed is Goblinvania. The goblins frighten the hell out of the child. Princess goes up a tree. Only Lucky gets tough with them. The goblins get scared and begs their pardon and turn out to be nice.”
Wilma scratched the livid scar at her hairline. “The costumes look really good. They’re all rags and warts.”
“The goblins give Doris the ‘low-down’ as you like to say, Wilma. The goblins talk about the mean Sheriff who won’t let them build or learn, and about the Sunbeam Fairy who is wise and magical.”
“That part needs something to punch up the Sheriff’s greed.”
I turned the page slower to avoid the fumes. “Princess asks the goblins ‘Why won’t the Sunbeam Fairy protect you from the Sheriff?’ And I’ve got the Goblin President saying, ‘We ought to protect ourselves. That’s what the Sunbeam Fairy says.’”
“So you changed that around from last draft.”
“Yeah…”
She began laughing softly to herself. Since the attack, since her head injury, Wilma stammered as if sifting through thoughts, and got lost imagining, and whisper and laugh.