THE SILENT BOOMER BEGINS 3RD INSTALLMENT OF MARTA

Me at 25 

"Not long after the incident with the boys in the Winton barn, Marta first heard her name and Melvina’s name mentioned in the same breath. The girl was walking home from Crossroad High on an unusually warm spring afternoon when two junior high boykins shot past on bikes, shouting at her—Melvina Marta! Melvina Marta! They laughed loudly, their grinning mouths hidden as they looked back over their shoulders at her. The mean laughter confused the girl because she had no context for understanding where these taunts came from or how her name had suddenly come to be connected with Melvina’s name and shouted at her in the streets of Crossroad by two boys on bikes. No response entered her thoughts that she could shout back at them. Frustrated and feeling shamed for no reason, she watched the two boys bike speedily off and disappear around the corner."

So begins the third installment of the sexual adventures of a precocious young girl in 1940 Iowa. If I don't lose interest, these stories could be the backbone of a new novel, but who knows? At my age, things often change. I lose interest quickly. It seems I am often charged up by some idea, then I commence to carry it through, then I lose interest. I've written enough novels to understand that the initial impulse toward a book is usually intriguing and exciting, but the effort to carry it through to completion is a whole 'nother ball of wax! The very first book I finished, I was still a typist. No personal computers yet. To make copies you used carbon paper. What a process! The photo above represents roughly what I looked like when I began to think I'd be the next great American novelist.