The Musical that Isn't

 Stuck for ideas today (again!) I turned to 5-minute daiy writing prompts and picked this:

"Brainstorm ideas for a quirky musical that, as far as you know, has not been written."

I love musicals. I grew up listening to the soundtracks of many musicals because my Dad also loved musicals. We had the songs from Carousel, The Sound of Music, West Side Story, South Pacific, and more that I don't remember at the moment on LPs. 

Most musicals, at least the old ones from my youth, came from books. I looked up lists of recent popular novels. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett has been made into an opera. We saw it at Lyric Opera of Chicago and liked it. 

But, a QUIRKY musical -- I want to take the character Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and put him in a story with Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice and Sherlock Holmes. Data would be delighted to be paired up with Holmes since he has already played that part in the Enterprise's Holodeck. But Elizabeth Bennet? What would he make of her? 

The plot would need to be a mystery to solve. 

Imagine my surprise when I googled "mystery ideas with Sherlock Holmes, Elizabeth Bennet and Data" and found that there is already a series (two books as of now) of mysteries with Holmes and Miss Elizabeth! I only need to add Data. And this has morphed into a novel, no longer a musical.

Time travel has happened in the Star Trek universe, so Data will travel back in time to the Regency Era and meet Miss Elizabeth. At a ball? That he accidentally finds himself at? Data will understand much about this time period, but not how to act so as not to draw attention to himself. Sherlock Holmes needs a logical reason to be in this story so he can investigate this strange being. Elizabeth will be her normal witty and observant self -- but what will she make of Data? 

This sounds like a lot of fun.

One Little Word 2025

 I was reminded by some of the blog posts last week that I hadn't found a OLW yet. Starting to work on ideas, I tried out some ideas.

How do I feel about 2025? 

Apprehensive. That's a terrible choice for an OLW.

So I'm thinking about the things that are important to me. Family. Community. Connection.

Family. It's just me and my husband at our home now. Our son lives nearby with his wife and our grandson. Our daughter lives in Houston where she plays in the Houston Ballet Orchestra and teaches many many young French horn players. My brother lives in Omaha and my sister in Columbus, Ohio. I have a nephew in NYC and a niece in Minneapolis, as well as a niece in Chicago. My husband's family - brother, sister-in-law, and children - all live in the Chicago area. 

It is so much easier to stay connected now. My siblings and me plus spouses have semi-regular Zoom get-togethers. I am very fortunate that we all get along, in spite of significant differences. My brother-in-law is a retired Lutheran minister, while my branch of the family is Jewish. We have wonderful chats on Zoom.

My niece (my brother's daughter) is getting married this summer in the middle of nowhere north of Minneapolis. That will be lovely and a chance to see everyone in person. 

So thinking about what I just wrote, I think my word for 2025 is FAMILY. Keeping those connections strong. 

A childhood memory?

I was trying to think what to write about today. I consulted 642 Things to Write About and decided on this one: "Late one night, you discover an abandoned UFO in the middle of a field outside an abandoned farmhouse."

When I was almost 12, my family moved from a small town in Wisconsin to Cos Cob, Connecticut. It was suburban, being on the train line to New York City, where my father went to work each weekday. But it was also very country-like. Our neighborhood was heavily wooded, no curbs on the streets, and everyone had septic tanks -- no sewers. Also no street lights. It was a friendly neighborhood where most people knew each other. Our house was the last one on one side of the road and was next to a small woods. 

One night we somehow got the news that there was something mysterious happening at the end of the street that ran perpendicular to ours. It dead-ended in another wooded area. Reports were confusing - had something crashed? What?

My dad and sister and I walked around the corner and down to the end of that street. A small group of our neighbors were there. Something had happened. And I still don't know what it was. We all stood around for a while but nothing conclusive happened -- unless the adults were keeping it from us. I don't  think anyone called the police. (Though we had a policeman living next door to us.)

Guesses? Someone hanging out in the woods? Teenagers? A stalled car? A "traveler" bedding down in the woods? 

Memory is a tricky thing. The experts say that every time you "take a memory out to look at," you alter it. And when adults don't explain to you what is happening, that compounds the memory issue. And none of those adults are around anymore to ask, if they would even remember this. 

Maybe the best thing to do with this memory? Use it in a story.