It’s amazing to me how one day a writer like myself can be completely lost for ideas and then one phrase gets me improvising into my notebook. I also picked up a copy of Borges’ Collected Stories and he also calls them improvisations in the forward from the 1930’s. These little phrases or anecdotes we hear that trigger the fictive spaces to form up.
The idea has to do with Relles and Lolo walking to Joe’s Grocery on the corner of Summit and Box Elder back in the day to pick up a little blue box for the Jefita. The boys didn’t know what it was until they were much older–had no idea what Kotex was. And then the line: ‘I was always afraid of one of my crew finding me walking home with that damn little blue box.’
Once I heard that I started to note take into my Moleskin and improvising pretty fast and furiously. I hope to have a draft of that short story or chapter in a few days.
The days of the 20 inch long, 4 inch wide ones!