Country music and "A Town like Alice"

Alright, well I got two more rejection letters. Three so far have been form letters and a fourth agent wrote, "This has an intriguing premise, but I'm afraid I didn't connect with the narrative strongly enough to feel I'd be the advocate the book deserves." I am not discouraged and I'm still keeping my fingers crossed! Thank you all for the nice comments and encouragement.

So I have a confession to make. I am a country music junkie. I grew up in the boondocks of Lewis County on a little farm and country music was the only thing around and now, even though I live in the "big city" of Seattle, I still can't get enough of country music. I still enjoy some other music but country is and always will be my first love. I love the realism of it and the fact that I can identify with the lyrics. Contrary to common belief, country music is not all about losing your truck or being a hillbilly. Its about life and love and situations that everyday people face. Its about having pride in what you do, about respecting people around you and appreciating the little things in life. A lot of country songs are stories about people and many of them have heartwarming or funny endings. I think a lot more people would enjoy country music if they took the time to listen to it and didn't just go into it with a negative attitude.

So anyway, on that premise, I had to tell you all about my new favorite country song that I just can't get enough of. It's called "Colder Weather" by the Zac Brown Band. Now the Zac Brown Band is one of my favorite country groups. They never come out with a bad song. They've only been around a couple of years but in that time they have had at least three songs that would be on my top 100 country songs of all time. And this new one just about tops them all. I encourage you all to check it out. It has a pretty good music video too, which is on YouTube

On a more writing related note, I've been pondering my next writing project. I was planning to write another novel, "St. Dorothy's School for Girls" but I feel like the idea hasn't fleshed itself out in my head enough to be properly written. So I was thinking of doing another screenplay before I go back and edit "Rilla, my Rilla." Originally for Script Frenzy I wanted to do an adaptation of my all-time favorite novel, "A Town Like Alice" by Nevil Shute. But my dad told me that he thought the copyright had been renewed which would mean that it wasn't in public domain and I would have to obtain rights for it. But a couple of days ago I was doing some Internet searches about it and I couldn't find anything about the copyright being renewed so I wrote a letter to the publisher, who had initially copyrighted it in 1950 and asked them if they could tell me what the deal was. I'm just waiting on a reply from them but I'm really hoping it is in the public domain so that I can write that screenplay.

"A Town Like Alice" is a fabulous novel that tells the story of a young British lady, Jean Paget, just following World War II (I love historical romances, in case you didn't notice!). During the war, she was involved in a Japanese prisoner march through Burma with a number of other women. While they were marching, low on food and medicine, they meet a young Australian soldier named Joe Harmon. He helps them out by stealing food for them but Jean is caught by the Japanese with the stolen food. They demand to know where she got it and are torturing her for the information when Joe steps in and admits to it and demands that they leave her alone. He is then nailed to a tree and beaten to death.

In the years following the war, Jean comes into a large inheritance from a wealthy uncle of hers. She returns to Burma to build a well for the local people and there she finds out that Joe was not killed but actually survived his injuries at the hands of the Japanese. During the same time, Joe, who thought that she was married at the time, finds out that she was not, and on a whim, decides to go to England to find her. She goes to Australia to see him and eventually they end up meeting after a bit of a run around. Joe is a cattle rancher in central Australia and Jean is a proper English girl and they fall in love. They want to get married but Joe doesnt' feel like he can ask her to move to the middle of nowhere with him and she can't ask him to leave his cattle station so they have a bit of a dilemma. Finally they come up with a plan to transform the little town that he lives in, into "a town like Alice" referring to the larger town of Alice Springs.  They open a number of businesses, many catering to women in an effort to keep all the women from moving away. Then they get married and live happily ever after. :P

Anyway, its a fabulous book and I would love to make it into a movie so hopefully the publisher gets back to me soon.

Well, this is a mile long so I'm going to sign off!