Okay, it's Wednesday, February 19th, testing 1, 2, 3.

So I'm starting to get re-inspired for the story that has been on my mind for the last 20 years. Originally titled Pharaoh's Blue Bonnet. Now I'm starting to call it flight of horse. I've been thinking a lot about how we communicate on the internet today and how that communication is distributed through email and chat rooms and message forums or whatever they call it. I read it and I obviously chat on your phone and Gmail. I'm trying to place that in the historical context of the 1950s and the penpal relationship. Florence, as a penpal on the surface, is just another penpal. It writes letters to colleagues, friends around the globe, fully expecting never to meet them and perhaps sharing wild secrets. But after a while she gets bored and wants to spice things up with all of her penpiles she has roughly 10 to 20 around the world. She decides that it would be great if they could all talk to each other. So she decides to create a magazine among her penpiles. Maybe a magazine isn't the right word but some sort of collaborative... She loves writing the letters. She's not like a ham radio operator who would be interested in meeting other operators and talking to them in real time. She really loves the letter and so she... it's more of a newsletter that everybody can contribute to. She kind of hand picks the penpiles to see if they want to be in this, to participate in it. And then if they would, she would then make copies and send it out to all of them and they could all kind of meet each other and get an instant view of all of the penpiles. But she wants to go even further than that. She doesn't want anyone knowing. I guess perhaps the rules that you sign as a penpal and maybe these are just not enforceable, not set in stone. It's just something meant to be on the honor system for penfriends international where that penpal, no participant, would ever write or communicate with another penpal. That you haven't been paired with. And perhaps they worded differently and they're like, you know, all requests for penpal communications should go through penfriends international. And so they want to essentially be the clearinghouse for all the letters. They don't want to know that their participants are sending rude communications to one another or they're clearly trying to harbor safe communication and not simply, you know, pair you up and that's it. And obviously the participants could bypass that if they wanted. And so, you know, Florence has had so much experience as a penpal. She's willing to take risks. And, you know, because she's taken them before. She's obviously, let's say, for example, her first penpal was in Mexico. And, you know, perhaps that's how the story starts is that maybe her family, you know, simple Texas family is on a trip to Mexico. And she secretly discovers who this person is without actually exposing or outing herself as the penpal. So that's one possible aspect. Obviously she can't do that for every penpal, but this is perhaps when she gets the idea that there should be this newsletter that they all participate in. What else? So, yeah, maybe, you know, the simple trip to Mexico sparks her, you know, desire to do more with this. But how does she, you know, make that trip to Mexico? Maybe her father is, you know, a representative of, you know, one of the large cotton farms. And, you know, in this agreement with Mexico where they're basically shipping labor across the border. Maybe he takes her on a trip one summer. And that's when she discovers, you know, what Mexico is like or something to that effect. That'd be kind of cool. So anyway, the name of, I think it can't just be, you know, pen friends newsletter. And it has to be, I think she decides that it should be a secret society. And society's the wrong word, a secret kind of, maybe society's the right word, secret organization that operates under the radar of pen friends international and the post office in some cases. There should be a set of rules kind of like the way the rules are in fight club, you know, maybe that's one way of introducing this organization. But, yeah. So she comes up, you know, she decides that it is flight of horse. You know, horse, you know, represents the word horse and the double meaning or the fact that it represents the real world and the world of the mythological world, the world of stories. And so the Egyptian God and simply the name horse flight is, you know, how these stories are transported both, you know, physically via the postal mail which making, make a horse is a bird, but he's also a God. And so these stories are within us. And you need to elaborate on this is really, this is perhaps the key to it all. And so if you accept the oath of horse, you can be, you are inducted as a member. And perhaps each member, maybe member is not the word, some other cool sounding word, I don't know, that means more than, you know, it's a committed member. So something much more devotee almost. So yeah, once you agree to that, you have to participate. And what does participate mean? It means sharing stories. And because Florence is, you know, has desires to become perhaps an international correspondent, writer, publisher, maybe one day. And she is very excited, you know, she loves the arts, loves writing. So in some ways it's an arts and literary kind of magazine, but it's so much more. And so how do you participate? Well, you participate, you know, you contribute to it. You either create a work of art, or you perhaps write a, you write a story in it. And the stories have to, so the stories are, are both, I should I say, that there is only one story. So it's one big chain story. And I think that was what Florence was really looking for was the story to end. And all stories, the mother of all stories, the something that would be worthy of documenting in the flight of horse. So, and so she literally passes, either a notebook around, and I paused there for a second because I was imagining way, way off in the, almost at least short term end of this novel would be that perhaps she discovers that Selim actually wrote all the stories down in Papyrus for, you know, for posterity for all eternity. Or, you know, so it has to be something that's achievable. Now, she kind of, now what do you do once you've contributed a story? Well, you have to, so as in an effort to assist with the writing of the story, the writing of the story that you put down, that is your final story in, in flight of horse, is, it's, it's necessary to get ready for the day in which the scroll will come to you. And, and you will place your word, you will add your words, you will submit or, you know, surrender your words, you will surrender your words to, to the story gods, to sound cheesy. But, something to that extent. So letters are passed around, letters are copied. And, and they're, you know, other members are creating, will synthesize letters and, and add them to their own letters. So, let's say for example, there's a member in Beijing, or at that time, they might have been peaking, and they can only get mail from certain parts of the world. So, that person is then, you know, the, let's say for example, you can send mail to Hong Kong from peaking and Hong Kong can send mail to the world. So, one of the first things Florence does is ask for a penpal from Hong Kong in hopes of getting a contact in peaking. And so, to widen her network and get visibility into the world over there. And so, yeah, you know, nothing can stop, you know, the person in Hong Kong from reading the letter from peaking and rewriting it to send out, or vice versa, receiving a letter from London, for example, in Hong Kong is normal. And then sending a letter from Hong Kong to peaking is also normal. So, it helps. So, we get a lot of interesting, you know, and she's, she's running this network from her small little modest home in Texas. And perhaps each one of these characters has a persona in flight of horse that, that maybe we meet throughout each chapter. That would be pretty cool. And so, I think the first person we Florence has to meet is either someone from England or someone from Mexico, either through, you know, the same language or an adjacent country. Let me pause the recording.

So yeah, continued talking about flight of Horace and Florence. So yeah, and you know, she's 13 so that's the right age for her to come up with these little ideas and try them out on the world. And perhaps it all starts when maybe one of her pen pals simply asks her a question and she realizes she could put them in touch with another pen pal who has the answers. Yeah, maybe, I mean the first thought of my head is like, oh, maybe someone in Mexico wants to learn how to make a how to cook an English recipe for, you know, something, right? Sheppard's pie. I've always wondered what this shepherd's pie is like and I must try it. That's one thing. Another, yeah, I'm trying to think of something that, you know, kids would do, you know, at that age, you know, maybe they're interested in books. Maybe they're interested in art. So yeah, it would be cool that, you know, the French pen pal takes a picture of the Mona Lisa and sends it around. So yeah, there is a definite aspect of, you know, there's a kind of a flowing, like a river kind of thing in the network where, you know, either, you know, ideas and physical objects are shared through the letters and the idea is that nothing is ever yours. That should also be kind of added. So the story is not yours and the story is everything that you put into it. So if you put something into the story, you know, and it becomes part of the story, you have to surrender it. So if the photograph of the Mona Lisa, for example, is part of the story, then you must surrender it. And that kind of might be interesting for the ending when she becomes part of the story. Now it's ticking now. I'm getting all excited about this. I don't know what will actually happen to the point where she actually becomes part of the story. And that's kind of like a, you know, she obviously gets to the point where she doesn't know the difference between her own reality and story and realizes she has to, you know, surrender herself to Celine. And that's as, you know, this perhaps she writes the love story. Yeah, and that's exactly what happens. She writes herself into a love story. And therefore that Celine must, the only thing that she can do at that point is go to him. Yeah, that's going to be interesting, but that, that is sounds really cool. So, you know, how does this all work? It's going to be tough. I don't know, but we shall see. But I really love the surrendering of the story. And how do you bounce ideas off of someone like when she's actually considering how to come up with the rules of the organization? How does she decide, you know, how do they all together decide that they like this or they like that? That's a tough part. Because she's got to wait for all the letters to come back. I mean, it helps that her mom's a teacher and maybe she can go and reproduce things easily. I'm not sure. Maybe that's not the right way of doing it. Maybe the idea is that she writes it once and sends it on the river. Send it down the river. It's gone down the river. That's code for, I've sent it on its way. And we must now let it take its course and see where it goes. So, I mean, so if you say, for example, I believe we should, this letter is to establish the, or perhaps, you know, maybe she's thinking like the Constitution. As citizens of the globe, we believe that no, we do not believe in borders. We do not believe, well, we believe, you know, something to that extent. I don't know about borders. It sounds way too contemporary. As citizens of this pale blue dot, I don't know something like that. Moon hasn't been landed on the moon yet. So we have to think. As citizens of the world, we believe it is our duty to come together. And given the fact that we will, we are geographically displaced, should bear no obstacle. And the fact that we are geographically displaced should be no reason to be discouraged in trying to share our stories, ideas, pictures, in hopes that we can, create a better world for our children. So, you know, something to that effect. So, you know, Florence probably sets out writing the first version of it. And it goes across all the countries and, there's a lot of assumptions that no one's going to mess it up and rewrite it and know that. So, there's a bit of a challenge in trying to do it that way. Maybe Florence just writes it up and starts, you know, the path starts the organization that way. Maybe she just says, shares it with a friend. They like it. They want to add more people. And that's maybe what happens. She shares it with a pen friend in each continent and tells them to share it with others. Now, what will be interesting is that each continent will be responsible for an aspect of the flight of horse. So, as to keep them all busy and not waiting for the river, the river flows in many directions. There is no one direction for the river. The river of, well, and it could be anything. So, you know, she sends, she sends one to Mexico starting the river, you know, south to the south. She sends one to England. She sends one to Tokyo. Excuse me. And she sends one to Prague. I'm guessing Prague is the best way to reach Central Europe. Not Central Europe, Eastern Europe. She sends one to Africa. And so, each one of these will eventually come back to her. There's a route in Europe, a route in Eastern Europe, a route in Africa, a route in South America. And the idea is that every person should be ready. The moment the letter arrives, they should be ready to send it off. But that would only assume that they need to read the letter and respond to it. Maybe that's not the case. Yeah, I don't know. But I'm just going to pause here thinking about that. What is the ultimate kind of? What would you say maybe the route through South America is a struggle of, you know, each route kind of represents a story, a core story from those places, something that is everlasting. And who's the subject of the stories? And the thing that Florence feels is the biggest accomplishment or the biggest achievement here is that she's getting people to talk to each other from all over the world more than what pen friends would ever do. Pen friends just wants to pair you up with someone and say, oh, how's the weather in China? Great, oh, yes, terrible. Oh, it's good. And it's, you know, already making a huge impact than she could ever imagine. So that has to be captured in the story. And somehow it has to be recognized as, you know, the, oh, sorry, trying to drive here has to be recognized as such. Maybe she sends several letters going different ways and asking for photos of the world or photos of, you know, sketches of their world, not photos. And I think also she, you know, although she knows about the great stories of the world, she wants to know more. She wants to know, maybe she wants to create something bigger, create stories of connections, create stories from stories. And so maybe she really wants, you know, those in one country to write stories that, you know, are merged versions of stories from other parts of the world. So like, you know, the classic, like, for example, what I did with the book of the dead meets day of the dead. And, you know, see where they go. You know, find places with amazing stories. Obviously they will have them. And, yeah. And maybe each story, each chapter in the book, you know, presents a story from around the world. And she shares it. There we go. So maybe she randomly draws the pen pals out of a hat. And then that assigns them to a story. And they have to contribute an illustration or more than one illustration, I don't know, along with the story. And that's pretty cool. And so, yeah. That's probably how she gets her, you know, the, at least this is the, you know, the first book in all the books. Stopping this now.

Okay, so another way to introduce this story is through a third party. Maybe Florence goes missing and we don't know why she's gone missing. Well at least the reader doesn't know in the beginning and the reader has to basically discover through the mind and observations of the protagonist who is at least on the first surface either an investigative reporter or FBI agent. Someone who is trying to get down to the bottom of where she went and maybe she leaves clues. You know the person is having to interview the family but then she leaves her letters behind. Yeah that's one way of doing it. It's not very exciting. But you know it's one way. I don't know. I have to think about more.