Children of the Castle
- Izaak David Diggs
- Jan 27, 2020
- 3 min read
Holly was not moving--a dot, way down the hill, just sitting there.
Shanna and I looked at each other.
“She took my sleeping bag.”
“We have to go get her.”
The two of us walked down the hill from the Castle. Half a mile below the house, Holly had left the road and started off cross country. It had not gone well for her; she had dropped the sleeping bag in the mud and spilled a bag of bread.
“That was the only food in the house,” I whined.
Holly said nothing, just started walking back up towards the road to the Castle. At 13 she was older than Shanna and I but not necessarily the most mature.
Mom and Norman had gone wine tasting for the day. They had left 11 year old Shanna in charge. Being a year younger I could accept that. Holly, being the oldest, couldn’t.
So she ran away with a sleeping bag and a loaf of bread.
The children of the Castle were often left to their own devices. This was before cable television or mobile phones or the internet; we had to rely on our imaginations. This is probably why I became a writer.
And Holly ruining my sleeping bag is a part of it.
This story ended a long time ago but it continues to this day.
I am in the process of copyrighting What Peace Means to Us and have purchased the ISBN numbers. 106 days remain until I put the book out. A clock is ticking away in the back of my head, a nagging rhythm. I have a list of podcasts I can approach and some ideas for “real time” promotion--
Honestly, I am just lurching around in the dark here;
CUT TO: OLD SCHOOL DIRECTOR instructing WRITER:
“Your motivation in this scene is that you are very determined to share your book with the world but you have a lot to learn.”
DIRECTOR pauses, puts his palms flat on jodphurs.
“A lot to learn, the learning curve is like a huge, snow capped mountain not unlike the one the Donner Party--”
WRITER: “Okay, okay, I get it!”
So much to learn and do--like writing a book description. That is harder than writing a novel for me. I scribble down ideas, curse them, and then erase what I wrote.
Trying to determine where my time is best spent: This blog? Is it even worth the time and energy?
The first two weeks have gotten ten views per post--failed experiment?
We’ll see after another couple of weeks.
I am working on this a day before putting it out. Maybe I won’t worry about “engineering” this blog to be SEO or whatever blahblahblah you’re supposed to do--
Maybe I’ll just tell you stories, all fucking ten of you (he says with a smirk).
Do you like this? My email is izaakdaviddiggs (at) gmail if you care to comment or whatever.
I’m not sitting here wringing my hands mewling “PLEASE VALIDATE ME!!” with wide, misty eyes. Really. I am just trying to figure out if this is something people are into or could be into or whatever.
Now, back to my interesting childhood.
The three of us walked back up the hill to the Castle. Shanna bossed Holly around so my oldest sister ran away again. Hours passed. Night fell. A car was coming up the dirt road. Was it Mom and Norman? No it was the Fairfax Police; Holly had managed to hitch-hike to a town ten miles east.
The cops questioned us in the living room. I don’t remember what they looked like; being cops they probably had mustaches. They waited until Mom and Norman got back. Today the three of us probably would have been picked up by Protective Services or something. Back then, the cops laughed with Mom and Norman before driving back down the long, dirt road.
Today, Shanna is a nomad of sorts. She works for a government agency that responds to natural disasters. Always in a new town. Holly lives with the people who were the closest neighbors to the Castle, the people we had drunken fireworks “wars” with. She is still the oldest, still the youngest.
And I am a writer.
That long day with the destroyed sleeping bag shaped the people all of us would become.
In my case, the person who wrote What Peace Means to Us.
And now I need to leave my comfort zone, the place where I write, and go out into the world.
Izaak
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