Mission Accomplished! (Well, STARTED anyway)

Congratulate me, people!  I spent the entire day WRITING!!!! Okay, I took an hour to get a bit of other things done...eating, doing a bit of fix it work.  Passed that, though, I did a long-hand sketch of my story.  The Author's Note and then typed it up...on an ACTUAL TYPEWRITER!!!

Yup. I think I'm gonna do it that way. Write it, longhand, type it up and then take it to document page. THAT WAY, by the time it gets to the Doc page, it will be more fleshed out. That's my hope. And it doesn't hurt to hope.
The point is, I got it DONE. No youtube. I can listen to one story on YT before bed...  Secret Window by Stephen King....It's a weird one, but good.
I just wish the were more hours to the weekend. Like....a WEEK's worth.  Once upon a time, I had the entire weekend to laze (and do things). Now, my mother needs more of my time and other issues come up. Thankfully, my mother's biggest problem is that she just can't do as much as she used to, so that's where I come in.  And I feel like a selfish worm;  wanting that time to myself.
According to some sources,  C.S. Lewis was writing in stops and starts when he was staying with a friend's mother, after the war. He promised to help the friend's mom and lived up to his promise.  Wonder if he regretted those good intentions when it was all he could do to get a PARAGRAPH committed to paper before she needed this or that done.
Next week, I'm helping with church clean up, but that's early on Saturday, so, heaven willing, I'll have the rest of the weekend to get some writing done.
I live in amazement that ANYONE gets ANY Writing done, in this work-a-day world.  Is there an Island for writers?  If so, where's the next ship heading there and how much is it, ONE WAY?

💔Betrayal Of Trust: Author vs Character.📓✒Reader vs. Author.

As I write this,  I'm nearly finished chapter four of  Now and Forever;  a bit of Poirot-based fan fiction. By the time chapter four is finished,  Hercule Poirot and Virginie Mesnard will be husband and wife.

The love story that SHOULD HAVE BEEN!
On the surface of it,  that doesn't seem to be a big deal;  couples marry all the time, real and fictional.  The difference, here, is that this love story I'm writing SHOULD HAVE BEEN written for Poirot and Virgine in the first place.  And not by me.
Dommage!   So sad that Poirot's original author could NOT be bothered to give him a love story.  She didn't believe he was entitled to be happy.  He wasn't entitled to love.

---

I find it odd,  ( at least!)  that someone,  who'd been fortunate enough to earn her living as an author,  (what most wanna-be's would give their eye-teeth for)  could be so  deeply BITTER;  neither able or willing to give a decent lead character a measure of the good he'd done for her.

---

     "Why, oh WHY did I EVER create that DETESTABLE, bombastic creature?"    agatha christie on Hercule Poirot. 

DETESTABLE:  Deserving of INTENSE DISLIKE// HATE .  {Oxford Dictionary of Current English ©  2001  //  Roget's International Thesaurus © 2003  }

---

To that infamous  vitriolic rant, I have asked/ pleaded with  Christie LOYALISTS to answer one question. The same question I've asked  any number of times.  To date, I have yet to receive a reply. So I'll ask again;
WHAT DID HE  DO ?!?!?!?  What unholy atrocities could Hercule Poirot have  committed,  to deserve such rancorous loathing,  even to the extent of depriving him of love and a genuine romance?

       

To agatha christie, THIS BEAST was better than Hercule Poirot!

THINK about this;  Adolf Hitler,  one of history's most diabolical despots, had a romance.  Ava Braun was the lady.   Not sure if they were properly married or not, but when you're busy ordering the displacing and systematic murder of millions of  people, it's difficult to find time to plan a wedding.  In any case he DID have a romance.  A face of historic infamy found love,  and yet,  a fictional Belgian detective, who, I'm assuming,  did NOT commit mass murder,  apparently did something WORSE!  😱🤦 At least,  in the eyes of his foremost enemy; none other than  agatha christie.
   To agatha ,  Hercule Poirot was,  by no means, entitled to a romance. Love.  In fact, this decision would become a legal condition. Poirot was, contractually, NOT permitted a love story!

   Should anyone in the PRO-CHRISTIE camp want to explain away such HEARTLESSNESS,  I'd be interested in your rationale.  WHY NOT?  Were the atrocities of two world wars NOT sufficiently cruel that she needed to add to the wanton abuse. I seriously wonder here.... but then again, no.

   I was pondering;  if christie could have found a way of having Poirot fall into the hands of the Nazis, would she do it?  For her own purposes, I don't doubt, for a second, that she would do that very thing.  Just so long as her favorites (Miss Marple, Tommy and Tuppence) were able to keep her ladyship in the economic splendor to which she had become accustomed and she could be sure there would be no backlash from readers.

    Would there be? 🤷That's a good point. I mean, the die-hards stuck with her, even when they found out she loathed him. Would christie LOYALISTS stand by their literary god if she had collaborated, albeit fictionally, with England's enemy against her enemy?

   Then again, Poirot gave this literary legend (in her own mind) a place at the table with her  favorite author,  (A.C. Doyle)  Without whom Hercule Poirot might not exist, and nor would the foundation of her success.

  When all is said and done, you hardly have to be either Dr. Watson or Captain Hastings  to realize that Christie's reasons for 'creating'  the Belgian sleuth were entirely SELF-motivated.  It was all about boosting her own reputation. Upping her career game.  Poirot was a means to an end and that ALL  he was. 

   

A lovely memorial marker.

   But payback truly IS a BITCH, agatha, much like yourself!  Because I am going to give Monsieur Hercule Poirot the 'send off'  as Japp might phrase it, that he deserved.  Friends, family, tears and fond memories.
All of that will be accomplished BEFORE I give due come-uppance to agatha's fictional double.   Once I have put Ariadne Oliver's neck in a noose...either symbolically or literally (I might just have her gased!)  I will consider justice served and get on with the rest of my 'day'  as it were.
Bottom line;  I simply could not that vile woman (agatha christie)  get away with her betrayal of Poirot ( and , by extension, his readers)  without doing SOMETHING to balance the scales of literary justice.
   It's an interesting irony that,  if christie's  devotees felt about Poirot the way she did, the Belgian detective would have NO fan base. There wouldn't be the movies, past or present. No series. Hercule Poirot would simply NOT exist because readers wouldn't care. In that sense, christie would have gotten the implied wish she made in her documented rant.

   Then again, why do they tolerate her hatred of him, by reading her books?

   Again, I realize;  I am trying to make sense out of nonsense, which, unto itself, is senseless.   🤦‍♀️

 

P.S.  Rule #1  of Stephen King's rules of writing;   LOVE what you do.   Had christie followed that rule,  Poirot wouldn't exist.  Lucky him.

---

  "They say you're supposed to speak GOOD of the DEAD. She's DEAD?  GOOD!"   Bette Davis re: Joan Crawford. Johanna Oznowicz Re: Agatha Christie.

---

   Not sure if Bette really felt that way about Joan Crawford, but I most definitely hold those sentiments about agatha christie.

   Dead or not, agatha, you do NOT deserve the praises your most loyal following continues to sing to you.  You spat in our collective face by maligning a character we invested personal time in and found ourselves loving, in spite of his heartless cow of an 'author' .   So, christie, consider this post a spit back in your heartless, ungrateful face!

Whose Side Are You On?! {christie vs. Poirot}

As soon as you have to ask or answer the following question  ("Whose side are you on:  Character's  or author's ?")  you've already lost.  Simply because that question should NEVER, EVER have to be asked in this context!

You tell me! 

Is this man DETESTABLE? 

(Deserving INTENSE DISLIKE/ HATE)?

   If an author is not squarely in his or her character's corner,  the reader's best course of action is to ditch that dead-beat hack for an author  who genuinely CARES about her characters and readers. Would to God I had that sense! 

    Learn from my mistake, people!  If you've begun reading Poirot stories, and discovered christie's animosity against him, RUN the other way!  Find a storyteller worthy of your time and hard-earned money.

    Becoming a novelist is not a 'day job' you find
in the newspaper classified ads.

I WISH!!! 

 
     Storytelling is something a person has to want to do, and, hopefully, with the right motive.  If you have the creative talent you desire to share with the world, just because you enjoy telling stories, then THANK YOU!  Much appreciated!

   I've been blessed to find some amazing writers in the last few years.  Men and women who have their own perspective on life and age old tales.  Others who get a wild kick out of writing for villains.  Those are my favorites. 
   An author who can appreciate the contribution of a hyper-psychotic fan girl,  or the most evil world leader we'll ever know;  these writers have FUN telling their stories.  They get up in the morning,  looking forward to finding out where their stories will take them .  Okay, so it's not always so easy.  Life happens. Then again, when it's good, yaaay! 

   On the other hand, if an author wakes up, treating the prospect of a day of writing with the wish that they were doing ANYTHING else,  then perhaps that's what they should have done..... ANYTHING ELSE!

   This is particularly true when the discontented author 'creates' a character and story more to compete with the biggest name in the literary game than to tell her own stories for the genuine love of it.  She would loathe the character she had because he wasn't the one she wanted. That ingratitude found vent in her journals, which were published.

    I couldn't tell you if any readers turned against christie because of her betrayal, but I sincerely hope they did. 

_________________________________________________

   Note:  If you are reading this blog as a former christie fan ,  {who dropped her because of her maligning of Poirot} , I would VERY MUCH look forward to hearing from you!  

________________________________________________
 
    Anywho,  I had two of her novels (Murder on the Orient Express and Curtain) . Both of said books have long since been blue-binned.  If the literary gods have a sense of humor at all,  said books have since been recycled into something more beneficial to humanity. Like TOILET PAPER.  🚽🧻️💩 Wouldn't that be a statement to Agatha Almighty?

 
"They Say you're 
supposed to speak Good of the Dead...."   

   Like that's going to happen.  No.  In case you haven't figured it out yet, I am NOT an agatha christie fan. I resent the hell out of her, in fact! Because of her poisonous animosity against Poirot,  I never had the opportunity to love the stories because of the rancor she hardly hid in the stories;  making a point of insisting how much Poirot thought of himself! 

   HA!  Considering how much of Poirot's source material came from Sherlock Holmes,  christie has NO place to talk about Poirot's so called conceit. Because when it came to patting her own back, agatha bested Poirot by a country mile! 
   The difference is, minus some PRIDE in his skills and career accomplishments, at least Poirot gave a damn about someone else beside himself.  His motivation was wanting to solve the case, both for his client and, as it applied, for the good of the community. 

  Contrast Poirot's motivations with christie's wanting to up her own career game, which, when you get down to cases, was the reason Poirot existed at all;  christie's obsession with, at least, MATCHING A.C. Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, and let's face it, Holmes was hardly modest about his career accomplishments. So what was christie pissing about?  Perhaps she should have plagiarized a more modest character?  OR, perhaps she could have given half a rip about the character she stole  and focused on telling stories for the enjoyment it instead of worrying about how this Belgian Sherlock Holmes (literally) was going to serve her. 

   So, remind me again. WHY am I supposed to respect an 'author'  who plagiarized another novelist's source material, LIED to readers about it and then proceed to treat the end result of her selfish actions like a child she was forced to carry to term. 
WHAT did Poirot do, to deserve such hatred?  He didn't ask to be 'created'  from an illegal act.  Ironic, isn't it?


    Another point I've reiterated a few times is how much PITY and COMPASSION I have for Hercule Poirot.  I have NEVER felt sorrier for another fictional character!  Other characters have faced hardships because of the circumstances of their lives.   Events IN the story.   Oliver Twist, for example, faced TOO many tribulations for a  what..10 year old child.  That wasn't because Charles Dickens hated orphans.  Rather, he wanted to call attention to their plight, so he had to make Oliver's story real.  On the other hand, Mr. Dickens also had the power to make a positive difference and he did.  He gave Oliver a home, at last, with family and friends.  Heck, Dickens even cut Charlie Bates a break and let him leave his life of crime for honest work.   By the end of the book, he owned his own farm.

  See, authors have the power to do good, if they care more about the story and the lives of the people in those stories, than they care about making a name for themselves. 

   Hercule, Poirot, sadly, didn't have an author to care about him.  To christie, he was a means to an end. Nothing more.  So, as far as that goes,  readers would do well to find an author who invests in their character(s)  because that author genuinely gives a damn.  Cut christie loose.   She's not worth a reader's time.  Most definitely, she isn't worth THIS reader's time. 

    This reader is standing up for the character.  I don't give a fat....DUCK what that ARROGANT, MALEVOLENT GLORY WHORE had to say about him, Poirot deserved a love story. So, aided by the screenwriter(s) for The Chocolate Box,  I let Poirot and Virginie have their fairy tale romance, with all the joy and tragedy life sends. 

     To answer the question at the top of this page, I'm on Poirot's side.  

  



    

  

💔BETRAYAL of TRUST😭

As I write this,  my mother might be dead, and I'm not sure what to feel or even if I even care to feel anything.   Oh, I probably will be bothered in some way.  The thing is, I don't know if I should.
See, my mother didn't want her kids, and she had no shame in letting us know.  But that's just the problem with my mother. She had no shame.  No shame, no self respect and ZERO common sense.
   Once upon a time,  her doctor told her that, because of her irregular period, it was UNLIKELY she could get pregnant.  Somehow, that UNLIKELY became IMPOSSIBLE in her ears. So she did what came naturally to her, and, lo and behold, she got pregnant.  Not sure how old mommy dear was when she got pregnant with the baby she miscarried on a Ferris Wheel.  Some kids have all the luck.
Skip to... her first marriage.  She got pregnant then, had a girl and then left the child with her father when she found out that her husband...batted for the other team as it were.  And he turned out to be her better choice. It went downhill from there.
Now, I'm not sure what the circumstances were, surrounding the abuse.  Did my biological father abuse her because she was sleeping around or did she sleep around because he abused her?  Not sure.  All I know is that she had kids with a man who beat her for twenty years. She had kids for two reasons;   1) She loved SEX  and 2)  Abortion was not legal at the time. As kids, we felt forced to do what we could to prevent the abuse of our mother by our father.  Eventually, however, my siblings got fed up trying to stop the abuse because they knew what would come from it, and what wouldn't actually happen.   
  I stuck up for that woman for years.  Defended her against him.  Even injured him on a couple of those occasions to stop him from beating her around.
Today, as I write this, I wish to God I'd let my father kill her!  My bad. Then again, what kid thinks  or WANTS to think of their mother as a promiscuous alley cat (apologies to any alley cat who might take offense) .  She was, though. Four decades after I fought my father to save my mother from his abuse,  she sings HIS praises while telling her adult kids   ( at least me)  that she never wanted kids and wishes she could sue her (Newfie ) doctor for telling her she couldn't get pregnant.  Sorry, but a doctor cannot be held responsible for his patient's LACK of responsibility.
Then again, she didn't think. It didn't dawn on that woman that sex makes babies, especially when you aren't expecting them and don't want them.  And she didn't think about the impact her heartless words would have, on those who had protected her from the abuse she liked after all. As well as the abuser she preferred over the kids she had with him.
It was a cold betrayal and I didn't want to deal with it anymore.  She continued singing the praises of her abuser, despite being asked and then told to STOP talking this guy up like he was Oskar Schindler.  She still loved the guy who abused her, but she didn't care about the kids she had with him.  She never cared what we did with the rest of our lives.  She never even bothered to ask.
Like I already said,  I don't know if my mother is dead.  My sisters don't mention her to me. Maybe because they got fed up with her like I did.  Or they're just more respectful than she is or was. That wouldn't be too difficult.  Mother  did like throwing the matter of her WILL in our faces.  "Oh this one's in. That one's out."   It was  a manipulation. As if money would make me put up with someone who repeatedly told her kids that we weren't wanted by her.
The more I think about it now,  the more I wish I could have gone to med school  or taken courses in social work so I could be a councilor at an abortion clinic.  But I didn't know at the time, what has since been discovered.
Betrayal has an interesting effect on those betrayed.  Especially when the traitor is  someone assumed trustworthy and who should have been worthy of trust.  Consequences of that betrayal can take interesting forms.  For the time being,  I'm not sure what form my retribution will take.   However, being a writer,  I can take a guess.
Speaking of writers,  though, there's a part 2 for this post, dealing another form of betrayal and the poor soul who, like myself, would end up being stabbed in the back by someone he should have been able to trust.  His 'creator'  no less.
So I'll end here and work on part two after I get some sleep.
Later.
Johanna