Lynn Charles's Blog, page 4

Out of Words… or So I Thought

[source] Not completely out of words, as this windy post proves, but lately, I’m finding myself starting sentences and blog posts and sighing my way out of whatever format I’m wanting to type in without saying much of a thing. My initial disappearance had a happy, celebratory cause. I retreated to my revision cave to […]

She Walks in Beauty

I have a confession to make today. While it is typically a grave sin to “self-insert” in one’s fiction, some would say I did just that with the use of this song in Black Dust. I am unapologetic, however, as it was a song that has stuck with me the decades since learning, competing with […]

The Intersection of Risk and Joy

For my virtual blog tour, I was asked to write short essays from the character’s points of view. Both asked about their childhood–one was to be written from the child’s point of view. I chose Toby and a moving day in his early adolescence. At the end of my tour, I was asked to write […]

Linus and Lucy

I haven’t shared Black Dust music with you in a while. It’s been such a pleasure to hear that so many of you are enjoying the music in the book. So, I bring you a song that featured briefly near the end, “Linus and Lucy.” This version is interesting, as it’s sung by only two […]

Liberty Rd. & Rt. 3

The last of the photo tour. I hope you’ve enjoyed it, and the excerpts of Black Dust. We end our tour in Indiana: Of course it’s a fictional intersection, but in rural mid-America this would be where Toby and Emmett lost–at the time–everything. Years later, it would be where they might be able to begin […]

Lincoln Center

While the Black Dust scene at Lincoln Center takes place over the Christmas holiday, that colorful detail is missing in these images. Still, the vastness, the bright shimmering fountain, the reconsideration of dreams lost and found again, those remain the same. Before Tobias could register what was happening, Emmett had taken hold of his hand […]

520 and a Missing Hat

Today’s New York “scenery” is less scenic and more… geographic. There is a long story about my weird tendency for my fiction to land splat in the middle of my reality, but I’ll save that for another time. In the meantime, come with me to Toby’s work space where Emmett meets one of the quirky […]

Bemelmans, Part Deux

One more moment from Bemelmans: Toby seems to know Emmett a bit better than either of them realized: Emmett looked around the bar. “So, what’s good to drink here?” Tobias sat back and massaged his chin while he sized up Emmett. “You look like a… ” “Oh, stop. You have no idea what I drink.” […]

Bemelmans

For their first evening together after fifteen years separation, Toby took Emmett to a famous bar in New York, Bemelmans. It’s attached to the Carlyle Hotel on the Upper East Side and has an old school class that cannot be beat. It also recollects back to their first date as teens when they went to […]

Old Hollywood. Classic.

Not the most exciting picture, but an important scene. Join me in the parking lot next to Davenport Theater where Toby and Emmett see each other for the first time in 15 years: Tobias waved goodbye and listened to the click-clack of his bass player’s shoes fade as she disappeared down the quiet street. And […]