So, where have I been...

Family support is imperative! It has always been there!

My book launch was fun with a lovely pianist, Karen Robinson, playing Charmian's favorite tunes on the Canterbury Woods Steiway Concert Grand. This was followed by my powerpoint presentation showing historic photos of the characters in the book and a selected reading. Good Champagne and hors d'oeuvr es added to the festivities.

I loved doing the book signing for friends, new friends, old friends...one gentleman said that his grandmother used to ride with Charmian up Sonoma Mountain in the thirties. Wow!

Later in June, I did a presentation/reading/signing at River House Books in Carmel. What a beautiful bookstore. The staff and patrons were supportive with a lovely patio setting. I've been pleased that so many who came for the event have signed up for this website.

When Irving Shepard granted permission for me to access the London Files in the Huntington Library, he told me that Charmian was his favorite relative. When he was a young boy, she took him under her wing and taught him about animals, plants and life on the Beauty Ranch. "You know, Charmian and Jack had a robust physical relationship," he said. "When you write your book, I don't want to read any salacious sex." "I'm not a Jackie Collins," I told him. I kept my word.

The next problem was how to access the Huntington. One must be sponsored. I wasn't sure where to turn. Until...

One night at the San Francisco Opera, I went to a water fountain during intermission. It was an old one; one that took an engineer to get enough water so you didn't "kiss" the bubble mechanism. I got it going and turned to the women behind me to tell her I'd hold the knob for her. When I looked up, there was Karen Stedfeld from my freshman year at the University of Idaho. She had been Senior and had was a Fulbright Scholar.

She recognized me as well. We began that what-are-you-doing, etc. catch up conversation, introduced our husbands, and etc. She had founded the Center for Reasearch on Women at Stanford and had become an internationally recognized scholar in women's history. When I told her I was embarking on the "Charmian Project" and was concerned about accesss to the Huntington, she laughed and said, "No problem. I'm on their Board. I'll sponsor you." And the rest, they say, is history.

Five years at the Huntington, driving to San Marino (Pasadena) two to three times a year and studying the files was heaven. I read Charmian's diaries. They were approximately 3 by 2 inches with teeny tiny writing. She liked to carry them in her pockets. After Irving Stone used her love letters to Jack to publicly abuse their relationship in his London biography: Sailor on Horseback. (He took the title Jack wanted to use for his autobiography and wrote a (I think) scurilous mess.) Charmian was furious. Stone still had some of the letters she had loaned him. They were never returned. She burned those she still had.

Jack's letters were in great shape and easy to access. Not only were there his love letters to her, but also massive correspondence to friends, editors, and notables such as Winston Churchill, Joseph Conrad and others. Of the latter, he asked how much they got paid for magazine work. They did answer him, he was the most famous living writer in the world.

And there was the ephemera: over two thousand photos, rough drafts of her writing, miscellaneous letters and odd collections.

I found Charmian' books in the California Collections of the Burlingame Library. The head librarian, Patty Bergsing, allowed me to check them out! I bought books for research, especially Russ Kingman's book on Jack and his detail chronology.

Then, I started writing. I like Anne Lamott's book on writing, Bird by Bird. She recommends sitting down and "vomiting" everything on the page. When I finished my first draft I had almost fifteen hundrd pages! My long time mentor, the late Barnaby Conrad, said "Writing is not about writing. It is about rewriting."

In a class one day at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, the instructor Marilee Zedenik, asked us to close our eyes and pretend we were having a conversation with our protagonist. I did. Charmian "spoke" to me. I went back to my room and began rewriting the entire manuscript in the first person: Charmian's voice.

Life got in the way. Two teenagers. A parent with dementia. A move from California to Idaho to care for her. It all worked out. I now have the published: The Second Mrs. London--Charmian Kittredge Shares Her Life with Jack London!

Stay tuned. My second novel, The Lotus Eaters, is about ready to go out and find a printed home. I'm am well into the third manuscript, Last Night at the Dream Theater. I've begun outlining the structure for a coming of age story that takes place in Ft. Lauderdale, 1968.