You shold write a World War II novel about your resistance group - seriously! That's a very "commercial" (read "profitable" field). If you do it right, it's a series.
Vivian is 92 years old and still using her voice to help or hinder depending on the person she has in the headlights. I’m 73. Give me another 20 years and I’ll be damn perfection. So will you.
I only knew her from afar. My grandfather was a Presbyterian minister and they traveled throughout the country, wherever ministry called. She did end up living in my parent’s care but by that time I was living in California and didn’t get back to Wisconsin often enough to have a real relationship with her.
Such sensuous and delicious diction throughout. Makes me shiver and I'm an old man. To quote such a few ... her fierce intelligence at rest for the moment; Her mother's Hermès silk whispered against her skin as she moved through her private rooms, a subtle reminder of battles fought with elegance as armor.; Your lips map/Forbidden territories,/Each kiss a revolution...
I'm writing Vivian at 92 because I know something that makes the youth-obsessed literary world deeply uncomfortable: women don't come with a "best if used by" date. We're not yesterday's news or last season's bestseller. While Rupert Murdoch gets applauded for chasing youth like it's a limited edition, we're supposed to quietly shelve our desires somewhere between the garden club minutes and our grandmother's recipes.
But here's the truth that spills out between my lines: Vivian, my 92-year-old heroine, daughter of a resistance spy, carries the kind of fire that doesn't dim with time—it illuminates. Just like her creator who, at 73, shares her life with a brilliant 40-year-old wife and is attempting to write a story that compels readers to feel something real about the past—WWII—and the here and now. How we are repeating history in the worse way imaginable.
So you betcha, yes! —I’m thrilled my words delighted you.—Because that's what happens when we rip up society's expiration dates and write our own stories. Age isn't a cage—it's a key that unlocks every door we were told to leave closed.
There is so much tenderness in today's chapter, and enigma—Blackwood, the mystery. Ah yes, The 39 Steps, John Buchan. One of the earliest true spy novels. Of course, it happened in England and Scotland, because yes, the English had spies long before the Americans saw the need for them. Is that where Blackwood has its origin?
And those poems woven through the story—exactly what I hoped for. Defying conventions, bending genres. You are a poet first and foremost. So yes, mix and match it all. Fiction, non-fiction, mystery, romance, love story, thriller, documentation, self-help. No rules of engagement. This is a revolution in itself—stepping outside any box and flowing freely over pages and screens.
Longing and love—deep, undeniable. It almost dripped from the screen. This can only be written by someone who has loved, lost, and found love again. And this exploration of binary and defying it at the same time:
"Your codes flow like rivers between borders,
Digital whispers replacing our wartime signals--
Tell me, ma chérie, do you feel it?
How zeros and ones dance like lovers
Across servers that know no boundaries..."
Poetry as a cipher. The heart’s algorithm unchanged, timeless. Whether twenty or ninety-two, the equation holds.
Yet this—"Some doors were better left closed, some languages better left unspoken." Goria, my very dear Gloria, that’s where suffering begins.
I closed a door in the mid-90s, thinking I was better off without knowing, believing I had control. I had nothing. If I had turned toward those doors instead of away, thirty years ago, I wonder where I’d be now. But what gave me freedom was the opening, to learn that very unspoken language of so long ago. Letting everything I thought defined me be questioned, examined. Yet that is another story, for another time.
And Donovan—thank you for that. The man who showed up exactly where history needed him. Soldier, lawyer, diplomat, spymaster. He shaped intelligence by redefining the landscape. He made sure American intelligence didn’t just enter the war—it became indispensable to winning it. He built something meant to outlive him, and it did. The kind of legacy that lingers, shaping things long after he was gone.
You laid out the layers. I walked through them. That’s the best kind of storytelling—where every corridor has weight, and every shadow matters.
The conversation continues.
Thank you. Write on please. Cannot wait to read the next installment of this ongoing love-affair.
Every chapter of this fascinating tale , makes one wish for a big thick book..or a well done PBS Series , like Foyles War with Anthony Horowitz putting it together!
You shold write a World War II novel about your resistance group - seriously! That's a very "commercial" (read "profitable" field). If you do it right, it's a series.
It’s a thought. 💭
Agreed. I'd buy it.
Fascinating, Gloria!
Thank you.
A biography within a spy story, written in love poetry! Enjoying!
Thank you. It’s interesting to write.
I can only say I am longing for more This is brilliant
Thank you!
Becomes ever more fascinating, Gloria. I find myself almost sorry that as a retiree, I have little scope to accomplish bureaucratic slowdowns.
Vivian is 92 years old and still using her voice to help or hinder depending on the person she has in the headlights. I’m 73. Give me another 20 years and I’ll be damn perfection. So will you.
My paternal grandmother related to us that her brother practiced law in the same firm as Donovan during the 1920s.
There’s a story there …
She was from New York, maiden name Alta Tucker
Write a poem about her.
I only knew her from afar. My grandfather was a Presbyterian minister and they traveled throughout the country, wherever ministry called. She did end up living in my parent’s care but by that time I was living in California and didn’t get back to Wisconsin often enough to have a real relationship with her.
Luscious.
Thank you. 🙏
Such sensuous and delicious diction throughout. Makes me shiver and I'm an old man. To quote such a few ... her fierce intelligence at rest for the moment; Her mother's Hermès silk whispered against her skin as she moved through her private rooms, a subtle reminder of battles fought with elegance as armor.; Your lips map/Forbidden territories,/Each kiss a revolution...
I'm writing Vivian at 92 because I know something that makes the youth-obsessed literary world deeply uncomfortable: women don't come with a "best if used by" date. We're not yesterday's news or last season's bestseller. While Rupert Murdoch gets applauded for chasing youth like it's a limited edition, we're supposed to quietly shelve our desires somewhere between the garden club minutes and our grandmother's recipes.
But here's the truth that spills out between my lines: Vivian, my 92-year-old heroine, daughter of a resistance spy, carries the kind of fire that doesn't dim with time—it illuminates. Just like her creator who, at 73, shares her life with a brilliant 40-year-old wife and is attempting to write a story that compels readers to feel something real about the past—WWII—and the here and now. How we are repeating history in the worse way imaginable.
So you betcha, yes! —I’m thrilled my words delighted you.—Because that's what happens when we rip up society's expiration dates and write our own stories. Age isn't a cage—it's a key that unlocks every door we were told to leave closed.
And, I'm just getting started.
Here's looking at you, kid.
And here's another link we all can enjoy:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/magazine/sex-gen-x-women.html
Thank you. Fascinating yet so unknown in general.
My wife enjoyed it, too, and like you nothing's stopping her!
Gloria,
There is so much tenderness in today's chapter, and enigma—Blackwood, the mystery. Ah yes, The 39 Steps, John Buchan. One of the earliest true spy novels. Of course, it happened in England and Scotland, because yes, the English had spies long before the Americans saw the need for them. Is that where Blackwood has its origin?
And those poems woven through the story—exactly what I hoped for. Defying conventions, bending genres. You are a poet first and foremost. So yes, mix and match it all. Fiction, non-fiction, mystery, romance, love story, thriller, documentation, self-help. No rules of engagement. This is a revolution in itself—stepping outside any box and flowing freely over pages and screens.
Longing and love—deep, undeniable. It almost dripped from the screen. This can only be written by someone who has loved, lost, and found love again. And this exploration of binary and defying it at the same time:
"Your codes flow like rivers between borders,
Digital whispers replacing our wartime signals--
Tell me, ma chérie, do you feel it?
How zeros and ones dance like lovers
Across servers that know no boundaries..."
Poetry as a cipher. The heart’s algorithm unchanged, timeless. Whether twenty or ninety-two, the equation holds.
Yet this—"Some doors were better left closed, some languages better left unspoken." Goria, my very dear Gloria, that’s where suffering begins.
I closed a door in the mid-90s, thinking I was better off without knowing, believing I had control. I had nothing. If I had turned toward those doors instead of away, thirty years ago, I wonder where I’d be now. But what gave me freedom was the opening, to learn that very unspoken language of so long ago. Letting everything I thought defined me be questioned, examined. Yet that is another story, for another time.
And Donovan—thank you for that. The man who showed up exactly where history needed him. Soldier, lawyer, diplomat, spymaster. He shaped intelligence by redefining the landscape. He made sure American intelligence didn’t just enter the war—it became indispensable to winning it. He built something meant to outlive him, and it did. The kind of legacy that lingers, shaping things long after he was gone.
You laid out the layers. I walked through them. That’s the best kind of storytelling—where every corridor has weight, and every shadow matters.
The conversation continues.
Thank you. Write on please. Cannot wait to read the next installment of this ongoing love-affair.
Every chapter of this fascinating tale , makes one wish for a big thick book..or a well done PBS Series , like Foyles War with Anthony Horowitz putting it together!