On your left is an image of the great poet, William Butler Yeats. Yeats was born in 1865, and this post’s title poem is from “The Second Coming”, published in 1920, so we can presume that the photo is of a younger version of the poet. But it’s a nice picture, so there it stays.
The title of this post is pretentious because it’s really about my own writing, which is never to be compared, (in favorable terms, at least) with that of this, the premiere English language poet of our times. Nevertheless, perhaps some tiny fragment of his karma will surround me as I forge ahead.
I just finished and published NITA, a book of which I am inordinately proud in that it is my 7th novel and completes a second trilogy–The Maxwell Vendetta, The Second Vendetta, and Swindle in Sawtooth Valley being the first; Bonita, Bonita’s Quest, and now, Nita comprise the second. My question to myself and to the world is what comes next? Do I make one of my trilogies a tetralogy ? If I do go ahead with the Maxwell story, I chronologically run smack into the first world war. Do I want to explore that most savage of all the horrible clashes of the 20th century? If I have to even ask the question, that’s perhaps an automatic no.
If I go backwards in time, I might find myself tracing the wagon train that first brought the Maxwells to California in 1864. Interesting because that is the same year my great-grandparents took a wagon train from New York to California and ended up in little-known place called Covelo. Interesting place, that. An Indian reservation is still there, and I described a bit about its beginnings in Nita. Do I want that again. Also a return to that world world would mean a second involvement with the Bonita/Carter Maxwell romance. Do I want that? Maybe so. It’s tempting, so maybe something to pursue.
On the other hand, what about Nita? I could work with her and the San Francisco underground railroad. That is indeed very tempting. Mary Ellen Pleasant and her companion, Penelope, are attractive characters. (Why am I so often drawn to female protagonists? You’ll have to ask my shrink. Not that I have one, really, but it sounds good, doesn’t it?)
Anyhow, provisionally, That’s what I’ll do. Nita and Mary Ellen, Bonita and Nita, here we come. Inching our way. Maybe.

MARY ELLEN PLEASANT

NITA KELLY

BONITA KELLY