rosalindbeatrice

[rosalindbeatrice]

Fan Fic Opening Lines: RosalindBeatrice Edition

Tag game: Share the opening lines of your last 10 fics (you choose how many if you have less than 10) & tag others!

Thank you to @aquarianshift for the tag. Unfortunately I don't know of any other writers on this platform off the top of my head, so if you want to play along, consider this an open invitation.

Also, do I win for shortest opening line?

"The Patient" [Bob Dylan fandom]: - I didn’t care for Bob Dylan before I met him.

"As Hard As Leather" [Bob Dylan fandom]: In the back of the limo, she kept her eyes on the sidewalks.

"On Christmas Day in the Morning" [Bob Dylan fandom]: Christmas morning, 1983.

"Down on the Farm" [Beatles/McLennon fandom]: They whizzed down the highway, the sun’s last orange-yellow rays illuminating a low, putty-coloured building on their right.

"Avoidance" [Beatles/McLennon fandom]: August.

"When Two Clouds Meet" [Beatles/McLennon fandom]: John had gone potty. 

"A Pastoral" [Beatles/Paul McCartney fandom]: She thought it would be their Innisfree.

"Buddies" [Beatles/McLennon fandom]: Certain things fell under certain umbrellas.

"Sunday Morning" [Beatles/John Lennon fandom]: It surprised her how happy he was sometimes. 

"Those Wedding Bells" [Beatles/Paul McCartney fandom]: His mum used to tell him not to put all his eggs in one basket and he’d never done, not even with Jane, which is why it was surrealer than real that he was standing here clasping Linda’s hands while the justice of the peace said, “Do you, Paul James McCartney—”

[rosalindbeatrice]

He’s sat opposite me, this Dylan of 20 years ago in a white ten-gallon cowboy hat with an moustache and soul patch, and he’s counting ten-dollar bills. There’s no table between us. His lips are pursed and eyes downcast. He’s focused solely on the money. This is a scene from a film or a music video he’s orchestrated. I’m playing a prostitute from the Old West. I’m wearing a blue bustier and I have a handful of twenties. Coyly, I hold one toward him. He takes it without looking at me and puts it in his stack, continues counting. I poke a twenty into my décolletage and lean forward to give him an eyeful. He goes on counting, ignoring me. This can’t stand. I’ll get his attention. I bend down. His knees are clad in pale blue slacks. Cupping it reverently, I kiss his left knee several times. The knee kiss is improvised and I hope he likes my creativity. 

But there the dream fades.

…

This dream brought to you by listening to the “Money Honey” chapter of Philosophy of Modern Song while gardening in the extreme heat for 90 minutes and then taking a nap afterward.

[rosalindbeatrice]

I just love that we can see pubes in this snippet. I’ll never get sick of it.

Bob Dylan, Hearts of Fire

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Choose Your Own Adventure: Bob Dylan Version

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Done

Finished The Patient. Apologies to any past and present real version of Bob Dylan.

[rosalindbeatrice]

Wait, whaaaaaat?

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From Positively 4th Street by David Hadju. If someone did my big sister that way, you’d bet I’d react like Mimi.

One does wonder why Dylan got so cruel and dismissive toward Joan. My theory is he’d outgrown the relationship but didn’t know how to break up in a normal way + he’d started using drugs as a way to keep himself going.

[rosalindbeatrice]

Update on The Patient: 10,000 words into part six. I don’t want to make any promises, but I could be done this time next week …

[rosalindbeatrice]

Willem Gerard Hofker, Girl Writing.

I finished two poems this morning. They were mostly done, they just needed a bit of cutting and polishing. Haven't decided yet where I will ambitiously submit them. Like most of my poems, they're about the Anthropocene. I write poems to soothe myself and garden in warm weather, but anxiety about the changing climate is always a low burr in the background regardless of what I do. (And shouldn't it be? I ask myself.) The sixth part of The Patient is up to 8,200 words. I'd like to say I'm 3/4 done, but if I'm being honest with myself, it's probably more like 2/3 done, which would mean I still have about 4k words to go. That sounds about right.

I'm editing the first chapter of the book I'm shopping around to agents. I'm trying to get it into better shape before I resume sending queries.

I continue to spend more time reading. It's healthier than reading the news. I'm in the middle of three books now, Positively 4th Street by David Hadju, a quadruple biography of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña, and Richard Fariña; Adrian McKinty's I Hear The Sirens in the Street; and Doug Tallamy's The Nature of Oaks.

That's my writing/reading update. What are you writing or reading at the moment?

P.S. I didn't know that "Reno Nevada," so beautifully and compellingly covered by Fairport Convention, was a Richard Fariña composition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vxG21Sv3H8&ab_channel=sbritt

[rosalindbeatrice]

Just noticed the height. *snort*

[rosalindbeatrice]

First and/or most memorable encounter with Bob Dylan's music? For me, it's the living room of the 19th-century farmhouse where I grew up. It's a sunny day in 1988 or 1989. My dad has "Tweeter and the Monkey Man" on the stereo. Just a toddler, maybe a little older, I'm captivated in particular by the lyrics, And the walls came down / All the way to Hell. I don't know what they mean, but they are abstract and foreboding. I can see a wall fall in my mind, throwing up a burst of dust. I'm sure I am also attracted to the song because it mentions a "monkey man" and that's a fun image for a little kid.

It was probably only a couple years ago that I realized, 'Hey, that's a Dylan song.'

[rosalindbeatrice]

I don’t know what the kids are listening to these days, but this is all I’ve been singing today.

[rosalindbeatrice]

Here's my username playlist. I really got into it and curated mostly folky-type songs. Thanks @afireinthesunfireinthesun.

R - “Reilly’s Daughter” - Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers

O - “Old King” - Neil Young

S - “Streams of Whiskey” - The Pogues

A - “Apple Suckling Tree” - Bob Dylan & The Band

L - “Last Night” - Traveling Wilburys 

I - “If She’s Gone” - Paul Clayton

N - “Nightengale” - The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem

D - “Dance Dance Dance” - Dave Edmunds

B - “Blue Sky” - Joan Baez

E - “Eastern Rain” - Fairport Convention

A - “Animal Farm” - The Kinks

T - “That Song about the Midway” - Joni Mitchell 

R - “Rose of England” - Nick Lowe

I - “It’s Nobody’s Fault But Mine” - Blind Willie Johnson

C - “Cam Ye O’er from France” - Steeleye Span 

E - “Everybody Knows” - Leonard Cohen

I'm not going to tag anyone, but join in if you're feeling adventurous. Bonus if they're slightly lesser known songs--I'm always looking for new music.

(Image is Melusine von der Schulenburg, Duchess of Kendal, partial subject of "Cam Ye O'er from France," a song I discovered last year and that obsesses me.)

[rosalindbeatrice]

Lucky enough to have a picture of me 'n' Bobby McGee together.

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New Short Story, or, Why I’m Going to Hell

The last part of The Patient is at 7,500 words, but I decided to do a kinky 360 instead of working on it yesterday. I’m half sorry, half not.

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Favorite song, January 25, 2025.

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Update on The Patient: When I'm writing a long-form piece, I'll go back and reread what I've already written to reorient myself. "Oh, aha. That's a thread you could pick up." I know some fiction writers are very opposed to going back and revisiting a first draft before it's all the way done--they think it's important to just bang out that first draft without worrying about what you've set down--but for me, it's grounding. It helps refocus me. Ugh, though. I just want to be Joyce right now and curl up on the couch with a fragile little 1966 Bobby Dylan in my arms.