h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What, only 30 chapters? My story is too long!

Can you divide it into 30 parts? I mean, it's one part a day...

I'm not looking to participate in this year's holes in history exercise. That said, the project I *am* working on is a murder mystery set in a fictional town based on Clinton, Massachusetts, where there is a very large reservoir.

Imagine my surprise and delight this morning when I looked up the fictional name (Crepuscular Meadows) and found that Google has discovered two of the episodes.

Alternatively, though, the body of the caretaker of Caledonian Grove, Boston, was found floating in the Charles River in the late 1930s.
That place is real, and that death was also real.

I could conceivably try to solve that mystery, but I fear I would blow a gasket researching. Except for C.M.'s Fernald Shanahan, who was picking apples in Nobility (real name Bolton) during the Hurricane of 1938, I have no touchstones to work with. My uncle actually was picking apples in Bolton during that Hurricane.

But I'd rather do straight fiction in the present day. I don't plan to use fairies, or space aliens, but it's nice not to have too many things I'm not allowed to do.

So, please forgive me if I seem to be somewhat off topic here. I am planning to write thirty chapters of a story in November. Just not part of this particular project.

And good luck to everyone.

OK, I have a story written - 54,000 words in 30 chapters.

That sounds just right! Remember to post the A-number of your 'homepage' for it on (or near) 1 November, and we'll be able to read along!

I look forward to reading everyone's work, and cheering them on.

I hope that other researchers will also read what I've written.

I have a new feature called "The Oracle speaks," which is one of my journal entries. My attempts to read Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus have given me the desire to sound pompous and very arch and often quite mysterious.

It's all in good fun, including lying in a bathtub full of chocolate milk (an idea borrowed from Diane Arbus).