That’s my word count on my novel, which I started writing on Nov. 1. Only 32,712 to go by Nov. 30. *sigh* It’s all good, though. I’ll make it, and if I don’t, I will still come close. It’s been going well today, but like I told Chris last night, the only good thing about my own struggles is that I can make my characters suffer, and that makes for entertaining prose!
And because I would be kicked out of the blogging community (well, not really) if I didn’t report on it, Scott Peterson was just found guilty of first-degree murder. It’s either life in prison or lethal injection. Of course, it’s California. He’ll be cellmates with Chucky Manson and getting more financial support than the average community of homeless people. Hurrah. Not.
Did he really do it? Don’t know. All signs pointed to it. But maybe Americans (and particularly these jurors) were seeking vengeance from being duped over the O.J. Simpson trial that captivated us nearly a decade ago.
It has been said and examined that the Peterson trial got so much attention because this was an attractive young couple in the prime of their lives; meanwhile, spouses are being abused every day with nary a word breathed in the media about it. (Who outside of Metro D.C. heard about Laura Rogers, who shot her husband for impregnanting her teen daughter?) But, whatever. Americans love their tragic love stories, don’t they? (Says the girl whose novel-in-progress is about one!)
What the Peterson debacle did bring, though, was controversial legislation — the “Unborn Victims of Violence Act” — that may or may not have hurt the women’s rights movement. In this trial, yes, I think it could be fair to say that a fetus at that gestational stage could, in fact, be counted as a murder victim. But I fear that this act is ultimately going to be used to chip away at “Roe v. Wade” even further.
In any event, we will remember Laci Peterson’s smiling face in haunting photographs, and we will envision the man that little Connor never had the opportunity to grow to become. We will say “good riddance” to Scott Peterson and his crazy hair colors and we will guffaw when he appeals the verdict. And our hearts will break all over again when another story of such emotional significance has us shaking our heads at the bizarreness and horror of it all.
On iTunes: Ani DiFranco, “School Night”