Sherlok (sp) November

 Ten days into "Watsowrimo," as I'm calling National Novel Writing Month this November, the writer's block has officially hit. My tale of Sherlockians dealing with a mystery has played out to the point it has played out before and come up dry. One of the characters went to Walmart -- that's how bad things got. Sherlockians go to the Mysterious Bookshop, they don't go to Walmart. (Well, a lot of us probably do, but not in our Sherlockian mode . . . I mean, what's the last Sherlockian item you heard of being at Walmart?)

So here I am taking a little blogger break. But, then, what do I have to blog about?

How about a copy of Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters?

Masters was a law partner of Clarence Darrow who originally aspired to be a poet, writing poems about the local folk where he grew up in the middle of Illinois where the Spoon River winds around through a bunch of small towns. Working my aunt's antique store during an annual event called the "Spoon River Drive" I took a little interest in Masters and picked up this book. And what is its marginal tie to Sherlock Holmes that makes it blog material?

Its bookplate.

In 1965, this book was owned by a guy named Sherlok V. Miller. Try googling that and you'll get Johnny Lee Miller every time.  Dropping that "c" out of "Sherlock" is a curious thing. Merely parents who didn't know how to spell? A time-travelling fan of the 2015 Ukranian Sherlok TV show? (And if it's a time traveller, maybe it's Paul Thomas Miller with his brain attic dishevelled by the transit.)

There's a Sherlockian Chronologist Guild newsletter for me to work on, if my writer's block continues. I probably should dynamite the narrative of my November novel to blast the writer's block out of there. If it's anything like past works, it may just wind up in the closet come December, but the exercise is always good. Like many another thing, the journey is the real reward of doing the thing -- something that is definitely going to be lost on the more eager AI adopters, trying to cheat actually being creative. But that's a conversation for another time.

November continues.