It's 82 degrees

and I sent texts to my kids with pictures of the temperature on the car's dash. I am a bad, bad mother. Just wanted to rub in the warmth and sun, yes, SUN that broke through the clouds as we hustled into Florida on our way to Daytona and the 500.  One child had ice to deal with today, and the other was hit by flurries. I want to say I'm sorry we went South, but that ain't true. I am not sorry, not one wee little bit.

We're getting excited for the race. This new car has the drivers excited, and it sure looks as if you can't win by hanging in the back, then making a last lap move.

Tomorrow we hit a fav restaurant, Your Place, for breakfast. Then on to some great thrift store shopping. The SPCA sponsors the best one in Central Fl. Love their book selection.

I'm going to try to restrain myself  from taking pictures of the white sandals I'll be wearing

Daytona!

The weather looks promising, Danica has the pole, and we're tired of cold weather. I know, the South is nowhere near as cold as north of the Mason-Dixon line, but it's been a bear recently for those of us wondering what's happened to the forsythia. So my beloved and I are loading up the headphones, the race scanner, and sunscreen, and heading farther south. Hope to get some good pix, hopefully of my fav, Bad Brad, in victory lane.

It's been a while since we've sat in the stands. Every race we tried to attend last year was cold and miserable, and we didn't see the end of even one of them. Rain was the culprit. I can take cold, I can take wind, but throw in the wet stuff, and I'm gone.

I'm planning on quiet time on the way down to Florida, so I can re-read what I've written and get a handle on the story. Sometimes I'm just too close to it, sitting at my desk. I feel as if I need to keep plowing onward, when I really need to step back and see the story with different "eyes." So this break comes at a good time for me as a writer and as a race fan.

Let the sun shine, the engines roar, and every word I read be a winner. I don't ask for much, do I?

Valentine's Day

My Beloved amd I long ago gave up trying to go out for dinner on VDay, so we came up with a new tradition - having a VDay breakfast. For a while, we'd cook special breakfast goodies at home, but these days, we splurge on a restaurant. Eggs and bacon cooked by someone else just somehow tastes better. This year we headed for Shoney's, where I love the fresh fruit and grits on the breakfast buffet.

After stuffing our faces, we decided to run an errand or two, which somehow mushroomed into an all day trek to the beach. I know it makes no sense, but believe me when I tell you that the GPS on a Toyota is insane. It saved our hides in D.C. last Christmas when we had to meet our daughter unexpectedly, so we'd begun trusting the little devil. Such foolishness.

I guess because the GPS is in a Prius, it feels it can squander gas. For this hour and a half run to the beach to pick up a new gas cook top (exactly the one I wanted and couldn't get at home), the GPS decided we needed the scenic route. As in, a three hour scenic amble through residential (and not) areas miles from our destination.

We knew we were being had. We also knew we were hopelessly lost, so we had no other choice but to follow the commands the GPS snapped. When we finally arrived at our destination, we knew the $/@&-$ had jerked our chains, but good. There, a hundred yards from the store, was the interstate. We could have been there in less than ninety minutes going the direct route.

As my DH said, buying me a chicken wrap at Burger King, he really knows how to show me a good time. Shoney's and BK, all in one day. And the best part about this VDay (mis)adventure? We got to spend it together.

I guess I should thank the stupid GPS.

TAG Grants and Virginia Independent Colleges

I suppose if you're the money-person for a county, city, state, or school district, you know to the penny how much you're spending per pupil. I remember being amazed when my children spent a few years in public school at the dollars spent per pupil, until it was explained to me that this average included providing services for those with disabilities and special needs, as well.  Then the money made sense.

Getting a child through the higher education hurdle is not for the faint of heart. The money required is astounding.

Today's college graduates are almost universally burdened with a debt they'll never pay down until they're quite a bit older.  I wonder how they'll ever afford a house, a new car, insurance, food, etc., without help. Even the Obamas said they spent years paying off their student loans, and they graduated back when tuition wasn't as high as it is now.

I was asked recently to support a slight increase in the TAG grants Virginia provides its students attending private colleges and universities. You bet I do, and I emailed my legislator to say so. One of my children received a TAG grant, and every little bit helps when tuition is close to $40,000 a year.

Can we learn from the past?

A writer friend has been studying the old Perry Mason books and encouraged me to do the same. I started one, and realized I was reading a master. Maybe not War and Peace ( which I have never finished, I confess, maybe because I was reading it in a French translation), but the hand of a master storyteller is sure and steady. Earl Stanley Gardner is teaching me a lot, and I'm an old hand at this game.

A few quick impressions---

1. Quick character descriptions: sketches that give you a nail on which to hang your assessments.

2. A fast hook to reel you in as a reader. Prospective client, a man we know is wealthy and accustomed to getting his way, to PM: "I want you to find a gold fish." Okaayyyy....I'm intrigued, ecen if Mason isn't at first feelin' it.

3. Short, snappy dialogue. Elmore Leonard-esque.

4. Short chapters, one leading swiftly into the next. Back story is brief and cuts to the chase.

5. The whole book isn't too long. No leisurely, beautiful sentences. No artistic exposition. Just the story, ma'am, just the story. (Where did that come from? Dragnet?)

More later. . . .

Champs

The Super Bowl was pretty durned good. Thought the 49ers had a shot, but the Ravens just weren't going to roll over and play dead. That's what makes a champ. There's no quit in their vocabulary.

I have listened to Jimmie Johnson over the years, and now Brad Keselowski, talk about winning a Nascar championship. The talk is about how tough it is, how you need great people around you, etc., etc., but the proof of what makes a winner shows up when something  goes wrong. When a part breaks and they're twenty laps down. Do they hop out of the car and head for the motorhome?  Not Jimmie Johnson, not Brad Keselowski. They keep their tail feathers in that car and get whatever is left, out of it.

Remember Kyle Busch doing leaving his broken car when he drove for Hendricks? Dale Jr. hopped into it to finish the race after repairs had been made, just for fun, he said, since his car was wrecked. And before you could go "hmmmm?" Kyle was out at Hendricks and Dale left his father's team to drive for Rick Hendricks.

 I've  seen Kyle Busch lay down at Gibbs, just get totally furious at something that happens to the car and check out mentally. In interviews, he wonders why, if he's such a great driver, as he's been called by others, he hasn't won a championship.

I know why. It's pretty obvious to anyone who follows the sport. I wonder why no one has ever told him the truth.

Books for the End of the World

For two nights running, I was busy preparing for the end of the world as we know it. My nightmares may have had something to do with the crazy weather - from the 70s into the 40s in one day - but I like to think it's my subconscious preparing for any eventuality. While in my dreams I busily planned how to convert the shed into an efficient living space (the shed?!), I stocked footlockers with food and quilts, loaded up on cans of gas for the generator (why? What will be around to see/hear? I doubt TV or radio.), and cut wood for the woodstove we ditched last year. Yes, it had reappeared in the yard to be used in this dream. I dragged mattresses into the shed's attic and tried to decide what books to take with us. I don't know what happened to our house, but that's a nightmare for you.  Details don't matter.

I was stumped on the books.

My dilemma was that I was allowed only ten books. I guess there wasn't going to be much reading after the apocalypse, and I wanted them all to be keepers. It was easy to start with the Bible, and then three paperbacks I cherish jumped onto the list. Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale, Pat Murphy's The Falling Woman, and Penelope Williamson's The Outsider were easy picks. Then the five Harry Potter novels jumped into my hands, and there I was, with one slot open and no idea what book to choose.

I think I was sweating bullets in my dream. I almost settled on a Bible concordance, because those are really handy creatures, or an unabridged Oxford dictionary, but I kept wanting to add another novel. Instantly, I knew. Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird wasn't going to be left behind. My list was complete.

You'd think I'd forget this nightmare 48 hours after it's over, but I'm still reviewing my book choice. Who needs food or heat? What you really need to survive an apocalypse is books.

Good bye, Chad Everett


Watching the SAG awards last night, I was shocked to see the list of deceased personalities/stars I was unaware we’d lost. I knew about Andy Griffith (sob!), but Chad Everett? Oh my stars. Those blue eyes. Those dimples. As a young teen, I was drooling. How could he be dead? It’s like I lost my youth when I heard he’d passed on.

I was thinking about the Maggie Smiths, the Vanessa Redgraves,  the shining stars of theater and film who almost guarantee I’ll see anything they’re in because they’re who they are. What happens when they’re gone? As I watched Jennifer Lawrence accept her best actress award, I wondered if she, and other actors of her generation, will have the chops to be the greats of the future. And what was Nicole Kidman, with her botoxed face, thinking as she watched Lawrence climb the stairs to the stage? Actresses over forty aren’t exactly the hot ticket in filmland. Such a shame. Maggie Smith is proving in Downton Abby that age just makes you better as an actor.

The same can be said for writers. We get better (well, I hope I am) as we age. We don’t have as many distractions (rug rats, diapers, picky eaters, etc.) and our experience alone makes us better observers of life. Watching and translating that into fiction is key. We have less to lose by being honest, and an honest writer is a good writer on the way to being great.

Good-bye Chad Everett.  You created a lovely illusion of gentle sexiness for a naïve girl. I will remember you fondly. Now I have to think how I’m going to use you in a story. That’s what writers do.

 

Bling it up

A group of fellow writers has been discussing the ups and downs of offering prizes to readers. The practice has been used for quite a while - I remember years and years ago,  RWA authors talking about professional "prize-hunters" who troll the Net looking for ways to win stuff. The trollers didn't care about the books or the authors, just the bling at the end of the rainbow.

There will always be that faithful group of readers who eagerly await a new book by their favorite authors. For them, a free book is a great reward for entering a contest. Real readers don't crave a $200 necklace or an iPad (well, they might crave them, but they don't expect one) as the prize for entering the author's contest. The books are the real goody bag.

So what has happened? The consensus seems to be that the droves of self-published ebooks has created a monster. Standing out from the crowd is crazy hard, and authors figure bling is just a cost of doing business. The better the bling, the more traffic is driven to the author's site and therefore, the ebooks. I'm not sure the logic follows. While I hope they're right, for their sakes, I doubt it. Better and more expensive prizes make for more money shelled out by writers who probably can't afford it. The authors who can take the financial hit, don't do any of this stuff and nonsense.

Writing a great book isn't enough these days, I hear via the omniscient grapevine. Unfortunately, that's been a truth of publishing forever. Marketing does matter, and it matters even more in these times.  So how do you strike a balance? Reward the faithful readers who truly care, drive more people to discover your book, and entice those who normally wouldn't look twice?

If you figure it out, let me know. But I won't send you an iPad for your response.

And the rains came. . .

It's been raining for two days, and it's not lessening. Last night, the pounding was so loud, I couldn't sleep. It sounded like a thousand clog dancers on the roof, having a good ole time.  After trying to convince myself I shouldn't put on my wet suit and flippers and inflate a raft, I gave up and went to work. That's the nice thing about working from home, as well as its curse. You can't get away from it. Sometimes, you don't want to.

Well, I don't. At long last ( it's a long story, involving painting the dark wood in the family room, oil-based primer, malfunctioning Internet, and a third TV), I was able to sit down and write without interruptions. This Nirvana lasted only about an hour, but let me tell you, I was in hog heaven. My Beloved fielded the phone calls, the workmen, the wet dogs who don't like going potty in the rain, you name it. He covered all the bases while I regained some semblance of sanity. The man deserves a medal. But only when he's not snoring.

This new year has brought changes that have been brewing for a while. Grateful as I am to have them under way, I can't wait for normalcy to return. I love my boring life. May it find its way back to me.



Time Travel?

I just finished reading TIME TRAVELER by Dr. Ronald Mallett, a physicist on the faculty of UConn.  Dr. Mallett's father died suddenly when the physicist was only ten years old, and his life became a long, introverted, and not always happy journey to find a way to see his father again. Science fiction like H.G. Well's The Time Machine and Star Trek encouraged him to research the science behind the theory of time travel, and research he did. Using the GI bill, he delved into topics and math that sound incomprehensible to me. Yet he has a knack for explaining theories in simple terms that give me glimmers of the brain power behind his work.

Parallel universes, bending light, tensor calculus, all seem more important to Dr. Mallett than real people interaction. Driven, and I mean driven, by his desire to see his father, he suffers periodic depressions and a divorce.  When he's deep into his work, he's clearly the happiest. I feel sorry for him in a way, particularly since he's painfully aware he's unable to form friendships as a youth, and romantic attachments as a young man. Living in his head produced brilliant science, though not an especially happy life, it appears.

He does find a measure of peace when a scientist he respects a great deal tells him that while he may not see his father again, his father would be very proud of him. The story of his journey to discover how to time travel is both human, melancholy, and triumphant. Give it a read.

Where did it go? Howdy, 2013

The Christmas decor is gone, done, in the attic, disappeared in the trash pick-up. It always seems to come down faster than it goes up. Phew. I love the sparkle and glitter, but I need the house to be normalized so I can get to work. The laptop has been shut down too long.

The coming NASCAR season has me mildly excited. If Bad Brad can wrangle the new Ford for Penske into another championship, I'll be one happy girl. However, my focus right now is on my concealed handgun permit. Yes, I sat through four and a half hours of testosterone fueled hell to qualify to submit my application. Not that I own any hand gun that isn't over a 150 years old. It's a quandary. Hand guns, like some hunting rifles, can be works of art. And while I've never felt the need to shoot anyone, I like knowing I'm not helpless if a situation arises. Wrestling with this dilemma is giving me fits. Power isn't bullets, but preparation. It's like plotting a novel. I need to know what's coming.

On a different note, what makes men think women are deaf when they make misogynist statements in mixed company? My tongue was bleeding by the time the handgun class came to a whimpering end. I'm coming to think only women should be allowed to possess weapons. Men who think they're hot stuff with a gun should have them taken away while they sit in time out.

Merry Christmas!

Sometimes I feel as if Christmas doesn't last long enough. All that shopping, wrapping, and returning a gift when you find something better, then voila! By ten a.m. on Christmas morning, all that work is just a bag of ripped paper, torn bows, and a small stack of stuff. It doesn't seem fair.

My grandmother would make a lemon meringue pie from scratch ( even squeezing real lemons) and it would take hours and hours of work. The finished product didn't last fifteen minutes. No kidding. She finally declared an end to pie making, deeming the effort not worth the ephemera of the pie. I know how she felt.

I like the idea of spreading the gift giving and merry making over a week or more. Anyone with me?

At any rate, hope everyone had a good one. And that everyone received at least one book from Santa.

Down for the count

Been out of commission with various ailments, so it's been a while. Still can't figure out what's the deal with Blogger. May just have to get going with Wordpress. Oh dear. For someone who grew up moving from country to country every few years, you'd think change was good. Working on that one.

Christmas has finally arrived at our house, despite the loss of our twenty yo cat. It has taken a while for us to realize he's left us - I keep thinking he's coming around a door corner, or I hear him calling for more food. Biff was the perfect cat, and we all adored him. Well, except for the time he broke one of a pair of Lenox candlesticks. And the time he brought me a live vole and dropped it at my feet in the kitchen. I thanked him for his love offering after I stopped screaming.

He came to us as an itty bitty kitten, really too young to be weaned. Being raised like just another one of the kids, he thought he was human, only far superior. He talked all the time - a regular chatterbox. The funny thing is, we knew exactly what he was saying ( or demanding), and would reply in kind. We often held long comversations in "cat."

I'll miss him curling up in my lap while I write, his tolerance for anything weird, and his snaggle-toothed grin.

Respectful silence

Posting has seemed irrelevant since last Friday. I can't be so arrogant to assume I know what it's like to lose a child to a mass shooting. I do know that the fear of losing one of our children was a topic of much deep prayer from day one. Who knew you could feel such deep, life-changing love the first time you saw that tiny face with rosebud lips?

It seemed disrespectful to insert myself into the online conversation. I have my own views, and I'll work as diligently as I can to make my elected officials hear them.

But one thing really ticked me off, and I've waited until now to calm down. Friday night Twitter was rife with pictures of Nascar Team Christmas parties. Charlie Daniels standing with Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jimmie Johnson, and Kasey Kahne, all grinning. Penske Racing posted pix of Karoke by their driver lineup at their Christmas party.  Evidently,  a good time was had by all.

I have never been so embarrassed by Nascar, and the elites especially. This was Friday night, for heaven's sake! So they didn't postpone their parties, but did they have to post pix of one and all making merry during a time of national horror and grief?

Shame on them. Just shame.

Writing a blurb

that will sell your books is harder than making a perfect omelet. Or winning a Sprint Cup.  I hate doing the things, because I want to spread out all the cool aspects of the story, and there ain't that much room. A small paragragh is best, and it has to hit the highlights harder than Tony Stewart stuffing a fellow driver in the wall.  I found a clear description of how to write a successful book blurb, which I am happy to pass on.

http://jmney-grimm.com/2012/12/cover-copy-primer/

I like to give credit where due, and this article nails it.

On a more Christmasy note, must mail two parcels and find out what happened to an Amazon order that states it was delivered by the USPS. Nope, not at my address.  I've never had an Amazon order go astray before.

Keep writing, even through the craziness of this time of year....

Too much shakin'

going on! That's an old-fashioned phrase that means I want this carousel to stop so I can jump off.  It's not the normal Christmas hoopla, because I'm pretty laid back this year. I don't know who slipped me the chill pill, but I'm okay with all the ornament boxes spread from the garage to the living room, and not a durned ball on a tree so far. It'll come together, and if it doesn't, well, as the French say, tante pis.

I miss the smaller independent bookstores this time of the year. I want to spend half my Christmas budget at places like Creatures and Crooks, which no longer occupies a physical place.  Books are a staple under our tree, and half the fun is finding a new author to share with a family member. Browsing the big box stores, with no one to give you recommendations and shelves filled with expensive toys,  is just no fun without being able to ask the clerk " Have you read this one? What do you think?"

So I did some shopping at Milkweed Press, ordering online. They always publish unusual writers with different stories. Plus, they're a small, non-profit press, so I'd rather support them than B&N.  Go forth and buy a book as a gift this year, and keep away from the standards, like Grisham. Find a new author with a small press. That's my way of getting off the carousel.

Boors, boobs, and b******s. Writing the Obnoxious.

How do you deal with difficult people? People who are just plain rude, or who see the world as they want to see it, not as it is? People who say one ugly thing after another, pretending it's funny and you should laugh with them?  People who just don't care and aren't about to go to any lengths at all to be part of the human race?

In my real life, I run as far and as fast as I can from people like this, if I can. I don't want to waste a second of my life falling into their tar pits, just on the off chance I'll never be able to pull myself back out. Sometimes, though, you're stuck. An insensitive, boorish boss. A jerk of a sales clerk who keeps mucking up your sale, and acts as if you've committed a crime when you point out they rang the items up incorrectly. A driver who goes out of the way to stay on your bumper with his high beams on.

The hard part is to write these people so they're real. They turn into caricatures so easily, but like pepper in a dish, a story needs them to add the reality factor. Pepper keeps it real. Everyone expects salt. I read a small, throwaway scene in a YA recently, where a hospital docent is not only unsympathetic to the hero's plight, but rude as well. The character never reappears, but she added to the scene's intensity like a good dose of pepper should. Her obnoxiousness was spot-on and ratcheted up the hero's anxiety to the next level. Good characters do that.

Next time you're outlining your characters, add a boor. Someone your hero doesn't want to encounter, but must. See how they interact, and above all, keep it real. Don't let the passive-aggressive character become a cartoon. I think you'll be pleased with how it helps add to the tension in your story.

Good Bye Outlander, hello really fast car...

Thanksgiving, check. Leftovers gone, check. Christmas decorations, still in attic. Christmas shopping, hopelessly behind. Why?

It's all because of Mitsubishi. The Japanese car company, not department stores. I owned one. An Outlander. Well, two actually, if you count the daughter's car. Discovered last week that the local Mitsubishi dealership, Pearson, was shutting down the operation on December 14, and service for my 60,000 mile, 5 year warranty would have to be done at a dealer located from one to two hours away. So much for my wonderful Outlander SUV, a dream car with so many cool features I hadn't even gotten to them all in the one year I've owned it. I began car shopping immediately, knowing I wouldn't take the Outlander an hour down the road for service. Took a huge hit on a trade in. At least in the end, five days of shopping brought a new car home to the garage, a car I'd never have imagined I'd drive. I'm a van/SUV kind of girl, right? I like to sit up high. Like a big car body around me. Don't want to have to crawl into the seats. HA! So much for the past twenty years of my driving life.

I have left it all behind for a BMW sports sedan. Yep, I look wicked fast in that baby, and I love it. Who says women of a certain age have to own staid cars? I'm going to have to be careful, or I'll lose my license. So if you see this woman with a big grin on her face, flying by you on the road, pedal to the metal, wave. That'll be me.

Nothing like buying yourself a Christmas present. I'll get around to the rest of the list, eventually. If I manage to hit the brakes and actually park the Beemer.