Brooke Writes Books... and Other Musings...

It's a very easy trap to fall into: complaining on the blog. Oh sure, it may come out comical and be very entertaining. But, bottom line: negativity. Since I seem to be on a quest lately to be positive and perky…I am devoting this blog entry to naming a baker’s dozen of things I love. Here goes!

1. I love how fresh and crisp the air is after a rainstorm. All the dust is washed away, all the trees seem greener, the horizon is clear as a bell. Even the birds sound happier.

2. I love ice cream and pizza. Yum, yum…especially when they are served in one meal!

3. I love baseball. And I love any sport viewed in person. You can just feel the passion, the excitement!

4. I love traveling. Whether I’ve been to the destination before or it’s the first time, I love the thrill of seeing new and different things. Even the air smells different in places away from home.

5. I love the silky feel of polished wood.

6. I love roses. Everything about a rose says beauty and grace. I also love daffodils because they are so perky—it does take a certain amount of spunk to be the first flower of spring! And I love tulips for their charm and luck.

7. I love the smell of baking bread. Nothing is quite so homey.

8. I love sunrises, sunsets, and moon rises. Talk about nature’s perfect show.

9. I love fireworks! Well, except when they appear unwanted in my backyard! But a fireworks show…definitely can relate to all the ooh’s and ah’s…

10. I love getting something accomplished that has been nagging at me; shouting at me to “finish me and get me off your stinkin’ list!” Ah, the feeling of joy when that finally happens!

11. I love to write. I have so many stories in me… I simply love the joy of writing. It is never a chore. The chore is finding the time and giving myself permission to delve into something I love.

12. I love reading. Always have…always will.

13. I love how my family and friends, who are all so special and wonderful, make me feel special and wonderful…even when I am not so special and wonderful.

Now, see? That wasn’t very hard at all!

Well, all I have to say is: it’s a good thing I am not terribly superstitious. Otherwise, I’d be kinda concerned. Let me tell you about my New Year’s Eve and the first few hours of New Year’s Day.

Now….first I should explain that New Year’s is my favorite holiday. I love new beginnings…no matter what they are….and what is more of a new beginning than the first day of a brand new year?

I have this little tradition that I’ve been doing for a number of years, and frankly, I like it. I look forward to it. I have a really nice dinner on New Year’s Eve. Something fancy. Beef Wellington. Salmon in Phyllo Pastry. Nice wine. A nice dessert. Then about 10PM, I break out the snacks. At 11:30 or so, out comes the champagne, and the TV gets flipped to Dick Clark and the big ball in Times Square.

This year’s New Year’s Eve feast was Lobster Cakes with a field green salad. Had been looking forward to those Lobster Cakes for weeks. Got them all prepared…and they were awful! Just dreadful! Horrid. Wretched. Okay…you get the idea. They were dastardly. They were so bad, they made me feel sick. To the point where I was really in no mood for snacks at 10PM…or 10:30…or 11. Didn’t even want the champagne.

But that was okay. I can be flexible when forced into it! I’d just drink my bottled water and toast Dick Clark and the Waterford Crystal Ball at midnight with a bit of Crysal Geyser! How healthful!

Now…the other thing that most people know about me is that I am practically paranoid to the point of obsessive about fires. They are my worst nightmare… And I have many occasions to worry about them living in Fire Country….

So…back to my story!

At precisely 11:54PM, while I am happily watching Dick Clark and trying not to feel badly that his stroke was so devastating, suddenly gunshots go off in my neighborhood and firecrackers begin crackling away. One of them hits the side of my house. Now that makes a person feel really good! I check out the window (carefully so I don’t get my head shot off! Hey! I ain’t no dope!). No signs of fire. Thank heavens it rained earlier (and to think, since the drainage is NOT fixed, I wasn’t happy about the rain…man, how things can change on a dime!)

I return…not quite so happy…to Dick Clark. Of course, with my heart thundering at 500 beats a minute, I can hardly concentrate on the ball dropping… I believe I saw it. I believe I wished Year 2005 good-by. I think I wished a happy welcome to Year 2006.

The neighborhood remained quiet. My heart slowed down.

At 12:20, I hear a whooshing, a crackle and see another firecracker come into my yard and skitter along my patio. It too went out…harmlessly.

Heart beat increases dramatically. Calmness is shot to hell.

At 12:40…a repeat of the above.

The clock moves to 1:01…another one plummets into my yard.

Seems my normally very quiet neighbors next door have moved their party outside to their patio, and are drinking up a storm…among other things. A small fight ensued but reconciliation came quickly.

Now it is 1:30…and you got it! Another firecracker whistles into my yard.

This continued until 3:31AM.

Needless to say…On January 1st…I was very, very tired. Oh…and the lobster cakes were still letting me know they didn’t love me.

Ah well. I guess a lot of people feel tired and puny on this day. Hee, hee…just never thought I’d be one of them!

Happy New Year! And ho, ho, ho….Bah Humbug!

Doing author interviews takes a ton of time. And every month when I begin the process I wonder why I put myself through the torture. But then…the answers come back. And I know exactly why I continue to spend the time each month.

One of my favorite questions to ask is variations of the most romantic gift the writer has received. There is the usual flowers when the author is blue or happy. Or the special evening the loving spouse planned. The list goes on.

I loved the story one author told about how her husband was unemployed for quite a long period of time, and he promised her that when he got a job, he was gonna buy her pearls. And sure enough, with his first paycheck he bought her the most beautiful strand of pearls that she still wears everyday. (Of course, if you are sitting there thinking “Oh big deal”… you must remember that a lot of the sentimentality was in the telling by the author…not the telling here by me!)

But today…I think I just read the best answer to the question (and it wasn’t even an author I was interviewing…it was one my staff member prepared)! The author wrote back: My husband doesn’t have a romantic bone in his body! One time he bought me purple staples to go into my electric stapler because he knows I love purple.

Now I don’t know about you…and maybe I am just going through a sappy-stage… but I think this is sooooo sweet! I mean….I didn’t even know that staples came in colors! And when the guy saw them…he thought of her…and how she would like them.

And truly…isn’t that what romance is all about? Knowing everything about the other person…and doing something that will make them smile? Letting them know that you care?

I consider myself a very good cook. One of the first things I learned to make was scrambled eggs…and I can make them really, really good. Anyway you like them: hard, soft, runny, dry…I am your “man” for making great scrambled eggs. (Now omelettes are a whole other story…but we shan’t be going there at this time…)

So, about four months ago a cute tabby cat showed up in my backyard. Very scrawny, very hungry, very thirsty. I fed her some water. She lapped it up…but you could tell she was hungry.

Now, being the soft-hearted dork I am, I scrounged my refrigerator, looking for something…anything…a hungry kitty might like. Nothing…but eggs. So…I scrambled one for her. Put it on a plate…took it out…Ms. Kitty sniffed it a couple times. Tried a bite. Turned her nose up at my beautiful eggs and left the yard…never to return.

Fine. No big deal. The ants that swarmed the plate about a half hour later loved my scrambled eggs. Besides I told myself…over and over and over again…I dun want no pets.

Then, about a week ago, a really darling black kitty showed up in my yard. Obviously very young. Has the most beautiful green eyes you ever saw…and very friendly. And hungry.

Well, Mr. Cat was in luck. I had a leftover hotdog…which I fed him. He loved it! I was quite certain I had a new friend for life!

But Mr. Cat was quite fickle…he left the yard and did not return for a week!

Until yesterday. Mr. Cat was very hungry…he’d lost even more weight since the last time he visited…and my heart went out to him. All was forgiven for his eating and running behavior.

Sadly for Mr. Cat, however, there were no more leftover hotdogs. Or Thanksgiving leftovers. Or anything a feline would enjoy…except…yes… A Scrambled Egg!

Which I lovingly prepared. And placed on a plate. And brought outside.

“Here, Kitty, Kitty,” I cooed softly.

Mr. Cat spied me and came running. “More frank! More frank! More frank!” he thinks.

I set the plate down. He sniffed. He looked up at me. He sniffed again…and walked away! He didn’t even take one bite!!!!!

Hmmm….now I’ve heard that when one gets hungry enough, they’ll eat anything…even liver (and trust me…I’d have to be pretty damn hungry to scarf down some liver….) So, I am guessin’ that Mr. Cat is not that hungry…he is conning me… No more frankfurters for him!

Or eggs! (Like any of the feline population in my neighborhood is cryin’ over that declaration!)

I remember when I was about five years old, I did something outside on the swing set that probably could have gotten me killed if my lucky stars hadn’t been with me that day. My dad sat me down on his lap and gave me a lecture about making choices and decisions. How I had to learn to weigh my actions before I did them to make sure that they wouldn’t hurt me or someone else. That I had choices and I had to learn how to make good ones and to try not to make bad ones.

Fast forward a few dozen decades (oh, okay…not that many…) and I am sitting at my desk reading an Internet news story about how the Pennsylvania parents who were murdered by their daughter’s boyfriend were buried today. Their four children were there, all orphans in the matter of seconds. So very, very sad.

The article then goes on to talk about how nice the boy and girl were. There is even a quote from a neighbor…and just so no one will think I made this up, here it is verbatim:

"They were good kids and they were brought up very well. What I see is, they just made some bad choices," said Vera Zimmerman, 50, who has known the Bordens for seven years and is acquainted with Ludwig's mother.

Article by: MARTHA RAFFAELE, Associated Press Writer, titled: Pa. Teen Attends Slain Parent’s Funeral. Dated: November 19, 2005, 8:15PM, PST.

Okay…bad choices? These teens made BAD CHOICES??????

A bad choice is deciding on dessert when you are so full, you know you will explode or have an enormous belly ache…and then you eat every last bite.

A bad choice is deciding to try gardening…again….when you know you hate it.

A bad choice is getting a dog when you know you have no place to let him run.

A bad choice was for this young lady to sneak out and date a guy when she knew her parents didn’t approve of him.

To say this 18-year old man (yes, man…he is old enough to vote, old enough to defend his country, he has reached the age of majority in many states—though not in Pennsylvania…) made a bad choice by blowing her parents away, and then stealing his parents car and driving at breakneck speeds to crash into a tree six hundred miles or more from home made a bad choice cheapens the fact that he took the lives of two people who apparently tried to teach their children values. He robbed four youngsters of their parents.

According to a new report (mentioned in the same article, by the way), this wasn’t a spur of the moment decision on his part. He planned to attack them and finish them off. A bad choice????

As my “friend” (don’t I wish!!!) John Stossel would say: give me a break!

As for Ms. Zimmerman, to give her the benefit of the doubt, it is possible she was misquoted…and if so, she should be screaming “foul” as loudly as she can. Yet, I somehow don’t give much credence to this theory since on the day of their arrest, she was quoted as saying what “good kids” they were…

Uh, folks…”good” kids don’t go sneaking around and have multiple guns in their bedrooms and plan murders.

Give me a break! Bad choice, indeed…

Sixteen years have flown by already…sixteen years since I lost my mother. It seems almost impossible to believe that much time has elapsed, and yet I remember that period as if it were just sixteen days ago.

They say that things like this get easier with time. Somethings “they” are wrong about. You never get over losing your mother…no matter how much time has passed.

I miss you, Mom…

Sunday is grocery shopping day…better known as a frustrating chore. See, I live in a small town that sports two supermarkets. One is a small chain of three stores and very expensive with relatively poor quality. The other is an Albertson’s…nicknamed by me: Dumb, Awful Albertson’s (remember the Mary Tyler Moore Show, and how Phyllis called Rhoda: “Dumb, Awful Rhoda”?)

Anyway…not only do I live in a small town, I live in a small town in California. The state that is the largest agricultural producer of, well, almost everything… I remember reading that if California were its own country (ha! sometimes it feels like it!), we would be the seventh largest industrial nation in the world.

Okay, I prepare my grocery list, determined to start eating in a more healthy manner (yeah, yeah, yeah…I am fully aware the holidays are lurking just around the corner and tis the season to screw calories, eat hearty and all that jazz…but what can a person do when they suddenly start craving things like broccoli and carrots except succumb to the rare urge and purchase them!)

So, weekly ad in hand, I spy Fresh Salmon filets on sale! Woo Hoo! I love salmon. On the list it goes…. Hmmm…Fresh Shrimp are on sale! Bingo! On the list they go. Hmmm…yum! Grapes…on sale! Yep…mark them babies on the list…can’t forget grapes! Ooh, grapefruit…on sale! How lucky can a temporary health-food nut get! Except to see that avocados are also on sale! (Of course…having grown up in the avocado capital of the world…with a parent who still grows them…I would NEVER even consider buying one from the store!…but still, a girl can drool for a moment—see I had more avocados growing up in the city than I ever got living on a grove of the suckers…)

Then off to the store, I trot, with my list full of goodies…all prepared to spend a ton of bucks. Also on the list is some laundry detergent on sale for an obscenely low price…milk, butter (also on sale!), tuna (yep…on sale!) and Breyer’s Real Vanilla ice cream (on sale! But hey…it’s for Thanksgiving…I shan’t open it a day before…)

So…first item…the grapes…uh…they are from Chile. Okay…I have nothing against Chile…but I really don’t want grapes that have traveled thousands of miles when I live in a grape-growing area. Oh well…

Grapefruit…uh, hmmm… okay…grown out of the country… Okay…I personally even have a bit of a problem buying Florida or Texas grapefruit when we grow so much here…but…at least it grows on the same continent that I reside on…

EEEKK… The avocados are from Mexico???? Mexico??? When the store in which I stand is in the Avocado Capital of the World??????

Okay…so maybe I don’t need those “on sale” foreign items. Off to the meat counter.

Fresh Salmon…from Chile??????? Even the Atlantic would be stretching it for fresh…but from Chile???

But here is the best of all: Fresh Shrimp. Not fresh frozen…not frozen, defrosted…but FRESH! From….drum roll….New Orleans, you are thinking? Wrong! Oregon, you are thinking….Wrong, again!!!!!! Thailand!!!! And Bangladesh!!! And Viet Nam!!!!!! Ten thousand miles away these poor shrimpies have traveled. Heck…No human traveling home to California from those countries is gonna be fresh by the time it arrives…let alone a small fish.

I am at a loss to even try and figure out why…when it is readily available here… Albertson’s finds it necessary to search the world for these items… Oh wait! Cuz we are dumb enough to continue purchasing them. Well, this shopper wasn’t…this shopper spent a lot less money than she thought she would…especially since they no longer had the laundry detergent (probably started out with ten…) or the milk or the tuna or any of the other things mentioned in the ad.

Hmmm…maybe that is why the Albertson’s chain is up for sale….

Yes, it’s true…I am a bad Blogger. To have a good blog, one must post at least once a week…preferably every few days… even better every single day.

Hmmm…my last blog entry was in August…true…the end of August, but a whole weather season ago. I have failed the Blog Frequency Test miserably. Dismally, even.

And yet, the other day, I was thrilled to see that someone actually commented on my site. And they claimed they liked it! Woo Hoo! I thought to myself. I should really make more time in my already crazy schedule to post on a more regular basis…maybe even just once a month!

The commenter left behind “his” blog site. Well, I should certainly return the courtesy and check it out, make a comment even. (Hey, I have been raised with manners! I didn’t grow up in no barn or fall off no turnip truck…not recently anyways…). I clicked on the link, wondering what I would find.

Nothing. The link led to nothing.

I’d been spammed! GRRRRR!!!!! And...not just once, but the next day…another entry showed up with a different name, but essentially the same complimentary message. Loved your blog…You write great…yada, yada, yada. Well, in the trashcan both you clods went. Deleted with no trace that you ever slimed up my personal space.

And…now…as I am sure you noticed…I have to have a spam detractor up.

I could probably spend another few paragraphs on the topic of spam…talk about people who obviously have nothing better to do with their time or creativity except to makes pains AND asses of themselves… But why bother…

I personally have better things to do with my time…like thinking up some entertaining blog subjects so that it won’t be another two months…okay, two and a half months…before I post again.

It is interesting and probably rather ironic that the high point and the low of point of Reno occurred within a span of six short minutes.

One of the biggest reasons I decided to attend RWA National this year was for an agent appointment. Back in May when sign-ups took place, I’d studied all the agents taking appointments, pondered their interests, checked-out their websites. And I picked one that seemed perfect. After all, her agency (not her, but her agency) represented one of my favorite authors. An author who writes the stories I love to read and try to write.

In retrospect, it was probably my conference “high point” that gave me the strength to deal with the “low point”. When a new writer begins the agent search, it is most difficult to keep in mind that we are the “employer” and the agent is the “employee”. We are ever so grateful if they offer to look at our work. Promoting them to god and goddess status is a given.

But the bottom line is this: there has to be, there must be, mutual respect and camaraderie. The agent/author (and yes…the fact that I’ve listed the word “agent” first there is not lost on me…) relationship is one of teamwork. Both sides must be equal participants; both sides must have the same goals and hopes and dreams.

Flash back to July 30th…the day of my agent meeting… My appointment was pushed back 15 minutes because the agent was late in arriving. When the moderator brought me over to her, Ms. Agent insisted she was done for the day; that she had done her time (pretty much her exact words…) and she’d done a workshop the day before. All of this right in front of me. The manner was curt and abrupt; no lightheartedness, there-must-be-some-mistake involved. When the moderator politely pointed out that the schedule had gotten off, Ms. Agent backed down. No apology to the moderator. No apology to me.

As I began my pitch, I could tell I was talking to a brick wall. But I doggedly continued…after all, maybe she had an insane hangover for all I knew. Then I said the wrong thing: I mentioned my stories are driven by internal conflict. She doesn’t like books like that. She likes external conflict. (Hmm…what is she doing promoting romance books my mind queried.) And so, I asked if the interview were over.

She then said the wrong thing to me: “Try to convince me.” Well… no…. The interview was over, and I told her so. I want someone who is excited about my career; not someone I have begged into taking me on.

I want an agent who is professional, on time (even if she does have the world’s worst hangover-headache…); one who is considerate and polite to others (whether she is right or wrong); and one who is excited about the business. Ms. Agent did not meet any of those basic requirements.

Just before meeting with Ms. Agent, I had chatted with another agent… a gal I felt an immediate rapport with. Someone I would love to chat with as a business partner, but we’d stray to more personal, day-to-day topics in our conversations.

This is the type of business-agent relationship I want. Will I find it with Friendly Agent? I don’t know (though she is on my top ten list!). But I do know that I shall keep looking for that type of partnership because I am striving for long-term representation. It might be hard to keep in mind that it is a two-way street, but then again… it is usually pretty hard to keep in mind that writing is a business pursuit as well as a passion.

It is hard to believe that it’s been over a week since I hauled the weary body outta bed at 4:20AM to begin my week attending RWA’s National Conference in Reno. (See, I have this policy: when it is dark, you sleep…and trust me…it is damn dark at 4:20AM…)

Reflection Number One: It is dark at 4:30, 4:45, 5:00, 5:15, 5:30AM. Yes, I truly noted this.

Reflection Number Two: There are a LOT of people on the road at 5:30 AM…all going to work…and they drive just a nutty as when I am on the road at 7:30 AM.

Reflection Number Three: Reno looks much different in July than it does in December (which was the month I was there the first (and only) time I’ve been there…)

Reflection Number Four: Four to eleven percent humidity is very, very dry…I am used to sixteen percent or higher…and yes, I definitely noticed the difference.

Reflection Number Five: I was not insane or having flashbacks when I discovered the same local news I used to watch in San Francisco being shown on a Reno TV station (more about this in a future blog…)

Reflection Number Six: The food at this conference was basically…excellent. But…sadly…I bought a lot of $20 drinks! Darn gambling affliction…

Reflection Number Seven: The hotel staff at this conference was awesome.

Reflection Number Eight: Taxi cab drivers everywhere drive crazy…it must be a code they have to follow.

Reflection Number Nine: I am a lot more self-assured than I give myself credit for (yep…more about this in a future blog…)

Reflection Number Ten: I know a lot about writing…now I just need to do it…

Reflection Number Eleven: The Awards Ceremony…very interesting! (You got it! More about this in a future blog!)

Reflection Number Twelve: I had a very good time! I am glad I went.

Lately I’ve been hearing all about the benefits of drinking a glass of pomegranate juice a day. How it will make you live longer, stay healthy, put hair on your chest…okay…so it is not truly a miracle drink (and I probably really don’t want hair on my chest!). But it is supposed to be really good for you.

So yesterday, while doing my weekly frustration shopping at dumb Awful Albertson’s (remember The Mary Tyler Moore Show; how Phyllis used to call Mary’s friend, Rhoda, dumb Awful Rhoda?… okay, okay…back to our original programming…), I finally remembered to see if they might carry this wonder drink.

Now, I don’t know about your Albertson’s (and trust me…I could do a whole blog entry on mine!), but the dumb, Awful Albertson’s I must frequent is poorly stocked, very expensive, and generally annoying, and so I felt the chances of finding the brew were small. But…voila! They had one brand!

Darling bottles in three sizes: one serving for $3.69. Two servings for $5.48. And the best deal of all: four servings for $9.99! Woo Hoo! $10 bucks for half a week of unbelievable promises. I hemmed and hawed a bit between the one and two serving sizes. I ask myself: what if I hate it? But Self answers back tartly: how can you hate it? You love raw pomegranates! You love pomegranate jelly! So what is not to like about pomegranate juice. Miserly Self speaks up: Go for the one serving size….you need to go to Costco anyway, and they probably have gallons of it at a reasonable price of $5.00 for a life-time supply. Miserly Self wins the battle. A single serving bottle plops into the cart.

Upon arriving home, I eagerly search the bags for the cute little bottle. Rip off the safety seal, and slug back my first taste of improved well-being.

ACKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is DREADFUL! It is HORRIBLE! It is WRETCHED!!!!!!!!! Nothing, absolutely NOTHING that tastes like the liquid in that bottle can possibly be good for you!

So now, I am stuck with a $3.69 bottle of swill cluttering up my fridge. I have toyed with mixing it with some vodka and maybe a bit of 7-up…but man…I really hate to waste two perfectly good beverages in case they fail to mask the horrors of the juice.

But I am game…. Any and all suggestions are welcome! In the meantime, I am sticking to the tried and true and delicious: the other red drink! Cranberry Juice!

Thursday was a bittersweet day. It started out quite happy. It was my birthday, and for the past four months, I’d been dreading it. But once it finally got here, my whole attitude improved. After all, as too many people kept pointing out to me, getting a day and a number older was better than the alternative. Yeah, yeah, yeah…like I hadn’t already been telling myself that!

I walked in to a beautifully, thoughtfully decorated office, courtesy of my terrific department mates. Tons of balloons and streamers and banners…how could one not smile at all that! And then they all took me to lunch. We had a really, really fun time.

Upon returning to the office, the brutal reality of life reared its ugly head. I had an instant message from a gal I work closely with on a review site we belong to asking me if I’d heard the news about another member: Sam. It’s not good, she added. I immediately signed on to our posts-board, and found out that Sam had passed away suddenly. Needless to say, I was stunned. I had just corresponded with her the day before. She was so young, she hadn’t seemed ill.

As numbness began to replace the shock, one thought kept reverberating through my mind: man, I am so glad that Sam and I had buried our differences and had started really forging a very nice working relationship.

It hadn’t always been that way. We didn’t dislike each other at all; we just didn’t always seem to get along. I always fully appreciated how hard she worked on the review site; how many hours she unselfishly put in; how she wanted to make everything perfect. But there were times, when quite honestly, she really annoyed me…as I am sure, without a shadow of a doubt, that I really annoyed her. But then, after the fur settled a bit, we always moved on, no hard feelings…until the next fray.

When she volunteered to publish the photos for interviews (I am the coordinator), most of me was absolutely thrilled. I knew they would look awesome. A teeny bit of me was terrified that she would overwhelm me, but I figured that I’d cross that bridge if it happened.

The first month (April’s), she spent two solid days on them. And they were beautiful. And what was even more wonderful was we finally really understood each other. We finally had a chance to email back and forth to each other over common ground…we could complain to each other, we could commiserate with each other, we agreed with each other. I knew then that we would never have the rough patches that we’d experienced before again.

Three days before she passed away, she published the second month’s photos. I had no idea that they’d be her last. I can’t express how sad I feel over her death. I never met her in person; I don’t even know what she looked like. I do know that she was way too young to go; that she had way too much to accomplish yet.

And I know that her passing was rather a reality check…there is not a minute to waste. There is not enough time put off the things we keep thinking we’ll do tomorrow or the next day. And most importantly, there is no time like the present to forget differences, to tell people you care about them, to do it now and not wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow might just be too late.

I am so glad that Sam and I had the opportunity to get to know each other better, and to appreciate and like each other. I will miss her a lot. And she is one person, even though I cannot honestly say “I knew her”, I can honestly say I will never forget her.

Good-bye, Sam. You are really going to be missed.

Never was very good at ducking…obviously still am not! Looks like Randy has tagged me…so, here goes:

Total Books Owned: Man, I have absolutely no clue. I review books, and one of the “perks” is getting the books. Right now they are threatening to take over every room in my house. I have bags of them, stacks of them, the bookcases are overflowing with them. They are on the nightstand, a kitchen chair…everywhere! Get the idea? I have lots and lots and lots and lots of books… Millions of books. Trillions of books… In other words, too many to count!

Last Book I read: A GOOD YARN by Debbie Macomber. It was very enjoyable. Everything a good book should be…meaning it was a wonderful escape.

Book sitting on my coffee table I am planning on reading: well, the coffee table is one place where I haven’t allowed any books to reside! Nope! They are not invading the coffee table! However, I imagine this question was more about the next book in the stack to be read. And it is…drum roll, please… SOME DANGER INVOLVED by Will Thomas. He is a new author, and I actually started a bit of it this afternoon. After eighteen pages, I think it is going to be a big winner! Very reminiscent of Dick Francis and Laurence Saunders humor, and I am looking forward to getting more into it.

Five books that mean a lot to me: This is a pretty tough question … I am terrible with names of books after I’ve read them; and don’t normally remember the authors too often either… But there are actually a handful of books that I remember distinctly:

FOLLOW MY LEADER: This is a book that we read in the fifth grade…actually our teacher read it to us; a chapter a day after lunch (I guess to calm us down before we got on to math…). It is about a young boy who became blind after playing with a firecracker that exploded in his face. It dealt with how he learned to cope with his new way of life and learning to work with his new guide dog named Leader. It’s funny, to this day I still think about this book.

HENRY HUGGINS by Beverly Cleary: This is the first chapter books and series that I actually read all by myself…I loved her as a child and couldn’t get enough of her stories. I understand she is in her 90’s now, and still releases tales every couple of years.

THE NOVEL by James Michener: written in three different pov’s from the author’s, the agent’s and the editor’s, this is the journey a story takes from when the writer writes it, what the agent does, and what the editor does. This book solidified for me that I really wanted to be a writer.

Anything by Jayne Ann Krentz: Again an author that makes me know I have to be a writer. I remember getting my first rejection that took a year in coming after the editor requested it twice (I was so sure I was “in”! Little did I know about the world of publishing at the time…) and I was devastated. Right on the heels came a very harsh, very uncalled for (I found out later!) read and critique from a well- known editor on the same material. I was ready to quit. I’d read a lot of Jayne Ann Krentz books, but happened upon one of her first ones. Man…I was so impressed about how much she’d grown as a writer, and I knew that I could do it, too. I met her at a conference right after that, and told her how much she’d inspired me. She was sooooo gracious and kind. Last summer I again had the chance to briefly chat with her in the elevator in Dallas at RWA National, and again, she was so enthusiastic about helping people achieve their dreams of publication. What a nice, nice lady. I don’t remember the name of the book that got me believing in me again…but I will always remember the name Jayne Ann Krentz.

Anything by Katherine Stone: She has such passionate, vivid characters, and she is another author who is so very classy and gracious in person. I had the opportunity to meet her last year at a publicist party I’d snagged a private invite to (lucky me!). I turned around in the wine line and who was standing behind me but Katherine Stone. I did a double-take at her name tag and began doing something I never do: I gushed. About how wonderful I thought her books were. How loved her characters…their passion, their struggles. On and on I went, and she just kept smiling and saying thank you, thank you. I finally got a hold of myself and then apologized for being such a drooling maniac. Her friend assured me: Oh no! She loves it! And she must have! I had an agent’s appointment the next day…and she helped me define my style in a couple of sentences. I had been struggling over this, and she took the time at a party to help me. Now that is class. It was so wonderful to really love an author’s work, and find out personally that she is just as terrific as her books.

So…now I get to tag five people…problem is…I don’t know five people! So, I am gonna tag the two I do know that haven’t been tagged already! You’re up:

FullMoonDolphin
Charity
(Technically, I could also tag Randy again, cuz she tried to slide by by not answering all the questions!)

Eh, eh, eh….Tag! Tag! You’re it!!!

Today I got something crossed off the proverbial To Do List…and it wasn’t even officially on there! Woo hoo!

About noon, I innocently go out to my car to go to lunch. A rather mundane, ordinary thing. Nothing too exciting about that… And notice that the back tire is lookin’ mighty darn low. Drats! (and yes, you are right…this is not quite the word I used…)

Now you have to understand…I have this thing about checking my tires…all the time…Ready for another: when I was a little girl story? Tough! When I was a little girl, waiting for the school bus in Palo Alto, every morning we would watch the guy across street as he performed his morning car check before going to work. He would come out in his shirtsleeves and place his jacket and briefcase on the back seat of the car. Next, he’d climb behind the steering wheel and start the engine. Get back out of the car, go to the rear tire and look at it a second. Then he’d bend down and stare at it, stand up and kick it, and proceed around the back of the car to the other tire. Perform the same check. Move to the front tire. Glower, bend, peer, rise, kick. Finally tire number four’s turn… Then he’d get in and drive away.

Being an impressionable pre-teen, this stuck in my mind…Oh whatever…I check my tires regularly…not that religiously…none of that bending, peering, kicking nonsense, but I do keep an eye on them, always thinking about Eileen K’s dad and glad I am not as obsessive as he! But getting a flat on the freeway or at some other inconvenient time (and any time a tire goes flat is inconvenient in my book!) is not my idea of fun…

So…anyway! The tire was fine yesterday…it was not fine today. Double drats. What to do…what to do… Well, the first thing to do was to ask one of the machinists if he’d kindly put some air in it so I could get to either Costco (where I can have it fixed for free…) or to dealer where I could also get the oil changed, the tires rotated, the 30K check done at the same time…all things I’d been putting off cuz one cannot take a disgracefully dirty car to the dealer… I opted to suck it up and took my poor dirty baby to the dealer.

A few hours later, I picked him up again…the most expensive tire repair in the world! But hey! They threw in an oil change, lube, tire rotation, 30K check and a CAR WASH! My lucky day!

And tomorrow morning…I no longer have to think: hmmm…I really need to get you washed, baby, so we can go to the dealer and not feel like shmucks. Ah…life is good…

As a young girl, one of the things my parents took great pains in teaching me was that to gain respect you had to earn it. You had to deserve it. It wasn’t one of those things that “just happened”.

For years now, decades actually, the romance genre of the literary world has bemoaned the fact that even though they have a commanding share of the reading market, they “can’t get no respect”. Romance Writers of America (fondly known as RWA) was established to promote the genre and its authors. It has spent countless of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of dollars defining romance in hopes of building a respectable image. Thus far, success seems to have been minimal. The battle is one that is uphill, and the mountain just keeps getting steeper.

I have long been thinking that perhaps I am the one who has outgrown romance, and that my career really needs to be defined as “women’s fiction”. Even before the turn of the century (yes! this century!) I felt that perhaps I should be “looking outside the box”. Today my writing partner took a stand and declared herself a women’s fiction writer. Good for her!

So, while the romance genre continues to wonder why it doesn’t garner respect (uh, maybe a good place to start would be by taking a hard look at the book covers…), and RWA continues to spend money trying to buy it, I am going to go out and earn it. I will be defining my career in a way that I can be proud to say that I am a writer.

From this day forth, I write women’s fiction.

Yesterday was one of those days where I should not have bothered to go to work. I knew from the second I stepped into my office and peeked over my computer monitor that I was in big trouble. There were no less than eight pieces of paper strewn across the desktop…the same desktop that I had so painstakingly cleared off the night before…

Oh well, I say to myself in a cheerful, positive manner…they can probably all be dispatched in a lickety-split type of fashion… Eh, eh, eh…six of the eight snicker back…”that’s what you think, ol’ girl!” And so the day began!

I started out with four things on the “To Do” list that I really wanted to get done. By 9AM, the list had grown to seven…with none crossed off. By 10AM, we were up to nine…and still none crossed off. If that phone rings one more time…I let my threat dangle in the air. BRRR---ringgggg! it goes, knowing that dangling threats are idle ones… Time: 10:01 Items added to the list: two more…

Then I ticked off a co-worker. I asked her if she were still going on her maternity beginning the date we’d discussed. And I asked her if she could please give me a date when she was returning so I could make arrangements to cover her position while she was gone. I even told her I didn’t need to know until next week. Man, you’d think I’d asked for the exact minute she was gonna deliver the baby… The rest of the day, the department was in an upheaval because of this request. Silly me. Needing to plan for staff coverage…

So, there I sat at my desk at 8PM…when I had planned on being home by six, completing one of the tasks on the list. Now see…If I had stayed home all day…I would have accomplished a lot more at the office! And it would have been much more relaxed.

So, let’s just do Tuesday over. Ready? Lights! Camera! Action!! (Lead actress enters office, stage left and peers tentatively over computer monitor… What will she see?)

Okay…after three days I am still stewing. I agree with my writing partner that to “attack” on the board where this occurred is probably not the best course of action. Yes, it would uphold a principle of sorts, but other than potentially causing strife, the parties involved are not gonna change their ways…or even care.

Here’s the deal:

Last year I decided that I would like to get involved in writing contest judging. Which I did. I was quite surprised at the amount of time that judging an entry consumed. A minimum of an hour and a half or more depending on the length of the entry. And since most contestants enter because they want feedback, judges are expected to make tons of comments not only on the score sheets but also on the manuscripts themselves. This takes time…especially when you are very conscious that feelings and emotions are involved. A good judge does not, will not, cannot, must not hack away at somebody’s baby.

Okay, here’s another part of the deal:

Entrants are supposed to be submitting publish-ready material. Now I don’t know what that means to some people, but to me it means that an editor can take those pages and send them to typesetting (or however they do it these days…god, I am dating myself no doubt!) and turn out a professional book. And yes, I realize that someone entering a contest is probably not gonna have this level of perfection otherwise they would be sending it to said publisher…for modern day typesetting… And yes, it is a well-known fact that many brand new writers submit to contests honestly thinking they have publish-ready material, their friends and family told them so! Also, equally important, is that entrants also guarantee that they have a finished manuscript to go along with these 15-50 pages they are entering…just in case they final, they can then immediately send the rest of the manuscript to the final judge (usually an agent or editor).

And finally, here is what happened that has me still stewing three days later:

Two members of a critique group that I am involved with entered a contest that my writing partner and I were judging. It is one of the more prestigious contests and quite large. I received three entries to judge and immediately recognized one of them as being written by a member of the group. I had seen the chapter a couple of times…and I was rather surprised to see that even after a number of crits, it hadn’t changed much…including some typos. I turned it back in since I could not judge it.

Finalists were announced last week, and Member Number One was thrilled to see that all three of her entries finalled! Woo Hoo for her we all cried! Member Number Two was also ecstatic to learn that two of her entries finalled including the one that I turned back in (of course, she did not know this…). Woo Hoo for her we all cried!

Thank you, they said! Member Number One then went on to say that she needed to scramble to get her entries ready to go…that she had just prepared the pages needed to enter the preliminaries. Now she needed to get some more ready for the finals…and who knew what she’d do if she actually had to submit a manuscript.

Nothing ready? Nothing written??? And yet…part of the bargain was that a manuscript was complete??? Is this ethical? Is this fair? Not in my book.

Then the question was innocently asked: will you have time to see your scores before you submit so you can make any tweaks?

Member Number Two says: She doesn’t give a damn what some (implying: dumb) judge says about her work. That she doesn’t enter for feedback. That as a matter of fact she heard via her writing partner that some judge had written on an entry “Get a critique partner”… She found this very humorous...she has a crit partner...the one who saw the comment! Seems to me that both the writing partner and she should be giving this another thought…(remember the typos in the submission?)

Okay…I am not some dumb judge. I guess I really resent this whole deal because it felt like a direct slap to both my writing partner and me since both these gals knew we had judged in the contest…and how did they know that we hadn’t unknowingly judged one of their entries…that we were a large part of their success. It almost happened except I recognized the submission. I could have spent a couple hours of my time judging her entry, cheering her on, hoping when her score came out high and that I loved the entry that I would see her name on the finalist list. As it turns out…the two entries I did judge both finalled.

This whole experience has left me wondering…are most contestants as apathetic as these two gals? I hope not. I much prefer to think that the world is still somewhat sweet…that writers are sending in their lovingly prepared entries and eagerly awaiting them to come back with details of what someone thought. Then again, my rose-colored glasses are currently pretty smudged at the moment…

Well, it took it took almost four months to get the roof fixed. And normally when I call the guy that I called to fix the ceiling (currently known as Ceiling Guy…imaginative, huh!) it takes him about three weeks to come and see me. He is very busy…very popular…very good at a very reasonable price.

This time, however, I was surprised. He was able to come for the initial estimate the very next day after I called him. Business must be slow! After arriving most promptly, he looked over the job to be done…quoted a price far below my expectations (don’t tell him that!) and we set up an appointment for this week to begin the work. Four visits…we want it done properly.

Visit number one: he arrived right on time. Right at 3:30 as promised…not a minute late. After doing his thing, he asked me if I was still picking up the ceiling paint (which yes, I had volunteered to do during the estimate because while it is not a special color…I do really want the same paint…) and I said yes. I would do it this week. He then said I should pick up some TSP and scrub the ceiling.

WHAT? Scrub the ceiling? Why?

So that he can repaint the entire ceiling so it will all match…. Oh, I say…

Visit number two: occurred yesterday. Well, the day before yesterday now…cuz I see it is after midnight already (and I really should be in bed…keep reading and you’ll see why…) And Ceiling Guy arrives right on the dot of 3:30 again (of course, I had no doubt that he would! He has yet to be late…) Does his thing again…which this time is sanding the areas that he replaced and mudded last time and applying a second layer of mud that is really smooth this time… It looks great! But then he inquires: have you picked up the TSP and paint yet? Uh, no…not yet…but I shall! Do we really need to repaint the whole ceiling, I ask? Well, yes, he says like I am some kinda dork. Okay…I say… thinking I kinda had plans for this weekend that did not include standing on my head scrubbing down the ceiling…

So, today I pick up the TSP and a bucket and the paint. (My old bucket is about ready to fall apart and I certainly did not want to risk the TSP that I carefully mix running all over the floor and asphyxiating me before I have a chance to scrub the ceiling with it and let it asphyxiate me then…did I mention that the sliding glass door needs to be replaced because something horrible happened to it during the storm that ruined the roof and allowed the waterfall in the kitchen to ruin the ceiling and it won’t open or close? That shall be the next home improvement saga…trust me! But I digress…) And in a few short hours, I’ll be standing on a step stool scrubbing the ceiling…trying to make it match the “dullness” that he has around the areas he did for the new ceiling sections…

Ah, the price we pay for perfection. It is rather amusing when you think about it…I want perfection…it is so hard to find someone who still take pride in their work…and yet I am bemoaning the fact that here I have found someone who wants to make my ceiling perfect. Funny how we can always find something to complain about…and yet…while I am not happy about spending my Saturday (cuz I know me…it will take a lot longer than a few hours in the morning…) cleaning my ceiling because yes…I want it to be perfect.

Yep…as soon as I decided to turn my blog into writing-related topics, my idea well dried up. Not a drip…not a drop…instead it became: What to blog…what to blog...that is the question. And so…nothing was blogged (for nine days and counting! I understand!). So forget that idea. We are returning to our original babblings of life with a few writing topics thrown in here and there for fun!

Haven’t been up to much mischief this past week but here are a couple of updates.

The roof does indeed appear to be fixed! It never rains in Southern California after mid-April…but Mother Nature finally decided that I deserved a break. It rained (and I actually welcomed it even though driving was a nightmare…took me two hours to get to work and I won’t even regale you with the bus experience!…well, maybe down below!) twice in the last week. We got over an inch and a half…and no sign of water in the house! Woo Hoo! Next step: getting the ceiling fixed. Mr. Ceiling Guy is scheduled to start the work next Wednesday. It will take four trips…ugh… but with any luck, that nightmare will soon become a trauma of the past. Then we can see if the microwave still works and either get a new stove or just a new knob, and finally move on to getting the sliding glass window replaced… and then begin the repairs on the yard drainage…it never ends, this home ownership responsibility…

A new batch of baby spiders hatched this past week, and they are merrily spinning new webs on top of the old cobwebs. And the dust bunnies still rule! They are ignoring the latest eviction warning they received a few weeks ago…and with good cause…since booting their butts is still on the ever growing list of things to do...without fail...someday.

I signed up for Charlotte Dillion’s writing challenge…and have only written a couple of pages. Not good. Not good at all when one (hmmm…me…) committed to writing 25 pages a week. Can we say “schmuck”? Yes, we can…just kinda hate it when we are saying to “me”…

Have some things to say about The Runaway Bride, crit groups, the erotica-romantica-romance controversy beginning to move from a simmer to a boil, oh, and the bus story, but I really need to switch the laundry to the dryer and straighten the kitchen and turn on the dishwasher and pay some bills… See! Now you know why I haven’t blogged in nine days!

Oh yeah…it is of vital importance: whether to put one space or two after a period. You laugh…you think I am joking. But alas…I am not. On no less than three writing loops today, there was massive discussion on whether to use one period or two after a period that ends a sentence. Post after post after post bemoaning the fact they are from the old school where two spaces ruled. Must they change their ways? And the most daunting question of all: how can they possibly go through a 400-page masterpiece and remove all those extra spaces?

On my! The trials of being a writer.

Now tell me…can you truly, really tell in most instances how many spaces are after a period? Does anybody really think a prospective agent or editor is going to throw down a manuscript in disgust and exclaim: “Horrors! This piece of drivel has two spaces after every period!”? I really doubt it. They are probably much more likely to roll their eyes at the 15,000 misplaced commas than worry about how many spaces are between the end of one sentence and the start of the next.

At every roundtable discussion I’ve attended, someone always asks the editor or agent speaking: “What are you looking for?” Never once has the reply been: “Oh, I’d love to see just one space between sentences. That is what excites me! That is what makes me think that perhaps I’ve found the next bestseller.” Give me a break! (as my friend, Jon Stossel (in my dreams I wish I knew him…he is so stinkin’ cute…but I digress) would say…) The usual answer is… drum roll please… “A good story.” Periods be damned…never ever hinted at as being an important consideration.

And yet we seem to forget that the story is what is important, and instead get hung up on period spacing, what font to use, how many rubber bands, if any, to use when binding the manuscript together for mailing. You know, the important things. Forget about a good plot, lots of conflict and tension, characters that shine. Let’s worry about the vital stuff…

And yes… I put two spaces after periods even though I have technical writing training which demands that only one space is proper…. So there! Do you suppose that is why I’m not published yet…

Side Note here: The roof is fixed! The roof is fixed! The roof is fixed! And…there was no sign of termite habitation, infestation, or damage! Woo Hoo! Now that, folks, is news worth shouting about! Now on to getting the ceiling repaired…