Idioms

I love figures of speech. Think of the visual possibilities of that phrase. Idioms. Colloquialisms. Regionalisms. Slang. All of those bits and pieces of everyday conversation that we accept as a matter of course define our background, our region of the country, our age. Cool. Boffo. Super. Sick. Rockin'. Neat. If I list many more, I'll be showing my age. As a matter of fact, these phrases show the age of books in which they're used as well.

I was reading a super funny book with a little boy I'm helping with his reading, and some of the "cool" kid dialogue was totally foreign to this very hip kid because its publication date was long before he was born. I had to explain what the terms meant. Not sure I did a very good job, because explaining idioms is like giving words to something you just KNOW. It made me think, however, that using the lingo that's in style and the hottest at the time you write your book isn't exactly a great idea. Language goes in and out of style as swiftly as shoulder pads and glittery lapels for women's suits.

Anyone remember The Little Colonel books for children? I rest my case . . .

Anniversary

My beloved and I celebrated our wedding anniversary today by heading to the VMFA Picasso exhibit. The crowd on a Thursday morning was incredible, and if you plan on going, go early. While not a big Picasso fan, I was fascinated by the creative process as displayed by the curators. A well-designed exhibit, cohesive and illuminating, it teaches as it entertains. I don't think Picasso liked women very much, which makes me wonder why women were attracted to him.

Famous men seem, on the average, to be h$&l on women and their families. Genius is no excuse for cruelty and neglect. Thank the good Lord for men who love without conflict or selfishness. My gem of a husband is both a good man and a wonderful father. We were blessed to find each other. I wouldn't trade him for ten Picassos.

Hither and Yon with Books

I grew up all over the world. Literally. I had what I think was a very normal childhood, with two loving parents and as much stability you can have when you're moved from school to school in the middle of the year. In no way was I harmed by this nomadic educational experience. In fact, I was probably turned into a voracious reader as a result. We read, as a family, books about where we were traveling so we'd know what to see, what to expect, and how to get along in that culture. And of course, books went with us on our long car/plane/boat rides. Much of what I learned came from seeing foreign places, museums, and living where the common language wasn't English, and books always paved the way first.

I'll never forget reading Mary Renault's The Bull from the Sea series (Theseus as hero!), then seeing Crete in person. Or reading about the cedars of Lebanon, and then getting to go to college there. Uriah the Hittite came alive when I saw Hittite ruins in Turkey. The Wisteria Covered Porch, a Turkish novel, limned a sense of Istanbul that was picture-perfect when I got there.

Even if you never leave your own town, you can experience life as a true international traveler. Let books take you there.

Dorchester Publishing's Dishonesty

Everyone needs to boycott Dorchester/Leisure books. I say this with the deepest regret, since Leisure published many of my favorite Western authors, but the publisher is now treating its authors like chattel.

Please read author Brian Keene's web site. www.briankeene.com You'll get a thorough explanation of how Dorchester is publishing and selling books without paying the authors, and has been doing so for quite a while now.

Also, avoid Avalon books. They too treat authors as if they're hired help (and the pay doesn't top $1000, which you only get if you're very lucky), and the books belong to the publisher in perpetuity. They never supply sales or royalty records, or any accounting for sales to authors. If you want more information, contact me directly through this blog.

County School Budgets

I know I'm on a tear these days, but I simply can't stand injustice. The Board of Supervisors rep for my district presented the county's proposed budget (which isn't going to change, no matter how many objections are received from constituents). It has cut school funding from approximately $79 million in 2009 (I believe that's the correct date, it may be earlier) to about $41 million for the next fiscal year. And the Board of Supervisors is proud of this figure.

Who are they kidding? The county is filled with kids going to school in portable trailers because of severe overcrowding in old, decrepit brick and mortar buildings, teachers who have to buy their own supplies, and schools that couldn't function without volunteers who have replaced the school reading specialists and librarians, as well as classroom assistants. Computers for the kids are old and outdated, running ancient software. These children will not succeed in the future because we aren't giving them to tools to do so.

Wonder why the U.S. has fallen in the world standings of science and math proficiency? It doesn't help that teachers must teach to the test, the Standards of Learning. (Let's learn what to regurgitate for the exam, boys and girls, forget about critical and creative thinking.) It also doesn't help that the learning environment is less than ideal. (Gee, the girls' bathroom on the fourth grade hall hasn't been open for over a month because we don't have the money to fix it.) It doesn't promote a better learning environment, either, when class sizes grow to over 30 pupils because we can't hire enough teachers to keep them smaller.

My children were fortunate to have a private education in a nurturing environment where they were taught not only how to learn, but how to think. They didn't need to worry about outdated textbooks or not having what they needed to excel. I get so angry when I think of all the promising children out there who have to make do with less, and then even less, because the Board of Supervisors can't see the fallacy of their position on the school budget.

Virginia Tech moves on because it costs too much?

Virginia Tech, site of the most horrific school tragedy since Kent State in the Vietnam War era, has decided it has had enough of remembering the deaths of the 32 students who were killed four years ago. Since I have a child finishing her degree there now, I haven't forgotten. And I won't.

While I'm not one to dwell on the past, I can only imagine how the parents and survivors felt when notified that they will no longer be guests of the university at any remembrance services or events. (Oh, and classes will not be held on the anniversary date from now on.) The president, Charles Steger, announced that the approximately $10,000 cost is too high for the Ischool to bear.

Who has lost sight of what matters here? Charles Steger earns annually $732,064, eighth high in the nation, I believe. Gee, do you think it would kill him to take a $10,000 pay cut and allow these survivors and parents to do what feels right for themselves and the Tech community? Outrageous. The president of Virginia Tech has shown time and again that he's out of touch with the true sentiments of the Tech family, as it truly is.

Charles Steger has got to go. Now.

Short Video from Darlington

It's short. It's loud. Enjoy.

Darlington: Rookie Drivers and Writers

We trekked to South Carolina, out in the middle of nowhere, to a place called Darlington, to see the truck race last Saturday night. Given how far the track is from pretty much anywhere with a hotel, the crowd was amazing. While the stands were nowhere near full, they were shakin' and cheering, and filled with more bodies than we'd expected to find. The squished seats were about as bad as during a Sprint Cup race.

Once again, a Cup driver in great equipment wins a lower tiered race. Kasey Kahne took the checkered flag, and the nice thing about it was, he seemed genuinely thrilled. But does this make it right? On one hand, the experienced drivers can teach a few tricks to the newbies, like Johanna Long. But at what cost? The young rookie drivers starting out generally don't have great equipment or sponsors with deep pockets, and a run into the safer barrier pretty much kills their day. I understand there's no way Nascar can tell a driver he/she can't run a race in any of the series (unless there's a legal reason, such as drug use, or lack of experience at a tough track like Talladega), but it seems as if there's no safe place for young drivers to learn their trade as long as the upper echelons of the talent pool, with their money behind them, splash in the smaller puddles and then take home all the rubber duckies. (Mixed metaphor, I know, I know!)

It's like the business situation for newer writers these days. Once upon a time, a publisher would take time to bring along a promising young author, working with each successive book to build a fan base and improve the published product. Not anymore. Didn't hit it big with your first book? Good-bye, and don't bother to submit to us ever again. Where can young writers learn about publishing except from the actual doing of it?

Perhaps ebooks will be the savior of promising new writers who have been shunned by the money people in their New York high rises for whom the bottom line, not the nurturing of talent, is the only goal. I sure hope so.

Ideas

Where does a writer get her ideas? Everywhere. A snatch of a conversation, an article in the newspaper (pinned to the board in the office is a whole wall of them!), a history book (oh my, history, yes!), or a memory. A hint of a song, a scent in the breeze, a new place. Travel awakens the creative juices like nothing except a quiet day at the beach, parked under an umbrella far from the cocoanut-scented crowds. Music can trigger a scene (Sting's Desert Rose), as can food. How often does a meal remind you of a gathering of fascinating friends, a romantic date, a miserable moment? Every moment of an everyday life adds to the creative well, into which you can dip whenever you want.

I knew a writer who said his ideas all came from the time before he hit 21. Since he was well beyond that age, I thought how sad it was that he felt his creativity ended so soon. Every day brings me something new, something I can mull and let steep in my head until I need it. Sometimes it's how an oak leaf clings to a branch day after day, or the way the moon shadows that same oak tree at midnight. I've been told I'm a visual writer, and I can see why. I "see" the scenes I write as they play out in my head like a slide show. Guess that comes from being an art history major in college - and memorizing millions of slides of works of art for identification purposes.

Writers pay attention, and that's the real secret behind where writers get their ideas.

YA Heroes

The Eagle (from the Rosemary Sutcliffe book, The Eagle of the Ninth), and I am Number Four, are both interesting movies derived from YA books. Never having read the book upon which Number Four is based, I can't compare the movie to it, but I noticed a common thread in these films. They both have heroes. Honest-to-goodness heroes who embark on the classic hero's journey, as defined by Joseph Campbell.

They may be a bit dense at times, have a rocky road to gain the knowledge they need to complete their journeys, and in Number Four, the journey is just beginning at the end of the movie. Obviously, sequels have been planned. These heroes are brave, willing to sacrifice self for the greater good, and loyal, all characteristics necessary to the hero's make-up. I'm impressed and willing to journey with them down their difficult roads.

Where are the heroes in movies made for the adult audience? The Social Network is a good movie, but there are no heroes. No journey into the inner cave. No stand for honor and the greater good. The George Clooney movie about the assassin - The American - had nothing heroic going for it. So he kills people and wants out. Then he kills some more. Big deal. Have adults lost the capacity to recognize a hero?

I don't think so. The audience for both The Eagle and I am Number Four was predominately adult. Not younger adults, but folks who've already raised their kids. That tells me the films and books without heroes aren't speaking to that generation. No wonder I'm reading more and more YA these days. They, more than the "adult" fare, provde me with a hero's journey.

Trevor!

It's taken me a while, but I'm just recovering from the wild Daytona 500. Trevor Bayne stunned the NASCAR world by having the best car and the smoothest, coolest temperament on the track. Victory Lane was such a joyous place, no one could object to the Wood Brothers being there with their very very rookie driver.

What is truly wonderful is how clear Trevor is in his faith, and how unafraid he is to say he prays. With his crew. Before every race. And he talks about it. What a nice change. Not that there aren't nice, even devout, drivers lining up on the track. Yet Trevor is refreshingly open and honest, not to mention grateful, for God's direction in his life.

We hope and pray he never loses sight of his relationship with his Lord.

More Daytona...

So I managed to stay awake long enough to see Michael Waltrip win the truck race on the 10th anniversary of his Daytona 500 win as a driver for Dale Earnhardt Inc. The tears were flowing, both in Victory Lane and in the Speed announcer's booth as Darrell Waltrip was remembering ten years ago along with everyone watching. What a race - Michael pulled out from behind Sadler with about a hundred yards to go and just beat Sadler to the line. I imagine Sadler didn't complain too much - the history of the moment trumped everything else.

Now for the NW race! Oh my, if this is half as good as the truck race, it's going to be a lulu.

Must make veggie soup so it can "work" while the race is on. I'll post the recipe, a family fav, when I get a chance.

Trucks!

Oh my, the engines are roaring on the Daytona track, and I'm so tired I can barely keep my eyes open. With temperatures in the seventies, I got a ton of errands run and chores knocked off my list. All of which were much more pleasant in such lovely weather, but sheesh. . . I'm ready for bed and it's not yet nine!

Staying put in front of the computer can be just as exhausting, but in a different way. I need a nice long walk with the doglet to work out those kinks and clear my mind of the aftershocks of living in a make-believe world for hours.

Must stay awake. Need to stay awake. Oh, to heck with it. I'll be perkier for the NW race tomorrow afternoon.

Rewrites

Does any writer ever feel a book is completely finished? Or it simply that deadlines must be met and the book turned in, whether or not you're happy with it?

In rereading some older books, books I thought were pretty danged good, I'm seized with an almost irrepressible urge to rewrite them, sentence by sentence. I've rationalized this scary feeling by telling myself that I'm a better writer now, that I never cease learning with each new book, and it's okay, take a deep breath, and move on. But it's not that easy.

Self-doubt about one's artistic ability seems to be inherent in the creative process. You don't improve if you think you're God's literary gift to the world. But I've countered that paralyzing demon so far by knowing that my talent isn't "mine," in other words, a personal possession. I can never explain where my ideas originate or how I express them, because I know they come from a source other than my pea-picking teeny brain. I can, and do, work on my craft. I study other writers and their techniques. I work to make the story clear and fun to read. But those are just mechanics.

As a creative person, I'm a work in progress and I don't intend to stop learning for one second how to be better at what I do.

Spoiled Brat Brian Vickers

I'm on a tear. Tear, as in "rip it up," not "tear," as in weeping. Well, maybe a bit of both. Just read the Maxim article about Brian Vickers, one of my fav drivers.

At 27 yo, he's too young to be this dissipated. Despite a scare with blood clots that almost left him dead, he's a hard-drinking partier who doesn't seem to realize the full import of the second chance he's been given. Sure, he's back in the 83 car after his docs cleared him to drive. But what did he learn when he wasn't able to get behind the wheel for ten months? Sounds like he learned he'd better drink his vodka faster and harder to make up for lost time.

How does a red-headed, munchkin-looking guy from a small town in North Carolina turn into a Manhatten club-hopper on a steady binge? Sounds to me as if his mama needs to grab him by the ear and drag him home for a good talking-to. And his daddy might use a switch behind the woodshed on his backside, for good measure.

People with talent, money, and millions of people in their corners don't need to waste their lives the way it sounds like Vickers is. If he has a death wish, he's on the right road. And it's too *$(@ bad.

Fun Times

I'm having a blast re-reading some of my older books. Books that were probably too far out there for their time, or books that just didn't fit into the regular publishing mold, have languished long enough on my hard drive. I'm reworking some of them to put them on Amazon, and if I have half as much fun as I did with THE LAST CAMPAIGN, I'm a very happy woman.

Despite this extra work, SIGNS is progressing. It needs a new title but I'm not inclined to stop the wordsmithing at this point to think of one. Titles, at this stage, tend to be utilitarian. Someday I'll relate the story about my first western, THE LAY OF THE LAND, and what my first editor had to say about its, um, other meaning. I was clueless.

Today, while most of the country hunkers by the fire and makes cocoa, we have warm winds, birds going chirp-happy, and buds on the forsythia. Yeah! I'm taking today as as omen that Spring and racing aren't too far behind.

At Last! The Last Campaign is up!

I could become exclamation point happy, for several reasons. One: THE LAST CAMPAIGN, one of my favorite westerns, is up on Amazon.com in Kindle format. Two: Its new cover is truly a work of art (thanks to JRG, artist extraordinaire) and Three: I figured out how to get it up there.

THE LAST CAMPAIGN is about the Tenth Cavalry (the famed Buffalo soldiers) and its campaign against the Mescalaro Apache,Victorio, and his men. The history alone is thrilling - filled with strategy from the wily Col. Benjamin Grierson, he of Grierson's Raid fame in the Late Unpleasantness, and running battles with guerrilla fighters like no others. I threw into the mix a Medal of Honor winner, our hero, who has grown soft in Washington D.C., hankering to find out if he's still capable of being "a real soldier," the woman he loved and left when he turned his back on his native South to join the Union Army, and the slave he freed when he did so. The kicker is that his lost lady-love, with a twelve year old son by her dead husband, our hero's best friend, is now ranching near Ft. Concho, Texas, with our hero's ex-slave. Yep, there's a romance as well, albeit nothing hot or heavy.

The story is totally PG. It could, in fact, work as a Young Adult. I hope teens and older will read it to find out about a little-known bit of American history and the people who lived it, as well as the fictional story of a man who thinks he's lost everything only to find out he has it all.

Daytona and Change

Not coin of the realm. Change as in: the new surface, lack of striping on the track, and the drivers who are testing have me both excited and sad. No Elliot Sadler. One of my fav photos is of a banana from his bay during testing a couple of years back. Don't ask. And Scott Speed, sitting at home, is a casualty of the Kasey Kahne deal struck with Hendrick to get him in a car for one year. I find myself wishing Rusty Wallace, Ken Schrader, and Michael Waltrip were still running regularly, which I guess makes me an oldie in terms of Nascar. While Sam Hornish never made a good impression on the stock car crowd, I keep wondering if he was really given a fair shake. Shouldn't he have started in trucks for a while before being thrown into the melee? I always worry about drivers who disappear from the scene, like Scott Wimmer.

The up-side is that the live streaming of testing on speedtv.com is great. Makes up, almost, for staying home this year. Locked myself in the office because I'm working hard to get some of my older westerns, including one I consider to be my best, The Last Campaign, into a format Kindle can read. Working on the third Tal Jefferson book for the same deal. Why not? I still have readers who want to know what happened to my slightly crazy heroine. SIGNS progresses slowly because it's a tricky book to write, and I'd like to nail it the first time around. Getting tired of doing a zillion rewrites. At this stage of the game, I should know what I'm doing, LOL.

This crazy cold weather is good for a writer. No temptation to work in the garden. However, the itch to do a little pre-season shopping for new plants and seeds is lurking in the background, trying to entice me into slacking off.

Get thee behind me, plant catalogue satan!

Law School and MLK Day

My law school alumni magazine contained a link to a YouTube hit called "So You Want to Go to Law School." I just about died laughing. It can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMvARyOIBLE. (Hope I entered that correctly. If not, just put in the title of the video in YouTube.) Written by a law school alumnus, it hits all the highlights of the young idealist (including switching from medicine to law because of a bad grade in biology) versus the burned-out cynic who has been through the wars.

Call me one of the burned-out cynics. On this day of remembering Dr. King, I wish I could have been more effective in protecting the rights of those the legal system has systematically treated with disdain and lack of protection of their legal rights. Whenever I had a black client in a criminal case, I knew I was already going to lose, no matter what the evidence presented. Black with a prior record? Done deal. Another black man in an orange jump suit. Now substitute cute young white guy/girl, same evidence, and it's a different story. Even if there was a conviction, time was usually suspended, probation imposed. Sorry, but those are the facts of my legal practice when I was a court-appointed defender.

Equality before the law is fundamental. Until we can achieve that, we're failing Dr. King's vision miserably.

Firefly and food

Watching old episodes of Firefly this weekend, and I notice Summer Glau progressed from crazy River to The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and now to The Cape. Not a great career choice, this last role. Firefly was fun and traditional while trying out both in space. Cape is just boring, so far. Guess they can't all be winners. Well, anything with Colin Firth can't go wrong.

Check out www.afantasteticfoodblog@blogspot.com for simple, cheap meals for one or two people. I love how the Internet is one big cookbook, if you care to hunt for something to cook.

Oh, The King's Speech is wonderful...