A Book Recommendation

Seldom, if ever, do I get up at 5 a.m. and stay up to read someone else's book. Normally, I'm working on my own computer at that hour before the melee of the day begins. But today I took the dogs, Barb Morgenroth's WAITING FOR YOU, and my cuppa tea to the deck, and didn't move until the carpenters showed up at 8 and caught me in my jammies. Shocked them silly. Me too, since I didn't realize I'd been there three hours.

Go forth and buy this ebook. If you like romance of the adult variety, by which I mean emotional depths and not porn, buy it. Let me be clear, buy this book!

Jefferson Baths

The Jefferson Baths (Ladies Section)

We spent an hour, way back at the end of April, in these warm spring waters in the hills of Virginia.  We were staying at The Homestead, which owns the Jefferson Baths, and decided to try the experience. First of all, this is a photo of the roof reflecting in the water. Those lumps you can see (if you squint) are big rocks on the bottom of the pool. Water rushes continually through the bathhouse and is crystal clear and loaded with minerals. The roof itself is as rickety looking as the building around the pool (peeling wood, warping and not too stable-looking), and the skylight is open. The light from the holes in the roof dances around the water, and the effect is other-worldly.

If I were Dean Koontz, I'd open a horror novel here. Warm mineral waters, dancing sunlight, decrepit structure, yeah, just what the aliens like.

On another note, why doesn't The Homestead maintain the building better? I can understand retaining its historic integrity, but on the other hand, shouldn't it get a little help?

Web Site Down/Description in Fiction

The two items in the title for this blog have absolutely nothing to do with each other, but what the heck.  I believe in stream of consciousness.  Sometimes.

Purely by accident, I discovered my web site is down. Hopefully, it'll be fixed and running soon, but sheesh...wish I were a web-designer techie so I could understand the lingo. I have a hard enough time with English.

Now for the more pleasant ruminations: description in fiction.  We listened to an old Michael Connally (1996) on our road trip through the cornfields of Wisconsin, and I declare, I wanted to haul out a big red pen and start marking through whole paragraphs. Why do I care what Bosch cooked for dinner?   I wanted to fast forward through the story like crazy to get to the action, the dialogue.  Then I realized, I'm more accustomed to the current style, in which all that description is terse and truncated.  As our society becomes more attuned to "faster is better," books have to keep up with that trend.  Read an early Elmore Leonard, and then a new one, and you'll see what I mean.  (I still want Leonard to write westerns again, sigh.)

My critique partner and I are in continual discussion about "how much description is too much?"  I want enough to see the characters, where they are, and how it affects them in the context of the action of the story.  I'm visually oriented, and when I write, I "see" what is happening. (Art history degree here...every piece of art tells a story.)  But I've learned to write more and more dialogue, because that's one way to move the story forward quickly.  I also think more people "hear" a story more than "see" it, as I do.  While I adore Dean Koontz's poetic descriptions, I think it's because I just like his language.  It doesn't advance the story, not every time he lapses into it.  But he's the master storyteller, as far as I'm concerned, and as long as he writes those beautiful, emotionally descriptive scenes, I'm with him. Of course, I have to have my dictionary close at hand, LOL.

Green Lake

This is my Beloved, standing where his family would put in their dock every summer for their boat, in Green Lake, Wisconsin.  He has fond memories of summers there as a child, and wanted to walk me through his old stomping grounds.  I now understand his affinity for lakes, while I'm an ocean gal myself. 

We stayed at the Heidel House, a hotel and conference center I can't recommend. If you go, stay in a B&B on the lake.  Or better yet, rent a cottage on Green Lake Terrace.  The views alone are worth the trip.

Home Again

We're back from a VERY long road trip, to Green Lake, Wisconsin, Batavia, Illinois, and Evanston, Illinois.Green Lake was a nostalgia trip for my Beloved, who spent summers there as a child. Lovely place. Will post more later.

I wanted to mention a book I read in the car on the long drive, Fran Shaff's FOR LOVE OF MAGGIE. It's a sweet romance, but what makes it different is that the heroine is a single mom to a child with Down Syndrome. Everyone in the story (except for the lone bad guy), is motivated by love to help a child. Getting it right between the two
protagonists isn't easy. No bed hopping, though there's plenty of sexual tension. No profanity. It's a tough book to write, from an author's viewpoint, but Fran pulls it off. Far above your average romance.

Kurt Busch

I've avoided thinking about what's going on with Kurt Busch, mostly because I don't know.  In a way, I think he's become a target in NASCAR, the driver with attitude (and they all have it, or they wouldn't be driving at that level) who has the bulls eye from hell on his back when it comes to the Powers that Be, i.e. NA$CAR.  

It must be said, the guy has a mouth on him.  Unfortunately, he uses it rather savagely whenever cameras or recording equipment are around. The language isn't all that unusual (anyone ever listen to Dale Jr berate Tony Eury Jr. during a race during his first year with Hendrick?), but Kurt has a way of twisting the bon mots around so they're particularly acerbic. I mean, the guy has battery acid in his voice when he's really ticked off. Crew guys  and crew chiefs don't like it, but it's part of the game with certain drivers.

Reporters, however, tattle. Or get tattled.  Dr. Jerry Punch didn't know a fan was recording Kurt's bullets of profanity, a video that got Kurt fired from Penske.  Bob Pockrass did ask a dumb question (for the fourteenth time, it seems, that Kurt had to listen to it), pushing the proverbial hot buttons that tripped the wire on Kurt's grenade. As Kurt explosions go, it was pretty tame and profanity-free.

But it was enough. Kurt knows he's a marked man.  He needs to bite his tongue until it's hamburger, or get out of the sport before he's ignominiously kicked out.  He's a wheel man, and I say, let him have the wheel. You know you get the mouth with the talent. (Joe Gibbs and Tony Stewart, anyone?) James Finch seems more concerned with wrecked race cars, and if Kurt gets the boot at Phoenix Racing, it'll probably be over the money issue with continually stuffing a car in the wall.

I imagine James Finch can curse with the best of them, Kurt being among the best.  I don't like the language, but I get that it's part of the culture.  They're probably two peas in a pod, James Finch and Kurt Busch. I hope they can make a go of it. Phoenix Racing deserves its time in the sun, and Kurt needs to get back to the UV rays spotlight.

Trimming the junk

It's the small stuff. The forks coming out of the dishwasher that still have rice between the tines.  The dog and cat fur that breeds like bunnies.  The flotsam and jetsam of life that builds up on the stairs, the newel post, beside the front door with the leashes, the boots, and the cushions for the lawn chairs, carried inside on a rainy afternoon.  Sometimes I think a tipi really is the way to go, but I've tried that. The smoke never did exit the flap correctly, the ground is hard as the dickens, and in the summer heat and humidity, there's no air so you're a sweaty mess.  What's the solution?

Ignoring it seems like a good plan until it's yipping at your ankles to be cleaned, picked up and put away, or shoved into someone else's closet. I'm too jealous of my quiet time at the computer, writing, to be able to stand hearing someone else running the vacuum cleaner or knocking the broom on the outside porch.  It's a dilemma all writers face: do the laundry or finish the chapter first?

I think the perfect solution is less to clean, pick up, or keep track of.  Closets have been my enemy for a couple of weeks now, and I ruthlessly toss into the Goodwill pile.  No one sees their shiny emptiness or organization but moi.  Which is fine.  Goodness knows, they'll fill up with junk again. But for now, I have some semblance of order somewhere. 

Order isn't a necessity for this writer, but it helps.  You wouldn't know it by looking at my desk area, but there is a reason for the piles. I know what's there. They need a ruthless weeding, but that'll come on the next rainy day.  While all this pruning and tossing is going on, I'm pruning and tossing the WIP in my head.

It's all good.

Letters

A friend at my college reunion reminded me of the time I almost set the dorm on fire, burning letters from ex-boyfriends in a trash basket. Hey, it was all that was available! I vaguely remember the incident, but what I most remember is not wanting my future kids to read anything even I didn't want to read.  I have to take back that sentiment, at least most of it.

In going through boxes of old photos and letters from my parents' house, I've discovered a treasure trove of history.  While I never knew my father's parents took an extended trip through Europe in 1954, my grandmother kept a travel journal, filled with post cards and observations, many of them astute.  It was such fun to read about her disbelief in certain superstitions, her abhorrence of the pigeons in St. Mark's Square, and her sleuthing to find out the real identity of the mystery man who ate every evening at the captain's table on the boat back to the States. She decided he was a spy. I also learned that the Duke of Windsor was very nice, but his duchess only clever and rather cold, albeit very well preserved.  The Duke of Edinburgh was all that he should be, and Field Marshal Montgomery had a summer chateau near Fountainbleau.  Oh, and the pope was also very charming. How I wish I'd known my grandparents had these stories to tell!

She called my grandfather "Sugar" when she wrote him letters, and her concern for his welfare was always uppermost.  She admonished him to not let the gray weather get him "down," and to keep track of everyone wining and dining him while she was away, so she could repay them with dinners once she got home. The letters sound so much like her, I can almost hear her voice.

My mother wrote her mother religiously, every week. Fortunately my grandmother saved the ones that came from the Middle East, and reading about events I still remember, only from my mother's viewpoint, is fascinating. I didn't realize she was fully cognizant of how bored I was in school, and how much I longed to be an ordinary American teenager, not an "ugly American" living abroad. Politics, espionage, concern for the welfare of Middle Eastern women, and the constant hassle of entertaining on an Embassy level, filled her letters as well. Fortunately, my mom spoke enough Turkish and French to be a real asset to my dad, the army attache', and reading about her linguistic maneuvers on his behalf are a  hoot!

Since enjoying this reading repast, I am determined to write more letters of my own. Photos now languish on my hard drive, emails get deleted, and text messages replace conversations.  The one thing I can do to give myself the feeling of keeping something important from slipping into obscurity, is to write people. Friends. Family. The newspaper.  It doesn't matter.

The written word does.

Facebook and Avalon Books

I did it. After much denial, backing up so fast I tripped, and swearing I'd never join the Devil's Outpost, I am now on Facebook. Taking it slowly.  Getting help from my daughter.  I still don't "get" it, but then, she doesn't "get" Twitter.  So we're even.

My second publisher, Avalon Books (Thomas Bouregy & Co.) sold its backlist to Amazon Publishing this week. The authors who connect on a listserv just for Avalon writers are in a quandary, since so many questions remain, such as, will there be new books printed by Amazon? Will there be print versions at all? What about ebooks? Who is first in the queue?  I have a hundred questions like that, and hopefully, they'll be answered by Amazon, since the former owner of Avalon isn't very forthcoming.  In fact, the sale was a shock to all of us who have published there, especially since Avalon has been in business since 1950.  Amazon can't be worse than the publisher, since she steadfastly and unreasonably refused to return print rights, even after the five or ten year reversion clause kicked in, and no one could buy any of the books in a "new" edition.  The secondary market was doing just fine, but that's of no use to the author!  All in all, this sale may be a good deal.  We'll see.  It's still sad that an old, established publishing house couldn't keep up with the changes in publishing, such as ebook editions.

I authored seven historical westerns with Avalon, and they remain some of my favorite stories.

Reunion

Such a loaded-for-bear word. What woman doesn't tremble at the thought of reconnecting with the past? Fortunately, there a few brave souls in my college class who are willing to show up for our, ahem, umpteenth, reunion this weekend. We're a tad bit older, but who cares? We've so much more to share these days than class notes, campus gossip, and boy friend, or the lack thereof, reports. I truly believe women get better as they get older, and we certainly have in my class of overachievers.

Attending a women's college was not in my plans. However, my freshman year at the American University of Beirut was blown up, literally, by protests on campus, a fire that took out the Registrar's Office, wars, and political upheaval. Hollins College took me in, primarily, because my mom was an alum. I though I'd landed in hell when I hit Roanoke, and this is from a girl who hid under her dorm desk as the Israelis bombed the Beirut airport. I was getting out of Hollins, Virginia, as fast as I could.

Wrong. With a campus packed to the gills with a cool group of women, the college hummed with intellectual electricity. Combine the two - smart women and great educators - and you have the makings of remarkable lives. I'm not so sure mine has measured up, but I'm not complaining.

My liberal arts education has stood me in good stead. Thank you, Hollins. Can't wait to get back.

Evolution

I love it when a book I sorta outlined ages ago jumps into my head, out of the blue, and demands some immediate attention.  This happened to me a couple of weeks ago, and in re-reading the synopsis, I thought, "hmmm, not half bad. Pretty interesting, actually."  From me, that's high praise. 

Pulling out a fresh notebook, I started to play with the story, and suddenly, I knew what the story needed.  A mystery.  Initially conceived as a work of women's fiction, I sensed it needed an extra kick in the rear to take it a notch higher.  The mystery element was perfect.

But how to work in a mystery in a story primarily about relationships?  Again, the solution was obvious. The structure of the mystery could undergird the relationships.  I wanted to begin writing, but life got in the way.

Yesterday, life played outside while I wrote.  A first chapter is seldom easy, but in my case, it was like finding gems in a bushel of words.  They came so quickly, I didn't even realize I'd been at my keyboard for several hours.  I love it when that happens, the first rush of meeting new friends and enemies, new places, new problems to solve.  The last chapter came to me as I was writing the first, so I have my goal.

Now if I can just keep it going!

Memorial Day

My father always said that the military was used when politicians failed. I'd like to use this as a call to elect the best people as our officials, those who decide when to call in the guns. Arrogance, ego, self-will, anything less than the purity "of Caesar's wife" will not be tolerated in those who hold the sacred trust of our elected offices.

This Memorial Day, let us resolve to diminish the number of graves in our national cemeteries by voting for people who take military action so seriously, it is a last resort.

My uncle, Robert Batten Dunham, is one who lost his life to a "military police action" in a foreign land. Today, that war is still ongoing.

Battleship

How could it go wrong? Peter Berg of Friday Night Lights, Taylor Kitsch and Jesse Plemons of the cast of FNL, and alien invaders. Yes! Add some great special effects, a real vet with metal legs in a hero's role ("I got this," says Mick as he faces down the alien monster), and my beloved and I had a great time. So some parts don't make sense (live bombs on the USS Missouri?), who cares? This is a movie-movie, with heroism, explosions, a love story, gutsy gals who kick ass (Rihanna? Really? Wow), and huge stakes, the survival of mankind. The story line follows the "make it worse" credo when it comes to the alien invasion, and we ate it up. So go! Ignore naysayers. Have some fun. You will, I promise.

We're trying to knock off some of our to-do list over the long weekend. Thankfully, the race in Charlotte gave us an excuse to sit. Kasey Kahne finally proved he deserves his seat with Hendrick, and I slept through the middle of the 600 miler. Awful coverage by Fox, but the race really is too long.

I may hide the to-do list tomorrow and pull out the Friday Night Lights DVDs and pull a marathon. Best thing that ever happened to TV. Except for season 2. Will skip that one. The rest are about relationships that seem so real, you would bet money you knew these people.

Everyone, fly your American flag tomorrow. Remember those who gave all for our nation. Say a prayer for peace.

Tweet Me

I get asked quite frequently why I like Twitter, while Facebook leaves me cold. Easy. It's short. Doesn't take much time. I don't have to interact, be friends, respond, or do anything at all if I don't want to. Like most Nascar fans now, I follow fav drivers (Brad Keselowski is a Twittering rock star), and people who "get" Twitter, like DeLana Harvick and John Daly.

As a writer, I check in with Publisher's Weekly, the Library of Congress, and assorted editors and publishers. Most provide links to the most up to date news and interesting blogs and articles about the biz. I learn stuff that could take months to filter down the food chain to the lowly author. For example, right now something odd is happening with Avalon Books. (Thomas Bouregy & Co.) If I wished, I could Tweet about it and alert any writers following me to keep their manuscripts in their drawers until the real story comes out. Unless you're on the private list for Avalon authors, you wouldn't know. Twitter opens up the dissemination of information quickly and concisely. And I can control who follows me easily.

So I guess the short answer is, Twitter is fast, easy, and my kind of shorthand. 140 characters, that I can handle.

Shame in Virginia

I'm truly embarrassed to be a Virginian. Once a Commonwealth of revolutionary ideas and progressive thinking (the American Revolution, anyone?), it's now a bastion of old white men who think they can keep everyone in the 19th century.  Don't get me started on the segregation  or sex laws that were on the books until recently.  Or the recent anti-abortion state law our milquetoast governor signed.


However, today records a truly low point in our recent legislative history. Our Republican controlled government has rejected a gay prosecutor for a general district court judgeship. The obvious reason is: he's gay.  Openly gay.  Former fighter pilot.  By all accounts, a really good prosecutor.  As a former defense lawyer, I'd oppose his appointment simply because he's a prosecutor, and I'm tired of prosecutors on the bench.  And that's the only reason.

A judge needs an even temperament, the highest ethics, good legal chops, and the ability to keep control in the courtroom. I'm not aware that being gay disqualifies you from possessing any of these characteristics.

For shame, Virginia. 

Periwinkle

Not the color, but the plant. I've just spent an hour attacking it, insidious, wicked plant that it is. Don't let those cute blue flowers fool you. It'll take over your garden, your yard, your house, if you let it. Nothing daunts it, not even the green worms from hell, who couldn't be bothered to munch on it when there were lilacs and azaleas to decimate.

As I jerk, clip, and dig at the periwinkle, I'm thinking, as I'm wont to do, about writing. First I'm working on a difficult character in my head, wondering if I'm being fair to him, and that leads, of course, into what do you do with the book at never ends? Like the groundcover I'm trying to eradicate, the story just wanders on and on, and you're wondering if you've created a nightmare and not a novel. The leap in logic here may have escaped you (don't worry), but it all came around in my head as I realized the character who had been worrying me was unnecessary to the story. He's getting ripped out by the roots just as soon as I can get him out of there, because he's just more ground cover.

I call this a successful morning. Clearing the garden beds and the WIP of extraneous bits at the same time is a good day's work.

Things I wish I'd known

I've been running Florence and The Machine's latest CD, CEREMONIALS, at full blast wherever I drive these days. The steering wheel actually shakes.  If you don't know Florence, and you're a Gracie Slick fan, check her music out. Killer vocals, lyrics you won't hear anywhere else, and a drummer who makes me feel tribal.   Who says old chicks can't rock? Not Florence, me, lol.

I was thinking the other day about all the things I know now about the writing business that I wish I'd known years ago.  I'd just read Ann Voss Peterson's blog on Jon Konrath's blog site, all about how she had to stop writing for Harlequin (the 6000 lb elephant of romance publishing) because she couldn't pay for her son's braces, much less make a living, even though she churned out multiple books a year that sold well into six figures. The advance and payout (i.e. royalty) structure was such that HQ authors must keep a day job, no matter how many HQ lines they've contracted for multiple books. 

That's something I wish I'd known. Back before I realized I'd never have the HQ "voice," I thought HQ was where you earned your stripes as a disciplined writer. It may still be that place. But I knew, from how hard some of my friends were working to basically just survive as writers for HQ, that it was a cold and master/servant relationship when it came to the business side. HQ has some of the best editors in the business. These people know what they're doing. But that's totally different from the contract side of the deal, and HQ just doesn't have to give anyone anything in writing it doesn't want to give her. And they don't, unless you're Nora Roberts. (Who got her start there.) I thank my lucky stars I never signed a contract with HQ. I've made my own share of contract goofs,but none that scary.

One of the smartest (and that was by accident) things I did was get a sample publishing contract from the Author's Guild before I even read my first contract from Walker & Co.  Every new author should be a member and get that contract and keep it handy when it's pen and ink time.

More later. Long blogs bore me, so I assume they do you, too.

Hurrah for the Upstarts!

My man, Bad Brad Keselowski, outwitted Kyle Busch to take the flag at Talladega! Yes! As Kyle Petty said, Brad outdrove and outsmarted the competition. Brad's talking like a pro on camera, and it's fun to watch him make his name. Bet Hendrick wishes he could have kept him in the stable back when Brad was running for Junior Motorsports in the Nationwide series.

Talking about upstarts, Young Adult books are definitely taking over from adult fiction as my fav reads. I'm starting BOY 21 by Matthew Quick, written in an athentic, low key style that sneaks in stellar writing like "The liquor on his breath was dank and smelled sharp as a razor." Ostensibly, it's a basketball story, but of course, it's much more. Good book.

Bummer

Yesterday never got above 49 degrees Fahrenheit, the rain fell from 12:30 p.m. on, and at times was practically horizontal. Yes, I'm talking about Race Day. That most wonderful of events.  Better than, well, most things.  Short track in Richmond. Track dancing with lights.  Packed stands.

That, of course, describes a normal Richmond Nascar race. Yesterday, everything fell apart, and we bailed.  Hate to admit it, but by 5:30 p.m., with rain dripping steadily through the seams of our pop-up tent, soaked and cold, and incidentally, miserable since we don't imbibe to the point of who-cares?, we loaded up the truck and headed for the barn, expecting the race to be run Sunday afternoon.

Wrong.  The rain stopped, the engines fired, and we slept through most of the race on the TV at home, all of us wrapped in quilts, lounging by the gas logs, warm for the first time that day. Not the getting warm part, that was heavenly.  But for the first in years, we weren't in the stands in Richmond. Major bummer.

So what happens when a much-anticipated (insert your choice here) bombs? When the book you thought was stellar dies on the mid-lists? When your editor/agent doesn't like the first draft much, if at all?  When you're eagerly anticipating diving into writing the next book, and the line is cancelled?  Yikes.  Even the thought sends prickles of horror up the spines of most writers. 

Or what if, as happened to Kiana Davenport, Penguin wants its advance back, the $20,000 they paid for a novel, because you have published short stories on Amazon, the arch enemy of Legacy publishers?  (Read her blog, www.kianadavenportdialogues.blogspot.com for more.)

You suck it up, get rid of the distractions, and get back to what matters, the writing.   And if you're a racer, you load up the truck and head for the next track, the next race, and pray for better weather.

The Killing

Like most viewers, I was more than a little frustrated with the ending of last season's THE KILLING. Love,love, love the way it's shot, the acting, even the rainy gray setting. The actor playing Holder is a marvel.

If you bailed after feeling cheated, go back. The story is twisting tighter than the knotted fists of a guilty man. It's seldom that a plot line turns and twists with so many surprises, at least on television.