No Women Movie Monsters?

It’s ghost and goblin time again, and I’m trying to do my part. I sat through the entire showing of the 1941 horror classic, The Wolf Man with Lon Chaney and Claude Rains last week. Chaney is a great tragic wolf man, and his demise at the end is wrenching, but the movie reminded me that there is something to be said for today’s makeup and special effects. The wolf man’s facial hair is a crucial prop, so it probably shouldn’t bring Tina Turner wigs to mind. But that’s a tiny quibble. Otherwise, I had a wonderful, nostalgic time watching the movie. I’m also reading a really good vampire mystery, Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton, which was recommended by members of my Yahoo group.

Naturally, at this time of year, horror movies are running nonstop in theaters and on television, but when I tried to come up with a list of my all-time favorite scary movies, it struck me that we have no classic women movie monsters. The only one I could think of was Bride of Frankenstein, and she would never have made the marquee if it hadn’t been for Frankenstein, himself. That doesn’t seem right, does it? For years we named hurricanes and other natural disasters exclusively after women. Why don’t we have any really great women ghouls?

I’m really curious about this. There were two brides of Frankenstein, Elsa Lanchester in the original and Madeleine Kahn in the mostly comic remake by Mel Brooks, titled Young Frankenstein. Both were terrific, IMO, but I wouldn’t necessarily put them up against Frankenstein, Dracula or the Wolf Man. The more recent Witches of Eastwick also came to mind. It was a great movie, featuring Michelle Pfeiffer, Susan Sarandon, and Cher as modern witches, but it was more campy than scary and obviously not intended for the horror genre.

For me, the most memorable witches were the ones in Sleeping Beauty and The Wizard of Oz. I saw both movies as a child, and the spidery countenance of the evil Maleficent will forever be burned in my psyche. She was a sorceress to be reckoned with. Her dragon turn when she came up against the prince was pretty magnificent.

I first saw The Wizard of Oz on television, which may have diluted the fearsomeness a bit, but I will never forget Margaret Hamilton’s crooked nose, spiny fingers, scratchy voice and fiendish skill with a broomstick. She was no slouch in the witch department, and that alone makes her memorable. For me, she outclassed the wizard.

I became curious enough to do some research on this subject, although it was limited because I’m still traveling and on dial-up. But I did discover a few movies that featured women in, shall we say, monstrous ways. One title was Cobra Woman, also staring Lon Chaney, but not in the title role, which would have been really interesting, now that I think about it. Another title of a more recent film was Vampyros Lesbos. I would love to have known more about that one, but I couldn’t bring up a synopsis. I also found The Living Dead Girl, and of course, Carrie.

Carrie may not be old enough to be considered a classic, but perhaps it will be in time. I hope so. The movie is a sentimental favorite of mine, possibly because I endured some bullying as a kid, and I can remember wishing I could do some of the things Carrie does in her avenging angel scenes. I loved it when she used her telekinetic powers to waylay one of the bullies without even touching him. One minute he was upright, the next he was on his behind. Hm, are we suppose to root for the monsters?

For sheer numbers, you really can’t compare the women who’ve been memorialized in celluloid to the list of legendary male movie monsters. I’ve already mentioned Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolf Man. The list would also have to include Phantom of the Opera, Nosferatu, the Vampire, The Invisible Man, The Mummy, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Fly, and probably many more. Oops I almost forgot Swamp Thing. Can’t have that. I discovered the movie only a few years ago, but it actually has a tragic monster worthy of some of the classics, IMHO. It might even make my Top Ten.

I wish I could remember the name of my favorite horror movie from my youth, although it didn’t involve a classic monster as much as it did a haunted house. My friends and I went to the movies every Saturday without fail, and I do recall that this particular movie had the words House and Hill in the title. I thought it might have been Haunted House on the Hill, the Vincent Price classic, but after reading a synopsis of the movie, I don’t think so. I seem to remember seeing Haunted House on the Hill on TV, and it wasn’t the movie that sent us under our theater seats, cowering in fear. Maybe it’s enough that my friends and I were pleasantly terrified, and on the long walk home, all feverishly agreed that it was the scariest movie we’d ever seen.

I’m not a student of classic horror films, and I may well have overlooked some women ghouls of great note, but I think I’m pretty safe in saying that the scale is heavily weighted toward the guys. That said, however, I don't know whether the women of the world should start protesting the lack of female movie monsters or be happy that filmmakers aren't thinking of us in that way. It could also be that filmmakers aren't thinking of us at all, to which I say BOO!

Happy Halloween!

Suz

My Favorite Vampires (Anne Stuart)

First off, I'm guest blogging on Squawkradio on Wednesday.http://www.squawkradio.com/ Come and visit -- we're giving away free books.

In honor of Halloween, let's talk about vampires I have known and loved. We start with Frank Langella in his luscious prime. Not in that dreadful, bloody movie that's totally devoid a sense of humor, but on Broadway, with the Edward Gorey sets, sinuous and sexy and funny as hell I travelled down from Vermont to see it (already having a well-established passion for FL from "The Twelve Chairs") and sat in the first row, drinking it all in. Then I went home and wrote THE DEMON COUNT in his honor, dedicating it to him.
And then there's Gackt. Blogger is being annoying and not letting me upload pictures, but google images of him. Utterly divine.
For those of you who are still woefully ignorant, Gackt says he is a vampire born 450 years ago in Norway. His current incarnation is as a Japanese rock star, and he has a rich, beautiful voice, a puckish sense of humor, and is probably the most exquisitely beautiful creature on the face of the earth. He takes on a million personas, the butt-nekkid one being a personal favorite, and he writes, sings, dances (sort of) and is lusted after by most of the universe, male and female alike. And he's the only Japanese rock star older than me (by about 400 years).
There's Gerard Butler in Dracula 2000 (terrible movie but he's soooo pretty), and I just got to see Jason Scott Lee in a Dracula movie yesterday. .
For books I tend to veer away from the usual suspects -- I like Stephanie Meyer's YA book, TWILIGHT (though please, someone, get that woman an editor!), the JR Ward series despite its outlandishness (or maybe because of it).
But the best book of all, the one I loved so much I couldn't bear to finish it, and when I did I sat and hugged it for half an hour, is SUNSHINE by Robin McKinley.
I don't think I've loved a book that much in decades.
In fact, I write about vampires. My heroes are the modern day equivalent -- they're dark, deadly, a great black hole of despair and death, and a woman risks her life to go near them. But they're irresistible, worth courting death for.

So here's your assignment, and I don't want any of you to fail me. Get in your car and drive to the nearest Borders or Barnes and Noble (though they're currently on my shit list). Buy Sunshine (probably in the fantasy section) Stop for apple cider and ginger cookies on the way home. If you have a fireplace or woodstove build a fire, find the closest thing you have to a homemade quilt, and curl up and read. Don't stop until you're finished.

I promise you the best Halloween ever.

Question of the Week

Halloween lurks in the shadows. Time for candy corn and scary movies. So . . . what's the scariest movie you ever saw?

The Buzz (Lynn Kerstan)

Back in the day, I was a happening kinda gal. At least, I tried to be. I’m talking about information here, not behavior. At one time, I renounced worldly things for a life of prayer and service. But when I returned to the world, I jumped in with both feet and arms wide open.

I still want to know everything, including some really bad things. I want to do a lot of things, too. But nothing I’d be ashamed to tell a friend about, and I have exceptionally high-quality friends. The good thing about knowledge is that it’s entirely guilt free.

The problem is, information is rushing past me at the speed of light. Before I even know a trend exists, it’s come and gone. Which means I didn’t miss much, I suppose.

But as a writer/editor/teacher, I find it useful to keep current with the lingo. Like trends, most buzzwords have the life span of fruit flies. But I’ve been collecting a small list of words and phrases that appeal to me, at least enough to talk about them here. As you’ll see, a lot of them are web related.

Like First Eyes, which refers to the first place you go after signing on to the computer. Mine should be the book-in-progress, but that rarely happens unless I’m on deadline. Usually I leap directly to e-mail and am forced to spend way too much time frying spam.

When reading mail, I sometimes find messages that are forward-worthy. But only the really, really good ones ever get sent on. No one wants to be deluged with stuff I think is clever.

Research comes next. All those niggling details I’ve made notes to look up, and the details I already looked up and was sure I’d remember . . . except I don’t. Then Internesia sets in. I can’t recall the website where I found the info or which bookmarks will get me back there. That’s akin to Infonesia, when you remember spotting something in a book or magazine or on the teevee but can’t pin down the source.

While tracking down what I need, I often find myself plowing water–getting caught up in something that is essentially useless. Or the furkid (a pet treated rather too much like a child) paws for attention. Almost anything can distract me from work. We won’t even talk about the blogs and the on-line magazines and newspapers. I’m an omni-viewer. I’ll read almost anything.

As the day wears on, at work on my projects or running errands, I generally experience most of the following:

The Oh-No Moment–when you realize you’ve screwed up and it’s too late. Like pulling away from the curb into traffic and realizing you left your Starbuck’s Mocha Grande sitting on the roof of the car.

The Thinko–a mistake, something like a typo, that happens only in the brain. If you speak your Thinko, it’s a Blurto.

The BFO (Blinding Flash of the Obvious)–the explanation is, um, obvious.

FOBIO: Frequently Outwitted By Inanimate Objects, such as can openers, vacuum-cleaner bags, or anything requiring assembly.

And my favorite. Fugitive Information. That’s anything I used to know, but it never mattered back then so I let it slip away. But now I need that information, by gosh by golly, and it’s gone!

Oh, well. Must get back to work. And I’m afraid I’ve just personified another favorite new word.
Blahger: A blogger with little to say except blah-blah-blah.

Have you come across any good buzzwords or phrases? Share them with us.

The Power Of An Idea (Patricia Potter)

My mom’s in a nursing home. It’s a very good one, and necessary since so many body parts no longer work as they should. The good news is she can read again after a long period of not being able to concentrate well enough to enjoy a book. It had always been her greatest pleasure, a love she and my Dad instilled in my brother and myself. My greatest gift from them ever was enrollment in the Junior Literary Guild when I was six or seven. Christmas came every month with the delivery of a new book. I grew up thinking books were as important as the air I breathed. My brother became a doctor, I a journalist, then author. Both of us remain voracious readers.

She has a great nurse named Kirk at the nursing home (my next heroine is named Kirk), and we have become friends. She went on vacation last week and when she returned she couldn’t wait to tell me about it.
“I went to a school,” she said, a mischievous smile on her face.
“Yes?” I replied, wondering why she would take her precious vacation time to go to a school.
“In rural Tennessee,” she teased.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Okay, my interest is raised. “Why would you go to a rural school on your vacation?”
“Have you ever heard of the Paper Clip Project?” she queried. Having learned that I have great curiosity about everything and everyone, she gave me a satisfied smile as I had to admit I had not.

So she told me a tale that sent shivers down my back.

The eighth grade teacher at the Whitwell School – student body of 450 – was teaching a course on the holocaust. The students at this particular school in an impoverished area of Tennessee were white and Protestant with the only diversity being five African American students. Most had never met a Jew.

And they simply could not comprehend the deaths of six million Jews, and another four million people or more who displeased the Nazi regime.

How to best demonstrate such sheer numbers?

The kids did some research and discovered that the Danes used paper clips as a sign of resistance during World War II, and the the eighth grade students decided to collect six million paper clips to better envision the scope of the Holocaust, one for each Jewish victim of the Holocaust. Word of the project filtered out through the school’s web site, and a letter writing campaign produced a small but steady stream of paper clips. But six million paper clips is a bunch, and they thought they would just get as many as they could. But the number turned into a flood when a 94-year-old Holocaust survivor in New York learned of the project and alerted two German journalists who subsequently filed stories about the project in Europe. Word spread there and in the United States. Letters and emails supporting the effort accompanied the deluge of paper clips. The most meaningful were the envelopes sent by relatives of the Holocaust victims. Their envelopes usually contained one or more paper clips along with the names of those who were lost. A community in Germany donated a cattle car actually used to transport Jews to the death camp in Germany, and the children reverently placed their paperclips there. They added the thousands of letters they very carefully and lovingly protected in volumes open to the public. The entire school and even the community became involved in collecting, recording and saving precious pieces of history. The students answered every letter and every email. Donations came in as well.

The number reached twenty million paper clips, and the Paper Clip Project became a symbol of caring throughout the world. Celebrities sent letters and paper clips and visited the school as well as Holocaust survivors.

The project changed not only a class which learned about tolerance, but embraced the entire school and then community, and brought both closer together. It touched hundreds of thousands of people in Europe and throughout this country. It gave Holocaust victims a voice.

Now people from throughout the country make their way to the cattle car next to a middle school in rural Tennessee. You have to call to tour, then find your way to the small town of Whitwell. Visitors are guided by students to the cattle car where they can spend as much time as they wish reading the letters lovingly preserved in more than eighty volumes: personal letters about friends and loss and terror and survival.

At least one volume includes letters from the disbelievers, the people who say the Holocaust never happened.

A good thing. Expose children to all the facts. Encourage them to think for themselves. They'll reach the right decisions. In this case, they learned a lot about hate and evil but even more about tolerance and love.

As an extra bonus: the thousands of donations are now being used as scholarships for those kids who started the project, kids who otherwise had little or no chance of a college education. And will be used for more scholarships after that.

I marvel at the power and wonder of an idea. And a teacher who wanted to make real to students the people who make up a six-million statistic. I don't know about you, but it warmed my heart. I plan to send a paperclip.

It’s the kind of story authors wish they could create.

I'm always humbled to find the real heroes and heroines today, and that teacher is certainly one of them. It's also nice to be reminded that often reality is so much better than fiction.

Maggie Shayne--Working the Bugs Out

Good news, folks! Not only does the Sentry security system in my new home work like a charm, but the fire department’s response time is about five minutes. Isn’t that great? You see, I burned some pancakes the other morning and uh—yeah, you guessed it. The alarm sounds like something you’d expect to hear if your local nuclear power plant blew a gasket. As it went off, I quickly ran to the spot where the former owner had left me a note telling me exactly what to do if this should happen. Punch in the code, hit RESET, and stay off the phones. Okay.

I punched in the code. The alarm stopped. I hit Reset. WEEE-WOOO, WEEE-WOOO, WEEE-WOOO. I hit the code again, it stopped. I hit Reset. It howled. I guess I hadn’t cleared out all the smoke yet. Meanwhile, the company was trying to call to verify the fire, but they still had the former owner’s number, not mine. We hadn’t switched things over yet. Yikes. I finally hit the code, and did not hit reset. I just let it go. It stopped, and stayed stopped, but that meant the system wasn’t active. And five minutes later, the fire department was knocking on my front door. As I explained what had happened, they laughed, and I asked if the entire town was going to know every time I burned breakfast, and they laughed some more.

I think from now on, I’ll disarm the device anytime I plan to cook. My kids used to joke that the smoke alarm was the dinner bell at our house. I have improved, mind you, but it’s probably still best to take precautions.

I got that issue all worked out with a call to Sentry, a tutorial, a cleaning of the smoke detector and a new battery for the system since I’d worn mine out by making it scream so many times.

The next fun issue was when the power went out one afternoon, just before dusk. I sprang into action, quickly noting the things I needed to do. First, go down cellar and see if a breaker had kicked off. But it was already pitch dark down there. Okay, revisions are my forte. First, get a light, because it would be dark upstairs as well soon and I wouldn’t be able to find one. So I located a battery powered lantern, made sure it was charged and working. Second, find a phone that works without electricity. Fortunately, there were several older phones around the house. So I found one and plugged it in. Third, call the power company and find out if this was widespread, or my own personal problem, which would tell me if I really HAD to do down into the basement. So I located the number, which took awhile because I couldn’t remember the power company’s name—it’s not the same as my former one. But I finally did, and phoned them, and learned that yes, this was a real outage, and I could expect my power back in about 4 hours.

Okay, four hours. I could deal with that. I had light. I couldn’t cook, but I wasn’t going to starve in four hours. And as for heat---ahh, yes. I have a fireplace. Heat, I have covered. And only the day before I had asked the former owner if there was anything that needed to be done, activated, cleaned, or opened before lighting a fire, and he said no, just go for it, so that’s what I did.

And the smoke came billowing into the living room. Uh-oh. Clearly there was some reason the smoke could not go up the chimney, and I had such a lovely fire going I couldn’t exactly stick my head up there to see why. I grabbed the poker, and, well, poked until I knocked against the issue, a damper which was closed. I poked it open, the smoke whooshed up the chimney, the fire took off, and all was well. Well, sort of. I still had to open all the windows to air the place out, which meant my fire ended up making me colder instead of warmer.

Now the entire incident, from the power going out to the fire burning merrily, took up the space of about 45 minutes. And no sooner had that time ticked past, than the power miraculously came back on. Not four hours at all, not that I’m complaining.

So yes, there have been a few bugs to work out, but no harm done, and I’m learning as I go. I’ve mastered the fireplace and the security system. I’m sure there will be other things for me to get a handle on as I go along, cooking on an electric stove being among them. But over all, Serenity (my name for my new home) and I are getting to know each other, and having fun doing it. The screw ups make us laugh. I swear this place has a personality. It’s playful, and warm and it loves me as much as I love it. So the snafus don’t stress me out or make me crazy. I just shake my head and giggle at myself, and move on to fix the problem. It’s an incredibly healthy new attitude.

I’ve been ordering furniture, a few pieces at a time, and will soon begin some decorating touches, starting with my bedroom, where I’m going to paint a green border on the walls, and accent them with autumn leaf patterns. I’ve already done window treatments in that room. It’s all coming together nicely, and gradually as I let the house tell me what’s going to work where and make it more and more a reflection of myself and an image of the inner energy of this place.

This morning, it snowed. Oh, there have been a few flakes mingled in with the rain once or twice over the past week or so, but this was the first real snow, that gave a sugar coating to the lawn and trees. I snapped a picture. As you can see, my gas grill is still on the back deck. I’ll get that stored away for the winter today.

Life is good here in Serenity. And it occurs to me that we can all create our own serenity, if we really want to. I highly recommend it. Serenity is a good place to be.

Maggie

Suzanne Forster (Tara Taylor Quinn)

Yes, I can spell. Suzanne Forster. Suzanne Forster. Suzanne Forster. I designed this blog - technically speaking. I wrote that name over and over and over. I've been reading Suzanne for years. And life is so crazy, I'm throwing myself through my days and I misspell the name of a generous lovely lady at a very inappropriate time and place. I've been dwelling on this all week.

Really.

Is all the busy stuff I'm doing so important that it's worth pushing through my life and blundering things that matter? Rushing by them? Missing them altogether? I had a friend recently tell me that cliches are rich and vibrant (my words not hers) and vital to life because they state things that are so vital that they're repeated again and again and again. In my line of work, cliches are a no no. They're edited out every time. They're weak and inappropriate forms of expression. And yet, my friend is completely right. They express vital things.

Like, STOP AND SMELL THE ROSES. Think about that. Yeah, we've all heard it so often we know what it means and we brush on by, and the next time we see a rose bush, we brush right on by that, too. A lot of the time. I have a rose bush in my backyard. Most of the year it gives me beautiful, big, almost maroon colored roses. I've noticed them once in the past six months. Right in my own backyard. (I know, another cliche.)

How about, WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND? Oh my word - Tara Taylor Quinn is going to be misspelled all over the globe. And people are going to be rushing by me, pushing past, on their way to somewhere else. Whether they love me or not. My friends are going to be so focused on their careers and their manifesting that they're going to miss the gifts I'm trying to give them.

HASTE MAKES WASTE. Yeah, I can see that. I might be accomplishing great things, but I'm wasting some of the best things in life.

ALL GOOD THINGS COME TO THOSE WHO WAIT. Okay, okay, I'm getting it. Time to slow down a little bit. (Or a lot.) Enough to take stock, to be aware, to make focused concious decisions, to feel and smell and laugh out loud. To enjoy the feeling of warmth as the shower beats upon my skin in the morning rather than rushing through on my way out the door. To be showered by - strengthened by - and grateful for the love that my friends and family give me on my way by to somewhere else. To stop and glory in it. And to make certain they know how much I care about them. To be there for them, not just rushing by.

Suzanne, I apologize. In this instance, I'm going to LIVE AND LEARN. You have my word on that.

ttq

Stop Singing in the Shower

Now they’re telling us to stop singing in the shower? I heard the news Monday morning on the Today show. A new study says we waste nine extra minutes of water and electrical energy when we warble Lionel Ritchie songs in the shower. Makes you wonder how an operatic aria would clock in. The study didn’t actually mention Lionel Ritchie, but for some reason, he’s the artist who came to mind when I heard about it. I’d be more likely to sing something from The Bodyguard soundtrack while pretending I’m Whitney Houston in her heyday. What a voice! I might even dance a bit, although that could get dangerous. I’m not known for my rhythm, and there’s not much traction on wet shower tiles.

For me, all this new information begs a question. Is anybody else getting tired of studies telling us what to eat and drink, what to wear, what to weigh, how to think, how much sleep we need and the best way to get it? Exercise is another recurrent theme. How much is necessary for optimal health—a minute at a time, ten minutes, a solid hour and not a minute less? I can remember reading that it had to be ninety minutes at a whack to get any aerobic benefit. I’d need resuscitation.

Who’s doing all these studies and where are they getting the money? I’m not against studies, per se. I was a research psych major in college and they’re often the ones who run the studies. Some of them were fascinating, especially in grad school. One of my favorites was a sleep deprivation study. The results provided evidence that sleep deprivation makes people less depressed. How about that for a new depression therapy? Of course, the longer you go without sleep the more likely you are to have hallucinations and eventually become psychotic, but at least you won’t be depressed.

Studies provide us with more information, and that’s a good thing . . . until it becomes too much information. Between the books, newspapers and magazines I read, the Internet research I do, and the cable television I watch, I spend a lot of time in Information Overload Land, also known as Headache Land. It can be overwhelming, especially when the information is conflicting. Has anyone else noticed how often these studies contradict each other? Don’t drink coffee! It’s bad for the heart. Do drink coffee! It makes you smarter and more regular. No, don’t. Coffee can reduce fertility. Drink wine, don’t drink wine, drink only red wine. Sheesh.

About this time of year, the pro and anti-flu shot people start duking it out about whether the shots are safe. I’ve had some personal experience with flu shots, so I’m spared all the arguing. When I was caring for my mom, I came down with a ghastly case of the flu. I was terrified she would catch it, but there was no one else to care for her. My only hope was that because she had badly compromised lungs and had religiously gotten her flu and pneumonia shots, she might be protected.

Boy, was she protected. While I was going through truckloads of tissues and drowning in my own bodily fluids, she never even got a sniffle. She was in her late eighties at the time, tipped the scale at about ninety pounds, was on oxygen, and suffered from severe COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder). That made a believer out of me. I’m getting a flu shot.

There always seems to be some controversy about the use of nutritional supplements and medicinal herbs, and rightly so, in some cases. Some of them are contraindicated with certain medications. I notice doctors are now asking people to list the supplements they take. That’s always a challenge for me. I take quite a few—and I briefly considered adding another one to my regime when I heard a nutritionist on TV recommend colloidal silver for candida, which causes yeast infections, thrush, and other unpleasant things.

Since I’ve incubated a few yeasties in my day, I decided to check it out at the health food store. Thank goodness, I had the presence of mind to ask if there were any side effects to taking colloidal silver. The name alone made me nervous. The clerk who was helping me frowned at the question, possibly aware that she was about to blow the sale. A long moment later she admitted that colloidal silver can turn your skin silvery gray. She neglected to mention that the grayness is permanent. It NEVER goes away.

Now that I think about it, maybe someone should do a study about the safety of colloidal silver. I did my own online research and found a picture of a woman whose facial skin had gone the color of car hubcaps. I don’t mean to be facetious. It was truly scary. I also found lots of conflicting claims about the product. If you take a certain kind of colloidal silver, you’ll be fine. No thanks! I’ll deal with yeasties the old-fashioned way. By avoiding sugar and starving the little buggers. Sugar’s bad for you anyway. There've been lots of studies about the evils of refined sugar, and only one that I can remember saying it was good for you. Something about improving the memory. Perhaps, if I had a piece of candy, it would come back to me.

Anyway, back to my original thought—showers and singing. Nine extra minutes is a long time, and I’m interested in conserving water too, but the experts are forgetting that for lots of us singing in the shower is important for our mental health. It’s a form of self-expression that doesn’t work anywhere else. I actually sound a little like Whitney Houston in the shower. I do not sound remotely like her anywhere else in my house or while driving my car, the other place I like to sing.

What do you bet there’s another study just around the corner, claiming that singing in the shower increases libido or longevity or the ability to pick winning lottery numbers?

Sounds good to me!

Suz

BUSY BUSY BUSY (Anne Stuart)

COLD AS ICE is out, and I'm crazy! Running around to bookstores, grabbing people by the lapels and begging them to buy it. I need a chill pill, big time. I don't usually get this crazy when a book comes out, but I'm much too invested in this one. Usually I can let go. I've done everything I can, written the best book I could, and the rest is up to fate.
But right now I'm not so happy with fate. So I'm a basket case. Aiyeee!!!!!!!!!!!!

On the bright side, my new website is up and it's totally stunning. WWW.anne-stuart.com. I'm such a schizoid personality that I'm hard to capture, but I think the web people did a fabulous job.
And I'm answering questions at http://www.romantictimes.com/home.php, writing guest blogs (I'll be doing an interesting one at http://thelipstickchronicles.typepad.com/ on Thursday October 26th; stop by and see what I have to say).
And worst of all, I bared my soul completely in an interview on All About Romance (http://www.likesbooks.com/annestuart2006.html) because I never learned to be discreet.

But enough about me and my stupid career. Let's talk about what's important. Television!

I'm so damned excited that Jeffrey won Project Runway. More thrilled than if I'd won a RITA. I don't allow myself to get emotionally invested when I'm up for a RITA -- after all, a bunch of my sisters are up for it as well, and it's just a matter of taste, and I can't throw a hissy fit if I lose.
Ah, but Jeffrey. He won my heart from the beginning, with his rock and roll sensibility and his broken little boy bravado. I took his side against Angela's mother (after all, if the woman raised Angela then she must be doing something wrong), and the more I saw of him the more I loved him. Give me a recovering drug addict/alcoholic and I'm their champion, no matter what.

The final episode was harrowing, energizing, the ultimate feel-good show. I tivo'd it and watched if after my husband went to bed, and I wept when he wept, danced around the house in silent glee after he won. He even forgave Laura.

And the cool thing was, everybody won. We'll know Michael will do fabulously well -- he's just young and needs an apprenticeship. Laura and Uli are both wonderful -- their clothes were divine.
Ah, but Jeffrey. Jeffrey rocks!




Song for the week: "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor. Put it on your MP3 player and dance like mad.

Question of the Week

In the new TV show, Heroes, ordinary people discover they have suddenly acquired an extraordinary power.
If you could be gifted with a Superpower, which one would you choose?

Interview with the Alien (Lynn Kerstan)

I’m currently writing a paranormal romantic suspense, a mix I haven’t tried before. Paranormal means a degree of world-building, even if the book is set on planet Earth in present time. Suspense requires a tightly plotted story arc. And romance demands character-driven action.

Sometimes I feel like one of those performers who sets a lot of spinning plates atop poles and scampers about trying to keep them all going ‘round and ‘round. Then comes a day when the plates start to tip and fall.

This afternoon was warm and sunny, so I took a walk on a nearly deserted beach and had a long private talk with my recalcitrant hero, Draegon.

The "character interview" is a common technique used to delve into the thoughts and feelings and motivations of a character. Most authors I know write down the questions and answers, which is useful for later reference. But I can’t do that, because my persnickety Internal Copy Editor keeps correcting typos or rewording what my character says. And that destroys the magic link between the author and her subconscious, where characters are far more self-directed than we realize.

So today, I just mentally asked questions and listened to the replies. And often–too often–the results were not at all what I was expecting. He had his own plans, and they were going to make for serious complications.

"I am not a puppet," he said at one point. In theory and practice, I know that. My characters always take on their own imperatives and drag me along, but usually not until the set-up and initial conflicts are well underway. This guy is taking charge from the get-go.

Um . . . maybe not. I haven’t interviewed the heroine yet, but Katia is as tough as they come. She won’t be a pushover.

Anyhow, just so you can see how some of us make sausage, here’s a snippet of my interview with Drae. He has apparently decided that some hot inter-species sex in, say, chapter three, would be a great idea.

ME: (not at my brightest) OK, convince me. Why do you think so?

DRAE: (shrugging) I am male.

ME: Right. But you’re also an individual and a heroic character. Not a biologically driven sex-machine.

DRAE: Do you forget that for the past two years, I was confined in solitary darkness?

ME: OK, deprivation is a factor. But you were just transported 88 light-years from your world to this one. You landed in the wrong place. Bare-assed naked. You have nothing.

DRAE: I have myself. I have my destination. I have a goal . . . to discover who I really am and what I am meant to do. And I have Katia.

ME: But she has major problems of her own. Just being in your company puts her in danger. She’s already tried to escape you. She’ll lose you as soon as she can.

DRAE: Yes. So I must bind her to me, by whatever means I have.

ME: (pretty much appalled) You think she’ll stick with you, and help you in spite of the risk to her life, just for the sex?

DRAE: It is a beginning.

ME: Oh, that is cold. Not to mention exploitive.

DRAE: Seduction is not compulsion. You say she is in danger, but I do not know how or why. Perhaps, if she is with me, I can protect her.

ME: Good luck with that. And with the rest of it. Y’know, you are making this very hard for me.

DRAE: (smiling) But interesting. And always, I am your creature.

ME: Right. But unlike the Creator of us all, I’m not on board with that "Free Will" thing. You have to do whatever I choose.

DRAE: We shall see.

Plates come crashing down all around me.
There must be easier jobs.
You want fries with that?

The King Is Dead; Long Live the King (Patricia Potter)

I'm killing people today!

Yep, really.

There’s a strange phenomenon for fiction authors, or at least for this one.
(I truly hate to apply my oft-peculiar habits to another unsuspecting soul; they could be mine alone ). Once a book is completed I totally erase the characters from my mind, and that's my job for today. I'm doing away with the Maclean clan and moving five hundred years forward.

Ask me who the hero is from my last book, and I hem and haw and look daft (forgive my language, I just finished a Scottish historical). Every once in a while, someone will come up to me and say they loved a particular character or scene, and for the life of me, I cannot remember. That happenstance occurred not long ago when a reader mentioned how much they liked the Scottish cattle scene.

Cattle scene? What cattle scene? I don’t remember a cattle scene.

Eventually I did, but it took a lot of effort to dredge it up, and the person had long since disappeared. I think it’s protective mechanism. Once you pen "the end" (thankfully) to your work in progress, you have to kill off all those characters (at least in your mind) to create totally new ones. There is no funeral, no formal goodbye, but rather a ruthless dismissal. “You’ve done your job, now go away and don't return (unless you’re in a series; then you have a reprieve).”

Stated so baldly,I must say I feel rather bad about it. `Tis a sorry way to treat people you created and lived with for six months or longer. And loved. Yet, it is a necessity. They have to make way for the new population.

Finishing a book is kinda like having a child. Full of excitement, promise, uncertainty, discomfort, pain and finally jubilation. It’s done! But there the comparison ends. You can’t hold onto the baby. The jubilation of birth ends rather quickly when you realize you have another contract to fill.

The cycle begins again. I’m filled with excitement at creating new life. Fingers race over the keyboard, and nights and mornings are filled with plot elements and wonderful pieces of dialogue (I hope). It’s Christmas. and each day I’m opening packages filled with fresh ideas.

I’m creating the new king and queen.

And a new setting. I’m going from the 1500's Scotland to today’s Atlanta. It takes a little adjustment as you can tell by my language. I seldom use contractions in a historical. Must use them in romantic suspense. Different tempo. Different feeling. Different style of writing. It takes time to adjust. Several chapters, in truth.

But fun. I love the change, and will love the change again when I return to Scotland in six months. After I bury the new characters now so alive in my mind.

Long live the king and queen.

Until the next book.

Maggie Shayne--What's Going On in Fred's Head?

I’ll bet you’ve all heard about Fred Head, the Texas politician running for state Comptroller against Susan Combs, a woman Fred refers to as a “pornographic book writer” on his website because she penned a Kismet romance novel some 19 years ago. (No, I am not making this up.) Naturally, Fred, being a Texan (and a Democrat, believe it or not) should not have been quite so clueless about the power of romance fiction, the women who read it, the women who write it, or our connection with the great state of Texas, home of the headquarters of Romance Writers of America. But he was clueless about all of that, and apparently, about a lot of other things.

His demeaning remarks about the books we love inspired an immediate and heated response from romance authors and readers all over the world, including a great many of those who make their homes (and cast their ballots) in Texas. They flooded Fred and his head with emails, and when his reaction seemed to be one of defiance (he insists romance novels are pornographic and unfit for the young people to see, which is why he posted excerpts, which he refers to as “extraxt” of Susan Combs’ love scenes on his website) the authors turned their fury into support for his opponent, Susan Combs.

This poor guy has no clue what he’s up against. Romance novels make more money in this country than baseball. Really, Fred, I swear, you could have done better by insulting baseball, calling it a communist plot to mislead our youth. And maybe tossed in a piece about the health risks of hot dogs and apple pie for good measure. And you STILL wouldn’t have been in this much trouble.

Maybe, if you had apologized, groveled a bit, admitted your mistake, and used spellcheck before posting all of the above, you might have had a chance. But instead you poked a hornet’s nest with a big ugly stick—the stick the hornets hate most, as a matter of fact—and you are getting stung. Or to put it another way, I fear your head, dear Fred, is going to roll.

After romance authors began spit roasting Fred in their blogs, someone who couldn’t spell posted the same anonymous post to several of those blogs, claiming they were missing the entire point. Susan had written a pornographic novel and then run for office backing a campaign of sex education based on “absence.” It wasn’t hard to figure out that it was Fred himself doing the posting.

But I’m worried too. Everyone knows absence only makes the heart grow fonder, so that’s clearly not going to work. Ahem.

To make it worse, the man has probably never read a book, evidenced by his condemnation of Susan Combs’ ego, because the woman has the nerve to have her name at the top of every other page of her book. (Open any book Fred. That’s pretty universal.) So he’s showing his voters, clearly, that their choice is between a woman who once wrote and published a novel, and a man who doesn’t even know what one looks like.

If you click on the title of this piece, it’ll link you to an article about this that’s a lot of fun, and that article includes tons of other links to blogs and pieces about this matter:
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/008100.html

You can also visit www.votefredhead.com

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/10/14/2261/0029

http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php/weblog/fred_head_vs_romance_novels_aka_head_v_porn/

And a google search will turn up tons more. And if you get bored, fire a note off to Fred, though I think it’s kind of like talking to a wall. He just doesn’t get it.

But it’s a fun election to follow, anyway.

Until next time,
Maggie

Acts of Kindness - Tara Taylor Quinn

I woke up in the middle of the night last night - second night in a row - completely filled with fear. I had specific things in mind (some white supremacist coming to blow my head off because my new MIRA release In Plain Sight has a heroine prosecutor who is attempting to bring down a white supremacist organization and I've been traveling all over - on TV twice in the past week - talking about my research and what I've learned) but mostly I was just consumed with fear itself. There's just something about the middle of the night that takes away rational thought and sets the mind demons free.

I don't know if any of you have noticed, but fear uses up a heck of a lot of energy. I need all mine, right now, thank you.

So, I started thinking, consciously, about other things. Forcing my mind to focus on other things. Things that were opposite of fear. Acts of kindness. And this morning, I feel like a completely different person. I'm completely surrounded by a bubble of awareness of the goodness in people - because I actually looked for it and found it there.

Last week, on the vacation a friend and I had been planning for months, I spent all but one day on tour for In Plain Sight. That meant visiting more than twenty bookstores and doing a TV appearance. My friend went with me to all of them. Spent her vacation supporting me, encouraging me. And sharing a glass of wine at the end of a gruelling day. A vacation day. This wasn't just a sacrifice of time. Her vacation companion was stressed and working the entire time they were supposed to be having fun. Not a laugh to be found on one or two of those days. But every morning she woke up cheerfully, supportive and optimistic.

This week, I've been touring in Arizona. This week my mother, who works for me supposedly part time but is more full time here than she was when she worked full time at her real job, has been mapping routes and stickering books, distributing coupons and walking until she was in pain to help me meet my obligations.

My husband, a classic workaholic, gave up an entire work day to drive me down to channel 12, sit in a green room that seconded as a break room because the station is under major HD renovation, smelling popcorn all morning and standing by while I was mic-ed and then while I did the show. He maintains a house while I speed all over living my life. He also reads all of my books. Two things he's said recently that were probably more kind than true, but that came to mind last night - "You look like a celebrity" as I was leaving for the television station. And "That book should be a movie," when he finished reading In Plain Sight. Pure kindness to someone who is fearing that her entire life's dream is down to resting on the vagaries of unknown readers who might or might not buy my book.

The two ladies at the McDonald's drive thru - the order and money taker at the first window and the food giver outer at the second - have had a smile for me early every morning I've been there, just because they recognize me from all of my recent visits I guess. (They have bagels - and a drive thru.)

And my fellow bloggers - I can't say as much as I'd like to because I don't have their permission - nor the time to seek it - but as I sat down here today, I was thinking about them, too. About all of the years I've known them, and things about them that stick out in my mind.

The Divine Sister Krissie - Anne Stuart - is funny and witty and bold - and has a huge heart. Several years ago I was sitting in a room filled with almost two-thousand people and heard her give a talk that I remember, with empowerment, still today. I won't say much, but I've never looked at a boa again without the reminder of who I am and what I can accomplish.

Maggie Shayne - for years she's spearheaded a gathering of sister writers for the soul purpose (misspelling intended) of reminding us all that we aren't alone. And that we're strong. There's no exclusivity here. Everyone welcome.

Suzanne Forrester - if you've never read one of her books, do so. She gives and gives and gives.

Lynn Kerstan - So much I could say - but then I'd get in trouble and the whole purpose of this exercise was to avoid fear! Here is a woman who listens to the soft voice inside - and then lives by its dictates. Her greatest kindess to me took place outside an elevator on some high floor of a hotel in some city. We were heading home after a gruelling business weekend and met in the hall on our way down to check out of our rooms. She gave me a simple reminder - a glipse of who she saw me to be. I remember her words almost daily. I liked who she saw and have been working to become that woman ever since.

Patricia Potter - This woman's existence is an act of kindness. I was traveling last week and in a bookstore in a small town in Ohio that I'd never even heard of (and I was born and raised in Ohio). A bookseller and I were talking and I mentioned the blog and the ladies here and when she heard Pat's name, she smiled, and asked me to remember her to Pat. She'd met her once. Several years ago. And she had a story to tell about that meeting. This wasn't a random incident. As a matter of fact, I was so used to the occurence that it didn't even strike me until I spent last night looking for kindness. Sometimes I'm tempted to walk around with a name badge around my neck that says Patricia Potter's friend. When people know that Pat likes you, they treat you kindly. I could be kidding. Exaggerating. But I'm not.

A woman slowed and let me merge on the freeway yesterday.

I thought of five specific strangers who, by ten-thirty yesterday morning, had smiled and said hello to me.

I didn't have to cook dinner last night.

My daughter just arranged an incredible research connection for me.

And my babies - the four legged creatures who just keep on keeping on - I've been gone more than I've been around and there they are, just as supportive and loving and happy to see me - treating me as though I'd been there for them every minute of every day. Henry J and Taylor Marie are here with me now - as they are every day I'm in my office - and if I move, they look. If I forget to, they come up to my chair and scratch to get my attention. When I come close they have kisses. If I forget, them come up to my chair and scratch to get my attention. If I bring them a treat, their entire bodies wiggle with appreciation and if I forget that dinnertime came and went, they come up to my chair and scratch to get my attention. They don't blame or judge or get hurt feelings. They love me enough, are kind enough, to come up to my chair and scratch for attention.

I love being alive and a part of the lives of the people I know - and have yet to meet. And I hope that today's awareness not only remains, but that it reminds me when dinnertime is here - so the people in my life, both four-legged and not, don't have to scratch.

If I knew how to do emoticons, I'd put a row of smiles here for all of you...

Crushing Grapes With My Bare Feet

That’s how I spent my free afternoon in wine country. In my last post I mentioned that I was on my way up north to the state of Washington. I may also have mentioned that I was taking a little side trip to hang out with a readers’ group in the San Francisco area. Well, I managed to sneak in visits to a couple of wineries in the Napa Valley too.

I was told that September and October are harvest months in wine country, and the most popular time to visit. Most of the grapes had already been picked, but I did get to see—and participate in—a process called the Wine Stomp. It was just like one of my favorite episodes of I Love Lucy! I swear. That was the one where Lucy is traveling in Italy, soaking up “local color.” She finds herself at a winery, where she’s mistaken for one of the women who crush grapes with their feet, and of course, Lucy ends up in the vat. Much juicy merriment ensues.

Who would think that I would get to smoosh around in a vat of ripe grapes? Some of you might be wondering why anyone would want to smoosh around in grapes when they could be in the tasting room, sipping the latest and greatest California wines. Truth is I’d already spent considerable time in the tasting rooms, which is what led to my being barefoot in a wine barrel. I’m pretty much a lightweight when it comes to alcohol, and I had already done a little too much sipping by then. When I got to the stomp, they were calling for volunteers, and I must have looked like a prime candidate.

I learned later that serious grape-stomping competitions are held at the county fairs in the area. Two-person teams compete to see who can produce the most juice, and there are judges and actual rules. The stompers get into the barrels with bare feet and twenty-five pounds of grapes, and the swabbies keep the grapes level in the barrel and catch the juice, with bare hands, of course. No tape allowed, whatever that means. The team with the most juice wins.

I wasn’t doing competition stomping. That’s serious, slippery stuff and people can get hurt, not to mention, messy. Apparently there’s a somewhat legendary video on You Tube of a woman who took a fall in a barrel of pinot grapes. I couldn’t get the video to play, so I didn’t see it, but I hope she wasn’t hurt. My stomping was for demonstration purposes only, which may have made it less perilous, but I’ll bet it was no less messy. I’m hoping it never shows up on You Tube.

My outfit will never be the same. I rolled up my pants as high as I could, but they now have lots of lovely, large purple polka dots. I figure I’ll hang them on the wall as memorabilia. They’ll be like the empty champagne glasses on the morning after a New Year’s Eve party—evidence of a good time had by all.

The second vineyard was a big name and much more dignified. I’m surprised they let me in with those purple spots all over me. The winery was a beautiful monastery-like structure, nestled high in the foothills with a gondola service that took visitors up and down. The views of the valley were breathtaking, but the gondola trip was a bit nerve-racking for anyone nervous about heights. I’m not, especially with all that wine in me, but one of the ladies from the readers’ group was, so we held hands, and she shut her eyes, and I described the scenery. That actually worked out pretty well, except that I’m still trying to get the circulation going in my hand.

When I saw the vastness of a large winery and all the impressive machinery involved, I understood why nobody rolls up their pants and dances in the barrels anymore, except for demos and county fairs. Wine is big business now. Too bad. Like the Lucy episode, stomping grapes is tons of goofy fun, and if you don’t mind slippery things squishing through your toes, it’s also kind of sensual. It definitely put me in the mood to discuss erotic novels with the reading group, but I’ll save that for a future blog. I need to go take another shower. How do you get purple polka dots off the soles of your feet anyway?

Suz

COUNTDOWN (Anne Stuart)

We're in the final stretch before my next book comes out. I'm not one for pushing my books, or doing much PR, but this time I'm a basket case. It's always dangerous when you pin too much on one book -- after all, I have a sampler that says "Happiness is lowered expectations" but sometimes you can't help it.

So I'm doing all I can. I'll be heading out to any bookstore I can find to sign stock, I'll be charming and witty and Krissie the Friendly Diva. But in the end there's nothing I can do but hold on to the fact that I wrote a book I love (and that Publisher's Weekly even loved it too).

I tell ya, this writing game ain't for sissies.

In the meantime, over at http://www.romantictimes.com/home.php, I'm doing the Ask the Author column from now to the end of the month. Come on over and ask me embarrassing questions and I'll be certain to answer them. I'll even tell you how much I weigh (245).

And while we're dealing with tension, waiting for a new book to come out and possibly flop (or even more nerve-wracking, possibly triumph) the prescription is for soothing music. I like The Healing Collection by Pacific Moon, flute music by Alice Gomez, Pachelbel's Canon, and meditation.
Oh, and shopping. When the going gets tough the tough go shopping. Hmmm -- maybe I need new sheets.

Question of the Week

Red Alert! The "Holiday Season" is almost here! Let's dish about plans, annoyances, delights, and traditions, starting with Halloween (only two weeks away!). Clever costumes? Decorations? Favorite "treats." Good recipes to share? Anything you dread? What will you be doing on 31 October?

A Song of Love and Death (Lynn Kerstan)

Yesterday, for the first time in too many months, the rains came. Or as I think of it . . . the car wash. Our downpour–well, a sprinkle–lasted a whole four minutes. But it rinsed the dust away, so the grass and tree leaves are shinier now, and the flowers brighter.

When the flirting storm had passed us by, I took a walk in the cool, freshly washed air. Puffy clouds, white as meringue, floated across the pastel blue sky of autumn. The ocean sparkled. Life is good.

And it felt especially sweet to me, life its own self, because I am mourning an old friend who passed away last Sunday. I hadn’t seen Ginnie since she and husband John left San Diego for a community north of Los Angeles. Frankly, I hadn’t given them much thought.

Circumstances change. Bonds weaken. There are friends we have for a long time, and friends we had for a shorter time. That’s how life is. We love them all, though. And as the memories come flooding back, it’s as if we just laughed with those friends over margaritas and chimichangas.

I learned of Ginnie’s death, swift and unexpected, when John called to ask if I would play a small part in the funeral service and celebration of her life. I sang at their wedding, a second marriage for them both, and he wanted me to sing the same song. Ginnie had mentioned it in her last days.

He also needed a poem to read. Perhaps two, because Ginnie’s eldest daughter was looking for one as well. Could I think of anything? Maybe email some suggestions?

And here’s where life’s threads magically interweave. I belong to three lists that discuss the works of my favorite author, Dorothy Dunnett, but we often sidetrack to fascinating discussions about other subjects. Just last week, someone asked for poems to be read at a wedding, and two of the poems offered were so evocative that I copied them into a file.

My work had been done for me. They felt exactly right for the honoring of Ginnie’s life and the love she shared with John. I thought I’d share one of them here as well, with thanks to the wonderful folks on the Claes list, because it comes with a fascinating story. And also because I am haunted and inspired by John’s face as he spoke it from memory at the service.

His voice never wavered, although tears were streaming down his face. And at the end, his face was transfigured into a smile that captured all we know of love and hope.

The poet, Leo Marks (for movie fans, his father was part owner of Marks & Co, the bookstore in 84 Charing Cross Road) made and broke codes and ciphers for Britain’s Special Operations Executive during World War II. The system he devised was based on poetry, and figuring that the Germans might decipher a code based on known works, he took to writing the poems himself. Years later, in his book, he said, "I hadn't thought that writing poetry would be my contribution to Hitler's downfall."

One of those poems endures today, probably because it was the cry of a heart that had loved and lost. Mr. Marks’s fiancee, Ruth Hambro, died young in an air crash.

Later, when SOE agent Violette Szabo was departing for Europe on a dangerous assignment, he gave her the poem as a cipher. Her husband had been killed in the war, and she wanted to "get my own back" against the Germans. Her first mission was a success, but later, after sacrificing her own safety to let a fellow agent escape, she was captured, tortured, and executed.

So this poem has its roots in love and death, which is probably why the simple words resonate in so many hearts.

The life that I have is all that I have
And the life that I have is yours.
The love that I have of the life that I have
Is yours, and yours, and yours.

A sleep I shall have, a rest I shall have,
Yet death will be but a pause
For the peace of my years in the long green grass
Will be yours, and yours, and yours.

An Ode To Dogs (Patricia Potter)

Several recent events/happenstances have compelled me to sing the praises once more of rescue dogs, or any dogs for that matter. They are simple everyday things, but coming so closely together made me realize again what a complete joy and comfort dogs are.

Just a few days ago, I was leaving the nursing home where Ting Ting – my elderly, almost-blind Shih Tzu –and I go every night to see my mother. Another visitor stopped to pet my preening dog. Ting Ting loves to go to the nursing home because everyone stops and admires her, even when her coat is matted and she can’t exactly see where they are. Her tail flips up, and she makes those strange Shih Tzu noises which are part purr, part snorts, and all happiness.

The stranger asked me about her, and I said she was a rescue dog, that I acquired her at approximately six years old after she obviously had gone through a traumatic experience. She'd had a broken jaw, a skin disease, a kidney stone the size of an egg and other assorted ailments. He said I must be a nice person to adopt a rescue dog. He left before I could reply, but if I had, I would have told him no such thing. Adopting a rescue dog is the most selfish thing a person can do. Most of the time they are housetrained, have gotten over the puppy stage and are so incredibly grateful that they will do anything for you.

I’ve had rescue dogs – often two or three at a time – for more than thirty years and each has been the best dog I’ve ever had. Now I have three:Ting Ting and the Wild Indians, two mostly Australian Shepherd sisters I could not bear to separate (I intended to get only one). Sometimes I take them for granted. And then something very simple makes me realize once more how lucky I am.

For instance, Ting Ting expects her daily walk every morning. (The other two are unwalkable and thus must content themselves with racing around my yard and knocking down furniture in the house until I have time to better train them). But little Ting Ting is quite demanding about her morning constitutional. She would prefer leaving at 6:30 a.m. but she doesn’t start scolding me about my slothful ways until seven. Then she won’t stop barking until I show signs of grabbing her leash. We go in the summer in 100 plus temperatures, we go in the snow (rare in Memphis but it does happen), and we go in the rain. It cannot rain too hard for our walk. For me, maybe, but not for Ting Ting. This is HER time, a reprieve from the Wild Indians, and she treasures every lovely, sniffing moment.

Usually we encounter few people at seven a.m. but in the fall things seem to change. In the cool, crisp air, more people are walking their dogs before heading out, or they take a moment to say hello before getting into their cars. It seems a friendlier time, as if everyone is waking from a long hot summer and taking long breaths of that autumn-perfumed air. You know, that smoky, tangy scent that is so unique to the season.

I meet for the first time neighbors who have lived six houses away for three years,and it reminds me of how much I miss the neighborhoods of my childhood, when they were more than a small piece of a city map filled with strangers. You knew everyone on the block and certainly all the kids, regardless of age. The kids played games in the street. Softball games-- unorganized catch-as-catch-can and open to all regardless of age or genre -- were held nightly in the middle of the street. Imagination and spontaneous gatherings ruled, instead of scheduled classes and disciplined sports.

I miss that. And the older I get, the more I miss it. I feel deprived that I do not know more neighbors, that I am missing something really important in my life.
Ting Ting brings me back in touch with them, and I relish those pieces of conversation that I hope will add to more. Plans begin to form in my mind for an informal Christmas open house.

I must admit I probably would not indulge in such simple pleasures as daily walks had I not my demanding friend, and I appreciate her even more.

And then I return home and am attacked by a flu bug, brought on partly, I think, by one of my twenty-hours-a-day deadline marathons. I’m not sick often. But when I am, I can think of no better way to survive than to bury myself in a bed surrounded by three dogs and shut out the rest of the world. They want nothing more than to be there with me. They are ecstatic when you lean over and pet them, or just content to be there when you don’t. They know in their mysterious canine way that you are not feeling your ordinary self and they make allowances.

Even my walk-oriented little Ting Ting. No barks to go outside. Instead, she satisfies herself with a quick trip to the backyard, then asks politely to get up on the bed where she huddles as close as possible to ward off evil spirits. The Wild Indians are momentarily tamed. They lay with the heads on each other, looking angelic, again content to be there only to give comfort.

I look at the piles of black and white dogs and think of the man who thought I was the generous person. If only he knew.

Maggie Shayne--Country Living

Ahh, life in rural America. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I love my new house in the middle of nowhere, I love it more every day, and I’ve lived in the country long enough to be able to deal with the down sides to rural life. The benefits far outweigh them. My back lawn, for example, hosts a small herd of bunnies, a deer now and then, a flock of wild turkeys, and yesterday, a gorgeous pheasant picked his way across the grass. Down side? Well, it’s a big lawn. Huge, actually. I bought a riding mower, and it took me well over two hours, maybe close to three, to mow the entire thing. And since it was a warm weekend, I discovered one other down side—wasps. I’ve spotted ten hives on the house and the outbuildings. When mowing I couldn’t get too close to those outbuildings without risking an all out attack, and I still haven’t been able to trim the hedge near the front door. But that’s not a huge problem. I hate to kill anything, but in this case, it’s the wasps or me, so they have to go. I was going to call an exterminator, but the temperatures have changed drastically from very warm to very cold, and the wasps have huddled in their nests. I figure I’ll have all winter to figure out how to deal with them. Maybe I can scrape the nests off, and take them far, far away, leaving them undamaged and the wasps alive. Just as long as they don’t wake up during the process. (Suggestions are welcome!) While they’re sleeping, I’ll get that hedge trimmed!

I love my road. It’s winding, rarely traveled, lined with trees that are exploding with color right now, and it twists and turns past a gorgeous pond that looks like something you’d see on the travel channel. I rode my bike five miles on that road the other day, using the odometer to clock it so I’ll know how far I’m running when I do that instead. Down side to the winding road? Not much of one. It’s washboard rough, but only in places. Most of it’s pretty smooth. I’m sure it’ll present a challenge in the winter, but I have yet to meet a road I can’t handle through sleet, snow, slush or ice, so I’m not concerned about that. I thought I had discovered a major downside when it took me a week to find someone to pick up the garbage. Everyone I called said they wouldn’t come “way the heck up there.” But I finally found a company whose ad in the tiny town shopper lists my road by name as one of the places they serve. I phoned them and they’ll begin next Tuesday.

I love my climate and geography. The hills and lakes and forests, and the vibrant changing colors that make me glad to be alive at this time of year. I love the changing seasons—possibly because I get bored easily. Down side? The snow in the winter, I suppose, if you can call it a down side. It’s beautiful, and it makes me laugh like a child. But it also needs to be managed. Plowed, shoveled, cleared off the roof. I hadn’t thought much about that yet, until, after a weekend in the 70’s, I saw snow flurries in the forecast by week’s end. Yikes. So I did some research, asked some opinions, and ordered myself a snow thrower. Better to be ready for the snow before it gets here. I have a snow shovel on the back deck, and I’m going to need to buy a very long ladder, so I can keep the roof clear if necessary.

Other jobs I plan to tackle this week: getting the oil changed in my car, making a date with the mechanic to get my snow tires put on and my brakes checked out, putting the gas grill into one of the outbuildings and rolling up the garden hose, moving the few remaining boxes from my old house to here, buying a few key pieces of furniture that can’t wait, hanging new curtains in the bedrooms, babysitting my daughter’s great dane, writing 60 pages, and working out 4 days out of 7. Longer term plans I intend to put into motion include building a two car garage, and having the long neglected little pond, currently overgrown with brush and filled with limbs and weeds, scooped out, deepened and cleaned up. I intend to get estimates on both those jobs before snow flies, and maybe even get one or the other of them done. I think the garage is probably most important.

I’m on a kind of a power trip at the moment. As each new challenge comes along, I weigh my options, make a decision, and deal with it in the way I decide is best. It’s empowering to be a woman in total charge of her own life, and to realize that I can handle anything that comes up. Maybe that seems obvious to others, but I’m honestly on my own for the first time in my entire life, and all of this is new to me. And I’m loving every minute of it. Every decision I make, every job I tackle, every issue I handle, makes me stand a little straighter and hold my head a little higher. It makes me feel strong, capable, self-sufficient, emancipated, and amazing. And it makes me realize what an awesome gift it is to be born female. I love being a woman!

Maggie

Relaxing or Not (Tara Taylor Quinn)

I have a problem. (Okay, I'm sure more than one, but this has to be short and I'm not into true confessions.) But this problem - I don't know how to relax. I mean it. Really. There's always so much I want to do. So much I need to do. So much I can do. That I just can't stop. I'm a determined person and this serves me very very well and yet, to everything there is a shadow side and the downside to determination is that everything has to have a purpose. If I appear to be just sitting, I'm not. I'm either making a list, planning what to pack, listening to my characters tell me what's going to happen next or where I went wrong.

A couple of years ago when I was involved in organizational politics a good friend of mine told me to take time to relax. That I had to have some down time so that I would be better able to serve. I had to re-fill my well. I wrote her back and told her I didn't know how to do that. And years later, I still don't.

Do you ever lie in bed in the morning and just do nothing? Not me. My stomach starts to crawl with all of the things I could or should be doing. Walk on the beach and just breathe? Not me. I'm analyzing, watching, and usually planning what's going to happen next.

And this week...I'm on tour in the midwest and I carefully planned and promised myself that in the midst of the appearances, I would have down time. I would lie in bed and do nothing. I would sleep well. And I did. For two days. And then I started to drive myself crazy. My voices mix with character voices and before I know it, I'm off and running in three directions at once making up for the time I missed. I don't know what the answer is here, but if anyone has any suggestions, I'd sure love to hear them! You can reach me right here.

And, if you wouldn't mind, please hurry! I'm getting tired...

On the Run (Anne Stuart)

Jeesh! I've been on the road all week, and now that I'm safely home and finally dealing with my 2004 and 2005 income tax returns (don't ask) I suddenly remembered it's my day to post. Brain like Swiss cheese, I tell ya!
I was off in NJ-PA-NJ-NYC-NJ. First to visit my mother in Princeton, then hopped on the train to visit my daughter in Philadelphia, then back to Princeton, then into NYC, then out