Winter's Here! (Maggie)

I'm trying to relish this, I really am. Here it is, not yet Halloween, and we've had our first major snowstorm, a good ol' fashioned Nor'easter, here in southern central N.Y.

It's beautiful, it is. I was almost breathless as I took these pictures, and only partly because of the icy cold wind blowing in my face. =)

So it snowed and it snowed. It snowed all day Tuesday, but the temperatures hovered a few degrees above freezing, which meant the white stuff was melting as soon as it hit the ground. Every once in awhile it would change over to rain, then back to snow again. But by the time I finished running errands in town and was headed home around 4, it was starting to stick in the form of a dense, heavy slush, and the roads were getting slick. And it was date night.

But even then I was thinking how the Universe always watches out for me. (Not that it does so for me more than it does for anyone else--you get what you expect, and I expect it, so I get it.) Anyway, last week when I was preparing for my trip to NJRW, my simple oil change turned into a major event, which included new brakes and rotors. It also included putting on the winter tires I had ordered, since they were there and the tires all had to come off anyway. It took a lot longer than I had planned and I barely had time to pack and at the time I was griping about it.

But as I drove home on those icky roads, I realized I was very glad that those jobs were done BEFORE the storm hit. And that the Universe was looking out for me as always.


Anyway, I got home and thought I should help the Universe watch out for me. So I got my snow shovel out of the shed and put it near the front door. Then I located the snow brush for the car, in case I might need that. While out on errands, I bought a hat, scarf and gloves. When I got home I ordered a nice coat online, but I still need to pick up a practical one for driveway shoveling and the like. I'm getting there.

So the snow fell, and fell and fell. The aforementioned date night almost didn't happen--the roads were nearly impassible, visibility down to zero, and I was getting worried. But he made it here, limping along up the hill, barely making it to the driveway. I was just taking the chicken out of the (electric) oven, when the power went out. It had flashed off once or twice earlier and I kept saying, "Just stay on long enough to cook the chicken." And it did, because the Universe is always watching out for me.

So dinner was saved and served by kerosene lamps and candlelight. And it was wonderful.

Wednesday remained cold, so the snow that had accumulated stuck around all day. By late afternoon, the phones had stopped working, and we couldn't call out all evening. My daughter Stacie had come over to hang out and have a sleepover, and she was worried about making sure her sister had made it home all right, so we had to venture out into the snow and drive far enough down the road to get a cell signal, so we could call and check in.

By then the roads were fine--well, fine is too strong a word. The snow had stopped falling but the wind was still blowing hard so it was drifting into the road in places, but we did all right, thanks to my new snow tires and All Wheel Drive.

After making our calls, we headed back home and spent the evening watching movies and eating junk food. (It's okay, I've been working out daily, no matter what.)

My firstborn had it far worse. Her power was out from 9 pm Tuesday night, and was still out twenty-four hours later, give or take. I'm not sure if it's on yet! I hope so.

So we've survived the first snowstorm, and I believe we can officially call it Winter now, even though the calendar says it's still Autumn. We'll get a few more warm days though. And the Universe will watch out for us all the way through till Spring!

Hugs,
Maggie

The Rubberband (Tara Taylor Quinn)

My honey and I ran away. It started out as a favor to me. I'd had enough. I was against the wall. I had to go. But I don't go alone anymore. And so we went. Not far. We're as money conscious as the rest of the world right now. Maybe more so in my moments of panic. And we didn't want to tire ourselves any further than life was already tiring us. We loaded the cooler with pop, a bag full of fruit and other goodies and set out to maybe visit the Bob Evans farm in eastern Ohio. They're having a festival this month. We never made it there. We went to Ironton, Ohio, instead, to visit a very special memory in my honey's life, to relive some perfect moments. From there we went to Kentucky (five minutes away) and Huntington, West Virginia (about ten minutes away.) We weren't traveling a lot of distance, but we were globe hopping - or at least state hopping. Seeing lots of new things. The changed sceneries, the changed perspectives were doing the trick for both of us. We were away from 'it all.' Our minds were more clear, less clouded with life's residual dusts and hurts, more focused. We were cleaning house and it felt so good.



Until we met with the rubber band.

Saturday night, after a full day of exploring, a nice dinner in a quaint, small town eatery we decided to head up highway 52 toward home. This was the scenic route along the Ohio river. The plan was to stop someplace bed and breakfast along the way and get up in the morning and spend the early part of Sunday lolly gagging along the Ohio River. We made it Portsmouth just fine. Quickly. Easily. We made it to highway 52. We got beyond Portsmouth - about 13 miles - and realized that there was nothing but darkness ahead. For a really long ways. It was almost midnight. Tim had seen an inexpensive chain hotel back in Portsmouth. It wasn't really what we'd had in mind, but it would be inexpensive. And it was there. Of our own accord, we turned around and headed back to Portsmouth.

Now there's nothing notably remarkable about Portsmouth, Ohio. It's an old town, not all that large - though there is some breadth to it when you add Portsmouth and West Portsmouth together. It's largely an industrial town. Surrounded by expansive - really expansive - miles of farm land. It's a working place. Filled with use - not aesthetics. Not a lot of soul filling opportunities there. But we were only there for the night. We'd have Sunday for breathing in nature and beauty and for filling our senses with beauty and distraction from life's current challenges.

So thinking, we arose at a decent hour on Sunday morning. Skipped the stale breakfast at our chain budget motel and were efficiently once again on highway 52, looking for a quaint, non-chain, but cute diner along the way for the delicious home-cooked breakfast we were envisioning. We made it to highway 52. Got about 13 miles outside of Portsmouth. And the car jerked. We pretended it was normal - did that all the time - in the glance we shared with each other. And then we both looked at the steering wheel, as though it was the culprit. It jerked again. Lights came on - kind of like when we hit the jackpot at the casino on my birthday, except that it wasn't racking up nickels. It was getting hot. And not steering well. We slowed down. I moved my seat back so the air bag didn't break my ribs if we ended up in a ditch. We had 13 miles behind us - and a million ahead - of mostly uninhabited farmland. We had to make it somewhere. We looked ahead. And the car took away our options. It was going to stop whether we approved or not. Tim rolled into a once gravel parking lot of a long time ago generator shop that was now a ghost business of broken brick, fallen boards and a door that hung on its hinges, swinging back and forth in the wind, banging and creaking. Next door was what looked like a deserted pig farm. (We knew pigs by the old sign still hanging nicely out by the road.)

Hi, Mom, we're home.

The hood opened just fine. And it took Tim about five seconds to see the problem. The tensioner had locked up. It happens eventually. And when it happens, the serpentine belt slips and the car won't go. A tensioner is about twenty dollars. A new belt - just to be smart - another twenty. Tim (who worked his way through college at a gas station) could have it on in five minutes. The only problem was - we were 13 miles from Portsmouth and a million from nowhere in the other direction. There were no spare tensioner's hanging around.

I grabbed my trusty cell phone. I'm good in an emergency. I don't cry over spilled milk.

My cell couldn't complete the call. I waited for Tim to use his. His cell phone couldn't complete the call, either. We soon discovered that there were no cell phone towers in the middle of uninhabited farmland. I guess wheat and corn and weeds don't make a lot of calls. We hemmed and hawed and turned circles, looking around us as though an auto parts store was suddenly going to come out of hiding, like it was right there if we only looked hard enough. There really and truly didn't seem to be one.

So, hey, it was Sunday. The sun was shining. It was only 9:30 in the morning. We liked to take Sunday walks anyway, have taken many of them. This was all just part of our fun for the day, our adventure. I typed in auto parts stores on Garmin. She told us the closest one, by far, was, you guessed it, back toward Portsmouth. That's when the rubber band analogy first occurred to me.

But still, we were thankful Portsmouth had an auto parts store. And it would feel good to walk. And it did. For the first mile. And the second. By the third, I was disgusted with myself for leaving the bottles of water back at the car. And the munchies. (We'd been on the hunt for breakfast, remember.) By the fourth mile back toward town, Tim was rewarded with cell phone service. We dialed 911. The county only had two sheriff's on duty at a time. To cover more than 300 miles. And before we could make any plans with them, we lost cell phone service again. We walked some more. Telling ourselves we were almost there. Talking about life and its meanings, about where we'd been and where we were going. About where we wanted to go. Half an hour later, a sheriff's car slowed, turned. We started to tell him our predicament, but he just smiled and nodded and told us he knew all about us.

He'd come for us.

And when he heard the rest of the story - the part we hadn't been able to say with our limited cell time, he told us that we had another 13 or so miles to go to get to an auto parts store. But it was Sunday. In Portsmouth. We'd be lucky if the store was open. Certainly no garages were. Still, he would take us there - and beyond to the next town if he had to. He'd wait while we purchased our tensioner, and then he'd take us back to our car. With a smile and conversation, telling us about his wife and his boys - little guys. He told us about his shift and his average calls and arrests in a day. His mom called while we were in the car, but - he lost cell service and couldn't talk to her.

We were headed back to Portsmouth again. Previously in our car. Then on foot. And now in the back of a Sheriff's car - complete with wiring and fencing and all of the stuff that I've always seen in cop cars on TV. I told him that I wanted this to be the only time I saw the back of a police car. He told us that we worked swing shifts. Two day, two middle, two night. He liked the days because he got to help out good people like us.

And while we were in the open, thank goodness, auto parts store, he chatted on the phone with his mother.

The store had what we needed. I talked Tim into a car tool kit instead of the one wrench he was going to buy. There was only one bolt with a tensioner, but I've been helping Tim on projects for a while now. And I have never once seen him use just one tool. Or even, use the tools for only their intended purpose. He bought the tool kit.

And we finally got to leave Portsmouth! Though now, after all the time spent with the Sheriff, we were kind of sad to be going. Still, we had a car and Ohio river adventures waiting. We made the thirteen mile trek back out to the middle of nowhere with our knees jammed into the fencing in the back of the sheriff's car. He told us it would have been thirty or miles in the other direction before we found any kind of civilization. He dropped us, made sure that Tim didn't need any help, and, with a word about there being only two of them on duty, he headed out. But only after asking us if that was okay.

Tim assured him it was fine. And within five minutes, had the new tensioner on the car. He went to slip the belt back onto it's pulleys - choosing to use the old one because it appeared that on Park Avenue's, unlike his old Blazer, there was a motor mount in the way of removing or replacing the belt. No problem. While he pushed down on the tensioner, I slipped the belt back up on its last pulley. But wait. Something wasn't quite right. Part of the belt was frayed. Obviously from trying to turn when the old tensioner had locked up. Tim studied for a moment and decided that we'd chance it - get the car going and head home where he had the proper facilities and tools for fooling with motor mounts. At his instruction, I turned the key. The engine turned, too. Briefly. Long enough to shriek an awful chorus.

This was not a problem. Tim merely had to cut off the edge of the belt where it had frayed. And in our new tool kit there was a very sharp razor blade knife. The belt was taken care of in seconds.

Except that when I turned the key again, it broke. Still, we had a new belt. We just had to figure out how the engineer who'd decided the underside of Park Avenue hood had planned on a guy changing his serpentine belt.

An hour later, we had it figured out. You had to take it someplace where there was a pulley or special jack to hold the engine while you removed the motor mounts. Tim tried the car jack, but the engine didn't want to sit on it.

So here we were, 13 miles outside of Portsmouth, a million - or at least thirty - miles from anywhere in the other direction, no cell phone service, no sheriff, and still no breakfast. I suggested we give the pig farm a try. Maybe, if we walked up their road, there would be signs of life.

A dog greeted us. And then another. Tim told the charging one to just whoa. The dog did. And there was this cute, freshly painted white picket gate across the front porch leading to the front door. It opened. And so did the door when we knocked. The woman didn't even hear our story before she invited us inside. Our timing was lucky, she said. She'd only just returned from a weekend quilting trip with her sister half an hour before. She gave us a phone connected to a land line, a phone book, and showed me her quilts. She showed me the view outside her living room window, too. The Ohio river. She and husband had lived in that house for 43 years. He'd farmed the land his whole life, supporting them and their two kids. Their daughter still lived on the property with her husband and kids. Their son was just six miles up the road. They had five grand kids - four of whom were teenagers. She made quilts for each of them when they turned 13. The current quilt was being made for auction for the fireman's auxiliary in Portsmouth. Eventually we saw her husband, too. He'd been out working the farm. He talked to us about the years he and his family had spent on the river, the boats they'd owned. His wife told us about the school bus that would come pick up the kids at the end of their road, and how they'd stay in the barn when it was raining until they saw the bus crest the hill and then they'd make a run for it.

Lots of memories they said. Great memories. Of a great life. They had little. But they'd spent their lives side by side. They had each other. A great relationship. Their kids. They had joy. And they shared it with us.

After several calls, Tim found a guy who owned a tow truck who was answering the phone on Sunday. He was in Portsmouth. He said he'd come right out. And he did. And before we knew it, we were smooshed inside a very very dusty/dirty tow truck, our legs pressing against each other as - you guessed it - we headed back to Portsmouth. But John, our tow guy, while not all that talkative, was soft spoken and kind. He used to work in a garage doing the heavy stuff, he said. There weren't any garages open, but he said he'd take the car to his house because he had the tools and necessities to hold the engine while he put on our new serpentine belt.

We ended up on a gravely street in the industrial section of town. An area that had never seen anything as upscale as a McDonald's. It was late afternoon by now. We still had not had breakfast. And we hadn't had another important necessity, either - one that was suddenly most pressing. We needed restrooms. While John worked, we walked for blocks, hoping for a gas station. And then decided we could settle for a hold in the wall convenience store. We might have been able to, but they couldn't help us. They didn't have a working bathroom. We tried a biker bar. The doors were bolted. Finally, we went back and asked John if he knew where we could find a bathroom. He sent us in the other direction, only a block away, to a dollar store. They didn't have a public bathroom, either. But when I spoke with the lady who worked there, she quickly took us back to her private area and let us use her bathroom.

When we got back to John, he was shaking his head. The slipped belt had caused a flooding in the engine and something else had to be replaced for the engine to even turn over. He didn't have the part. The auto supply store was closed. No one was open after five on Sunday. But John said his boy - also John - worked for a garage in a town 12 miles away. They wouldn't be open that day, but he could take our car there and have it waiting for his son to get to first thing in the morning. In the meantime, he'd take us to a motel. All in all, he put at least 50 miles on his tow truck, and gave us four hours of his time that day. And he charged us $60. Period. That was it. We upped it to $85. Wrote him a check. And off he went with our car.

And the greatest thing was, we didn't even worry. At all. We trusted that man completely. Here we were, hooked to a rubber band that continued to haul us back to Portsmouth - by our car, on foot, in the back of a sheriff's car, and now in a tow truck - and we were there for a reason.

But I'll get to that in a second.

The next morning, after a nice hot free breakfast at our motel, Tim and I set out on foot to a grocery store we'd seen down the hill from our motel. We had a microwave in the room and thought we'd get something for lunch. We had nothing else to do. The hotel guy had given us late check out - he knew we were waiting for our car to be fixed - and there was only so much we could do there without even a deck of cards. McDonald's came before the grocery. Diet coke. Thank goodness. And while we were in line, talking about the car, I glanced at my arm, for my watch - to tell me how long it had been since we'd spoken to the garage. My watch wasn't there. None o my jewelry was on my body. I'd worn some of my favorite pieces - they were relatively valuable, monetarily, but more so emotionally. I panicked. Tim remembered having seen my jewelry on the nightstand in the first hotel where we'd stayed. I pulled out my trusty cell phone. It worked. Information didn't have a listing for the motel.

But we had time. And that first motel wasn't that far away, we figured. It was on the same road. So we set out to walk. We found a back street, a quiet neighborhood of pretty homes, that turned out to be a short way between the two motels. We went inside. Talked to the guy at the desk, but I'm a big city girl. I know the ropes. My jewelry was long gone.

Until the guy called a girl and suddenly, there was my jewelry, being handed to me in a sealed bag from the safe at the hotel. Three of their girls had seen the jewelry and had taken care of it for me. Their girls are honest, they said. They were right. They smiled and were very happy to be able to return the jewelry to its rightful owner.

And later that day, our car was delivered back to us, as well. By young John. Not only had he fixed all of our problems, but he'd replaced flooded spark plugs for us, too, at no charge. The charges for the car were exactly what the estimate had been. No charge for delivery.

As we left, the motel workers called out to us - like family seeing us off.

We didn't get back on highway 52. We had to separate ourselves from the rubber band as Tim had a meeting in Canada the next morning and we still had to drive there. That night. But as we said goodbye to the town, Tim mentioned that our lives had been changed that weekend. We'd found kindness again. Our faith in human nature, and in ourselves, had been restored.

Mr. Rubber band, you saved our lives.

And Portsmouth, Ohio, thank you. You are in our hearts forever.

Saturday Morning Fever (Suzanne Forster)

I went to a concert last Saturday morning—and I didn’t leave home. I didn’t even leave the bedroom! The BeeGees—yes, Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb—performed (magnificently, I must say) in my bedroom and the only thing that kept me from reaching out and handing the Aussie brothers a hanky to mop their brows was a TV screen, a decade of time—and the sad reality that Maurice, Robin’s twin brother, is no longer with us. Neither, of course, is the youngest Gibb brother, Andy.

All of this and more became very apparent to me Saturday morning as I sat, glued to the TV, watching “One Night Only,” a DVD of the BeeGees’ live performance at the Las Vegas MGM Grand in 1997. The one-night event created a renewed demand for the BeeGees' music that resulted in a wildly successful world tour—and it was easy to see why. While I’ve certainly enjoyed the group’s music over the years—and danced to it in the seventies—I wouldn’t have called myself a fan in those days. I am one now. In my opinion, the BeeGees are greatly underrated as song writers and performers. What a surprise to hear them sing songs that I’d thought were from the Beatles, one of which was I Started a Joke. ("I started a joke that started the whole world crying ... ") Great song! I can’t get the haunting refrains—or Robin’s sonorous rendition—out of my mind.

The One Night Only DVD opens with one of their most popular disco tunes, You Should be Dancing. Following that, they launch into an amazing thirty-year musical retrospective, moving from the sixties to the nineties. As it turns out, they wrote or co-wrote nearly every song on the DVD, and the music alone is worth the experience, but the bonus for me was reliving my own life through their songs. We all have touchstones, good and bad, that take us back in time, some so profound that we can remember what we were doing at the time: JFK’s death, John Lennon, Princess Di, 9/11. Stored in my memory cache is a slide show of each of those tragedies, along with a snapshot of my own life at the time.

I found something similar happening to me as I watched the concert DVD, but the memories were energizing and life-affirming. It surprised me that I could so clearly recall my own circumstances when Saturday Night Fever hit the movie screens—and how that one crazily romantic dance movie impacted my life—and turned me into a disco queen, lol. Poor Allan got dragged out every Friday night to dance in dark ballrooms lit by glitter globes and packed with boogying bodies. Great fun. And great exercise. Was life simpler then? Or does it just seem that way now?

This Saturday morning, as the BeeGees warbled—and I use the word in deference to Barry’s amazing falsetto—their way through their repertoire, I got to boogie all over again. I was laughing, crying, clapping, singing along and bouncing on the bed. Mandy finally got fed up with me and crawled into the carpeted tube on her cat tree, something she never does unless life isn’t treating her well. I did have the volume higher than she’s used to—okay, way higher—but the BeeGees are supposed to be played at high volume We’re talking disco, not Enya.

In the interests of full disclosure, I really was largely unaware of the BeeGees until they blasted onto the scene with Saturday Night Fever, which is probably why my brain, in its attempt to organize things, filed them away in the disco slot and left them there. But in reality, they are so much more, and this concert DVD was a revelation to me. They did beautiful emotional ballads like Words, Alone and How Can You Mend a Broken Heart.

The most moving part of their performance was a tribute to their younger brother, Andy, who died of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, just five days after his thirtieth birthday. Sadly, Andy’s rocket ride to success must have been too much for him. It’s well-known that he had substance abuse problems, but eventually found sobriety through rehab and was working to reestablish his singing career when he fell ill. Some think the drug use weakened his system. According to Wikipedia, his family believes he never got over his breakup with Victoria Principal, the actress. Perhaps that’s why his three older brothers chose to sing Our Love, Don’t Throw It All Away to honor him.

Whatever the reasons, it was a lovely, if heartbreaking, touch that made the entire concert that much stronger and more memorable. Photos of Andy growing up played in the background as his brothers sang the song that was one of Andy’s biggest hits, and it was obvious to me that the Gibb family bonds were strong. Rumor has it that Andy was going to make his comeback by joining his brothers as the fourth BeeGee. That, of course, never happened.

I’ll wrap this up with one last BeeGee story that got me thinking about accidents. All four brothers were actually born in Great Britain and didn’t immigrate to Australia until 1958. The three oldest boys started singing harmony in the early 1950s, but lacked the experience to perform. They were on their way to the local Gaumont cinema to lip sync to a record, but in the rush to get there, Maurice dropped the record and broke it. The boys had to sing live or disappoint the audience. The response was so enthusiastic they decided right then and there to pursue a singing career.

It almost makes you wonder if accidents are the Fates’ way of getting our attention. Nearly twenty-five years ago, I had a rather fateful accident that launched my writing career. For the details, I’ll refer you to the Meet Suzanne page on my website at www.suzanneforster.com. It was also by accident that I found the BeeGees’ DVD. I first saw it two weeks ago in our den, peeking out from a stack of magazines. I figured it was a CD that had been unearthed in one of our many decluttering forays, but I didn’t give it much thought since our music system is still boxed up somewhere in the garage.

So, imagine my surprise when I discovered it was actually a DVD that could be played on our flat-screen TV. Perhaps not coincidentally, I had been bemoaning the lack of music in my life, so I popped the disc in the player, never imagining that I would be enraptured by BeeGees’ music for a hundred and ten minutes! Remember, I didn’t think of myself as a fan.

But accident or not, I loved every moment of my Saturday morning concert, and I’ve promised to find myself more music DVDs and do it again, maybe even weekly. Who needs antidepressants? Who needs Dr. Phil? I’m thinking a weekly concert might even beat Lucy’s offer of psychiatric help for five cents. What better way to revisit your past and chase away the blues at the same time?

Suz

Make-Up Posting (Maggie)

So sorry I missed my Thursday blog! To make up for it, I'm posting today, with pictures and everything!

Here I am with my guy, all dressed up for Halloween. We celebrated all last weekend in picturesque Black Lake, where we go often. It's in the northernmost reaches of NY State, on the Canadian border and St. Lawerence River. There was a costume party, live band, and great company.





We carved Jack-o-lanterns too! I'm posting the pic of his, which was done without a pattern, completely freehand. I'm not posting the photo of mine, which was done WITH a pattern (but without my usual pumpkin carving tools--you know, the kind they make for little kids?) because mine looks like a blob and it's embarassing. =) But it was still a whole lot of fun.


Dozer met his new friend, Preston, another English Mastiff. Preston is a year older. Dozer's a wee bit bigger. (Dozer is wearing the blue collar in this shot.) The two were instant best friends for life, and had a blast playing together.

And now I'm in New Jersey at the NJ Romance Writers annual conference. I delivered two workshop sessions yesterday, and have a booksigning today and a breakfast meeting with my agent tomorrow. It's been a great weekend. Tiring, but great as I got a chance to reconnect with great friends, make some new ones, renew old acquaintances, and just have an all around good time dressing up and talking business with others who truly get it, because they're IN it.

They have karaoke tonight at the after party. I'm hoping my voice holds out, but I'm a bit scratchy and hoarse at the moment. And now I have to head down to the booksigning. But I wanted to make up for missing my usual Thursday post. Oh, Thursday life went crazy as I was packing to go! A simple oil change turned into a complete brake job, and I barely even had time to pack. When I return home, I'll walk into a house that looks like a clothing store exploded inside it. But I'll deal with that when I get there.

I'm terribly homesick, oddly enough. Now that the house is coming together, I hate to leave it!

Until next time, be happy! (Remember, it's a choice!)

Maggie

Ah, The Sex Scene (Patricia Potter)

This might be short (I never quite know when I begin) because I’m preparing for our local chapter’s annual Retreat Friday, Saturday and Sunday. My critique partner and I are giving a talk on Sex in Romance; another partner and I are giving another talk for new writers Saturday, and I’m doing several critiques for members.

In addition, I have to make a casserole for Friday night.

I’m not very good on talking about sex in romance. When I write, when I
I’m in the moment, when I “am” that character in a scene, the words come instinctively. There are no rules, no formula. I just try to write what I “feel” as that character.

So what to say? My friend is using the Steps of Intimacy, the rules of seduction. I’m supposed to talk about sexual tension and the emotion that makes a love scene more than slam bam, thank you ma’am.

I love writing sexual tension. I like it more than the act itself. I once tried to explain it at a meeting as, I want, I can’t; I want, I can’t; I want, by golly, I CAN. In other words, I like to build emotional and physical barriers to keep the hero and heroine apart even as they yearn madly for each other. Then the actual act is so much more fulfilling. At least for me.

At a loss of how to explain any better, I combed through my library for the very best in sexual tension, as well as emotional impact.

Who does it best? I think that’s up to the reader, but a few of my favorites are Sharon and Tom Curtis, Karen Yeast, Kimberly Cates, and Penelope Williamson as well as our Broads.

A great example of sexual tension (I want, I can’t) is this from Sharon and Tom Curtis. Our heroine, who has lost her husband, is attracted to a legendary musician.

Here's part of it: “There was no need for words now; they were communicating through gesture. He turned her to him, his hands on her shoulders, and their lips met again, exploring, liquid, desirous . . . her lips blindly searched his as his hands traveled down her back, and he pressed her into him, then with a single liberating motion, he unsnapped her jeans. Her breath was coming in long, deep waves, slow and natural, enjoying the present moment, waiting heedlessly for the next. His mouth moved slowly down over her fluted collarbone, and in a smooth, powerful motion he lifted her onto the counter. . . Her eyes fluttered open and looked at him in wonderment, glorying in the colors of him. If he opened his arms, she would surely float on air. She felt newborn into an amniotic dimension of blurred light and flying sensation. It had been so different before, with David . . . ”

The reader is ready for something more to happen when the image of her dead husband stops her cold, and she can’t go on. We have to anxiously wait until later to see the emotional barriers lowered.

Then there’s this gentle approach from Karen Keast, one of my all-time favorite authors: “Sarah folded her section of the paper and reached for another just as Cade completed a similar action. Their hands brushed. Days before, dominated by feelings she couldn’t understand, she would have pulled quickly away. . . but now she sat watching, mesmerized, as his hands folded gently about hers. Her hand seemed lost in his but safe and protected. It was a feeling warmer than the August sun plunging through the skylight. Her eyes moved to his, sleepy blue and smiling. With motions slow and deliberate, he drew her hand to his mouth and kissed first her palm, then her tiny veined wrist. The intimacy of the kiss left her breathless, and wanting more. But it was a more that was forced to defer to the promise of time.”

I could go on. I have eight books I plan to take with me to the talk. I wish I could use excerpts from them all here, but there’s not enough space.

But I do want to ask you some questions: What kind of love scenes do you like best? Slow and tantalizing “want and can’t have” or fast and furious and passionate, no holds barred?

Do any authors come to mind when you’re thinking of great love scenes? Any films? (My favorite is the beach scene in “From here to Eternity.)

And Lynn. . . we all love you and anxiously await your return.

Update and Thanks

We've been a little slow here this week, but not to fear, we're all here and will continue to be here sharing life with you all.

Sister Lynn was down this week - spending much time in the hospital. Those of you who know her know how much that pisses her off (my word, not the demure Lynn's!) She gave us all a scare, but the doc says that the troubles were chemo related, not illness related, and our valiant Lynn is once again on the road to recovery.

It's going to be a long road, but Lynn has chosen to travel it. And anything Lynn Kerstan does, she does well. I pity that ugly garden of doom inside of her. It has no idea what it's up against!

I don't want to steal her thunder - I'm sure she has much to tell you all about the past couple of weeks. She just might not be telling you today. Stay tuned, though! I'm sure her account will be worth waiting for.

In the meantime, Storybroads would like to issue a public thank you to a member of the storybroad family - Thea - for her continued support and caring for our dear friend - and hers. And to send our strength and well wishes to Lynn's 'little' sister, Nan-Celia.

These are hard times - and they are making us stronger.

They are the prelude to the good and beauty that is to come.

They are the pathway to showing us the good and beauty we have right here and right now in our friends and family, in our togetherness, as we pull together to keep standing.

They are a conduit for the love all of us here have spent our lives writing about. Today we don't just write about it. Today we live it. We gain strength from it. Today, through that love, we find the joy.

Speaking Out (Tara Taylor Quinn)

I wrote my congressman this week. It was a first for me. I know people do this. You hear about it. Someone being upset, trying everything they know to try, then thinking some politician is going to do something for them that they couldn't do for themselves. Chances probably aren't good that they actually will. But really, what can it hurt? You get to get your feelings out, to state your case, and there's no retribution. I mean what can the guy do, get mad at you for doing what he said he wanted you to do in his campaign promises? He says he wants to hear from his constituents, right? He wants to stay in touch with the people. So this week, he stayed in touch with me.

Now, before you think this is a political diatribe, let me reassure you. I have no idea whether my congressman is a democrat or a republican. Or some other affiliation, for that matter. I don't know if he's a representative or a senator. I don't even know his first name. My aunt sent me his last name with a strong request to write to him. So, mostly to please her, I did so.

And in the end, she was right. Not because I got any response from the man. I don't even, today, remember his name. I know what letter of the alphabet it started with and that I couldn't pronounce it. But my aunt was right. She was right, not because he helped with the problem at hand, but because sometimes we just have to remember that we have the right to speak out - and that alone helps. We have to remember that we have a right to be heard. Not because of politics, or because of the state of union, not because we're Americans, or British or any other nationality, but because we are. Period. Every single human being on earth has a story, and a need to have that story heard, in some fashion at some time. And somehow, in the human experience, merely speaking the story is a gift to self. That's my lesson for the week. Sometimes, no matter what challenges we face, or even what joys, the experience of living is made easier, or more joyful, simply by speaking of that which we experience.

There is a very definite validation of worth by speaking out. By speaking we acknowledge that we are worthy of being heard. That we have something to say that is worth taking up the air it takes to speak. Or the Internet space to write, or the paper to mail.

Many of you here are aware that Tim and I adopted a rescue dog last year at this time. We've had a time with him. He has a drinking problem. I could be joking here. And it would be a good joke, maybe, but it's not. Jerry has a drinking problem. Not because he has a fondness for a bottle, or an alcohol addiction, but because he drinks too much. Water. He drinks only water. And sometimes he just can't stop. Because of the abuse he suffered in the first three months of his life he suffers from some weird thing that I can't pronounce but which the vet says could last his entire life. He can't regulate his water intake. He drinks until the water is gone. It doesn't matter if that water is a gallon or an ounce. And if you follow this through, you see the bigger problem. When one drinks, one must relieve self of water. If one drinks uncontrollably, one might be somewhat uncontrolled in the relief of that substance. This past week, Jerry got a doggy door. And in less than a day he learned how to use it. He even seems to know why he's supposed to use it. Sort of. He's going outside to do his business. Most of the time.

But he has other problems, too. And the one that has presented itself most recently is the barking. Suddenly this quiet, timid, loving and precious guy has developed this deep, loud DOG bark. He seems quite fond of the sound. Incessantly fond of it. Inside the house. Outside the house where he bugs all of the neighbors - and their dogs, goading them into joining in his diatribe. In the day. Or in the night. He barks at nothing. And at everything. In a moment of silence, he'll suddenly pierce the peace with a sound that stabs your core, takes your breath and sometimes just plain hurts.

We tell him no. Tim tries to train him to be quiet. I think Jerry needs to be heard. After a year of love and continuous reassurance of his safety and belonging, Jerry has finally developed the courage to speak out. He has a lot to tell us. Injustice of which he must speak. Questions he must ask. Hurts he must expel. Confusion he must try to dissipate. He tells us everything. And the odd thing is - in total seriousness - he seems healthier, stronger, now that he has the self esteem to speak his mind. He seems happier.

I believe there's a lesson in there for us. I learned the lesson first hand this week. Sometimes when we're feeling powerless, beat down, hopeless, we just need to open our mouths and speak. Sometimes it doesn't even matter if we're heard. The important thing is to know that we have the right, the ability and the value to speak what we have to say. By doing so we tell the world something very important about us. That we exist. That we have value. We tell ourselves. We're putting ourselves in the game, in life, making certain that we are accounted for.

And by doing so we give those around us the chance to hear, to help, to care, to participate in our lives. They might not always choose to do so, but if we don't give them the chance, they can't do so even if they'd like to. Jerry's voice is loud. Grossly interruptive sometimes. But I am so thankful he is speaking. And I listen. I go to see what he is barking at. I care. I tell him no when what he is upset about isn't any of his business (like when he's trying to yell at the 89 year old man next door for being in his own backyard) but I'm still glad that he is speaking. He has finally fully joined the family. Fully joined life. He's harder to deal with. And I feel closer to him than ever before.

For a long time, I think I was like Jerry. I didn't speak the things I really needed to say. Maybe because I didn't think anyone would care. Or listen. Maybe I thought no one wanted to hear. And maybe all of that was true. And maybe it wasn't. The maybes don't really matter. What matters is that if I have something to say, I owe it to myself to say it. Period. Because I exist. I sit here wondering how many of life's tragedies could be avoided if we all felt free to speak. If we all did speak when we had something we really needed to say.

Times are challenging right now. In our lives here on Storybroads, in our country, and in the world, too. Many of us are starting to feel powerless in some areas. Some of us have been feeling that way for a long time. And I've discovered, that there are others who won't ever feel that way, no matter what life hands them. Because they dare to stand up. To speak. To continue to engage with life, whatever life might bring. My Jerry has taught me this (with the help of a little nudging from my aunt!)

I didn't hear back from the congressman. I might never hear back. I don't think it matters, one way or the other. I got what I needed from him. A chance to speak. I spoke, and then ideas started to occur to me. I felt stronger. More equipped to handle the challenges I'd written about. It was as though I'd validated them and by doing so, I'd taken control of them rather than letting them control me. I'd like to think that that's what we offer here at Storybroads. A chance for us all to speak. To be heard. To be valued. Not just for the six of us who write to you each week, but for all of you who join the Storybroad family as well. You speak out. You give your opinions. I hope you know how much we value those opinions.

I hope you continue to join us. To find value and acceptance, and a chance to be heard. I hope you use that chance whenever you want to - and speak. We will be here, listening.

Where's Arkie? (Anne Stuart)

So I don't pretend to be any other age than I am. I'm a baby boomer, a child of the turbulent 60s, a survivor and thriver of the most turbulent time America has gone through. It was in the sixties that I made my first nun's habit -- it was made from an old black choir robe and a turtleneck. The second, believe it or not, was made from my best friend's Belgian linen curtains. By that time (mid 60s) I would have read Gone With the Wind, but since it was the 60s I have no idea where it had inspired me to rape my friend's interior decor.

If it sounds like I spent the 60s mired in drugs you'd be wrong. Oh, I experimented. Very few young people with intelligent, inquiring minds didn't. But I seem gloriously free from any addictive streak. I smoked, and unlike Bill I inhaled the marijuana, not the nicotine (for some reason I never did figure out how to inhale a cigarette). I drank. I took diet pills, prescribed and not. I danced barefoot in Central Park in a low cut Madame Pompadour dress and ended up with a hell of a sunburn. I stayed up all night at the Fillmore East listening to the Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane, staggering out into the dawn of the lower east side to face another day. I got arrested and tear-gassed protesting the war, I got a tattoo when nice girls didn't get tattoos. Most of all I lived for music.

I did barely make it through high school. My family went belly-up my senior year, with my father hospitalized for alcoholism and prescription pill addiction. He went through convulsions (literally the DTs,) and ended up eventually living with friends of friends, slowly recovering. Needless to say my mother wasn't doing well either after having lived with my father for twenty-five years or so, and she ended up unavailable. So I spent the first half of my senior year skipping school, until the family got together and sent me up to Amherst to live with my aunt and finish high school there.

Apart from that, I spent most of my life in the school system in Princeton, and I had a friend named Arkie, starting in third grade.

I'm not sure why I always felt bonded with Arkie. Maybe because he and I were the two fat kids in class. We had the same foreign lady paper dolls, and it seems to me there was something else we had in common, though now I can't remember. All I know was that Arkie was always there.

We weren't particularly close friends. We both had nasty tongues, even back then, and he used his on me in the seventh grade on a number of occasions (he once told me I was giving out candy because my sister was so pretty and I wasn't -- which led me to going off in a corner and having adolescent hysterics and raking my fingernails down my face. He did express concern that maybe he shouldn't have said that, but Arkie had the kind of mouth I had -- shoot first and think later).

We went to high school together, mainly spending time in the AP English courses. We both came from literary families, though his was more distinguished. His father was a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, my father was a newspaper editor among his many jobs that eventually dissolved due to his drinking. We both wrote well. We had the best teacher in the world, one of those teachers you remember forty years later for the affect he had on you. Our teacher was Bill Cook, a young teacher who ended up head of his department at Dartmouth, and early in his teaching career he managed to fire everyone up and fill them with devotion.

By that time Arkie was Art. He was also skinny, while I was still fat. But I still felt a connection with him.

Not any kind of lust -- I kept that for musicians and movie stars, the lone exception being the seventeen-year-old John Lithgow who was president of the Student Council. Arkie was still Arkie, no matter what he called himself.

I'm not quite sure what happened to him after I was carted off, but when I came back rumors abounded. He'd gotten into Harvard, but the demons of the 1960s were riding him hard, and he was going to end up dead in a gutter if he wasn't careful.

The last time I saw him he was too skinny, too brittle, too messed up, and I wondered whether he'd make it through. That was forty years ago, and I thought of him every now and then, wondering if he'd survived.

Turns out people wondered the same thing about me. I'd left school at the end of my junior year in a dramatic suicide attempt. (Snotty female classmate: she was just doing it for attention. Krissie: well, duh.) Then, mid senior year I simply disappeared, and when it came time for our class 35th reuinion people discovered me, astonished that I was still alive.

Every now and then I thought of Arkie and I'd check the internet. There was someone with his same name who worked to the public schools in Boston, which seemed a reasonable job for him if he'd survived. When his famous father died I read the obituaries to see if Arkie was one of his survivors, and I breathed a sigh of relief to discover that indeed he was. He'd made it.

I don't know what reminded me last night, but I googled him again, hoping for an email address or even a snail mail one, but no luck. However, I did discover that the Boston Arkie was indeed my Arkie, and he'd quit work and written an amazing book, with the kind of reviews (in the NYT and PW) that would make a strong man weep. He was still an amazing writer, and he hadn't lost that. I just sat there grinning.

Oh, he'd sneer at my work, no doubt. He probably hasn't changed that much -- he always was a sharp-tongued little son of a bitch. And that's okay -- I'm secure enough in what I do that I don't mind if he would think it was trash. Sometimes otherwise brilliant people aren't evolved enough to recognize grace and beauty where they don't expect it.

But the utterly cool thing is that Arkie made it, with a good life, a good career helping people, a brilliant book. And I made it, with a good life, writing books that I love. I'm the person that I would have wanted to be when I grew up (albeit fatter), and it looks to me like Arkie is too.

So here's Arkie's book: http://www.amazon.com/Boogaloo-Quintessence-American-Popular-Music/dp/0472030876/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224506274&sr=8-4

If you love American music, as I do, you'd love it.

In the meantime, here's to you, Arkie. I'm glad we both made it through.

I guess it's common enough to want to connect to people from our past. Hell, I know what happened to John Lithgow (clearly I had good taste back then) and half the people I remember from school. Who do you want to find? An old boyfriend? A childhood pal?

I hope you have more luck than I did getting in touch with them. Though you know, in the end, maybe knowing Art wrote a brilliant book and has had a good life is enough.

Lots of News (Patricia Potter)

I'm so sorry to be late this Saturday, but a lot has happened in the past week.

I told you last week I was having neck problems. Well, it worsened and I ended up in the emergency room Sunday. Turned out I had a sprained muscle and muscle spasms that also involved the nerves. I couldn't move for the next three days and I ingested so much muscle relaxant and narcotics that I became a zombie. I certainly learned a new appreciation of what Lynn has been suffering these last months.

I started recuperating on Wednesday, and then my Mom got sick. I had not been to see her in five days, and now she has a skin infection. And so I needed to spend more time with her.

But there was good news, too. The editor of Rhapsody Book Club wanted to feature my December book ("Behind The Shadows")for its "Between the Covers" feature in its December edition. There were some great questions that really made me think, and my thinking was not all that clear at the time. But I loved the fact that the editor really "got" the book and was particularly interested in the emotional bonds between daughter and mother and the nuances in the four main characters.

I'm not sure whether I mentioned it, but "Behind the Shadows" has been selected for five bookclubs, including Literary Guild, Mystery Guild, Doubleday, Book of the Month and Rhapsody. I'm certainly rapturous about it.

The next news: I accepted a three book offer for western historicals in Harlequin's Blaze line. They will be shorter than my usual long manuscripts, but I really think, sadly, that the day of long historicals has passed. People just don't have time to read them. So I'm excited about the shorter format. Blaze has just started adding historicals to its line, and authors like Betina Krahn, Hope Tarr, Jacque D'Alessandro and Jade Lee are among the signed authors. I really look forward to writing a short, snappy, sexy book. Best of all, my editor there will be Brenda Chin whom I dearly love. She's one of the best in the business.

If you haven't given the new Blaze historical a look, you might try picking one up.

I do plan to continue writing romantic suspense. I truly love the challenge involved in moving from historicals to contemporary.

That's pretty much all the news for this week.

Now back to trying to catch up for five days in zombie land.

Serenity Rises! (Maggie)

Serenity is almost finished, and I have to tell you, she's better than ever. I never would have believed it. I mean, I knew on some level that the fire was an opportunity to recreate my home according to my own, unique vision. But I knew it more practically than emotionally. I never would have thought the silver lining would have been quite this silver. But it is.

The colors now, are my colors. The stencils in the living room are exactly what I imagined--I could barely believe I was able to find the patterns I was looking for. I even decorated the stairway and the upstairs hall with classic, vintage romance novel covers. No one else has a house like mine. It's totally me, and totally Serenity, and we're both extremely happy with the changes. So is Dozer, I might add. He loves being able to run laps around this huge space, after being closed up on our one little room for so many months.

Of course, we're not totally moved in yet. There is no furniture to speak of, besides a small round table and chairs in the breakfast nook. I'm expecting some living room pieces to be delivered momentarily, though. My bedroom has a bed, but no dressers as yet, and the rest of the place is still empty. But I've put food in the fridge, dishes in the cupboards, and my coffee pot and toaster on the new countertop, so it's beginning to feel like a real home again. Even though we're not really living in it yet. There's still a bit of work going on, final things, doorknobs, trim, touching up bits here and there. But it's almost done. It won't be much longer. Another week, at most.


I'm noticing more things that were lost in the fire, as I go through what remains, in hopes of salvaging some of it. There's not much. I thought I could salvage a dresser or two, but the drawers are full of mold now from being stored in the damp barn outside for so long, and some are broken too, so I might have to just scrap and replace them all. Still, most of the news is very, very good. And the house is utterly beautiful.

I'm not sleeping in my bedroom very often yet. Dozer is terrified of going up the stairs, just flat out refuses, but cries all night if I go up without him. And I doubt I'll trust him to be downstairs alone once the new furniture is here. He likes to lie on couches and chew anything wooden. But we'll both adjust, together.

It's going to take a long time to fill the place again. But I'm content to take it slow, add pieces as I can, and when I find just the right ones, and discover what is really needed and called for. I like to think my energy has meshed with the house's, and that I've redone her with her input as much as with my own. We're soulmates, Serenity and I.

And so there are a few more pictures of how the place is looking, though I have to tell you, they don't come close to doing her justice!

Life is good. And this part of the cycle is nearly at an end. I hope the next one is a whole lot less stressful!

Maggie

The Holiday Visitor

I have a new book hitting the shelves within the next few weeks. It will be available on Amazon and other on-line sellers at about the same time. But it was released to Harlequin's subscribed book club readers this week.

Last night, I received a 'fan' letter via e-mail. From the very beginning of my career, I noticed a pattern with my Harlequin Superromances. If I got mail from the direct readers, the book did well. If I didn't get much fan mail from those loyal subscribers, the book didn't do as well. So, you can imagine my relief as I see the post come through. The book has just been mailed to subscribers this week, and already there is response to it. Someone must have started reading it as soon as they got it and read it all the way through.

And then, because I was in an emotional place where a little validation would go a long way, I opened the e-mail. I read it. Re-read it. Calmly closed it. And went on with my evening, which hadn't been that great to begin with as I wasn't feeling well. I mostly forgot about the post. I'm a veteran at this stuff. Been at it a long time. The e-mail didn't keep me up last night. Wasn't the first thing I thought about when I woke up this morning. But it might have been present within the first hour of my waking. Right about the time I was out getting a diet coke for breakfast and fully waking up.

Every word of the short epsitle repeated itself in my brain. It was the worst 'fan' letter I'd ever received. Blunt. To the point. Cutting me to the quick.

I pushed it away again. And again.

I guess you can see how well I succeeded.

So I'm bringing it to you all. Because I don't have permission from the sender to publish her letter, I won't tell you exactly what she said, but the gist of it, paraphrased, was that the book was boring. Most boring.

I have much to say about that. Starting with "I'm sorry." That's my most typical and instant response to just about everything. If you say I did it, I must be guilty. And if I'm guilty, I am truly sorry. I let you down. I didn't mean to do that. Period. Not ever. To the contrary, I sweat and worry every single day when I sit down to write that I will live up to your expectations.

My second thought was, why would someone send such a post? It's just plain unkind. I mean, I hate Star Wars (gasp, I know). I found it boring. But I sure wouldn't go tell the people who'd worked so hard to make it happen that I found it so. (Not that they'd care as they rack in their millions!) But then, I thought, maybe the reader felt cheated by me. She'd expected me to deliver far more than she received. She felt betrayed. And she had a need to speak out for herself against that betrayal. I respect that. I applaud it. It's a lesson I'm still in the process of learning.

My third thought was that I should warn all of my readers that they might not find the book up to par, that it might dissapoint expectations.

My fourth thought: I LOVE this story. It's very very different. It's subtle. There isn't a ton of moment to moment action and there is very little of the suspense that seems to creep into so many of my projects. But the book is filled with core deep questions, life altering understandings. It's a conflict in the most personal, intimate way. It forces a look at the possible depths of a human heart, at the ethereal, nebulous 'force' that brings us together, at our control over it, and at its strength over us. As far as romances go, it is completely outside the boundaries. The Holiday Visitor is the story of one heroine with two heroes. But hey, Harlequin bought it, so it must be okay, right?

My fifth thought - I thought Star Wars was boring. Tons of other people didn't. So perhaps this reader is 'me' in the midst of the Star Wars frenzy. Maybe, just as other people (millions of people) like Star Wars, there will be 'other' people who get The Holiday Visitor.

TIME OUT. Okay, this is weird. So weird I'd swear it was contrived except that I am right now, sitting here, experiencing it. I have my e-mail set to flash the beginnings of messages on my screen as they come in. And a post just came in on The Holiday Visitor. So I minimize blogger and read the e-mailed fan letter. The woman says she likes all my books, that she never writes to authors, but she had to write on this one. She just finished The Holiday Visitor and while the format was different she "loved" it. She "had no idea." It was a "good surprise."

So, I guess I don't have much else to say on this subject except - judge for yourself. If you read The Holiday Visitor, go into the book warned. It looks like it's going to be one of those that you either love or you hate.

I'm off now to try to get out of the 'why did I ever think I could write a book' slump, and pour my heart and soul into the book that's due November 1. So someone can get pissed at me for not doing it up to their specifications.

Maybe not. Maybe today I will write with a caveat. Today I'm not writing for you or for my readers or because I'm under contract. Today I am writing for me. Because I don't just write; I AM a writer.

Or maybe I'll just go hang pictures and be a picture hanger today and a dog lover and a woman who'd love to be traveling with her mother and aunt on their two day Laughlin jaunt. Maybe I'll think about writing - and that pressing deadline - tomorrow.

And pretend that 'boring' is just another word.

Blogging My Heart Out! (Suzanne Forster)

I’ve been blogging like a maniac this week, primarily because I have a book out and several readers’ sites were kind enough to ask me to contribute. One of them even sent me a list of questions to answer, which I appreciated. It was so much easier than having to fumble around for topics on my own—and for some reason, as I was answering the questions it occurred to me that a couple of them might work here, on Storybroads, as well. So, call me crazy, but here they are:

Suzanne, when did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?

I guess you could call me a late bloomer in that regard. All my life I’ve been an avid reader, so writing would have been a natural transition, but somewhere in the shoals of early adolescence I made up my mind that I wanted to be a student of life. Hey, it sounded like a good idea at the time. Eventually it occurred to me that I might need a job to pay the way for this lofty goal, which is how I ended up majoring in psychology in college. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a clinician or a researcher. I just knew that people fascinated me. Totally. I was forever trying to figure out why they did the things they did and what motivated them to make choices that either propelled them to success or failure, happiness or misery, and all things in between. And also why these choices always seemed to turn into patterns that dictated their lives. And especially why people—most of us, actually—were such dedicated keepers of secrets.

I started with my own family—and what a wealth of material there! I suspect only a writer in search of understanding could feel this way, but I’m still grateful to my parents and their parents for the incredible dysfunction they managed to create, despite what was fundamentally a loving environment. My family was—and still is—wonderfully eccentric. Some would say wacky. Our gene pool alone could have produced a dozen different doctoral theses, easily. (And it has produced a bunch of novels, although don’t tell my relatives!)

So, that was the dream—a career in psychology—and it was almost realized. I was in my early thirties and in an accelerated four-year doctoral program in clinical psychology when I had a car accident. I’ve been saying ever since that I started writing by accident—and it’s true, literally. I was driving to my first group therapy session when I was hit by a truck that ran a red light. The accident was quite serious, and the recovery was long and difficult, but as with all dark clouds, there was a silver lining. Writing. Weaving stories became my therapy, and before I was well enough to return to graduate school, I’d actually sold a book and launched a new career.

Now, I write full-time and it’s a rewarding and consuming profession that keeps me wondering if I should have been a psychologist, lol. But, in truth, writing has brought more blessings to my life than I could possibly recount, including some things that might normally fall into the category of curses. I often wonder how many people would ever be grateful for having had a car accident—or a dysfunctional family, for that matter. Of course, that could change if my family checks out this blog.

What would you say is your most interesting writing quirk?

Well, possibly that I write in bed. As I mentioned, I started writing during the recovery from my car accident. That was back in the eighties and I don’t think laptops were on the market yet, or if they were, we didn’t have one. So my husband, Allan, actually took the keyboard out of the computer and inserted it in a cardboard box with a long cable attached. We got the screen close enough that I could see it, and that was all I needed. I was off and writing. I had no thoughts of writing a book at that time. At first it was simply trying to distract myself from the pain of the injuries. Later, when I’d recovered enough, I started taking classes, and the rest, as they say, is history.

But I still write my novels in bed, propped up with pillows. It’s the way I think best. My brain must be conditioned by now. It doesn’t seem to want to work unless it’s at a 45 degree angle!

What does your family think about your career as a published author?

Now, they’re very proud. In the beginning, not so much. Of my first Desire, UNDERCOVER ANGEL, my mother was heard to say that she was afraid to turn the page because she never knew what was coming next. However, I noticed that after reading a few more of my series romances, she began sharing them with her church friends, but always with the disclaimer that she couldn’t imagine where her youngest daughter had learned about such things. She also loved to needle me, asking why I didn’t pen mysteries rather than romance novels. I would answer by saying sweetly, “Oh, so you’d rather my characters kill each other than fall in love?” He he he.

There were several more questions, but I will spare you those. Since we often talk about families here, I thought those exchanges might be more interesting. And quirks are always fun to talk about. I have many, some of them too embarrassing to ever reveal, although I’ve outed myself a few times via the characters in my books.

How about your quirks, any you’d care to share? Do you talk back to the television the way I do? Do you disco around the house for exercise? Or read magazines from the back to the front? Any eating quirks? We all know about Tara’s cottage cheese! So, share some of your eccentricities, or your family’s. Heaven knows, no one could have a stranger family than I do.

Suz, all blogged out

Ten Good Things (Anne Stuart)

There are times when you need to be grateful, simply because life can be so wretched that you have to grab the perfect times when you can get them. Even if they're not completely perfect.
So I'm sharing the good stuff with you. Ten Good Things, big and small.
Number one. My career. I've finished the book I had so much trouble with and I think it's pretty good. I've been trying to upload a cover and failing miserably, but sooner or later I'll manage it. And now I get to write the first book of The House of Rohan, three generations that run through England's aristocracy from the Georgian period through the regency (which technically is Georgian as well). The tentative title for the first one is HEARTLESS, and Francis Rohan, my cynical hero, is most definitely that. It's going to be soooo delicious.
Number two. My son is in New Zealand on a NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) trip. We've been trying to get him there for years, and it finally all came together, and he's somewhere hiking around where they filmed Lord of the Rings, sea kayaking, doing all sorts of outdoor things and loving it.
Number three, my daughter, who's now living in San Francisco and going to the Art Institute of California to learn how to design video games. Basically she'll be world-building, which she loves. She has an apartment in the Fillmore District, right next to Japantown and udon noodles, with three roommates that she gets along with, and she called me yesterday just to tell me she's happy. Big sigh of delight from her hovering mom.
Number four. It's autumn in Vermont. Incredibly beautiful, with cool, crisp air and magic colors. We're past peak, heading into the golden time when the tamaracks change, the leaves turn a dull gold and fall to the ground and when the sun hits it everything looks golden.
Number 5. I've finally learned how to use my serger. Those of you who sew know how contrary a serger can be, but I took a class and now I'm finally over the hump and will be serging up a storm.
Number 6. I have people to quilt with. My friends Sally and Ann are equally bitten by the quilting bug, and we'll be meeting every week to sew, to argue about Electric Quilt (the software program), to drink herb tea and have a wonderful time. It's so much nicer than quilting in solitary.
Number 7. My extended family is doing well. My 94 year old mother loves her apartment here in town, with its beautiful views, and I haven't seen her this happy in years. And my sister had her hip replaced and spent weeks in rehab and as a result she's moving and motivated and heading in the right direction.
Number 8. I'm still madly in love with my husband after being together 35 years (and married for 33 of them).
Number 9. I'm still madly in love with writing (when it goes well) even after all these years.
Number 10. I'm so grateful that the news for my beloved Sister Lynn isn't as dire as they first thought. And Lynn's one hell of a fighter.

I could probably come up with ten more -- I'm grateful for the new sewing class that's coming up, grateful for my Baby-boy editor, grateful for Vicodin , grateful for Gackt. But I'll stop for now. There are not so pleasant things, like the pain that's causing my need for Vicodin, that the endless winter is coming, that the economy is in the toilet. But for now I'll bask in the good stuff, cherishing life.

Can you guys name ten good things? Or even five? I've asked you this before, but you know, I think there's never too much gratitude in this world.

The Good and Bad This Week (Patricia Potter)

My blog will be short this week for several reasons, one of which is a stray muscle or nerve gone awry.

There’s an elusive pain that starts in my right shoulder, runs up my neck and explodes in my head. It came on Tuesday and shows little sign of departure. I’m writing this in great fear of moving my head.

I had just had my physical early Tuesday and was celebrating the fact that I had passed, except for one test I have to retake. Then the pain started Tuesday night. Couldn’t sleep then or Wednesday, but I thought it would go away. It didn’t. It grew harsher on Thursday and I gave in and called the doc.

Unfortunately mine was out of town. The on-call doc in the office listened, then prescribed a muscle relaxant. It’s not doing much good. It’s fine for about two hours, then bang, comes that pain again. It starts as an ache in my shoulder, gets sharper as it runs up my next and seems to explode in the back of my head.

If I’m completely still, it’s okay. But any move sends it roaring again.

If it doesn’t get better tomorrow, I’m off to the emergency room and, believe me, that’s rare for me. I’ve always had a very high pain threshold and I loathe going to a doctor.

The big problem: I’d planned to take my photo shop course Saturday. Already bought a camera and paid for it. I don’t want to miss it. I want to add a gaggle of photos to my blog. But I don’t want my head exploding in class.

So have you all experience anything like I described?

Any suggestions as to a remedy?

###

There’s good news now, though. My December book, Behind The Shadows, has been selected for five book clubs, including Rhapsody (the romance club), Doubleday Book Club, The Literary Guild, Book of the Month and Mystery Guild. They will be listed as the featured alternate.

Needless to say, I’m really happy. I’ve been in two of them before but never Book of the Month and Mystery Guild.

Spirits in Stone (LynnK)

This is a woeful picture (bad light, hopeless photographer) of a gift brought me last Saturday by two friends, Olive and “Kell” dePonte. They chose it because to the Shona tribe in Zimbabwe, the nzou (elephant) represents endurance, patience, and long life. I think it was the long life they were wishing at this time of illness.


It would take a long life indeed for me to acquire endurance and patience!

Here’s a little of the description provided by the gallery:
“Family loyalty, or kinship called mhuri, forms the basis of most Shona traditions and laws. These are best symbolized by the elephant’s good character. The elephant also represents the maternal spirit since all the elephant herds are related generations of women. called the ghosts of the forest for their silent movement despite their massive presence. The Shona of the nzou totem sing of the majestic power, loyalty and gentleness of the great elephant.”

Not a bad totem to have around. Especially because it came to me from Olive and Kell, who actively support organizations and sellers that make sure the sculptors receive aid and fair payment for their work. Not easy to do in a war-torn country ruled by corrupt officials.




I’d never heard of Shona Sculpture before this year, but the tradition goes back more than a thousand years. White granites and brightly colored serpentines are plentiful, and pieces were harvested by those who felt a call to release the spirits trapped in the stones. The spirits soar, throbbing with themes born in the universal consciousness, inspiring the sculptor. And, as I can testify, those who live with these remarkable carvings as well. In my photo, you can see none of the nzou's beauty, the nuances of her expressions, the protective concern that seems to waft from her like invisible light.

Over the centuries and in many cases nowadays, the artists have carved with tools they made from scrap metal. The polish was originally a plant or vegetable oil, and the smoothing was done with river sand on a rag. Now they use carnauba plants, beeswax, and sandpaper. Some work in urban collectives, but most are amateurs. They share their techniques with anyone who wants to learn, although many begin alone with a simple tool and a vision.

My nzou is carved of a silvery black Mutare serpentine. In the shifting light, the color and highlights never look the same. The name of the sculptor is unknown.

I’ve always had an affinity for Africa, although I lived there when I was a only 4-5 years old. It still resonates in my soul. Many years after that, Olive served in the Peace Corps and was stationed in West Africa. Kell has long been a man of the world. Many shared interests draw us together, although they live hundreds of miles away, and we never stop getting curious about some new thing. Or some very old thing. Another reason to want a long life. The world’s a big place, and I want to experience all of it!

Brief Health Update: Chemo started Monday and Tuesday. Since then, I’ve been less energetic than a cabbage boiled for a week. Sick to my stomach, too. This is what I’ve gleaned from the chemo nurses. The worst symptoms will pass soon, and I’ll start feeling a little better. By week three of “recovery,” I’ll be doing pretty well indeed. Then they’ll zap me again. It goes downhill from there, with every cycle getting worse as I weaken. I’m scheduled through 2008, and all along the way, the oncologist will be watching me and analyzing my responses.

Thanks for all your good wishes in Comments, along with your shared stories. They are a true blessing!

WINNERS!!!!

We have winners of books!

Mary M.

Darla

Thea

Robyn in Iowa

Cheryl

Louis

You all won the comment contest for 2008! We give away one autographed copy from each of us (that's five books) every two months. All you have to do to have a chance to win is comment on the blog. So come on everyone! Let's talk!

To our winners:

CONGRATULATIONS!!

(To receive your prize, please email staff@tarataylorquinn.com with your full name and address!)

Temporarily Out of Body (Maggie)

Deep apologies, folks. No blog from me today. For good reason, though. The house is in the final stages and right now it's full of workers of many types with the power going on and off as the electricians work. I'll have the most glorious photos you ever saw next week! Life is GOOD!

Maggie