Working Vacation? (Maggie)

I've been on what feels like a vacation this week. And yet, I've been managing to get just as much work done as when I'm slaving away all day long. How, you might wonder, have I accomplished this miracle? By paying attention to how I feel. Okay, so the scoop is that my guy has been with me since Sunday. We usually have a night together, a night a apart, and so on, but we've been on a delicious stretch this week. And part of me wondered, would I have the will power to get my work done--being on such a killer deadline schedule right now, it was a concern. But I'm getting it done. I am.

I'm doing revisions right now, then it's back to work on the next novel. Revisions are time consuming and mind bending, but you can accomplish a lot with a few dedicated hours each day. But I've been approaching this stuff backward. Intuitively, one would think, you get up in the morning, bound out of bed and get the "work" done, then have time to play. But not me. I lie in bed, and think, what do I feel like doing? Working or snuggling some more? And then I snuggle some more. =) (Naturally. I mean, if you do what you really want to do, snuggling is always going to win out over working. Right?

So, since Sunday I've been doing what I want to do first, and working in between the fun. I've been mini-golfing. I've been driving over backroads and traipsing through woods. I've been to Walmart for a floppy hat. I've played Scrabble, watched movies, barbecued, hot-tubbed, and gone out for ice cream. I've gone to bed early and slept late and goofed off. And guess what? I've made more progress on the revisions than I had planned to make when I thought I'd be alone all week. Ha! I'm getting more done in a couple of hours than I usually get done in a day. And I'm putting life first, work second. Now there has to be a message in there somewhere.

I've been having more fun this week than ever, and for some reason, getting more done in less time, when I work. The hours seem to stretch into just what I need, and the work I'm doing seems sharper and better. I love this.

The weather is gorgeous. The new book, BLOODLINE, is out and, by all accounts selling briskly, and life is GOOD.

Hope it's good for you, too!

Maggie

Get Out of Your Way (Tara Taylor Quinn)

You ever notice how animals, if left on their own, just seem to get it right? Ever think there will come a time when we'll be as smart as they are?

We put in a gate last night. And then bolted it shut in three places. Actually, lets back up. We put up the fence. No, first, we cemented poles in the ground. Then we nailed treated two by fours to the posts. Then we screwed them in place for extra security. Then we nailed treated one by sixes up - over 600 of them. And then we went back and double nailed them. We built a fence around ourselves that is secure. Solid. Not going anywhere. We had the tail end of Hurricane Ike here last fall. We stood just a couple of feet away and watched as a garage went down. We were effected by that experience. And so now, seven months later, when we build our fence, we talk about the hurricane. Our fence has to be able to withstand a hurricane. It has to keep me safe when I'm here alone. And it has to keep the cats out and Taylor and Jerry in. It's our safety net. Of sorts.

And then we go and cut out two three foot portions, side by side. We make a six foot wide gap in our fence. An opening. A hole. The oasis has been violated. A car could drive into he backyard. Ike's friend could grab hold and run, take down the whole side. A lion could saunter in and eat Taylor who could go out at her leisure and play in the road. Jerry...poor Jerry, he'll just run, in whatever direction, for no purpose, and could end up anywhere. Probably in the lion's mouth because he has this habit of staying close to Taylor.

The gap is there so that the riding lawn mower can access the back yard. I get that. But with lions and cars and rapists getting in, I don't much care about the high grass. So we turn the two three foot portions into gates. Some more treated two by fours, some hinges, a handle and there you have it - a six foot, double door gate. Except that it's not as secure as the boards were before they were cut away from the fence. There's some give to it. So we put a lock on it. And then, for added security add a couple of two by four bolts. We are once again fenced in.

And I ask myself - what's with us human beings? We tend to live our lives in circles. We secure ourselves, we unsecure ourselves, we secure ourselves. We fence ourselves in. We say we want something, we go for it, we get it, we don't want it. We say we'll do something, we plan, the day comes, and we change our minds. Or we forget. I wonder what would happen if we all just did what we said we were going to do, when we said we were going to do it. And left it at that and moved on to the next thing. Why do we always have to overthink, re-think, unthink - and re-invent the wheel? We've got so darn many wheels spinning, no wonder we get dizzy sometimes.

I was the featured speaker at a small writer's conference this past weekend. It was one of the best writing conferences I've ever attended in that every one there was serious about their intent for being there. For those two days, they were writers, period. Some were poets. Some were journalists. Some wrote non-fiction. There was a legal writer (a thirty year veteran lawyer who worked in white collar law and wrote important briefs galore) and a sociologist. The majority were fiction writers. I had an opportunity to hear each of them speak about their writing. I was able to speak with many of them one on one. Almost all of them had gaps in their fences. They had what it took to be writers - the desire, the love of the craft, the stories in their heads. They had the solid foundation, and then they cut six foot portions out of the foundation for any number of reasons. One was afraid of crying while she wrote and couldn't get any emotion into her writing. One started fifteen books but didn't finish them. Another wrote a lot but wouldn't submit anything to anyone. One volunteered on numerous committees for numerous different charity organizations. Yet another wrote non-fiction in the day job and put off the creative writing. Another was busy with web stuff - blogging, site design. There were kids and husbands who didn't support the work and there were houses that needed to be cleaned. Most reasons were valid. Getting my riding lawn mower into the backyard was valid.

But it all makes me wonder if maybe we just make life too difficult. Why do we think everything has to be clean and neat and completely controlled? What happened to us? Why do we need six foot tall privacy fences? Why do we focus on the reasons we can't write rather than believing that we can?

I met a young woman this past weekend who inspired me. A woman who has been on my mind ever since. Tim and I visited with her for quite some time one afternoon and afterward, he said he saw a lot of similarities between her and me. I hope so. I'd love to think that I'd be like her if I ever grow up.

This young woman is a writer. Plain and simple. That's what she is. Her life is about writing. All roads lead to writing. Her mother wanted her to go to school to study medicine. She studied English. Her fiancee wanted her to quit school and have babies. He wanted her to quit writing. To let go of the dream and settle down. She broke off the engagement. She's always been a loner. She's always felt different from those around her. She's always had stories in her head. And she's completely at ease with all of that. She welcomes herself. Embraces herself. She makes choices that allow her to put writing first.

She gets out of her own way.

This young woman brought me some of her work to critique. I've been doing this for fifteen years - reading and critiquing. I'd already done several pieces that weekend. I've read some pretty wonderful stuff. Found work that I thought was surely publishable. Work that stuck with me. And never, not once, in fifteen years have I read something as incredible as this young woman brought to me. There wasn't anything all that remarkable about the story. Wasn't much plot, at least on the surface. If you asked what the book was about, well...that's where it grips you. It's about a girl, you see. Except, no not really. You see it through the eyes of a girl, or a grown woman, but it's not really about her so much as its about...what? This is where this writer succeeds completely. Her work grips you and it becomes you. Or you, the reader, become the work. She taps into a vein of life that runs through all of us. You might not consciously recognize that, but you're there, just the same. You've got this protagonist who's doing...not much. She eats. She goes to bed. But somehow, through her eyes, you experience life at its core, at its largest,while you're eating and going to bed.

I was entranced. I didn't want to stop reading. Unfortunately, the book isn't done. But I believe it will be. The young woman told me to give her a couple of months. She said she'd send me the whole thing. And if she does, which I fully expect she will, I am going to do everything in my power to see that it gets read by someone with the ability to get it into print, mass produced, mass marketed, and get it available for every single one of us to read. But I'm going to read it first. And read it again.

And hopefully learn how to get out of my own way and stay out.

Anyone else interested in joining me?

When in Doubt Make a List (Suzanne Forster)

I’m a big list person anyway. It’s the only way I know what I’m supposed to be doing. Allan has been referring to me as the Absentminded Professor since he met me in the Seventies. Even back in those days, I needed notes to get through the day. It’s the blessing and curse of someone who lives in her head, constantly composing stories (most recently about the poor, unsuspecting couple ahead of me in the line at the post office). Or, if not composing stories, then just daydreaming about whatever. I can’t remember when I didn’t daydream. It used to get me in lots of trouble as a kid. Who would ever have guessed that I would grow up and daydream on paper for a living?

So, yes, lists have kept me on track for as long as I can remember. They used to be mental lists. Now, I keep a pad of sticky notes in every room of the house, jot things down as they come to me, and when it’s time to go shopping, I collect them and I’m on my way. I also drop notes on the floor, which forces to me notice them as I absently try to avoid stepping on whatever’s down there. This actually works, but only in the heavily traveled routes, which in my house are the paths to the lieu or the fridge.

My latest list has turned into a project, inspired by the comments on last week’s blog on decorating. Thank you all, again. Your suggestions about keeping it simple and concentrating on things I love and feel comfortable with sparked several ideas. I was rolling right along with the list when I turned on HGTV this weekend and caught a new show called “The Unsellables.” You can probably guess what it’s about—a decorating team takes on houses that have been languishing on the market, and they’re fairly brutal about why the house hasn’t sold. Of course, the first episode I saw featured a woman of varied tastes, to put it mildly. Even I could see that what she’d done wasn’t working. Her home was instantly pegged as a “mish-mash” of styles.

Uh oh, was my list of loved things destined to become a mish-mash?

Fortunately, the next show focused on redoing just one room—a basement family room—and the designer started by having the couple name things that made them feel relaxed and at ease. As it turned out, the woman was from the Philippines, so the designer keyed in on several environmental elements like palm leaves and woven natural fabrics, and brought them all together with a color scheme that was reminiscent of the island home the woman had left and still longed for. That show was a revelation to me, although I didn’t know it at the time.

I set to work on the list again. And once I let my mind go—with no judgments on how it was all supposed to come together—the flow of ideas resumed. And better yet, I had the feeling that it would all come together in some way. I didn’t know how, but that wasn’t the goal. All I needed to do was make a list of elements I loved as they occurred to me. And here’s another revelation: the real fun was in discovering some things I didn’t realize I loved.

Anyway, here’s my list so far.

I love simple, clean lines and lots of light and brightness. That’s one of the reasons I’m willing to stay with the Navajo white walls and cabinets we have now. They’re soothing, yet bright and they’re a wonderful canvas on which to paint, which was the way I was beginning to think of this project, as a painting.

More things I love: terra cotta pottery with red and pink geraniums. Anything in the color spectrum from yellows and oranges to greens and blues. Tropical ocean colors. Sherbety shades like lime and raspberry. I love stripes and plaids. Also, mirrors and reflecting surfaces. Water, I love the sight and musical sound of it. I love lemons and possibly roosters. Not quite sure about roosters yet. Skylights, definitely. Chinese porcelain and Greek pottery. Real plants—everything from succulents to Kentia palms and huge feathery ferns, the more the better. Flowers, especially hydrangeas. Maps and globes of the world.

Wow, what a mish-mash!

Then again, maybe not. I doubt very much that I’ll be using plaids, but I can already imagine how I might incorporate stripes and florals in the pillows and accent pieces. But I may not even go that direction. Since I started the list, a seascape has been forming in my mind with shades of aquamarine, blues and greens for the water. Beige and bone white for the sand. Maybe some burnt orange beach umbrellas, and of course, a splash of yellow for sunshine.

I may well need some help to pull it all together, but at least now I have a picture that has sparked a desire in me to recreate it. And yes, live there, even if takes another fifteen years. Suddenly the prospect of ripping my house apart does not fill me with existential dread. And all because of a list! Plus, a little help from HGTV and my Storybroad friends, of course.

Suz

LOOKING AHEAD (Anne Stuart)

So thirty-five years later I'm looking ahead to a Brave New World. The cool thing is, it's always a Brave New World. Just out is SILVER FALLS, which is more of a straight suspense (though of course there's hot sex). It's a stand alone book, at the request of my publisher, and it follows the twisted mind of a serial killer and the people caught in his web.
And right now I'm in the midst of writing a historical trilogy, about the totally decadent Rohan family (three generations of luscious wickedness). The first one's done (Francis Rohan, who survived the slaughter at Culloden to live a life of exile in Paris), and I'm just about to jump into the second one (his son, James Rohan, indulging himself in the fleshpots of London). Writing historicals is a treat -- everything is large scale, colorful and dramatic. Plus I tend to go with a sly humor -- my historical rakes are cynical but amused by life, which makes things a bit lighter.
In the meantime poor Finn MacGowan remains in the mountains of Colombia, kidnapped by rebels. He's tried to escape any number of times, but they've caught him each time, and he's shackled and being watched closely. It's up to my publishers when he gets to escape and we have another ICE book -- in the meantime he's strong and resilient. Besides, he's waiting for the American heiress/aid worker to be kidnapped as well.
And then there's a new series bubbling in the back of my brain. I've always had more than my share of stories I'm dying to tell. Historical or contemporary, bloody or (relatively) sweet, comedy or dark drama, I have stories fighting for attention. All I need is a little space and calm to write them.
A lot of writers are reinventing themselves, going in new directions, repositioning themselves. I've already done that so many times that it tends to be no big deal -- I foolishly believe I can do absolutely anything, and if something interests me enough to write about it, then I just assume I'll triumph, at least creatively. It's a handy gift if you're going to do something as nerve-wracking as writing for a living. Every day you put yourself out there, and the world can attack like a swarm of bees. You can be rejected by agents, acquiring editors, senior editors, marketing departments, booksellers, book buyers, and the cranky souls on Amazon. You have to have an unshakable belief in your own brilliance to survive all that.
I am reasonable enough to know that what works for me doesn't work for everyone. The agents, editors, booksellers, etc. may prefer something different -- a warmer love story, a different style. I doesn't mean I'm wrong. Just not right for everyone.
Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death. Words from the divine Auntie Mame, and it has nothing to do with finances. It's spring, and all you have to do is walk outside. There are parks and libraries and back yards. Friends and lovers, children and aging parents, all to be loved and enjoyed no matter how annoying they all can be.
It's spring, I've got books to write, the sun is shining.
As Jenny Crusie would say, Nothing but good times ahead.

Things I Like (Lymond de Sevigny)

A nap.







My cat tree, my pillow, my blankie, and my sun.







My throne.







See. I'm not always complaining!

Luxury Or Necessity? (Patricia Potter)

First, an explanation. I will take no responsibility for this blog because I have the flu’/cold/crud or something else plaguing me, and my mind is not working on all cylinders. In truth, I’m lucky if just one is operating. At the moment, my head is just one big mushmelon.

So I am going to cheat today and make you all do most of the work.

Pew Research has just released a new poll, and I don’t believe a word of it. I would like your opinion, please. Anyone who answers gets a gold star in my mental book.

The poll claims Americans are paring down the list of familiar household appliances they say they can’t live without. Now I do believe people are paring down. I just don’t believe some of choices.

“No longer do substantial majorities of the public say a microwave oven, a television set or even home air conditioning is a necessity. Instead, nearly half see each of these items as a luxury,” according to Pew.”

“These recession-era reevaluations are all the more striking because the public’s luxury-versus necessity perception boundaries had been moving in the other direction for the previous decade. For example, the share of adults who consider a microwave a necessity was just 32 percent in 1996. By 2006, it had shot up to 69 percent. Now it has retreated to 47 percent.

Okay, I might go along with the microwave oven. I rarely use mine. But I have friends who would starve to death without one. Air-conditioning? Fine if you live in Lynn’s paradise of Coronado Island, but not so fine if you live in the deep south or have ever experienced a scorching summer in the midwest or Arizona.

But television?

Just 52 percent of the public in the latest poll say a television set is a necessity – down twelve points from 2006 and the smallest share to call TV a necessity since the question was asked more than 35 years ago.” Now it’s true that network programming seems to have deteriorated, but there are certainly enough choices (National Geographic, Discovery and other channels) to spice the mind. I hope the people who don’t consider TV a necessity are reading more books, but book trends don’t necessarily prove this point.

In the meantime, I admit to being one of the 52 percent that considers television a necessity. I’m a news junkie. I turn on the TV first thing in the morning to see what happened in the hours I’d been asleep. I like the real time reporting. I like the sense of being there.

And computers? Only fifty percent, two percent less than the number who regards television as a necessity, say a computer is one.

Now in my world, I could go without television before a computer.

The largest ranked necessity? The car. But even then twelve percent of the people polled say it’s not on their radar of necessities. Must all be New Yorkers, although I did have one friend in Atlanta who refused to drive.

Here’s the entire list:

Car: 88 percent rate this as a necessity.

Landline phone: 68 percent

Clothes dryer: 66 percent

Home air-conditioning: 54 percent

TV set: 52 percent.

Home computer: 50 percent

Cell phone: 49 percent

Microwave: 47 percent

High speed internet: 31 percent

Cable or satellite TV: 23 percent

Dishwasher: 21 percent

Flat screen TV: 8 percent regard this as a necessity

iPod: 4 percent

Now which of these items do you consider a necessity? Which do you think you can go cold turkey on? And why?

Happy Belated B-Day, Bard! (LynnK)

Yesterday, 23 April, we celebrated the anniversaries of Shakespeare’s birth and of his death a mere 52 years later. But this time, we have a new way of seeing him. This portrait, painted around 1610 when Shakespeare was in his mid-forties, may well have been commissioned by his patron (and possibly, some believe, his lover), the Third Earl of Southampton.

I hope it’s authentic. We have only two other images known to represent him, the engraving in the First Folio that makes Shakespeare look like an accountant, and the bust at his grave-site, which makes him look like a sausage maker. In this image, we see an alert face with knowing eyes and a hint of the passions he understood so well and personified in Hamlet, Falstaff, Macbeth, Cleopatra, and all the characters he brought to life in his plays. And here, he looks handsome and manly, at least to the extent anyone can look manly while wearing a doily.

To me, he strongly resembles this fellow, Joseph Feinnes, who played him in Shakespeare in Love. The same long face, the dark, prominent eyes, the intense expression, the depths of intelligence. Feinnes is lucky enough to be showing his manly chest, but that’s because he played a young, poor, struggling Shakespeare. The one in the portrait is a successful man of considerable wealth who could have afforded the fine doublet and the lace collar, or received them from his patron.

I love Shakespeare, always have, and am constantly nattering on about him and the plays. Which is probably why my buddy Alicia forwarded to me a collection of ten Shakespeare quotes gathered by a writer who said they inspired him. They were uplifting and all that, which is fine for most folks. But to a grizzled cynic like, say, me, they didn’t reflect my own take on the enormously hard work and painful struggle involved in producing a book, not to mention the business end of our profession, which can drive us to tear our hair out.

So here’s my own list of Shakespeare quotes for writers who suffer (not silently) for our art and our livelihood, and who must confront most every day the terror of a blank page.

Deeper than did ever plummet sound
I’ll drown my book. The Tempest

Faith, thou hast some crochets in thy head now. The Merry Wives of
Windsor

How long a time lies in one little word. King Richard II

Where the bee sucks, there suck I. The Tempest

Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt. Measure for Measure

To tell sad stories of my own mishaps The Comedy of Errors

The miserable have no other medicine,
But only hope. Measure for Measure

Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio. Love's
Labour's Lost

O, how full of briars is this working-day world! As You Like It

A wretched soul, bruised with adversity. The Comedy of Errors

He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his
argument. Love's Labour's Lost

O! for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention! Henry IV, Pt. II

They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps Love's
Labour's Lost

Here are a few of the unpleasant’st words
That ever blotted paper. The Merchant of Venice

For I am nothing if not critical Othello

It is not nor it cannot come to good. Hamlet

Oh, that way madness lies; let me shun that. King Lear

We cannot all be masters. Othello

Words pay no debts. Troilus and Cressida

My ending is despair The Tempest

The Day The Earth Stood Still (Maggie)

Well, here it is. The day I thought wasn't coming for at least a couple more weeks. The day BLOODLINE goes on sale. Yes, the release date was supposed to be May 1st, but publishers don't always enforce those, and basically, most of the time, stores are allowed to sell them as soon as the books arrive in their warehouses. And apparently, Bloodline has arrived, because those who've pre-ordered it from Amazon have already received it. And my helpful spies around the country have spotted it in Walmarts and Barnes & Nobles at various locations this week. So it's out.

And it's selling, I can feel it selling. I can hear the registers chiming in my ears. I can see the email receipts flying like flocks of snow white geese. I can feel the covers smooth between the palms of eager readers, holding it for the first time. Be gentle, folks. She's my baby. =)

I'm wound up tight and marching like the Energizer Bunny these days. So much to do. A new book to write, and all the little stuff for the one that I've finished. Minor revisions--but time consuming. Art Information forms, which I've sent five times each now, but none of the editors seem to have received them. They went into the email void, I guess. Glitches and snafus abound right now. But I'm not going to let any of that distract me from today, the day I celebrate the birth of my newest baby into the world. It would be far too easy to get so involved in the next one and the next one that I don't take the time to savor this one. I don't want to let that happen.

So I take some time to be quiet, and think about the hard work that went into creating that story. I take some time to remember what was going on in life while I was writing it. And the the insane editing process this time around. And how hard it was to change everything again and again to get it just the way I wanted it. And the fun of creating Lilith, a vampiress worthy of Rhiannon's nod of approval. I remember racing to deadline, and finally getting to the end, and that feeling of triumph and accomplishment when it was finally finished, and how good it felt to attach the file to an email and hit that send button. Once it goes flying through the ether, it's really done.

I remember the first version of the cover (here) and how I thought it too pretty. Too tame. I said that looked more like a princess awaiting a kiss from her prince, than a dark, dangerous, desperate vampiress like my Lilith. I said she needed fangs. And cleavage, for heaven's sake. And now I'm second guessing myself. I still think this version, the first version, is a prettier cover. Prettier heroine. Prettier everything. But the second is more close to the actual story it represents.

And did I pick the wrong time to stop using "Twilight" in my titles, or what? Is that not the hottest word in publishing? I gave it up when others hijacked it. I should have kept it. I had it first. Should I be worried? I don't think so. I wouldn't want any new readers to think I was the one being a copy cat. So better to keep changing, keep ahead of the pack, be on the cutting edge, a leader, not a follower. That's worked well for me up to now, and I expect that it will keep on doing so.

I love that I got word the book was out on Earth Day. That seems a good sign. I've also received word that it will be released in audio versions in May as well, so there's that to look forward too. I haven't received a copy yet, so I have no idea how it sounds or who bought the audio rights. I'll try to find out.

And now all that's left to do is relax, and let go of the oars, and let the current I've created carry me and BLOODLINE forward, where everything we've ever wanted awaits us.

I'm blissful. The book is going to do great. I hope you enjoy it!

Maggie

I Ought to Write A Book (Tara Taylor Quinn)

I had a discussion this week about the possibility of a person reaching that place of complete attainment. You know, when you’ve realized the best you. When you are living fully and completely and wholly as you are meant to live. It was suggested that such a state might be what we strive for, but that it is unattainable in our current state in this current existence.

Probably not a great discussion to be having with someone like me because I can’t just have the conversation and move on. No I have to ponder. And challenge. And think. From all angles. I have to wonder if I’m missing something vital. If I’m in a Pollyanna place, not seeing the real world, because I believe that such a state is completely attainable.

Please note, a critical point to all of this is that attainment is not to be confused with perfection. Attaining our true self in this world, for purposes of this opinion, means that we are living completely true to our own individual paths and purposes. It does not mean that we are perfect. Simply by nature of being human, we are not ‘perfect’ in the accepted, secular sense of the world. Our true path does not mean that we won’t make mistakes. Making mistakes is, after all, part of the human process, right? It’s how we best learn. And grow. If one could face every challenge perfectly, what would be the point of facing them? We’d have already mastered the challenge before we began.

I have a different view of perfection. I think we’re perfect as we are, right now, in this minute, for this minute. I am a work in progress. I believe every single one of us are works in progress. Every day that we live, that we experience, that we face challenge, that we ‘succeed’ or ‘fail’ we are living perfectly. We are adding to our wealth of knowledge and making ourselves more than we ever were before. We’re growing. Whether we know it or not. Whether we even want to or not. We all have much to learn and things are put in our paths to give us the opportunity to learn.

I read something today that reminded me of a theory I’ve heard in various forms from various different places over the years. It’s this theory that there is a marked difference between wisdom and mind. Between our wealth of knowing, and the conscious thoughts we can call up in our brains. Thoughts, in the conscious state are restricted by our ability to remember. We can’t, in the purely surface state of conscious thought, remember everything that has ever happened to us, been said to us, been seen by us, since the moment we were born on this earth. Or before. But the theory is that we have all of that information stored deeply within us. In our psyche. In our soul. In some scientifically proven subconscious part of our brain. I’ve heard the storage place termed many things, but the oft repeated theory is the same whichever way you approach it. The information exists within us. This collection of all knowledge is our wisdom. Wisdom reaches much deeper, encompasses far more, than our conscious thoughts could ever be aware of in one moment.

The next part of this theory is that this deeper place that houses our complete information is always at work within us, available to us, guiding us, if we will let it. And that’s the crux of the matter, really. How do we let this 'knowledge' that we can’t conjure up or see or remember, guide us? How do we even access it?

The theory varies on that answer, too, in verbiage, but basically the ideas expressed are the same. This information inside of us has a voice. An ability to speak with us without us knowing it. Or with us knowing it. We can even call upon it. Some call our collection of complete knowledge a still small voice. The little voice within. Others term it our conscience. Some say it’s God, or angels talking to us. Some say we just have to get in the zone, to meditate for instance, to have all of this knowing shown to us clearly. Some call it intuition. Some believe that hypnosis is the way to access it. Some believe that psychics can access it for those of us who can’t clear away the clutter to get there ourselves. Some religions teach that religious leaders can access it for us.

Personally, I gave up on the verbiage a long time ago. I don’t really care about the semantics. What I care about is the existence of my complete blueprint, and my complete history, from the beginning until the end. And I care about accessing this perfect wealth now. Every day. As often as I can manage to get there. I want to make every major decision, and eventually every minor decision, with this perfect knowledge on my side. By my side. Inside. At work. Okay, making the decisions.

I want to get out of my own way, to quiet the thoughts clamoring in he forefront of my brain and listen, instead, to the wisdom. In the end, that's all we have to do. Listen. Oh, if only it was as easy as it sounds. I find so many times that the noise in the forefront is so loud, it drowns out the deeper wisdom. But one thing I've learned in this quest to distinguish thought from wisdom, is that wisdom is always accompanied by a sense of peace. Of emotional 'all right-ness'.

Sometimes, when I’m dismally human and failing completely, I have to remind myself that I’m not failing. I’m growing. Maybe this is some head game I play with myself to make me feel better, but if it is, it’s the wisest game I’ve ever played. Because it works. This ‘game’ or ‘theory’ gives me perspective. It helps me remember that I’m never alone. That there is always a source greater than I am to which I can turn, tune into. Whether that source is my complete self lurking inside of me, or some more holy source greater than I will ever be (in the practical daily working sense) it is all the same to me. This 'game' reminds me to get out of my own way and access the wisdom.

People have asked me over and over through the years when I first knew I wanted to be a writer. My answer is always the same. I’ve always known. They smile at me. Sometimes bewildered smiles. More often the smiles are humoring. How could I always have known? I was a toddler once and toddlers don’t know about being a writer. Heck they can’t even count to three to get their meals a day straight. Or know to stay out of the street. And maybe, when I was two, I didn’t know that I was going to be a writer. I can’t prove to you that I did. But I can tell you that from my first conscious memory of knowing me, I knew I was going to tell stories. I certainly knew it in the first grade. I wrote my first story then. It was called, “It Happened One Night.” I still have a copy of it. People marveled at my story. I remember wondering what they were surprised about. I was a writer. I knew that. Why didn’t they?

I can remember riding the school bus in the second grade. The bus was noisy and kids were bouncy and I didn’t like it much. But every day, I’d find a vacant seat, slide over next to the window, tune out the cacophony around me, and tell myself a story. Sometimes the stories came from a light on in window of a house we passed. I remember one that involved a mother. And there was another one that involved some woods we passed. The trees were really tall. I knew, then, that I was different from the other kids. I knew it was kind of odd to be sitting there telling myself stories. But I was perfectly okay with that. I was a writer, you see. We do those things. We tell ourselves stories. Sometimes, when we’re lucky enough, we get ourselves through the hard times by escaping into the places inside where we are able to get the world right. Where the stories flow and make some kind of perfect sense.

Anyway, I think that the part of me that is a writer reached full attainment before I reached kindergarten. My uncluttered child self just never let go of that knowledge that I was here to write.

When I write my books, I go into a zone. That place where my thoughts get out of the way. That place of accessing the deeper wisdom, working through and from the deeper wisdom.

I'm speaking at a writer's conference this weekend. I've been doing this for years. People ask me to tell them how to write books. Or plot. Or characterize. And mostly, as I face these situations, I have to admit, at least to myself, that I don’t consciously know how to do it. I don’t go about the process with my conscious, knowing mind. Oh there are things I’ve learned over the years. Like I know not to call two characters by the same name. Or even similar names. I know that I can’t have someone crying in every single scene. And that the book has to end. But for the most part, when I go to work, I park my conscious, thinking mind at the door. And what results is what I truly have to give. What results is authentic.

So, part of me can attest to the possibility of reaching attainment in this lifetime. The writer part. The rest of me has spent my life, so far, trying to catch up with her. I want the woman I am to get there, too. I want every moment of my life, not just the times at the computer, to be lived as my whole, true self. To be lived by my best self. To be true to myself. To be completely authentic. I want every moment to come from and through my deepest wisdom. I believe it’s possible to get there. I know I’m going to keep trying until I do. After all, isn't that my purpose?

ISO the Decorating Gene (Suzanne Forster)

I keep thinking decorating can be learned. Silly me, I haunt HGTV on the weekends. I watch “Design On a Dime”, “Divine Design”, “Color Splash”, “Dear
Genevieve”, “Bought and Sold”, “Property Virgins” and “Get it Sold”, to name just a few. I watch ‘em all and they make it look so easy, don’t they? After each show, I find myself all fired up and raring to finish the remodeling project we started umpteen years ago … and then I take a look around my house and even after I stop walking in circles, staring at walls, floors and ceiling, my mind just keeps going, circling until I’m dizzy. Where to start? What to do first?

Here, inspiration. Here, inspiration! Where’s my Inner Decorator when I need her? I watch the shows, read the magazines and tear out pages with ideas I like. I’ve even narrowed it down to a couple of styles: waterfront beach house or if I want to get fancy, Mediterranean villa. We’re not on the waterfront, but we can see the ocean from here, so close enough.

I want to blame it on the design of the house, which really is part of the problem. Technically, it’s a condo, which actually could pass for a villa. It’s long, narrow and built on three levels, which includes a sunken living room with a window wall. So, yes, there are some structural challenges. But Sabrina Soto on “Get it Sold” never lets an awkward design stop her. She does amazing things with the furniture that’s already in the house. Her mind doesn’t seem to circle for a second. Once, I watched in awe as she went straight to the homeowner’s couch, realigned it at a clever angle in front of the fireplace, tossed down a throw rug she found in the garage or somewhere, and shazzam, with a few well-placed accent pieces, the living room was born again.

Where did she learn that? Can I be honest here? I don’t think she did. Oh, sure she picked up some tricks here and there, like that angled couch thing, but I have become convinced that decorating is genetic and I don’t have the gene. It’s like piano. My grandmother was certain I could play because I had long fingers, and God rest her soul, she put me through many hours of misery when I was a kid, hauling me to lessons and making sure I practiced after school and on the weekends. When my first teacher gently suggested that I didn’t seem to have an affinity for the piano, Mamo, as we called my grandmother, found me another teacher and it started all over again.

Believe me, if I could have traded my fingers in on a set of short ones, I would have. Some people just aren’t wired up to play piano. I’m lucky I didn’t develop an inferiority complex. The second teacher actually told my grandmother to save her money. I swear that’s what she said—and finally Mamo got the message. She was kind when she broke the news to me. She didn’t want me to feel badly that Mrs. Gooding wasn’t going to be working with me anymore. She even implied that Mrs. Gooding’s teaching skills were lacking, and then she hugged me and told me to go out and play. I didn’t let out a war hoop of sheer joy until I was out of her earshot. That might have been one of the happiest days of my young life.

Back to decor. I know what I like when I see it, but that’s when it’s already put together. The obvious answer is to hire a designer, but as far as I know, they don’t work for free, which means they’re not in the budget.

Maybe I should write to one of the decorating shows and tell them my sad story. How many people take fifteen-plus years to decorate a house? We really did start that long ago. Between deadlines, the stock market crash (not this one, the one in the early nineties) and my mom’s illness, we had delays, postponements and life crises to spare.

We actually got a lot done back in Phase One: We had the house rewired, new lighting installed, tile laid and the kitchen and bathrooms completely remodeled. Somewhere along the line, we also had our back deck enlarged. We’re now at Phase Two, which is painting and carpeting. And Phase Three will be the actual decorating, which given the recession, will definitely be our own version of "Design on a Dime."

So, painting and carpeting. Sounds easy, yes? I thought so too.

Actually, I can sum the problem up in three words. Too many choices! Despite Allan’s hinting about trying something new with the paint color, I’m not budging. We have Navajo white throughout and we’re sticking with it. I’m not even switching to a different shade of white. Do you know how many shades of white there are????

I tried to simplify the carpeting choices, but no luck. We can’t stick with the color we have now. It’s wrong for the floor tiles we had installed back in Phase One. But before we can get to the color, we have to decide on the fiber, the twist and the twirl. Apparently a short, tight twist is best, unless of course, you want a loop pile or a textured plush. Fibers range from wool to nylon to polyester, with a couple new ones thrown in that I can’t pronounce, much less spell.

Carpeting should be simple. It is not. I’ve barely scratched the surface.

But before any of this can be done, we have decluttering to finish, starting with our basement. Oh, joy. We were down there this morning, madly sorting through things before the garbage truck arrived. We made pretty good progress, but I thought Allan was going to kill me. He was doing all the heavy lifting and I was directing traffic, so to speak. He said if I didn't stop he was going to tape me up in the vacuum cleaner box and donate me to the Good Will. LOL.

I know it probably sounds like I’m complaining, but I’m actually loving every second of this. I’ve waited a long time and I’d begun to think Phase Two would not happen in my lifetime. I just wish my Inner Decorator would show up and pick the carpet for me. Meanwhile, any favorite decorating tips out there? And if so, did you happen to teach yourself to decorate? I’m still hoping to have my theory disproved.

Suz

LOOKING BACK (Anne Stuart)

Thirty-five years ago this month my life was changed forever. I was twenty-five years old and my first book was published. It was a gothic romance, published by a subsidiary of Ballantine, and suddenly everything was magic. There it was, the cover with the ingenue in the front, the big old house in the background with one light on in the window. It was written in the first person, no sex but hot kisses, massively flawed but very original.
Something changes when you first see your words in print. Something they can't ever take away from you. No matter what happens, even if you never sell another book, even if your life sucks from that moment onward, you still have a little piece of magic you can hold in your hand, a proof that you're special.

Waaaay back then (April, 1974) when BARRETT'S HILL was first published, I figured there'd be times in my life when I wouldn't be able to sell a book. I figured doing talking gigs, at schools and libraries, would help support me, I thought if I could just make 10k a year I'd have enough, maybe 15k if I wanted to do a little travelling. I saw myself as a journeyman writer, with a thousand stories to tell and the time to tell them.

Well, in fact I've always been able to sell what I write. I never have had to go through the dry spells that most writers do. And I've never made a cent at talking gigs (with the few that have paid me I've turned around and donated the fee). And god knows I could spend 15k in a day if I really tried.

And I don't think of myself as a journeyman writer. I'm a little more stuck on myself nowadays -- I think I'm gifted, with something rare and wonderful that most of the world fails to appreciate. I also think I'm full of shit half the time -- it's never good to be too enamored of one's self.

I do know that I could no more stop writing than I could stop breathing, though I spend a great deal of time wishing desperately that I could just walk away from the utter crap that is publishing. The impossible stresses, the things out of your control. Part of me longs for the good old days, when I knew no other writers, when I typed out my story on a manual typewriter, three drafts worth, and sent it off blind to an agent in New York and crossed my fingers. When I didn't know the rules, when all that mattered was the story.

But you know, that's part of the price you pay for the magic of holding your book for the first time. You'll never be that naive, that hopeful, that innocent again. But it's worth the price, a thousand times over.

So when I bitch and moan (which I have made a vow to stop doing -- someone recently quoted the horrific, hurtful things I've said in public and I've cringed) just remind me that it's a choice I made for the magic, and I'd make it again, without blinking.

Writing is magic. Seeing your book in print is magic, such magic that even thirty-five years later I still remember the amazement of seeing it in a store, of holding it in my hands.

BTW, if you want your very own copy of BARRETT'S HILL you can find it at Amazon for a mere $200:
http://www.amazon.com/BARRETTS-HILL-Father%C2%92s-Revenge-Murderers/dp/B000Z0JLIC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240236757&sr=8-1

In the meantime, I need to get ready for the next thirty-five years of stories to tell.

The Dream That Wouldn't Die (Patricia Potter)

I have a new real life heroine. In fact she’s shot to the top of my list.

Unless you live in a cave, you’ve probably heard of Susan Boyle, the plain, 47-year-old Scottish villager, who stunned the world with a performance on “Britain’s Got Talent.” If you’re one of the few who have not yet heard it, leave this site immediately, click on YouTube, then click again on “Susan Boyle: Britains Got Talent,” the seven-minute version of her debut on the program. Even if you have seen a short take on television, you owe it to yourself to see the full segment. I guarantee you will have a broad smile on your face and a tear in your eyes.

You will be joining some 24 million people throughout the world who have already heard the segment once, twice or many times. It’s probably the most watched segment in YouTube history. You will be thrilled by Susan Boyle’s performance of “I Dreamed a Dream” from “Les Miserables,” charmed by the 47-year-old virgin with the “cheeky grin,” and delighted at the growing astonishment of usually cynical judges.

The raised eyebrows and delighted (yes, delighted) smile on Simon Cowell’s face when he heard the first few notes is well worth more than one visit to YouTube. Susan Boyle’s “happy dance” at the end is another reason. So is Britains Got Talent Judge Amanda Holden’s observation that this was the “biggest wakeup call ever.” When Susan Boyle opened her mouth to sing, no one cared that she wore an unflattering dress, had little or no makeup, and giggled nervously. She sang a beautiful song with a powerful and emotionally-charged voice that enchanted listeners around the world.

Cameron MacIntosh, producer of Les Miserables, pronounced himself “gob-smacked” by the performance, calling it “one of the best versions of the song I’ve ever heard. Touching, thrilling and uplifting.” Many, many people said it brought them to tears. Others, including me, replayed it several times, not only to hear a great version of a wonderful song, but to relish the unbridled hope and joy of someone who never gave up on a dream.


Susan Boyle, who says she has never been kissed, cared for her ill mother most of her adult life and volunteered in charity work. She never had the chance to go after a career in music and instead sang karaoke in the local pub. She had the courage to go on the show, she said, because she wanted to prove to her late mother she could make something of herself. So the spinster with a cat named Pebbles sang for a large audience for the first time in her life. Before the show, she told the show’s hosts backstage, “I’m going to make that audience rock.”

And did she ever!!!.

I think of how nervous she must have been, and how much courage it probably took to go on a program where ridicule is all too common. Some of that nervousness was obvious, but this village woman with a dream and the courage of a warrior did not seem perturbed by the smirks and sniggers as she was questioned by Simon Cowell before the performance. Who was she to think she could compete with the young and beautiful/handsome hopefuls?

Those few minutes have changed her life. Simon Cowell is said to be arranging a record contract. She is to appear on Oprah and has already been on several of America’s morning shows. Parts of the clip have been played over and over again by television and cable stations worldwide.

But it wasn’t just the performance -- as wonderful as it was -- that stirred the hearts of a busy and conflicted world. She touched something very raw in the listeners and inspired widespread soul-searching.

Here are several -- but typical -- reactions:

Britain’s “The Herald” contained an article headlined “The Beauty That Matters is Always on the Inside.” Writer Colette Douglas Home called Susan Boyle’s story, “a parable of our age. . . her story is the stuff of Hans Christian Anderson: the woman plucked from obscurity, the buried talent uncovered, the transformation waiting to be wrought.”

Ms. Home continued to say, “She has lived an obscure but important life. . . it’s people like her who are the unseen glue in society, the ones who day in and day out put themselves last. They make this country civilized and they deserve acknowledgment and respect. Susan has been forgiven her looks and been given respect because of her talent. She should always have received it because of the caliber of her character.”

I think the best quote, though, came from Blogger Dr. Robert Canfield, professor of Anthropology at Washington University. He referenced “yearnings and anxieties that humans bury deep within themselves until something outside ourselves. . . touches us, somehow, where we feel most deeply. At such moments, we remember that we are humans – not mere living creatures, but human beings, profoundly and deeply shaped by a moral sensibility so powerful that it breaks through our inhibitions.

“In our pop-mined culture so slavishly obsessed with packaging – the right face, the right clothes, the right attitudes, the right Facebook posts – the unpackaged artistic power of the unstyled, unhip, un-kissed Ms. Boyle let me feel, for the duration of one blazing show- stopping ballad, the meaning of human grace. She pierced my defenses. She reordered the measure of beauty. And I had no idea until tears sprang how desperately I need that corrective.”

So it wasn’t just the brilliant delivery of a song that put her name on everyone’s lips. It’s that reminder that too often we don’t look beyond the surface, that we ignore the richness of the inner human being.

A plain woman with the cheeky smile and a dream that wouldn’t die stunned the world and taught us all a lesson. We should all be richer for it.

Rhyme and Reason (LynnK)

“April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land....” So wrote T.S. Eliot, probably thinking about Tax Day. April is also National Poetry Month, Garrison Keillor reminded me in his latest column for Salon. A column in which he referred to Eliot as “that small dark cloud of a poet.” Yeowch!

Anyway, I miss poetry. I miss reading it, which I rarely think of doing, and I miss talking about it. My buddy, Alicia Rasley, started a poetry discussion group, and I’d be in it except for that pesky commute between Coronado and Indianapolis. Maybe we can have a Poetry Discussion during our jaunt to England this fall. Four writers, all former or current academics, and a lot of wine. Sounds good to me.

Poetry is born in us. Happily, it is actively nurtured in the early years of life.
Nonsense verses: “If called by a panther, Don’t anther.”
Mother Goose. I bet you can still remember some of those.
Even prayers : “Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”
Best of all are the songs of childhood, where rhythm and rhyme and sounds and metaphors all come together: “Twinkle, twinkle, little star. How I wonder what you are.”

Most young boys and girls, absorbed with pop music (and pop idols), never stop to think about the poetry in their favorite songs. But the same “beat” they love is captured in the lyrics and enhanced by them. Those who write their own songs, good or not so much, are poets.

But then we get these youngsters into high school and meticulously set about destroying their natural love of poetry. How? By choosing complex, sometimes turgid poems from the canon of Litrachure and analyzing the music and the spirit right out of them. The teens begin to think of literature as borrring, the kiss of death where they are concerned. They never transfer their inherent love of poetry to those scary Great Poems. They build up a wall of resistance that often endures the rest of their lives.

I used to be a teacher of literature, college level, but while in grad school, I taught some classes at a tony Catholic school for girls. The students were earnest, eager to please, and well-trained to toe the line. I had to tell them quite firmly that they could not mention God in their papers unless God was a character in the poem. I guess they’d been sucking up to the nuns with all those godly references.


Which reminds me of an odd thing that happened when I was a college student. Our truly excellent teacher, a nun, apparently found Yeats’s “Leda and the Swan” more than she could handle. A Petrachan sonnet about the rape of Leda by Zeus, who had assumed the form of a swan, the poem has the classic fourteen lines written in iambic pentamenter. It is also charged with eroticism. The nun believed, as I do, that poetry should be read aloud, so we were all following along as she read it to us. Well, some of it. As smooth as the finest scotch, her recital glided right past the words and phrases she could not bring herself to say. She must have practiced for hours. We students were looking at one another, trying not to laugh and wondering why she chose to teach the poem at all. After all these years, the incident still puzzles me. I love the poem, by the way. You should read it. Aloud!

Back to my high school students. Even when we discussed a great poem like one of the best Shakespeare sonnets, I could see their eyes glazing over. They just weren’t ready to open that door. They understood poetry, really they did, but they couldn’t associate their visceral understanding with the poems in their textbooks.

So I assigned them to choose the lyrics of a favorite song and write an analysis. Their papers came alive, and so did they. We put aside the sonnets and studied Renaissance-era ballads, which they enjoyed. I even brought in my guitar and sang some of them, along with songs by blues artists and folk musicians. They particularly loved the poetry in Leonard Cohen’s Suzanne, one of my own favorites. Here’s the last verse:

Now Suzanne takes your hand
And she leads you to the river
She is wearing rags and feathers
From Salvation Army counters
And the sun pours down like honey
On our lady of the harbour
And she shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed
There are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love
And they will lean that way forever
While Suzanne holds the mirror

The kids might not know the names of poetic meters and rhyme schemes, but they easily grasp how the rhythm and the sounds of the words themselves help create the “meaning.” That’s how music works.

Poetry is in our DNA. From earliest days, people have joined rhythm, sounds, images, and stories with music. Long ago, barbequing his latest catch, a primitive hunter doubtless grunted the equivalent of:
I’ve brought you this here mastodon.
You owe me, babe. Let’s get it on.”
Some males have not evolved much beyond that “I provide, you put out” mentality!

But the story, or some version of it, is still being told. I’ll end this meandering post with the evocative lyrics of a Tim Buckley song. If you download music, check out the glorious rendering of the song by Tim’s son, Jeff Buckley.

Once I was a soldier
And I fought on foreign sands for you
Once I was a hunter
And I brought home fresh meat for you
Once I was a lover
And I searched behind your eyes for you
And soon there’ll be another
To tell you I was just a lie

And sometimes I wonder
Just for a while
Will you ever remember me?

Though you have forgotten
All of our rubbish dreams
I find myself searching
Through the ashes of our ruins
For the days when we smiled
And the hours that ran wild
With the magic of our eyes
And the silence of our words

And sometimes I wonder
Just for a while
Will you ever remember me? . . . . Ever remember me?

Things . . . (Maggie)

You know, trying to warble with Pasty Cline or belting out the Blues with Janis Joplin only works for so long. I've been doing so for darn near a week now, (okay, five days.) For a while it helped me feel better about missing my man, but the fun has worn out, and I just need him home now. Fortunately, he should be back tonight. And if anything happens to prevent that, may the Gods have mercy on us all, cause I'm going to lose it. =)

So that's what's on my mind today, but there's lots of other stuff too, so let's discuss.
Dateline, Owasco NY. (Don't worry, I'm not sure where it is either.) Two neighbors, fighting tooth and nail over . . . wait for it . . . windchimes. I'm not making this up. It was on the local news last night. (Which tells me I should probably know where Owasco is.) Two houses sit side by side, way too close, which is, of course, the cause of the problem. One resident collects wind chimes, and they hang from every possible locale on her home's exterior. The ringing and tones help her relax, and ease her into sleep.

Meanwhile, the people in the house next door have installed a sound proof window in their bedroom because earplugs were not working. With so many chimes going all it once, the ringing keeps them awake and drives them insane. At one point they snuck over and took all the chimes down, stuffed the pipes with cotton, taped them together, boxed them up and hid them in their garage. Can we say "overkill?" Naturally that was the wrong reaction. Police have been called and now there will be a court case.

I love windchimes, and used to collect them too. I had a big back deck and wanted chimes all over it. And I had them too. I remember one of my daughters once saying the chimes were going to drive her insane. I thought she was having a grouchy day and let it ride. But I realize now they might have really been bugging her. Odd, they never bothered me. But when I think about the amount of noise they made, especially in early Spring and later in the Fall when the wind is blowing almost constantly--yeah, they were loud. That could get to you, if you had to hear it 24/7.

If you love something, loud is a good thing. When a song you like comes on the radio, you crank it up. If you are irritated by something, loud is a bad thing. If static suddenly blasts from the speakers, you turn it down fast. I have to admit, to my biased mind, it does seems to me that if you're irritated by windchimes, you must just be a grouchy son of a gun anyway. But I'm willing to admit that's a personal opinion with no scientific basis.

So who's right? And what Solomon-like wisdom could be imparted to solve this problem? Who should win? What compromise would work? It's a fun one to discuss. And I like to think I could solve the problems of the world if they would just put me in charge. So I've been trying to think of ways to solve this one. I would think having the chimes up by day, down by night, would be the ideal solution. If the chime-collector could just silence them at night, so the grouchy chime-haters could sleep, maybe all would be well. The question this begs is why a group of grown ups couldn't come to that conclusion on their own? Or some other compromise. It's not rocket science. Neither group should be allowed to reproduce. We don't need more idiots in the world. (Do I sound cranky? Can you guess why? If not, you shouldn't reproduce either.)

Okay, back to your day. Make it a good one. I'm heading out to run and will try to get less cranky as the sun beams down on my head and the wind cools my face and my body feels strong and healthy and equal to any challenge and my favorite music fills my ears. If that doesn't work, nothing will!

Maggie

That Was Then This Is Now (Tara Taylor Quinn)

So we all know that today is tax day in the United States. By midnight tonight all US citizens have to have mailed in their tax returns. Or have filed for an extension. Or face penalties. For a good many of us, tax day is not a cause for celebration. Even if we're getting money back, filing for taxes is a hassle. One of those things you generally dread. A lot of us put it off, and in the end, we only do it by April 15th because we have to. Plain and simple.
Who wants to go through a year's worth of financials, collect all forms and fill out all the lines and hope you're doing it right? Or pay to have someone else do it for you? Then there's the pressure of having to make certain that you remember to claim every single taxable item that passed through your bank account - or not - throughout the year. And you worry that you might cheat yourself out of an allowable deduction. Tax laws change all the time. How do you know what you're allowed to do this year that you couldn't do last year? Or vice versa?
For writers and other self-employed people taxes are more onerous. We have to collate every receipt for every meal we ever eat while we're traveling or doing research. Then there are the hotels and traveling expenses. The cost of research books and office supplies. Professional memberships. The publicity expenses. The home office deductions and all kinds of other things to worry about. The laws are very clear. If you speak 'tax law.' I speak good old fashioned 'English.'
And then, for writer's and other self-employed people, you have to consider social security tax and employment tax. For those of us paid from a non-US company, you have to consider that no taxes are taken out of your paycheck. This all gets very serious. And very complicated.
All of the above is true. It's fact.
And yet for me, tax day was something other people talked about. It was in their lives, not mine. For me, none of those things listed above filtered into my existence. In my past life I wasn't in charge of taxes. I had nothing to do with them other than turning over receipts, and I didn't even collect those. I'd never met the accountant. Or even talked to him. I knew very little about deductions or how they were figured. I didn't know about categories, or what expenses were fully deductible, and which ones had only a percentage of deduction allowed. I knew pretty much nothing at all about the personal financial ramifications and responsibilities that came along with being a money earning adult in today's world. I knew about the financial ramifications and responsibilities inherent in running a 9000 member million dollar non-profit organization. That I could do. But when it came to personal financial responsibilities, I was blank. I knew to pay my bills. To balance my check book. To keep a balance there. I knew not to spend more than I had. And to pay off my credit cards. And that's as far as it went with me. That was Then. This is Now.
Today, tax day, I am celebrating. I feel good. Successful. Because for the first time in memory, taxes are done by tax day and I am partially responsible for that. Today, tax day, our taxes are already filed.
Today, I am aware. I have clarity. Sight. I have information written on my page. Today I know. Intricately. Not only are taxes done, but I understand what that means. I know what information went into the process. I know why it went into the process. With coaching from my sweetie, I collected every single piece of information. Collated it. Tim set me up on a spreadsheet that will organize that information in whatever means I require. He taught me how to use it. The thing spits out reports at my behest. It spit out an excel spreadsheet that I could take to our accountant - another willing source of a wealth of information. Our lawyers and the Internet helped with my education as well. I absorbed every bit of information I could find, from tax tables to deductibles. My finished spreadsheet was a work of art. More than that, I have total understanding of what it meant. I got it to the accountant with the information she needed a timely manner. Piece of cake. Done.
Things change. My niece pointed this out to me again on Sunday. She thought my fingernails were funny. She kept feeling them. All ten of them. Multiple times. She insists on sitting with me whenever we're together (which fills up my heart to the brim.) That insistence included church on Sunday. There's not a lot for a four year old to do in church. That was where Claire honed in on my fingernails. She whispered to me about them. They felt funny. She felt her own polished nails. And then felt mine again, even climbed over to feel the five attached to the hand Tim was holding. For all of Claire's life, I've had long, perfectly polished fingernails. For most of my life I've had them. That was Then. This is Now. I don't have long fingernails anymore. They still grow well. They're still strong. But they're no longer polished. Or long. It's kind of hard to build barns and fences, to roof, to garden and to play the guitar with long fingernails. And I know now that there are many things more important than fingernails. Or not worrying about taxes. More important than keeping up appearances. I know. I have clear knowledge. And I'd rather be living fully than to have gorgeous fingernails. (Though if there was a way to do both, I wouldn't be unhappy about that!)
So today is tax day. And I now love tax day. I love the opportunity to be a part of it. To be responsible. The chance - the right - to get it done. I love knowing I CAN get it done. I'm completely capable. I love being a full and contributing member of society rather than an on-looker. To be actively doing my part in helping to support this nation from which I expect much. So there's some onerous work involved in doing taxes, to me it's an honor to get to join the rest of the US citizens out there. I'd rather be financially knowledgeable, fully aware, I'd rather do the work, than to be walking around ignorant. Leaning on the wall at the dance.
Knowledge is a miracle. One that has nothing to do with taxes or finances or fingernails. It's a miracle that gives us power. It gives us belief in ourselves. It gives us strength. It gives us choice.
At most Tax day used to pass me by with a background sense that the day represented hassle and pressure to a lot of people, it meant long hours for accountants, it meant part time jobs for H&R block people. It meant a lot of traffic at the post office. It meant worry. All for other people. To me, tax day had no real relevance.
That was Then. This is Now.
Now, on April 15, 2009, I am empowered. Tax Day is a symbol of freedom. My own freedom to be fully aware. The freedom gained from knowledge - and from knowing that I am capable. From the RIGHT to know. About everything. It is a symbol of the freedom we have to experience all that life has to offer. To have choices. The freedom to live without oppression.
The freedoms promised to me as a citizen of the United States. Freedoms I didn't fully understand, take upon myself, or expect. That was Then. This is Now.

Seriously, no more crud? (Suzanne Forster)

Today’s post will be short, but sweet. Apparently medical science is close to perfecting a flu vaccine that will actually prevent the flu!!! Imagine that. I just read an AARP article that claims they’re working on a single vaccine that can provide long-term protection against several flu strains, including the bird flu.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had some bad thoughts about the bird flu, and when my cute little cement bird bath went dry last summer, I’m ashamed to say that I just left it that way. But now, it seems the scientists may have outsmarted the viruses at their own game. This is how the article put it: “Because the flu virus changes genetic makeup every year, vaccines provide only short-term immunity. But researchers have identified artificial antibodies that can inactivate a stable part of the virus so it doesn’t infect host cells.”

Sounds good to me!

I can guarantee you that it’s great news for folks who work at places like the Boys and Girls Clubs, where you are surrounded by adorable (well, mostly adorable) kidlets and exposed to every bug known to humankind. It’s also good news for those of us who are married to folks who work at the clubs, and who catch every bug that thumbs a ride home with our spouses. Typhoid Allan. That’s what I’ve started calling the dh, lol.

I’ve had the crud twice already this year, and that’s after going out of my way to get one of those so-called flu shots. So, yes, I’m hoping this new advance is the real thing. I’d be able to fill my bird bath without fear! But seriously, think about how amazing it would be to wipe out the flu. Even normal strains can be deadly for the very young, the elderly and the infirm, whose immune systems are compromised. I wonder if it might even help those whose immune systems have been weakened by chemo, like our Lynn K? And the rest of us, who are lucky enough to be able to fend the bugs off most of the time, still get knocked on our bums once or twice a year, on average.

There’s an enormous amount to be gained. I’m sure I haven’t scratched the surface of the benefits, so think a good thought and send it the way of this ace medical research group. Their name wasn’t provided in the article or I would be sharing it, but let’s just hope they’re successful.

And meanwhile, here’s to everyone’s good health!

Suz

The Trip Winds Down (Anne Stuart)

We're in the Kabuki Hotel in Japantown, winding down our trip. We can see our daughter's apartment building from our balcony, yesterday the Cherry Blossom Festival was in full swing, and for breakfast this morning we had fresh California strawberries and pastries from one of the many bakeries nearby. Yum!
While I'm here I'm going to use the deep Japanese bathtub (you sit on a little stool and scrub yourself before you climb in the tub, as anyone who's read ICE BLUE would know, then wallow in the warmth.) There's a gorgeous chaise in our room that I can stretch out on and write, and we've got one more night here before we fly back to the Land of Snow. In the meantime we're going to enjoy our last full day to the fullest, quite possibly by doing nothing at all.

One thing I re-discovered -- driving is the best possible thing for the imagination. There's something about the hum of the tires, the rumble of the motor, the scenery flashing by, that put me into a kind of altered consciousness where the ideas pour down like a waterfall in spring. I've got so many ideas fighting for my attention that I'd like nothing more than to immure myself in my office when I get home and write write write.

What I Have Learned From Trip:

1. I adore my husband of almost 35 years. Always have, always will. He's gorgeous, funny, easy-going, a great driver, a wonderful companion, and he adores me. What more can you ask?
2. I don't want to live in Ashland, Medford, Klamath Lake, Davis, Fort Bragg.
I don't think I want to live in Mendocino, Bandon, Sebastopol, or (gasp) Lake Tahoe. I think when we find out where we want to relocate to, we'll know it. I could be happy in most of those places. But I didn't have that magical "ping" I think I'll feel when we find the place we'll move to. So for now, back to Vermont.
3. And as for Vermont, HURRAY!!!!. Proud of my state. It many ways, most ways, it's the best state in the country. But it has an endless winter, a crippplingly high tax rate (one of the highest in the nation), and everything is hours away. After 38 years it's time to find more sun.
4. People are friendly everywhere.
5. There's no place like home. I'm really looking forward to getting back, where I can write, and quilt, and enjoy the slow end of winter. Wherever it is, there's no place like home (we can all click our red heels together now).

I'll post more pictures when I can make Blogger work better. But in the meantime, here's the video of the day:

Eva Cassidy - Ain't No Sunshine

Okay, my guy's out of town from today until I don't know when. It won't be long--I know he'll be back by Friday at the latest. But still, I'm a big baby and I miss him. And he's barely left. I'm going to post daily to get me through the week, over on my solo blog, Shayne's Shenannigans.

http://maggieshayne.blogspot.com/

Maggie

Happy Easter!

To quote from my Twitter Post, May all your hard boiled eggs peel with ease, all your chocolate be calorie-free, and all your baskets overflowing!

Whether you celebrate Easter or any of the other springtime holidays, the energy is the same. Renewal. Rebirth. New beginnings. A great time to start anew. Perfect place on the calendar to review your New Year's Resolutions, and do a bit of fine tuning. Make some changes, re-commit, or shout out for a total do-over.

Enjoy the breath of fresh air and new life that spring is breathing into us.
B-r-e-a-t-h-e.
And relax. And smile. And look for excuses to feel good!

Maggie

Music and Magic (Patricia Potter)

Everyone who knows me knows I go gaga over Celtic music.

It stirs my soul like no other genre of music. I love classical and I really enjoy romantic piano and great love songs (“Send In The Clowns”, “This Nearly Was Mine”, “Some Enchanted Evening”, “Moon River”, “When I Fall in Love,” etc.). All have honored places on my newly discovered and now revered I-pod.

But nothing speaks to me like Celtic voices, and Irish drums and Scottish bagpipes. And the fiddle. There is nothing like a fiddler to make your feet dance and your hands clap. I dare anyone to have a sad thought when they hear a lively Irish jig.

I am famous for visiting Irish pubs. If there’s one within 50 miles, I’ll find it. (There is one in Washington across from the RWA conference hotel). You can find me there in July, grabbing the best seat early to hear its Irish band and swig Irish beer. Conference? What conference? .

And so the highlight of the month – make it a year – was a performance here of Celtic Women. I blogged about “Riverdance” a few weeks ago, and now I get to blog about “The Celtic Women,” a successor to Riverdance with a lot of the same creators and musicians involved. Yes, they returned to Memphis, and I went Thursday night, and, oh my, it was even better than the first time.

The group performed at our Orpheum Theater, one of those grand old theaters built in the late 1800's and the acoustics are wonderful. Seats were available last year. This year, word has spread and it was sold out almost immediately. I was lucky to get tickets. Armed by a meal of oysters (my favorite food) my critique partner (who is equally as besotted by Celtic music as I am)) settled down for a night of enchantment.

And enchantment it was, partially because of the brilliance of Mairead, the fiddler. As she dances across the stage, driven by the volition of her own music, and swaying to the sweetness of her fiddle, she is magic indeed. And the Bodhran drummers? You haven’t really lived until you hear them. The CDs do not do them justice.

I’m never quite prepared for the impact of a live performance of Celtic Women, Riverdance and Lord of the Dance. I have all the Celtic Women CDs, but the live performances are exhilarating and unique. I’ve never seen an audience respond as it responded to Celtic Women. The audience rose to their feet in unison, and the applause continued over fifteen minutes.

And why not? Their success is astounding. Created in 2004, the group immediately shot to fame. Their first CD rose to the number l position on the Billboard World Music Chart and stayed there for a record breaking 95 weeks. Their subsequent CDs then fought each other for the top position.

So if you have not heard them, or heard of them, I wanted to give you a taste of magic. They have one of the best websites I’ve visited. They have videos of live appearances as well as a brief demonstration of the amazing drums. Just go to the website sit, sign in and browse. And enjoy.

It’s my Easter present to you: http://www.celticwomen.com.

Do you have a favorite genre of music? A favorite group? Tell us about them.

Wishing you all a lovely Easter.

My Favorite Sport (LynnK)

Back in the day, I wanted to be an athlete. At the least, I wanted to make my high school volleyball team. (Didn’t) As my short, ample body amply demonstrated, I wasn’t built for the sporting life. I also lacked dedication, training, discipline, skill, and, well, any attribute required of a sportswoman.

The inner longings, though, did not simply vanish. I still required challenge, effort (not too much of that), and triumph.

So I turned to shopping. And my underappreciated genes immediately high-fived one another. Their deluded child had finally come to terms with her true nature. In my DNA, pulsing with the need to succeed, lives the spirit of a fanatic hunter-gatherer.

And a good thing, too, especially at this time. Like millions of others, I’ve watched my life savings cut in half by the economic downturn. During my year of devastating illness, I was never able to work at anything that paid, you know, actual money. So now, bargains are a requirement, especially for someone recklessly planning not one but two celebratory trips with friends. Yes, I expect to fully recover my usual good health and survive for plenty of years. But having the Spectre at my door for so long reminded me to carpe the diem and gather me rosebuds while I may.

My shopping tactics are no secret. Lots of you do many or all the same things I do. Research is essential. Find good companies with desirable merchandise that often goes on sale at remarkably low prices. Coldwater Creek.com is among my favorites. I lost a lot of weight in the last five months and own absolutely nothing that fits me, which means a whole new wardrobe (which I cannot afford). So nearly every evening I drop into their online Outlet, scanning the offerings for top deals at bottom prices and watching for the occasional “no shipping charges” offer.

Last night, the planets aligned. And with my Christmas present from Pat Potter, who was certain I’d survive to make good use of a CC gift card, I scored $230 (at regular price) worth of clothes for $52. My daily persistence paid off, because hours later, every one of those items was sold out. When hot deals go on offer, you have to be there and ready to pounce.

Coupons are money-savers, but only you don’t abuse them. Been there, done that. I learned that a great deal on something I don’t need costs money I don’t want to spend. Well, I do want terrific discounts on forbidden goodies like cookies and cinnamon rolls, meaning that discipline must rear its scolding head. “Hear up, Lynn. Don’t even cut out those devilishly tempting coupons. Throw them away.”

Discipline is hard for me. So instead of paying for extra pounds on my backside, I promise myself a real treat, like buying a friend’s book or funneling money into Kiva (www.kiva.com), which makes micro-loans to poor entrepreneurs. Yes, I sometimes I use coupons to buy items I don’t want if they’re on sale, often getting them for practically nothing. But then I donate the booty to a food bank. To preserve good karma, a devoted shopper must share her success with others.

Not everyone wants the bother of clipping and using coupons, of course. I have kindly let my friends know they can pass them on to me. And when I have a stock of truly excellent coupons to wield, I seek out a store that doubles the discounts.

I also watch for store sales, although I’m not yet strong enough to take advantage of them. That’s why I’m ordering clothes online. Last Monday I went shopping at a drug store and three grocery stores because their ads promised deep discounts on stuff I wanted. But at the last one, I got lightheaded when unloading the goods to the checkout belt and nearly passed out.

Employees rushed to my aid. Someone found a sturdy picnic cooler for me to sit on. Another helped me run the credit card and sign for my purchases. When I was feeling well enough to totter to my car, luckily parked nearby, my groceries were loaded into the trunk for me. I was also given a bottle of water, in case I felt dehydrated. After waiting to be sure my head was clear and my hands steady, I drove home without incident.

Clearly I overextended myself that day, and in future, I shall be very cautious. There will be bargains out there when I’m ready and able to scoop them up. Just being willing, I discovered, doesn’t cut it. Let me add that I’m never to be found waiting in line for a store to open for After-Christmas sales and the like. Those stampedes fall into the Xtreme Sports category, and while I am a sporting woman, I’m not crazy.

Got any tips for me and my fellow Bargain Babes? Or do you shop only when you must and dislike it when you do?

Don't Worry, Be Happy (Maggie)

I could have really blown it last week. I really could have. You see, it had been 7 weeks since my last hair appointment. It took me a long time to finally find the right stylist at the right salon, to make my hair do what I've always wished it would do. Be sleek and straight and shiny instead of fluffy and frizzy. And to grow longer. (more on that later.) So I found this salon, Aria on the Avenue, in Endicott, and I've been loving it.

But as my latest appointment approached, I was told that it was a bad time to try anything new, cosmetically, as Venus was retrograde, and bad results could occur. Okay. But this was nothing new. Or so I thought. Until, I got a call from Aria telling my that my stylist, Cori, had moved on to a new place, and that I was going to have a new Stylist, Craig.

I immediately got nervous, but decided to go anyway. I'd waited too long, I was on a roll with my hair and I didn't want to break the stride. So the day came, and I went, but I went with a feeling of worry and trepidation. Which meant I could only attract to me the very things I was worried about. And I knew it. So I tried to relax about it all.

But deep down, I must not have succeeded. And I saw the results as soon as I arrived at the salon. My stylist got in a couple of minutes late, which was nothing, but made me worry more. "Is this a bad sign?" I thought. Meaning I could only attract more things that would seem like bad signs.

And I did. They couldn't find the notes my previous stylist had left. And nothing was going to go well without those notes. We had achieved the perfect color, the perfect style, the perfect EVERYTHING. They needed those notes!

And I was thinking, see that? Another bad sign. I knew this wasn't going to go well. Maybe I should just leave.

(Have I mentioned here that you usually get what you expect? So why I'm sitting in a salon expecting a bad result, I cannot tell you. It was pretty dumb.)

So they finally located the notes, and we got to work. And Craig spent the first ten minutes telling me how much he loved the movie made from the book written by the author who hijacked my titles. The one I've been trying hard not to notice, because it makes me have negative feelings, and I don't want to have those, and since I can't focus on it without them creeping in, I try not to think about it at all. Though it's tough with posters and billboards everywhere I turn. And since it's been sort of stuck in my craw for awhile, I thought that Craig being a fan was probably yet another bad sign.

And still I stayed.

So then, while my hair was processing, we went to another station to do my brows. I do a slight tint, and honestly, it takes years off your face, ladies. Try it. But this time, when the treatment was over, I looked into the mirror and had the blackest brows I'd ever had. I almost shrieked. I got upset. I said I looked like Groucho Marx.

Poor Craig. He was so mortified, and rapidly reassured me he could fix it, and he was just following the notes, and that was the color listed, but not to worry, he could fix it.

But as I sat back in the chair, waiting for the fix, I started to smile a little. And as Craig ventured to ask, "Are you angry?" I had to smile. I knew he hadn't done any of this. I had. I'd done it all, by starting out expecting something bad to happen, and I had watched it snowball right before my eyes. There it was, a day at the salon that was living proof that the Law of Attraction always remains consistent. Like the Law of Gravity. You get what you focus on, whether that focus is "Yes, I want that!" or "NO! I don't want that!" Either way, you're focus is on "that." And you get it.

Luckily, Law of Attraction lets you turn things around rather quickly--especially if you're positive and aligned most of the time. The occasional slip can be remedied as easily as shifting your attitude. And that's what I did. I didn't fake it, I felt it. I laughed at myself for bringing all of this on.

My brows were lightened up. And my hair ended up better than ever. Craig turned me on to a new product that makes it a breeze to straighten my hair at home, and smells great to boot, and all is right with the world.

And this post is my lesson for the month. Whenever things start to go bad, I need to stop and look at where my attention is, where my attitude is, what my expectations are, because that is always, always, always the source. You cannot get what you do not, in some way, attract to you, knowingly or unknowingly. Being human, we all attract unwanted things sometimes, and don't realize it until later, if at all. But we can always turn it around. And a lot of crap we pull in serves a higher purpose--to show us more clearly what we do not want, so we can know more certainly what we do want, and turn our attention toward it.

Better, though, to stay on top of it as much as possible, keep ourselves positive and expecting the best. So that's what we get! Check out the video below for more on this!

Till next time,
Maggie

Who Says You Can't Go Back? (Tara Taylor Quinn)

Daffodils are blooming this morning, right outside my office. The yard is blooming. Our new oasis is filled with mature landscaping that was obviously carefully picked and lovingly cared for and, living here, sitting in this office every day with it's two walls of windows, is kind of like Christmas every day. Every morning nature has placed another present outside my window. I see plants peeking up from the dirt and can't wait to see what lovelies unfold in the days that come. Three trees already have white blossoms. Two have red. Yesterday afternoon a gorgeously vivid blue jay entertained me. I could see him in full detail and he seemed quite content to hang around. And we think we have a rose bush. We're both certain we have a rose bush, we're just waiting to see the roses bloom before we let ourselves believe that it's what we think it is. I love roses. Cliche, I know, but there you have it. I'm ordinary. (Ha ha! Only in my favorite flower choice.)

The fence is done. Approximately 340 feet of six foot privacy fence that Tim and I built together, one board at a time. Literally. No panels. No pre-made anything. We dug holes. Cemented posts. And we built. I was the saw worker. Tim set and hammered. Together we built this next phase of our lives. The squirrels thank us. They're like little kids, prancing all over the fence. They jump from the huge tree outside my office onto the fence line and back again. They race each other along the edge. They make me laugh. Taylor sits on my lap and watches them. I wonder what she's thinking. In the other house, she barked at the squirrels. Here she seems content to share her space. I wonder if their joy makes her feel good, too.

So Spring has sprung. At last. The winter was long. A very long confirmation that Arizona is our near future. And yet, Spring in the Midwest is breathtaking. Spring in the desert has its own charm. I miss so much about it, but I am awed by the beauty that surrounds me this morning. The green is so vivid. So colorful. It's everywhere. To someone used to brown ground, brown mountains, to only cultivated grass, this expanse of naturally sprouting grass is magnificent.

And with Spring comes Easter. This weekend already. I can hardly believe it's arrived so quickly. My life seems to be measured from deadline to deadline and I'm not quite far enough in the book for Easter! And at the same time, I'm very very ready for the holiday. Tim and I don't have our kids with us and we miss them terribly, but I'm still looking forward to the weekend. This year is going to be different. We're going to be surrounded by family. Together, with family, we're going back to my childhood church - a place I haven't visited for twenty-three years. It's the church I attended when I fell in love with Tim more than 30 years ago. It's the same denomination he was raised in. Thirty years and some of the same people are there. My youth minister is still there. Thirty years and yet it's so clear in my memory. In my mind. Vivid. Like the colors outside my window. I can't wait to sit there with Tim - a true and deep coming home. And to have my mom and the little ones around us. It's as though, in the midst of the craziness, the exhaustion, the constant push to get through, there is a moment of perfect rightness. And as I hold on to that picture, to the anticipation, as I imagine how it will be and look forward to the moment, it occurs to me that the time in my childhood church is not the perfection. It's just a tangible plan that is allowing me to access the rightness that is here always. And will be available forever. The rightness is here, today, tomorrow, every day that I'm living my life from my deepest heart. I need only to stop to know. Stop to tune in to the deep core that binds Tim and I. To the gift he is to me. The greatest gift. Stop to think about my precious nieces and nephew. To remember my brother and his wife every day. To be thankful, every moment that we have my mother in our lives. That our life with her has blossomed beyond my imagining. Stop to appreciate my brother-in-law, sister-in-law and niece who are just blocks away. Always there. Family in the truest sense. To remember how good it feels when my niece calls or texts. Stop to think about my aunt, my cousin and her family, Pat and Lynn who are always there and even traveling with us this summer. Stop to accept the wealth of unconditional love that Taylor and Jerry give us every single day. Stop to be aware that all of this is the foundation of our lives that make Tim and I so rich. Stop to know that all is as it is meant to be. That someday our children will understand that our love includes them. That we have more to offer them than we ever did before. And to believe that they will come home. Stop to notice the daffodils.

Happy Easter everyone.

Books We Shouldn’t Love (Suzanne Forster)

Have you ever read a book that broke all—or most—of your personal rules for reading enjoyment, and yet you found yourself so wrapped up in the characters and their story that you couldn’t put it down? But you didn’t for the life of you know why? That’s happening to me right now with a novel called Water for Elephants. It’s brilliantly written. The author’s style is engaging and evocative and the pace is brisk, but the story opens in the point of view of a crotchety man in his nineties, who’s in poor health and confined to a nursing home, and who spends his time complaining about the very real indignities of being dependent on a mostly indifferent nursing staff for his care.

It’s really hell on earth, his life, if you can even call it a life. It’s hard to imagine anyone who would want to be in his situation. He certainly doesn’t. And still, you can’t stop turning pages, despite the fact that you’re reading about everything you feared old age could be, once your health—and your independence—have been compromised.

But that’s the least of it. A few chapters in, the story abruptly changes direction and you, the reader, are catapulted seventy years into the past. Now, you’re in the point of view of a twenty-something young man who’s lost everything. His parents have just been killed and all of their earthly possessions have been seized by the bank. This young man can’t even afford to finish vet school and take his exams. So, what does he do? He joins the circus.

And this is a problem because you, Suzanne, the reader, hate circuses and always have. As a kid you found circuses sinister and scary. You really don’t want to read a story about big tops and menageries and side show creatures, but you can’t stop turning the pages. For some reason, you just can’t.

And it only gets worse. The story starts switching between past and present. You’re either in the point of view of the failing older man or the crazy young pup who has thrown himself into a harrowing life of caring for starving, abused animals and falling in love with a married circus performer whose husband is a jealous psychopath—and the young pup’s boss, of course.

Oh, and did I mention that the old man and the young man are one and the same? So, now I know how this story ends. The young pup, who is risking life and limb in the Circus from Hell is going to end up a miserable old man in a nursing home, who would mostly rather be dead.

And Suzanne, the reader, is asking herself … why am I reading this book????

So, have you ever done that? Read a book that went against everything you thought you loved to read?

I actually had to set Water for Elephants aside for awhile to figure out why I was so enraptured with a story that normally should not have worked for me at all. I still can’t give you a definitive answer, but I did realize a few things.

First, Jacob, the protagonist, simply leapt off the pages and into my heart. Whether ninety or twenty, he is bristling with life and desire, the desire for something more. He is not satisfied with his lot, and his striving pulls you along. Also, the situation is completely fascinating. It’s like peeking at a car accident. You don’t really want to, but some powerful mix of dread and curiosity won’t let you not look.

I learned in an early writing class that one of the ways to keep a character sympathetic is to make them a victim of undeserved misfortune. I think we can safely say that Jacob qualifies. Talk about undeserved misfortune! I’m only half way through the book and I can hardly imagine how much more misfortune this guy could encounter and survive. He’s already had more bad luck than ten people, and some of it is caused by his own questionable judgment … but still, you love him and you root for him. You’re in his corner, turning pages, hoping he’ll make it through each and every crazy predicament.

Why? Well, that’s a good question.

He’s vulnerable, but it doesn’t make him weak or hapless. You sense his strength and his goodness. He does impulsive things and feels shame, but it only makes him more human. He loves the circus animals and even though his existence is pretty wretched, he won’t leave them because he fears they’ll die without him. He also dares to express feelings for a woman that could easily get him killed.

That’s the younger Jacob. The older Jacob is simply wonderfully funny and slightly cynical. Those are his saving graces. But he’s also painfully honest about his bruised dignity and his struggles with masculine pride. That makes you ache for him—and love him more. It’s just a wonderful book. I may be wincing and cringing on every other page, but I haven’t been this absorbed in a long time.

I know that sounds crazy, but thank goodness fiction is sometimes so magical that it defies all of our expectations and takes us places we never thought we would willingly go. As I said, I’m only halfway through the book, but I’m delighted to be sharing this journey with Jacob Jankowski. I’ll admit to being very nervous about where it’s going to take him—and me. I still don’t like circuses—and now I know why!—but nothing could persuade me not to go along for the ride.

Suz

Travels with Richie (Anne Stuart)

We're halfway through our vacation and having a truly wonderful time. I need to figure out Picasa or Shutterfly so you can all see the lovely pictures. Right now we're in Klamath Falls, which looks pretty dingy except for the lake, and we'll be driving over toward Ashland, through the fruit fields of Medford (home of Harry and David).
We've been in San Francisco, Sebastopol, Davis, and oh my heavens, Lake Tahoe! Now we're heading up through southern Oregon, heading across to the ocean and back down through the Redwoods, and while we're driving I'm coming up with the most delicious details for the next book. The interesting thing is that most of this will end up in a book eventually, but I never know when. It's not the stuff I go looking for that ends up being inspirational, it's stuff I file away, subconsciously, that pop up months or years later and I never realized it was all waiting for me.

We drove across hundreds of miles of extremely boring high desert in Northwest California, and to while away the time we put ICE STORM on the car stereo (via my iPod). Richie, my darling husband of 34 years, hadn't read it yet, and by the time we got to the scene in the Citroen he was ready to drive off the road. Just wait until he gets to the scene in the safe house. Probably the smartest thing is to play it just before we stop for the night, evil woman that I am. Or is that TMI?

It's been a loooong time since Richie and I were alone together, and I'm finding the empty nest syndrome to be quite lovely. My children seem happy, my health is good, and I have so many wonderful stories to write. You really need to notice when life is good. So often terrible things happen, but for now, for today, life is really quite lovely.

So I'm off to have another splendid day, and I hope the rest of you do too.

Aha, and the video for the day:

This and That (Patricia Potter)

This is a This and That blog. A mishmash of thoughts.

First, about Spring. I, like Maggie, got caught in Spring madness last week, alas only for a day. It was one beautiful Memphis day with my Azaleas beginning to bloom and temperatures hovering in the low 70's. One day, and then the storms came. Rain, and more rain and now we’re told that it will be forty or below tomorrow. For Memphis, forty is cold. Cold and damp and forbidding.

Wasn’t March supposed to come in like a lion and leave like a lamb? Something seems to be awry this year. Usually I’ve planted my garden by now. But cold temperatures and fear of a frost have delayed my usual headlong rush into spring.

Still today (Saturday) is a big day. Forty degrees or not, it’s plant sale day at Memphis’s Dixon Gallery and Gardens, one of the city’s gems. Some 370 different plant varieties will be on sale, starting at 8 a.m., and I intend to be there at the opening. Some of the plants are so rare they are difficult to find in regular retail outlets.

The list emphasizes native gems, such as the bright yellow wood poppy, the graceful bleeding heart and ephemeral white flowers of the bloodroot. Also advertised are American Lily of the Valley, a great plant for my shaded areas, and there will be columbines, cardinal flower, Virginia bluebells, Jacob ladder, Solomon’s Seal and more. There’s also foxglove, both perennials and biennial, with white and yellow flowers, along with a huge variety of ferns and caladiums, and shrubs.

A large percentage of plants at the sale have been tenderly propagated at the Dixon by volunteers known as the “Mad Potters” who work all year on cuttings, putting plants and seedlings into pots, work on labels and assist during the sale.

I’ll return home with a car full of plants and huge amounts of good intentions. I came late to gardening, but I have this inconvenient compulsive streak, and I can’t do just a little bit of anything. A quarter of my large yard is a huge flower garden. Since much of it is shaded by large three giant Crape-Myrtles I usually plant hundreds of Impatiens beneath them. I plan to be more adventuresome this year.

And there’s also the Great Trip to plan. Fellow Broad Lynn and I plan to take a road trip from Memphis to Washington through the Appalachian Mountains. Tara and Tim are meeting us somewhere for a mini reunion, and I’ve been charged with finding the perfect places to stay. We all like bed and breakfast places and there are some magnificent ones in the mountains and the Shenandoah Valley and Williamsburg. Decisions, decisions, decisions. The more I look, the more I want to stay at all of them. The final destination is the RWA conference, of course, but I think this year the fun is going to be in the “getting there.”

I’m also planning, with a critique friend, to pay hooky at the conference. We’re going to run away from home (the hotel), take a train to New York City and see “Wicked.” I love trains. Almost as much as I love boats, and Tara and Lynn and many, many others know how much I adore those. So we’re going as much for the train trip as the play.

Lynn and Tara and I are eager for any advice on the trip. Any great places to stay or visit? We would love to hear them. Advice on gardening is also welcome. What does really well in a shaded spot?

A True Love Story (LynnK)

Let me start by saying I’ve never had a long-lasting, let alone ever-lasting, love affair. Infatuation, yes. Way too often, always with the wrong men! I have loved, yes. I have been loved, yes. But the relationships, often shipwrecked by circumstances, did not endure.

That doesn’t stop me from writing love stories, of course. From experience, I know a lot about love...except the happy-ever after part. And because we are all mortal and subject to what life throws at us, “ever after” is a dream that can only come true in a life other than the one we lead on earth.

Some people come very close to it here on earth, though, and their stories warm our hearts. Let me give you a snapshot of a true love match with which a friend was blessed.

Shirley was 17 and engaged to be married in three weeks to her high-school sweetheart. John, 23 and a Korean War vet, was in Tulsa for aeronautic training. Their gazes met across a local swimming pool.

Instantly smitten, he rushed over and asked her what time it was. Not the greatest opening line in the world! Lucky for him a brief conversation ensued, and Shirley mentioned the name of the place where she worked. The next day, he tracked her down and invited her to a movie at the local drive-in, aka Smooch Central.

Shirley, figuring it was her last chance at a harmless fling, could not resist the handsome young man’s kisses. They must have affected her considerably, because not too long after that evening, she broke up with her fiancé. It wasn't to rush into John’s arms, though. He’d already left for California in search of a job.

But he couldn’t forget the girl he’d loved at first sight. This relationship, he understood, was Meant to Be. Not that he actually proposed. Instead, he sent her a plane ticket. The engagement ring was delivered by parcel post.

Shirley joined him in California, they wed, and money being all but non-existent, they began their marriage crammed into a tiny trailer given them by her mother.

John became a flight engineer and then a commercial airline pilot. Flying was almost as much a part of him as his relationship with his wife and family, which included a daughter and three sons. He bought a plane of his own and took it up whenever time allowed.

In 2004, after forty-plus years of marriage, John learned he had late-stage colon cancer. Surgery and chemo beat it back for a time, but in 2007 it returned with a vengeance. Supported by Shirley, his children, and his five grandchildren, he fought as long and hard as he could. His love and will to live were strong and kept him going until well past the time his pain had grown unbearable. His own suffering was mirrored by that of the family, torn by wanting to free him and longing to keep him for as long as possible.

Came a day, though, when Shirley knew it was time to bid him Godspeed. I’ll let her tell you that part of the story, which she shared with me in person not long after his death. It has haunted me, and inspired me, ever since.

~John’s life was flying. A dream he first had at the age of five when he saw an eagle soaring high over the Yosemite Park where he was camping with his family. He realized that dream and flew as a commercial airline pilot for thirty-five years. It was only fitting that his last moments on earth would be phrased in aviation terms. He had remarked many times during the final months that he was in the holding pattern waiting to board his final flight.

In his last hour on January 3, 2008, the family gathered around his bedside. Our third son, Jim, who is also a pilot, said, “Dad, you’re out of the holding pattern and cleared for approach.”
John asked, “Am I number One?”
Jim answered, “Yes, dad, you’re number one.”
Then John asked, “Is the runway in sight?”
Jim replied, “Not yet, Dad, just watch your gauges. It’ll be soon.”
Jim then said, “Dad, you’re cleared to land.”

John drew one last breath and made a perfect landing on his final flight. He is soaring the heavens free as an eagle and at peace.~

Shirley told me the hospice nurse had expected him to slip into a coma before dying, but he never did. In his last moments, he was with the people he loved, piloting his plane and bringing it smoothly to ground.

P.S. Shirley Wilder is writing a book about love, grief, and recovering from a great loss. Titled Two Shirts at a Time—a reference to the difficulty of letting go even the simplest possessions of the beloved—it will begin with the story of John’s son guiding him in for a landing.

But Mom.... (Maggie)

Today is gorgeous! It's already warm and sunny and the weatherman says it's going to be 65 today! He also says it's the only really good day we'll have for at least the next seven. And I have a novella that's overdue, a workshop to prepare for Saturday and a dozen other little tasks that would involve staying indoors.

I could whine about it, and work all day and resent it for the rest of the week, but I'm not going to. I'm going to work this morning and play this afternoon, and whatever doesn't get done on this gorgeous day will get done over the course of the next few icky ones. Because life is too short to waste a day like this one indoors--especially after waiting all winter for a day like this one! It makes me feel like a little kid again, getting up in the morning, facing the big yellow school bus when what you really want to do is play outside. "But Mom, it's so nice outside!" And if that didn't work, "But Mom, I have a tummy ache!" I feel for the kids getting on the bus today. If I still had kids at home, I'd probably let them all skip today. (I was that kind of mom, and they all went to college and have great lives underway, so my methods didn't ruin them at all.)

That's one of the keys to a great life, I think. Making the most of it, doing the fun stuff, making it as important a priority to you as the stuff that simply must be done.

So I'll write, yes. And then I'll go for a run outdoors and enjoy the sunshine and the music blasting from my Ipod and the warm breeze. And while I'm writing, I might even incorporate the day--maybe I'll take the laptop out on the deck and work out there. I've already got the doors and windows flung open wide. There are birds chirping like mad--apparently, they're happy about the arrival of spring as well!

My only advice to you for today is to seize the day--heck, seize the moment. Milk every bit of pleasure and fun and joy you can from life, and all will be well. A happy person gets more done and has more success doing it, than a miserable one.

So get out there today and enjoy it. Carpe diem, baby.

Short blog, I know. But I hope you take it to heart and decide, right now, that you too are going to have some fun today!

Hugs,
Maggie

Lets Talk About Sex

Yeah, I mean it. Let's talk about sex. Really talk about it.

What is sex? A scientific joining of bodily fluids to make babies? Just another form of in vitro fertilization? Or is it merely a form of pleasure, no different than a glass of good wine and a chocolate strawberry? Is sex about a relationship between two people anymore?

Is sex making love? Or is that only a moniker? The Storybroads are romance writers - among other things. Our stories are vastly different. We range from historical Scotland to Vampires. From bulimia to suspense. And we all write about romance. We write about relationships. Specifically, one on one intimate relationships.

And yes, we write about sex. Sex scenes. Love scenes. Bedroom scenes. Whatever you want to call them. In our books these scenes are mostly focusing on the emotions present during the intimate moments, but there are body parts, too. Some more than others. Some a lot more than others. But the emotion is always there. Or the lack of it is brought forward as a major issue. Because in romance, love and sex, emotion and sex, always go together. In romance, sex without love is emotionally devastating. It's cause for huge conflict - internal and external. In romance, sex without love is cheap. Un-heroic. Empty. Far less than it is meant to be. In romance, sex without love is...wrong.

I believe in romance. I always have. I believe in what I write. I believe that physical acts without love bring emotional pain. I believe that sex IS making love. And I believe that the act of making love is sacred.

As much as some of us try to convince ourselves that our bodies are just a physical entity, something we can use and abuse, we still can't change what we are. As human beings we are bodies and souls. Interconnected. In our current condition, our current realm, we can't disconnect our bodies from the soul assigned to it. Just so, we can't do anything with or to our bodies that doesn't also involve our souls. Our person. Whatever happens to your body ultimately effects the person you are here on this earth, in this lifetime. So how could you join two bodies, without also, for that instant, joining two people?

We can tell ourselves we do. We can tell ourselves that we can have sex without involving ourselves. We can convince ourselves that our minds are able to separate completely from body. But can we? Really? Or is there more going on that we sometimes choose to ignore? Can we just have sex, no strings attached? We say we can.

I heard this week that it's a new generation. I heard this from a real person. A good person. With agreement from many other people. Young people. Today's young people. They say that saving yourself for the person you're going to spend your life is not the way anymore. It's a new generation. No one does that. They are choosing to have sex, at an age when I would have been afraid to even think about having sex, and go on as though nothing bad happened. As though nothing significant happened. As though nothing changed. They think sex is a great part of life. But sometimes even less significant than getting a drivers license. Or a first car. They're having sex long before they're mature enough to have a marriage to go with the sex. Before they're even old enough to get a job.

I'm saddened beyond belief. I'm heartbroken. How did we get from intimate relationships being sacred, to them being as commonplace as a Friday night movie date? And no more meaningful? How is that fourteen year olds all over the country are sending naked pictures of themselves to boyfriend and girlfriends? What has happened to us as a people? As a society? As human beings? What have we done to our children???

It's truly frightening. Our young girls seem to have very little concept of the true value of their bodies. They don't consider intimacy sacred. It's cool. Something worthwhile to do. Like having a blizzard from Dairy Queen. It's a different generation.

Part of it is the Internet. Another part is television and the movies. I get that. We completely wiped out the mystery of physical intimacy for our kids by splashing body parts so freely. We've desensitized ourselves and our children. Butts and breasts are turning up all over the place. Just recently, on regular television, I saw an ad for a vibrator. A vibrator! On television that children watch. And the spokesperson was a mature woman who starred on a very popular family oriented murder mystery show. There's no mystery left.

Sexual 'education' is all over the Internet. You might have to pay to get into a site, but apparently even the front page has body parts to teach anyone anything they might not know.

So am I just getting old? Are my ideals old-fashioned? Is there some way to separate body from soul and have intimacy without the heart being involved? Is there a way to join two bodies into one and have the souls, the people, remain completely separate? Am I missing something? Isn't sex making love anymore? Isn't it the most intimate bond between a man and a woman? That which keeps them connected only to each other through a lifetime of the hardships and ups and downs of living? That which makes them one, makes them an entity separate from everyone else? I've never heard of one married couple who had a healthy bedroom relationship who split up. Not one. Maybe there are some. But they are the minority. There's a reason couples with a good sex life with each other, stay together. The ultimate bond is keeping them glued together.

There was a show on television last week, another family oriented show during family viewing hours, and the man was explaining how much he loved his wife - that there was nothing between him and the woman he'd recently had sex with (not his wife) and that he and the woman both understood that. He and his wife were having a baby. Didn't that prove how much he loved her and wanted to be with her?

Did it? Not to me. How could he say he loved his wife and be sleeping with another woman? And how could that intimate act between him and the other woman mean nothing? They were naked with each other! They were intimate. How could that mean nothing? If nothing else they created a memory of a time together, just the two of them, that had major physical feeling attached. For a time, they made themselves at least physically vulnerable to each other. I wonder what his wife thought about it all. If he'd really had a wife and this hadn't just been acting? Because the truth is, what we see on TV becomes how people act. It defines our society - at least in some fashion. People learn from TV. They use it to justify their actions. Rightly or wrongly, it happens.

I read that back in the late fifties or early sixties Lucille Ball wanted to wear pants on the I Love Lucy show. That was back when women still wore dresses every day. There was a dispute with the production company. And eventually a compromise. Lucy could wear pants, but only in limited numbers of scenes.

And what happened? Women in everyday, real life started to wear pants. Today, women wear jeans as often, or more often, than men do. Yet I remember a time, back when I was very young when I went to spend the night with a little girl who became my lifetime best friend. I couldn't wait. And when I got there, the little girl's mother was wearing jeans. I couldn't stay. I cried and had to go home. I remember knowing I just had to get out of there. I wasn't safe. Because moms didn't wear jeans. This really happened. My mom had to come and take me home. Today, I wear jeans every single day. And I'm a great mom. Society taught me that it was okay. What we see on television teaches us.

I'm afraid for our children. And for our world. We keep hearing that we need a return to family. To family values. What kind of families are we going to have if sex is no more sacred than a Dairy Queen blizzard?

Because of AIDS and an awareness of std's, we're teaching our kids in school to have safe sex. Don't we get that we're teaching them to HAVE sex? If we don't also teach them in the classroom, with more emphasis, about love and romance and the sacredness of joining two bodies, how are they going to know that the two things, body and soul, go hand in hand, until it's too late? Until they've de-sanctified something sacred. Until they've done something they can never undo. We scare them silly about std's. But we don't scare them about the long term emotional effects from having multiple partners. We don't scare them about having a world where fidelity doesn't matter. It seems to me that our society is demoralizing the act of making love by making it just one more part of the day. We've made it too commonplace.

I recently came in contact with a group of high school girls. None of them sixteen yet. These are good, church going girls with good grades. Girls involved in school activities. Not one of them was a virgin. They speak of sex like I speak of what I had for lunch.

They say it's a new generation.

I say we have a problem.