Category Archives: Uncategorized
Permission to Age
Botox has been good to me. Not that I’ve ever used it. But it has provided me with a couple of nice red herrings to cover up poisonings.* Fictional poisonings, I mean, of course.
Botox has a bad rep. Nobody ever praises a woman for getting her jowls propped up. You don’t hear, “She deserves that lovely face. Think of the needles she’s endured.” And when a man indulges…! Nothing articulate need be said. Sniggers suffice.
Yet the American public is equally censorious about having saggy jowls when two conditions obtain: 1) you are a public figure, and 2) you are a woman. Yes, there are women who power through the pressure, and men do account for a low but rising percentage of Botox patients. However, my unscientific matched-pair study indicates severe injustice on the saggy issue.
Consider my first pair, an odd couple who may loom large in your nightmares at the moment.
Hillary Clinton – this is just my opinion, now – does not appear as nature made her. Scalpel or needle, this is not the face of a 68-year-old grandmother who’d be fine with staying at home with the darling baby. But why can’t the potential President of the United States look like a 68-year-old grandmother? The alternative President offered us by the Democrats looks like a grandpa, all right, and one with an uncertain temper at that. And somehow that’s fine.
Don’t ask me about Donald Trump. I can’t get past the hair.
Possibly Europeans are less uptight about their political figures. At least until recently, the most successful and respected of them all was “Mutti.” 
That’s what Germans call their Chancellor, Angela Merkel. (Her actual title is Kanzlerin – “Lady Chancellor.”) And Mutti means “Mummy” in German, not “mutt.”
Moving on to the journalism business and triplets instead of a pair, whom do we trust and revere more than our news anchors? (Well, yes, there was that thing with Brian Williams, but still….) Judy Woodruff of the PBS Nightly News Hour is – again, my opinion – a worthy successor to Jim Lehrer. In particular, she handles the Friday political news round-up with Mark Shields and David Brooks as well as Jim ever did. Now, here’s Judy, age 69:
And here are Mark (78) and David (54).
How is that fair?
I started brooding about all this when I visited the websites of published female authors. A lot of them are “of a certain age.” Not as old as I am, maybe, but they’ve traveled some distance. And so many of them are bloody gorgeous! For whatever reason. Make-up, maybe.
If I ever make it to published status, I’m going to have problems. I’m afraid of needles, and even more of knives. (Hence my fondness for poisonings.) So unless my friends stage a serious intervention, here’s what my readers will see on the back cover of every book I write:
*Before any dermatologists write in, let me point out that, properly administered, Botox does not pose a risk of poisoning. You just aren’t supposed to get it into your bloodstream. So if you do go for the Barbie look, see a doctor and have it done right, okay?
WRITING WILL TAKE OVER YOUR LIFE
WRITING WILL TAKE OVER YOUR LIFE!!!
It’s true.
It’s not bad, but it is true.
Before I began writing with my group, the Thursday Night Writes, I was happy and carefree. I’m still happy, but the cares, oy vey.
I had hit the floor running with a full length cozy. Now, six years later, I find myself staggering along with the same cozy. Sure it’s improved, I can see that, but I want it done. I want to stop thinking about it and I can’t. It preys on my mind constantly.
What should I do about it? Finish it, you say? I don’t have time to finish it.
This lack of time is problematic to say the least. What I need is an unlimited amount of time. Away from home and distractions. With meals brought on a tray. Well, maybe I’ll need to get the food myself, but there will be a tray, I’m sure.
The perfect solution appeared to me in a stressed out moment. I needed good quality jail time. Not prison, not anything longer than six months, just a half year stint in a upscale jail.
When I presented my idea to the group they thought I was surely jesting. Our resident ex-cop was aghast. I wanted to know what crime I could commit that would land me in swanksville for half a year. I knew how jails operated. Three square meals a day, semi-private room, exercise time, and privileges for good behavior.
A class B misdemeanor was what I wanted. It’s less than a felony, and quite possibly after my book was done I could get a good lawyer to have my misdemeanor expunged. Maybe I could pay off said lawyer with my royalties. Hmmm.
A class B could be shoplifting, or possibly drunk driving, among other things. These two are the most popular. Jean Valjean got a heck of a lot longer sentence for nicking some bread for his starving sister and her child, but we live in a more enlightened age. Six months, tops.
Or, if I were to say the F word in court, especially if I directed it at the judge, I could get six months. I’d have to be in court for something already, and this plus that would make my time add up to possibly longer than I’d intended.
The closest I ever got to jail was long before I began writing. More recently I rolled through two stop signs and was pulled over by a distinguished gent with a badge. I tried to bribe him with some freshly baked baklava. He could smell it as soon as I’d rolled down the window, but he was having none of it. He let me off with a warning. A verbal warning, not even one in writing that I could contest in court and perhaps have the opportunity of using the F word.
Possibly a simpler solution to my problem is simply to let writing take over my life. Imprison myself at home, handcuff myself to the desk, hypnotize myself into foregoing snack and meal breaks until the cozy is done.
Ah, then revision. There’s the rub.
When you know you’ve made it as a writer
You know you’ve made it as a writer when your career is the subject of one of the questions on the Buzztime Trivia game at Buffalo Wild Wings. We were “dining out” with our oldest grandson at B-Wild at Chandler Fashion Center when I glanced up at the huge screen on the wall connected to the tablet at our table and read a question I could actually answer. In other words, it wasn’t sports related.
The question was, per my recollection, “who writes about the nightmarish side of society?” I’m unsure who the other choices were but I knew immediately that Joyce Carol Oates was the answer. She may not be everyone’s cup of tea but I happen to love her books, as depressing as they tend to be. Wonder what that says about my psychological makeup?
I was fortunate to hear Oates read from her novel “The Accursed” at the Canaan, NH, Meetinghouse Readings on July 11, 2013. (Was it really almost three years ago?)
Anyone living within an hour’s drive, or more, of Canaan, NH, please plan to attend the readings at least once. The Meetinghouse, built in 1793, is worth the trip alone. I don’t know how the moderator convinces such acclaimed authors to make the trek to Canaan but you are certain to find at least one each summer that has you sitting on the edge of your bench, pinching yourself to check that you haven’t ventured into an alternate universe.
If I had to choose between being a question on the Buzztime Trivia game and reading from one of my novels at The Meetinghouse, without a doubt I would choose the latter. On second thought, I’d prefer to follow in Oates’ footsteps and do both.
So, I Signed Up for Duotrope
SO, I SIGNED UP FOR DUOTROPE
I went for the free introductory week.
It will take me a full week, and probably more, to navigate everything they offer the writer who wants someone else to do her research. There’s nothing wrong with that. I feel totally inadequate to the task of finding someone, anyone out there, who might be interested in something I wrote. That’s what Duotrope does, and they say they do it best.
Does that include miracles?
Yeah, right.
When I cleaned off my desk several weeks ago I found bits and pieces of stories never finished, short, short stories, and other amazing things I’d forgotten I’d written. Some were, to me, good. Some I remembered as better than they appeared now in the light of many day’s (year’s) passage. Some were ‘gag’ me material. Gah.
Will Duotrope find homes for these treasures and for the ones I’ve been steadily working on for lo these many years?
Meaning a miracle?
Duotrope will not only do the search for an agent or publisher for my unique story, they will keep track of what I’ve sent out, when I’ve sent it, and how long it should be before I hear back from the recipient. They will refine the search for the perfect spot for my story to the smallest number possible, almost guaranteeing success.
But do they do miracles?
Is a miracle the same as pulling a rabbit out of a hat? Definitely not. The rabbit was hidden in the hat already. A miracle is when there’s no rabbit, but something manages to get pulled off anyway.
I have to write something way better than a ‘gag’ me story. I have to pull all the bits and pieces of a story into one homogenous whole. And I have to take a good story and make it the best I can.
Is that the miracle?
No, unfortunately. It’s called pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
Why don’t I write?
Today’s post on the Maine Crime Writers blog by Bruce Robert Coffin about why he writes resonated with me, as do many of their posts. Beyond the writing connection, it may be because I spent my “formative” years (ages 4 to 14) living in Bangor.
Funny how my reasons for not writing when I should be writing mirror Coffin’s reasons for writing…
He writes to quiet those voices he hears in the middle of the night. When I can’t sleep, I think about my characters and what they are up to and–just as when I was hypnotized on a stage in front of hundreds of people–before I know it I’m sound asleep. No need to keep pen and paper on my nightstand. (I do but, as you may recall, I can’t read what I’ve written so I use it for grocery lists.)
Coffin apparently has some demanding, strong-willed characters in his stories who have no qualms about disagreeing with his plans for them. My characters, on the other hand, hang around as they lean against the walls, hands in their pockets, and wait for direction from me. Don’t they realize how much work they make for me with their lack of gumption and rebelliousness? Give me a protagonist who has a mind of her own and flaunts (my) authority and I’ll step back and let her take charge.
I don’t know where he gets some of his characters, either. Apparently his Sergeant Byron takes Coffin for rides in his car on his way to catch the bad guy. Instead of the other way around. As none of my characters have drivers’ licenses they expect me to drive them wherever they need to go. I just don’t have time for that. Maybe carpooling is the answer?
One thing we do have in common is that he doesn’t appear to prepare in-depth outlines. (And why should he? His characters run the show.) I’m a proud pantser and I surmise that Coffin is as well, based upon his comment that the enjoyment he derives from writing is not knowing what is going to happen in his stories.
Unfortunately for me, a newbie cozy/murder mystery writer, demands are being made of me that I may not be able to meet. After submitting my rough plot summary and character description for a new cozy to my writing group last night I’ve been asked to write the murder scene. Before I write anything else. The audacity! That I should know “who done it” before, well, before I know anything else. Apparently the writer, unlike the reader, should know this prior to investing time and energy into writing the actual book. Sigh. Big sigh. How do I reconcile this with my badge of honor as a pantser? I suppose it could be to ensure that the reader will want to invest time and energy into reading my book…
A Miserable Week
A Miserable Week
It was a misery specific to me alone, and I could have suffered that way except for good friends and good books. The books had more endurance, friends would cluck, cluck and duck out after finding me, the drama queen, unendurable.
I had a toothache. There’s probably no one who is a stranger to toothache, and if there is, then harken unto my words and stop eating desserts. Or go back and be born with exceptionally strong teeth. There’s nothing like a toothache to reform a dessert-aholic or to to make him wish for a better genetic profile. Even if the reformation and all the wishing in the world are only temporary.
So, at the apex of the pain, I had an extraction. I’m not even going to talk about that, it’s too fresh. It was yesterday.
Good books were what pulled me through this ordeal. They will sit with you for however long it takes for the pain medication to kick in, even longer if you like. They uncomplainingly drop from your hands and onto the floor when, in a weakened condition or during a brief snooze, your fevered fingers lose their grip. Name one acquaintance who would stand for that.
I’ll tell you who stood me in good stead during this prolonged, painful ordeal. It was Jasper Fforde.
Oh, good grief. Is she going to babble on about him again? Every other blog post it’s Jasper Fforde this, or Jasper Fforde that. The man doesn’t even know how to spell his own name!
Yes, I am going to babble on about J.Ff., and here, from two erudite researchers, are comments on the double Ff (ff):
I’d heard the “ff” was from an old calligraphic way of writing a capital “F” — it only looked like a doubled lower case letter. But folks (or is it “ffolkes”?) misinterpreted it, and over time it became “ff”. (scratch1300)
I think scratch1300 is on the right track. From Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable] [quote] Double F (Ff, or ff) as an initial in a few personal names, as Ffoulkes, ffench, etc., is a mistaken use in print of the medieval or Old English capital F as it appears written in engrossed leases, etc. In script the old capital F looked very much like two small f’s entwined. (bibliophage)
That’s all I’m going to say on that subject, except maybe I’ll use that spelling on occasion when I’ve got a character who needs an uplift.
How fast we mortals forget our resolves. My husband just came home and was about to eat the last piece of rum cake, but I beat him to it.
Getting cozy
Remember my last blog post where I announced that I was combining my three partial novels into one novel with three main characters, three points of view? I’ve scrapped that idea and moved on to a new one that is certain to be my final one.
Maybe.
You’re probably wondering what possible iteration is left. Drum roll, please. Two novels! “It Takes A Village Store” has transmogrified back into a standalone novel. A cozy, no less. (You may sense the influence of a few of my writing group members.)
I was surprised at how easy it was to transform “It Takes A Village Store” into a cozy. Deciding who to kill was easy–he was an existing, dislikable character. Adding more characters, potential murderers and their motives, was easy as well. Amazing how far you can get without a plot. I’ve volunteered to submit a plot outline to my writing group at our next meeting. Always a challenge for me, a pantser, to quantify my story. Especially before writing it. The other challenge is that my daughter and her family from Virginia (her house is the setting for “The Intruder”/”He’s All She Has”) arrive tomorrow and leave Sunday. And Sunday is Easter.
Excuses, excuses. Don’t worry, dear writing group members, I’ll submit an outline and you’ll help me revise it. And revise it.
That leaves the other two novels fitting together perfectly into one–mother, Anne, and daughter, Olivia. In love with the same man. I’ll definitely have to develop a different take on this overdone concept. Anyway, that’s way off into the future at the rate that I write…
Sunset in Arizona
IS IT TOO EARLY FOR SPRING CLEANING?
IS IT TOO EARLY FOR SPRING CLEANING?
I cleaned out the bathroom closet yesterday, and after, kept opening the door to admire my handiwork. I told my husband and my son to check it out, both of them said it looked the same.
I cleared off my desk on the weekend. Now that was some task. No one could say it looked the same after I had hauled off a stuffed to the gills hefty trash bag of STUFF. But no one noticed. Sigh.
Usually I clear off my desk between stories. I think maybe I neglected to do that the last time or two, because this mess was the worst I’d ever seen. The boxes of Christmas cards only indicated that I was three months late. The chapters from my novel that I’d last worked on in October was another indication that I’d been remiss in tidying up. But, what about the open chessboard with sticky notes indicating strategic moves that I’d been using as reference. . .to a story I hadn’t touched in a year!
Things were in a bad way. My desk was my brain’s Portrait of Dorian Gray. I couldn’t think. Though seemingly calm and collected on the outside, my mind wasn’t able to move through the muck that surrounded me.
I got to work. I was brutal. Maybe I shouldn’t have tossed so liberally, maybe there was something vital in all those papers I burnt. Maybe. I’ll never know. They’re burnt, like bridges, behind me. But I second guess, and move on.
My desk is a ten foot counter top, on a balcony that overlooks my living room. I overlook the other way, at a short wall and the ceiling which slants up over my head. No window. Stuff tacked randomly in front of my face. It’s a place of work. It was, before the weekend, a piece of work, the ten feet narrowed down to two feet around my laptop. Now I can breath. I can move on from the short story that I will, today or tomorrow, send in to a contest, and go back to that novel of last October. Or something else. Who knows. I’m moving on. My brain, like my desk, is a now a tabula rasa. Some might agree with that in a literal way concerning my brain, but by chucking out all the crap from my desk, I’ve freed my mind up for the next great writing endeavor. Whatever that may happen to be.
It’s not too early for Spring cleaning.
More than one
Taunted by the books
The royal blue three-ring binder taunts me from its secure spot on the bookshelf. Eighty-one completed pages of “Anne” with additional pages of notes, outlines, and prose tucked here and there. Hidden underneath are two manila folders. One holds “It Takes A Village Store,” 50,065 words of my 2014 NaNoWriMo submission. “Full Circle,” my 2015 submission, 50,212 words total, is ensconced in the other. The main characters of each novel are strong women from the same family, a mother, daughter, and niece/cousin. The setting is the same town for all three novels.
Originally I intended to have the novels comprise a trilogy but now I am reconsidering that. I feel that it makes more sense to combine them into one novel. How did I reach that conclusion? Good question. One issue is that none of the three are long enough in their current state to be a complete novel. Another problem is that they are extensions of each other, their plots and characters interwoven as only a family can be. I could solve the problems by expanding each of them, differentiating the plots so that they stand alone yet remain connected. Or I could stick with my decision to produce a single novel. Flip a coin?
I have looked for novels with more than one main character, and diverse points of view (obviously), for inspiration. I am surprised that the last three random books I’ve read meet those criteria. (“The Valley of Amazement” by Amy Tan; “the speed of light” by Elizabeth Rosner; “Life After Life” by Jill McCorkle.) Each one has taken a different approach, probably none of which will work for me.
A long time ago I heard that first-time authors should stick to a straightforward, one main character, one point of view, story. I can see the wisdom in that advice. Yet I’m in a situation where that won’t work. Unless I write three separate novels. Can you hear my teeth gnashing?
No wonder the binder and the two folders that took up valuable space in my suitcase—at least two pairs of shorts worth–have sat untouched on the bookshelf for two months. (Of course, they also are on my laptop but a hard copy is easier to edit. You’ve got to pick it up to do that.)
My only writing goal for this winter in Arizona was to work on this project. Instead, I have devoted my writing time to my short story, “He’s All She Has” (originally titled “The Intruder”). The last revision of this story garnered the suggestion from John, our facilitator, that I put it aside and move onto something else. And I thought it was one revision away from being completed…I’ll try to put a positive spin on it–guess I’ll have time to work on my novel(s)!
Dubious Sanctities
The Celtic goddess Brigantia
Between bouts of work on my mystery novel, I tinker with a literary work. It’s so serious I can hardly shift it most of the time, but it does have lighter moments. Since it takes place in Ireland, those moments often involve saints.
Ireland favors saints who are hard to pin down, some of dubious origin. They tend to be knowledgeable about human wants and needs, and indulgent of them. I’m far from the final cut on which sanctities will be included. This makes a perfect excuse for “research” that takes me away from the grunt work. Today, I offer you a sampling of my favorites.
The Irish are all good Catholics, even the bad ones. This is possible because, after they had submitted to the church, they went higher up and cut their own deal. St. Patrick, having driven out all the snakes and converted or incinerated
St. Patrick defeats the pagan priests in argument before the High King at Tara
all the pagans, asked and received a boon from Christ: on Judgment Day, Christ will judge the living and the dead – except for the Irish. They will be judged by Patrick. In life, Patrick was not a forgiving sort, but for his own people….
St. Brigid is sometimes called the “second most important Irish saint.” Patrick, being male and alleged founder of the faith in Ireland, is number one. Officially, the church doesn’t care for women in the top job. But Brigid is “the Mary of the Irish.” According to her legend, when she went to take the veil from Bishop Mel, the Holy Spirit caused him to read the form for ordaining a bishop over her.
In fact, Brigid predates Patrick. She began her career of divinity as Brigantia, “the high one”, a Celtic goddess (seen in a Roman-era relief at the top of this post.) She is the saintly patron of blacksmiths, doctors and poets – metallurgy, medicine and poetry were the three magical arts of the pre-Christian Celts.
A modern, but orthodox, sculpture of St. Brigid
Her feast day, Feb. 1, is on the pagan festival of Imbolc. (Imbolc has since slipped by a day and been reduced to the yearly appearance of Punxatawny Phil the groundhog to foretell the spring.)
Brigid’s symbol, the cow, was the store of wealth and unit of account among the pagan tribes of Ireland, and her miracles include the sudden appearance of milk, butter and cheese in vast quantities, as well as beer, beer, beer. Irish priorities are clear: first the beer, and only then the loaves and fishes. On one occasion of drought, she converted her bathwater into beer, a very Irish conversion. She could also hang her cloak on a sunbeam.
St. Brendan the Navigator was an Irishman, and his tales are tall. He set sail in a curragh — a boat not much more than a cockleshell made of hides and waterproofed with fat. In it, he traveled west across the Atlantic for seven years to the “Promised Land of the Saints,” the “Land of Promise” or perhaps the Garden of Eden. Mind you, he only went because St. Barrid told him that he, Barrid, had already been there.
Brendan the Navigator with his towers of crystal
On the way, Brendan landed on a whale, saw floating crystals as high as the sky and was pelted by burning rocks from an island, so clearly he got as far as Iceland.
Brendan also encountered Judas, sitting drenched and miserable on a rock in the midst of the sea. Judas explained that this was his Sunday holiday; the rest of the week, he spent in Hell. The church insists that Brendan’s journeys were for the purpose of converting the heathen and founding abbeys. He is the patron of Clonfert Abbey, so that just shows.
I don’t plan to confine myself to Irish saints. The Irish venerate whatever saint can best deliver what is needed (for a certain value of ‘need,’ which includes beer.) My heroine will have recourse to St. Walter of Pontoise, a sad fellow from a place near Paris.
Sad St. Walter, after a chat with the Pope
Walter wanted only to be left alone in a monk’s cell to fast and pray, but the King of France appointed him abbot of the monastery. The poor man ran for it but was caught and brought back. This happened several times. Finally, the pope put his foot down and told Walter to stop complaining and do his job. Now, he is the patron saint of people whose jobs are getting to be too much for them.
Another favorite of mine: St. Ubald of Gubbio can be invoked against headaches, which I take to mean anything that makes a nuisance of itself without justifying immediate flight. If things get even worse, St. Ubald is said to have miraculously defeated an invading army and talked Frederick Barbarossa himself out of sacking the city of Gubbio. More: he is invoked contra omnes diabolicas nequitias – “against all diabolical depravity.” I presume I can involve my heroine in absolutely anything and get her out of trouble in the end.
St. Ubaldo’s incorruptible body in the basilica at Gubbio, beyond all woes
To speed you on your way, here is a prayer attributed to St. Brigid, as translated (perhaps loosely) and performed by the Irish singer Noirin Ni Riain on a recording with the Benedictine monks of Glenstal Abbey in County Limerick:
I’d like to give a lake of beer to God.
I’d love the Heavenly
Host to be tippling there
For all eternity.
I’d love the men of Heaven to live with me,
To dance and sing.
If they wanted, I’d put at their disposal
Vats of suffering.
White cups of love I’d give them,
With a heart and a half;
Sweet pitchers of mercy I’d offer
To every man.
I’d make Heaven a cheerful spot,
Because the happy heart is true.
I’d make the men contented for their own sake
I’d like Jesus to love me too.
I’d like the people of heaven to gather
From all the parishes around,
I’d give a special welcome to the women,
The three Marys of great renown.
I’d sit with the men, the women of God
There by the lake of beer
We’d be drinking good health forever
And every drop would be a prayer.
Eleanor Ingbretson
Karen Whalen
llandrigan
Heidi Wilson
Mike M
Thursday Night Writes 