The Family Treethyme

Winter Dreams

2012-02-01T20:24:00.004-05:00

A friend of mine recently sent me a poem she wrote for me. She said to "Picture one of your red-hot character lovers next to you!"

(Thanks - I will! )

A big shout-out to Kathy Shattuck, who blogs at Prosetry in Motion. She gave me permission to share this - enjoy!

Winter Dreams

Kathleen Sara Shattuck

Close your eyes my nightingale

Visions in sleep will soon entail

Solstice scenes

Within your dreams

Close your eyes to landscapes untold

Hold them near as they unfold

By the fire on cold winter nights

Wishing dreams of beautiful sights

A crackling fire sings of past glories

Floating, drifting, to lullaby stories

Soft and warm, and near to my heart

You lie beside me, and feel the spark

Encircled, entangled, in ecstasy

Our bodies glow in the firelight

Smoldering, burning, tumultuously

Our hearts catch on fire, as the blanket on the floor

Grab the fire extinguisher

my love

and head for the door!

Pinterest: A Virtual Obsession

2012-02-01T12:03:00.007-05:00

The pack rat gene runs strong in my family, although we prefer to call it "collecting."

My grandmother collected china and, later, rabbits - mainly because, once we knew she liked them (not in real life, but in decorative items), from that point on all of her birthday and Christmas gifts from her numerous grandchildren featured rabbits in one form or another.

My mom collects Quimper pottery, quilts and blue-and-white - china, fabrics and everything else. She collected a whole lot more before moving to a smaller house forced her to be more selective.

My daughter collects Blythe dolls, cool make-up and deer (hard to describe, but very cute). My son has a world class collection of shot glasses, to which I contributed more than a few. My husband collects old Bibles and religious icons, and I'm pretty sure he has every Beatle record ever made.

I'm more of a dabbler than a true collector - somehow I've acquired (many as gifts) a number of china, pottery and miniature cats, several Jim Shore figures (my daughter likes them, too), gnomes, china plates with floral decorations, Christmas ornaments, vintage embroidered silk postcards, other old postcards, miniature cottages, old tea cups and old books (some VERY old) on every topic imaginable. I'm sure I've forgotten to mention some things.

I try really hard not to be a packrat, but it was easier when we were young and moved a lot. The trouble with having lots of storage space is you, well, STORE things! I've recently discovered something that may change my whole concept of collecting - AND save me a small fortune. It's called PINTEREST.

Pinterest, a virtual pinboard, describes the site this way:

Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.

Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.

I'd heard about it, but my initial response was a resounding "meh" - I've got social media covered, thanks very much. But my friend, fellow Romance University staffer and critique partner JENNIFER TANNER joined up and said it was fun, so I gave it a shot. I blame her for my current addiction.

I joined Pinterest less than one week ago. If you check out my wall there, you will find 21 boards, 819 pins and 194 likes. I don't think "obsession" would be too much of an exaggeration.

Not that I plan to continue at my current pace. I gave myself the month of January "off" after completing a 99,000 word novel AND a 15,000 word novella just before the end of 2011. I spent my time working on taxes, reading and - obviously! - playing on Pinterest. Today I'm back to writing, revising and blogging. I'm not quitting Pinterest cold turkey, but I won't be pinning at my current pace.

Probably.

A little backstory. I'm a very visual person. You can tell me your name a hundred times, but I'm unlikely to remember it until I see it written down. I was always good at that kids' game called Memory, because it's all visual.

As an example of my visual leanings, I signed up with Shelfari back in the day even though many of my friends were over on Goodreads. Why? Because I liked the virtual bookshelf on Shelfari.

Shelfari: Book reviews on your book blog

See? Pretty cool, isn't it? Much more fun than keeping lists of all the books I read on spreadsheets, like I've done a few times in the past.

So, back to Pinterest. Here's why I like it:

1) It's easy, even for a techno-klutz like me.
2) I like pretty pictures, and it's fun to save them in groups.
3) It's fun to see what other people like.
4) It's not time-consuming. (Theoretically.)
5) It's almost as much fun as collecting the real things.

Here are the two big bell-ringers, though:

6) It's FREE - think of all the money I save by not actually BUYING this cool stuff!

and

7) I DON'T HAVE TO DUST IT!

I just found a Pinterest blog, which offers lots of tips on how to use it. They also have a Facebook page.

If there's a way to find my most popular boards or images, I haven't figured that out yet. To give you an example, though, I posted this cute picture late last night and it's already been repinned 13 times. It's not rocket science, it's just fun.

Wanna come over and play?

Remembering Authors We Lost in 2011

2012-01-05T15:28:00.003-05:00

Writing isn't an easy job, and I have immense respect for those who have made a success of it. Every death is important, but I always feel a strong sense of loss when an author dies.

This is a salute to the authors who died in 2011, in no particular order. If you know of others I missed, let me know and I'll add them. These are primarily - but not all - romance, mystery and paranormal authors.

L.A. BANKS

(1959-2011)

PENNY JORDAN

(1946-2011)

ANNE MCCAFFREY

(1926-2011)

BEVERLY BARTON

(1946-2011)

RUSSELL HOBAN

(1925-2011)

DIANA WYNNE JONES

(1934-2011)

BRIAN JACQUES

(1939-2011)

WILLIAM SLEATOR

(1945-2011)

SANDRA HYATT

(1965-2011)

EMMA BLAIR (aka IAIN BLAIR)

(1942-2011)

JOE GORES

(1931-2011)

LILLIAN JACKSON BRAUN

(1913-2011)

WAYNE GREENHAW
(1940-2011)

R.I.P. - and thanks for the books!

Christmas Eve!

2011-12-23T23:14:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!

2011-12-07T00:30:00.000-05:00

DesiComments.com | Happy Holidays

It's that time of year again...

2011-11-21T17:46:00.000-05:00

These aren't Thanksgiving-related, but I had to share them. Boggles the mind, doesn't it?

It's Baaack!

2011-11-08T11:41:00.014-05:00

Imposter Syndrome. I haz it.

I'm two-thirds of the way through my gazillionth round of revision on my current story. Current being the key word, since there are a lot of other Not Ready for Prime Time stories waiting to be revised.

I've lost track of the number I've "completed." I put that in quotes because, while they have a beginning, middle and end, and are mostly in the 90,000 word ballpark, they aren't complete in the Ready to Submit sense.

In fact, right now I'm thinking more along the lines of "Let's Have a Bonfire and Toss Them All In It." Unfortunately (or fortunately - these moods usually pass), they're not on easy-to-burn paper. They're in my computer.

Bad, bad computer! It sits there, day after day, leering at me. It knows the truth. It's seen all those poor, orphaned stories, the characters lost in the limbo of the unpublished. Surely this state of affairs isn't all MY fault. Moi? No, that can't be right.

I figure my computer should shoulder some of the blame. Remember that scene in OFFICE SPACE where the guys kill the copy machine? I have moments where I picture doing that to my trusty Dell. I just finished paying for the damn thing, though, so I'm trying to restrain myself.

(Did anyone else notice how "should" and "shoulder" are spelled almost the same way? Huh. I have an uncanny ability for using repetitive words.)

Let's have some backstory - God knows, I have a real gift for it. I'm published in non-fiction. Heck, I've had six books published. They all sold well. One is even still in print! And I've read a book a day for most of my life. Surely some knowledge of writing craft must have sunk in?

Not so you'd notice.

I've blogged about Imposter Syndrome before, over at Romance University. I'm something of an expert on it. I'm normally a happy, mild-mannered sort of person, but I used to be a redhead. There's a volcanic temper under my skin. These days, the only thing likely to trigger an eruption is frustration with my writing.

In the four years since I started writing fiction, my skill set has improved in a lot of ways. What really bugs me is the issues that consistently come up.

1) Tone. It's like I have a split personality: one side is light, humorous and chick-lit-y; the other side is dark and scary. There are authors who combine the two successfully, but I'm having a lot of trouble finding a balance. I can't change my voice, nor do I want to. It's the main thing I get positive feedback on (that and dialogue), but it's also a problem.

A couple of contest judges have compared my voice to Vicki Lewis Thompson's (a huge compliment - I LOVE her "Hexed" series). The problem is, I have a tendency to slip into Karen Rose territory. It's unsettling for readers to find both styles in the same book. (Duh!) Must find a way to fix this.

2) Classification. Thanks to issue #1, it's very hard to classify my stories. I talked about it with an editor who gave me extremely helpful feedback. She said what I write is really contemporary romance with magical/paranormal elements, which is what I thought, too. BUT she suggested I pitch my stories as paranormal romance, since editors are more likely to look at those. Problem is, when most people think "paranormal" they picture something a lot darker and with more world-building. Not sure how to address this.

3) Heroines. My heroes, oddly enough, don't seem to be a problem. It's the heroines I have trouble with. They're either too nice or too snarky; a wimp or a bitch. It's a challenge to find a balance. (There's that word again...) I've come up with a partial solution, though. My next story will DEFINITELY have a hero as the protagonist!

4) Writing passively. I overuse words like "was" and have to make a conscious effort to write actively. Show, don't tell - I SHOULD KNOW THIS BY NOW! *bangs head on desk*

5) Backstory. There's that bad boy again. The issue of backstory is one reason I'm always rewriting my opening scenes, to the endless frustration of my critique partners. I KNOW I should start where the story begins and I KNOW the story should jump right in with action. Easy peasy, right? (You can see where this is going...)

I'll write a scene and feel like I've accomplished it, but when I look closer? Cleverly disguised backstory. This will come as no surprise to my family and friends. I TALK in backstory. I'm into history and genealogy, for Pete's sake. I'm almost freaking sixty years old - my whole LIFE is backstory!

So, yeah. Need to get over that. Backstory is Bad - got that, brain?

I'm not much of a drinker, which is kind of a shame. I suspect I might find inspiration in wine, or even chocolate. Instead I'm going to have to do it the hard way.

Instructions to self:

*Keep writing, even though practice doesn't really mean perfect.

*Pay attention to passive words and cut them out.

*Understand every character's goal, motivation and conflict.

*Make each scene count.

*Work on the damn conflict box.

*Don't use action for the sake of action - everything must have a reason. (And watch those em-dashes while you're at it. Even though you haven't figured out how to create an em-dash on Blogger, so that last one doesn't technically count.)

*Pace the turning points so readers will keep turning pages.

*Show, don't tell.

*And stop writing blogs as a form of avoidance.

Here endeth this lesson, self. Enough with the whining. Go forth and write.

So true!

2011-10-31T18:56:00.000-04:00

I now have a "Writer" page on Facebook!

2011-10-20T17:01:00.001-04:00

Facebook, in their wisdom, has a 5,000 friend limit for "regular" pages. I'm going to reach that very soon, so I've started a new "writer" page there. Even if we're already friends on my regular page, please stop by and like my new page! Before long I'll have to move all my content there.

Next Week at Romance University

2011-10-17T20:49:00.004-04:00

At the Romance University blog, we alternate weeks acting as host to our Visiting Professors. Next week is one of "my" weeks - stop in and say hi! Here's the schedule:

Romance University
Weekly Lecture Schedule for October 24 - 29, 2011
http://www.RomanceUniversity.org

This week, Becke has lined up three fabulous authors to share their tips and techniques with us.

In addition, our generous visiting professors will give away Deal with This by Lucy Monroe (Wednesday) and a 15-page critique (Monday)!

Mon, 10/24 – Kelly L. Stone explains "Role Modeling as a Way to Writing Success" on Monday, and she's giving away a 15-page critique, any genre, to one lucky commenter!

Wed, 10/26 – Best selling, multi-published author Lucy Monroe discusses writing for visceral impact in "More Than Five Senses." Lucy will give away a copy of her book, Deal With This, to one commenter.

Fri, 10/29 – Multi-published author Paige Tyler gets some help with her steamy books from her husband Paul. They talk about their "Marriage of the Minds" in a Q&A on Friday.

All Romance University lectures are generously provided by our Visiting Professors. RU is a tuition-free zone!

Best regards,

Robin Covington, Kelsey Browning, Becke Martin-Davis, Adrienne Giordano, Tracey Devlyn, Carrie Spencer and Jennifer Tanner

Love and Marriage

2011-10-16T11:39:00.007-04:00

Back in the day, a popular Frank Sinatra song said "love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage." Well, you don't see a lot of horse-and-carriages around these days, and divorce, sadly, often takes the place of the fairy-tale happy ending.

I am an obsessive reader, and I love to read romances that end with the promise of a happily-ever-after. In real life - though I'm a Pollyanna-optimist in most ways - I'm somewhat cynical about marriage. To this day, I don't wear a wedding or engagement ring, although my husband does. I still have reservations about marriage, and I worry that people focus so much on the wedding that they forget to think about all the days ahead.

This may come as a surprise to those of you who are aware that a) I got married at age 19 and b) I just celebrated my 40th wedding anniversary. My husband and I started going out on April 18, 1970, so it's actually been a bit longer than the anniversary indicates. It beats the heck out of me how this happened, since my husband and I - as much as we loved each other and wanted to be together - didn't have much confidence in the institution of marriage, despite the fact that neither of us came from "broken" homes.

We both were familiar with far too many marriages that were either lopsided, with all the power going to one person, or desperately unhappy, seeming more like a prison than a partnership. I wasn't at all sure I wanted to get married, ever. Apart from dressing as a bride for Halloween one year, I never had fantasies about my wedding day. I was the opposite of Bridezilla - my mom liked the idea of planning a wedding, and for the most part, I let her have at it.

Becke (spelled Becky back then), Halloween, 1959

In spite of our very young age, my husband and I didn't enter into marriage blindly. He never proposed, which was smart of him. I might have panicked and run if forced to make a yes or no decision. We were together every day and it just felt wrong to go to go our separate ways at night. When it came to our future, it was more a question of whether we'd elope or move in together, and we weren't quite unconventional enough for that. Marriage it was.

We labored over our vows, mingling our own words with those of Kahlil Gibran, removing "till death do we part" and the references to "obey" from the script. Music brought us together, so it naturally played a big part in our wedding. We put together our own soundtrack, carefully choosing songs that had personal meaning to us. Paul Stookey's "The Wedding Song (There is Love)" had just hit the charts and was an easy choice, as was "our song" - Paul McCartney's "Maybe I'm Amazed."

But I'm willing to bet no other wedding ceremony has featured Carly Simon's "That's the Way I've Always Heard it Should Be," which also came out that year. Here are some of the lyrics:

"You say it's time we moved in together
And raised a family of our own, you and me -
Well, that's the way I've always heard it should be:
You want to marry me, we'll marry.

My friends from college they're all married now;
They have their houses and their lawns.
They have their silent noons,
Tearful nights, angry dawns.
Their children hate them for the things they're not;
They hate themselves for what they are-
And yet they drink, they laugh,
Close the wound, hide the scar."

Weird song for a wedding, right? That song was included as a conscious choice, a statement that we were NOT going to let that happen to us. Privately, we swore to each other that if we ever wanted out, we'd do it before we ended up hating each other. That our happiness would be more important than the marriage.

I was going through some papers yesterday and found a poem I wrote during the first year of our marriage. Bear in mind I was 20 years old and a very amateur poet, with a love of e.e. cummings and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. The title was simply "1972":

what i like about being married is you
in bed at night and on chilly mornings
our bodies, content, fit like two
puzzle pieces or two hands holding
each other against the world

and i like you to talk to and be with
while I read and you play guitar

like old married people we joke
we laugh and love and fight
we take care of each other and
it's nice and your love is warm

what i don't like about being married
is, being young, both of us don't know
all there is to know about our hearts
and forever is a hell of a long time

it can be scary, like a closed book,
the pages stuck together to keep
dreams out, but at least right now
we have each other while we're needing
each other
and loving and wanting and caring
about each other

i hope our love lasts and grows,
but marriage is not much, by itself
and if you change or i change
or we both change

if in growing up or old we grow
apart instead of together
please let's not make the marriage
the most important part of our love

Wow. I'd forgotten all about that poem, and it was strange to read it all these years later. Lots of things have changed, but some things haven't changed - I still read, he still plays guitar. And I still smile when I hear his voice on the phone, and we still like to tell each other about our day.

Bec and Mart, Christmas 1982

Of course, we also drive each other nuts at times. We sometimes joke that while divorce isn't on our minds, murder isn't out of the question. We are opposite in so many ways it shocks me we ever got together in the first place, and it's a freaking miracle we still get along. Maybe it took the pressure off, taking this relationship one day at a time. We didn't go into it with huge expectations - we just wanted to be together. Maybe that's enough.

This was another poem I wrote in the early days of our marriage - again, forgive the technical imperfections:

Love -
I do not know
if it is worth it.

Two brick walls:
we talk as though
our words will never touch,
Letting them shatter
on the asphalt earth.

Perhaps a word
will wound my wall
staining it with tears,
and a green sprout
replace the stained spot
and flowers bloom.

Perhaps
two brick walls
a building make, or
fall, and give a garden
room to grow.

Laughter
would fill the space
our words left untouched -
and the silence
touches
telling so much
more.

Love -
did I say I do not know?
It is worth it.

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-13T23:17:00.001-04:00

Ten Random Facts About Me, and Another Liebster Award!

2011-09-28T02:04:00.003-04:00

Big thanks to my friend and fellow struggling author JENNIFER TANNER for honoring my blog with another Liebster Award!

Thanks, Jennifer!

Jennifer also tagged me in her "Ten Random Facts" - this requires me to tag four more blogs and list ten random facts about myself.

The four blogs I'm tagging belong to:

1. GABRIELLA EDWARDS - Her blog is called "The Story of Ro: Confessions of an Erotic Romance Writer." Gabriella is a great friend and long-time critique partner - you can follow her on Facebook here. And if you haven't read UNTIL EMIE yet, what are you waiting for? (Warning: It's HOT!)

2. DEBBIE HAUPT - Her blog is called "The Reading Frenzy." Debbie moderates Barnes & Noble's General Fiction board at BN.com, and reviews for Library Journal, RT Reviews, Mira, Grand Central, Tor, Penguin and more. Stop into BN.com and hang out with Debbie and me!

3. MARY ULRICH - My friend Mary's blog is called "Climbing Every Mountain: A Base Camp for Parents and Caregivers of People with Disabilities." A fellow member of the Ohio Valley chapter of RWA, Mary is also an aspiring writer.

4. CAREY CORP - Carey is another OVRWA friend. Her YA story THE HALO CHRONICLES: THE GUARDIAN was an RWA 2010 Golden Heart finalist. Carey's blog is called "My Own Brand of Madness" - check it out!

Okay, now for Ten Random Facts about me:

1. One of my all-time favorite movies is AMERICAN DREAMER starring Tom Conti and JoBeth Williams.

2. My future husband and I were voted Most Affectionate Couple in the senior issue of our high school paper.

3. I was named after REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK FARM.

4. When I was in high school, I starred in a freshman production of SORRY, WRONG NUMBER.

5. I didn't get my ears pierced until I was 55. I have accumulated an embarrassing number of sparkly earrings since then.

6. In July 2007 I read my first Jennifer Crusie book. In October 2007 I attended Jenny's "Cherry Con" in Covington, KY, which included several writing workshops. It was at this mini-conference that I decided to try my hand at writing fiction. I finished my first story, OVER EASY, in January 2008 - it finaled in three contests. I still like parts of it, and hope to revise it one of these days.

7. Driving: Hate it. I am the world's biggest chicken. I don't like night driving, expressway driving, driving in rain or snow. Yes, I have a license. But I avoid driving as much as possible.

8. I am a greeting card junkie. I collect cards for all occasions so I always have plenty to choose from. Cards with random sayings are favorites, along with anything sparkly. I like to match cards to my friends and then save them until their birthdays.

9. I was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, even though I never lived there. My parents (who were very young - I attended my father's college graduation) flew down to Hot Springs so I could be born at Army Navy Hospital, where my grandfather was Commander-in-Chief. My mom said she was treated like royalty!

10. Speaking of royalty, I once met the Queen Mother (Queen Elizabeth's late mother) at a trade show in England. She had the bluest eyes I've ever seen.

The Lovely Liebster Award

2011-09-26T01:21:00.001-04:00

I WON THE LIEBSTER AWARD!

It's always fun to receive an award, especially a cool one like the LIEBSTER.

I'm sending a big thank you to the extremely talented CARRIE SPENCER for giving my blog this coveted award! Carrie can be found at Romance University as well as at her own blog.

In keeping with the traditions associated with receiving the Liebster Blog Award, I must now convey the following:

Winners of a Liebster must:

1. Post the award on your blog and show thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them via the award graphic ~ Check!

2. Reveal your top five picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog or send them a shout out on Twitter. ~ Check!

3. Bask in the love from the most supportive people on the Internet – other writers (and bloggers) ~ Check!

My top picks for the next Liebster are:

1. JESSICA DAVIS - Okay, she's my daughter, but she also has a very cool make-up blog called DON'T CALL ME JESSIE. You can also find lots of cute kitten pictures there!

2. KERI STEVENS - Twitter Goddess, author of Carina Press' STONE KISSED, member of OVRWA, belly dancer, mom, good friend and brilliant critique partner. Keri is multi-talented! Check out her blog LEAP! And love will catch you.

3. JENNIFER TANNER - I met Jen at the Romance Bandits blog some time back. Now we have Romance University in common in addition to being long-distance friends and critique partners. You'll be seeing her name on a book cover before long! Her blog is ROMANCE AND OTHER LEGAL STIMULANTS.

4. RENEE VINCENT, author of RAELIKSEN and others, is a member of OVRWA and a prolific blogger with endless energy and a gift for discovering some of the hottest male models you'll ever see. Her blog is called PAST THE PRINT - don't miss her Wake-Me-Up Wednesday posts!

5. JAN O'HARA - I met Jan through Jennifer Crusie's Cherry Forum several years ago and had the pleasure of meeting her at RWA National in 2009. We belong to a writer's group called the Cherry Tarts. Jan blogs at Writer Unboxed and the always interesting TARTITUDE: Art. Attitude. Vitamin C.

Thanks again for the award, Carrie!

My 40th Anniversary - Again!

2011-09-15T13:22:00.005-04:00

Last year, my husband and I celebrated our REAL 40th anniversary - the anniversary of our first date, and the beginning of a long, wild ride. On October 2 we'll be celebrating the 40th anniversary of our wedding - it was a fun day, but we still consider it secondary to our April anniversary.

Yep, that's the famous $12 wedding dress. My mom managed a couple apparel departments at Marshall Field's, including the prom shop. When this dress went on clearance, it was marked down to $20. With her discount, $12. Even in those days, that was freaking cheap! The fancy headgear I was wearing cost more than the dress, and it was painfully anchored to my head with a gazillion bobby pins.

My flowers and wedding cake came from local businesses that had family connections: Jarosch Bakery (one of my first jobs was there - saw Betty Jarosch about a year ago, and reminisced) and Berthold's supplied the flowers. Both are still going strong!

We've been reminiscing, and one of our favorite memories is the music. Neither of us were much on organ music, so when the organ in my tiny Presbyterian church died, we were more than happy to create our own wedding soundtrack.

These songs were among the highlights!

Here are the instructions for the lead-in music:

Some cute cards from my wedding shower:

In Memory...

2011-09-11T09:34:00.000-04:00

Spam-a-Lot, or Treasures from the Trash Bin

2011-09-02T19:42:00.009-04:00

I must lead a more boring life than I thought, because lately I find myself entertained by the spam that sneaks past the filters on my website.

I can't for the life of me figure out what good it does these people to send me these spams. Do they think I'll visit their websites and buy their products, if they even have such a thing?

Note that I said these comments came through on my website, not my blog. So it cracks me up a little bit when so many of them sing the praises of my wonderful, brilliant, enlightening blog posts. (Except that there aren't any...well, there is a blog attached to my website, but that's not where the comments are sent.)

Maybe I'm just easily amused, but I have to share a few of these. I go through and delete them regularly - I should have saved some of the really mind-boggling ones.

Here's a few from today's virtual trash bin:

"Oh my goodness! a tremendous article dude." (Dude??)

"hi! Great Friday here. This is a super nice article!!" (What article?)

"This really answered my drawback, thank you!" (Huh?)

"Full of propaganda and revisionist history." (Hello? This is a romance writer's website?)

"Your house is valueble for me." (Didn't Agador say this in "The Birdcage"?)

"Great submit. I observed what I was seeking." (So happy for you...I think.)

"A formidable share, I simply given this onto a colleague who was doing a little evaluation on this. And he the truth is purchased me breakfast as a result of I found it for him." (Yeah, um, okay. What he said...)

"Massive thumb up for this blog publish!" (I think that says it all!)

And a new one:

"You pointed roughly finicky subject matter." (I did? Who knew?)

Still more winners (I'm updating this as new spams appear):

"My partner and i no longer nurture doubts including a troubled mind because you totally attended to the needs in this post." (Why do I feel like I need to wash my hands?)

"I am very happy that I stumbled throughout this in my seek for one thing regarding this." (I'm sure this person speaks English better than I speak his-or-her language, but still. My grammar geek gene just exploded.)

I'll have to add more later!

Aaaand...I'm back with another winner:

"In the event you neediness to litigate, you just take up to head to port of entry, he include in concert, provide up into the companionship force stylish the North American country." (Yep, I'll get right on that!)

View from the Writing Cave

2011-07-24T12:37:00.007-04:00

I've been in the writing cave so long, my eyes are having trouble adjusting to daylight. And, needless to say, a certain part of my anatomy is welded to the computer chair. No one ever told me writing was fattening, but it's hard to exercise on the computer.

Oh yes - I've tried it. I even posted here about the fancy gadget that lets me type while walking on the treadmill. That does work pretty well if you're only playing on the computer, but it's hard to stay focused on characters while huffing and puffing.

I entered the cave in January, tempted by the lush greenery and the lure of a new story. Well, not an entirely new story - I took a story I wrote for NaNoWriMo back in 2008, tore it to pieces and started again with only a root cutting to start the new growth.

My goal was to complete the story in time for Lori Foster's Reader Author Get Together in early June. I signed up for the pitch appointments before I'd written the first chapter. Talk about pressure! I rewrote the first two chapters a gazillion times, which is pretty normal for me. The view from the cave was gorgeous, and I was right on track.

It got a little trickier in March when I went on two out-of-town trips and attended a writer's conference, none of which were conducive to writing. I kept plugging away, but my word count wasn't quite up to par. It was April by the time I got back on schedule, and the beginning of June seemed frighteningly close. I had to get in some major writing - a mini-NaNoWriMo. Of course, that's when my brain froze up. The cave didn't seem quite as pleasant. The letters wore off my keyboard, and I swear the keys were glued down by bat droppings.

It was around this time subversive thoughts would come to me at night: "Why are you killing yourself over this? The story won't sell even if you do finish it. Why not give it up and get yourself a life? It's not like anyone is forcing you to do this! And you sure as hell aren't getting paid to write for ten hours a day!" The ugly voice of Imposter Syndrome had spoken. I wrestled with it for days - in the end, I beat it down. For awhile, at least.

By May, I was making real progress. My husband had long since stopped asking if I was ever planning to come to bed, and the cat disowned me. The words were doing their magic and I was back in the zone. June was just around the corner, but by God I could do this!

My daughter came into town two days before the conference started, and that's when I had a reality check. We had all kinds of activities planned with my writing buddies - activities that didn't include writing. Three days to go and I was at 60K out of a projected 85K. I told myself I could write at night. The day before the conference, I decided I could write in the hotel room. Yeah, that didn't happen.

Instead, I went into full blown panic. I had a pitch session in ONE DAY! Not only was the story not complete, I hadn't even taken the time to write the query, tagline or pitch! I brought a notebook to every event, and cornered critique partners for impromptu brain-storming sessions. My daughter took off with my friends while I went quietly (or not-so-quietly) insane.

Then I found out the lovely editor I was pitching to had to cancel due to health issues. Relief slammed me, and then guilt because - hello? - she was in pain, for Pete's sake! For a full two hours I relaxed. The editor requested a partial, but I could pull that together in a week, no problem. Reprieve!

My daughter Jessica, author Nancy Naigle, me - in a brief moment of non-panic - and author Gabriella Edwards aka Rosie Murphy

My friends - who are in equal parts wonderful and evil - insisted I pitch to an agent instead. At first I resisted until the voices in my head joined in. Damn those subversive voices, anyway! This time they nagged about my lack of professionalism. "Are you going to pass up an opportunity to pitch because you're too lazy to pull something together? Are you a writer or a wimp?" I left my daughter to her own devices as I shut myself in the hotel room and dug in.

By three a.m., I had a query, a tagline and a pitch. They weren't perfect by any means (another agent was seriously unimpressed), but the agent I pitched to that Saturday liked them enough to request 150 pages. She said to hold off submitting until the story was ready to go, because if she liked it she'd want the full the next day.

I was still in the writing cave, but it was sparkling.

The day after the conference, we headed up to Chicago - taking my daughter to see the family and to meet her new niece. I planned to write in the hotel room every night, which proved extremely difficult. I finally gave up and decided to work double time when I got back home. I should have known better - it's always a mistake to let a day go by without working on a story, much less a whole week.

By the time I got home, I had to read through it from the beginning to get myself back on track. I had two weeks to write before heading back up to Chicago (I swear I'm attached to that city by a bungee cord) to dog sit while my son and his significant other went on a cross-country road trip. I had a plan: my new goal was to finish before I left on June 23. Once again, I failed to meet my goal. I wrote about 1,000 words a day, and every word was like drawing blood.

I pushed on, and by the time I went to Chicago I was at 70K. Not where I wanted to be, but by then the remaining 15K didn't sound so bad. Chicago was great. I became I writing hermit - just me and the dog, and my old laptop. The A/C didn't work real well so I got up at the crack of dawn to walk the dog before the heat set in, and then came back and wrote like a maniac. I took breaks to walk the dog along the lakefront, which helped recharge my batteries and sweep the cobwebs from my brain. Finally, I could see the light outside the cave.

I wrote 31,500 words during my three weeks in Chicago, overshooting my anticipated word count significantly. Since I returned home I've trimmed 2,500 words, leaving at least 4,000 more to cut. The revisions aren't going as smoothly as I'd like - when do they ever? I'm still plugging away.

I'm not out of the cave yet, not until I push on and complete the revisions. I feel antsy because the submissions are later than I anticipated, but I'd rather submit a clean, polished story than pages that are rough but on time. It's nearly August, and I'd like to think I'll be done by then. Somehow I doubt it.

The cave is starting to feel like home. My family has adjusted to my state of distraction, and the cat is busy hanging with his raccoon friends. Life goes on.

Is it worth it? Well, I'm not writing the Great American Novel, but I hope I'm writing something fun. Now I'm heading back to the writing cave. Any other cave dwellers out there?

Happy 4th of July and Happy Canada Day!

2011-06-30T16:22:00.001-04:00

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Living La Vida...Anglophile

2011-05-16T13:59:00.002-04:00

When I got engaged to an Englishman, my mom wasn't surprised a bit. She thinks that when I was just over a year old, I soaked up all the details of Queen Elizabeth's coronation as she listened to the entire event, glued to the radio while I toddled around the apartment. At my bridal showers, I was inundated with Union Jack-motif gifts (including a metal garbage can), and lots and lots of china tea cups. If my parents could have afforded it as a wedding gift, I think my first sofa would have looked like this:

My first real introduction to all things English coincided with the British Invasion, starting with the Beatles. I was about twelve when I heard "I Want to Hold Your Hand" - my life was never the same after that.

Along with the music, make-up and fashion influences quickly made their way "across the pond." Mary Quant, Twiggy, Yardley, Carnaby Street - anything with a hint of the Brit was huge at that time.

But it didn't stop there. I was hooked on British mysteries, too. I read every book ever written by or about Agatha Christie, and her books led me to others - from Philip MacDonald to Dick Francis to Mary Stewart and John Creasey's Gideon of the Yard series. I'm still a huge fan of British mysteries and police procedurals.

I loved English movies and memorized lines from Shakespeare's plays. I cried over Camelot and read everything I could find about Merlin and King Arthur. I was obsessed.

I met my husband through a mutual interest in music and the Beatles, and a few months later I visited England for the first time. With some difficulty, I finally figured out the money, which was pounds, guineas, shillings and pence back then. We had a fabulous time, cramming lots of sightseeing into a few short weeks. We even had a close encounter with a Beatle. We were walking by Apple's (it meant something different then) headquarters in Savile Row when John Lennon's famous painted Rolls Royce drove past, windows tinted to black.

A few years later we moved to England. I worked at Marshall Field & Company's London office in Regent Street. The windows at the back overlooked the rooftop of Apple, where the Beatles famously performed just a few years earlier. My co-worker was there at the time - she said it was loud and disruptive, all that racket making it difficult to work. *bangs head on wall*

We were young and broke, and lived on the wrong side of the river. Our house did NOT look like this:

We lived there seven years, moving back shortly after my first niece was born. I've been thinking of this a lot lately, since that same niece just became a mother for the first time. Both of my kids were born in this country, but they have lots of family spread across England. Genetically, they are half English, while I was just an Anglo-wannabe. True, my own family tree has roots in England, too, but it's not quite the same.

Here in Ohio, my husband and I regularly have Yorkshire tea and Digestive biscuits, and Heinz Salad Cream and Branston Pickle can usually be found in the fridge door. We toast the New Year with Harvey's Bristol Cream Sherry and when we want a treat we'll pick up wine gums or Turkish Delight.

My husband and I are still fans of the Beatles, individually and en masse, as well as countless other British bands. I still reread my Agatha Christie's on a regular basis, and now I've added a lot of new British authors to the mix. Thanks to PBS, BBC America and Netflix, I get a regular dose of Britcom and other British TV shows - Foyle's War, Midsomer Murders, New Tricks and Inspector Lewis are all favorites. When we get nostalgic, my husband and I rent episodes of EastEnders or Coronation Street, or pull out our worn copies of The Good Life and Yes, Honestly. And, of course, Dr. Who!

My kids have both been to England a few times, and my husband goes to visit almost every year. I haven't been over in so long I'm hesitant to do so now. I know it's changed a lot in the years since I lived there - I see the "new" London on TV all the time - but I'd kind of like to preserve my memories of England as it was in the 1970s and early 80s.

Despite all this, I didn't really get into the Royal Wedding this time around. I was living in England when Charles and Di got married, and even though it ended on such a sad note, it will always be "the Royal Wedding" to me.

My ancestors came to America from England in time for the first U.S. Census in 1770. I'm proud to be American - don't get me wrong! But I'm glad a little piece of England lives on in our Cincinnati home.

I'm Addicted to Sarah Addison Allen

2011-03-31T17:16:00.000-04:00

Reading this now - I can't put it down. I adore books with magical elements!

ROMANCE ADDICTS ANONYMOUS

2011-03-14T16:54:00.003-04:00

ENGLISH TEACHER BUSTED

2011-03-14T16:54:00.001-04:00

"The The Impotence of Proofreading," by TAYLOR MALI

2011-03-14T16:52:00.000-04:00

LOVE THIS!! (Thanks to my brother for bringing it to my attention!)

Storm Over Annapurna

2011-02-27T20:47:00.000-05:00

I thought you might enjoy this original musical composition by my husband. He calls it "Storm Over Annapurna."

Think Spring!

2011-02-15T22:21:00.000-05:00

I'm sick of winter, so I thought I'd share some of my garden pictures to make spring seem closer!

Christmas with No Strings Attached (Marty’s Post)

2010-12-23T19:58:00.002-05:00

As long as I can remember I have always loved Christmas.

I have many vivid memories of happy times as a child - in the days before my parents became Jehovah’s Witnesses and stopped celebrating Christmas, birthdays, and well.....just about everything that was joyful.....fortunately that didn’t happen until I was a teenager, so I didn’t miss out on the joy of waking up early after the midnight visit from Father Christmas and find a pillowcase (an English tradition) full of toys and surprises!

One of my favorite annual childhood gifts from Father Christmas (Santa), was a Pelham String Puppet. I had quite a collection. I’m not sure why I was so fascinated with puppets; I had a vivid imagination and for me, the puppets became very real playmates and friends.

The Pelham company published a catalogue, and like Ralphie in “The Christmas Story” - I would memorize the illustrations and descriptions and make a list of the ones I wanted.

One of my most vivid memories of Christmas was when I was still very young - perhaps 7 or 8, and being so excited about Christmas that I was unable to sleep. My parents must have been frantic...but somehow they managed to sneak Father Christmas into the house so he could deliver his gifts!!!

That year I received one of my all-time favorite puppets....SANDY MACBOOZLE!!!

Sandy MacBoozle

Why I loved an ugly, boozing Scottish puppet I will never be able to explain - but I made Sandy come to life - I could make him dance and drink from his bottle at the same time. I can remember walking him around the house with me - dancing and drinking!!!

I had other puppets that I’d collected:

The Witch (I believe she was the witch from Hansel and Gretel)

The Policeman

I seem to remember that he arrested Sandy MacBoozle many times!!!

And of course, no puppet collection would be complete without the supreme puppet of all puppets:

Pinnochio

Pelham Puppets were all hand-made and hand painted, and were “creepy” enough to inspire my imagination - a gift that I will always appreciate.

As a kid, I kept all my puppets neatly stored in the boxes - taking great pains to carefully wrap their strings around the “cross” so that do not become tangled - a tangled puppet was a disaster, a “dead” puppet!!

In many ways, my parents’ abandoning of holidays made me realize how important it is to see the world, whenever and as much as possible, through the eyes of children. Christmas and birthdays have always been the best time for seeing life through young eyes - so, as a parent, I have made it a priority to value the magic and mythology of Christmas and childhood. I am thankful that it will be at least part of my legacy.

So, this Christmas, I raise my glass(es) to puppets, dolls, books, and all other things that inspire imagination and joy in the lives of children both young and old.

Merry Christmas!!!

Old Christmas Advertising

2010-12-03T12:22:00.000-05:00

Oh, the captions I could write for these! Here are a baker's dozen of my favorite old ads.

Happy December!

2010-12-01T13:06:00.003-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving ... Old Style!

2010-11-20T11:11:00.000-05:00

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

2010-10-21T22:19:00.002-04:00

Happy Halloween, Part 2

2010-10-20T13:46:00.001-04:00

Happy Halloween, Part I

2010-10-20T13:42:00.000-04:00

Happy Punctuation Day!

2010-09-24T11:30:00.003-04:00

It's that time of year again, when we dust off our apostrophes, polish our colons and have a drink with our old friend, the question mark. That's right - today, September 24, is NATIONAL PUNCTUATION DAY.

I wanted my daughter to write this post, since she is the true punctuation/spelling geek in our family, but she's at work. In the meantime, here's a toast to all of you who cringe when a hyphen is left out, sigh when your editor removes every semi-colon and have palpitations when you read freestyle prose with - shock! horror! - no punctuation at all.

This is the one day of the year we can celebrate our geekdom and find others like us. I'll be the first to admit I love commas and em-dashes a little more than I should, but while I pepper my speech with enthusiastic words, I rarely use exclamation points when I write. I'd love to hear from you all -- (damn, how do I make an em-dash on Blogger?). So tell me, what are your favorite, and least favorite, punctuation marks?

SLEUTHS AND SILHOUETTES

2010-09-12T11:31:00.003-04:00

Before I knew the meaning of either of those words, I discovered the magic of Nancy Drew. (A magic which, sadly, does not carry over to the present when I reread her books, but still ...)

The first mystery I ever read was called THE SECRET OF THE OLD POSTBOX, and it made me seek out more books with secrets to discover. At the library I looked for books with similar titles and was amazed to find shelf after shelf of those titles by an author called "Carolyn Keene."

Today's Nancy Drew books have been adapted for a modern audience, and include brightly colored covers. That makes me sad, because there was magic in those old silhouettes and black-and-white illustrations.

Nancy Drew introduced me to mysteries, a love that has continued and grown stronger over time. Nancy and her father, Carson Drew, the housekeeper, Hannah Gruen, Nancy's boyfriend, Ned Nickerson and her best chums George and Bess remain as fresh in my mind as her cool coupe. One of the first Nancy Drew books I read was THE HAUNTED SHOWBOAT, and I think THE SECRET OF THE OLD CLOCK was next.

As an eight-year-old, my vocabulary probably doubled as a result of reading these books. I had to ask what a hearth was (and for YEARS thought it was pronounced "HERth"), not to mention "coupe," "roadster," "sleuth," "bungalow," "bayou" and any number of unfamiliar words.

The florid titles were perfectly mysterious and made me crave more:

THE SECRET OF THE OLD CLOCK
THE BUNGALOW MYSTERY
THE SECRET AT SHADOW RANCH
THE SIGN OF THE TWISTED CANDLES
THE PASSWORD TO LARKSPUR LANE
THE WHISPERING STATUE
THE CLUE OF THE BROKEN LOCKET
THE CLUE OF THE TAPPING HEELS
THE MYSTERY OF THE MOSS-BOUND TRUNK
THE SECRET IN THE OLD ATTIC
THE CLUE IN THE CRUMBLING WALL
THE MYSTERY OF THE TOLLING BELL
THE CLUE OF THE LEANING CHIMNEY
THE MOONSTONE CASTLE MYSTERY

I read every Nancy Drew book my small library branch carried and was frantic when I couldn't find more. My lovely aunt Em bought me new Nancy Drews - non-birthday or Christmas gifts, which made them all the more treasured. Once I discovered these books, I copied the titles of all the ones I hadn't read and didn't rest until I'd read them all. That has become a habit of a lifetime, with every author I've read and loved, from Agatha Christie to Nora Roberts to Jenny Crusie to Dick Francis and more.

My daughter never got into Nancy Drew - for her it was Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's "Alice" books, Ann Martin's Babysitters Club series and Lois Duncan's mysteries. I read Lois' books when I was young, too, so I was thrilled when my daughter became obsessed with those. With my son, J.K. Rowlings' wonderful Harry Potter books turned him from a non-reader into a reader, and I will always owe her a debt of thanks for that.

As I mentioned, the Nancy Drew books lost a bit of their shine when I reread a few of them recently, but scanning those titles still brings back the thrill of finding an unread book and a breathtaking mystery to be solved. The exciting worlds between the covers of books have always had a strong gravitational pull for me. I wonder if authors really appreciate what a gift they give us when they share their stories?

It really is a gift of magic, which is one reason I love moderating the Mystery Book Club at Barnes & Noble (BN.com). There's nothing more exciting than introducing a reader to a wonderful book!

"The Boy with the Moon and Star on His Head"

2010-09-06T17:37:00.001-04:00

A gardener's daughter stopped me on my way,

on the day I was to wed.
"It is you who I wish to share my body with", she said.

"We'll find a dry place under the sky with a flower for a bed.
And for my joy, I will give you a boy with a moon and
star on his head."

Her silver hair flowed in the air, laying waves across the sun.
Her hands were like the white sands,

and her eyes had diamonds on.

We left the road and headed up to the top of the
Whisper Wood. And we walked 'till we came to where

the holy magnolia stood.

And there we laid cool in the shade singing songs and
making love, with the naked earth beneath us

and the universe above.

The time was late, my wedding wouldn't wait;

I was sad, but I had to go. So while she was asleep,

I kissed her cheek for cheerio.

The wedding took place and people came from many
miles around. There was plenty merriment,

cider and wine did abound.

But out of all that I recall, I remembered the girl I met.
'Cause she had given me something

that my heart could not forget.

A year had passed and everything was

just as it was a year before ...

As if it were a year before ...

Until the gift that someone left, a basket by my door.
And in there lay the fairest little baby

crying to be fed;

I got down on my knees and kissed

the moon and star on
his head.

As years went by the boy grew high and the village looked
on in awe. They'd never seen anything like the boy

with the moon and star before.

And people would ride from far and wide just to seek the
word he spread. "I'll tell you everything I've learned,"

and "Love is all"... he said.

By Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam

This song is an old favorite of mine. This isn't the way it's shown on lyric sheets, but to me it reads like a poem. The only thing I'm not sure of is whether the last line might be better this way: and "Love" is all ... he said.

Alfred, Agatha and Me

2010-08-25T01:16:00.004-04:00

There are few things I like better than a nice, juicy murder, especially if it has a surprising twist at the end. I like to read stories so scary I have to sleep with every light on, the kind that get into your head and won't go away.

I blame Alfred Hitchcock.

Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden books were my first introduction to mysteries, but it was Alfred Hitchcock's short story collections that clinched the deal. I discovered short stories when I was about 12 - DeMaupassant's "A Piece of String," Ray Bradbury's "The Veldt," "The Ravine" and his heartwrenching story, "I See You Never." I read every short story collection I could get my hands on, by those authors (although the Hitchcock collections only bore his name) as well as Isaac Asimov's "The Black Widowers" and Rod Serling's "Twilight Zone" collections.

There was magic in those stories that I still remember some 45 years after I first read them. I saved my favorites, dragging them with me to England and back, to New Jersey, Chicago and to Cincinnati. One of those books is Alfred Hitchcock's STORIES MY MOTHER NEVER TOLD ME. Grace Amundson's "The Child Who Believed" still gives me chills, and Bradbury's "The Wind" still haunts me. "The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles" by Idris Seabright remains one of the scariest stories I've ever read. "For All the Rude People" by Jack Ritchie, from STORIES NOT FOR THE NERVOUS, is a brilliant morality tale -- every title in these anthologies brings back memories.

I need to go through these books and find the story I've been trying to remember, where the murder victim wishes for a smart cop, and the wish is granted. There's another story I'd like to read again, with a boy and dogs and a series of murders, but that one is just a fading memory. I've read so many short story collections now, it could have been in any of them.

For years I read all the Alfred Hitchcock and Ellery Queen mystery magazines, plus short story collections by Agatha Christie, Michael Gilbert, Daphne DuMaurier, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Stephen King, Frederick Forsyth and more. In recent years, I've read anthologies by Laura Lippman, a couple edited by Lee Child and all those Sisters in Crime, Malice Domestic collections - you name it, and if it was a mystery short story collection, odds are I've read it.

I read my first Agatha Christie, FUNERALS ARE FATAL, at age 15 while visiting my aunt in Albuquerque. That same summer I worked my way through all the books my aunt's friend Lois Duncan had written, including RANSOM. (When my daughter was about the same age, she also fell in love with Lois' books. Her favorite is DAUGHTERS OF EVE.) Not long after that, back in the Chicago suburbs, I was reading a Christie mystery when the people I was babysitting for came home. The woman - Mrs. Murgle - was thrilled, and promptly packed up a box of her Christie paperbacks for me. I still have every one of those books.

Short stories may not be as popular today as they once were, but they'll always be favorites of mine - short and sweet and scary as all get-out. And, in some cases, unforgettable.

Patricia McLinn: Old Favorite, New Friend

2010-07-20T19:13:00.000-04:00

Back in the day, I subscribed to just about every category romance line out there. I read so many, I soon recognized the authors who were my favorites. Patricia McLinn was one of these - I especially liked her series set in Chicago, but I loved them all.

When I didn't see any new Patricia McLinn books for awhile, I got curious and sent her a message via her website. Life had intervened, and for a few years I had to do without my McLinn fix. We kept in touch and I finally met Pat in person at Lori Foster's Get-Together in Cincinnati in June 2009. In a wonderful coincidence, Pat had moved down my way and she even joined my RWA chapter.

I am a serious fan, as you can see here. I interviewed Pat at Romance: B(u)y the Book and I've been eagerly awaiting her next release. I've been waiting a LONG time, so I'm thrilled to share this news from Pat:

Hi Becke,

Not sure if you saw my newsletter. Just in case you didn't, I wanted to be sure to let you know, because I promised I would when I (gasp!) had a new book available. ,g>

--NEW BOOK

Okay, everybody hold on to your chair now, I don't want anyone falling over in shock and hurting themselves. Yes, I have a new book out:

PRINCIPAL OF LOVE -- through AWritersWork.com: http://www.awriterswork.com/McLinn_Patricia/principaloflove_pmclinn.asp

This is the "autumn" book in the Seasons in a Small Town series.

PRINCIPAL OF LOVE

Meet Josh Kincannon, high school principal, single father of three, and thus, as he reminds himself ruefully, essentially celibate back into misty memory and forward into the foreseeable future.

After three months of trying to work with Vanessa Irish via phone and e-mails, Josh believes he has an accurate picture of Zeke-Tech's CFO:

Conscientious? Oh, yeah.
Intelligent? Absolutely.
Agreeable? Not so much.

Then he catches sight of her wild, vibrant robe and begins to wonder what other elements might form a portrait of Vanessa Irish. Every time she goes into her I'm-so-boring-I-disappear-against-white-walls act, he remembers that vibrant, wild fabric hanging on the corner of a door and he gets curious. And the more curious he becomes, the more he discovers about her that has him feeling things a whole lot hotter than curiosity. Things that threaten that celibacy claim, scrape against his high school principal job and shake up life with his three kids.

Numbers, that's what Vanessa knows. Not all this interaction with people that she's been pitched into. Especially interacting with Josh Kincannon. Why does he insist on drawing her into his town, his life, his family? And the biggest question -- what kind of man is this, who not only looks at her, but /sees/ her, when that's the last thing she wants?

-- OLD BOOK FOR A GOOD CAUSE

AWritersWork.com is starting a program of offering a book for sale to benefit charity. I'm thrilled that MATCH MADE IN WYOMING is the first one. All of my proceeds from sales of MATCH at www.AWritersWork.com will be divided among 4 animal rescue groups:

ASPCA
Best Friends Animal Society
Tri-State Collie Rescue (this is where I got my current rescue collie, Kalli)
A reader's choice group (will be selected at random from among nominations of those who purchase MATCH at AWritersWork.com )

MATCH MADE IN WYOMING is dedicated to those who rescue animals (along with family furries), and features my Riley's alter ego "Sin." As one reviewer said, the dog threatens to steal the stage in MATCH. (That was ol' Riley to a T.).

You can read the 1st chapter of Match at the link below. Better yet, you could buy a copy, help those rescue groups and nominate one important to you!
http://www.awriterswork.com/McLinn_Patricia/matchmadeinwyoming_pmclinn.asp

Buy a book, help a pet!
http://www.awriterswork.com/McLinn_Patricia/matchmadeinwyoming_pmclinn.asp

Pat McL

-- A Writer's Work . . . is here!
www.AWritersWork.com
www.PatriciaMcLinn.com

Bending Reality: When Pen Pals, Fictional Characters, Virtual Friends and Real Life Collide

2010-07-07T19:07:00.008-04:00

Hard to believe, but I used to write letters almost every single day. Longhand. *shudders* Well, sometimes longhand. When I could get my hands on my dad's old Royal typewriter, I preferred to use that, but mostly I just wrote. And wrote. And wrote.

Even though I now avoid longhand whenever possible (you would shudder, too, if you saw my penmanship), I still have a callous from all those years of letter writing.

When I lived in England years ago, instead of keeping a journal, I wrote letters every day - to my parents, to my brothers and sisters, to my friends and all my other relatives. And when I moved back to the U.S. I wrote to all the friends and family I'd left behind in England.

I still write to some of my elderly relatives who don't have computers, but not nearly as often as I communicate with those who have Facebook and email accounts. I heart my computer - I don't deny it.

I LOVE that I've reconnected with my old friend Ian on Facebook - he lives in Scotland, but we worked together in London some thirty years ago. We've sent Christmas cards to each other for years, but now it's like he's in the next room.

It's the same with my friend Linda. We've been friends since we discovered our mutual love of the Beatles in sixth grade and we've stayed in touch all these years. But we never really felt connected until Facebook brought us together again.

Jim, Pat, Felicia, Bonnie, Bunny - friends from middle school and high school who had seemed so far away are there whenever I click the page, even though Bonnie is in Rio or other exotic places.

Facebook is fun, but I do have some fond memories of writing to pen pals and watching every day to see if the mailman would bring me a letter. My first real pen pal, Lilann, was slightly older than I was; her mother was a good friend of my aunt's, and she lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

I'd met her when I was 15 and we corresponded for years after that. I remember when she wrote about her father's death at an early age, and when she decided to go to nursing school. We lost touch for years, and then met again about ten years ago. When her mom died this year, it was like losing a piece of my youth.

My most memorable pen pal lived right down the street. Her name was Kerry, and we met in fifth grade. We were dorks, by any standard. The day she was introduced as the new kid in class, I saw a very short girl with straight brownish-blonde hair and heavy bangs, cat-eye glasses and, as I recall, a leopard print dress. (I had one like that later, so I'm not sure I trust my memory of that.)

I was quite tall and very skinny, with masses of freckles and long red hair that I wore in two braids. I HATED that I'd been named after Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm; I fit her description a little too well. I would have preferred Loretta Young as a namesake, with her looks to match. Instead, the boys called me "Mr. Green Jeans" because, well, I actually had a pair of green jeans. See what I mean? Total dork. (That's a picture of Mr. Green Jeans with his friend, Captain Kangaroo, below.)

We both were obsessive readers, although our taste differed - Kerry adored Laura Ingalls Wilder and her Little House series, while I was into Alfred Hitchcock short stories and anything with a mystery. We made up stories about the Russian spies across the street (they had a ham radio and foreign names, and my parents think they might really have been spies - it was the Cold War era, after all), and when another neighbor dug a trench for some plants, we convinced ourselves he was hiding bodies under them.

Those were wonderful times. We hid in the furnace closet when her three older brothers had wild parties that inevitably ended with the police showing up, and we willingly ran errands for her brothers, for a small fee. My house was overrun with younger siblings; to me, her house was the most fascinating place on earth. We were young voyeurs, always spying on the teenagers and, as I recall, sometimes taking notes.

Kerry and I clung to each other when we saw a double feature of Two on a Guillotine and Psycho (and it was the former that terrified us . . . the slowly turning doorknob . . . eek!), and when my brother and his friend Alan put some of my Beatle cards in a mousetrap, we retaliated by making Poison for Boys out of everything in her parents' medicine cabinets. (We poured it all into baggies and lobbed them at the boys from our bikes; last time I went by our old house there was still no grass growing where the PFB had landed.)

So, if Kerry lived right down the street, how did we become pen pals? Well, it wasn't exactly us. We made up an imaginary friend named Lillian P. Potter. She had a brother named Georgie, and she lived in Moonstone Manor in Scotland.

Whenever we felt the urge, we'd write a page or two in Lillian's POV (although we had no clue what point-of-view meant in those days) and mail it to the other with the Moonstone Manor return address. This went on for years. I would LOVE to find those letters, but unless Kerry has some, I think they've all gone the way of other childhood ephemera.

Kerry and I were inseparable all through middle school, but by the time we reached high school we'd begun to grow apart. It wasn't until we were out of school and I was married that we reconnected again, and then, every so often, Lillian would resurface to send a birthday or Christmas card.

By the time we became mothers (Kerry's a teacher now, with two grown sons and a couple of grandchildren), Lillian had grown up, too. I'm sure she's frolicking in the Highlands with some brawny, shirtless Scot in a kilt and having mysterious adventures every day. (Hey, it's my story, despite the fact that Ian will go into hysterics when he reads the bit about the brawny shirtless Scot.)

Lillian is not forgotten, though, and when the Harry Potter books came out, I liked to imagine he was a descendant of Lillian's.

I could hardly believe it when it was revealed that Harry's mother was named Lillian. Could it be??? Perhaps one of our letters went astray and was returned to Scotland, where it was found by an aspiring author with a vision of a bespectacled boy floating in her head. Stranger things have happened . . .

So, back to pen pals vs. Facebook, reality vs. virtuality. (If there is such a word.)

I think it's all the same, really - pen pals, virtual friends and friends we see in "real life." Characters in books are just another form of virtual - and only somewhat imaginary - friends. To those of us who live between the pages of books, reality is a little bit virtual, too.

At least, that's what I like to imagine.

Into the Unknown with Dan Dare, Kemlo, and a Cast of Thousands

2010-07-04T18:24:00.006-04:00

MARTY’S MEMORIES - Part One (The Early Years) - for Jessica and Jonathan......

My childhood memories are not often sparked by encounters with now.

When I think about my childhood days - I see them like black and white newsreels - with splashes of colour from the fantasy comic world of heroes, spacemen and aliens found in Eagle comics - and later in Marvel and DC. I can remember living in a world inside my head that was full of heroes like Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future,

- Kemlo, the Space Cadet, a kid with his own spaceship - AWESOME!!

- Tom Swift, and his amazing adventures involving his own inventions......

Becke can remember so much more of her childhood than I can, I think it may be because she had younger brothers and sisters that kept her “rooted” in the present moment - my younger brother and I are nine years apart - two only children, as I recall.

I don’t feel too bad about that - perhaps I should. But I do know that my “virtual life” in my fantasy world developed into a gifted imagination - which has helped me a lot in life, by helping me see things from alternate perspectives - from “outside the box,” you might say.

SOUTHERN BOY

I grew up (from birth to 15) in England, South London to be specific, in various suburbs with such typically “British” names as Brockley, Upper Norwood, and Penge, although my mother would always claim that we lived in Upper Sydenham (pronounced Siddenhum) - it was a class thing with her.

My family moved around various places in South London and Kent for most of my childhood - so I often was the “new boy” in class - so it was tough to make lasting friendships. We moved a lot because we lived in flats while I was growing up. We could never afford a single family home - those were either the luxury of the upper middle class or the “gift” of the government for those with a lower income. It had always seemed a little upside down to me as a kid that my friends, who my Mum and Dad assured me, came from “poorer” circumstances, had nice little houses with their own rooms and back gardens, while I had a tiny room in a flat with no separate garden.... I was quite sure that getting a “council house,” was not as demeaning as my parents made it out to be..

I was a chubby kid, and wasn’t very good at sports - nothing’s changed there. But as a kid it made me feel a little outcast and shy. So I used to play with a few close friends or I played with my imaginary “hero” friends. I liked them a lot better than the real ones anyway. My imaginary friends would never ask me if I wanted to play a game - then not pick me for their team....

My favorite games always involved me being some kind of hero - I liked masks, capes and gloves and anything that added realism to my secret identity. Don’t get me wrong, I did have friends who liked to act out these fantastic adventures with me - we’d lose ourselves for hours being these “invincible” avengers of justice. We’d wreak havoc among all the imaginary villains that would challenge our powers.

I used to love “Saturday Morning Pictures” - which was the British version of the kid’s matinee - where I’d sit through a bunch of cartoons and an invariably long and boring western film, waiting for the 10 minute serial episode of Commando Cody in “Radar Men from the Moon," or “Crash” Corrigan in the “Undersea Kingdom.”

As soon as the lights came up I’d rush home and put a box with eyeholes on my head and somehow attach the control unit from my train set to the front of my shirt, and spend the rest of the afternoon running and jumping into the air in my back garden -

“Look out baddies - it’s Commando Cody and his Rocket suit!!”

THE MARVELS OF MARVEL

I lived my fantasies mostly in black and white until the arrival of colour comics from America - they were even more real - amazing!!

There were DC Comics with Superman, Batman & Robin, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Aquaman - and my personal favorites The Flash, The Atom, and the little known Metal Men (who to this day I owe for helping me pass a difficult science test). Because of that comic, I knew the melting points of various alloys, because The Metal Men’s weakness, (all heroes have them), were geared around that very issue.

THE METAL MEN

They all were the coolest heroes EVER....

Then one day I was at the local newsagent and discovered the world of Marvel comics - OMG!!!

There was The Fantastic Four, Spiderman, Ant-Man, Giant Man, Hulk, Sub-Mariner, the list goes on and on - then I found my favorites amongst those - Iron Man and Thor........

So many super-heroes, so little time!!

Every month there seemed to be a new super-cool, super hero that I could add to my expanding imaginary world.

Those were great days.....

A FRIEND INDEED

I do remember my best friend from those days (just in case you think I NEVER had any) - his name was Michael O’Farrell and he lived at the end of our street - he was an Irish Roman Catholic - from a VERY Irish, and very Catholic family (lots of kids) for those days. His father seemed mean, although it might have just been his way. I know that he did not look too kindly on his son being friends with an English PROTESTANT boy - ironic now as I look back, but in those days I wasn’t even sure what a Catholic was - although I did know that we, so-called Protestants, were supposed to hate them, and vice versa....

In my childish understanding I thought that being Protestant just meant that you didn’t really believe in anything - it seemed that way - my parents didn’t go to church unless there was a funeral or a wedding - although my Dad definitely had a lot of Bibles that he never appeared to read!!! Being Catholic appeared to mean that you had more kids than you could handle so you yelled at them all the time!!

Michael and I were inseparable - he came on holiday with me a few times - we had such fun playing together. I was friends with him for several years, until we moved away. I hope he remembers me as well as I remember him. I wonder if he’s still around.

That takes me up to about age 10....... just like any good serial..... there’s much more to come. Stay Tuned............

Ben and Me, Traveling Back Through Time

2010-07-03T20:36:00.012-04:00

Happy almost-Independence Day to all my friends in the U.S. of A.! My husband and I celebrated the gorgeous day by driving down to East Fork Lake State Park in Bethel, Ohio. The lake is beautiful, the weather was glorious and we had a great time.

We decided to explore a little before returning home. Bethel isn't all that far from our home, but we rarely get down that way. We were intrigued by the retro look of the downtown area, so we stopped to browse through some of the stores.

That's when things got weird. There was a Ben Franklin 5 and 10 store on the corner -- when I was a kid, a lot of people called it the "five and dime." Now, as far as I knew, Ben Franklin had been out of business for a long time. Several people I know used to work at their warehouses, and I thought they'd all shut down. Shows how much I know.

Here's what Ben Franklin looks like now, Main Street USA-style:

Here's what the stores used to look like - this is one in Pennsylvania:

And this is the store we visited in Bethel today:

I even found a YouTube video about a Ben Franklin store in Oberlin, OH:

First, the backstory - let me tell you about Ben and Me. Not the famous book by the same name, which I read about the time this story starts, but good old Ben Franklin's 5 and 10 store in Elk Grove Village, Illinois.

(Yes, there really are elks in Elk Grove.)

My family moved to Elk Grove Village on May 18, 1959, shortly before I finished first grade at Armstrong School in Chicago. I went to Rupley School in Elk Grove for about a month, and by the time I started second grade Ridge School had been completed.

The town was just being built by Centex, and there wasn't a lot to do. My family would drive out by the cornfields and watch planes take off by the newly expanded O'Hare International Airport, and my friends and I would chase the mosquito-spraying trucks, probably inhaling clouds of DDT.

We had no lawns, but there was so much clay in our backyard, I was able to make a rather nice ashtray for my dad for Father's Day and some kind of bowl for my mom on Mother's Day. The sidewalks were built above the grade, and when a torrential rainstorm hit, all the neighborhood kids had the unusual opportunity to swim in our front yards.

Besides the elks, our other claim to fame was in nearby Des Plaines, where our local hang-out was the first ever McDonald's.

That first year, a tornado turned the sky green on September 20 and damaged 16 homes. It was an interesting introduction to the town I lived in until I got married in 1971.

Back to Ben Franklin. The big shopping area back then was on Arlington Heights Road, and included the Maitre'D Restaurant, Suburban Drugs, Elk Grove Bowl and a Ben Franklin 5 and 10 store. Jarosch Bakery was also there - and it still is today. (I worked there when I was 16 and they made my wedding cake, so I have to give them a plug.)

Things were different back then, so it wasn't unusual for my brother and I to walk the two miles to Ben Franklin to spend our (sporadic) allowance.

It was always a tough decision. I usually saved up my quarters until I had at least a dollar to spend. Sometimes I bought books; Big Golden Books cost a buck - Quick Draw McGraw and Huckleberry Hound were among the ones I bought - and Trixie Belden, too.

My brother sometimes bought model airplane kits, and I remember buying a small cardboard box filled with teeny, tiny pink plastic dishes, cups and saucers made in China or Japan - they cost less than a dollar, but I treasured that set more than any expensive toy I owned. Then there was the penny candy and other cool stuff - wax lips, wax syrup-filled Coke bottles, jaw breakers, Mary Janes, Boston Baked Beans. Ah, the days when I could eat that crap without feeling guilty!

Anyway, as you can see, Ben Franklin isn't a store to me, it's a piece of my childhood. So imagine how disoriented I felt when I walked into the Ben Franklin in Goshen, Ohio today and found I had stepped back in time. The first aisle had a big display of ladies' hair nets, in packaging that clearly hadn't changed since the 1950s. I think it probably was the original stock. Below those was a large display of flowered hankies, similar to the ones my grandmother used to give me when I was about six years old.

When we walked into another part of the store, I could practically hear the Twilight Zone theme playing. There were the boxes of model cars and airplanes my brother used to buy, and I swear some of them had been there since those days. There were paper doll books older than my daughter, and a child's ironing play set from the year my daughter was born: 1983. In the card section, they had vintage-looking cards and gift wrap so old they are back in style.

I love this store! I don't know how any store today can stay in business with a selection like this, but I guarantee I'll be going back there again -- with my kids, next time. I'm sure they would be as fascinated as my husband and I were by this flash into the past.

Thanks for the memories, Ben Franklin. And what a long, strange trip it's been!

Happy 4th of July and Happy Canada Day!

2010-07-01T12:24:00.001-04:00

Glitter Graphics - GlitterLive.com

Glitter Graphics - GlitterLive.com

Glitter Graphics - GlitterLive.com

The Gift of Laughter

2010-06-25T12:38:00.007-04:00

It's a serious world out there, and it's refreshing to find things -- books, jokes, video clips -- that can make you smile or, better yet, laugh.

I tend to remember books that make me laugh, and they aren't always "joke" books or those written by comedians. I'd wager very few people read Jerome K. Jerome today, but his lovely book, THREE MEN IN A BOAT (TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG)is a long-time favorite of mine.

The first time I really lost it, I was in my high school library reading James Thurber's short story, "The Day the Dam Broke" from his book MY LIFE AND HARD TIMES. I couldn't stop laughing and finally the librarian kindly asked me to leave. I don't know why it tickled my funny bone to that extent, but it led me to read everything else Thurber wrote.

I like to read mysteries, thrillers and romantic suspense and there's not a lot of humor in those dark stories. There is, however, a surprising amount of wit in romance novels (which I also love), especially those penned by Jennifer Crusie. When I read the frozen brownie scene in TELL ME LIES - the first book of hers I read - I knew I'd found another lifetime favorite.

I love plays and movies, and laughed so hard I couldn't catch my breath when I saw Nathan Lane in THE PRODUCERS on Broadway. In the movie versions, I still prefer the classic original with Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder.

I guess I have a thing for slapstick, since other movie favorites include WHAT'S UP, DOC?, THE BIRDCAGE and THE ODD COUPLE - the Jack Lemmon/Walter Matthau version, not the TV show.

I could go on and on, which is a good thing. I'm glad there are so many things that make me laugh -- Craig Ferguson on a good night, for instance, or Jon Stewart on the Daily Show nearly every night. Carol Burnett, Bill Cosby ("Russell, My Brother Who I Slept With" always kills me) -- okay, someone stop me.

One more, although some of you might have a little difficulty understanding the lyrics -- Ian Dury and the Blockheads from 1979 (when I was living in England): "Reasons to Be Cheerful, Part 3."

Those are some of the things that make me laugh. What about you?

Do You Believe in Magic?

2010-05-24T15:43:00.005-04:00

I’m a sucker for romance, even if it doesn’t come in traditional packages. I don’t need the Hallmark card – I’d choose lilacs over red roses, ginger beer over champagne and sparkly cubic zirconia over diamonds.

In books, I’m fond of fantasy and whimsy; I’m willing to suspend disbelief as long as I get a happy ending. Call me shallow, but I don’t want angst or the Great American Novel. I just want to be smiling when I turn that final page.

In The Girl Who Chased the Moon, Sarah Addison Allen welcomes us to Mullaby, North Carolina, famous for its barbecue festival and not much else.

Strange things happen in this small town – wallpaper changes at will, ghostly lights peek from the woods and secrets abound. The air is infused with magic, or maybe it’s just the delectable fragrance of Julia Winterson’s hummingbird cake.

Julia, who bakes cakes the way others cast spells, is six months away from her two year goal when a case of in vino veritas messes up her plans. Sawyer Alexander is blindingly beautiful and the embodiment of all Julia knows she’ll never have. He might have inspired her passion for baking, but Sawyer is the cause of her problems – not the solution.

Emily Benedict is an orphaned 17-year-old newly arrived at the home of her grandfather, a giant of a man “tall enough to see into tomorrow.” Shocked to find herself outcast because of her mother’s past actions, Emily eagerly accepts the friendship Julia offers, and is drawn, in spite of herself, to Win Coffey.

Win, in his white linen suit and red bow tie, fits into Mullaby in a way Emily never will, and he seems to accept her in spite of the hurtful things Emily’s mother did. The lives of these four characters warp and weave together like threads on a loom, binding them in ways none of them could have predicted.

Sarah Addison Allen’s delectably light touch sparkles on the page as if she has waved a glittering wand over her words. Nothing is ever ordinary or mundane in her books; in “The Girl Who Chased the Moon,” fireflies practically flicker on the page, drawn to the glow of the Mullaby moon.

Although it’s not a romance in the sense readers may expect, this book is a love story on many levels – new loves, old loves, family love and the love only a small town can give.

The Girl Who Chased the Moon is Sarah Addison Allen's third book. Be sure to check out Garden Spells and The Sugar Queen, too. They are all on my "keeper" shelf!

Who Were You Meant to Be?

2010-05-04T22:52:00.004-04:00

I watched this video tonight at my husband's urging. I'm glad I did, because it made me think about my own education and that of my children. I still remember when my son's kindergarten teacher sent me a note because he had colored an apple purple instead of red. She was perturbed about it. I was perturbed about her.

Luckily, we moved shortly after that and my son and daughter were blessed with wonderful teachers who helped them discover their strengths instead of trying to stuff them into rigid boxes.

Sir Ken Robinson talks about epiphanies in this video, a subject close to my heart. He asked a number of people to describe the epiphanies in their own lives, the moment in time where they realized what they were meant to do. Or, as I would put it, who they were meant to be. My husband recalls the first time he played a guitar -- that was an epiphany for him.

I don't remember when I decided to write; in fact, I don't think there was a decision involved. I've written ever since I learned how to put pen to paper. I started typing before I was 12 and haven't stopped since then. Stories, poems, letters, articles, essays, novels, non-fiction books, blogs -- I write the way others breathe. I talk a lot, but I write even more than I talk. I don't know how to not write. (Note: this doesn't mean I've mastered the art, but I try.)

Sir Ken Robinson tells the story of a girl who couldn't sit still in school, and her teachers were sure something was wrong with her. Her parents sent her to dance school and she became a top ballerina. She related her thrill at walking into a place where everyone was just like her.

That's what it was like for me when I joined RWA and my local chapter -- finding others who love to write was indescribable. I also read constantly, and I had a similar sense of coming home when I discovered the book club boards at Barnes & Noble (BN.com). To spend your life thinking you're odd and alone in this obsessive love of books, and then to discover there are thousands who feel the same way -- it's an incomparable gift.

I hate to think of others who still think they are alone, or who have not found a way to express their talents. I am not much for giving advice but I'll say this: do what you love. Don't let anything stop you. Even if you don't succeed, you'll be happier for trying.

Bee-witched, Bothered and Bee-wildered

2010-04-19T16:19:00.002-04:00

My brother, who lives in Albuquerque, sent me a series of emails with some fascinating photos. With his permission and the permission of the people discussed, I'd like to share this with you.

This was the initial email from my brother Russ:

One of the guys at work (Joe) is also Joe The Bee Guy. He got a call the other day at work. A truck driver turned on his a/c and it didn't work. He opened the back of his trailer and a huge cloud of bees flew out! Turns out they were living in the ac duct work and when he turned it on they got sucked into the fan - breaking the fan . . .

When he opened the trailer doors the hive moved to a trailer parked at the neighboring Kenworth dealership. Joe ended up moving around 40 pounds of bees and set up 13 new hives in Bosque Farms!

Note:he's wearing short sleeves - he had about 20 stings on his arms when he came back to work! Vince Valdez is the photographer at the Kenworth dealership.

This was taken the next day. Read more about it and see more pictures here. This and the other photos were taken by beekeeper Mike Kruchoski.

Happy 40th to Me and My Sweetie!

2010-04-18T13:11:00.006-04:00

Forty years ago today I went out with my future husband for the first time. He was in a band called Quiet -- he played bass guitar -- and he invited me to one of their practice sessions. We'd known each other since he moved to my area the year before. He lived in Park Ridge briefly when his family first moved to the U.S. from England, but he didn't really feel at home until he started attending my high school -- known as "the hippie school" back in the day.

I'd always been an Anglophile, thanks to early indoctrination by Agatha Christie and the Beatles, so I knew the instant a new English guy arrived at our school. We both worked on the school newspaper and we were both solid Beatle fans. It wasn't long before we became friends.

For a long time, that's all it was. Of course I "noticed" him, but I was still in a long-distance relationship with a boyfriend who had moved to another state and he (future husband) seemed to be dating a good friend of mine. I knew they were friends, but didn't feel comfortable asking either of them if it was serious. Because I was just a friend. Right.

We were interested in a lot of the same books and music, and we talked a lot. He started calling me to tell me about concerts he'd been to. We carefully avoided talk of significant others. This was friends talking, nothing more.

But he told me -- years later -- that he would drive by my house a lot, and he often appeared in my dreams. I felt that my boyfriend and I were growing apart, but I wasn't sure he felt the same way. Because of that, I never thought anything would come of my interest in my English friend.

On April 18, 1970 everything changed. I went to see a lot of bands perform - I wrote about them for our school paper - so on the surface it was no big deal when he invited me to watch his band practice. But of course, it was different and we both knew it.

I remember watching something on TV about Paul McCartney's new solo album. I've checked back and it appears the official release date was Friday, April 17, 1970. We both remember listening to "Maybe I'm Amazed" and being completely knocked out by it. The words of the song also clarified a few things.

So anyway . . . April 18 has always been our "real" anniversary. I broke up with my boyfriend the next day and a few weeks later we attended our senior prom. I went to England with him a few months after that and in October 1971 we got married.

We still have the Beatles and a love of England in common, but we are opposites in soooo many ways. Somehow, it still works. When he's out of town, I'm excited for him to come home. I'm always happy to hear his voice on the phone. He is the best card giver ever. He was, and continues to be, a wonderful father to our two kids and the best husband in the world. Well, in MY world, anyway.

Forty years. 14,610 days (give or take two days). 21,037,950 minutes. And maybe I'm still amazed.

Easter Fun

2010-04-03T19:57:00.001-04:00

Happy Easter!

2010-04-03T19:53:00.000-04:00

Happy April Fool's Day!

2010-04-01T17:23:00.002-04:00

Look at me, Look at him, Look at me, I'm on a . . . Treadmill?

2010-03-24T20:37:00.006-04:00

I love that Old Spice commercial with the line, "Look at me - I'm on a horse." I keep thinking of that as I walk on my treadmill while playing on my laptop. "Look at me - I'm on Facebook . . . and I'm exercising."

For a person whose day job, hobbies and career pursuits all involve parking my ass -- sorry, posterior -- in a comfortably padded computer chair, the padding has inevitably, um, spread. I find it nearly impossible to read while walking on the treadmill, but I've often joked that if only I had the nerve to duct tape my laptop to my treadmill, I might actually drop a few pounds.

Imagine my surprise when my good friend Hope recently told me she'd seen a product that would let me do just that, minus the need for duct tape. I did a Google search and discovered the product was called a SurfShelf. At roughly forty bucks, it was a lot of money for a piece of plastic with a Velcro strap, but my husband and I felt it would be worth every penny if we actually used it.

That was the key. We had one treadmill that spent most of its life with clothes hanging on it. We've had this fancier version for awhile and although we do use it, we don't use it nearly as often as we should. So we forked over the money and a few days later the SurfShelf arrived. Despite the missing Tool Guy gene in our family, it wasn't all that tricky to install. (In other words, no drills were thrown in the process.)

Then it was ready for the test. The reviews we read mentioned the importance of a slow, steady pace. REALLY slow, like .5 to 1.0 mph. My son, who runs marathons, would raise his eyebrows, for sure. But we weren't sure we could navigate the keyboard even at that speed. Now that I've been using it for a few days, I find 1.5 to 2.0 is a more comfortable pace for me.

All in all, we've been pleasantly surprised. My husband did two miles the first time he used it without even realizing it. Yesterday I did three miles while answering emails, moderating at B&N and visiting my favorite blogs. I did two miles today with no effort at all. Most importantly, we're both using it, and using it every day.

Okay, I've been known to slack off on occasion. There's no guarantee I'll be faithful to my new friend. But, honestly, this is kind of fun. I'm intrigued by the multitasking possibilities - last night I even watched a taped episode of Castle while working AND walking. The mind boggles!

Of course, there are doubters. I'm known as something of a klutz in my family. When I shared the news of my move toward non-couch-potato status, my brother (who rides his bike on 100 mile treks for fun) said this:

Bec - Looking forward to your emails from the hospital as you're recovering from falling off the stupid thing!

Let's see, we've got drinking and driving, texting and driving, and now what, writing and walking?

But, officer, I was only typing 32 words a minute.

But, ma'am, it's a 25 word a minute speed zone.

What do you mean I was typing while walking 4 miles per hour? I couldn't have been walking that fast - the treadmill only goes to 3.5 miles per hour!

Well, ma'am, when was the last time you had that thing in the shop? The speedometers on those things are notoriously out of whack . . .

Be careful out there.

BTW, Bec, what does "wlork" mean exactly? In the meantime, I'll continue to sit while typing and walk only while outside!

T

Easy for him to say - he's never been overweight in his life! My sister also put in her two cents' worth:

You're kidding! I tried holding weights while walking a few years ago . . . fell and hit my head on the treadmill and got all cut up . . . looked like I was in a bad accident. Computer on the treadmill? I THINK NOTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!

So, as you can see, not everyone is confident my new experiment with fitness training is a good (or smart) (or safe) thing. But I'm kind of happy about the blisters I've developed this week. My jeans are a tiny bit loose.

This might just work. Stay tuned!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2010-03-16T23:20:00.000-04:00

Happy Valentine's Day!

2010-02-07T20:03:00.003-05:00

Just Say N.O.?

2010-02-04T13:38:00.011-05:00

I noticed an odd thing today. On the keyboards of both my laptop and desktop computers, the letters N and O are almost invisible.

The <, >, L and A keys are also pretty worn, but not as much as N and O.

Why is that?

Okay, so this isn't exactly a question to challenge the great minds of the world, but it's bugging me. I don't think I write "no" a lot, but why else would those letters -- more than the other 24 -- be worn off both keyboards?

Is my keyboard giving me some kind of subliminal message: Just say N.O.? I would have thought I'd be more of a "yes" person, pleaser that I am. (I'm intrigued by that book THE YEAR OF YES, but figure I'm halfway there already.)

Am I secretly a "no" person?

Or it could be that my keyboard is trying to talk to me: Enough is enough, lady. You've written a few million words in the past couple years, give me a freaking break.

Yeah, I could see that. The computer probably comes to life at night and screws up my stories, too.

Am I getting a psychic message from the Great Beyond? Hell if I know -- or should I say, "hell if I 'no'?"

C'mon, smart people. Help me out. We can't solve all the problems of the world, but maybe you can help me with this one.

Why aren't the "e" and "s" keys -- surely more popular letters -- worn out on my keyboards?

Why is my computer saying N.O.???

Happy New Year!

2009-12-28T19:09:00.001-05:00

glitter-graphics.com

The Christmas Card

2009-12-09T17:23:00.006-05:00

I'm procrastinating -- I'll admit that readily. I've already written and addressed sixty or so cards, and I've barely started the U.S. part of the address list. That was just family and the friends and relatives overseas.

I collect old post cards and some old Christmas cards. I love the nostalgia, the old stamps, the beautiful lithographs, the corny jokes. I thought I'd share some of these with you -- not my own collection, which I haven't photographed, but vintage cards and postcards I found online. These are some of my favorites.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-24T10:32:00.001-05:00

Glitter Graphics - GlitterLive.com

My (Virtual) Life

2009-11-22T13:29:00.010-05:00

What's In a Name?

Some of you know me as Becke Davis. Some know me as Becke Martin. Neither is the name I was born with, but I’ve been Becke Davis since I got married at age 19.

Becke Martin was born in 2007 when I first tried my hand at fiction. I had been a garden writer for many years, with five books published under my real name, Becke Davis. I write for a lot of trade magazines in the landscape industry – a very male-oriented business. I worked hard and long to develop a reputation in that industry, and didn’t want to be laughed off the trade-magazine-page by letting it be known that I also wrote (gasp!) romance.

Becke Martin wasn’t my first pen name. I wrote a Backstreet Boys fan fiction story for my daughter’s 16th birthday and sent it to my garden editor as a joke. She called the day it arrived (those were the days of snail mail), and hired me to write a book about ‘N Sync on the spot. My daughter co-wrote it with me, and I went with the pen name Lexi Martin so the readers wouldn’t realize one of the authors was writing it with her mom.

I might have kept Lexi alive if I’d been writing YA, but I didn’t think she’d work for romance. After some hilarious early ideas, an author friend said the most important thing was to pick a pen name I’d remember to answer to – assuming I’d get published, some day. That’s when I decided to keep my real first name and reclaim the “Martin” surname (which, confusingly, happens to be my husband’s first name).

Becke Martin – I liked it. I could live with that. And, even allowing for senior moments, I was sure to answer to it.

Perfect.

Writing has always been a career for me, so even when I really, really sucked at fiction, I always worked with the assumption that I could and would learn and improve. It wasn’t the thrilling idea of seeing my (pen)name on a book that drove me, or that drives me still. It’s just that I will keep writing, and working at it, until I get it right. So.

I created a website for my alter ego: www.beckemartin.com. Created a MySpace page. Earlier this year, I created a Facebook page using “Becke Martin” because – again – I wanted to keep my professional life as a garden writer separate from my world of writing friends.

I underestimated the power of social networking. Big time.

My husband is on Facebook. My kids are on Facebook. My sisters and one of my brothers are on Facebook. Hell – my dad is on Facebook. So much for anonymity: old school friends, neighbors, friends from my days as a PTO mom – all are finding me here, through my other connections.

The pivotal moment for me happened at my son’s college graduation in June. A young woman came up to me and said, “Hi – you’re Becke Martin, aren’t you? We’re friends on Facebook!” Then she turned to my husband and said, “Hi, Mr. Martin!”

Turns out Amanda – a friend of my son’s – heard I was a writer, and friended me out of that mutual interest. She knew my son’s last name was Davis, but since she only knew me from Facebook, Becke Martin was the name she remembered. It was a very strange feeling – the first time anyone called me by my pen name – but it only struck me as kind of cool.

Then I went to the Romance Writers national convention in Washington, DC in July. Apparently my hair and glasses make me easy to identify, because more people than I could begin to count came up to me and said, “Becke Martin! We’re friends on Facebook!” It was wild – fun and disorienting and overwhelming, like the whole conference was – but mainly fun.

For awhile. The thing is, I have another day job: I moderate the Mystery and Garden book clubs at Barnes & Noble (BN.com), and in July I also started writing a blog for them called Garden Variety. Also in July, I joined Michelle Buonfiglio’s team at Romance B(u)y the Book, where I blog about contemporary romance and romantic suspense. Michelle also blogs at B&N’s Unabashedly Bookish and Heart to Heart, so we have this double connection – that Barnes & Noble was aware of when I joined her RBTB team – and both at RBTB and B&N, I use my real name.

At National, I had business cards promoting my unpublished book, business cards promoting B&N’s Mystery book club (since romantic suspense and mystery often overlap) and I had cards for Romance B(u)y the Book. Some people got my “Becke Martin” business cards, some got my “Becke Davis” business cards. Even Michelle sometimes forgets which is my real name.

At National, the amazing Hank Phillippi Ryan generously introduced me to her agent, not realizing she had already rejected my story. I was thrilled and nervous in equal parts, which made me babble more than usual. I’m sure Hank’s agent has me down as a total lunatic now! Anyway, Hank said, “This is Becke Davis – I mean Becke Martin,” and then asked which I preferred.

I hardly knew how to respond at that point – the movie Sybil with Sally Field came to mind. The whole strange moment became even more bizarre when I said, “Becke Davis,” and, moments later, Hank’s agent introduced me to a friend who said, “Oh, you’re Becke Martin – we’re friends on Facebook!” That whole incident brought home to me the fact that my alter ego has taken on a life of her own – and I think it’s a lot more exciting than my real one.

I now have over 2,500 friends on Facebook. I don’t think I have close to that many friends in real life. Becke Martin has over 700 friends on MySpace while Becke Davis has roughly 150 friends there. I’m on Twitter as both Becke Martin and Becke Davis, too. I’ve met a lot of these virtual friends in real life now, which has made this whole online parallel universe feel even more bizarre. I answer to both names, and have even wondered if I should start hyphenating the two.

As if this wasn't confusing enough, I use yet another pen name, Anya Davis, for my hot paranormals and dark romantic suspense stories. "She" is on MySpace and Twitter and has her own blog, which gets more hits than my real blog. I really relate to Jayne Ann Krentz/Jayne Castle/Amanda Quick, but at least she's published!

Your name is the first blank to fill in on a job application or a questionnaire, and you’d think it would be dead easy to answer. It shows how much my virtual life has spilled over into my real life, when I realize the answer for me is: it depends.

Words for Women to Live By

2009-11-22T13:21:00.003-05:00

Thanks to my sister for sending me this:

1. Aspire to be Barbie - the bitch has everything.

2. If the shoe fits - buy them in every color.

3. Take life with a pinch of salt... A wedge of lime, and a shot of tequila.

4. In need of a support group? - Cocktail hour with the girls!

5. Go on the 30 day diet. (I'm on it and so far I've lost 15 days).

6. When life gets you down - just put on your big girl panties and deal with it.

7. Let your greatest fear be that there is no PMS and this is just your personality.

8. I know I'm in my own little world, but it's ok. They know me here.

9. Lead me not into temptation, I can find it myself.

10. Don't get your knickers in a knot; it solves nothing and makes you walk funny.

11. When life gives you lemons turn it into lemonade then mix it with vodka.

12. Remember wherever there is a good looking, sweet, single or married man there is some woman tired of his bullshit!

13. Keep your chin up, only the first 40 years of parenthood are hard.

14. If it has tires or testicles it's gonna give you trouble.

15. By the time a woman realizes her mother was right, she has a daughter who thinks she's wrong.

The Insanity that is NaNoWriMo

2009-11-02T21:35:00.008-05:00

What is NaNoWriMo?

From the NaNoWriMo website:

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

On NanoWrimo

This appeared at Maria Schneider's Editor Unleashed website on November 21, 2008:

http://editorunleashed.com/2008/11/21/on-nanowrimo/

Nano is…

by Becke Martin

NaNo is panic, followed by sleepless nights, dreaming of your characters, and waking up in the middle of the night (if you aren’t still up writing) to jot down notes for the next scene.

NaNo is making friends, or getting to know old ones better, as you rediscover highs and lows you thought vanished with Clearasil many years ago. (In my case, many, many years ago!)

NaNo is coming up with long ways to say short things, as in this quote from our NaNo loop:
“Dumb as a stump” = 4 words. “Dumb as a box of rocks” = 6 words.

NaNo is sprints, challenges, silly word-use contests, plots that make no sense (Plot? Yours has a plot?), characters who don’t know what they’re doing—much less why—and often live with names like “Hero” and “Heroine” for way too many pages.

NaNo is forming a close, warm relationship with your computer chair, which you sincerely hope will not grow around your butt like that gross toilet-seat story we all read about this summer.

NaNo is rarely cleaning your house (OK, never) during the month of November, considering serving your family Swanson’s Hungry Man Turkey Dinners for Thanksgiving, and wondering what new position you can come up with to keep your husband from a) killing you or b) moving out before the end of the month.

NaNo is wishing someone would invent a waterproof laptap so you could write down the great ideas that come to you in the shower and vanish the second you sit down at your computer.

NaNo is wondering if it’s worth disconnecting your desktop and bringing it out of town with you because, even though you have a flash drive, you still don’t have a laptop.

NaNo is learning that you must back up your story every night. Let’s say that again: Back. It. Up. Every. Damn. Night. Because, in my buddy group alone, two people lost a total of about six thousand words.

NaNo is learning to appreciate the recuperative properties of alcohol, as well as caffeine of all kinds. And chocolate. Especially chocolate.

NaNo is discovering that a lot of freaking weird people are living in your head, and every one of them wants to be in this story.

NaNo is hitting the wall and not being able to write a single damn word, coherent or not.

NaNo is sitting back down at the computer, anyway, and forcing yourself to start writing again.

NaNo is going back to your support groups, again and again, to find the strength to keep pushing forward. And gaining a greater appreciation of all your buddies who are doing this in spite of flu, full time jobs, crashing computers and little children.

NaNo is thinking you are writing a romance, only to end up with a suspense story about werewolves, only not really.

NaNo is hitting 40K and thinking maybe—just maybe—you’re going to be able to pull this thing off after all.

Becke Martin (aka Cincinnati) can be found at myspace.com/beckemartin.

Want to join the mass insanity? Here's a link to the NaNoWriMo website:

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

Add me as a writing buddy: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/258729

Men in Kilts

2009-10-05T21:02:00.005-04:00

My critique partner has a thing about guys in kilts. Now I, of course, am above all that. I can resist those bare-chested, kilt-wearing hotties on the covers of the latest romance novels -- for at least a minute or two.

But I don't draw the line at the Gerry Butler types. I think it may go back to my Scottish ancestry, but I must admit a certain fascination with Scottish literati of the talk show variety. My husband and I are both hooked on Craig Ferguson, in part because my husband also moved to the U.S. as a young man. Unlike Ferguson, who recently became an American citizen, my husband has steadfastly clung to his British roots.

Still, it was no surprise that when Ferguson's new book AMERICAN ON PURPOSE came out, that my husband and I would want to read it. We bought the book on a trip to Chicago and I read aloud from it for a good part of the drive home. We liked it so much that, in addition to the book, we've downloaded the audio version (read by Ferguson) to listen to on our next long drive.

So what is it about Scots and kilts, anyway? Are you smitten by Scots? What are your favorite books (or book covers) about Scottish heroes?

12-Step Program for the Bookaholic (Who Has No Desire to be “Cured!”)

2009-09-25T17:34:00.008-04:00

1. Visit the book club boards at www.bn.com no more than five times a day. Ten at most.

2. Talk about books (or to authors) on Twitter no more than five times a day. Ten at most.

3. Talk about books (or to authors) on Facebook no more than an hour a day. Five at most.

4. Go to bookstores no more than twice a week. (Used bookstores don’t count.)

5. Order books online no more than five times per week. (Combined orders and pre-orders don’t count.)

6. Remember to check pre-orders before ordering a new release. (Think of all the duplicate books you’ve received because you forgot to do this!)

7. Just because you love the author’s new book, this does not necessitate buying every book on this author’s backlist. (Recent releases are enough – for now.)

8. Do not let friends who read only literature make you defensive about whatever genre you are currently reading. All reading improves the mind. (And books in the romance genre have added benefits!)

9. Remember that buying books written by authors who are friends doesn’t count.

10. And buying books written by RWA chapter members is sort of a business expense.

11. In fact, for writers, all books should count as business expenses – it’s research, after all. Someone should talk to the IRS about this flaw in their regulations.

12. Visit no more than five author blogs a day. Ten at the most. You’re only enabling them – they should be working on their next book, not talking to people like you!

The lovely illustration comes from this site: www.lovebooks.co.za/

I hope they don't mind me borrowing it.

Birthday Madness

2009-09-20T12:37:00.015-04:00

I admit it: I go a little nuts over birthdays. Not my own, God forbid -- I'd just as soon forget those.

And not my husband's, either -- I've learned my lesson after two surprise parties. They were fun for everyone except the birthday boy, who would, if his life had turned out differently, have chosen to live as a monk in a cave somewhere.

But with my kids, all bets were off. I'd put up banners, tape their birthday cards to the door, get party plates and napkins, silly hats and horns and "I'm the Birthday Boy/Girl" badges. And that was only the beginning.

Birthdays were always events -- the kids didn't just have parties, they had theme parties. (I know, I know.) Clown parties. Magician parties. Decorate-the-sun-visor parties. Roller-rink parties, parties at the gymnastics center, Chuck-E-Cheese, Q-Zar, the Family Fun Center, slumber parties, surprise parties -- you name it, we did it.

Several of my daughter's birthdays stand out: on her second birthday, we had just moved to New Jersey and were living in a Sheraton hotel until the movers arrived with our furniture. While I was on the phone with the moving company, Jessica wrote all over her body with a pen -- I do mean ALL OVER. She looked like the Tattooed Baby -- I worried about her getting ink poisoning!

Then there was her 11th birthday, where I let her invite 11 friends for a sleepover (I think my hair started to turn white that night). The year she turned 13, Jessica had a pen pal who lived in New York City. After much begging on her part and much angst on mine, we flew to New York the weekend of her birthday. We met her friend Thyrza -- who turned out to be very sweet -- and visited Tower Records, a retro record store in Greenwich Village, Strawberry Fields and Times Square. We saw "Grease" and went to an Ani DiFranco concert in Central Park. In other words, we had a blast.

Jonathan had several memorable birthdays, too. Around the time of his 11th birthday, he was into challenges and puzzles, so I wrapped several gifts and hid them around the house. Then I made up riddles that he had to decipher in order to find them. I kept a copy of the list -- and the answers -- for myself, remembering how we'd lost a few Easter eggs that way. When we found them, months later, it wasn't pleasant.

His first birthday was memorable, too. My sister was about to move into a new house -- they had closed on the old house, but the new one wasn't quite ready. In the meantime, my husband and I, our two kids and two cats shared the house with my sister and her husband, their three girls and their dog.

And then her kids got chicken pox. Somehow, my kids -- who were sharing beds/cribs with their cousins -- didn't get sick, but Jonathan was still colicky and cried a lot at night. NONE of us got much sleep. My main memory of his first birthday was four adults in zombie-mode, surrounded by a gaggle of kids and animals. It was a memorable birthday, even if it passed in a blur.

The first time my kids spent their birthdays away from home, I felt a little lost. Today is my daughter's 26th birthday, and she's spending it in New York City with her boyfriend. My son came home for the weekend closest to his birthday to keep my husband company while I was at RWA National, and we went out for birthday dinner on our way back from the airport on my return. Right after dinner, he headed back to Chicago and spent his actual birthday partying with friends three days later.

Yes, I went way too far with my kids' birthdays when they were young. Too many presents, too many parties, too much of everything. But my kids didn't turn out too badly and, you know, I'd probably do it again. Relatively speaking, there's only a short time when birthdays are fun, and you might as well make the most of it.

What about you -- your own birthdays, your husband/significant other's, your kids? Are you a party animal, or do you try to hide until the day is past? Do you tell the truth about your age when people ask? Or are your birthdays stuck at 29?

Put Up Your Dukes!

2009-09-09T22:58:00.015-04:00

I've read Pride and Prejudice. Hell, I've even seen the movie. I love Jane Eyre, but prefer Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights to Emily Bronte's book. Still, until about a year and a half ago, I scorned historical romances.

Those books have had their revenge, because I seem to be hooked.

I blame Anna Campbell and Eloisa James. When I bought CLAIMING THE COURTESAN and AN AFFAIR BEFORE CHRISTMAS it was because I'd come across the authors at Barnes & Noble's website, and I was curious. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was pretty sure the books would be filled with foppish men and fussily dressed women, dastardly dukes and blushing duchesses and priggish period language. You would have thought those book covers might have given me a clue, but no -- I was the prig with my preconceived ideas. The books, on the other hand, left me breathless and eager for more.

Anna, with her favorite historicals listed on her website, and Eloisa, who writes a monthly column for Barnes & Noble which always includes book recommendations, led me into temptation. How can I explain this? I thought I was immune. I read mysteries first, and, being a slow learner, it took me awhile to realize my favorite mysteries included a romance. Think Mary Stewart, Evelyn Anthony, Dorothy Eden, Victoria Holt. Romantic suspense, contemporary romance - that was one thing. Historicals? Too girly.

Even when I admitted my addiction to romance and began subscribing to Harlequin and Silhouette, I hid the covers when I read them on the train and in the break room at work. They were a secret pleasure. When I hit fifty, I stopped worrying what other people thought about my book choices, and gave myself up to the pleasure of reading whatever I damn well felt like. But I was still a little embarrassed about reading historicals. For some reason, I felt as if I was falling too far over onto the feminine side -- as if any minute I'd break out in corsets and petticoats.

Then Melanie Murray and the regulars at Barnes & Noble's Romantic Reads board keep urging me to read more historical authors, and I found it increasingly hard to refuse their suggestions. When I met affirmed historical addict Michelle Buonfiglio, that clinched it. My name is Becke and I have an addiction to historical romance . . .

Once I fell, I fell hard. I've discovered so many great authors, I can't begin to list them all -- Loretta Chase, Lorraine Heath, Joanna Bourne, Madeline Hunter, Eva Ibbotson, Lisa Kleypas, Connie Brockway, Christina Dodd, Anne Gracie, Donna MacMeans, Christine Wells, Victoria Dahl, Julia Quinn, Vanessa Kelly, Nicola Cornick, Mary Balogh, Tessa Dare, Carolyn Jewel, Lisa Valdez, Robyn DeHart, Jennifer Ashley, Jennifer Haymore, Teresa Medeiros, Jacquie D'Alessandro, Karen Hawkins, Kathryn Kennedy, Meredith Duran, Judith Ivory, Maya Rodale, Stephanie Laurens, Anne Stuart, Christine Merrill, Sophie Jordan, Sabrina Jeffries, Delilah Marvelle, Elizabeth Hoyt, Laura Lee Guhrke, Liz Carlyle, Suzanne Enoch, Julie Anne Long, Johanna Lindsey, Claudia Dain -- oh, I give up. Let's just say my to-be-read pile is now overflowing with historicals.

Damn those dukes, anyway. I'm all about the contemporary era -- I live in jeans and sandals, for Pete's sake! I would have hated to live in Regency England, or any time in the past. Except . . . there is something about a reformed rake.

Which reminds me -- I have a hundred pages to go in the story I'm reading. Regency England is calling and I must heed the call! But, all you authors of historical romances? If you're saying, "I told you so," you're right. I was wrong, and I'm here to admit it. Those books are wonderful, and I'm so glad I've discovered them, even if the TBR pile is a little scary these days. Now I have to go finish reading my book!

I'm in Patricia McLinn's Reader Hall of Fame!

2009-08-30T11:54:00.004-04:00

I've been a fan of Patricia McLinn's for many years. We met at the Lori Foster Reader and Writer Get Together in Cincinnati this year -- she now lives in my area and is in the Ohio Valley romance writers chapter, too. She's just updated her website, and I'm honored to be in her Reader Hall of Fame! Here's the link:

http://www.patriciamclinn.com/reader_hall_of_fame.html

It came as no surprise to me that Patricia is a dog lover, too. My dog died two years ago, and I still miss her. With my son in Chicago and my daughter in Orlando, I'm traveling a lot right now. My husband and I both want a dog, but we don't think it would be fair when we're gone so much. But I love reading stories like this:

http://www.patriciamclinn.com/whats_new.html

Here's Patricia's book list. I've read them all, and I love them (as you've figured out by now):

http://www.patriciamclinn.com/bookshelf.html

Eloisa James' Fun Paper Doll Contest

2009-08-27T01:55:00.002-04:00

Nature, Nurture and the Power of No

2009-08-24T13:41:00.010-04:00

My name is Becke and I am a pleaser. I can't help it -- I try to avoid it, and since I hit 50 some years back, I've really been working on releasing my inner bitch. But it's darn hard to teach this old dog new tricks.

There's a Jim Carrey movie called "Yes Man" about a guy who changes his life by saying "yes" to everything. "Yes" has always been my default response, along with "Sure, why not?" and "Well, okay . . . if no one else will do it." Now, don't get me wrong, sometimes I really enjoy these things. I strongly believe in the volunteer ethic, and I've spent a good part of my life volunteering at church, at work, at school, in the neighborhood and anywhere else it's possible to volunteer.

But sometimes, I just have to say "no." I don't like conflict, and have been known to get physically ill when I've been caught in the middle of unavoidable family nasties. I will lose sleep if I think I might have inadvertently offended someone. If you look up "wimp" in the dictionary, you'll probably find a picture of me.

This is not to say I don't stand up for what I believe in, and if anything threatened my kids when they were little (or now, for that matter) I would morph into a force of nature. But normally, in my day-to-day life, I don't just bend with the wind, I let it toss me around like a puff of dandelion seeds.

Like I said, I'm trying to change this, but it's an uphill battle. "No" doesn't come easy, even though all years of trying to please everyone has only brought trouble. Every disfunctional relationship I've ever been stuck in came from my inability to say a simple two-letter word, the first word most babies learn: No.

So how did I come to have two kids who are most excellent at standing up for themselves, and have been for most of their lives? My son took a little longer to find the confidence at his core, but my daughter was a firecracker from day one. The other day, I found a journal I'd kept when my kids were little. I laughed so hard at some scenes that my mascara was running down my cheeks.

I have a feeling only a mother would find those things as funny as I did, though -- I discerned a pained expression on my husband's face as his eyes darted around the room, looking for an escape route, when I started reading those selections to him. Even my daughter sighed a few times, AND THE SCENES WERE ABOUT HER.

Still, this one really made me think. It took place when she was about three years old:

Jessica was so funny in the store today. She was standing in front of the shopping cart while we were in line, and the lady in front of us bumped into her. "Excuse me, sweetheart," the lady said. Jessica stood up real straight and replied, "I'm not your sweetheart. I'm only Mommy and Daddy's sweetheart."

The lady said, "You're right -- my grandson is really my sweetheart, but you're so cute I could eat you up!" A most offended Jessica announced loudly, "I'm not food -- you can't eat me up!"

I added a note: "My goodness! She certainly stands up for herself!"

When I read this to my daughter, who is now an adult, she didn't see anything unusual about it. But then, she never has had trouble standing up for herself. My son was a little shy when he was young -- something that will come as a shock to anyone who only knew him in high school and college. My husband certainly has no problem saying "no" -- in no uncertain terms -- in any situation, so maybe they learned this from him.

I remember reading that parents should be careful what they say, because their children will be listening, and taking notes. In this family, I'm the one taking notes, learning from them how to stand up for myself. You'd think by my age, saying "no" would come easier, but . . . no.

Tales of the Tooth Fairy

2009-08-23T01:14:00.006-04:00

The tooth fairy doesn't cast a long shadow at most houses. Her saga was a little different at our place.

My daughter lost her first tooth at church, walking up some stairs. There was a major panic when she thought it was gone forever, but we did find it and, later that night, the tooth fairy took it from under her pillow and left a dollar. (She left a quarter when I was a kid, but times have changed.)

When my daughter lost her second tooth, we were at a hotel in Orlando, Florida, on our first visit to Disney World. My daughter nearly went into hysterics because her tooth fairy was back home in Illinois. I thought fast and invented a cousin for her tooth fairy -- clearly, I didn't think fast enough or I would have given her tooth fairy a Lear jet or super-powers. But, no, I had to get clever.

Jessica always loved a good story, so she demanded to know all about this mysterious cousin. And that led to questions about her own personal tooth fairy. Thus Tatiana was born, along with her Florida-based cousin, Desiree. Later, Jonathan got his own tooth fairy, too -- I'd forgotten her name was Clea until I recently found my notes. What I should have done was create a freaking spreadsheet.

The thing about teeth is that months -- even years -- can go by before another one falls out. And when two kids are involved, the whole tooth fairy saga can go on for years. When Jessica lost her third tooth, I'd all but forgotten about Tatiana and Desiree. Thank the lord, I'd kept the long letter Jessica wrote to them while we were in Florida, and she'd mentioned them both by name, as well as some details of their history. I kept that letter in her baby book for future reference, until it was dog-eared.

But that's only part of the story. The thing is, the tooth fairy looked an awful lot like Mom, and occasionally Dad. But usually it was night owl Mom who did the honors, since both kids slept with half an eye open, hoping to catch the tooth fairy in the act. This meant that I lived in dread of being caught -- dollar and/or tooth in hand -- by a tearful, disillusioned child. After one memorable night when I couldn't find the damn tooth and had to explain why the tooth fairy left a buck AND the tooth, I insisted they put the tooth in a Baggie before placing it under the pillow.

One night, I was more tired than usual and completely forgot. The tooth fairy was so remorseful, she left two dollar bills the following night. And then there was the night the Dad tooth fairy pulled what he thought was a dollar bill from his wallet, in the darkened bedroom, only to be awakened in the morning by a thrilled child shrieking that the tooth fairy had left twenty bucks under the pillow!

After that, our crafty son starting looking at every tooth as a possible windfall. He tried bargaining with the tooth fairy, suggesting she might leave bags of Skittles in place of money. And then there was the time Jonathan made an extremely realistic tooth out of bits of Dixie cup smooshed up with toothpaste. Luckily, the Dad tooth fairy overheard the commotion in the hall bathroom and left Monopoly money under the pillow in place of the fake tooth.

Every time a tooth came out, it seemed the ante went up -- Jessica wrote long, heartfelt letters and required letters back in response, while Jonathan wrote letters asking what the tooth fairy did with all those teeth, probably with the view of selling his teeth elsewhere and cutting out the middle man. Did I mention he's got an Economics degree now?

And Jessica works at Disney World. If she loses any more teeth, I'm passing the job on to Tinkerbelle.

(My daughter just read this and, in the way of the modern world, posted this to me on Facebook: "TIANA!!!! OMG, Mom, how could you forget her name??? This must be amended pronto! And pssst, it's Tinker Bell."

All I can say is my notes say Tatiana, but I will admit that my memory leaves a lot to be desired. And there were probably other notes. But, seriously? Tinkerbelle is Tinker Bell? That is so unfeminine! What was Disney thinking?)

The Raccoon Lodge

2009-08-19T14:07:00.003-04:00

I like raccoons. Some people might think of them as roadkill or a source of hats, but at our house, they are our cat's best friends. We used to have a dog, three cats, two gerbils and two kids who lived at home. The animals have all died except Casper, our fat orange cat who is -- I think -- 13 years old now. The kids are grown up and live in different states, and Casper gets lonely. It's just him and us. Well, and a whole lot of raccoons.

It's not as weird as it sounds. About two years ago, a litter of raccoons was born under our deck. Our cats used to play with the little ones. Heck, even our dog hung out with them. Although, I admit, the night I followed my dog onto the deck and realized we were not alone, it was a little hard on my nerves: two of our cats, a possum and two raccoons were on the deck with us. Luckily, my dog was too stunned to react, and I got her inside before she could wreak havoc.

Most of those raccoons moved on, but at least one -- possibly two -- stuck around. The female had babies of her own this spring, plus she seems to have adopted a little one recently. Mama raccoon -- my husband has dubbed her "Raquel" -- has a tiny bite out of her ear, which makes her easy to recognize. Casper also has a tiny bite out of one ear. Hmmm. Coincidence? Maybe they called a truce.

Anyway, mama raccoon comes and taps on the patio door when she wants Casper to come out and play. He instantly runs to the door when he hears her, and it's gotten to the point where he's not interested in going out unless the raccoons are there. Sometimes a little possum joins the fun. The deer can't manage the stairs to the deck, or I'm sure they'd be up there, too.

We'd been blaming the raccoons for knocking over some plant containers, until my husband caught a squirrel in the act. It was a logical mistake -- when the four toddler raccoons play on the deck, it's like raccoon bumper cars. They crash into each other, bounce back, run away and come back for more. Casper stands well out of the way when the little ones are around.

The mama raccoon likes us. She will let us take her picture, and when she spots us through the window she goes up on her hind legs. Last night, the young ones were being more rambunctious than usual, and my husband went over and opened the patio door. "Keep it down, you guys," he reprimanded. And then cracked up at the sight of four little raccoons, lined up in a row, standing on their hind legs and watching him solemnly. Yeah, it still makes me smile.

So, while some people may gripe about raccoons in their gardens, they are welcome guests at our house -- part of our extended family. Not that I plan on letting them in the house, at least not intentionally. The other full grown raccoon that we think is from the original litter has a nickname -- Smarty Pants. That guy will hide next to the door and try to sneak in when we open it. He will also jump up and hang from the door handle, trying to open it. I don't think he's smart enough to figure out how to undo the latch.

But I wouldn't count on it.

Photographic Memories

2009-08-19T13:09:00.004-04:00

This was first published by my church magazine in about 1988. A few years later, it was published in the now defunct Beautiful Gardens magazine. It has the distinction of being my first published garden-related article. It's out of date both seasonally and every other way, since my son graduated from college this year, so I've updated it a little at the end. I still kind of like this one, even if it lacks some writing skill.

PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORIES

by Becke Davis

Today the yellow forsythia by my gate burst into bloom, and my first impulse was to grab a camera. Spring is transient, as God planned it, but my instincts rebel and I try to freeze the season on film.

I have an unreasonable need to document people and things on film, a kind of insecurity – a need to make time stand still. Even as a child, photographs were special to me: from magazine photos, garish and larger than LIFE, to the wedding album with my mother as a giggling girl, and my dad with hair. Old black-and-whites in awkward sizes, strips of pictures from 50-cent photo machines, and sepia portraits of strangers. The people in those pictures became my extended family.

Photographs are a confirmation of existence, a constant in the face of earthly mortality, the slow stream of age. I try to take mental pictures of my children, fleeting images of their childhood. My parents did the same: posing us for Christmas pictures year after year, youngest to oldest, sitting on the stairs. But memory does not focus and click on demand, and the constant changes in my garden remind me that this is all God’s plan. Photographs collect dust, curl up and fade, frozen in time. In the garden, there is movement, even when it is hidden. Life goes on.

Photographs tend to reflect my life only as I’d like to remember it – a Kodak Christmas card with pretty, dimpled children in their Sunday best. I try to freeze perfection whenever it comes close, whispering in my photographer’s voice, “Work with me; stay with me.”

Reality is unposed and often not photogenic. In my mind, I have mental pictures of periods of my life I would just as soon forget, when hours would stretch into months, and months into years. These were not flashes of time; often, they were a steady, unstoppable clockwork movement that I thought would never end.

It’s hard to remember now that my son, Jonathan, has grown, but when he was an infant and toddler, his colic defined my life for nearly two years. For hours, night after day after night, my baby would cry, seemingly without pause – his body tense and tormented, his stomach hard as a rock. I was told it would pass at three months, at six. At a year.

Every moment was another nightmare, frozen in time. I felt that I was a terrible mother, that I was missing something important, doing something wrong. As I look back, those mental pictures are either in black-and-white, cloudy with depression, or colored in the bright, swirling reds of panic and fear.

There is the picture of me sitting on the floor, zombie-like, desperate for sleep, while my four-year-old daughter runs around me, shrieking for attention, jealous of the baby screaming and writhing in my lap.

There is the picture of me in the emergency room at midnight – not for the first time – certain that they could show me a way to fix this, some undiscovered medical problem that would prove this isn’t my fault, that he isn’t crying because I’m a miserable excuse for a mother. The emergency room is starting to feel like a second home as I, the person who prides herself on never needing to ask for help, plead in vain. At night, everything is always worse.

“It’s just colic,” I’m told again by a bored, reproachful nurse, who asks if I have ever considered going to the doctor during normal office hours.

“But that’s not when he screams like he’s in agony!” I want to say it, but I don’t.

There is the picture of me at Jonathan’s six-week check-up, trying to laugh, but closer to tears.

“I’m not kidding,” I say to his pediatrician. “Make him stop crying, give him something to make him sleep. Or give me something so I can sleep. I can’t do this anymore; you said it would have stopped by now.”

And her gentle reply: “Don’t worry, some babies just take longer. He’ll be fine in a few months, you’ll see.” In a few months, he was the same.

Mostly it is just a blur: a montage of images, one on top of another. Not knowing if it was night or day, if I’d gotten dressed, or cooked dinner. Only in touch with his screams. Wrestling with the guilt that mothers are supposed to know how to make things better. Trying to find my husband and daughter, who were out there somewhere, beyond the endless crying and the dead buzz of sleeplessness. Feeling that my life, like the cycles of the tides are tied to the moon, was defined by the waking or sleeping, crying or silence of the child in my arms. Wanting to live again. Praying, and hearing no response.

There is one picture, however, that sticks in my mind. It is winter, edged in frost. My baby – my nemesis – is older now and, in fact, a little better. Sometimes, he smiles. Mostly, he still cries and does not sleep. He is crying again, and his screams echo off the winter walls; we go for a walk. The snow piled on the sidewalks prevents me from taking a stroller. In his snowsuit, my son is zipped inside my parka, and we walk and walk. He is heavy and the day is cold, and we struggle through the snow. But he sleeps. On the way home, I notice my garden. It is also sleeping; dormant, a black-and-white negative with no hint of the colors to come.

That is how the deep winter days passed. Walking and waiting, longing for hope that I could not see.

Spring developed like a Polaroid that year; a season of rebirth and wonder. Every bud on every tree was a message to me that seasons change, that life goes on. I planted a cherry tree, flush with bloom, and rushed to capture it on film. The photograph sits in an album, while the tree grows and changes, as does my child. If I were to die today, the tree would remain, tended by God’s hand. The garden will continue to unfold, season upon season, some plants thriving and others dying in their turn.

Before my birth and after my death, and in every year of my life, the change of seasons will be an eternal constant. The changes are meant to be. I look at the wild exuberance of springtime and wonder how this could ever be allowed to pass with nonchalance. Jonathan emerged like a new shoot, bright and full of life, and we entered the next season of our lives.

This year, looking for a photograph to enclose with the Christmas cards, I studied a picture of my two grown children and thought of my dormant garden. Jonathan is about to graduate from college, and is speaking of marriage. One day, he may come to me for advice about dealing with a colicky baby. What will I tell him – this, too, will pass? They do, of course. Things change. There are times we want our lives to fast-forward, and times we want to freeze the moment forever. I’ve learned not to worry so much about making time stand still.

I still take mental photographs, but now I see my life and the people I love more in terms of a garden. Some are hardy, and thrive where they are planted; others are tender and require special care. Some continue to grow and thrive, while others die in their turn.

Outside my gate, the forsythia shimmers with its golden light, but I will leave my camera on the shelf. Life goes on, I remind myself, even when the branches are bare.

The Mystery of the Candy Thief

2009-08-18T20:31:00.000-04:00

This story was written by my son, many moons ago. It's still one of my favorite mystery stories!

It was a slow day at the detective’s office down at the police station. But it wasn’t at the Indian Bluff Detective Club. There was a criminal on the loose that they needed to catch. This crook was stealing pounds of candy from the candy store that the kids made. They would loose $25.00 of candy if they didn’t find out who was stealing their candy. They knew it wasn’t their moms because they were against eating sugar. But it could be the paperboy because he trying to start a candy store, too but he has $100.00 to spend on candy. It also could be the clown girl she was caught snooping around the candy shop but her mom made her go a diet.

They all wanted to be fair so they went out to investigate. This was a serious mystery they could have to pay $50.00 to start there store again. So first they went over to the paperboy’s house to see if he has $150.00 worth of candy. If he does he will be punished by having to go threw there obstacle course. If he makes it through with a 100 points he doesn’t have to take the punishment but he has to be a detective for them and give him back the candy but if he doesn’t he has to give them back the candy and a $10.00 fine on top of it and he still has to be one of their detectives. So they counted the candy and there was only $100.00 worth of candy.

So then they went to clown girl’s house but she didn’t have any candy so for sure it wasn’t her so she was marked off their list. Since they were out of suspects they went back to their office and tried to figure out who could possibly want $50.00 worth of candy. And getting higher by the minute. This time they put down everyone they knows name on the suspect list from most possible to most impossible suspects. Their first person to investigate was Mr. Blueberry he’s the fat guy down the street that owns the biggest candy store in the village.

So they ran over to his house to see how much candy he’s got in two weeks. But he only got $25.00 worth of candy in the last 2 weeks. So he was marked off the list. And then they went to the second person on their list. The Rapid Tigers, a club of kids that are criminals trying to earn themselves money. They did have $100.00 dollars worth of candy but it was the kind of candy they would never sell in their store. Because it tastes terrible. But they probably would have to escape the Rapid Tigers clubhouse somehow without getting shot by one of them. So they saw one of the tigers holding a gun. So they knew it would be hard to escape the tigers. So they just started running as fast as they possibly could so they wouldn’t have to die.

Then after they escaped the tigers they checked to see who was next on their list. It was Mrs. Diamond the richest person in the county. She runs the sugar free club that their moms are in. If you get in her machine you have to pour her 50 glasses of wine so they did but for some reason she wouldn’t let them go to the ice bucket. So she didn’t have any candy but she had gained 5 pounds in 1 week her butler said. So she was not crossed of the list.

After they did her house they went back to their office and played on the obstacle course. But there was a scary note at the bottom of the long slide at the end of their obstacle course. It said, “If you don’t stop doing the detective work you will be murdered.”

They saw smudges in the writing so they knew the person had a left hand. So Mrs. Diamond had left and right hand, Mr. Blueberry had right hand and most the kids in the Rapid Tiger club have left hands. So it can’t be Mr. Blueberry. But it could be the Rapid Tigers or Mrs. Diamond. It’s most likely to be the Rapid Tigers. But they still have to investigate those two because they didn’t know anybody else who had a left hand. So they called the real detective to tell him someone was threatening to kill them. And the detective said he would come over in about five minutes. But they heard the doorbell on their clubhouse ringing after about 30 seconds.

It was a short person with a black mask holding a gun and pointing it at them. They slammed the door as quick as possible. And he started busting out the door and they jumped out their emergency exit. A few seconds after he saw them jump out the emergency exit he started chasing after them. Then he started shooting at them and their only escape was to dive into a deep lake. Then the evil villian, the black masked phantom like person jumped into the water and tried to drown them all. But they kicked him in the stomach and jumped on him and started acting like he was a dolphin. But he dived into the air and ran out of the water as fast as he could. And ran away from them. “You little midgets, I’m going to make sure that next time you’re going to drown in a second -- I’m going to find you and kill you!” So he ran off then they got out of the water too in the opposite direction of him and they ran off.

Then it was exactly 30 seconds until the detective was to show up at their detective office so they ran as fast as they could and they got there right when he was arriving. And they told the detective all about their chase. He said he would take it back to the police station and have cops be on guard at their house at 8 o’clock that night. And he says if there is any problems to call Mrs. Diamond and notify her. Then a few minutes after the detective left they saw the black masked guy snooping around their clubhouse again. So they hid in their emergency escape box. As the black masked criminal was snooping around he was checking out their clubhouse to check if they were in it. And right when he checked the emergency escape box they let go of the rope that held it up and they fell to the ground and ran to their mom told their mom all about the masked guy and she said she might know who it is. But she also said it was very unlikely that it was the person she was thinking of. She said it could be her ex-husband because he was arresting for robbing 300 banks and he had about 80 black masks. After they checked his records he was still in prison so he wasn’t for sure a suspect.

But the strange thing was every time the detective wasn’t around the black masked guy would snoop around, so he must be watching them. Their mom said they should take a break from detective work and stay in their room for the day. And it was 7:58 p.m. and they were hoping that the police officers would show up. And they waited till 11 o’clock but they still didn’t show up. So they gave in and fell asleep.

But when they woke up in the morning there was police officers being tied up and whipped. Except when they checked it, it was just a robotic scene that someone must have set up. And right when they started checking to see if there was cords on it, the black masked criminal jumped on top of the whipper and grabbed the whip and started whipping them. Except that called for a fight, they wouldn’t let him whip them without a fight. He was surrounded by air and ground so he couldn’t escape. He didn’t know he was covered by air though so he started climbing the ladder to their clubhouse. But one of the kids jumped on his head and he fell to he ground. The black masked guy was in a coma and they needed to see who he was. But right when they touched his mask their hand got electrocuted. So right at that moment they knew they would never find who the black masked guy was unless they saw him put on his mask. But after three minutes of staring at him to see if he would wake up he kicked and them and tripped them and after they were on the ground he ran miles away.

Then they called Mrs. Diamond because that was what the detective told them to do if there was trouble. She just said don’t worry about it the cops were already sent there and they were on duty. They thought something suspicious was going on with Mrs. Diamond, the detectives and those cops because they all were centered around money and the government and that is exactly what their missing candy case was about. So they were practically positive they knew who the crooks are. So they called the real police and they found out why they got that police detective because his number was 811 and they were dialling that number on accident.

Then when the police arrived at Mrs. Diamond’s house she got all the black masked cops and got on a plane and prepared an escape. The plane driver prepared the engine to fly right when the cops were about to grab the criminals; the plane took off and went hundreds of feet in the air. Then the police officers drove their car to the police station and got a jet to follow that plane. And for sure those detective’s kids were right when they said this was a serious mystery! But then when they found out the jet had track of them, they had to start the search.

The escape helicopter had already flown from Los Angeles, California to New York. And the jet notified that the helicopter was landing and that was very bad news to the police officers. To prevent the criminals from getting into the crowd of New York they called the NYPD to surround them. And then the NYPD bursted into their helicopter and arrested the police officers, Mrs. Diamond and the detective at a 20 year sentence, and they got their candy back and also got a $10,000 reward for catching one of California’s most wanted criminals. And then they started an even bigger candy store with for sure locks on the candy. But they still wondered why Mrs. Diamond and the detectives and the cops wanted the candy. And so they asked them and they said it was because Mr. Blueberry was running low of candy and he was offering them $50 million to get $50 worth of candy. And they also found out that the candy was solid gold.

The End

The family - that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to. ~Dodie Smith

2009-08-18T12:37:00.000-04:00

I wanted to title this blog The Family Octopus but, surprisingly, that name was taken. Since I'll be blogging here about my family tree and a lot of you know me as Treethyme, this seemed like a good alternative. Haven't figured out what I'm going to write yet, but this is a start.