Blog Trek

The Move is Over

I finally got through with my move.  Despite the market, I managed to get a loan and move into a house, but I had to spend 17 days in a hotel with  the dog to accomplish that, not something I would like to repeat again.  Living and working out of a hotel is no fun, especially since the dog had to go to work with me every day, and due to my limited budget and nightmare dietary restrictions, so did enough baggage to require me making at least 2 trips between the room and the underground parking garage or hauling the valet cart (or whatever the correct term for that is.) 

I ended up eating dinner in bed and then staying there under the covers to watch TV all evening.  I had no desire to call anyone--what do you say?  "Hello.  I'm living in a hotel and driving around all day with the GPS to find my patients?"

However, said GPS has defnitely been invaluable.  I could never have found said patients with any accuracy or in a timely manner if I had been trying to use a Thomas Guide or even Mapquest, since I had no access to a computer during that time, either. 

After closing on the house and moving in, I was confronted by no water the first night, since the elderly couple I purchased from had shut off the water a day earlier than they should have and I had not been told by the City of Portland that although they provided my sewer service, my water came from another source.  My plans to steam clean the carpets went by the wayside, as did my plans to take a shower!  I ended up buying a couple of gallons of water at Safeway along with a couple of cheap pots and boiling water so I could at least wash my face and hands.  My realtor called to offer me a bed and a shower at her home, but I declined, determined to stay in my own house, finally.

Once the furniture arrived, my trial by fire was not yet over.  How is it that looking for the contents of my kitchen I ended up unpacking items like wind chimes, which I needed like a hole in the head, and finally coming across things I desperately needed only after emptying half a dozen boxes filled with the contents of my china cabinet, my nicknacks and my table linens?  I existed with plasticware and the cheap pots from Safeway for the better part of a week before I finally located my silverware, spatulas, frying pans, etc.  I found that "Kitchen" was a very loose term on the labeled boxes sitting in said room.

After 3 weeks, I finally found my shower curtain rings, which I had already replaced in total frustration, and the set of new kitchen knives I had purchased shortly before my move.  They had ended up in the garage, hidden in one of the plastic containers I had packed myself.  How that box ended up out there is anyone's guess.  Apparently it must have been one of the last things off the truck and the movers had decided the garage was as good a place as any to store it. 

Now I have a two day trip pending to Seattle, to attend a course.  The company I work for is sending me up there.  Normally, an out-of-town trip with expenses paid would sound like something I would enjoy, but after everything that has gone on this year, I want to just sit in my house and enjoy it for the rest of 2009.  Ending up back in another hotel (with the dog, again) doesn't sound like a thrill to me.  More dragging bags and the pet taxi around and coping with meals.

Since becoming both gluten and lactose intolerant, eating out is a minefield.  I have to read menus in restaurants very carefully, scan all ingredients in the grocery store and travel with powdered creamer for my coffee at all times.  My worst nightmare is an Italian restaurant, which is filled with wheat & dairy--pasta, pizza dough, cream sauces, butter...  The last time I ended up in one, when a writing group went there for dinner, I had to eat a seafood salad that was considered an appetizer because it was the only thing on the menu that was safe for me.  I watched all the other members of the group enjoying bread, pasta, soups and then dessert.  I went home and ate a bowl of Rice Krispies because my stomach was still growling.

I'm so looking forward to this trip...not.

Everything in its Time, or the Muse that Won't

A synopsis is like a bowl of treacle.  Not something you would ever want to put your foot into, outwardly calm and innocent-looking, but wickedly difficult to shake off.

I churned out 6 pages of "Indelible's" synopsis last week.  The first page came fairly easily, but as the pages progressed, everything went downhill.  I found myself putting in detail after detail as I slogged my way through the chapter by chapter outline looking for necessary plotpoints.  I lost my focus and the essence of the story.

Last Sunday evening, I made it to the Fiction SIG for the first time since last April.  The other members greeted me like the prodigal I was, then we got down to the meat of my work.  Their comments were pretty much the same as my thoughts--back to the drawing board for everything past page 1. 

I had the same false starts with the blurb for "All That Glitters."  I tried to force it out and failed, then after I stopped fighting my muse and relaxed, it came in words and sentences. 

This past week, I started jotting down thoughts that came to me.  It'll all work out, as long as I let things progress in their own time.

The balky muse.  I had to have one.

A New Year and a New Look

I like the changes Vikk has made to Blog Trek.  Now, if I would only translate good intentions into action, but I'm working on the synopsis of "Indelible," I'm down to the last 50 pages of the hard copy 3rd draft and almost ready to launch.  This has been one l-o-n-g marathon, but I gave myself permission to take my time and get it right, even while struggling through my aunt's crisis up in Canada, two foot surgeries and a move that I wasn't anticipating and definitely didn't want to tackle.

Life interrupts, but I refused to go down without a fight, and this project is winding to a fast finish.  I even have a logline:

Sometimes the dead can reach out to the living.

How's that for a teaser?

New additions to Blog Trek

Hey there, it's me, Vikk, the one who rarely posts. If you aren't up to speed with all that's going on with our Heather, then you may not know that she had a new book published in 2008 titled ALL THAT GLITTERS. Take a look at the new ferris wheel widget on the side provided by Amazon and you'll find both of Heather's books listed, as well as mine. If you didn't buy her book last year, click through on the cover and do it now.

Now, I wonder what that woman is up to this year?

A Brick In The Head

Since I'm writing a Thriller series, I thought it more appropos for me to give a brick in the head weekly award than a slap on the head. 

I have been so busy lately, that I have neglected Blog Trek again.  Giving this weekly cyber-award will let me keep on target with all my own deadlines while updating the poor ole blog on a more regular basis.

I have seen some pretty stupid things, lately.  They have given me fodder for thought, and hopefully will to the readers.

My first brick goes to the healthcare worker in the hospital who did not ask a patient if she was lactose intolerant (allergic to milk products) before telling her that eating yogurt on a daily basis would be beneficial to her health.  Perhaps it would to many people, but not to this woman, who endured weeks of gastro-intestinal miseries until I pointed out that yogurt comes from cows. 

She might deserve a half-brick for not knowing the origin of yogurt, but since she also did not know that cottage cheese and sour cream came from our friends the moo-moos, I have to put her in the category of the ignorant.

Since giving her yogurt away, she reported a lot of relief.

Go figure.

The Reluctant Voter

I rarely comment on politics, because there are numerous other blogs devoted to the subject, and the comments that my blogs draw are always from radicals with their own agendas--people for whom any view that deviates from theirs is totally unacceptable and to be attacked immediately.

However, on this election day I find myself unable to just accept things the way they are or not to record my feelings.  As I head for the polls, I'm really worried and totally frustrated.  I had no problems working my way through the local measures, nor the local candidates.  Everything was well set out--facts, statements, figures as needed for the bond measures.

What I'm waffling over is what to do with my presidential vote.  No--I'm not undecided because I have no sense, no opinion or no choice.  It's because the choices I have are both scary and marginally acceptable to me under any circumstances.  And not for any of the obvious reasons the radicals are going to be ready to ram right down my throat.

When the election season began, I was completely energized.  Finally, it looked like a woman was going to run for president.  Furthermore, she was a woman I had already seen in action.  A woman I respected and even admired, without having to be in agreement with everything she did, had done or was going to do in the future.  After years of standing on the sidelines, we women had Hillary Clinton.

Then suddenly, here came Barack Obama.  Oprah jumped on his bandwagon.  President Kennedy's relatives jumped, too (and Caroline Kennedy isn't even a politician, political pundit or otherwise has any kind of believable credentials to endorse anyone.)  People went crazy, like he was the newest rock star or movie star.  He apparently got caught up in all this frenzy, too, when he took off on a European tour like he was already The Prez of the US.  He held a giant rally in Germany that left me wondering who the hell was paying for this excess that wasn't going to net him more than a handful of votes from ex-pats and tourists.

The media kept talking about the Clinton Machine (I've never understood that term, except to know it's derogative and condescending) and asking what we would call Bill Clinton if he ended up as First Man in the White House.  Would he change the china patterns?  Would he redecorate?  Ha...ha...ha.

Michelle Obama was brought onto shows like The View, so she could chat about her clothing finds at local stores instead of the designer duds sported by the likes of Cindy McCain.  She showed us that she can't or won't shake hands with anyone in a regular manner, but instead likes to knock knuckles (is she really going to offer that method to heads of state and foreign royalty?)  The media fell in love with her--she was within their comfort zone--they could relegate the woman to the position of supportive spouse in the background, organizer of dinners, defender of her young childrens' privacy (but they could be trotted out with great success in the cute department when needed at the convention.)

Barack proved himself to be a great orator.  John McCain showed himself to be a witty old dude with terrific genes, evidenced by parading his mother, who is over 90, on the campaign trail.  Neither of them seemed to have concrete solutions for the growing disaster of this nation's economy.  McCain's ideas were the more declarative and measurable of the two.  What did Obama stand for?  I tried to watch the debates, but all I saw was a lot of talking around the issues but little that made me feel there was a good grasp on how bad things were economically, how the continuing war was depleting our nation in every way while taking countless of our young people and career military alike.

The only one who had actually made me sure of what she would do for us as President, the only one who even appeared presidential at the conventions, was Hillary Clinton.  She looked at ease in her own skin, her presence was commanding, her pantsuit (which had been a subject of derision, too) was a flawless choice of poise and comfort (just to prove that I didn't only check out Michelle Obama's clothing choices.)

With Obama beating Hillary in the popularity contest the Presidential race had degenerated into, I hoped he would at least pick her as his VP choice.  Whether he did and she refused or whether he just never did because he was afraid her personality was too strong or he didn't want a Clinton or a woman as a running mate, we will never know.  What was certain to me was that with so little experience in the political arena but a well-documented ego that demanded he be recognized as a political force from the time when he was a young man, he was going to have to find someone who could guide him with foreign policy decisions and he was going to be swimming in very deep waters with the stock market tanking, the banking and mortgage industries going belly-up and Bush figuring now was the time to bomb and invade everyone in the Middle East, Pakistan and any other country he didn't like the look of during one of his frequent whims or mental vacations.

So, he chose Biden.  A white-haired white male established part of the political establishment.  The Candidate for Change had picked the poster-child of Politics as Usual.

And then McCain, ever the self-proclaimed maverick, picked a completely greenhorn running mate who is a woman.  Whether it was done to show the Democrats that the Republicans could be edgy or because it was believed that the women shortchanged by the complete lock-out of women by the Democrats would charge over to the Republican ticket just because a female had been put on the ballot (any woman would do for the women voters, because we were shallow feminist cattle) still is an unresolved question for me.

So, as I head for the polls today, I am faced with an untenable decision.  Who do I choose:

A) The candidate who has no experience whatsoever but trails an establishment male behind him to prove he's covered his bases and can reassure us that what he lacks can be made up for by this seasoned politician, even though he's supposed to be the candidate for change (now there's an oxymoron.)

B) The self-proclaimed Maverick who stands for everything I don't believe in, which is epitomized in George W. Bush, who may be end up with the title of the worst president in this nation's history.

C) Completely go the cowardly way by voting Green or Libertarian or whatever Ralph Nader is using as his party this time around.

D) Excuse myself completely by saying the lines are too long?

Yesterday, the morning crew of one local TV station sent a reporter out to the early voting lines.  She assured us that the wait was probably worth it, because in the morning there would be angry people in line at the polling stations.  Is she clairvoyant, or just as sensationalist?

That's another blog.

What time do the polls close?

Yes, I'm Still Alive

How time flies in this modern world.  Work, manuscript revisions, seminars, booksignings, meetings to attend.  Even a short vacation in San Diego, so I can keep in touch with the relatives. 

The "Indelible" saga continues.  Those 30 pages keep extending, but as I add more details to flesh out the ending, THE END seems to get further away, instead of closer.  I feel like the mother in "Poltergeist," who kept running down a hallway that got longer and longer the faster and further she ran.  But, like her, I will finally catch up with myself, too.  Trying to condense the denoument into a "Oh, by the way, let's sit down while I explain everything to the reader," chapter never seemed the way to go to me, so I left a lot of questions unanswered while I mulled over the best way to get the information across without that mega-dump chapter.

Along the way, I wrote a couple of chapters twice.  I inserted the one the critique group liked best, for flow and continuity, and saved the other one separate to the draft.  Now I opened one of them and voila, there is some dialogue that needs to be inserted.  I took a couple of days to find the best place to put it, and now I'm working to integrate it successfully.  I'll need to tweak a couple of times, but it's going to make the end of the book flow much smoother, allows the male protagonist, Brian, and his supervisor, Hal, to have a conversation that they should have had anyway, and most importantly of all, gives the reader a chunk of information in an easily digested form.

I'm overdue on my self-imposed deadline, so now I have to set another one.  A month?  If I don't complete it by Thanksgiving, then I will run right into the Christmas Season.  Not my first choice, but charging along to complete this draft, which requires the most revisions, at the speed of light isn't the best solution, either.  And there's still the chapter-by-chapter to finish, the synopsis and query letter to write, and then the partial to be polished.

I also wrote a comment on one of the group sites and was asked to expand it into an article for their newsletter.  My deadline for that project is the December issue.

The workbook I have been editing has been completed and the mock-up checked for errors.  Then came the acknowledgments and bio.  I'm now waiting for the table of contents to arrive in my in-box.

Did I mention that my day job only slowed down for the week I took my trip down to San Diego?

I've had a busy year.  I'm thankful.  It keeps me from perseverating on the stock market, the housing market and everything else I suppose I should be panicking over at this time in my life. 

I've got plenty of work.  It's a blessing these days.

And I just completed my on-call jury service without having to report.

Now, if the coolant light hadn't come on in my car, all would be right in my world...

I'm Signing at West Hollywood Book Fair

I'll be signing CDs, book marks and postcards of "All That Glitters" in the Sisters In Crime booth at the West Hollywood Book Fair this coming Sunday, September 28 from 2:00PM-3:00PM.  Here's the link for the fair: http://www.westhollywoodbookfair.org/

It looks like a fun place to be.  Let's hope the weather is kind.  There was nowhere hotter than the IWOSC booth at the L.A. Times Festival of Books in the spring. 

The Roses

Many years ago, my aunt visited me when we were living in North Carolina.  My then-husband was in the USAF and was away on temporary duty, leaving me to entertain my aunt and take care of my two children.  Since the kids were small and my aunt wasn't very mobile, we ended up spending a lot of time cruising around a local antique shop and Sunday morning antiques mall, where my aunt bought several items.

At one stall in the mall, we came across a print in a pretty ugly frame.  It was of a round navy blue bowl filled with the most exquisite roses in every hue of pink.  We went around the mall twice and then returned to look at the print again.  The frame was expensive--out of my price range--and my aunt remarked that she couldn't take a chance that rolling up that print would result in it making the trip to England without ripping.

The vendor overheard us and proceeded to tell us we could have the print for $5, because he really was only interested in selling the frame.  My aunt paid and gave the rose print to me as a gift.  It ended up in a very cheap frame after she went home, because at that time, money was scarce around my household unless it went toward monthly living expenses.

Over the years, it went into a couple of frames that didn't do it justice.  A couple of them broke during our numerous moves, and a piece tore off at the bottom of the print.  My husband's solution was to take a pair of scissors and cut the bottom off, but I resisted, upset that he would even suggest defacing what had become my favorite print.  Finally, on a move from one apartment to another in Orange County, the glass broke again and my daughter took the print to her home, where she could cut a new piece of glass until I could afford to get the print custom framed. 

The saga of "The Roses" went on.  She became pregnant and the glass didn't get cut.  I got very busy and forgot she had the print whenever I visited.  I thought about it after I arrived home.  Finally, she told me she planned to move and needed to clean out her garage.  Sitting on a shelf, covered with a towel, sat my poor print.  The last disaster with broken glass had given it a couple of new cracks.  I carefully took it and placed it in the trunk of my SUV, and this evening it went to get a custom matte, glass that will protect it from fading and achival paper. 

After all the moves, all the changes that have happened in my life, it deserves more than ending up in a garage under a towel.  It was, after all, the inspiration for "Indelible."  As I wind my way toward the end of the second draft, it's fitting that The Roses are going to be coming home in better shape than ever before.  The work will take 10 days.  And my draft will be completed by the end of the month. 

"Indelible" update

Summer is almost over.  I decided to take down my door decoration of spring and summer flowers.  The fall spray of leaves and berries took its place.  Smaller and much less colorful, it reflects the season, except for the infernal heat that doesn't seem able to take the hint.  I think it was hotter today than last week.  I can only hope it's Indian Summer a month or so early.

I'm continuing the work on "Indelible's" second draft.  This has been a challenge and a half--taking a manuscript, throwing out the second half and then meshing my writing, which improved greatly in the intervening time, has made things harder, but revising the plot really caused issues.  Not throwing out the baby with the bath water has resulted in a fine balancing act.  Things are definitely coming together, but each chapter presents a challenge all its own.  I know the end result will be a hybrid thriller/suspense/mystery with psychological overtones as both protagonists struggle through a minefield of obstacles, attempt to resolve old issues, and keep themselves and each other alive during the process. 

I'm planning to take a vacation once I complete this draft.  I will have earned it, and I'll need the chance to clear my head before going back in to finish the third draft and write the synopsis.