Doldrums

I think doldrums is more a weathery type feeling, but I am in some weird place.  Like there is no wind filling the sail, but I just don't feel like turning the motor on.  I'll wait until I have to do something.

I am so interested in that new Disney movie "Brave".  The little brothers with the red curls? I can't wait to see it.  So I  put a blurb on twitter and they put it in some Disney News  Letter which was fun.  But since twitter is limited to 140 characters, I don't think it will be on the list  for  the Pulitzer nominations.

And I can think of nothing to blog about, but have had a couple of curious spikes.  I wish I knew what made them so I could duplicate it.  And I am thinking the heck with this writing, but I got two nice royalty payments last week and saw today both accounts already have a decent amount in them, so it is just like a thin little income stream that I am getting kind of used to. It even grows infinitesimally each time.


This all started with my non-fiction work that I am not going to talk about since I notice lots of things I say show up in a thinly disguised version on other sites.  So I am working on that and it  should be a whole new experience. I have lots of notes and outlines and ideas, and have actually opened a doc, so when the muse hits me, I am ready.

Today's CTA:  whatcha workin' on, huh?

YOUR TRUTH

I wish I had the right to tell people that they are wrong.

 I believe some people have the kind of mind that has a built in bull shit detector.  I believe those people are sometimes branded as being mentally "different".  Polite society now usually calls these cases "conditions" rather than illnesses.  The thing  is I have a lot of beliefs.  Some contradictory probably, but C. S. Lewis said, "You do not have a soul.  You are a soul. You have a body."  And, unfortunately, the brain comes with the body.  So it fucks up what is in your soul.  When you are aware of this you are mentally ill.

I know.  My soul has a lot of mileage on it.  And there is lots of stuff this brain just can't process.  But lots of things I come to grips with and ultimately enunciate, have been said and heard before--perhaps when this soul was in a different body, or perhaps by myself. And I am more than frequently branded a nutcase as were, perhaps, previous users of this soul.  One thing I know, and God put it in this soul when he created it, not when he put it in this body, and that is that everyone is entitled to their beliefs, but you have to indulge them and realize that is their truth whether you agree or not.  I also know that your brain can cause you to have a different take on what you once thought was your truth.

Some people, often with pretty wacky ideas of their own, come right out and say "You are wrong."  How can you know that?  Did you study for that and do you have a certificate?  Who grants those certificates?  Can I apply for one?  Could I pretend to be God if I had one?

When you say someone is wrong, you are being rude at the very least.  Truth is not a solid object, spherical and the size of a dime. It is mutable (I believe). The truth that whole villages can be wiped out by cholera is no longer true.  Oh, wait.  That's not a truth.  That's a FACT.  Don't get that shit mixed up. It pisses people off.

People who know truths, and, probably, no one can know them all,what ever they are, how many ever there may be, have a tendency to cloak the idea that they believe this "thing" in poetic language.  It takes the edge off their fear of being branded "wrong".  It's maybe not poetry; it's maybe waffling.  But Poetry sounds better, goes over easier, and people can poke around in the language and find their own truths. Symbolism is open to interpretation, so you can say what you believe and maybe not get called out for it.  I am wandering off the track here.  I should have stopped at pissing people off.  I could go on longer with this subject, but you are not listening anymore.

Today's CTA:  define truth

Gentle Reminder

I seem to have found my true calling in life.  I seem to be an expert in pissing people off.  Discuss this amongst yourselves.


 THE MAZE is free until 5/31/12.

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/158247

If you feel a sense of loyalty or some sort of ill-defined fear, it is $2.99 at Amazon. Not  a deal-breaker.


http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0061SB3TC

I got one nice four star review so far.  She said it had the makings of a great book.  I refuse to dwell on what she meant by that.  She said she felt a little confused about who some of the characters were and where they came from, and I felt bad about that because it was a sequel.  I thought maybe I just ran everyone into the next book.  But then I remembered, I kind of covered that in the first few chapters.  The first specifically; and I also remember that people kind of don't pay close attention til they are immersed.  So immerse yourself in chapter one. It rocks anyway.

pray with me

Change in Perspective

NOT A COYOTE

I live in far Northern Illinois.  I think someone said my town is four miles from the cheese wall.  I have lived in this house a little more than twelve years.  We live on the edge of a dedicated bird sanctuary that is owned by the State and our Village.  (Not gospel, just my interpretation of what someone said.)  It has a lake at either end and a huge  multi hundred acre forest preserve at the North end.  We have coyotes that live in the field behind us.  We have blue heron, lots of hawks, last year a few sightings of Sandhill Cranes, and several reports of cougar which no one believed until he was shot dead on the North side within the actual Chicago city limits.  DNA tests proved he was the same one that was traveling through here.  His hair and blood were found in a barn just North of my village.  I have seen wolves twice.  Different ones.  Alone.  Different colors.  I see coyote all year long, every year.  I know what a coyote looks like.  Each time I saw the wolf, he stood and looked at me, (us, I was with someone else both times.)  These occasions were about six years apart, so it is obvious this is not part of a pack.  A wolf was caught on a trail camera in Union Illinois, West of me, and a wolf was hit by a car and killed just west of Antioch (next town over) on the Illinois side of the border.  He was an Eastern Grey Timber Wolf.  They are not Grey.  He was wild, not an escaped pet which was determined by the contents of his stomach and the condition of his coat.  Anyway that's my story and I'm sticking to it.  Lots of people look at me like, okay, lady with rocks in your head.

I was just watching a vid on my iPhone which was of wolves chasing an elk pack out West.  It was thirty nine minutes long and I was watching, trying to watch, trying to listen to David Letterman at the same time, so I wasn't paying close attention, but when the wolf was joined by two pack mates and drew closer to the elk, I used to think, oh poor elk.  Run, run faster, baby.  But this time I was thinking yeah, you almost got him, there you guys got him. Dinner!  Yay.  If it is a little baby zebra or springbok in Africa being chased by a lion or a leopard or something, I still think, run, baby, run.  But now I am rooting for the wolves.  And when the ranchers in Wyoming ask that they be allowed to shoot a few more cuz they are taking too big a bite out of the live stock, I think, Oh, shucks. Not, certainly, leave the poor wolves alone.  But, shucks, here we go again.  Just when they are getting a nice foot hold.

Let me be the first to tell you, if I see a griz out in my meadow, I will probably place a few calls.  But I just think it is strange that I have had this sea change of loyalties or maybe just attitude  in my dotage.  Although maybe that is why.  I am getting dotty.

Today's CTA:  who are you rooting for?  Wolf or Elk?

Another Fabulous Freebie

I cannot say enough good things about Smashwords.  My book, THE MAZE,  is already in the Premium catalog.  The cover wouldn't take and I didn't like it anyway, so I did one in Powerpoint in about ten minutes and, though it is not my favorite, it is in keeping with several of the book's themes and doesn't look bad.  I wanted that little red head on there from the get go, but couldn't get her to fit.  She is a joyous me, someone I don't see too often.

A person was sorry they couldn't download cuz they had a Nook.  Anymore was in Select and will be for a few more weeks, so that is Amazon exclusive, a mixed bag, but  it will go on Smashwords too pretty soon.

Smashwords puts you in the Apple, Nook, Kobo, and all other devices format so you can even download to some off brand e reader you bought on vacation in Thailand.  I have always had my best sales from Barnes and Noble, so I hope this works out.  Hundreds have already been downloaded for free, and this book, which I love so much, I am doing the sequel, is in the cellar at Amazon.  So I hope y'all enjoy it.

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/158247

THE MAZE

The Maze will be free the rest of May on Smashwords.  They are pouting about a few things, so it's not in premium, but you can use most readers.  I'll have to find the link tomorrow, I am so tired,but since you are champing at the bit, do a name search.  It walks a narrow line. It is the least read so far, but that is inexplicable since it's so much fun. 

Political joke.

I.m posting this cuz I can't figure out how else to tweet it.

AFTER THE FIZZLE OF YESTERDAY’S MAY DAY DEMONSTRATIONS, this passage from Jonah Goldberg’s new book is fitting:

Ronald Reagan . . . was confronted by a bunch of screaming hippies back in his days as governor of California. They swarmed his car yelling at him for cutting education funding or some such. One fellow — who I like to imagine looked like Shaggy from Scooby Doo — held up a sign to Reagan’s car window saying “We are the future!”
Reagan quickly grabbed a pen from his suit pocket and wrote something down on piece of paper and thrust it to his side of the window so the kid could read it. It said: “I’m selling my bonds!”

I Call Bull Shit

Making over a turn of phrase that, when analysed, is in fact  contradiction at best and a mixed metaphor at the least and saying it is such good poetic language.  Fuck that.  I may write like a third grader, but I am not pretentious about it at all.  And a couple of grown ups have said I don't write like a third grader.  I think this bull shit phrase turning is not the same as telling a story.  And that is what I do.  I tell stories about people.  Things happen, but I don't tell stories about things that happen.  I tell stories about the people the things happen to.  Because that is the way life  struck me.  I am a person that things happened to,and they keep on happening. Like rain from hell.   And that is what I am made of, the way I handled the things that happened and what those things did to me.  The person. If you never before in your life saw me, and you struck up a conversation with me, you would take me at face value.  You wouldn't know how I retaliate, how I hurt, how I inflict pain, how I have handled pain.  So if I told you the things that happened to me, you would have to relate that to the person you are talking to.  And I would have to tell you a story. And  I would fucking weep.

FREEBIE

ANYMORE is free on May first and second.

I may have mentioned the wrong book in a few  places and I apologize, but this is the deal.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007O47VIE

You will find it somewhat different and smaller than my previous work.  I hope you will participate and enjoy.

Excerpt from Sacred Sin

Of course, it was only a matter of days until Barney knew she was back in town.  One morning, Sarah brought the mail in, including this week’s “US” magazine.  On the cover were two side by side photos, one of Daniel getting off the plane in England and one of Jenny and the kids, getting off the plane at O’Hare.  The caption read, “Trouble in Paradise?” and, within, a long article with photos of Daniel with his split lip and Jenny crying.  Barney was on his way out the door to go to work and took a minute to glance at it.  “I’ll drive by and see if she’s okay.”  And he dashed out the door.

The kids were on the lawn and Jenny was sitting in the side yard writing on her computer.  When the huge red truck pulled up and the huge guy got out, she hit ‘save’ and started across the lawn.  As he ran toward her he thought, “If the house was on fire, she would remember to hit ‘save.’”

The kids were terrified, especially little Maisie who began to cry and run to her mommy just as Jenny literally jumped into Barney’s arms.  “Oh my God.  You look so wonderful.  The glasses.  You’ve put on weight.  You look wonderful.  Oh my God.  I’m so glad to see you!”

“Jenny.  What did you do to your hair?  Are you alright?  You weigh nothing.  What’s going on with you?”

“Just a sec,” she said, as she stepped away to pick up sobbing little Maisie.  She turned away from Barney and put her cheek against the baby’s and whispered to her, Maisie’s tears wetting Jenny’s face and their copper curls comingling.  The baby’s crying ceased the moment she felt the safety of her mother’s embrace.  The sight of them--each end of the spectrum of all that was true in his life,  Maisie, the perfect replica of the nemesis of the kindergarten Barney, and Jenny, the only image he carried in his soul--stabbed into him, love spiraling into itself, redoubling and ripping a hole in his chest where his heart had been.

He felt full of some ancient knowledge, but as though his life was renewed.  “Not my kid.  Not my kid. . .” his brain kept trying to remind him.  But he knew that this icon before him was his only truth.  He knew he was seeing Jenny’s reality, if only for a second, her truest person, and he knew he would never be anything more to her than her soldier, her bastion, her anchor.  But he realized that was all he was meant to be and she needed that.  And her need for him, born when she took her first steps and reached for his hand, drawing her to him in the troubled nights of her adolescence, and now her child reflecting the intensity of her love, brought him a sense of purpose he had never known.  He knew that he was the part of her that finally let her be unafraid to give her love.  And he knew he would be rooted to this spot in time, in his life, in his soul, forever.  He chuckled slightly, “And was this one cloned in a Petri dish?”

(This is one of my favorite parts.  It ties all my books together. Sacred Sin will be free to download on May first and May second, 2012.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005H3EW3Q

Seriously

I keep saying Barnes and Noble bring me the most sales, but I promise not to let it go to my head.

Argument

Every now and then I will jump into a comment thread on a blog that has gone on so long and gotten so far off track it is ridiculous.  I have prided myself on being able to bring some of these long-winded discussions to a crashing halt.  Now, it's like why bother.  The truth is the people just want to see the ink.  I have admitted that I have been guilty of it.  I call it being a blog whore--posting just cuz you know that site will bring you hits.  I do it when I notice a dip in my stats.  It always seems to reverse the trend, but I cannot definitively say it is a cause and effect relationship.  I have blog spikes that are inexplicable and often leave me wondering what someone must have said about me somewhere that I know nothing about.

I have also commented on the fact  that people will read something in my blog and then go and blog about it like I am not going to notice where they got  the idea.  This, I know, at least on more than just a few occasions, is a fact--or ESP.  I don't even care about that.  It's kind of flattering.  But it would be nice if they just kind of in a generalized way mentioned that someone gave them this thought and they ran with it, even if they don't get specific.

The latest is the prevalence of certain terms.  Mises just finished a month long multi pager in which the main figures in the argument went off track with defining and accusing each other of the ad hominem attack.  Now I just got through another windy one where, not only did they have to pause in their tracks to make a snarky remark about my "one-liners", (A market is a market, asshole.  I don't care what you peddle.) they go completely down the side road about the fucking ad hominem attacks.  It is like the word of the week .  It is usually accompanied somewhere in the discourse with several mentions of cognitive dissonance.  The last time I saw 'cognitive dissonance' in a blog, I went in and said, "I call bullshit.  This is cognitive dissonance, not what you are referring to."  Boom.  End of thread.

Well, what should I expect?  I'm the one that keeps saying there are only 26 letters.  I always think of the millionth monkey in that room with the pianos, pounding out Beethoven. Or is it typewriters and Shakespeare?

It's been said.

Today's CTA:  What hasn't been said?

Polite Conversation

Someone actually came up to me at a family gathering recently, a cousin of a cousin that I hadn't seen in years.  She is almost exactly the same age as I am and she has a child younger than some of my grandchildren.  (Which is hard for me to imagine for many, many reasons.)  When we were all younger and used to have family parties for this or that reason, we sort of hung out cuz of our similarities in age and interests, plus I kind of liked  her older brother.  She actually asked me what happened to me, that I used to be kind of always up for a good time.


 Today's CTA:  Should I have told her?

Stop It

So now Google is farting around with my blog and facebook has that new timeline thing and it absolutely confounds me how some organization can send you an email to come and buy stuff on their website and you have to sign into the website and then they tell you that email is already taken, yeah, goofnuts, it's mine, and then they will send you an email so you can get a new password and screen name.  How the fuck did they send you the  fucking email in the first f-ing place.  For f's sake.  I'm just about through I guess.  I cannot even open the lid on the shampoo bottle anymore and I am going to need a wheel barrow if I am assigned any more pills.  I would love to sit and mess with the 26 letters, but if the chair is turned the wrong way, I can't sit down and I have to walk around the chair and turn it the other way, and by then who feels like writing some cheerful little ditty.  Not me.

Scratch That

Previous post = over medicated? Can't stop. Won't. Needed a bit of an ass-kicking, but I am fine.

Mixed feelings

This is the plan. I am going to rotate the four books through Select and rewrite each one, heavily editing the sex out of the first, at several people's suggestions, and doing new covers at least for the third. I feel like I am done being a writer. I wanted to do the four and they are done. And they pretty much are tanking. I average a sale a day. I realize that is sixty times better than no sales for months at a time, but the word of mouth thing is not working for me. I blame my personality and lifestyle for that.

But I'd like to say a few things about the "business" end of this business. I get lots of email and even phone calls that they want to tell me about this publishing deal and that. Okay. Leave me alone. I'm published. Unless you have some promo ideas, I have nothing to say to you and I don't want to listen to you. Word of mouth is the ONLY thing missing from my equation and you cannot sell me a program for that. Don't ask me to send you copies of my work. It is all out there in many different forms or places. If you can't do anything else, you can name search for me. As far as I know there is one other Virginia Llorca and she is a 23 year old girl in North Carolina.

Thanks to everyone who read my stories and double triple thanks to those who said nice things about them, and think about the Karma, especially you family members who pretend it doesn't exist or it's a whim. Read any Lora Leigh and then get back to me about MY work.

The only thing that is bothering me now is that I am toying with ideas. It is just because I am bored and am so very unused to dealing with a sense of relief. I'm trying to talk myself out of it.

Today's CTA: Do you get angry with yourself when you break promises to yourself or do you just shake it off? What do you learn from the experience? Share.

High Times

Just read an article in the Chicago Tribune that some of the drug manufacturers are getting worried because anti depressant sales are tanking. This is of great interest to me.

I am old. Not that old, but pretty fucking old. I have a copy of the ORIGINAL Whole Earth Catalog. There were many subsequent ones like the New Whole Earth Catalog, but I own one of the real ones. Most of it contains different ways of exploring how to get high. And I tried most of them. I am proud to say I have NEVER taken a hallucinogen. Really. Why would I have to? You have no idea how fucking bizarre my life has been. And, no, I am not one of those people who THINK their life has been bizarre. It has been and continues to be--at a much slower rate. My reproductive history alone, which most of you do not want to hear about, is far more bizarre and unbelievable than that of Nadya Suleiman. Trust me on this.

I take a prescription antidepressant among other things. It runs in my family. My mom and dad both took them. First Gin and then Vodka. I tried that, but I was a migraine person so it didn't work out for me so I ended up in doctor's offices instead of liquor stores. And, like there is a difference between Grey Goose and well vodka, there are differences in doctors and Rx's. One thing, did you not ever wonder why any prescription that has any kind of psycho active effect, whether it be a low dose paxil or a Lunesta or whatever, strongly advises you not to take St. John's Wort? How big a deal was it when GNC started to sell it? They would run out. Like chew on the bark of two willows and call me in the morning? So, it doesn't have to be a prescription, you know that, right?

One of the things mentioned was that magic mushrooms (Psilocybin or 'shrooms) was being investigated for the purpose of being used as an antidepressant. Like Carlos Castenada didn't already know that? Oh, man. I can't wait. I hope I live long enough to see psilocybin mushrooms on the shelf in the GNC store. Guess who will be waiting when the store opens?

Today's CTA: what makes you feel high?

blog endorsement

This is an unsolicited endorsement. There is a blog I discovered, I do not know how, called Fighting Monkey Press and I really like it for some reason. It is just the right mix of serious and profane I think.

Last Call

ANYMORE is free until midnight tonight
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007O47VIE


Here is the new cover I will put up tomorrow.

Despite all the confusion and misspelling in the links I have about 600 downloads so far and reached 42 in freebie "best seller" in Contemporary Fiction

Beating a dead horse.

Actually, I am still trying to ride the dead horse around the town. Someone read me the riot act for something I said, and I was right and they were wrong, so terribly wrong on so many levels, and I have to bring it up yet again. I don't know why just being right isn't satisfaction enough, since I sometimes, actually frequently, am right about some things. Although my statistics do grow less impressive as I age. I seem to age about a year for every day lately. Anyway:

Someone was saying how poor the earning scale was if you worked for a non-profit. This person was a bit older than ten, so I was kind of shocked. Although it is kind of sweet to learn there are still people in the world who have an innocent sort of belief in what people tell them. Illusions I think they call them. I had them once. I find it sad they are gone. I found it painful to give them up.

This is making the email rounds:

Think about these before you donate.
As you open your pockets to do a good thing and make yourself feel good, please keep these facts in mind:

The American Red Cross
President and CEO Marsha J. Evans salary for the year was $651,957 plus expenses

MARCH OF DIMES
It is called the March of Dimes because only a dime for every 1 dollar is given to the needy.


The United Way
President Brian Gallagher receives a $375,000 base salary along with numerous expense benefits.

UNICEF CEO Caryl M. Stern receives $1,200,000 per year (100k per
month) plus all expenses including a ROLLS ROYCE . Less than 5 cents of your
donated dollar goes to the cause.

GOODWILL CEO and owner Mark Curran profits $2.3million a year.
Goodwill is a very catchy name for his business.
You donate to his business and then he sells the items for PROFIT.
He pays nothing for his products and pays his workers minimum wage! Nice Guy.
$0.00 goes to help anyone!!! Stop giving to this man.

Instead give it to SALVATION ARMY.

GO "GREEN" AND PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE IT WILL DO SOME GOOD:·

The Salvation Army

Commissioner Todd Bassett receives a small salary of only $13,000 per
year (plus housing) for managing this $2 billion dollar organization. 96 percent of donated dollars go to the cause.

The American Legion
National Commander receives a $0.00 zero salary. Your donations go to help Veterans and their families and youth!


The Veterans of Foreign Wars
National Commander receives a $0.00 zero salary. Your donations go to help Veterans and
their families and youth!


The Disabled American Veterans
National Commander receives a $0.00 zero salary. Your donations go to help Veterans and their families and youth!


The Military Order of Purple Hearts
National Commander receives a $0.00 zero salary. Your donations go to help Veterans and their families and youth!


TheVietnam Veterans Association
National Commander receives a $0.00 zero salary. Your donations go to help Veterans and their families and youth!


Please share this with everyone you can.

Calling the Girl in the Hat

Disable your comments? Can't I share my tears with you? That was amazing. Straight to the core of this heart. Someday I'll tell you the bicycle story. Or maybe I did. I think I told the Minnetonka story on Betsy's.

debut

First day freebie promo...good news. You just have to take my word for that.

paranoia or guilt

Am I being moderated out again? I wish I could enjoy my sins more.

Did I put this up already? It went up five points so lets consider it an update. And if you think this is boring, wait til anymore hits the lists. Zot.

Saturday, March 25, 2012

This is not a chart of my mood swings. If it were there would be more peaks and valleys. It is a graph of my blog hits for the week. It is nuts.

I posted about my two freebies and had the dates wrong for ANYMORE and the link wrong for THE MAZE. I post in a German forum, an Italian forum, a French forum, and I think I hit up the Spanish forum this time, so I made the mistakes international in scope.

Today was my daughter's thirtieth birthday and everyone had such a good time. It was so nice. Her little girl took some of her first steps and I got to see it. We blew bubbles in the driveway and even my dad said it was a great party. No small praise from such as he.

And now I am #92 on the Amazon best seller list of 100 for my genre. This is even with the mistakes I made. It is basically meaningless in the long run, kind of equates in my mind to having someone tell me my hair looks nice but what a great day. And while we were gone, Henry did not pee the carpet.

Louie said that Lisa called this morning and asked if the women from the courts had called to tell us we have been awarded custody of Billy. There is a terrible misunderstanding here somewhere, but still I feared coming home and finding him standing on the porch with a bag of clothes. This is a huge tragedy, but I might as well try to win the election as figure this one out. What that girl has done to people's lives is beyond horrible and when I think of the darling baby she was and how happy I was to hold her and take her for walks and watch her take a step, it is fucking heart breaking. And the one thing about getting this old is I know I cannot do a thing about it and I won't even try and I won't bother feeling guilt about it. I do feel anger toward the people that have made such a muck up of his life and thwarted all the good I did for him. But I look at Jupiter and Saturn and say "What's up with that?" and think this was a beautiful day.

Lull

I love how when these little storms die down, I am left out in the cold feeling abandoned.

I published ANYMORE, my swan song, but it is not approved yet. Probably tomorrow and then it will be free for three days. Someone told me how to preserve my indents so it looks real nice. It is very tame and I am pushing it as YA. Let's see if that makes a dif. This is totally due to a change in my meds. I think I will spend the rest of my days rotating my four works of art through Kindle Select , editing, putting on new covers, etc. I cannot imagine another story. Although near the end of this book I wanted to kill off the love interest and start a big mystery deal so you never know. I also have about five thousand words of Jenny Agnoli's first marriage which, she told her second husband, was very "dark."

Then, last night, I was thinking, I could always do a bunch of that 99cent erotica on smashwords and just not tell my family. I have a prob with the words kind of pouring out lately, so maybe I will utilize that. Fun.

Rejection letters

Feel bad when you query an agent about your most illustrious work? Sad they don't appreciate genius when they see it? Feel the whole world is being done a disservice because your wisdom and wit will not be available to them? Depressed and confused because you are beginning to realize your mission to change the history of civilization will never be fulfilled since some ignorant, misguided gate keeper doesn't fall in love with your masterpiece?

This is Hunter S. Thompson's idea for a rejection letter. He didn't actually send it. He gave it to Rolling Stone along with the piles of stuff people had send to him unsolicited. They admitted they used it a few times.


You worthless, acid-sucking piece of illiterate shit! Don’t ever send this kind of brain-damaged swill in here again. If I had the time, I’d come out there and drive a fucking wooden stake into your forehead. Why don’t you get a job, germ? Maybe delivering advertising handouts door to door, or taking tickets for a wax museum. You drab South Bend cocksuckers are all the same; like those dope-addled dingbats at the Rolling Stone office. I’d like to kill those bastards for sending me your piece … and I’d just as soon kill you, too. Jam this morbid drivel up your ass where your readership will better appreciate it.

Courtesy of Futility Closet via Wikimedia

From the Playhouse

I've already been read the White Paper on why it is not nice to "shit" in the Playhouse. So I have left the Playhouse for the moment to say words that I know are not "shit" in my own house, on my own soapbox (If you don't want to read them, you can leave.) , but judgmental people also seem to be kind of quick on the draw. At least in my experience.

The organ harvesting entity in our state is corporate. Here is part of their statement regarding employment.

" Our employees enjoy competitive salaries, a team environment and business-casual workplace attire. Qualified full-time staff receive full medical, dental, vision and life insurance benefits, as well as pension and tuition reimbursement benefits and a generous time-off plan.

All of our employees work in support of our critical mission: to save and enhance the lives of as many people as possible through organ and tissue donation.

All candidates must demonstrate excellent verbal, written and interpersonal communication skills; be detail-oriented; possess the ability to handle multiple projects; and possess the ability to work independently. Basic computer skills are a must. Travel by personal auto and the ability to work outside normal business hours may be required."

A teenager gets $15.00 plus to sell t-shirts in a record store in this neighborhood. Also, a corporation may stipulate they are not for profit in order to get certain ear marked funds, but they manage to build executive type salaries into that structure. A fund raiser for Community Chest cannot live in North Oak Park on thirty grand a year.

Certain people with certain lifestyles tend to take offense at certain things. I feel this is drawing a parallel, not making a judgement. That is, of course, an exercise in semantics. I have gotten on my high horse about being treated dismissively before, and I will fight it. Say it if you want, but I do have the ammo. And as I have said before I will lend you some so the battle will at least be almost even. People say things in public about their most personal relationships, like why it is just easier to give the husband a blow job then have to explain one's thoughts on love and respect to him. They can do what ever they want in their multi layered lives. My marriage and my life in general are travesties of the case model. Maybe yours is model perfect. I don't fucking care. What I do care about is you pointing a finger of judgement at me for no reason. I did not point the finger of judgement at you, so back the fuck off.

Do you honestly think Larry Hagman or Steve Jobs were on a waiting list? Do you know all the fine print on signing the organ donor thing on your driver's license? The rules about why you can't let the EMT intubate the 92 year old stroke patient, and what you MUST do to prevent that? The ramifications of putting the tube in versus taking the tube out. I don't care what kind of environment you work in, there are people doing the same job you are doing that are way dumber and less capable than you, just as there are people doing the same job you are doing that are way smarter and way more capable. There is also a very broad spectrum among these various people regarding their moral judgement and personal prejudices or beliefs.

I am not going to go look in a book to find out if I should put a certain comma in a certain place in a certain sentence. I am not going to take what someone else "feeds" me as the truth. I am going to make my own decisions based on my personal experience, my knowledge, and carefully gleaned and weighed knowledge and opinion from other more experienced people. Then I am going to do exactly what I want and make a shit load of mistakes, errrors, wrong turns, false statements, and when I find out about it, I will apologize. I will also live with the results of my choices.

When zulily, or some like entity, asks me to post for them on my Pinterest board, that is whoring. When I post a link or a remark on Mises.org, that is whoring. When you have sex with someone you don't respect cuz he makes the car payment, or lets you come first, or whatever, that is whoring. I do not care what sex either of you are, or whether or not a priest made a gesture in front of you, or you have a piece of paper with an embossed emblem on it. Everyone is a whore for something. But that is just MY opinion, my PERSONAL feelings,and another exercise in semantics.

It is strange how you get a sense of pure hatred through the ethernet. It is so palpable, and yet, it cannot be seen or measured. Can it? And if you stopped to ask yourself why you were emitting that or receiving that feeling, you would be hard pressed for an answer. You would be. Probably not me.

THE LIST

I make constant joking reference to being on NSA's "list" because of the controversial things I sometimes say on my blog or on twitter or facebook. I follow several people on twitter because of their military affiliations. I am from a military family and married into a military family. I have posted in the past on my blogspot blog about my feelings in regard to the goings on in the middle East. My husband was stationed in the Persian Gulf for a while. He was there when the Ayotallah Khomeini died and I thought it was all going to go up in flames and, strangely, nothing happened. It turned out he was there on a sort of preparatory mission. He was in a small boat unit, supporting a Seal team (three I think, but not relevant and maybe should not even be mentioned.) They were stationed on barges and there was a small story in Time a few years later with a picture of the barge he was on and how they "actually, were never really there". I was subjected to stories of target practice on bloated dead sheep floating in the gulf and various personnel conflicts which crop up in the news even to day. It is a tangled web, that military network. He won some award and I wanted to put a mention of it in our local paper because in our very small town they did that sort of thing. He advised against it, mentioning retribution. This was around the time the school teacher who was married to a military man had a bomb placed on her minivan in California.

Someone recently posted about when the general cried in Afghanistan and I commented and retweeted the link and referred to my story on my blog "FINE WHINE" about it in 2010. I followed the person and he followed back. He also posted about how a military person might feel about our leaving Iraq in the condition it is in, and whatever the mission was in the first place. (As an aside, it is curious to me that we are pulling out when they are on the verge of going nuclear) When I retweeted this, the Iraqi Government retweeted me. I asked the person who was the source of the stories if this was for real and I have been unable to sign into his Wordpress blog which is strange because here I am signed into my wordpress blog.

This is the sort of thing that ANYBODY I know would advise me to drop and go back to writing frivolous fiction. But even in my frivolous fiction I refer to black ops agents planting micro nukes in the Hindu Kush.

I think I will go put the laundry in the drier now and check and see if the dishwasher needs to be run and work on my scrapbook and photo album and springtime wreath projects.

We did it before so we can do it again...

Interesting. From Wikipedia. (Who took these notes re: power generated?)

Two billion years ago, in what is now Gabon in West Africa, groundwater seeped through sandstone to inundate a layer of uranium ore, initiating a nuclear chain reaction. When the deposit heated up, the water boiled away, slowing the reaction; when it cooled, the water returned and the cycle began again.

The result was a natural, self-sustaining nuclear reactor that generated 100 kilowatts of power for several hundred thousand years.

French physicist Francis Perrin discovered the phenomenon at Oklo in 1972. “As far as we know, we only have evidence of natural reactors forming and operating at the one site in Gabon,” said Jay Cullen of the University of Victoria, “but that demonstrates that it’s possible, and our calculations suggest it was much more probable earlier in Earth’s history.”

LAWMAN

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005KN6S4E

Once upon a time, a girl. . .

Sometimes you see something at just the right time.

Inexplicable.

Philippa Gregory says she has to fall in love with her characters. The book about Margaret Beaufort was not easy to read. She pissed you off most of the time. But she willed stuff to happen and at, what I consider, great personal sacrifice. "What I did for love" etc. She could love and did love but had this other agenda. Couldn't do it. I'd carry the growler to the bar to get a refill for grampa. So she admitted she found it hard to love her and you knew it when you read the book THE RED QUEEN. It was one of her least enjoyable works.

So this last book I wrote, I couldn't fall in love. There really was not a character for that. But now I am finished and I am in love with them and don't want to put it up, want to keep living their lives for them, controlling the weather and what color to paint the porch.

Amazon goofed up the listing and the royalties and Smashwords has yet to cough up a cent. And the promoting is so whorish. Either you like it or you don't but why the fuck don't they even want to look? I spend hours every day just reading blurbs cuz I am so afraid I am going to miss something. And my Kindle has at least twenty books I am dying to get to. So I sit and play Spider Solitaire on the iPhone. I am so sick of it. I don't think I am going to do it anymore. I just read this John Steinbeck quote where he says you have to not stop and think and plan otherwise you lose your association with the words that are making these people live and that is in direct opposition to all this MFA stuff and outlining and little index cards with plot points. And how I write. Just sit down and wish the fucking crippled fingers would not keep hitting the wrong keys I want to go so fast.

And I am half in tears over it. Like they said my baby was funny looking and kind of dumb, and that is when I get these ridiculous blog spikes and I do not even know where they came from. Some one read a post from about six years ago. It tells you that, so I looked at it and I was talking to Louie about it being when Lisa had that little house and Billy lived with her and it was like a lull in our lives. So strange. Why did someone go and read that out of a clear blue sky? And what could it mean to them? What do anyone else's words mean to someone else? I don't know, but sometimes I am crying over it and laughing and hoping for a certain thing to happen to imaginary people. Cuz I couldn't make it happen for my real people. I guess.

Tomorrow: back to the big white Welbies, for sure.

Today's CTA: Do you put stuff in your fiction that you really wish did happen to you? Or do you want it nothing like your real life?


Image Attribution:  thecollaboratory.wikidot.com

words

My brother took a course at Marquette that was etymology, or related to etymology. I loved it. It made me buy a book by some guy named Hayakawa. I don't know if it was the senator, but it was about words. I keep saying I love to fool around with the letters, but it is the words. They get me in so much trouble but I love to mess with them--manipulate them. I can define myself three different ways to three different people just by letting them look at my words. Actually I think I can even do that to myself. Here is a cutie for today. From Futility Closet.


anserine
adj. of or resembling a goose

Irony

I feel so bad that my attempts at irony are misconstrued or missed altogether. I fear I have taken subtlety too far. Yet, that cannot be possible. Otherwise, why would all this flak be flying past my ears?

Let it go? Never. I shake a thing, with my teeth in its neck, until it is dead.

CONTRAST

I have the bitterest taste in my mouth.

I need some sugar.

Fuck It

Funny how you make a very brief personal observation about how something painful once happened to you and it now tends to distort your perceptions of certain things, things which people may find great joy in, God having given them the grace to feel such enjoyment, and a pack of vicious animals starts chewing on your ass like you are literally dogmeat. And the remark can be about a very small and painful moment in your life, but they have to construe that only a drunk would spew such shit. To concisely paraphrase if such a thing is possible. And the remark can have been made to reflect upon why you are unable to share everyone's joy at the moment, actually a remark that certainly didn't need to be made at all, but since I have started messing around with the alphabet I get myself in more and more trouble.

Almost reminds me of that cabal that gets all undone when you mention that fifteen year olds entertain sexual thoughts.

I fucking give up.

And, then, they flock to the fucking blogsite like flies to the corpse. What the fuck is this all about?

"You can't please them all. There's always somebody calling you down. I do my best..."

MY FUCKING BEST. Not good enough for you, you unknown. THEN DON'T READ MY WORDS.

Buzz the fuck off. That's what flies do.

Over the Pipe

Mood. What a silly word. Silly sounding. Something a cow did. Must look up the etymology. Starting to think Wikipedia is more useful than google. Reminds me of a joke.

That was cheap of me. Cute tho, no?

I am in the slough of despond, I think. I am in an adolescent place. For sure. I did one of those Kindle Select promotions, and it was so important to me that I forgot to start promo til half way through the first day. So it pretty much tanked. I felt so desolate. For a couple of minutes. Whatever I didn't do to enhance that promo, my blog stats again went through the roof. Then I got some kind words about my "craft" from another source. So if my life is a see saw, I am standing on the board in that middle place where you could make it rock back and forth. You know exactly what I mean. In our playground it was over the pipe. Which sounds much cooler than 'mood'.

Then we had a recent family event where an aunt by marriage died and all the other strings tied to that part of my life are already gone. I hold grudges till like eternity, and found less and less reason to deal with those people, but the aunt was always nice to me. She kind of treated me, when I was little, like she knew I needed someone to be nice to me. My brother did some really mean stuff to me, like the story about the swimming pool and the watch, Bobby. And auntie Edie was kind. Maybe she was kind to everyone, or maybe I noticed it cuz she was the only one kind to me at that time, but when I went up to the casket, I was thinking, Auntie Edie, this does not look like you AT ALL, but where ever you are you are fine now, and thank you for teaching me the easy way to learn to swim.

You go to these things to offer condolence and to say good by and "pay respects". Because you are supposed to. They had this slide show thing about her with many wonderful pictures of her and her family and these certain friends of theirs. One of the sons said, "You are in there a couple of times." No. I wasn't. Nor my brothers. Nor my grandma who was her mother in law, one glimpse of my mom who was Edie's husband's sister, that I got ticked off about at his wake cuz my mom, his sister, was left standing in the rain, and one glimpse of my dad. This family was so close to mine when I was small. I would take the bus to go stay over at their house. My cousin, the godmother of my first child, used to ask me everything about the facts of life. And at that wake, I realized, we were nothing to them. Not even a memory. And all my instincts to draw away from them over the latest years have been correct. When my mom was dying, they did a couple of things that displeased me, but I chalked it up to them trying to be nice and it being an awkward time, and most of them are kind of slow, but now I don't think I am going to have anything to do with them if I can possible avoid it. My circle of friends and relatives is growing smaller and smaller. It seems convenient to me. There are so many things in life you can't control--that you have to put up with, and up to this point I thought I was growing more mellow and tolerant, and making peace with some of the crap that is my life, but I'm not. In my head I am more angry than ever, and at the same time, I feel so good about so many things. One thing I would love to tell younger people is that they need to be more selfish, but I can't because I don't know how to tell them how to do that with out hurting anyone's feelings. That has been the consistent thread running through my life. I was always teased about having hurt feelings, (which I always had)and I always worry about hurting people's feelings. This from the person who has said, "I hope a truck runs over you on your way home." Yeah, I apologized.

"The problem is all inside your head", she said to me.

The gospels should be Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul and Art.

FREE

Two free days for the MAZE in the Amazon KDP Select program, Saturday and Sunday, March 3 and 4.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0061SB3TC

It Is Just Me. . .It Always Is

"Women are more likely than men to have rapid cycling and mixed episodes (both depression and hypomania occurring at the same time.)"



My current doctor is very casual about my condition. It is a good way for her to be because sometimes she is in a friendly chatty mood and sometimes she is in a hurry and somewhat brusque and skeptical in dealing with me. And the fact that she has written in rather too large letters at the top of my file BIPOLAR DISORDER absolves her from having to pay too much attention to how I might react because she figures she never knows what she is going to be dealing with from visit to visit. And she is pretty good about the drugs, listens and explains, but that is because she knows I usually come in well-armed for that battle.

But I opened with this quote for another reason. I was first told when I was about thirty and a raving 104 pound lunatic that I was probably a "manic depressive" but he wanted to use lithium and I fail the kidney test. (It is a heavy metal) so I blithely went on with my life, forging tranquilizer scrips and altering dates on the bottles for refills from the elderly pharm that was a good friend of my dads. Yeah, one of my more reprehensible moments, I agree. And buying quaaludes and valium from a girl I worked with who knew a nurse who was a thief. I also spent a year or two in Rum therapy. Oh, and smoked a barrel of dope. But pregnancies and other life crises brought me relatively unscathed (at least visibly)to the present day. Not speaking for those surrounding me who still look a little shell-shocked. And I have resources available and kind, educated people to keep me on an even keel. Pretty fucking boring sometimes.

BUT

I had a discussion with someone some years ago whose adult child had committed violence against his mother and had to be hospitalized, etc. ultimately being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which, the story went, he had been self treating with alcohol. (A common manifestation) The person went into some detail about the current treatment of the adult child and discussed the classes they took to familiarize themselves with the disorder. (Never heard of them) and when I mentioned that I was a rapid cycler he showed utter disdain and dismissiveness indicating verbally that that WAS not a component of the illness and the cycles were usually months long. I had always had respect for that person, and what he said did shake me up a bit, but he wasn't a doctor or even working in social services, so I didn't let it change my life patterns. And now I kind of think of that person, who is a pretty nice guy, as one of those people that think they know it all. Which he really kind of isn't, generally. But reading this in someone's blog today validated me, in a kind of over due back in the shadows of my mind way.

It is true that people with this disorder tend to make light of it, and sometimes, oh,no, use it as an excuse for some outrageous behavior, but, to some one who was always the grade skipping high IQ star of the academic scene, to be dismissed so lightly, and for my knowledge to be ignored (pooh-poohed) certainly left a much bigger mark on my ego than I realized. As I did today when reading the quote.

I don't need to grasp at straws. I am doing quite well, and I like me just fine, you may have noticed me saying. But, it is another case of someone thinking knowledge you pay someone for is better knowledge than the stuff you live and learn on your own. Actually, I look back and try to think of other times I was treated so dismissively, and, at this moment cannot call one to mind. (Except for the regular day-to-day junk I get from the spouse which rolls off my back.) I'm not so sure of what the point is I am trying to make here, but I do want you to know that the 'know it all' types, (there is currently one ranting on the Linked-In author's group about grammar. He would stroke if he read my books. Grammer, schmammer) (Cuz I wanna--that's why.) really get my goat. So if you want to question my knowledge, come to the table well-armed. When I make stuff up, I am very careful to tell that to everyone, and it usually becomes truth in a week or two anyway. Yeah. I do have those credentials handy. Here. . .

Love Songs

There was a kind of a joke, maybe one of those semi-viral facebook things, comparing a song of Justin Bieber's with an older love song in two columns where he says "oohoohbabybaby" and the other song says "I'll be there for you to share with you through laughter and through tears."
And that "Til the End of Time" song keeps running through my head. Any of us of a certain age, that would probably include 99% of the people who read THIS blog, know a song like that would never fly today. And why not? And in the TV guide there was a blurb about a Debbie Reynolds movie that was a light-hearted comedy about divorce. And that was probably in the early seventies. Yeah, I could go look, but you don't really care, and I don't want to get up and walk through three rooms, and I would forget it by the time I got back here, so just take my word.

Maybe that is why those bodice rippers are so popular now. I write about contemporary people, and I would love to give them this big huge end of time love to share with each other. But the circumstances they are in, it kind of doesn't fit. And when I do it to them, there is always something that comes along that ends up being, "Yeah, you are the big love of my life, but this and that happened and we must just move on with our lives". I know when I got married three old boyfriends showed up at the door (at different times, of course, although it would have been interesting if they all pulled up together). "Why can't it be the way it was?" Yet, none offered a tantalizing alternative or brought a white stallion with them. And two of them and a third who didn't show up at the door, called my dad over the years to see how I was doing. My dad wept over one of them.

And my thought is, and I have tended to share this idea with my daughter, which is probably not a good thing, is that they were interchangeable. And maybe there would have been rough times, but I am betting, aside from one of them shooting me dead and leaving me for the birds to pick at, nothing could have worked out as badly as some of the shit I have had to deal with in the chosen marriage.So all I could ever say to my daughter was "Yeah, he is nice looking, and you will always have financial stability". So I guess I am not romantic. Or maybe I was and now I am jaded and/or calloused. Nevertheless, why did I choose to write in the genre I have chosen? The truth is, I can only read mine. The only romance I ever read and loved was Katherine by Anya Seton which was fucking awesome, and Historically based. (John of Gaunt, poor guy. Shuttlecock) and I love to read my own work, but most other romances are too unrealistic. Maybe I am trying to rewrite my life as alternative reality. I am currently reading "Reamde" which is as far away from anything in my life as I could get. I favor police and medical procedurals, but I am lazy about the research. What I do write--I did the research. And fuck that happily ever after shit.

Refreshing Viewpoint

“Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is the story of what happened on the banks. Historians are pessimists because they ignore the banks for the river.” — Will Durant, Life,
Oct. 18, 1963


This is copied from Futility Closet, a site that I have to keep in my email and stop to read every now and then to counterattack the usual banality of my life. The site always supplies something grounding and refreshing.

Excerpt from The Maze

Switching Annie to the other breast, Maisie glanced up and saw Bob in the doorway. She actually blushed a little and adjusted the diaper she had thrown over her shoulder. Like he’d never seen her breasts. “You are even more beautiful now. You look so happy and content. Lucky baby. What a cutie she is.”

“Thank you, Bob. How are you doing?”

“I’m dying inside. I keep thinking it’ll get better. But it doesn’t, even seeing you being all modest and motherly, like I never saw your tits? I should laugh, but I want to cry.”

“Bob.”

“I know you loved me. I know it didn’t go away. Lie to me and say it did. It’ll make it easier for me.”

“I can’t. It didn’t go away. It won’t. And I don’t understand it. I try not to think of it.” Annie was sound asleep and Maisie laid her in the little crib, tucked her breasts away and as she turned, Bobby was right there. “You shouldn’t. . .” But he placed his hands on her forearms and she felt like she was getting lost.

“See? That’s what I mean. That’s not going away. On that bike in Pennsylvania?”

“I know. We should have just kept going. But, this isn’t wrong. This is where I’m supposed to be. I told you, I don’t understand it.”

“Maybe it’s timing. I think all the time how it would be if we just kept going.”

“You shouldn’t.” She looked up at his face and he stepped a little closer.

“You can back the fuck away from my wife now, and keep your hands off her.” They didn’t hear Barney coming down the hall. He made sure of that.

Barely a year ago, same scene, different players. No, thought Maisie. Same players. Different roles. Except for me. Me. “Barney, it’s okay. He’s just saying hi. We’re just talking about Annie.”

“Get the fuck out of here, Raia.”

“Back off, old man. Everything’s cool.” Thought that sounded okay, even though he knew his mouth had gone dry and his heart nearly stopped--eyelids, scrotal sac and all its contents, disappearing into the depths of his body.

“Go, Bob. Go. Please don’t start anything, Barney.”

Unfortunately, Bobby had to walk passed Barney who was filling the doorway, standing with clenched jaw, clenched fists. Maisie stepped passed Bobby and took Barney by the hand. “It’s okay, Baby,” she said as she kind of tugged him toward the crib and the sleeping baby, trying to adjust the dynamic. “Bob. Go. Please.”

As he stepped passed Barney, through the doorway, into the hall, he turned, and feeling he had to at least get in the last word--since he had no waiting white stallion to escape on, his Maisie and her infant in his arms--Bobby muttered, not quite under his breath, “This is not over. Never think it is. Never.”

Barney started to lunge toward the doorway, but Maisie, not quite a hundred percent physically, tugged at his arm with both her hands, “Let it go, Barn. The baby?”

“It’s over, asshole. You don’t know how over.”

Bobby walked away reluctantly. Totally unwilling to let this rest. Determined it would not rest. But that guy is fucking scary. I wonder if she’s safe around him. But she treats him like a little dolly on a string. What the fuck is wrong with her? What does she see in him? I need another beer.

SUNDAY

The truth is this is not working out for me. There is something wrong. I have had so many downloads of my work, I am shocked. Many were free promos, but, still, I have made more money off this in such a short time than I ever expected. It is a complete surprise to me. I get feedback from foreign countries.I have people search me and comment on the most esoteric parts of my life. Well, I shouldn't even mention that because my blog archive is a total mess of Too Much Information, but something is not right. I think people are maybe not saying the things I want to hear. But I have had a variety to choose from and couldn't say which I prefer. And I shouldn't have to HEAR anything. The numbers should be reassurance enough. There are a few blog threads where I participate on a pretty regular basis, and some of the people talk (is it talk?) to me, and others--well, I can tell I am considered an interloper. It actually makes me want to stop participating in something I enjoy and generally appreciate. I have gotten personal feedback from one blog owner and I know I am welcome there, but I also know what they are talking about when they refer to the red-headed step-child. I am 'endured' by some. And there are people that praise my work and I try to be truthful and tell them it is just what it is. It is, literally, stuff that flies off the top of my head, and I don't want anyone to take it for an attempt to make it be something it isn't. I take muy antidepressants, and yet, I feel on the verge of weeping over this. I know I should talk to someone about it, but I am so convinced that no one gets it, I feel like I don't want to bother. I have talked to so many counselors and therapists and doctors over this. I feel I have to work it out by myself. And my words don't seem to be doing that for me. They seem to be opening up doors to thoughts that have always been there but that I didn't/don't want to acknowledge. I honestly feel better commenting on the eye liner wearing, flower bearing native Afghanis. Why am I more comfortable with that? What does that have to do with me?

Maybe it is the season, or the clonopin, or the extra baby-sitting, or the cold that just hangs on and on. I was reading one of my grandsons Wimpy Kid books, and I thought it was so funny and cute. And the baby's smile brings me such joy. But I feel exhausted. In the truest sense.

Funereal Musing

BOBBY BROWN IS A FUCKING ASSHOLE.

Writing

Something has to go "click" in my head.

I stumbled on a blog. The guy's name was Ray I think. I usually remember the name Ray. He was a writer. Some of you will stumble across it if you don't already know who I mean. He can write.

Lately, I think of everything in terms of long drawn out analogies. I think it is a way I explain things to myself. I did that long drawn out blog about the end product I come up with. For which I feel no shame. There is a place for that product and I think I handle it just fine. And it is what I want to do. Writing wouldn't do what it needs to do to the inside of my head if I had to keep a bunch of note cards and characters and plot lines sorted out. As it is, I have to search before I publish to make sure I didn't change someone's name along the way. So story one is the way I write. Story two is the way Ray writes. Process, not story or style.

Story One: I have a really pretty house. It is just a box. It is a pretty color. It has nice trees. It has a great yard. It has good proportions. It is large. It is a nice house. I change the wreathes on the front door for the season. I go to Michael's. I buy a wreath form. Sometimes I use last seasons. I strip it and start anew. I buy some fake flowers that make me think of something nice I remember, some color that makes me feel good. I buy some leaves that are the right proportion and color. I buy fake polystyrene berries. I am crazy about those berries. They have to be on every wreath. The size and the color have to be just right. Sometimes I use last seasons. If the white plastic is showing through, I color it in with a marker. I assemble the ingredients in a pleasing pattern. I put a little glitter on some of the leaves cuz my front door gets muy sun. Some times my daughter is supervising or assisting. "You should put a little more glitter here." "There are too many berries there." I have to make two because the front entry is double doors. They have to match but not identically. They have to harmonize. I make frequent trips to the edge of the yard to look back and see if the scale is pleasing.

One day a neighbor and her friend and their daughters knock to sell girl scout cookies. One of the first things the women says is, "I LOVE your entryway. I want to go home and copy it." My heart soars with the eagles. This is the end of story one.

Story two: A young man is walking along a stony beach on an island in the Outer Hebrides. It is chilly but there is a spring smell in the air. The beach is cross hatched with an occasional scarp. Farther down the scarp meets the water and the young man will not be able to walk further on the waterfront. But before he reaches the end of the beach, right around the place he first intended to turn and head back, he spots a very white baby lamb half way up the scarp. It is bawling piteously and very white but smudged with dirt and a little redness. It is in distress. The man, wearing a perfectly aged pair of Vasques, and happening to have an old thin pair of leather driving gloves in the pocket of his oiled cotton Barbour Mac, climbs somewhat carelessly, but with years of experience to support his efforts and grabs the baby lamb. He continues to the top of the scarp from which the lamb has fallen, carrying it over his shoulder and trying to hold its two back legs when he doesn't need both hands to keep his purchase on the craggy rock.

After he reaches the top and begins to walk over the barely perceptible path leading to his ancient but picturesque cottage, he examines the lamb and sees it is fine except for a few abrasions on its haunch from falling against the stone. He puts the lamb in the yard with the other few sheep he owns, some who have recently lambed. None of the ewes will let the baby nurse so the young man drives his little red car to town and buys special formula for abandoned lambs. He loves the lamb. The lamb loves him. The lamb thrives under his care and is always a bit brighter, a bit bouncier, a bit larger than the other lambs.Sometimes the other lambs, now young sheep, gang up to tease him, but they know he is the leader and usually they let him lead. He is a good leader anyway, they know. The next spring, when it is time to shear the sheep, the young man notices his favored lamb has a more lustrous, healthier looking crop of fleece than the others, so as he shears away, he keeps the wool from the special lamb separate. The wool goes to market as is usual. Walking around money. But the special wool he takes to his aunt's house who lives the other side of the tiny village. "This is wondrous wool," she says. "I will make a special sweater." And she does. Then the young man goes out in the world wearing the special sweater. As he progresses through the world many people say, "Hey, cool sweater." "Oh, what a lovely sweater." "Is that wool bleached? It is so very white."

Then one day the young man is on his way back home. He never stays away for long. He is on a pedway in an airport. Approaching on the opposite pedway is a lovely young girl. The pedway is very crowded but she looks up intently at the oncoming traffic as she notices a certain evocative scent of aftershave that gets her attention, and she spots the young man. "If I didn't have to run for this stupid plane, I would vault over this wall and make a move on that guy," she thinks, and gives him a delicious smile which he hungrily tastes as he moves past, returning a glimpse of self satisfaction over what might have been, as they both well know. As she moves on, the young girl, too busy to feel regret, thinks only, "God, that sweater he had on was gorgeous." The end of the second story.

Cutest Valentine

LOVE

:

THE BEST and the GHOSTS

LAWMAN is the best. I just keep rereading it, mostly cuz I can't take my eyes off Tim who is a Getty Image for god's sake. And the ending is so great. Life, whether you like it or not. SACRED SIN is a bit of a stretch. When I can afford it, I will do a rewrite, but already I left out about half. And I love the gas station sex. And the Maze, well, I hate what I had to do to Barney cuz I love him so, but that's life, like I say whether you like it or not.

And just when I start thinking the ole well has run dry, I got a great idea for Anymore to introduce a pivotal character that ties this all up. God, I am enjoying the hell out of this.
So ninety days is my deadline, but I will finish sooner. Especially if I stay this manic. Ghosts are in my house actually. They leave me things, tangible things. Some shiny and new. Puzzling.

So VERY Up

Well, Louie got the new transmission installed for his heart yesterday and that seems to be going fine. They desperately wanted to show us the one they took out and talk about how it worked and describe its various components. It was large and shiny and, strangely enough, shaped like a tombstone, but I didn't want the explanations because there were still little bits of blood and gore attached to it. He is asleep at home now, as usual. On the way from the hospital this morning, we stopped at the "Orgy of Gorging" pancake house near our home , (not its real name) and Delaney ate pancake and behaved delightfully, so that many smiles will last most of today and tomorrow for me.

PLUS, the KDPSelect program has kicked in, so I am rapt, watching those results come in, much as, I am just supposing here, that gubernatorial candidate with the dark secret would be watching his election returns.

Yes, I harbor dark secrets, many of them hinted at in my fictional works, many of them to be kept hidden beyond the grave. Except, I am not going to have an actual grave. But you get what I am saying.

THE MAZE

Free today and tomorrow on KDPSelect. If you don't belong to Amazon Prime you can sign up for 30 day free trial.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0061SB3TC