WHERE DID THAT MERCEDES COME FROM?

The winery in the mountains

Judith Arnold

I’m back from a recent trip to San Diego, where I spent a few days with a group of friends from college. We met as freshmen and bonded instantly, and we’ve remained close ever since. We gather every year for a long weekend, sometimes on the East Coast, sometimes the Midwest, this year California.

                 

I was able to book non-stop flights round-trip. Just me and my netbook and five hours of writing time each way. No internet. No email. No Scorpion Solitaire. I can’t remember when I last had five uninterrupted hours to write. This trip was not just a reunion with my friends; it was also an excellent opportunity for me to make some progress on my current manuscript.

                                                                       

So, winging westward, I wrote. While my seatmates zoned out, flipped through magazines, watched videos on the mini-screens embedded in the backs of the seats in front of us and munched on the bland snacks that pass for airline food these days, I let my fingers fly over the keyboard. Every scene, every line of dialogue, every plot point, glimmer of introspection and swirl of description that I’d worked out in my mind the previous week was put into words and saved to my hard drive.

I spent the next several days with my friends, hiking in the hills, strolling along the beach, nibbling on brownies, sipping wine. We talked. And talked. We sat around a blazing fire-pit on our hostess’s patio and talked. We lounged on the oversized leather sofas in her den and talked. We drove to a winery in the mountains, tasted seven different wines and talked.

After four glorious days, we hugged one another goodbye and boarded our separate planes home. I settled into my seat, buckled my lap belt...and panicked. Five hours of flying time loomed before me, and I had no idea what to write. I’d used up every word I had on the trip west. My brain was blank, my muse hiding inside an air-sickness bag.

Yet I couldn’t waste the writing time the flight provided. So I pushed myself to move forward with the story, staggering and stumbling but forcing out one word and the next.

Suddenly, energy infused my fingers. I typed that while driving home from work, my heroine glanced at her rear-view mirror and noticed a Mercedes tailing her. Unsure whether she was truly being followed, she took a detour. The Mercedes remained with her, taking the same detour. It didn’t speed up, clip her bumper or try to force her off the road. But it was definitely following her.

My heroine arrived home without incident. She eased her car into her garage. entered her house, locked the door, peeked out the window and watched the Mercedes idle by the curb for a moment before driving away. Only then did she realize she was trembling uncontrollably.

Where did that Mercedes come from? I don’t know. Who was driving it? I’m not sure. It’s a mystery as bewildering as the mystery my heroine is trying to solve in my manuscript.

During the four days I spent visiting with my college sisters, not once did I give a thought to where the plot of my work-in-progress was headed beyond what I’d written on the flight west. Yet when I settled into my seat on my flight home and applied my fingers to the keys, inspiration came to me in the form of a luxury sedan that scared my heroine half to death.

Inspiration is a strange thing. If we seek it, we usually won’t find it. But a change of scenery, a gathering of friends, ocean breezes, a long walk on a path up a foothill in the coastal range, a winery in the mountains... Somehow, that blend of ingredients goaded my muse into giving me a Mercedes and sending my manuscript’s plot in a wonderful new direction.

Like my heroine, I moved forward but checked the rear-view mirror. What I found reflected in that mirror’s silver surface was inspiration.

Bestselling author Judith Arnold had made her comic novella, CHOCOLATE KISSES, free to readers at Amazon (http://amzn.com/B008LO9Z1M) and other ebook venues. For more information about this and her other current releases, please visit her web site: www.juditharnold.com.

Keep on Writing!

by Samantha Wilde

You're tempted to give up for the hundredth time, after another rejection or another head-banging writing session (no, not the musical kind), yet somehow, you just keep writing.

HERE is the cover of my new novel, I'LL TAKE WHAT SHE HAS (don't you want what she has too?), scheduled for release a few weeks after Valentine's day 2013 (Bantam Books). In the original plan, this book probably would have hit the shelves in the year 2010.

Remember that year?

My fantastic editor, however, changed publishing houses, so I got a new editor. I overhauled the book on her edits. The, the new editor left publishing altogether.

Hold on! My agent said to me. Hang in there. Publishing is going through some serious TRANSITIONS.

My third editor, my first editor's assistant at the time of the book's first draft, sent me a fourteen page editorial letter. I did cry.

And then I revised. The book, a whole different creature, was also wildly better. I asked this editor to please stay until the book was published. "Then," I said, "you can leave."

She left a few months later. So I began working with my fourth editor, who chose this awesome cover (do you like it? would you read it?).

Until, and now let's call it inevitable, my fourth editor left!

My fifth editor is a woman I already knew about, a gifted, energetic, talented young woman.

There were times--months, maybe even YEARS--of time during which I thought, I will never see this book published. The book had traveled so far from its original editor, it felt as though no one had an investment in it at all (except me, of course). I sent a copy out to one of my all time favorite novelists, Claire Cook, and she wrote this: "Samantha Wilde has a dry wit, a big heart, and a sharp eye that doesn't miss a trick. I'll Take What She Has is a smart and funny behind-the-scenes look at private school life and the grass-is-always-greener friendships of three women who, like most of us, would have fabulous lives if only they could get out of their own way!" 

I cried again. For different reasons.

You may not be experiencing the exact same challenge, but most writers have moments of hanging on by their ball-pointed pens. Being discouraged, feeling rejected (by agents, editors, other writers and readers), plagued by doubts, concerned about sales...the list could go on but I won't write it because YOU already know it...is NOT the end of the story.

HANG ON! Keep on writing. Listen to the voices of encouragement and useful criticism. We don't know the fate of our books or of our lives. What's ours to do is: keep on writing!

Let me know if you like the cover!

Samantha Wilde is a full-time mother of three. Her first novel, THIS LITTLE MOMMY STAYED HOME, helped a lot of new mothers make it through their day. She blogs about being a feminist mother, teaches yoga and serves in ministry (she's an ordained non-denominational minister), has a weekly radio ministry program: You Are Loved and also, occasionally, sleeps.

A Garage of My Very Own

Recently a particularly Californian writing dream came true. No, I didn't score a movie deal. No, I wasn't unexpectedly staffed on a TV show.

But I did get my own writing garage.

For whatever reason, there seems to be a lack of home offices for writers in California. In other places, like my hometown of St. Louis, you'll find extra bedrooms being used as offices. And an architect friend of mine in Pittsburgh works out of his finished basement.

But real estate being what it is in California, many writers, especially mom-writers like myself, don't have the benefit of dedicated writing spaces. Our guest bedrooms become nurseries, and most SoCal homes don't have basements.

As a consequence, L.A. coffeeshops are filled with scribes. Often when showing homes, real estate agents proudly open the door of a huge walk-in closets that "could easily be converted into an office." No lie, when I see Harry Potter's cramped living quarters in the Muggle world onscreen, I think to myself, "Well, that would make a fine office, wouldn't it?"

But even before moving here, I'd dreamed of having my very own writing garage. One of my mentors at Carnegie Mellon, a screenwriter freshly moved back to his hometown of Pittsburgh from L.A., told me tales about writing in the office above his garage. And two years ago, a television writer friend converted her garage to an office space, after finding out the extra bedroom would soon be occupied by a newborn. I was so jealous.

In my mind, nothing says real writer, like writing in a space originally designed to shelter your cars.

I've had many writing spaces since moving to California. When I first got here, I wrote on a laptop in bed. Then I moved in with a boyfriend and wrote on a laptop in his bed. Then we broke up and I found a free mattress, on which I wrote my first California plays. Eventually I met my husband, who had one of those closet offices, and that's where I wrote most of 32 CANDLES.

Then we moved to a new house right before our daughter came, one of the few in California that actually had a basement. When it wasn't flooded, I ignored the dank, dark, and cold nature of it to write in it for a few months ... before I ended up writing in bed.

Then we moved to a small townhouse in the heart of Pasadena. Great location, no space. I ended up writing at a little IKEA desk in the corner of our bedroom.

We searched for a place to finally just settle for over three years and eventually we found a short sale, fixer upper that was located in a good school district, within our budget, and perfect for my husband, who loves to fix things up. The only thing was all the bedrooms would be occupied, there were no walk-in closets, and the master bedroom wasn't large enough to also fit my desk.

So imagine my glee, when my husband opened the door to a large garage and said, "I was thinking we could convert this into an office for you."

As it turned out, the former owner, a motorcycle enthusiast, had already tricked out the garage to look like -- well, a motorcycle shop. Slap on some yellow paint, put in a desk, have the HVAC guys put in a vent, ignored the black and white checkered floor, and voila, I got a writing garage of my very own. Now all we have to do is put in insulation, so I don't freeze during the winter months.

Till then, I'm writing -- you guessed it -- on my laptop in bed (see pic above). Thank goodness for the IKEA Brada Laptop table and my other husband.

But where do you write, Girlfriends? Is it the space you've always dreamed of or would you improve upon if you could? Let me know in the comments.

A Fine Time For Rhyme Time

A Poem, by Laura Spinella

Tic tock screams the study clock

A Yahoo glance says I’m on the spot

It’s my turn to chatter all front and center
But I'd do better to lend this blog to a renter

No reasonable excuse pops to my mind
I’m busy! I’m flu-ish! Let’s face it, I’m in a bind

What topic to tackle, that’s first on my list
Something funny or wistful with a mysterious twist

On occasion I think we’ve covered the gamut
Not one fresh thought makes me yell, “Damn it!”

Ellen and Karin they’re quick with a quip
They’d generate verses that would be a sure hit

I’m not feeling unique or even mildly reflective
Odd since this blog is the last from a 40’s perspective

Book banter is popular, something close to our hearts
But I’d rather you click here and drop one in your cart

Novel news leaves this author with naught to report
No worries, by next fall you’ll wish I was hoarse

   

Ideas are vague my thoughts a sad rhyming jumble
This blog link however should make each of us humble

A surprise  inbox request heightens my frazzle
They want a cover blurb by tomorrow—and make sure it dazzles

Poetic grammar is moot with no time to check
Looks like it’s ee cummings style with all due respect

So I’ll leave you my gal pals begging that comments be kind
Perhaps a blank date would have been wiser than rhyme

Laura Spinella is a bad poet and also the author of THE IT FACTOR, coming fall 2013, and the award winning novel, BEAUTIFUL DISASTER. Visit her site, where no poetry is posted, at lauraspinella.net

 

Eulogy for Girlfriend Julie Cannon by Karin Gillespie

I think the key to making a story come alive is being willing to rip a page from your own life, to draw upon your deepest pain without flinching~Julie Cannon

Everyone who ever met Julie Cannon knew she was a true sweetheart, the type of person who diligently wrote thank you notes, never flipped a bird at anyone, and wouldn’t dream of sneaking fifteen items onto to the ten-item line at the Kroger. 

They also knew she was about as Southern as they come. Sometimes my Midwestern ears had trouble translating her heavy drawl.   I remember she said to me once, “I’ve got a craving for some machinites” and I said, “Say what?” And we went back and forth, and finally she showed me in the convenience store a box of Mike and Ikes.

Most folks were also aware she was somewhat of a homespun girl. She wrote her novels in longhand at the kitchen table; when she was in 4-H she nurtured a cow, and as a kid she loved spending her summers at her mee-maws’ farm in Armuchee, Georgia, saying:

“It felt like pure heaven as a bunch of us cousins rode horses bare-back down through the bottomland, plucking blackberries and hunting arrowheads along the Oostenaula River. In the evenings, I’d sit very still out on the porch, listening to my kinfolks indulging in that wonderful southern tradition of oral storytelling. Their stories were fabulous, truly stranger than fiction, and I was collecting them like lightning bugs.”    

She was also a devout Christian; she read devotionals every morning, and her last two novels were written for the Christian market, but lest you think I’m describing a scripture-spouting saint, “the gal” (that’s what her daddy called her) had a wicked sense of humor.

One of her characters in Pearly Gates was so afraid of becoming a church lady, she secretly entered an erotic bull-riding contest. Another character in Truelove and Homegrown Tomatoes trolled the frozen food section, looking for lonely, single would-be suitors with Hungry Man dinners in their buggies. And one of the funniest essays I've ever read is Julie’s reaction when she found out about another Julie Cannon who wrote lesbian romance.

In addition to her quick wit, she also was a wonderful mom to Iris, Gus and Sam, and a loving wife to Tom, and a dutiful daughter to her parents, Robert and Gloria Lowery, both who had to say goodbye to their dear child far too soon.

All of these qualities about Julie are amazing and will certainly be acknowledged at her funeral and in the minds and hearts of those who loved her. But I will remember her most for one singular quality:

That seemingly sweet girl, the one with the soft brown eyes and shy smile, was fierce when it came to her art.

She had dreams of being a writer ever since she penned “Mrs. Duck’s Vacation” in elementary school, and like all passions should, it tested her, and twisted her and made her regularly leap out of her comfort zones, like a shaky-kneed swimmer taking a plunge from the high dive.  

When Julie’s first novel TrueLove and Homegrown Tomatoes was published, she was shocked to learn that she’d have to speak publically to promote it. She was terrified of public speaking, but her love for her art won out over her fear, and she made herself learn to be a winning speaker.

She, Jackie Miles, Patty Sprinkle and I traveled the Southeast as an author group called the Dixie Divas and during a five-year period we must have done at least hundred speaking engagements.

Audiences fell in love with Julie because her sincerity always shown through her talks, clear as a coin in a fountain.   

Later, when authors were expected to be adept at social media, Julie, who barely knew a mouse from a modem, suddenly was friending and tweeting like a pro.

I’ve known Julie since 2004, and her career, like many writers, had its bumps and potholes and rocky spots. There were novels that didn’t sell, and sometimes novels that didn’t sell enough.

 Sacrifices were also constantly being made. She’d joke about her neglected house, saying, “Cobwebs dangle, dust gathers, and roaches remain in the spot where they perished days ago.”

She’d also lament about the frozen burritos she often served up for supper and how her husband Tom was a “reluctant patron of the arts.”

But never once did I ever hear her say, “I give up.”

True, she sometimes had her doubts about her calling.

Once she wrote this:

“I love writing, but there is a lot of blood, sweat, and tears that goes with this career. The paychecks are erratic. Why in heaven’s name do I keep on allowing myself to write novels?

To stay in a business which regularly does a number on a person’s self-esteem?.. Do I honestly have to do it? Does attention follow desire? Or does desire simply follow attention? Because I know I give it my utmost attention and perhaps it is one of those self-propagating things like whirlwinds of leaves. I go round and round with this question, but still don’t have the answer. ”

At some point, I think Julie came to terms with her doubts and grew to believe God had given her writing talent as a gift, and it was her obligation to use that gift, and that when she sat down at her kitchen table she was co-creating with Him.  Every day before she wrote, she would pray: “Lord, give me a heart to tell stories about Your goodness and the language to speak it well.”

I don’t know everything Julie was doing the last day of her life, but I can promise you that at some point she was scribbling at her kitchen table, because she felt alive when she wrote, and she wrote every day of the week except for Sundays.

She did not sleepwalk through her too-brief life. She was keenly present, telling her deeply held truths with her pen, using her gifts nearly every day, and now through the power of her words, she will always be alive. 

At first it was impossible for me to understand why Julie was taken away too soon; I know she didn’t want to go. She was in the midst of promoting Twang, and was looking forward to the release of Scarlett Says in Oct 2013. In light of all that, her death made no sense to me.

But then, like a character in a Flannery O’Conner novel—Flannery being one of Julie’s favorite authors—I finally got my moment of grace.

My guess was that her co-creator, her dearly beloved Father, had her in mind for even greater art on another realm, and decided it time to bring her back home for a new calling.

In fact, I’m sure that’s what happened.

I knew Julie believed deeply that God never takes away anything from his children without giving them something even more amazing in return.  I think she deeply understood that every tragedy and setback contains a blessing, even if we cannot see it right away.

This is what those of us she left behind must always remember, difficult as that might be. We were damn lucky to have her as long as we did.

Julie studied eschatology, which, in part, has to do with what happens after you die and whether or not the dead can communicate with living. She even wrote about it in Truelove and Homegrown Tomatoes.

On the day of her death, as I was weeping on my front steps, I noticed that, out of nowhere, a single perfect  daisy had sprung up in my lawn.

I think she is with us always, and that’s why I know that she can hear me when I say:

Good night, sweet diva.

I love you; you meant the world to me and taught me so much  about what it means to be a writer .

See you soon in the great book signing in the sky. I’ll follow the crowds to the longest line.

Our girlfriend Julie Cannon died in her sleep on Oct 9. She was fifty years old. http://www.juliecannon.info/

The Playlist of My Life

I am in my pajamas, sitting at the computer with the best intentions of writing – something, anything. But iTunes pops up, and I find myself scrolling through thousands and thousands of songs. And then I had this epiphany, about mid-way on the Richter-or-whatever scale for epiphanies: I can throw aside the scrap books with all those cherished mementos--like the piece of school bus seat stuffing-fuzz that B.  gave me in fifth grade as a sure sign of his unwavering love. I can lock away the photo albums that bear witness to all the me's I have created, not to mention my ever-evolving sense of style and fashion. Instead, I can put together a playlist of my life. It beats cleaning out my sock drawer. Again. 

Here's part of my playlist:

Best of Bread, side two: freshman year of high school, the Friday night parties at B's house  (yes, the bus-seat-fuzz.  But no longer a romantic interest; my fickleness is long-practiced.) Inside, couples mugging in chairs and corners to "Baby I’m a Want You,"and outside on the street, “Cat Scratch Fever” and the clink of empty beer cans rolling against the curb.

 “Uptown Girl”: my crazy college roommate, now suburban housewife, mother of two and kitchen product demonstrator, on our way to yet another frat party. 

  “Take it to the Limit”: my junior high gymnastics team on the way to the regional meet, the Eagles eight-track blaring hypnotically from the coach’s van like a mantra.

Rick Astley: 1988. I’ve finally finished seven years of higher education. A real apartment. A real job. A fun, rowdy group of single-but-dating girlfriends all piled in one friend’s Jetta (before the radio was stolen for the third and final time) on the way to somewhere or anywhere singing “Together forever, together with you” in wine-induced harmony. 

Laura Branigan (RIP, Laura): two-thirds of the way through the eight-hour drive from home to college, three-fourths of the way to graduation.

The Bangles. “Walk like an Egyptian”: Aerobics class in the old, cavernous ivy league gymnasium my last year of law school with a classmate, daughter of an immigrant plumbing-store owner on Long Island, first in her family to graduate college and venting the family pressure through bulimia. (Facebook tells me she’s retired from a lucrative Wall Street practice, happily living in Westchester County with a husband and children.)

Then there is the quadruple-threat memory of that last, forced family car trip, before my Mom and Dad finally accepted the fact that teenagers would rather die than partake of parental bonding. Driving for hours and hours and hours across the vast wasteland we call the Midwest, twisting the radio dial from one backwater scritchy station to the next. And every single one of them had just four songs on the play list: the ever-popular “Afternoon Delight”, “I’ve Got a Brand New Pair of Roller Skates”, “Muskrat Love” and the record holder for the song with the fewest lyrics, “Dog, Dog, Dog Eat Dog.” Indelibly burned in my mind is the absolute hysteria of my sister and me when we walk into the hotel lobby bar to find our tragically-uncool father requesting “Afternoon Delight” from the smarmy piano player.

And of course, no soundtrack could be complete without the “our songs.

Soul Asylum, “I can feel you tremble when we touch”: first year of law school, renting a car to drive to the city for the funeral of a classmate’s father with the most romantic, attentive, ode-to-me writing, soon-to-be politician I never loved.

Phil Collins, “Groovy Kind of Love”: the one I thought I would marry (but am now relieved I didn’t). I remember him laughing when I described Phil Collins as some old washed up singer trying to make a come-back (no offense, Phil. I’ve never been particularly good at keeping artists straight). And then hearing the original version of the song on a red, beat up juke box in a small-town diner on the way to some weekend getaway. Then Phil’s version, our version, coming on the radio just as he came to pick me up for our first reunion date after we had broken up for the second time.

The rebound guy (the one I maybe should have married), who tenderly he tried to make me love him while I insisted on living out a good-time-girl phase. He was Guns & Rose; I was Jimmy Buffet, but Barry Manilow’s sappy “Somewhere down the Road” makes me think of him still.

 “Colour My World”: I know I'mnot alone in flashing back to balloons and streamers hanging from the school gym. A young couple clenched in an earnest embrace. My head on his shoulder as we struggled to avoid each other’s feet and other body parts, swaying, barely moving in an awkward square to the Last Song of the Homecoming Dance.

I can go back even farther, to pre-B fifth grade choir. Cherubs in a half moon, me at one end on the first row, Mike at the other end of the back row.  Singing “Today” like our lives (or at least recess) depended on it, our eyes meeting from across the music room. I will ever think of my very first, sweet kiss, a flustered peck beside a sand trap on the golf course between school and home, when I hear about those blossoms and sweet wine. 

Any Seal song sends me back to one living room and that first forty-eight-hour-togetherness marathon. Playing cards with his house guests, who had brought the CD of “a new group” for him to hear. How we laughed when he put on his much-played copy and how we joked together for months after, pretending each time to hear Seal for the first time.

"Fly me to the Moon": a champagne-and-cobalt-sky ski day, carving a trail through the trees. 

I’m sure, too, that I will travel across the world to an island in the south of Thailand and a table on a beach, hurriedly carried under a surf-side outcropping of a shadowy cliff, a minor concession to the warm, torrential rain that arrived in synchronicity with a bottle of champagne. Grilled lobster, crashing waves and masterful lightning creating silhouettes of the cliffs along the bay in flawless tempo with the strains of a Thai lounge singer crooning Air Supply’s “Lost in Love.” Too perfect to be true. And it was.

So many tunes, so many times. My life’s playlist is long and varied. Music may be more interwoven with memory than scent is. And it's all grist for the writer's mill. If I ever stop scanning the iTunes catalogues long enough to actually write. Or at least change into fresh pajamas. 

(As an aside, I read recently that the mappers of the human brain had located that continuous loop that causes a song to get stuck in a person's head. Funny how, for me, the meaningful songs rarely get put on perpetual replay. No, it is the random ones, pulled from some dark cobwebby corner of my mind. I'd like those mappers to explain why my loop plays"Great big gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts" or "Zip a  dee do dah")

Christmas in September !?!

by Sara Rosett

I entered a store the other day and came face-to-face with a life-size, inflatable Santa in a grass skirt and Ray-Ban sunglasses doing the hula.

I wasn’t exactly happy to see Santa in September. Any Christmas display up before Thanksgiving usually gets a “Bah, humbug” response from me, but it seems that fighting the premature appearance of holiday items in stores is about as likely as avoiding that annoying coworker at the office Christmas party.  

So, it’s with a little chagrin that I have to admit that I’ve become part of the rush to Christmas trend.  The publishing industry is no different from the retail stores and has begun rolling out holiday-themed books. My Christmas mystery, MISTLETOE, MERRIMENT, AND MURDER, came out Oct 2.

It’s about a white elephant Christmas gift exchange gone bad. In a moment of weakness, Ellie (mom, professional organizer, and military spouse) agrees to host the squadron spouse Christmas party and becomes embroiled in a murder investigation when her white elephant gift is used as a murder weapon. 

The idea for the book came when I attended a Christmas party with a white elephant gift exchange. Our rules were that the gifts couldn’t be purchased; they had to be something we wanted to get rid of and, more importantly, they had to be as awful as possible. It was such a fun party! It got me thinking about what one person considers "trash" maybe a "treasure" to another person. I also happened to be watching a lot of Antiques Roadshow at the time and that led to one of those “what if” moments. What if one of the white elephant gifts wasn’t trash, but an overlooked treasure….?

I was off and running.

Despite it’s early appearance on bookstores shelves, MISTLETOE is my favorite book in the series. I hope you’ll pick up a copy or add it to your GoodReads list.

So, what about you? Do you like holiday-themed books? What's the best/worst/weirdest white elephant gift you've "won?" And, do early holiday displays bring out your inner Scrooge?  

~Sara

P.S. MISTLETOE was #10 on the Ingram list last week--very happy! Thanks to everyone who purchased a copy. I so appreciate it! 

P.P.S. I have two copies to give away to readers. Comment to be entered in drawing! Contest open until midnight (EST) 10/12/12. 

Sara writes mystery (Ellie Avery series) and intrigue (On the Run series). As a military spouse Sara has moved around the country (frequently!) and traveled internationally, which inspired her latest travel thrillers. Publishers Weekly called Sara’s books, "satisfying," "well-executed," and "sparkling."

Sara loves all things bookish, considers dark chocolate a daily requirement, and is on a quest for the best bruschetta. Connect with Sara at www.SaraRosett.com or sign up for her newsletter list here. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Goodreads.