Still No Agent

Turned down again. Poor old World of Mirrors. The agent loved it, but the principal of the agency did not. What's a person to do? Well, we know the name of this blog, right?

I still have a bunch of query letters out there. My current book is coming along. We know there are cat mysteries, dog mysteries, knitting mysteries, gardening mysteries, herb mysteries, antiques mysteries, museum mysteries, golf, ice skating and baseball mysteries, chick lit, hen lit, every occupation, country, genre and hobby known to man and woman, but where are the computer crime mysteries, she asked?

I'm going to have a big stiff drink, very mature of me, naturally, and watch a little of the U.S. Open (don't really know of any tennis mysteries, although I loved "I Spy." )

Below is the synopsis of World of Mirrors. I can just see the movie credits rolling.

The setting is an island off the Baltic coast in the former DDR, and the year is 1990, the “time of the turn.” The Berlin wall has crumbled, but Germany is not yet reunified.
Against the seductive decadence of an old resort with its classic sailboats, nude beaches and crumbling casinos, Zara Gray, a consultant to high tech firms, and T.K. Drummond, a man who finds people and fixes situations, must track down an American software thief before he can sell a stolen copy of his company’s bleeding edge new computer system to the KGB and East Germany’s former States Security Police.
Zara narrates the story, always wondering who she and T.K. are really working for and whose side his sadistic colleague is on. Is the handsome Russian a ship’s captain or its KGB officer? Is the software thief’s girlfriend a sex spy or an innocent dupe? And why has the thief cozied up to the formerly feared Stasis?
When they hope to discover answers, an innocent sailing weekend turns deadly, and they can no longer trust anyone. Zara and T.K. must rely on two unlikely people to help them escape the island: the man they’ve come to find and a North Vietnamese sailor who wants political asylum. A cat and mouse game across the foggy sea ensues, and when the couple thinks they have escaped the matrix of betrayal, the Soviet captain boards their boat in a final violent confrontation. No longer certain that she can even trust T.K., in a desperate gambit, Zara negotiates a surprising compromise and turns the tables on everyone.

The Road Ahead: To Burning Man

This is the highway north of Reno leading to the end of the road. It's a straight ribbon under big sky, surrounded by the beautiful sere brown hills. It will take you to Empire, Gerlach, and finally to Burning Man in the Black Rock Desert, the place to be this weekend, if you want to get in touch with your inner craziness.

Burning Man

Here is the site of Burning Man from afar:
http://www.wikimapia.org/#y=40754722&x=-119236389&z=11&l=0&m=a

Some other cool links:
www.burningman.com

The LA Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-doherty28aug28,0,2925093.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail

Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_Man

As mecca for Techies http://news.com.com/Tech+carries+a+torch+for+Burning+Man/2100-1026_3-6109870.html

There! Everything you need to know. There's still time. Fly to Reno, load up with a bicycle and supplies and hie yourself to the desert. Go! It's a helluva universe, and it's next door. Credits to ee cummings who might have liked it very much.

Today as consolation for not being able to be a denizen of the playa, I trekked to Nordstroms and bought jeans, a t-shirt and a brown corderoy newsboys cap. Shopping can be a substitute for just about anything you can put a name to.

I should hear from the agent tomorrow. Think good thoughts.


Grapeshot

Where I Should Be This Week

Life intervenes. Shit happens. Yeah, I know. Suck it up.

This is where I wanted to be this week. Go there!

www.nytimes.com/arts

Click on the Burning Man Slide Show. Zowie! It gives a good feel for the man (as yet unseen) and the desert and the art and the dust and the people.

Romantic Suspense

Writing a book, even one's fifth, is always fraught with surprises. Now why do I say fraught?
The Molotov Cocktail scene, and its subsequent follow up, which I expected to be difficult to write, practically wrote themselves. Did the research, thought about how everything might transpire, and sat down and wrote it. Cool. I fretted and thought, "Oh this will be so hard!" but actually, it wasn't.
Now I have a scene where a romantic lead comes back to town. Should have been a piece of cake.
Not so. Couldn't get it right.
Did some thinking.
I need this scene for two reasons: to advance the plot and to create a future plot point relating to the (exciting) conclusion, so I can't scrap the scene. Finally, I realized I didn't understand how my character actually felt about this guy showing up during a particularly crazy week in her life. The scene required long, even hard thought. She was conflicted, very conflicted, and I had to show this and show the reasons for her conflict. It wasn't something I could gloss over.

Every scene requires deep thought, along with conflict, and forward movement. As a writer, you can't really fake it. You have to be there, put yourself into the scene along with your characters. This is a lesson I hope I don't forget. The simplist scene requires thought and knowledge. No faking it. No gloss.

Onward,

Grapeshot

Restaurant Week

We decided to take advantage of Restaurant Week in Boston. The deal is that the better restaurants offer a 3 course lunch for $20.06 and a dinner for $30.06, again 3 courses. The idea (I guess) is to get people to try new restaurants that they don't usually get to or to return to old favorites. This is supposed to be a good deal. We tried it in the spring and had a nice lunch which somehow pushed close to three digits with the wine and tip. It was a new place. Nice view. Maybe we will go back sometime. I had a vague impression that the people taking advantage of the restaurant week menu and prices were second class citizens. Was it my thin skin or a true fact?

Yesterday, we tried a second dining spot at the second Restaurant Week. This was a famous expensive downtown spot, reputedly hard to get into, famous chef, you know the drill. Here's what happened.

We had made the reservation online via the restaurant week web site, so they should have known we were part of the bargain hunter crowd. Were shown to a bad table by the front door, and then a worse table by the kitchen entrance. Did not receive the restaurant week menu, so we ordered the prix fixe menu which was only slightly more, and also offered 3 courses. Thought maybe they were a little Unclear on the Concept. Too embarassed at this point to ask for the restaurant week menu. Ordered a half bottle of wine. Fantastic! Food was excellent and unusual. Fare you would never get at home. Service was good, but lacking any warmth. Supercilious? I dunno. Maybe. We were nicely but not overdressed. Decent manners. Ate, drank and left the requisite 20% tip. Departed. We would not go back. Bad vibes. Was it my thin skin or were we second class citizens, again?

Grapeshot has dined at incredibly posh places from Hong Kong to the French Riviera and never been made to feel second class. I might win the lottery tomorrow and be able to afford a "stammtische" at one Bosotn's rarified temples to gastronomy. If so, I would return to places which seemed truly hospitable and pleased to see me.

It's definitely something about restaurant week. Sometimes a bargain is no bargain at all.

Vegetable Barley Soup

After cooking the beef for the Mexican Heartburn Salad (see a previous post), I had lovely broth left over. Used some of it in the pork roast gravy. It rained Sunday, ruining barbeque dreams of another Wall Street Journal Sunday cookout, so I made the New York Times Roast Pork with Thyme recipe, the world's best roast pork, forever, amen.
Had to have potatoes and gravy, applesauce, fresh beans, a medley of yellow and green. The gravy is so good you could scarf it all down along with a MOUNTAIN of mashed potatoes. We are having leftovers tonight, but I'll cook up fresh potatoes. My shabby little secret. I use Hungry Jack and make them with half and half instead of skim milk. Heavy cream is even better, but one's arteries and waistline will thank you not to do that too often.

So, to get to the point, here is all the nice broth left over from cooking the beef. Fridge also contains lots of dribs and drabs of vegetables from various recipes from the last two weeks. Vegetable Barley Soup! No recipe required.
I sauteed half a red onion in a little Canola oil, added carrots, celery, garlic, zucchini, anise, eggplant, tomato and kept sauteeing. Added a spring of rosemary and some fresh half-dried sage. Dumped it some old mushrooms, chopped and some baby spinach leftover from who-remembers-what. A reconstituted sun-dried tomato and its water. A old green onion. Add the broth, add chicken broth, a little water, and half a cup of barley. Salt and pepper. Made an awfully good lunch with decent bread, no butter.

And it was free!

A few more days and the cows would have received the vegetables. Old Mama is still vastly preggars. The calves hang out together. The blonde baby from two years ago, now a new mama with a black calf, looks sleek and lovely. What a delightful little herd.

So make your soup and enjoy.

I am trying to enjoy the rain and the break from the godawful heat, but I would really like to be out there fiddling in the garden.

Onward,

Grapeshot

Everyone Loves Buddelia

At the suet feeder, the catbird, the chickadee, the downy woodpeckers ,and the tufted titmouse jockey for position.

In the garden, hummingbirds come every day, feeding off the six foot tall buddleia, also known as butterfly bush. We’ve also had cool butterflies stopping for a visit, yesterday a swallowtail that just didn’t want to leave.

We seem to have at least a pair of hummingbirds (eating without a squabble) and another interloper who was constantly chased. The birds are so tiny and pugnacious they almost break my heart. They stop to perch on the green metal trellis. Honey bees also cling to the buddleia. What a great plant. It even looks good from the street.

Yesterday I made Salpicon, a recipe that’s been in my file for many years, also a good Mexican restaurant in Chicago. Tasted great, but produced heartburn, etc. All those raw jalapenos, onions, and cukes. The plan was to cook a pork roast on the grill tonight, but the weather is rainy, and I’ll roast it in the oven with the traditional marinade of olive oil, lemon juice, thyme and garlic. Can’t be beat. Green beans, applesauce and mashed potatoes. Yay!

More romantic suspense in Festival Madness when Jean Claude comes to town to see my protagonist. I found JC in the New York Times magazine a few years back. He is such a hunk, nice too. One can create whatever men one likes. JC had a penchant for discussing former wives, which rather horrifies my character, but so far that is his only fault. Mon Dieu! I have had a lot of fun writing this. A bit of fluff to be sure.

Time to put the roast in the oven. Bon Appetit!

Grapeshot

The Waiting Game

The deadline is passing for the agent with World of Mirrors to get back to me. I have visions of an aged Grapeshot pushing along in her walker to accept the kudos of another book finally in print. To say that the endless waiting and rejection is making me crazy is an understatement. I have never been a patient person.

In high school, I remember waiting, waiting, always waiting and anticipating an event, which, when it finally arrived, was always a disappointment. First date, first kiss, first prom, never lived up to the billing. Everyone always said, "these are the best years of your life." Lies, of course. Actually, who would want to peak at 16? I've always felt sorry for the early bloomers who had their best years back then. Nothing to look forward to but drudgery and diapers. A boring mate. Reality television.

My first rock concert did live up to its billing. College did and did not. Better in many ways, worse in others. I like high school reunions better, though. Go figure.

Back to this writing business. With a couple BIG SCENES just written, I have a scene or two of moving the plot forward before another big scene. The trick is to make the moving the plot forward scenes dramatic in their own right. Conflict? Yes. Violence? No. Implied violence? Sure. Make everything go wrong for the characters? Easy. My character is as impatient as I am.

This week on the culinary front, we are eating home grown tomatoes. Yum. The gazpacho will be history today as will the by now very soggy bread salad. There is leftover cold chicken and pasta salad from a Wall Street Journal Recipe. The Wall Street Journal's recipe's rock on Saturday in the weekend edition.

Do you know what schadenfreude is? Grapeshot is not as sad as she should be seeing the prices of all the McMansions and real mansions tanking. What were these people thinking of? What goes up and all that. The stainless appliances, the fancy European brands, the slate countertops holding the cooling takeout pizza. Kitchens where no one ever cooks. Bathrooms the size of bedrooms. Reading rooms where no one reads. The media rooms with tiered seating. To watch television? The obscenity of it all, and now with falling prices. Ha ha.

I read the paper and wait. Write my scenes and wait. Scribble this blog and wait. Maybe I should have a writer's walk build onto the top of the house, to watch for the mailman each day. Or a software agent to screen the emails.
Waiting. Waiting. Arrrgh!

Suck it up.

Housewife!

When she married, my mom abandonned her career, dental technician, to become a wife and mother. My father had an itinerant job, in the early days, and they moved pulling a small trailer with their earthly posessions. Until I was in high school, we always rented apartments or houses, never very nice, never very big, but as a kid you don't really notice that stuff. At least I didn't.

My mother filled her hours with a number of passions: gardening, cooking, women's clubs, collecting, Eastern Star, friendships, bridge, fishing and trying to mold a stubborn daughter into a young woman, the most challenging and fraught with failure task.

She collected stamps, a lifelong hobby, and in later years she branched out into antiques (Depression glass, brass, bells, and salt cellars). She has a fantastic colleciton of memorabilia from the Space Program: all the stamps, first day covers, autographs, newspaper clippings, really cool stuff. She had prizes in flower arranging.

She had a photograph of the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima, and has a scrapbook with autographs from the survivors, the generals, all the history. This week, when the photographer, Joe Rosenthal died, I had to remember her collections and I printed out his obituary and discovered the other survivors of the flag raising had also died, and I printed theirs, too.

My mom was single-minded in her purusits, and thorough in her documentation and collecting. I never really appreciated her talents as I was growing up, but now I do. She also collected rocks and shells. Never liked to throw anything away. When she moved to senior housing and I cleaned out the house, I found perscriptions that went back to the 40's. Old cosmetics dating to the 50's. Spices at least 20 years old. My dad had meticulously filed his junk mail. Parents, being people, are strange.

Love them for what they are. I wish I had asked her more about her youth, her hopes and dreams. As a kid when I asked questions, she was evasive, but I don't think she would have been to me as an adult. It hurt to toss all her garden club medals and so much memorabilia, but after all, what is one to do with it? I hope I kept the important stuff.

In this day and age she would have had a career, and with her organizational skills and peristence, it would have been a pretty good career. No more housewifery. Let's raise a glass to women of the old school who kept the house clean and then did so much more.

Cheers!

Grapeshot

Sucker for a Cute Face

This is the oldest baby, and for some reason he has a muzzle-device on. Don't know what to make of that. He looks kind of naughty. So far, the new calves have not been gamboling as I had hoped. Maybe it's still too hot.

Old Mama (Maggie) is till hugely pregnant. Wondering if twins. Now that would be fun. Hope she hurries up and delivers because I worry about a too young calf when the weather turns cold.

Worry about a lot of the damndest things. Runs in the family. Both sides. Oh dear.

You Say Tomato

'Tis the tomato season. Our patio bush is bearing great gifts, and Ward's Berry Farm, an easy drive from the house, has baskets of tomatoes at reasonable prices. Last year, we had a bad crop and I didn't make Gazpacho. Today I will. This recipe is from July 64 Gourmet. Heaven only knows where I found that old copy, but I've hung onto this recipe for years. It always tastes good.

Combine in the container of a blender 5 very ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped, 1 cucumber, peeled and chopped, 1 green pepper, seeded and chopped, 1 onion, chopped, 1 T. finely chopped parsley, and 1 garlic clove, crushed. Cover the container and blend the mixture until it is almost smooth.

Stir in 1 1/2 cups tomato juice, 3 T. olive oil, 2 T. vinegar, 1/4 t. paprika, and salt and pepper to taste. Chill thoroughly. I like to serve with big Caesar salad type croutons.

Torilla Soup is also good for using up lots of tomatoes. Another recipe we really like that makes a nice vegetarian meal is:

Mediterranean Tomato Bread Salad

1/2 loaf stale Italian or French bread, cut into 1/2 in cubes
1 T. olive oil
1 red onion, thinly sliced
1/2 lb. fresh mozarella, cut into 1/2 inch chunks
8 ripe tomatoes, cut into 1/2 inch chunks
1/4 lb. leaf spinach, washed and sliced
1/4 c. fresh basil leaves, chopped
2 T. balsamic vinegar
3 T. olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 c. Parmesan cheese, for sprinkling.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Place the bread cubes on a cookie sheet. Drizzle with the olive oil. Bake for 5 - 10 minutes, until golden brown. Watch carefully.
In a big salad bowl, add onion, mozzarella, tomatoes, spinach and basil. Drizzle on the balsamic vinegar and olive oil and season with salt and papper. Add the crusty bread cubes and toss together. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Serve and then pass the Parmesan for sprinkling. Serves 4.

For extra protein, add a little shredded proscuitto. Yum!

Bon Appetit!

Grapeshot

How a Molotov Cocktail Found the WYSIWYG

In my novel, Festival Madness, the main character is back from the Burning Man Festival. A second murder has occured in Reno. The character, Emma, needs to tell Professor Lear, the former MIT faculty advisor to Emma's colleague and two of the murdered hackers about the murder. Lear knows a secret that Emma needs to find out to identify the murderer. He has been cagey about telling her anything. When he hears about the second murder, he tells her that he must think. They agree to meet in Cambridge.

I am a foodie and set way too many scenes over dinners in restaurants. Emma has already had lunch with Lear at Legal Seafood, so a meal meeting is out. I had thought they might to the walk across the Longfellow Bridge along the Esplanade and back over the Harvard Bridge and up past MIT. I needed a threat to Lear's life to keep the action moving (rather than just have characters talking). First thought was he is pushed down the stairs of the subway, the Red line, upon saying goodbye to Emma. Problems: would she even know? The murderer is familiar to her, and sure wouldn't want to be seen. But she needs to be there when it happens. Not good.

Next I thought maybe something could happen while they were walking. But what? Skateboard crashes into him? But she knows (but doesn't know she knows) the killer. Poison dart? Too complicated. Too crazy. Too unlikely. Arrrgh!
Wait. The river. Lear has a boat. the WYSIWYG . After all, he has made big bucks on high tech consulting fees. It's too hot to walk anyhow (early September heat wave). Lear invites Emma onto the boat for a heart-to-heart. Where no one can overhear. What could happen on the boat? Someone has been following Lear (or Emma). Sees them together, freaks out, decides two more dead bodies are better than one, tosses a Molotov cocktail (easy to make, easy to disguise until the last moment) -can do big damage to a boat or better yet, the whole marina.

Big excitement but no one hurt. Lear has chest pains and goes to the hospital. Emma meets old boyfriend Cambridge cop who shows up. Now she can ask him to find out stuff that only the law would know and pass it to her. She will know both she and Lear are targeted. Ups the suspense. Also, big surprise for reader who is finding out cool stuff and them boom! Literally boom.

Took me several days with Significant Other's help to figure this out. Half of writing is not writing but thinking. Then writing the scene. At first I forgot to describe the marina, the weather, the river, just got down to business. Then I fleshed the scene out. Kept adding details to bring the reader into the scene. Done for now. Went over the whole thing 4-5 times. Ready for next scene. Mass General late at night and the attendant craziness.

A little romantic suspense, a lot of danger. Someone once wrote whenever things get dull, have a man with a gun come thru the door. How's about a man with a Molotov cocktail?

To the barricades!

Grapehsot

My Space

Sitting here in my white cotton (modest) Victoria's Secret jammies, looking at my desk space. Zowie, what a collection of "stuff." My Space is L-shaped, with built in dividers such that it is like a tiny but open room. I look over the waist high divider across the room to bookcases. An old pottery bottle of dyed little yellow flowers from the 70's shares space with the cable modem box and a little bronze fox sitting amid some small rocks, one of which is fossil and the other fools gold. I have an old 70's Wall All on the right. They sell for big bucks now. Mine is original. Found another in good shape at the Wellesley dump a few years back.

On the desk top to my right is a cool rattan lamp with a brown burlap shade. Pencils and pens are jammed into a Grossmutter's Holunder marmalade can. There's little wood tray from India that some nice people I worked with gave me when they left. It holds three tiny weird fuzzy characters that sat on my terminal for years at work, as well as a miniature track shoe from Significant Other's old team, complete with cleats. There is a brass stamp to seal wax on envelopes. The telephone dominates the end. These items all sit on a raised wooden platform, if you will, and under it is an old wooden cigar box (Havana) from the "21 Club" in New York. It hold addresses I uses all the time and absolutely must not misplace. Next to that is a brass Smith College letter holder that I got an a garge sale. Holds envelope's and bank deposit envelopes. Then comes scratch paper and Kleenex, and note cards and hand lotion. An antique compass in a leather case is temporarily jammed in there. I was using it on maps to figure out how far a plane could fly on one tank of fuel.

Still on the desk top to my right. An empty cn of Herren Konfiture holding more pens, pencils and the indispensable scissors that I found by the railroad tracks in Lawrence, MA many moons ago. A tiny white cream-colored Wedgewood bowl holds paper clips, and a teakwood holder offers yellow stickies. Within easy reach is my coffee mug, which rests on a San Adams beer coaster.

Naturally my cool Samsung flat screen is in front of me. In front of the screen is a big blotter that is usually obscured by a haystack of papers. I keep current folders of That Which Must Not Be Misplaced to my left on the blotter. Speakers are on either side of the terminal. To my left on the desk top is an extra drive for storage. Way in the corner is my laser printer, an ancient HP which has printed many copies of 4 books. Beside that is the manuscript (now 325 pages) of Festival Madness.

The lower part of the "L' contains a stacked inbox with important stuff, and in front of that if a little teakwood tray with cards and letters to be sent or hung onto for the time being. Next to the inbox is another inbox (leather) for financial stuff and things I don't need right away but can't be filed quite yet. In front of that is some writing advice and more "stuff."

We ain't done yet. Under the "L" is a two drawer filing cabinet with writing group files. Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, writing advice, Burning Man photos and memorabilia. Next to that is one of those cool leather boxes with handles (wine-colored) where my research for the current WIP resides.

By my left foot is the computer, in a stand with a paper box on top. The keyboard and mouse are where they should be.

To my left on the wall are 3 shelves with writing and computer books, CD's from software, diskettes, taps for files. Calendar. This year it's Cezanne. Wintry blue watercolor of Montreal painted by man with the same birth year.

What a bunch of clutter! Yet it's all necessary.

I look at another painting by Karin Sanborn. Love her art. I need some beauty, some quirkiness to contemplate, as well as the writing tools.

Welcome to My Space. There's a comfy down Dunbar sofa (rebuilt 3 times) to my right, along with my parents Lane walnut end table, a Danish rocking chair, and more book cases. There's a CD player, tape player and even old turntable in the corner. Plants, lots of plants in Art Nouveau pots. Lots of lamps, some funky, some sixties, some traditional from Vienna.

I could go on and on. I look at stuff that reminds me of my parents, S.O.'s parents, paper holders my kids made in second grade. The file cabinets behind me are piled with research and more stuff that I need to clean up. Now that's a good project for this morning.

Tomorrow I'll tell you how I came to write the Molotov cocktail scene, how I researched it, and my concerns.

Alors,

Grapeshot

The Dog Days of August

Still waiting for Old Mama, AKA Maggie to deliver the last calf of the year for the little herd of Highland Scottish cattle. She looked about as broad as she is long today. Wondered if the Sweet Faced Young Bull ever sang that song to her about Maggie, the older woman who made a fool out of him. Don't think so. Sometimes my imagination goes into overdrive.

I always thought the Dog Days were late August, but according to some web sites, they run from end of July to August 11th, which means that must have been the hellish hot weather we had about then. For interesting info on the dog days click on this link. And don't forget to come back. p://astrology.about.com/od/oddstrange/a/dogdays.htm


I saw Miami Vice last week and Talledega Nights yesterday. Nowadays I tend to look at movies a little more critically in that I'm interested in plotting and the various plot turns and devices. Talledega Nights showed the main character, Ricky Bobby up, then down low, then climbing his way back up again. Obviously a comedy. It certainly had its moments, and I have to confess I liked it.

Miami Vice was pretty cool, too. Must be fun to write a movie script where you don't have to explain how a main character can fly a plane, drive a fast boat, go to Cuba without problems, and the scenes cut from a plane to a freighter to a fast boat and there's really no explanation to speak of. It just grabs you and doesn't let go. . Don't stop to explain everything--it slows down the action. Afterward, if the reader thinks, jeez, they never stopped for food or potty breaks, well, so what? At least they stopped a lot for sex and showers. My writing group would never stand for it. They like lots of repetition and explanations. Think it comes from only hearing 6 pages per week, and people miss weeks and get lost, and pretty soon they like little recaps, etc. that probably aren't necessary. An editor, should I ever get one that I don't have to pay for myself, can blue pencil all of the little aids for the writing group.

I have started my first Stuart Kaminsky book and am enjoying it. Lew Fonesca is the character. Kaminsky has written a lot of books. But I feel good just being 64,813 words into my fifth.

Got thru a difficult scene where someone throws a Molotov cocktail onto a boat. I can never write a scene and go on to the next. Have to tweak and tweak and tweak some more, because in the heat of battle you forget necessary stuff, and I like to go over the text with a red pencil 4-5 times before I go on to the next scene. Now I have to decide do I want a scene at Mass General with some funny details from a visit years ago with a not very badly injured family member. Hate to pass up that good stuff. We'll see.

Into Cambridge tonight for a meeting. I won't forget to count the boats in the marina, and pick up a few more details, but I don't be heaving any Molotov Cocktails. Even the most familiar mundane setting can benefit from visiting the scene and taking a good long look. A picture is worth a thousand words, but the writer needs those words to paint the picture.


Aren't you glad the dog days are over?

Grapeshot

Seeing My World

Since my "retirement" to write, I've been out and about more, admiring the summer gardens as I drive by in daytime, appreciating the friendliness of people stocking the shelves in the local CVS, traipsing to the hardware, the post office (sending those queries out) and enjoying my world.

I am not a physical person, but rather a mental person, which is to say most of my life is lived in my mind. Physical people take a walk to walk, full speed ahead, damn the torpedos, stop and smell the roses? Hell, no. It is the physical act of walking they like to experience. Me, I would rather amble along, looking at the wildflowers, the birds, the clouds, seeing the world. If I have to pick up the pace, it's grumpily.

Yesterday's walk: The birch trees have some yellow leaves, and I saw red and orange leaves on a bush. The acorns are falling. This year, the pine cones on the walk are weird looking things which are hard to distinguish from the dog poop that people don't scoop up. A baby bunny hopped by the slough. I haven't heard any bull frogs lately. Hoping the otter didn't eat them all. My ruby throat comes daily, and yesterday there was a cat bird on the suet, along with the woodpecker and the tufted titmouse (one of my favorites).

Last year I bought a goldenrod plant for the rock garden that borders the woods. Why in God's name would anyone buy goldenrod? I see it now in spades, all over everyplace. Mine doesn't get enough sun and isn't even blooming. Stupid! Sneaky rabbit is eating wild plants in rock garden, not the planted ones. No goldfinches on the new feeder yet.

Wrote almost 10 pages of Festival Madness in the past days. Threw the Molotov Cocktail yesterday. Figured out more details of the plot between 4:00 and 4:30 this a.m., then slept the sleep of the just until 10:00. My bad!

Ate nothing but peach pie for dinner last night. I have concocted a delicious topping of mascarpone, half and half (to thin), vanilla and a bit of Equal. Yum!

Grapeshot who has not been sucking it up much the last few days.

Home Alone

S.O. is away for a few days and the other denizens of the household are not too swift, being mostly attack cats. This is a good news/bad news situation. On the good side, I can go to three movies in succession if I like, and eat lamb chops and chicken wings and all the foods he professes not to like. Must confess to an addiction to Breaded Parmesan Chicken Wings. The lamb chops were pretty good, too, and again, you can gnaw the bones. That's the good news part.

The bad, I'm afraid, outweighs the good. I have to clean the cat box and take out the garbage as well as empty the dishwasher. The bed has remained mostly unmade. Worse yet, I put an exercise DVD in and pumped iron for half an hour. It took another half hour to figure out how to get the TV set to work again. And ye Gods, this morning the electricity went off twice. Grapeshot had to figure out how to reset the microwave clock and the clock radio clock. S.O.'s computer sported a black screen. I'm a PC person, not an Apple person, and after much head scratching, I got his computer back on. Then it asked for a password. I tried some of the usual ones to no avail. The thing was, I needed the computer to get to some information I needed to fax him.

Using cunning and guide, I finally I got the correct fax number with country code, then I had to use our fax machine, not a part of my normal rituals. Glory Be and Hallelujia, the fax went through, and of course all of these machinations took up most of the morning.

I have written a few (precious few) pages. There are tremors of good news on the agent front, but I won't jinx myself by discussing it. May be a false alarm.

I am going out for a walk which is a "to do" item on my endless list. We had a nice rain this morning, and the world is cool and green and I won't have to water tomorrow, so that item can be scratched off. Maybe another movie tonight.

Cats are on a diet and not liking it one bit. Escaping the house to avoid their endless wailing is a good thing. Has anyone ever constructed a kitty wailing wall?

Curious minds want to know.

Onward,

Grapeshot

The Temple Burns on Sunday

"The crowd, restless earlier, became quiet as the drumming reached a crescendo. The burn flared to life, as separate patches of flame lapped along the bridges, pagodas and the center spire. Quickly the patches merged into a conflagration and the magnificent temple ignited with a loud whoosh and a cyclone of fire. The crowd gasped as the crimson flames pierced the inky sky. The structure, that moments ago had been the ornamental, lacelike temple, now merged into a firestorm of sparks and flames skyrocketing into the ether on a frantic mission to deliver the missives to the dead. We watched the temple burn, awed, as hot pieces of ash rained down from the sky..." .©

From Festival Madness, my work in process.
All week, inside the temple, Burners leave notes and letters tand even drawing for departed loved ones, another way of saying goodbye. Subsequently, the burning temple gives a kind of closure to the writers of the missives.

The Temple of Stars

The playa, the sky, and the temple looming in the background. Burning Man, 2004. People are like ants. Dust storms rise up and you have to stop riding your bike and cover your mouth, nose and eyes. The playa is covered with art installations, wonderful creations that demonstrate that the imagination is as vast as the desert.

Nostalgia For Burning Man

In 2002 and 2004 I was one of 35,000 at the Burning Man Festival in Nevada's Black Rock Desert. The Man is a life altering event--one is never quite the same afterward, and the images from those days are burnt into my brain forever, unlike some of the day-to-day minutiae that is immediately forgotten.

We had planned to go this year, but an unforseen trip to the West Coast in June intervened, and other necessary trips this summer used up the travel budget. So this year I'm foregoing the man. Sadly. Regretfully. Painfully.
Ruefully.
You get the picture. Stay tuned for some photos of years past at the Burn. If you can get yourself and everything you need for a week or less to Reno, hustle on out to the Black Rock Desert. Prepare for craziness, art, music, zany new friends, mind-boggling experiences, a radical change of pace. I loved it. Go ahead. Buy a ticket and go! Go!

Grapeshot, who is sucking it up and not going, alas.

Life in the Slough

A river otter lives in the slough out back. He has been seen chasing ducks. We are wondering if there is a pair with young. I need to sit quietly in the woods for a time with a view of the slough to see what there is to see.
I noticed a large hole that must be an animal's den in the woods. Haven't smelled skunk, and wonder who's living there. We took the unused bird house down and discovered some yukky looking caterpillars had taken up residence. Small wonder the birds didn't build. Maybe next year. The Ruby Throat comes regularly to the hummingbird feeder. Makes all the hassle of cleaning it out and replacing the sugar water worth while.
Tomtoes are ripening and reasonably tasty. Corn is great this year. I made peach muffins and a peach pie with the peaches we picked. Thinking of a peach/blueberry cobbler next, and just plain old sliced peaches served with cream and sugar aren't bad.
While S.O. is in Europe, I'll make parmesan chicken wings, which he does not like. There are people who love to gnaw bones and them that don't. In that respect, we are like Jack Sprat and his wife. I am the gnawer. I even like the marrow, which grosses him out.
Baby sparrows are gobbling down huge amounts of seed in the front feeder, and woodpeckers are chomping down the suet in back. We got a new thistle seed feeder after noticing some goldfinches. I haven't seen them on the new feeder yet.
When the world goes crazy, nature offers calm and compensation.

Grapeshot

I Am Going to Set My Hair On Fire!

That's how frustrating "things" are. Some of the current wisdom is that it's harder for a beginning author to find an agent than a publisher. Today I got hold of a list of small press publishers that publish mystery and suspense.
Practically none of these small, friendly publishers are accepting submissions. If they didn't say so outright, there were no submission guidelines on their websites, or the site was a horror show to navigate with missing linkes, etc., or they've already gone belly up and the link was dead. I looked thru 87 publishers and found MAYBE 3-4 that I can submit to.

Folks these are not good odds. To console myself, I ate a portion of a grilled rib eye with corn just picked this afternoon, also grilled, fresh asparagus and a vegetable medley from last night. Good Italian bread. No need for dessert. Had a couple of swigs of cheap rum on ice.

Well, it's time to give the cat her insulin shot. She's under the bed, of course. So far I have jabbed myself, Significant Other and bent a needle so badly I had to toss it. We console her with catnip and a good brushing.

Would that I could be so readily consoled.

Grapeshot

Look Ma, No Signature

I didn't even have to open the envelope to determine the response to the query that came back today. I could see that there was NO SIGNATURE. It was the dreaded AHFL. I leave it to you to figure out what this stands for. Remember, Grapeshot runs a clean blog. The thing about these hideously impersonal put downs, is that they always state: 1) we are terribly sorry to be sending you such a hideously impersonal response
2) we are terribly busy people and cannot respond to every author/worm who darkens our mail box with a query
3) we have practically agonized over your query before telling you to Suck It Up
4) good luck elsewhere

How does this sound? Author driven berserk by the 118th negative response starts hunting down agents and murdering them with one thousand paper cuts inflicted with their impersonal form letters. Let's see now. How many suspects could there be? 100,000? 1,000,000? Gee, with so many suspects I guess the police have few clues. Wouldn't that make a nice mystery for an amateur sleuth?

In my next posts, I'll put the plots to my novels on this blog and you can judge for yourself if they are ready for prime time. Until then, that weird digusting sound you hear is me: sucking it up.

Grapeshot

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

So what's going on with all the queries? For World of Mirrors, I still have 10 outstanding and 3 rejects. An agent wrote this week and wanted the first 30 pages which are now in the entry hall with a bunch of weird stamps, ready to go into the mail. One agent still has the complete manuscript and is almost a month late responding, so I am sending more queries out.

Promiscuous Mode still has 7 queries out, including the entire manuscript, and that agent is seriously overdue having had the book since April. Yes, April. Most recently, I've received three rejections. This is the book my writer's group is so keen on. And the feedback from the agent who actually read it was excellent, except he doesn't handle this cozy/romantic suspense stuff. It's really an edgy cosy, and as for the romantic suspense, boy doesn't get girl and that whole business ends poorly and sadly. I was practically in tears when I wrote the breakup scene. It's actually a pretty cool book. If only someone would buy it.

About the weird stamps. Before we moved, I went through some boxes of my mom's stuff, sadly throwing away her garden club ribbons, consolation letters about my Dad's death, all the stuff it tears your heart to toss, but toss one must. Anyway, I came across a big envelope with a bunch of old unused stamps, maybe $30 worth. I've been using them up little by little and we are coming down to the wire. Lots of 22 cents stamps, and plenty of oddball others. In a couple months, they, too will be gone. I think of my mom every time I get the envelope out and try to come up with 39 cents.

I've been looking at airports where one can rent a certain kind of plane within an easy flying distance to Reno. For the current book. And I've thought a lot about the Molotov cocktail and how that will work out. And the surprise visit of the handsome French pilot. As weird luck would have it, S.O. will be flying the pilot's airline next week. Life imitating art all over again.

Grilled Adobo Chicken tonight, and had rice and a HUGE veggie stir fry with all the good summer produce. Delicious. Made some peach muffins with the peaches we picked a few days ago. Most still not ripe.

This blog was featured on Technorati last night.

We must be entering the Dog Days of August.

Woof!

Grapeshot

I'm In Love

The black calf was born just a few days ago to join his/her cousin in the pasture. Notice that the brown calf (Mary Ann) is tethered to a stake with a blue leash. Don't know if she was naughty or not. Also has a blue band around her middle. The black calf's mother (Chelsea) has rather pale coloring and we are wondering what color he/she will be. None of the other cows are black and his dad is brown. (The sweet-faced young bull).

These are Scottish Highland Cattle, a hardy breed from (sic) Scotland that are even tempered and can spend the winter in the open air. The black calf's mother is just two year's old.

I feel like a doting Grandma.

Grapeshot

Pesto Alla Genovese

The Pesto recipe was in Cooking of Italy, in the old Time/Life Food series of cookbooks . If you ever run across these books used, snap them up. They are wonderful. Back in the old days, when I worked in Kendall Square, we would walk down the street to Central Square and eat at an Italian place (Bertucci's) that had a wonderful antipasto, and the best part of it was the Chicken Pesto.

Pesto alla Genovese

2 cups fresh basil leaves, stripped from their stems, coarsely chopped and tightly packed.
1 t. salt
½ t. freshly ground black pepper
1-2 t. finely chopped garlic
2 T. finely chopped pine nuts (or walnuts)
1 to 1 1/2 cups olive oil
½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

In a blender or food processer, combine basil, salt, pepper, garlic, nuts and 1 cup of olive oil. Blend at high speed until the ingredients are smooth, stopping every 5 or 6 second to push herbs down with a rubber spatula.
The sauce should be thin enough to run off the spatula easily. If too thick, blend in as much as ½ cup more olive oil.
Transfer the sauce to a bowl and stir in the grated cheese.

Poach chicken breasts, cool and cut into bit size pieces. Add a few spoons of pesto and mix well. Serve on lettuce or as part of an antipasto.

You can also mix the chicken and pesto with cooled pasta and fresh tomatoes for a delicious main course. Serve with French bread. I ate this once at Rebecca' s in Kendall Square and then made it at home.

Bon Apetit!

Grapeshot

Lickety-Split

Today I encouraged the cat to go downstairs in a hurry, and said, "lickety-split." My mother used to say that, and I haven't heard it in years. I find that using my parents now archaic expressions somehow keeps me in touch with them. Language is a powerful bond.

When I googled the term, the dictionary didn't know the origin, but made a WAG (wild-assed guess) and offered forth some other cool expressions, some from the 1840's. I think the bottom one must be MUCH newer.


Quick as greased lightning (although "quick as lightning" dates to 1763, the grease was added in the 1840s)
Before you can say "Jack Robinson"
In a hustle
In a jiffy
Pronto
Like a house afire
Lickety split
Hell bent (the variation "Hell bent for leather" doesn't appear until the 1900s.)
Immediately if not sooner

And before you can say "Jack Robinson," I had two queries, one for each novel come back, as rejections. One nice agent actually wrote a personal letter. The other sent a form which advised me to go to the AAR web page and look for agents. Thanks, buddy, that's where I found you. Another instance of suck it up!

Grapeshot

King Salmon

The fact that wild salmon is now in season crossed my radar, and subsequently, S.O. was sent off to Cap'n Marden's Seafood in Wellesley to fetch at pound and a half for dinner. Cap'n Marden never disappoints, and he continued to uphold his stellar record of purveying fish.

The price caused me to do a double-take. $30.00? O.K., $20 per pound. We were going to grill so there was an impetus not to screw it up, as in cremate. Beef tenderloin would have been cheaper.

I have a Thai recipe with a sauce made of garlic, soy, red (bell) pepper, scallions, and the like. Enough complexity but not major work. Then we worried about a line of thunderstorms that looked like it would be approaching about dinner time. Again, didn't happen.

S.O. did yeoman's duty on the grill. The salmon was perfect, pale pink, totally lucious, with a flavor so subtle, so delicious that we gobbled down the whole hunk of fish. Served with rice, of course, (Texmati) and fresh green beans. A salad of oranges and baby spinach with a mild poppyseed dressing. Cookies from Sweet Rue in Needham. Four diners satisfied.

Any comparison between our King Salmon and a farm raised fish is like diamonds to rhinestones. The wild fish was a superior creature. Like eating margarine all your life and then tasting fresh butter.

Grapeshot worries that most people today have the palate of a platypus, and are unaware of what "real" food taste like. Treat yourself to a really good meal. On me.

Bon Appetit!

Grapeshot

Five Dollars and A Clean Shirt: Nantucket Day Trippers

When I first began travelling to Nantucket, back when God was a boy, a saying about Day Trippers, those who rode the ferry over to the island in the morning and returned in the evening, was "they bring five dollars and a clean shirt and change neither."

Let me tell you what a day trip to Nantucket cost yesterday.

S.O. took our breakfast wishes list to a famous donut chain. They somehow screwed up the order big time, no sugar donuts, no glazed donute, no crullers. They also seriously undercharged for the order. S.O. gathers wool big time in checkout lines and didn't notice any of the errors until we opened the box.
Breakfast 12.50 (takeout from donut shop)
Ferry tickets for 3 adults and 1 child 98.00
Parking for ferry: 12.50
Admission to whaling museum: 53.00
Lunch: 150.00 (including tip) O.K., we had lunch at a nice place and sat in the garden. Grapeshot does not go to swank islands and eat greasy pizza. In fact, Grapeshot does not eat greasy pizza. There was 2 wines, 2 appetizers, 3 entrees, 2 desserts and 3 coffees. Go figure.
Snacks 15.00
1 child's sweat shirt, 1 child's hat, 1 child's t-shirt at Kiwi Clothing: 76.00 This didn't look like a pricey place. Think I would have paid it anywhere on the island. No sales the first week in August.

Total price of day trip: $417.00. Add another 8 dollars for gas. $425.00.

Zowie. A clean shirt and five dollars. Those were really the good old days.

Who takes a trip can tell a tale.

Onward,

Grapeshot

Iris and Mary Ann

Iris is the first-time mom, and her calf is Mary Ann. The other female cows have been good to Mary Ann and licked her and protected her. Mary Ann will soon have two cousins, and they can all frolic together. This is going to be so cool. The cows have long hair on their ears that they can use to flick off the flies that bother their eyes. They can scratch themselves with their horns. The cows have even dispositions and the bull shares their pastures. Everybody pretty much gets along, although there is definite jockeying for the treats. Too bad we can't be more like the Scottish Highland Cattle.

Thisbe

Tortoise cats are nearly always female. The vet said that they frequently have "issues." We're had Thisbe since we was a wee babe of 6 weeks. She arrived at our house with big worried eyes and still has them. Being petted and brushed are her favorite activities. She likes power naps in a dark place and staring at the birds and chipmunks from the living room. In the winter, a nap in front of the fireplace is always a treat. She's not playful but may have little outbursts of "wild time."

Cats are strange.