Where Do My Ideas Come From? Here and There and Everywhere

What inspires a writer and gives her ideas?  Good questions for this month's bloggers.  I bet we'll get a slew of interesting answers. 

I can only tell you where my ideas comes from.  Shall we start from the beginning?  

 

Poetry was a genre that intrigued me when I first began writing,  A series of poems from the point of view of creatures who live in the Sonora desert were my first published poemss My parents lived in the Phoenix area, and we often visited the Sonora Desert. 

Here 's a poem from the point of view of the Diamond Back Rattlesnake.  For some reason, I liked writing from the viewpoint of many desert critters.

 

 The Diamond Back

 My view is of the low things: 

The leaf-cutting ant bearing a spear of green,

The faint imprint of fearful feet,

Red jasper in a dry stream.  

The Navajo weaves a harmony of diamond shapes,

But none so striking as my patterned back. 

Coiling on my rock I prize my symmetry.

The savage sun of summer drives me

To wary sleep under the mesquite. 

The gritty caliche earth against my belly

Is the feel of here. 

The sharp aroma of the creosote bush,

The scent of sun on yucca blossoms

Is the smell of here. 

I wait for the taste of here: 

The timid skittering mouse,

The nervous cottontail,

The old lizard dragging her tail.

Respect is mine. 

The shying panicked horse bucks and screams.

I observe the one in leather boots

Hiking carefully with his stick. 

The humble horned toad,

The bold scorpion avoid me. 

I get respect. 

Sleek, I slither down the gulch

In a rush of silence. 

Above the hum of bees and insects,

A snaky sound,

The gourd rhythm of my rattles disturbs the air.

 

 

 I wrote about the Charles River in Boston - My job was an easy walk from  the rivet, and when our offices were suddenly moved to the Boonies, I wrote about saying goodbye to the Charles.

   

 There's a small herd of HIghland Scottish cattle down the street from us, and one summer I wrote a poem about the calves.  

 

Calves Together

  That summer, we were calves together in the tall grass.

You came first to brown Mary Anne.

Golden Iris is my mother.

They dropped us in the tall grass.

 We grew together, gamboled together,

Licked each other, slept together,

Lay flank to flank in the tall grass.

The milk we suckled tasted of summer and green apples.

 In the heat of the day we found shade

The rain kept the flies at bay.

We frolicked in the pasture, bleating and kicking our heels,

Calves without a care.

 Glad animal spirits, nursing and nibbling the tall grass.

Drinking from the creek.

Seeking the green shade.

Calves together.

 

 

Now we segue to the novels:  What inspired them?  Mostly places:   

The Shadow Warriors: Singapore, Goettingen, Germany,

 World of Mirrors:  the Baltic Island of Ruegen, 

Festival Madness: The Burning Man Festival: and high-tech Boston

Chased By Death:  Southern Florida, Massachusetts, driving cross county,  the Nevada Desert  

Murder in the North Woods: many trips to the North Woods in Wisconsin

A sense of place always informs my work, whether it is the pasture down the road or the exoticism of Singapore. Places inspire me.   Characters come to inhabit the places, and then the characters do stuff that gets them in trouble in that place.  We're off to the races.

 

 

 

Let's see what my fellow bloggers have been up to  this week.  What inspires us may inspire you. 

Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea

Anne Stenhouse http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com

Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/

Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/

Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/

Dr. Bob Rich https://wp.me/p3Xihq-2eA

Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/

Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com/blog

Marci Baun http://www.marcibaun.com/blog/

Victoria Chatham http://www.victoriachatham.com

Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/

Rhobin L Courtright http://www.rhobincourtright.com

 

 

 

Stormy Weather

 

My novels are all set in summertime, my favorite season. In Promiscuous Mode, (a computer term) my work in process, the protagonist, Laura, is consumed by problems and conflicts. Weather symbolizes her issues. Just after she finds out the man who hired her is dead, she encounters his funeral procession in the rain. More rain pours down when a lowlife character is snooping on her life. Another incident is a thunderstorm on a lake when Laura is fishing with a friend and his daughter. They find an old boathouse to shelter in and of course something happens. More conflict, more problems. During another storm, someone snoops around the house where Laura has gone to keep a frightened young woman company. My husband says the North Woods have never had such a rainy summer.

In Festival Madness, the heat and dust at the Burning Man Festival echo the problems for main character Emma. A pea soup early morning fog in the Adirondacks delays the characters from their floatplane trip. Weather worms its way into everything. 

I use fog in World of Mirrors, as well. A thick blanket of it fog hovers over the Baltic, and my characters must cross the shipping lanes in a tiny sailboat with no wind and a noisy motor. Bad guys are searching for them. Nothing good happens. I almost scared myself writing those scenes. 

My only novel with a winter scene is The Shadow Warriors. The protagonist passes information on a park bench in the Boston Public Garden on a frigid day. No swan boats, no flowers, just danger and drama. That’s good isn’t it? 

Characters freezing, sweating, wet, bedraggled, suffering.  That’s what we like in fiction. And the story can turn. Remember the thousands of daffodils that became the first sign of spring in Dr. Zhivago? What a welcome sight after a Russian winter.  

Make weather an antagonist in your fiction, and you have build-in drama and conflict. Man against nature. Hasn’t it always been that way?  

See what these bloggers have to say about weather and fiction. 

Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Rachael Kosinski http://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com/
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Connie Vines http://connievines.blogspot.com/
Anne Stenhouse  http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/
Helena Fairfax  http://helenafairfax.com/
Dr. Bob Rich http://wp.me/p3Xihq-EP
Victoria Chatham http://victoriachatham.blogspot.ca
Kay Sisk http://kaysisk.blogspot.com
Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com

Guest Blogger for Terry O'Dell

On Tuesday, August 19th, I'm the guest blogger on Terry O'Dell's blg.  Find out what the strangest thing I did in the name of research, what kitchen utensil I would be, and what's on my desk?  If  you like to read about the writing life, this will be the place.  See you then!  Terry's Place
And more news:  My latest novel, Festival Madness, is only 99 cents as an ebook on Amazon from August 17 - August 24th.  Writing as Judith Copek.  The novel is partially set at the Burning Man Festival as well as in Boston and the Adirondaks,  and in honor of Burning Man I'm offering an ebook everyone can afford--one week only.

Stop by Terry's blog and grab a copy of Festival Madness for your e-reader and we'll be BFF.

Sorry to have neglecting this blog, but I've been writing and more writing and hosting endless company and cooking up a storm and gardening--all not conducive  to blogging.   You can also read my Proust blog at Reading Proust in Foxborough.  

When a "Foodie" Writes a Mystery Novel

What happens when a self-confessed “foodie” writes a mystery novel? Are there cupcakes among the corpses and croissants with the clues?

Food mysteries are plentiful, but what if the story has nothing to do with food and the main character is not a cook or a caterer but a geeky computer type? What if the novel is not a "cozy" but an edgy tale with a morally compromised heroine (who likes to cook)? How hard is it to work food, often home-cooked into the story?

In Festival Madness, my mystery novel that marries bleeding edge technology and the Burning Man Festival, food anchors the plot in the real world. In The Da Vinci Code, I don’t recall that anyone ate or used the toilet for 36 hours but in reality, most of us would be in dire straits. There are occasions called breakfast, lunch and dinner. We usually eat two or three times a day and even have a bit of a nosh between meals. Food preferences can reveal character, can even bring the settings of the book to life.

The main character who narrates the story is Emma, and throughout the book, she tries to help her friend and colleague Wayne, who is going through a rough time. She asks him if there’s anything she can do.

“Maybe loaf of your onion bread. And that tomato soup.” 

Aha! Comfort food.

Early in the novel Emma eats at three restaurants. The first is the upscale Harvest in Harvard Square in Cambridge, MA. She’s with her husband sees an old lover, and her appetite flees. The second restaurant is Chuck E. Cheese’s. I chose that as a locale for a top-secret meeting. It had an interesting ambiance with noisy games, noisy kids and generic pizza, and the FBI following one of the group.  Later Emma meets an MIT professor at the Cambridge Kendall Square Legal Seafood, where high tech honchos eat brain food. She’s “fishing” for some information which she doesn’t get.

Once the scene shifts from the technical world where the characters dwell to the world of The Burning Man Festival where they’ll live in the desert for several days, everything changes. Against her will, Emma is drafted to cook for a camp of geeks. She must prepare vegan, vegetarian and carnivore meals for a crowd. Watching her in action we see that she is hews to the saying, “remain calm and carry on”. Not easy when you’re being stalked by an ape man and falling for a sexy French pilot. In the heat of the desert Emma concocts Salade Niçoise and a Mexican Fiesta. And the liquor flows, too. Isn’t it fun to live vicariously?

Back in Boston, Emma is busy trying to put together a theory of how the murders occurred. One of the tasks involves breaking into a murdered man’s computer.

“Later in our office, Wayne hemmed and hawed and finally said, “I’m going to try to break into Think Tank’s laptop tonight. Any chance of you coming over? Like, for moral support. Like, for dinner? Maybe to amp up the energy level with some carbs?”

Pretending to stare into a crystal ball, I pointed and said, “I see a steaming bowl of fettuccine napped with a creamy sauce of Parmesan cheese and pancetta. I see peas for color, and a sage leaf garnish.”

“That would be, like, heaven. Er, could you make pasta for several? We’ll have helpers.”

“I insist on a salad.”

“We like salad. Just no funny stuff. Good old iceberg lettuce for me. I hate radicchio. And arugula. No goddam olives. Tomatoes and cukes optional. No onions. Ranch dressing. All right?”

We all know picky eaters. Every novel needs one. 

And nothing beats a face-to-face meeting when things get tense.

“Can we meet someplace and talk about this? I’m uneasy about phone conversations, especially your cell. We don’t want these conversations hacked.”

“Why don’t I drive over to your place? Should I pick up a pizza?”

“Not unless you don’t like chicken parm.”

“Woot! Chicken parm is awesome. Be there in half an hour.”

I got busy on dinner. My nerves were in overdrive as I spun the lettuce dry. Noticing artichokes on the counter, I had to remind myself to keep the salad “plain vanilla.” I put the water on for the pasta, and opened a jar of my favorite sauce. By the time I heard Wayne’s old Volvo coming up the driveway, I had a succulent pile of nicely browned pieces of chicken.

Wayne came into the kitchen and handed me a bouquet of great big sunflowers.

Doesn’t this show us something about these characters?  

And for a hurry-up unplanned flight to the Adirondacks:

“Food?” Asked Kenda, eyeing the ready-to-go duffle bags sitting in the entry hall.

We ransacked the fridge and I stuffed a wheeled cooler with roast beef sandwiches, extra bread, cheese, crackers, fruit, yogurt smoothies and some cookies. Kenda added water and Cokes. I tossed in a six-pack of beer, filled a flask with rum and put the laptop with the luggage.

“Everything but condoms,” she said, grinning.

We laughed like maniacs.

What’s in YOUR refrigerator? I hope these little vignette and excerpts help you see how food reveals character and can be a part of advancing a plot. Don’ send your characters off into the world without nourishment and even a few bathroom breaks. Your fiction will be more realistic for the calories. And characters can gorge without getting gaining an ounce. Ah, make believe! 

 

How far would you go for a friend?  Wreck your marriage?  Endanger your job? Risk your very life?

Boston-based computer security consultant Emma Lee Devens leaves her top-secret project in disarray and jeopardizes her marriage when she rushes to find her missing friend and colleague. Emma’s search takes her to the Black Rock Desert of northern Nevada and the Burning Man Festival where a unique experience of survival, ceremonial fire, danger and transcendence awaits. Anything can happen at Burning Man. Even murder.

Festival Madness can be purchased at Amazon.com, either for your e-reader or in trade paperback format.   

Festival Madness at Amazon

  

Last Day to Get Festival Madness free on your Kindle Device

My novel,  Festival Madness was inspired by my trips to Burning Man, and working in high-tech Cambridge.

How far would you go for a friend? Put a wrecking ball to your marriage? Endanger your job? Risk your very life?
Boston-based computer security consultant Emma Lee Devens leaves her top-secret project in disarray and jeopardizes her troubled marriage when she rushes to find her missing friend and colleague. Emma’s search takes her to the Black Rock Desert of northern Nevada and the Burning Man Festival where a unique experience of survival, ceremonial fire, danger and transcendence awaits. Anything can happen at Burning Man. Everything Can Happen at Burning Man. 

I’m writing as Judith Copek. 

 Festival Madness on Amazon Kindle Free 1/12/14

 

ASIN: B00E2YO538

Why I Decided to Self-Publish Festival Madness With Amazon

It took five years to write my novel, Festival Madness, conceived in 2002, and written 2004-2007, the second book in a proposed series. I write slow. Sought an agent/publisher for another 4 years.  Almost 100 queries.  Nada.  Rewriting and polishing were my daily companions.  Let the whole project lie fallow for a couple years while I finished another book and began yet another one.  

What happened?


I had a gender-bender, which is to say:  a traditional mystery novel with lots of technology and partially set at Burning Man with a morally compromised amateur sleuth. 
 I don't think this book can find a publisher is the U.S.  Ever,  
Fans of mystery novels don't mind if the sleuth drinks, drugs, murders, lies and steals, but there is one sin she must never, ever, commit. Holy freakin' crap.  Think! The "A" word.

And it's a pretty cool story.  After all, it's a mystery, with ripped from the headlines technology, Burning Man, Boston high-tech, funny hackers, and a morally conflicted amateur sleuth, ergo a little (just a little) well, racy.  

If you like a main character who is as pure as the driven snow, don't bother.

Otherwise, get ready for a fun read with plenty of surprises, and a trip to Burning Man,  2004-style, Not so many people.   Got  your food?  Water?  Shelter?  Costumes?  Place to camp?  Transportation?  Booze?  Ticket?  Got to have a ticket. Ready to roam the playa at night?  Hang out at Center Camp during the day?  See the art and meet the people.  Join the craziness?  Maybe even join the Mile High Club?  

Anything is possible when you have Festival Madness!

 http://tinyurl.com/lsvcq9h

Currently available on the Kindle.  Soon to be a Trade Paperback.  

Yowza!!! 

Festival Madness now on the Kindle

How far would you go for a friend? Put a wrecking ball to your marriage? Endanger your job? Risk your very life?
Boston-based computer security consultant Emma Lee Devens leaves her top-secret project in disarray and jeopardizes her troubled marriage when she rushes to find her missing friend and colleague. Emma’s search takes her to the Black Rock Desert of northern Nevada and the Burning Man Festival where a unique experience of survival, ceremonial fire, danger and transcendence awaits. Anything can happen at Burning Man. Even murder.  

http://tinyurl.com/lsvcq9h

A stroll through Stonybrook

Stonybrook Audubon Preserve in Norfolk, MA

Fall is in the air!  This morning we finished a walk through the Stonybrook Wildlife preserve.  I say "finished," because the last walk was interrupted by swan grooming.  Yup!  The two adult swans and their three (big) cygnets had taken over the main path and were grooming their feathers like crazy.  Out of consideration for the family activity, we retraced our steps.  This morning we went the other way and I promptly fell down on some not-so-steep stone stairs and decided to take the "stroller/wheelchair" path instead.

I wish to report about the bees in the waterlilies.  The waterlilies were all nicely abloom, white flowers open, and nearly every flower had a drunken bee, cavorting, luxuriating, acting totally unBeelike in the bowels of the flower.  I have never seen bees behave like that.  At first I thought the bees could not extract themselves from the flowers, but they did.  It was like strong drug, but for bees.  Very strange.

We passed where the swan grooming took place last week.  It must happen at that spot all the time, because the ground was so littered with white feathers I thought maybe a fox or coyote had got one of them.  Not so, just grooming dross.  We spied the swans eating that green algae like stuff in the water.  Still two parents and three sibs.  No fox meal there.

 Turtle sunning himself.  Geese in flight.  Chipmunk scampering. 

I saw a fuzzy caterpiller and was reminded of my childhood when I collected them into a shoebox in the fall, and provided some grass, etc., in hope that they would spin a coccoon and emerge in the spring, but in the spring the shoebox was gone, no doubt a victim of my mother's (to me) obsessive cleanliness.  I did like fuzzy caterpillars.

 The vegetable garden at the preserve, I am sorry to say, was totally ungroomed.  Animals eating the tomatoes, basil not deadheaded, weeds riotous.  I could have stayed all day bringing order to the beds. 

Tonight we're grilling bratwurst and I'll make some fried potatoes (lots of onions) and my special sauerkraut that my mother-in-law taught me how to make.  It has no resemblance to sauerkraut that comes out of a can.  I really gussy it up until it becomes like the Platonic Form of Sauerkraut.  Yup.  It's good.

The MAN burned last night and I need to find a web video to watch.  Always such a thrill. 

Onward,

Grapeshot

Writing yourself into a corner

Ye gods!  The ending of my novel was getting more and more complicated trying to get one of the characters from Panama to Reno with suitcases stuffed with two millions dollars.  I had learned how much it cost to charter a jet (lots) and what custom forms you needed to bring in money and what happens if you lie and get caught (really bad stuff) and after surfing the web so long I wore out my metaphorical board shorts, I realized I was adding at least 10,000 more words to this already kind of long novel. 

So I figured out another scenario that involved only a short flight (no jet charters) to Colombia instead of this 3400 mile trip. 

Now one of the characters needs to escape from the bad guys in Panama, lest they throw her out of the  plane en route.  I already had a character escaping by changing his appearance.  I can't hardly do that twice.  I am thinking pepper spray or mace.  What every woman needs in her handbag to get her out of a jam. 


Querying like mad for my Burning Man book since the man will burn in 10 days.  


Grapeshot

And the rains came

Not only is the tennis in NYC rained out, but the baseball in Boston. Major bummer.

I took on an unplanned major task, which was dumb, because I volunteered my skills as someone who could create specs for a web site, and yikes, pretty soon I was the chief cook and bottlewasher. Now I'm doing that, and trying to write my novel, and preparing for publication in an anthology and working on several other committees, and still there are garden tasks (sweet hummingbirds have left for southern climes, I hope) and cooking and cleaning and all the housewifery tasks which don't do themselves. No siree.

Yesterday I was sick, an outrage, because I am NEVER sick, and what was this fever, stomach ache nonsense, which laid me low, outrage and all for almost a day. Not a good week to lose a day. Today, good health returned, I got caught up, even went to the supermarket.

And I ate practically nothing and didn't lose any weight.

Total outrage.

The man burned, and I wasn't there. OMG, a very bad helicopter pilot flew low over Black Rock City with an advertising banner flowing behind. Mega-outrage.

And then, an inexperienced pilot decided to land at Black Rock International Airport in the dark. Folks, this is a two-week runway graded into the alkalai desert with the most primitive conditions and no lights at night. Nada. Somehow the crew at the airport got the plane on the ground. I have no idea how, because they were afraid it would be even more dangerous to send the pilot back over the mountains. Some good thinkers there.

Burning Man rocks and the folks at the airport rock even more. In two more days I'll be the proud possessor of a 2009 airport Burning Man sticker. In Festival Madness, yet unsold, many scenes are set at and around Burning Man and at the airport. We camped there in 2004. So I had big nostalia whiffs last weekend.

Moving along in my novel, and life goes on. I baked a dynamite coffee cake with banana, chocolate and coffee flavors. We'll see if they harmonize. What's not to like? As usual, I forgot to take a photo, and how it's all wrapped in plastic and not too photogenic.

Grapeshot

Arepas gone wild

In Wednesday's New York Times, the Minimalist had a Venezuelan recipe for arepas that looked incredibly yummy. I had all the ingredients except scallions and a jalapeno, so after the weekly shopping trip I took out the recipe and got going.

Something not right. In spite of accurate measuring, the batter was still kind of runny. After the required 15 minute wait, I couldn't form into balls. Still runny. Formed into pancake like patties and refrigerated for a couple hours. No way are these things going to come out splittable like English muffins. Cooked like pancakes. Fairly tasty, but I should NOT have removed the seeds and ribs from the jalapeno. And only made 6, not 8-10. I ate 2, S.O. ate the rest.

Served with some on-sale pulled pork that was too, too, sweet. What is it with present-day taste buds and sugar? Naturally we ate everything with enjoyment, because the arepas were fairly tasty.

I came down to the computer, sure that the proportions were wrong, or even the ingredients. All the recipes called for a special "arepas" corn meal. I just had plain old supermarket.

Idea is till intriguing. I think if I put half again as much corn meal and maybe a teaspoon of baking powder, things would be much better. And all the seeds and pith from the hot pepper.

Ye gods! A jalapeno (sorry but I am too lazy to look for the accent mark) only costs 18 cents.

So tonight we're having tacos. My tacos are awesome.

Fed the cows this a.m. and the three newest ones came running. I always think of the movie title, Some Came Running.

We tried to watch Quantum of Solace last night and found it beyond stupid and nothing but chase scenes. After half an hour I pushed the eject button. Hoping "In Bruges" will be better.

Can't win 'em all, recipes and movies. Querying agents like mad, since this is Burning Man week and my book is mostly set there, yada yada.

For the arepas recipe and lots of fun comments, follow this linke
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/dining/02mini.html?_r=1

Grapeshot

The Man Burns

The New York Times has a incredibly cool photo of Burning Man today. Yup, the Man burns on Saturday. I haven't been there since 2004, not to the Festival that is. Pining to return to the Playa. In the photo I can see my characters Emma and Jean Claude, looking at the art in the desert.

Festival Madness hasn't sold, and I've not been able to drum up any interest. Would that some of the agents who have yet to respond see the stuff in the times and say, "hey, didn't I just have a query about Burning Man?"

I am going to break a rule this week, and send a photo from the paper along with my query. That's a no-no, but WTF? Nothing I've done so far has sparked a burning interest in the novel.

Whatever drummer I am marching to these days appears to be out in the desert (the playa?) banging out a rhythm that nobody but me can follow. You'd think this would be good for a writer, but it's not.

My suspense novel is approaching 70,000 words. Writing some fun stuff now, and in a few pages the computer is stolen. This book will end up in Gerlach, last town before the Man. With a shootout. And the world's most unlikely hero will surface. And there will be redemption.

In the meantime, this is the week to push Festival Madness.

http://www.burningman.com/

http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/b/burning_man_festival/index.html

Mastering the Art of French Cooking

Waaaay Back in the Day.


Back in the day, I used to have elegant dinner parties, usually eight, since that's how many the table held comfortably, and sometimes I'd cook from Julia Child. I believe Veau Prince Orloff is as fancy as I ever got. Sometimes I made that fancy dish where you slather a filet of beef with pate, and then wrap the whole business in pastry, and even cut out little decorative doo-dads out of pastry to put on top. Beef Wellington. A big-assed production to be sure.

When I was whipping up these delectables, I weighed 103 pounds and smoked like a chimney, chased my little boys around, played nonstop tennis and only sat down to eat and read the paper. If we ate like that now, we'd weigh, well, we'd weigh a whole lot more than we already do.

Julia Child's masterwork is now the #1 best seller on the "how to" non-fiction list. As I type, I have the first edition 1961 in front of me. I think it was not such a big best seller back then, because in 1961 I didn't know how to cook and would have been intimidated as hell if someone had given me such a monster treatise on cooking.

So my copy of Julia arrived much later, but still a first edition. The Veau (Veal) Prince Orloff is a production, but there are many recipes which are not labor intensive at all, and don't require a king's ransom in ingredients.

Before I stopped eating veal, I always made Saute de veau Marengo, which was a very simple veal stew with tomatoes, onions and mushrooms. One could even use white vermouth as the wine. It was delicious and perfect for now when one can buy or even grow decent tomatoes.

Julia's recipe for ratatouille will never be beat, but it is a pain in the ass to make, cooking every veggie separately. But it you want to know le vrai ratatouille, whip up a bunch. Again, this season is the perfect time. I love it cold, and it's sooooo good for you.

Another simple recipe, peasant food, really is a Clafouti. A Clafouti (a fruit flan) goes together in minutes with milk, eggs, flour and sugar. Use whatever fruit. I have a fab recipe, not Julia's for bananas. Cherries are traditional. I'm thinking of a nectarine one this evening.

Tonight we're having a shrimp salad with lots of veggies, a Penzey's recipe. We're had a modicum of luck dropping a few pounds with main course salads (skip the cheese), soups and grilled meat and veggies. We eat Insalata Caprese daily. Soooo good. Those home grown tomatoes really up the ante, flavor-wise.

I sent out a bunch of queries, esp. for Festival Madness, and got back a bunch of not-interesteds. Burning Man starts in 3 days, and I was hoping to drum up some interest. Not. Trying to keep a stiff upper lip, as a short story will be published in a couple of months, and I have some other irons in the fire. It's hard, though, character-building one could say.

I am amazed that I'm still writing, still enjoying it. Only a crazy person . . .

Crazy as a loon,

Grapeshot

Cyber Czar

All this news (you do read a newspaper, don't you?) about the Cyber-Czar has me thinking of The Shadow Warriors, the book about Information Warfare that I wrote in the late nineties, published as an e-book in 2001, and by Booksurge in 2003. Jeepers, that's six years ago.

One of the cool things that in the opening pages of the book the protag is reading a paper about the appointment of the new cyber czar.

When we actually have an "info war," perhaps a mainstream publisher will pick up The Shadow Warriors, give it a quick edit and put it out for the world to find and read. Maybe it will even be available on the Kindle.

The "Warriors" are really rather fun, a dark romp, with scenes from Singapore and Hong Kong to a university town in Germany and Boston's Fanieul Hall and Public Garden. The sweep of history, if you will. It was such fun to write and I still had a lot of passion for writing in those days.

Now I carefully craft words, almost bloodlessly, although every now and then I work up a big push of enthusiasm when a scene that interests me needs to be written. Not true, really, but I had MORE enthusiasm in the old days when I thought a mainstream publisher would snap up my novels like carp after a worm.

Didn't happen.

I've been tweaking Festival Madness. When I wrote about Burning Man, the passion came back, because I could return to the Man, actually be there in my writing. I've been tweaking the beginning. Still not quite there. The queries weren't eliciting requests for the full manuscript or even partials. Zero interest. Sometimes I want to set my hair on fire.

Once more into the breach. Thank god the stuffed escarole is history and tonight we had black bean soup with chorizo and chicken and it was tastsy. I'm making composed salads from the garden and the supermarket and using my plane grater and they are good, good good.

Reading Sue Grafton's T is for Trespass. She's such a fine writer. Her writing never calls attention to itself, but keeps you on the page.

I loaded three more books and my friends manuscript onto my Kindle. Wheee!

Grapeshot

When Life Imitates Fiction

My first long-ago never-to-see-the-light-of-day mystery began with a crime in a parking garage. I used the area where I worked, naturally, and parked in that garage day and night without much thought to safety. After all, it was a hop, skip and a jump from the office, well-lighted, yada, yada. Imagine my surprise, nay, horror, when a real crime hit the garage, and someone actually tried to kidnap a woman in broad daylight. It gave me pause.

My next book, The Shadow Warriors, dealth with an info war which has only broken out in minor skirmishes in real life, but that seems destined to happen. Maybe the book will take off when it does, but I really wouldn't hope for such an event, book sales or no.

Wisconsin book, Promiscuous Mode, has not sold, but there have been several mass murders in that neck of the woods. Gives one pause.

Burning Man Book, Festival Madness. So far no murders connected to festivals, at least to my knowledge. Whew!

Current book: In Flight. I picked a physical heroine out of my daily life--someone I knew but not well. Took her profession, too. The real person of course was nothing like my heroine who had had genuinely awful things in her life. Until yesterday, when the model told me of a huge tragedy which had befallen her. I felt almost guily. The issue has been building for years, long before the book was a gleam in my eye, but still . . . One charmed life, no longer.

Fiction and life are in a deadly embrace. That's why it's so tempting to fictionalize a memoir. Don't.

Another post soon. I just put chocolate panna cotta in the fridge to gel, and now I'm off to make the port wine ice cream. Yowza! Like God in France.

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Queries: the long and the short of it

After my last post, at 10:44 this morning, I tackled the list of agents appearing in the spring at a writing conference. First I had to separate those I had already queried and from which book. I went through their web sites and discovered some didn't take genre writing and others accepted only non-fiction. Some had already rejected one book or another. The list had really shrunk by the time I parsed the whole thing. It also hurts if the agent has no web site. Will they like a so-called high tech novel? I think not.

Went upstairs and made and consumed a turkey sandwich. Ah man! What could be better than thin sliced white meat on thin sliced white bread with slatherings of mayo and sprinkled with salt and pepper with thin sliced tomatoes and a big leaf of lettuce thrown in to salve the conscience? Yum! Add a few slices of Mrs. Fannings pickles and a few potato chips.

When I got on the scale this morning, the first thought was: how can my pajamas have gained four pounds? Then, I thought: no, it has to be water. Lots of water.

Ye gods! I put on my gym clothes with good intentions for a walk or a visit to the gym, but the rains came and the weather was dark and cold and I didn't feel like going to the gym. As evidenced above, I felt like scarfing down some more of the turkey.

Thisbe's diabetes is much improved, and her coat is so much softer. She is eating Atkins for kitties and the fancy high-priced moist food. Yesterday, most unaccountably, she begged for roast turkey while I was slicing it for dinner. Ate some. Ate some more. When I fixed my sandwich she asked for more. And again.

This from a cat who never eats people food. Well, not since yesterday. It's good high-quality protein, I tell myself when Thisbe and I both feel like a bit of a nosh. This is amazing. I wonder if her body knows this is a good thing in her current state of health. My body only knows that it likes to eat.

Back down to the agents: After all was said and done, I found two, one for Festival Madness and one for World of Mirrors. Nobody for Promiscuous mode, which was the whole point of the exercise. So one email and one SnailMail query have gone out. It's 3:45 and the day is gone. Few queries and no exercise.

I will visit my drug lord. Maybe he'll talk to me. And then again . . . .

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The Literary Life

After all the food blogs and the politics blogs, the cat blogs, cow blogs and what have you blogs, you may be wondering if I'm still writing, as in novels.

I am, and now almost 100 pages into the new novel, In Flight, which is coming along all right, and just needs to be written down. I think it's going to be good. Whether it will sell or not is another question. Anyway, it's fun to be in the head of a Columbian drug lord, at least some of the time.

Finally, finally, an agent asked to see some pages of Festival Madness. In the meantime, I have discovered one or two novels about Burning Man are in the works or looking for editors, or what have you. None like mine, of course. What I have to say in defense of my novels is that they are a "fun read," with all sorts of cool stuff. Obviously fun does not make it publishable.

I'm taking a Food Writing course at Brown University. After all the food blogging it seemed a sage thing to do. And there's this short story about a robot fish. Can't tell you anymore, because the fish worked for the CIA. I am not making this up.

Totally 100% afraid to look at the end of the quarter financial statements wending their way to the mailbox. Looked at two, eeeek, and that was two too many. In the meantime, of course, the market has really sh__the bed, and one begins to think of how to scale down expenses rather drastically.

Get thru the winter on the same old clothes. Don't we all have way too many clothes. Maybe it's time to wear some of them out. Yup. Do I dare buy some new pajama bottoms from the Job Lot?

Eat lots of rice and beans and chili. Hey, that doesn't sound so bad. Oatmeal cookies? Yay! Netflix instead of concerts, plays and movies. Yup. Nip out to the 99 instead of the la-di-dah places. I can do that for a while, esp. after a memorable meal at Al Forno.

Shop the sales, yada, yada. I think our TV which is NOT cable ready but we do have cable--anyway the TV appears headed for the great tube tomb. Appliances never crap out at a good time, do they? Usually it's at 5:00 p.m. on the Friday of a three day weekend.

I would not want to give up cable, since that's where the good shows are. Otherwise, one might as well not replace the TV.

Enough gloom and doom. Tomorrow is cat blog day. Will the kitties do something memorable? Bloggable? Or is it the same-old, same-old? Stay tuned.

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In Flight

The working title of my new book is "In Flight," with nothing to do with planes and everything to do with running from scary people who want to kill you. I'm 23,000 words into the book, assuming it will run about 100,000 words, quite normal for a suspense book.

Right now, I'm getting the romance that will be critical to the story off the ground, and introducing the characters. The ex-wife is the last character, and she'll appear about mid-book. I have my first restaurant scene. Not many of those--this will be the only one set in a nice restaurant. Everything else will be road food or eating on the run. Literally.

Did you notice in Da Vinci Code that no one ever stopped to eat or go to the bathroom even though they were travelling all over Europe? Maybe somehow had a supply of granola bars, but I doubt it. When is Dan Brown's latest book coming out? People have almost stopped asking.

I'm learning about the golf tour and teaching swimming and for a short story I'm writing, about a robot fish. No time to query agents lately. Seems futile. They don't answer emails, at least half of them don't. The author never knows where the missive landed, if it did.

An editor has had my book for 10 months now, and in the meantime, I've rewritten part of it. So it goes. I noticed the tiny store in Empire had lots of Burning Man books, calendars, etc., and I figure if the book is ever published, I can sell it at Bruno's in Gerlach and at the Empire store and the Reno Airport and if Reno has a bookstore, there, too. So that would bring in some steady sales.

Still waiting for a signing at the bookstore on Hiddensee off Ruegen. It would have been such an honor and so much fun. Sigh. Pipe dreams.

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Aaaachooo from the end of the road

Aeons ago, I had allergy shots which provided a cure. Now, suddenly, 77 miles from the nearest store my hay fever has gone into high gear. I'm making do with some Tylenol cold medicine which stops the sneezing and runny nose.

We do laundry in an "egg" which works pretty well for small hand laundry stuff like underwear and socks but not towels. For towels and sheets, you go to Bruno's laundromat, all three washers. Bruno's has a monopoly here. Restaurant, gas station, motel, casino, laundromat, rental mobil homes, you name it, Bruno's got it.

If I ever went into the witness protection program, I might consider Northern Nevada.

Last night there was a "talent show' at one of the local watering holes. This town has several bars, including Brunos, of course.

The last of the Burners, the DPW crew were whoopping it up. God, they were young and with attitude and I felt like, well, old, and I left the party to the younger crowd. Some guy knew I had written a book and maybe he said he had it or had read it. In the noise I couldn't hear. Came home and watched CSI Miami, Nip/Tuck and House. Nip/Tuck is one sick weird program, but it compels. House was one I had seen before. So it goes.

The sun is rising and I can see a gazillion ripe pears on a tree a few doors down. My black sweater is drying on the line from yesterday. We made Spanish Rice with the wonderful tomatoes from the garden and some other stuff that was lying around. I like to take a look at what's available in the larder and cook something.

Today we're driving up to the Opal Mine toward Soldier Meadow, so I won't do big cooking.

Greetings and Aaachhhooo from the end of the road.

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Burning Man

Ah, the Man burned last night, and I wasn't there. Every year that I don't go, I'm seized with such a visceral longing to be in the heat and the dust and the art and the anarchic chaos that defines Burning Man. If you've never been there, here is the description of "the burn" from my manuscript, Festival Madness.

The boat carried us out of Black Rock City and moved across the playa always avoiding the people, bicycles, and mutant vehicles that converged on the fixed point of the statue. In a perfect state of inebriation, I had ridden a horse with no name to a strange but friendly planet of flat alkali desert surrounded by dark mountains. The desert dwellers came to this place and formed an immense circle around the god of fire, who had assumed the mythic shape of a blue neon man, glowing over the desert.

Dancers twirling hypnotic flames spun around the statue while ships and dragons and animals belched propane-fueled fire. Weird and wonderful shapes descended from the sky, lit by a yellow moon that crept above the mountains. The fire dancers swirled like dervishes, and drums throbbed in the eerie light where glow sticks burned like neon candles. I was eerily conscious of each detail of this carnival night with its colors, sounds, tastes, smells and the absolute anticipation. The dancers spun in their circles of fire, and the drums pounded to a crescendo. Alone, the neon man loomed over the desert, canopied by thousands of twinkling stars.

The ritual began with a massive barrage of shooting rockets and fireworks illuminating the man, then a blaze of fire and a magic conflagration roared to life in a frenzy of heat and flames. The inferno raced up one of the man’s legs and consumed him bit by bit even as his triumphant arms remained raised, as in defiance. Everyone was yelling and shouting and the air pulsed with music. In an eruption of galactic grandeur, the Man was burning bright. The Man was burning. ©