"Fishing by Obstinate Isles."

My robot fish story was rejected! It's one of the favorite things I've written. The readers did not get it, were not engaged, and it did "not resonate."

I think my writing group gave me bad advise apropos the beginning, but that can be fixed. I'll send it out again, of course, because I am so taken with the character.

How am I feeling about this? Absolutely rotten. Ezra Pound said it better. "Out of key with his time" and "fishing by obstinate isles." Yup.


Hugh Selwyn Mauberly [excerpt]

For three years, out of key with his time,
He strove to resuscitate the dead art
Of poetry; to maintain "the sublime"
In the old scene. Wrong from the start--
No, hardly, but seeing he had been born
In a half-savage country, out of date;
Bent resolutely on wringing lilies from the acorn;
Capaneus; trout for factitious bait;
[idmen gar toi pant, hos eni Troiei]
Caught in the unstopped ear;
Giving the rocks small lee-way
The chopped seas held him, therefore, that year.
His true Penelope was Flaubert,
He fished by obstinate isles;
Observed the elegance of Circe's hair
Rather than the mottoes on sun-dials.
Unaffected by "the march of events,"
He passed from men's memory in l'an trentuniesme
De son eage; the case presents
No adjunct to the Muses' diadem.

Why do I even remember this old "stuff" from college English? At least when I give a speech at Toastmasters, I've always lauded for 'colorful speech.'

Onward, onward.

The David Lodge book, Therapy, is good, well, therapy. I laugh like an idiot every night when I am reading it.

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Got the Blogging Blahs

Yes, even bloggers get the blahs. When none of your topics seems, well, topical. The photo is a chocolate pecan pie I made yesterday. Started out to make cookies, with the requirement being that all the ingredients needed to be on hand. Somehow I landed on the pie. Even the crust is chocolate. The pie is so rich one only needs a mini-slice. Make that a micro-slice.

We're trying to get ready for a European jaunt and I check off four items from the "to do" list and add six more. The cats are a problem, with Thisbe (the shy one) needing insulin twice a day and Annie needing heart meds twice a day. Color them expensive. And you always have to keep the mental health of your cats foremost in mind.

Cats hate change. They love routine. They hate being boarded. They treasure the comforts of home. We took them BOTH to the vet this week. For once, no great traumas getting them into the carriers. At the vet, Thisbe, who is usually nervous Nellie, was pretty calm, and Annie, who is Miss Congeniality was a spitting, growling she-dragon. Go figure.

Little known fact: even indoor cats need rabies shots, in case rabid bats move into your house. It's the law.

I've been spending too much time on Facebook. Just happened. Dunno why. The isolation of winter, although today looks pretty good, and we have been getting out to shop and exercise and tonight we're trekking to Jordan Hall to hear the Baroque Grand Tour.

In Flight, my novel in process is coming along. Big scene in Miami. All this Florida stuff means I'll have to do a soupcon more research next June, which is the month in which the book takes place. All my books are set in the summer, my favorite season. Interesting, no?

We walked around the Patriot Place shops and restaurants last weekend. Couldn't find the wine bar. The burger restaurant was the busy place, crowded with beef lovers, but the seafood restaurant (Skipjack's) also had a decent crowd. Not meal time but mid-afternoon. Stores were empty. Not a good sign.

With the exception of groceries and household products, it's amazing how long was can actually go without buying stuff. Of course socks and underwear, even pajamas do wear out. I just "saved" $11.00 by washing 2 sweaters instead of dry cleaning them. Even the tailor said her business was slow. Logic would dictate (actually, does logic ever dictate?) that people would pay for alterations instead of new clothes. Maybe not. Or maybe because it was the week AFTER school vacations and nobody brought in clothes the previous week.

I am thinking about writing and money and wondering why I never got an advanced degree when so many friends and classmates did. The other thing I've been pondering about if whether so many years of computer programming changed my brain. Please don't laugh. This is serious stuff.

Back to the omnipresent "to do" list. It's time for that most hated activity, the tax workbook that the accountant sends out. Thank heavens MONEY keeps impeccable records. Actually, I keep the records, money just records everything. And produces nice reports. Once a detail-oriented geek, always a dog. Hmmm good. Detail Oriented Geek. DOG.

I'm wondering if I should write more adventure tales of my robot fish. Or maybe even a screen play.

Always wondering,

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Agent Queries

Somali pirate. I had a dress out of the same fabric as his "headpiece" when I was in grade school. Photo may be from the BBC. Couldn't find a credit. It was on another blog that didn't credit. These pirates all have automatic weapons and cell phones.

Back to writing. I'm calmer about the whole piggy shopping scene, although the sight of all those glossy adds in today's Globe nearly got me into rant mode again. Not my zebra. Not my zoo. Just keep repeating.

I have a big list of agents to query about Promiscuous Mode, a book my writing group loved, a traditional amatuer sleuth whodunnit with lots of suspects, small town, a cat, low lifes, bass fishing. God, what more could you want?

Anyway, I need to send out some queries about this book, since the sequel is already completed. She's into high tech. He's into homicide. The Northwoods rock and roll . . . yada yada. That's my "Pitch" line. God, I wish someone would just read the freaking book. This business of queries to agents, in spite of all the good advice, is something I haven't mastered. It's like there is this giant blind spot the size of the sun.

And also I need to get back to my fabulous fish robot, Frances, and back to Lotto, the Colombian Drug Lord and his worries and tribulations. I live in a world of strange characters, and sometimes they talk to me. How weird is that? And I listen.

Lotto is a little like the Warren Beatty character in "Shampoo." Everyone wants something from him, and he's pulled in many directions.

I take some of the "props" out of the headlines, like small submarines and Somali pirates.
So, off to the drug wars and the agent battle and Indian Ocean piracy. What a fun way to spend a rainy Sunday. Take that, Baudelaire.

Cheers,

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An Ass, But A Well-Meaning Ass

So yesterday a nice person whom I had recently met asked me to be a friend on "Reunion.Com."
The site didn't appear very "friendly" or even intuitive (that almost always gets me in trouble), but there I was clicking through this and clicking through that, when eeeek! I had just clicked on send "Friend" request to my entire email list. 850+ people.

I know. Friggin' stupid.

Of course I tried to unclick, (is that a word?), thinking, no hoping, I hadn't really clicked. I had clicked. OMIGOD. Agents, editors, relatives, old friends, every mystery writer in the country, (well, almost) new friends, enemies, Romans, countrymen. All got an invite to be my friend.

Can you imagine anything more pathetic? Stupider? More assisine? Nope. Thought not.

In the meantime, I've heard from a couple old friends and acquaintances. Also some names I recognized but who didn't know me. I hope that this went mostly into the spam boxes. Or people just deleted it. I mean imagine, asking to "friend" the vet, your hairdresser, your entire high school class.

Oh god.

Feeling humble. Think I'll stick to LinkedIn.

Think I'll stick to writing stories. My robot catfish is burning up the oceans. New ideas for the 2nd half of the story. This robot is one hot ticket.

Time to take the pumpkin cheesecake out of the oven. Somehow, there was enough batter (to die for) for a 2nd cheesecake and sometimes one is lucky, and I had prepared graham cracker crumbs on hand, so in the off-chance that the entire cheesecake is devoured on Thursday, I'll have one at home in reserve.

How cool is that? Licking the beater was the ultimate.

Now if I could just figure out how to create a nevermind key for the computer. The hand is quicker than the eye. And even the brain. No, the brain works the hand. Some circuits must be quicker than others. I've really got to get this figured out.

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The Supermarket Dance: Shuffle and Back Step

Note: this post is a whine.

Our supermarket is remodelling, which means no one can find anything anywhere. They had to go "out back" to get us a bag of charcoal today, and brought a big mother of a bag that would last half the summer and now it's October. Any season when you don't have to shovel a path along the deck and brush the snow off the Weber Kettle is Barbecue Season.

Small sirloins were on sale and that sounded good to me, with asparagus from Peru where spring has sprung and acorn squash grown more locally. With a Boston lettuce salad and a big fat mushroom to top each steak. Is that yum or what?

Of course we spent twice a much time in the store as usual, backtracking and trying to find stuff. Last week a woman said, "just think of it as a scavenger hunt and have fun." Some people always have a good attitude.

I remember when Roche Brothers in Wellesley remodelled years ago. I had to change my computerized shopping list, then I changed it again when we moved. Guess what? Another change will be required. In the new new Wellesley Roche Brothers I can't find anything either, except the produce and the cheese counter. And the take home department. Man, for $12-$1400 for dinner, you would never have to cook again. For two, that is. Four or more would be a pricey business, but they do have good looking prepared food to take home.

Of course if the economy continues to go to hell in a handbasket, everyone will be soaking their own pinto beans and making soup and rice and beans and growing herbs on the window sill and pouring the bacon fat into a coffee can in the fridge to reuse.

Oh? You do that already? Me too.

It seems like the prices have risen since the store began to remodel. And I still can't find green salsa made with tomatillos. Maybe I'll make another attempt to grow tomatillos next spring. The prior effort was a disaster, but then I recall it took three tries to grow bleeding heart. The third one flourished and I even moved it and it still flourished. A reliable plant is something you can love.

So we're bringing in the houseplants that summered outside, and the geraniums I carry over from year to year and the little gew-gaws on the deck that make the outdoors kind of homey.

Annie the cat escaped today, but too late for blogging. Thisbe went out and was horrified to find a) the UPS man and b) and neighbor's dog and c) the neighbor. Clawed at the door to get in with her tail as big around as a baseball bat.

I'm deep into my robot fish story and it's humming along swimmingly. :) I just need one more long adventure for the fish to have, then a clever escape and the end. The fish has hard exciting escapes from Somali pirates, sea snakes and a curious shark. Fish can have the most exciting adventures.

Onward and upward. How about those Red Sox?

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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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