Review: Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Linh Cinder is the best mechanic in New Beijing in the Asian Commonwealth. She is also a cyborg and therefore a second class citizen because she is less human, about 38% human, according to the tests. With a platinum and plastic heart that pumps quietly and efficiently and a cybernetic network and visual display that keep her cool, calm, and collected, she is a marvel of machinery. A few minor upgrades, like a brand new mechanical foot since she's outgrown the old one placed when she was a child, and she'd be perfect, just not human, as her guardian and adopted mother would have it.

Her guardian was once the wife of a rich and powerful man who died of Letumosis, a contagion that began in the country and has worked its way into the confines of the city, and it is always fatal. Cinder's guardian blames her for infecting her adopted father and leaving them all destitute so that Cinder is the family's only source of income, and Cinder's guardian resents her for it.

When the prince (incognito) comes to Cinder's stall on market day to have a teaching robot fixed, she is surprised and her system warns her that she was in danger of sensory overload. The prince wants his robot fixed before the festival and Cinder agrees to give it a go, while concealing she is a cyborg, thus changing their lives forever and setting the ground rules for Meyer's re-imagined fairy tale.

In remodeling the fairy tale of Cinderella, Marissa Meyer throws out most of the conventions and strikes out into brand new territory, retaining a few of the traditional elements to give the story a magical feel. There is more science in Cinder than magic, but that shouldn't deter die-hard fairy tale fans. There is enough of the fairy tale to maintain the fantasy.

From the beginning, Meyer lets you know what is about to happen, leaving not so subtle clues and repeating them from time to time. From the first mention of the lunar princess who has been missing for more than a decade, it's obvious who she will turn out to be -- Cinderella, or in this case, Cinder. Meyer leans pretty hard on the "I'm not good enough because I'm a cyborg" element, but it's not always unpleasant and anchors Cinder within the story's emotion and social framework.

While Cinder isn't a classical fairy tale, it is still fairy tale enough with queens from the moon with the power to glamour entire populations and turning their emotions from hate and disgust to love and adoration. The fairy godmother may be a lunar scientist on the run from the current regime and not using his glamour gift, but he is certainly a fun and fascinating addition to the tale.

When a dirty Cinder limping on a poorly fitting mechanical foot in a discarded dress shows up at the ball, the ending to the night is in the bag -- or is it?

Marissa Meyer throws a few curves in Cinder and they enhance the story: missing lunar princess, a cyborg Cinderella with no feminine wiles, an evil queen with the power to glamour everyone, and a power struggle between Earth and the Moon for starters. The biggest drawback is knowing the book is part of a trilogy and it will take a while before Cinder finds her happily ever after ending with the prince.

Cinder is a welcome addition to re-imagined fairy tales with a style and shape all its own.

Upcoming Book: The Longest War | JM Cornwell | Blog Post | Red Room

Upcoming Book: The Longest War | JM Cornwell | Blog Post | Red Room

Who fights the wars? What do they have to say about glory, honor, and death? Find out.

Bad = Good for You

Isn't it interesting that when someone tries to harm you they end up helping you? I'll bet if they knew, they'd stop causing trouble and meddling. I certainly wouldn't want that.

It's like a bad review. On the surface, your work has been slammed -- HARD. It's a blow to the ego and to everything you thought you had done. Don't take it like that. A bad review causes talk and talk causes interest which ends up in sales. Take a bad review like a free marketing push that will put your work higher up in the consumer's consciousness. Think not?

How many times have you read a book or seen a movie because you heard it was awful? Really awful. Translate and rejoice. You finally get it.

The same thing goes for people who mean you harm by talking about you and creating problems, especially if you're a writer. Their ill intentions usually equal interest and that will equal sales. But don't tell the pot stirrer because they might stop creating problems. You don't want that.

Be a pro. Thank them for the time they took to read and review your book. Ask them to tell all their friends. You might not have to ask; they've probably already spread the word.

Sometimes bad equals good. It's not the best intentions you need, but often evil intentions. It gets more press and generates more interest. Thank the publishing and movie gods for bad intentions.

Not in my Head | JM Cornwell | Blog Post | Red Room

If you're going to talk like that, I'm going to have to hang up now.

Not in my Head | JM Cornwell | Blog Post | Red Room

Chaos in her Wake

Death brings out the worst and the best in people, especially in families, and I have seen my share of death, trying unsuccessfully to keep my distance. Death finds us all in the end.

All the unresolved issues, arguments, and missed opportunities come back with vengeful force, and so it is with my family. My mother died last night.

Beanie called me last night to tell me Mom was dead. Through hysterical tears and heightened emotions (good thing Dan was driving), she told me the news. My first impulse was to tell her the joke was in poor taste; I squelched it. When I couldn't grasp the facts quickly she began screaming at me. "She's dead. Mom's dead. Don't you get it?" Yes, I got it.

I called my brother, The Mushroom, because he keeps a cool head in situations like this, and I often wonder if it is because he doesn't feel anything deeply or that he covers his emotions so well. It's a big change from the usual weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth that grips the rest of the family. Dad was like that, too, a duck whose feathers shrugged off the storms, water gushing over the oily feathers without touching the down and heart beneath.

The Mushroom gave me the facts. I'm good with facts. They provide a calm center in the worst of family hurricanes and cyclones, providing a touchstone of calm in an otherwise turbulent background.

Hoity-Toity came home from work and found Mom lying face down on the sofa, her heart having stopped at the moment she walked to the sofa and taking her down in an instant. I doubt she felt much pain; the pain is left for her family. Hoity-Toity, through her tears and guilt, called the important people: cousin Laura, the Mushroom, and Beanie, all of whom rushed from different parts of the compass to be there. The sheriff pulled up as the Mushroom pulled into the driveway at Hoity-Toity's house while he was talking to me.

As I called more of the family, Aunt Anne, my children, and Uncle Bob and Aunt Lois, more of the story emerged. Laura had called Uncle Bob and Aunt Lois and the news spread along the family network like wildfire in a dry and desiccated forest. Only my children and Aunt Anne were surprised by the news that yet another of our clan was gone and chaos had descended.

Mom would have loved the  stir as a faithful disciple and spreader of chaos, even more so because she was once again at the center, only marginally pushed aside by Hoity-Toity, hysterical in her grief and guilt at Mom having died alone. Probably the only marginally funny moment to come out of this first storm of grief was Laura's suggestion we hire a helicopter and spread her ashes over Lazarus where Mom spent most of her free time and all her and Dad's money when she was alive. Lazarus should at least put up a prominent platinum plaque in her honor; they have lasted this long because of Mom's faithful patronage.

Yes, Mom is being cremated, as Dad was five years ago, and after railing and trying to guilt me out of my desire to be cremated. She was so invested in monuments and graves and places to go on Memorial Day to place flowers and parade her grief. How could I even consider being cremated? It was a slap in the family's face, but I was adamant, and remain adamant, that I will be cremated. I think Mom came around to the idea when The Mushroom told her he wanted to be cremated. I was always the trail breaker, the first to step out against tradition, but nothing ever caught on until one of my younger siblings took a step in the same direction as if they were the first. Mom will be cremated but not without her parade of grief and show of friends and family.

Family you can pretty much count on when someone dies, many of whom will come to make sure it's not an elaborate and costly joke. They want to see the body in its coffin to be sure the person is dead. Oftentimes, funerals remains one of the few times that family still come together, burying old feuds and disagreements to follow the funeral cortege in mourning black. The intricate to-and-fro dance of renewing old ties and catching up on the years of silence continues the tradition of public mourning. Some traditions are bred in the bone and sinew and funerals and mourning (or assuring oneself of) the dead is one of them.

I forget who said or wrote it, but funerals are supposed to be a sign of sentient intelligence. Coming together to mark a passing is proof we have climbed out of the mindless muck and become aware of the gravity and importance of life and death. I wonder how many funerals whoever that was had attended.

Mom told me that she knew she would not be mourned the way Dad was and continues to be mourned. I didn't agree or disagree, but I was curious to know why she thought that, so I asked. "Everyone loved your father and he made friends easily. I am more difficult, not lovable."

How right she was -- and is. She was difficult. No one knew how difficult better than I do.

Mom was vain, selfish, jealous, controlling, manipulative, greedy, and self-centered. She could also be generous and kind -- and she reminded you of how generous and kind at every opportunity, not so much to remind you she had been kind, but to let you know you owed her for her generosity and kindness. To strangers she seemed a kind woman, but even acquaintances soon lost the rosy tint in their glasses. She was implacable and unrelenting in her anger, only softening with age as her memory failed, but even then she clung to the edited version of her life and actions that proved she was an exemplary human being. She wasn't. She was vicious, vindictive, and full of venom, but in that moment when she told me she knew we wouldn't miss her and mourn her as we did Dad, she knew.

There are more than five decades of anger and hurt I could write about (and I will eventually) Mom, but there is really no need right now. Whatever harm she caused, whatever grief and bitterness she left behind, she was a big part of our lives and now she's gone. She died alone hours before she was found face down on the couch, getting her 5-year wish to join Dad. She finally made it. She died.

She leaves behind 4 children, 10 grandchildren, and 10 great grandchildren, 9 of the great grandchildren belonging to my boys. She leaves her brother, the sole remnant of her branch of the vast May clan, and his five children and numerous grandchildren.

As Mom looks down and sees the chaos left in her wake, she is smiling. She would have loved the theater of it all. She died as she lived, a disciple and proponent of chaos.

Faded Photographs

Whether it's fantasy or reality, memories transport us to the past, to moments of pleasure and pain, to times when we were important or diminished, to what lies beneath. The quality of memory is often strained.

Mom sent me an old photograph of my father in his Army uniform when he was young and healthy, when he was alive. I decided to make copies and send them to my brother and sisters when I realized my grandchildren know nothing about Dad or Mom or even me, come to that. My children were partially raised by another woman, my ex-husband's second wife, and she is not a fan of me or my family. She did her best to eradicate us from my boys' memories and what remained was painted in vivid venom. This is what my grandchildren have learned as those tainted memories are passed down. To my grandchildren I am the faceless entity who sends them birthday and Xmas gifts. I exist to give them presents.

I had printed off copies of Dad's picture, took three of them, and inscribed the back with who he was and when the picture was taken. Dad was in his 30s and he looked handsome and smiling. He always smiled in pictures and in life, seldom frowning or getting angry -- unless someone got in between him and the television program or movie he was watching. He was full of laughter and great stories, but how would his great grandchildren ever know? I had to tell them, and I began by sending the pictures to my youngest son's three children.

My oldest son's twins are not yet 2 years old, so their picture will have to wait. Not a problem. I have the photo stored on my computer and online so I can download and print more copies, next time with the name brand photo stock that goes with my 4-in-1 printer.

Eddie, the middle child, has two boys I've never met and have had no contact with. He was the one most affected by his stepmother's tales of terror and it will take time to get an address for him when I reach out with my Xmas gift for 2012.

I've decided to put together a family history of my side of the family: the good, the bad, and the ugly, but only the truth. There are some stellar types in the family and some less than stellar types, but they all deserve their moment on the page. I've contacted both sides of my family asking for photos and letters and histories, if they want to write them. I will add news clippings of births, marriages, and deaths and notable happenings, like the cousin who was governor of Texas and in the car with JFK when he was shot in Dallas that November day in 1963. The old letters I've saved from family who have died and gone on, leaving a legacy of remembrance and colored bits of their life, will go into the books (there has to be one for each family), as will the family reunions and DVDs and CDs with home movies converted to digital format.

I started with the idea of photos and histories, but there is so much material that I'll likely have a few volumes, one each Xmas, for each of the families. I may even convert it all to digital and print so those who don't know that Mom's dad was the sheriff, mayor, and biggest business owner in Alger, Ohio can read about how he captured John Dillinger and took him to the Lima jail where his buddies busted him out and killed the sheriff, or how one of my father's in-laws ran with Dillinger around Dayton and Cincinnati before he went to Alger to see his stepmother and was caught.

There were alcoholics and family locked in institutions. Some were rich and some were poor. There were farmers and business men and ordinary people and a beloved aunt who was married to the Omar Bread man. Name changes and secrets, a skeleton here or there, but a truthful and accurate picture of all my family, including the abject poverty in which my father grew up in Cynthiana, Ohio. Dad's letters to me about growing up and his life in a rural wide spot in the road will be copied and placed in the book, even the part about how backward he was and that his father delivered him in the field when his mother went into labor while bringing lunch to Grandpa Cornwell when he was plowing. The fights with local boys and the jokes and risque stories and the jewel bright moments and my father's funny stories, stories no one could tell the way he could; they will all be in there. Cousins, family reunions, feuds, dreams, madness, and life in all its facets is my gift to my grandchildren.

My memories and the remembrances of as many people as I can beg, cajole, threaten, and interest in contributing is my gift, but it is a true gift and one I hope they will treasure as much as I treasure them.

In this world where few people stay close to their families and still live within a 20-mile radius of home, memory is even more important. It may be the only way to keep in touch with one's roots and the legacy of family. My solution is one way of bringing the past to life, but I'm a writer and words and pictures are my touchstone with life and memory. I live a half a continent away from my family but they are never far from my thoughts or my heart. I want my grandchildren to share a bit of what makes them who they are and to feel all their roots, my side of their roots, too.

It's All About the Words

When Jon Land offered to read and review my novel, Among Women, I was a little anxious. He was after all an internationally known author and I was just the person who had read and reviewed several of his books, and not always with glowing words. I pointed out shortcomings and places where the plot or characters didn't quite work, but the surprise was that with every review, he has thanked me unconditionally -- and agreed with my assessment. It's not like he could change the books to fix the plot holes but he was gracious. That was the one thing I counted on -- him being gracious -- even if he didn't like my novel.

He is also a gentleman. I could forget about any soul ripping or prose rending as I've endured with former friends who have decided to vent their spleen on me by trashing my work. I knew he would be honest whatever the outcome.

I sent him my book in April and a few days ago he gave me his answer.

"With AMONG WOMEN, J.M. Cornwell has fashioned an emotionally bracing tale of love, loss, and redemption.  Here is a book of rare depth in both character and story, tragic and uplifting at the same time in the tradition of Alice Walker, Terry McMillan and Judith Guest.  Certain to stay with you long after you've turned the last page and just as certain to leave you eagerly awaiting the talented Cornwell's next effort."

--Jon Land, bestselling author of STRONG AT THE BREAK and BETRAYAL

I was stunned, shocked, and pleased. I've not been compared to McMillan, Walker, or Guest -- and I wasn't quite sure who Judith Guest was. I found out pretty quickly. She wrote Ordinary People and several books in the same vein. Walker and McMillan I knew; I've been fans of them both for years.

The extravagance of the blurb is undeniable and I thanked Jon profusely. If I wasn't a fan of his Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong before now, I would be soon. However, I am a fan and have been since the first book. Jon writes solid and timely thrillers and, while I quibble on occasion with some of his plot choices and point out the holes, he is overall a solid writer with a vast imagination.

I've been told that authors praising other authors doesn't make a difference to the reading public and yet publishers and authors put blurbs from recognizably famous authors on the backs of their books. I didn't do that with Among Women because I hadn't sent galleys or advanced reading copies to any authors who had agreed to read the book. I could barely get people I know to read the book. They're always too busy, don't read that genre, or just don't read at all. I have a rather long list of authors whose books I've read and reviewed, but I didn't think it appropriate to ask them to read my book, and I didn't ask any of the authors I've known for years and corresponded with. I wanted the reading public to start talking about my novel and my writing, good or bad (preferably good), and start the snowball rolling down Mount Everest. The snowball seems to be stalled at base camp 2.  Or is it 3?

The thing about the writing business is no one really knows how it works. Authors who tell great stories and couldn't put together a cogent grocer list zoom to the top of the charts, garnering automatic fame and a considerable fortune.  Authors who know how to market and tweet and socialize like madmen and write formulaic drivel zoom to the top of the charts, too. All too often, authors who do it all right and follow the rules, barely make it to the middle of the pack. It's a crap shoot, especially for indies, and fragmenting themselves and their efforts following what worked for other authors doesn't do much good, except to provide a little bump in sales. There is no tried and true method of getting ahead and advertising on no budget isn't an option. The only thing left is the story.

I read a post Amanda Hocking wrote recently about how everyone talks about all the millions of dollars she has made and no one mentions that she writes books with stories that people want to read. It's all about the story even though the editing and proofing are horrible. She's one of those who write fantasy and fantasy is hot right now, so what happens to someone like me who writes books about real people in real situations? Base camp 2 -- or 3. You know, right at the summit.

I don't know what else to do but keep writing what moves me and keep hoping that among the seven billion people on this earth, a few paltry million will discover my stories and decide to read them.

Jon Land did me a huge favor by reading my book and I hope, by putting his views here, others will feel the same way and read. I don't socialize and network all the time (I have two full time jobs) and I don't haunt the bulletin boards and forums. I'd have no time to write if I did. That just leaves this story and the ones that came before and the ones that will continue to follow. Somewhere along the way, I hope it is enough.

It's all about the words.

 

Pick Me, Pick Me!

Three more days until the end of the Preditors & Editors annual poll for the best of the best -- or at least the best of who knows about the site and nominates themselves or someone else's books, stories, articles, art work, and all things publishing online. What it really comes down to is popularity contest and often whether a book, article, etc. is good or not is secondary to who knows the most people.

All over the net where I spend most of my time writers, editors, publishers, and the industry people are hawking their wares and begging for votes. There is no blind judging panel sequestered in their cubicles or homes reading, making notes, and employing their hard won skills and literary acumen to decide the fate of the finalists. It's just like high school when the in-crowd and the popular people cozy up to the fringe sector to woo votes and influence the final outcome. Does that make the Preditors & Editors awards less useful or less worthy? No.

The award does garner attention for the independent (indie) authors, editors, publishers, and artists who spend the rest of the year working hard to produce books, magazines, articles, etc. that rival the slick print and traditionally published versions, and often surpass them, because it is a labor of love. Why shouldn't they be allowed to call on all their friends and fans to nominate and vote for them when in the end it's all about the fans and friends who buy their work?

While the awards may not have quite the clout or the sheen that a Pulitzer, National Book, or high profile prizes do, any award is proof that what the artist and writer have produced is notable.

Am I entered?

You bet, and you can wander on over, if you've a mind to, and vote for me for my novel Among Women. After all, I've used up all the oomph I gained from the awards I won as teenager and young adult. I need all the oomph I can get.

Vote and tell your friends. I'd like to be the most popular for a change instead of the most useful. 

The Path of Adaptation

People talk about reinventing themselves, making themselves over, but reinvention is what life is all about, and the journey from infant to adult to senior citizen is all part of the process.

A newborn infant grows and gets stronger, changing from immobile to mobile, but only in the sense of being able to crawl, walk, run, and race. Each milestone is a reinvention of the previous state, a constant state of flux until reaching a plateau from which more milestones are reached. Preschooler becomes a child going to school, learning, changing, embracing the lessons learned and new goals are chosen, or at least aimed for, as new paths open up. Elementary schoolers become middle schoolers (junior high schoolers in my day) and then high schoolers. Some high schoolers go to trade school, junior college, and university, and some go directly into the working world, reinventing themselves every step of the way. Some paths work out better than others and there are opportunities to switch paths -- or horses -- to find what works better or is forced upon us by circumstance or situation.

As a child, my dream was to go to college (university in European parlance) and become a writer and Supreme Court Justice. I didn't make it since my mother felt that their college dollars should go to my brother, the male heir, since he would have a family to support. He is five years younger and was six years behind me in school. By the time I had graduated with a degree, he would still not have been ready to go to college, and I would have been invested in my new career and making enough money I could help. That wasn't part of my mother's vision and thus not part of the deal, so I changed course, or rather it was changed by my choices.

I was my parents' child and then became someone's wife. I had been reinvented from college-bound student to wife and, soon after, someone's mother. I was also a military wife and that was another path that converged with the wife and mother path. Two more children followed and then came divorce. I was reinvented as single mother with children working two jobs and I had to adapt again. Children moved away and I was reinvented as divorced female moving into middle-age, single and alone, but at last following a part of the path I'd dreamed of long ago. I was still divorced, still living alone, still working, but the hours not working at a day job were filled with reading and writing. I wasn't going to be a Supreme Court Justice, but I was going to be a writer.

As a writer I have reinvented myself several times. I moved from freelance to stringer for newspapers to freelance writing for magazines to PR and writing newsletters for businesses and associations and writing a novel part-time. I have since reinvented myself as novelist and blogger and continue to adapt to a changing environment, hoping one day to be reinvented as award-winning, self-supporting, well known author selling millions of books. Choices and the changing industry may change my plans, or disrupt them entirely, but I continue to adapt.

Adaptation is another word for reinvention, or repurposing in the modern PC parlance. Basically, it all comes down to finding a way to fit in and finding a niche that suits for a day, a week, or a lifetime. Some people move from child to adult to marriage, children, and old age together and some people never get beyond having arrived in adulthood still clinging to their childhood. Men are good at that; just look at the size and price of their toys. Substitute 'adapt' for 'reinvent' and it's the same thing.

I have adapted many times, being a military wife moving from base to base and state to state (sometimes even from country to country) makes it easy for me to fit into life's currents and swim, sometimes even to surf, snorkel, dive, and hydroplane. I've had many different jobs, starting off in sales and moving to cashier and then to keypunch and data processing and IT. Those skills allowed me to reinvent/adapt to become a transcriptionist and then a medical transcriptionist to keep the lights and phone on and a roof over my head to keep the rain, snow, sleet, and wind off the food, but I have remained always a writer, and sometimes an artist. I've managed offices and businesses and been a worker bee buzzing about someone else's hive. I've always adapted to reinvent myself again and again in an ever changing environment, hitting the ground running with very few stumbles. I am the same child born over fifty years ago and I am the new and improved, although somewhat battered and scarred, me that will continue on whatever life throws at me, adapting and reinventing myself as I go. Where I will end up even I don't know, yet it has been and continues to be a rollercoaster ride with surprised around every bend.

 

Skimming the Cream

Yesterday, I received a newsletter from Powell's Books to choose the best of 2011. There's a lot of that going around -- choosing the best of the previous year now that we are firmly ensconced in the new year. I decided to play along. After all, $250 in books is going to save me at least $250 in books that I will buy this year, or more accurately, this quarter (and sometimes this month).

I briefly flirted with choosing The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes, which would be a first for me since I seldom choose literary novels as my favorites, but there I was flirting. Then it dawned on me which was the best book I had read last year (always excepting my own Among Women, which I thought was a very good and notable book, but I would since I wrote it). The best book was The Help by Kathryn Stockett for its humor, social themes, writing, and mostly for its characters. I absolutely adore Minny's smart mouth and Aibilene's common sense and courage. Skeeter reminded me of me, ever on the fringe of the right people and the right causes but discontented with that place and questioning everything and everyone.

In the end, it's all subjective and my favorites might have been different had I read more books or read different books. I read a lot of good books, but very seldom stellar books like Barnes's and Stockett's, books that engage and surprise me, but most of all entertain me and enrich my life, and Barnes's book was barely a novella.

What I look for in other authors' books is the same thing I look for when writing my own -- integrity and courage. The themes and plots aren't as important  except as they bring the story together, as being true to the characters, setting, and heart of the novel. I can find that in any genre or literary novel and good writing is good writing whether it's for young adult fiction or adult fiction. Just give me something true and honest; just give me integrity.

Maybe that is what has stalled my own writing of late, lack of integrity. No, that's not it. What has stalled me is disappointment. I thought my book would be more widely read and people would talk about what I created, but no. Just no. If people are talking, they're not talking to me or anywhere else I can find outside the core of fans and good people (writers really) who keep touting my book, and that's one of the hardest pills to swallow in writing.

It takes some screenwriter or director optioning a book they've read or creating a show based on a book to get the masses interested. Take George R. R. Martin, for example. He wrote a marvelous series of books that are amazing in its breadth and scope, unforgettable characters, and themes that resonate in all parts of the world, yet it wasn't until HBO decided to make Game of Thrones that readers sat up and took notice. The geek world had been on fire as Martin created his series and waited a bit impatiently for each new piece of the Westeros puzzle, but The Song of Ice and Fire series didn't take off until HBO's version of the show. The same thing happened for The Help where people sat up and took notice when the movie was announced and released. Barnes's The Sense of an Ending didn't need to be made into a movie since it won the 2011 Man Booker Prize for fiction -- literary fiction, no others need apply.

The problem is that most people are followers and they look for the leaders to tell them where to go and what to read or watch, or watch and read. The authors keep plugging away at their day jobs, unless they already have created a following by writing tome upon tome like Martin, and I get that. I don't want to wait for some bright screenwriter or director or producer to decide that my book is ready for its closeup so the masses will see what they are supposed to watch and then read. I haven't made enough of a name for myself yet, and I'm getting impatient with being disappointed. I also don't want to work for someone else when I could be writing more books and getting paid for the writing alone, be able to live on my writing alone without the help of a regular 2 pm to 8:30 pm job. I want my closeup now.

While I wait, I read and read about 80 books last year, give or take a couple, and it may have been more. I read and review a lot of books, and the best book I read last year was Kathryn Stockett's The Help. I also watched the movie and it was very good and, for once, stuck to the book and didn't change the ending or combine characters or anything else that Hollywood usually does to jazz up the material. The Help stood all on its own.

If you're interested in weighing in on your favorite book of 2011, go to Powell's and cast your vote. If not, check out  Julian Barnes, Kathryn Stockett, and George R. R. Martin and then check out writers you've never read and your favorites, your literary comfort food, in whatever format is your favorite. The best advice I can give you for 2012 is read, read a lot.

Although 2012 is just beginning, it too will end and you'll have a chance to choose your favorite at the end of this year, but only if you read. Good luck and good reading.

Review: The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

Tony Webster begins his tale at the age of 60, a time when he reflects on the past and his friends, trying to find memories and meaning in what happened to explain the bequest from an old girlfriend's mother, who was once kind to him while the rest of her family taunted him and made him feel awkward and out of his depth.

Forty years ago, his best friend, Adrian, committed suicide, leaving a note that was the essence of the young man giving up his life, in Roman style, and asking that the coroner publish his note. It wasn't a cry for help or a plea for forgiveness, but a rational and studied message that gave his life -- and his death meaning. Shocking as it was for his friends, and especially for Tony, it made sense -- Adrian's kind of sense. 

Now, Tony must revisit that past and those memories to see what was true and remains true, and what was illusion.

It is not too difficult to find books that will blend past remembrance with current struggles, but Julian Barnes does not give Tony Webster anything to struggle against at first glance. Tony doesn't need to bring things full circle, as Victoria suggests, nor does he become maudlin and regretful about his past or his life since Adrian's death. Tony takes life as it comes, so he says, until he needs to wear away at the stones that bar his path, like an insurance company and most especially Victoria, hitting each with letters and emails that slowly, carefully, and thoughtfully wear down their resistance and give Tony what he wants. He is the water that drip, drip, drips until a hole is achieved. That is the essence of The Sense of an Ending, and what makes it work.

The Sense of an Ending is barely a novella but is sufficiently long to tell the story and give up all the details without too much overbearing style or too many bloated words. It is simply a good story told with economy and a subtle richness that makes the story fly; I read it in a matter of hours.

There are echoes of what is coming by the suicide of a school fellow who finds out his girlfriend is pregnant and hangs himself, leaving a quite note: Sorry, Mum. Adrian's death is more thoughtful and yet no one finds out, not even the reader, why he decided to end his life. Was it in typical Adrian fashion because he was finished or because he felt that nothing more could be accomplished after a first at Cambridge and honors to fill his cabinet? The answer to that lies in the diary that Victoria refuses to hand over to Tony, the diary her mother left him in her will, along with a letter and $500.

Tony is as clueless as Victoria claims throughout their relationship and during their struggle over Adrian's diary and that is aptly shown at the ending of The Sense of an Ending, but, in Tony's defense, little was given him and he wasn't curious enough to look farther than what was right in front of him.

What is best about The Sense of an Ending is not just a story told well, but how memory deceives and changes over time and how it can become as clear as clean glass when one least expects it. Although Tony claims to be a peaceful guy who wants nothing more than peace in his life, he is shown as someone who lets life happen to him rather than making life happen. He accepts all without rancor or regret, except when he finds out that Victoria is now with Adrian, and he muddles through without too much effort or thought, even to remaining friends with his ex-wife, who left him for someone else and eventually divorced. When she wanted to get back together, Tony said no because he liked his simple life as it was -- simple and without clutter or responsibility. In a sense, Tony committed emotional suicide in his youth and ghosted through the rest of life.

The Sense of an Ending, no matter its length, is worthy of the Man Booker Prize it won this year and I highly recommend it.

Review: The Bone People by Keri Hulme

The Maori legends and culture are the centerpiece in Keri Hulme's The Bone People, Man Booker Prize winner 1985.

The story centers around Kerewin, a wealthy artist estranged from her family and living alone in a tower in Moerangi, Joe Gillayley, widower and foster father of Simon Peter Gillayley, a young boy found at the age of 3 washed up on a nearby beach and a devil of a young man who can't, or won't, speak. He's far too advanced for his age and a regular hellion.

The story begins when Kerewin finds Simon has broken into her home. They begin a tenuous relationship that eventually includes Joe. As the trio become closer, Kerewin discovers what Joe's family, all of whom live nearby, already knows: he beats Simon, leaving scars from the belt buckle he uses. Joe gets drunk, loses his temper when Simon throws something or does something he shouldn't (steal, break into other people's homes, etc.), and the beatings commence. The story isn't so much about the abuse, but about the relationship between the three: a confirmed virgin in her late 20s, early 30s, a man looking for love and acceptance, and Simon looking for a family and someone to accept and understand him, warts and all.

Keri Hulme creates a dream world that shares echoes with reality in The Bone People. She winds the central tale about the internal monologues of the three central characters, and some of the background characters, and adds poetry, songs, and a sense of otherworldliness into the story. The quick side tracks and segues into monologue, legends, and hints at back story are vertiginous at times and heighten the suspense of the central question of who Simon really is.

It took me a while to figure out that the Maori dialogue was referenced in the back of the book since there were no footnotes or links or mention of the translations and that was frustrating. I wanted to know what the people were saying and how it affected the story. It was like being part of a conversation where others are speaking a different language at times.

I did like the Maori legends and the dynamics of family relationships, or the lack of them in Kerewin's case, but not so much the hints at some problem between Kerewin and her own family and why she had no contact with them. There are sections when the story soars and the writing is clear as glass and others where style has overwhelmed the story. Too much was left unwritten and still unclear at the end of the book. Much of what was left out or hinted at should have been tied into the ending and wasn't.

The Bone People is a good book, but not a great one. It allows a peek into the Maori culture and offers some broad hints about the clash between Maori and Europeans that added texture to an already intricately textured book. The style is very different from most books I've read in the literary genre and that's not necessarily a bad thing, but took some getting used to in the beginning. All in all, Keri Hulme did a good job with the book but forgot the main reason for writing a story -- the story. I'm all for magical realism, and this book is definitely in that realm, but I'd have to give the overall effect a C+.

 

The Gift of Silly

A close friend is going through a particularly bad patch of depression right now. She told me she feels empty and I missed the point when I offered some suggestions to ease the depression and get back on the holiday track. I do that sometimes, offer help instead of just shutting up and listening. It's my nature. I'm the fix-it girl.

As I read her post on Live Journal about not wanting pity or sympathy or quick-fixes (guilty as charged), I thought about what she said about not being able to get out and get those little inexpensive gifts for friends that makes her holiday season more like a holiday and less like just another season, and I decided to make things a little better (I hope) by getting her a few fun little gifts to help her find a way to smile again, if only for a fleeting moment.

As I looked through page after page of little gifts, I began to smile. Slinkies and pocket Etch-a-Sketches and all manner of plush toys you can fling from a sling. Those plastic-enclosed pictures filled with iron filings you can move about to make different faces with an attached magnet, Magic 8 Balls, and any number of other little pocket- and stocking-sized gifties from my past, and possibly from yours. The items are all silly in one way or another, but remembering the hours I spent playing those games, making faces, seeing if Silly Putty really could pick up comics from the funny papers (it does), and generally just having fun were the best.

In addition to the usual gifts I give my grandchildren, I'm giving them something silly and fun to create memories for times like these when they need to be cheered up or want to cheer up a friend. I'm still giving them the books and other gifts I've chosen, but now they'll get a little something fun and silly. It's what grandmothers are for -- and what grandchildren are for.

The holidays are hard enough for some people as they scramble around making do with what little money they can afford to spend or making and baking gifts because it's more personal and from the heart -- and hand -- and often because they are lonely far from home in a foreign land or in their own country and isolated by circumstance, health, or whatever reason and not able to spend it with family and friends. One little something, a plastic egg of Silly Putty or a tiny Etch-A-Sketch or Magic Doodle Pad that disappears when you raise the plastic film or a Slinky, can make the difference between another silent night full of sadness and regret or a night of laughter and nonsense. I'm choosing the laughter and nonsense, so thank you, my friend, for reminding me I can't fix everyone's problems, but I can fix my own. It's a wonderful gift.

One Voice

I don't usually write about politics here, or anywhere, although I have at times become so angry with what is going on that I let myself go and put it out there . . . in writing. That's what writers do -- write.

As I watch the Democrats and Republicans scrapping over the country's votes and Obama gearing up for yet another campaign, as if he ever got off the campaign trail since he started umpteen years ago, I am appalled by what I see and what the elected representatives of the people call working in our best interests, that is the interests of the common man, the people who elected him, and those who did not but must look to him or her as their voice. The only voices those politicians hear are their own and those of the people who lobby for their attention with money, favors, and power. It's called bribes or baksheesh anywhere else in the world.

Had these politicians been paying attention the people would not be rising now, first with the Tea Party movement, which was co-opted by the Republicans and twisted to their own ends, and now with Occupy Wall Street, and the politicians are getting nervous, as well they should. It is just such anger and resentment coupled with the need to know what is being done about fixing this broken ship of state that led to the creation of the United States of America and the colonists' break from England. I'm sure King George was just as appalled by what he considered disrespectful behavior no in accordance with the terms of agreement between colonist and king. The colonists should have been thankful to be British citizens and to provide the mother country with goods and money that it needed to continue looking after them -- and they were definitely not thankful. Why should they be when they were asked to carry a burden of taxes for people who didn't work the land or undergo the privations and conditions of this new world, or allow them representation in Parliament?

To some modern day scholars, it was the rich that flung the fortunes of all at the King of England and his Redcoats just so they could pay fewer taxes, and yet it was the common man killed in the streets of Boston during the massacre and the average colonist who bravely withstood the Redcoats until this country was free of foreign rule.

Once again, we have the rich on the spit for our problems and the rich are the wo/men elected to do our bidding, to be the voice of the common man, but the common man doesn't have the sense to know how to wheel and deal in the halls of power, intrigue, and bartering for favors that passes for legislation. They no longer have any connection to the majority of Americans who are marching, assembling, and angry about what is being done to them and to their country. How could they when they no longer live and work among us, intent only on the acquisition of power and wealth?

America's government is not a democracy but a republic, which is defined as:

a (1) : a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president (2) : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government

b (1) : a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law (2) : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government.

When asked what kind of government the first constitutional convention Ben Franklin said, "A republic, if you can keep it."

There is no form of government or power that cannot be twisted and turned into something other than what it was designed for. There have been benevolent and thoughtful rulers among the despots and good presidents who have had what is best for the whole country at heart. By and large the rulers, and a president does rule in a sense, as one friend puts it, as the face of the franchise, have been drunk on power and their own importance and the common man suffers. The excrement always rolls down hill due to gravity and its own weight and now the excrement has hit the oscillating blades and the power brokers are shaking in their shoes.

It is about time, too.

Okay, so why should anyone pay any attention to me -- or to anyone with an opinion (and there are a lot of people with a lot of opinions out here)? To get a different perspective, to hear and pay attention to the growing roar of the angry and disenfranchised Americans who have been cheated, lied to, and treated like dirt. (I think there's a song in there somewhere.)

I am the canary in the coal mine telling you the air could be dangerous. You should worry when I no longer sing because then you're dead and it's too late to get out, to clear the air, to breathe.

The Democrats are determined to put the world right by any means necessary and save us from ourselves, rescue our world and the people in it from extinction -- or worse. They are the ones who slowly made cigarette smoking nearly a crime and want us all to drive hybrid or electric cars or gas up at the alternative fuel station and to pay for the privilege on both ends.

The Republicans meanwhile are busily engaged in the usual sleight-of-hand while they substitute politics for sticking their noses into everyone else's private business and bedrooms and calling it Right.

Both parties are out of step and out of line. They are supposed to be the voice of the people not to dictate morality and who can or cannot marry, serve in the military, or dine out in public while they hide their barely post pubescent mistresses, receipts for prostitutes and toy boys, and various schemes for keeping power and money in their hands while wrecking the world around them. They are the Neros who continue to fiddle while Rome burns and looking for someone to take the blame while they're still sending out troops to set the fires.

America no longer produces much of anything except contempt and a growing unemployed mass of people who can no longer keep up with the Joneses -- or the Muhammads and Krishnamurtys -- any more. It isn't just the rich getting richer, but a small fraction of rich who got their wealth by taking it from the very people necessary to create the wealth they covet and beg, borrow, and steal to maintain. Who actually needs or can spend in ten lifetimes $200 billion dollars, or even $50 million dollars? Okay, anyone who wants a gold toilet seat encrusted with precious gems and wired for WiFi and iPhones, but there aren't that many people out there who ever feel comfortable sitting on a toilet seat that would feed, clothe, and house a family of five for ten years. Those that do are called masochists -- and looters with very poor taste.

The bottom line is that America is slowly slipping into a top-heavy pyramid of excess that is poised on its head and ready to crash and destroy everything around it. There's a reason the pyramids were built with their broad bases resting solidly on the ground and not on their pointed tops. It's time to clean house and get rid of every Democrat and Republican and president and politician who is out for themselves and replace them with Daniel Boones and Rosie the Riveters who know what the people and this country need.

I've said it before and I will say it again and again. It's time to throw the looters out and get back to what America did better than any other country -- produce. It's time to stop worrying about whether or not same sex couples want to marry and have children and whether or not gays want to serve in the armed forces. Anyone in this country willing to wear the uniform and do the job should be able to do so -- and the pay should be commensurate with the risk and the danger. If someone wants to make serving the people a career, let him work for the fire department, police and sheriff's departments, and in other service jobs, but not in the legislature.

It's time to focus on fixing this broken republic and put it back on course. The current slate of candidates will not do the job, as we have amply seen in the past three years under the leadership of Obama and his ilk, who have subverted the Constitution and the will of the people under the guise of hope and change. Well, we hoped Obama would change the policies, and he did, but only to make further inroads into the destruction of this country and for personal gain. He has no clear objective, other than destruction, and no clear policies. It's time for a real change and so far I'm not liking what's out there.

It's time to take back our country and put it on a paying -- not borrowing -- basis. People will make their own choices and that is as it should be. It isn't the rich we have to fear, but the greedy. If we want change, it has to come from the people and from the wo/men with vision willing and able to produce a product or service that will bring change, not from legislation and back door deals.

It's time for the sheep to become proactive and extend the reach and power of movements like Occupy Wall Street. The time for asking questions is over. It's time to roll up our sleeves and clean house.

Hand Over the Fruitcake, Please

Shopping for fruitcake has been an interesting experience and I've come across quite a few variations on the fruitcake theme, including a monastery in Oregon that sells 6 slices of fruitcake covered in chocolate for almost as much as a whole tinned fruitcake. Maybe not. Don't think the fruitcake is like Boston brown bread steamed in a tin but one of those lovely tins that Gram used to save buttons in with holiday pictures and traditional holiday and Jacobean pattern paintings. There was one tin, which I still have, that was covered in a classic Wedgwood pattern in blue and white, that lovely Wedgwood blue that is so indicative of real Wedgwood china. The paper's torn in a couple of places, but the tin is still good and full of buttons Gram collected and I inherited, some of which are gone because I used them on outfits I made here and there.

What I don't get are the jokes about fruitcake. Yes, it's heavy (weight-wise) because of all the fruit and nuts (my favorite always had pecans) packed inside, and the cake itself is dense, but a good fruitcake that's aged in whiskey or brandy is a rich and delectable treat that spells Christmas for me as surely as flaming plum pudding does for some Englishmen (and women, too). Our holidays when Gram was alive was not complete unless there was fruitcake, great thick slabs of it glistening with glaceed fruit and redolent of brandy. I don't know that Mom was so persnickety in those days because she even had a piece, despite her no alcohol in the food stance. Eating the whole fruitcake wouldn't have been even close to enough to get anyone drunk, not even a newborn, if the child had the teeth and taste buds to be able to enjoy the treat, but that's a story for another time. This time it's about fruitcake.

I guess because of all the nuts and fruit, that's why fruitcake became another word for a score sheet full of gutter balls or a few bricks shy a load. Just another way to call someone insane -- or nearly there.

And then there are the jokes about fruitcakes so heavy they were used as bricks to build a grill outside after years of fruitcakes had piled up in the basement, still inedible and fireproof to boot. Or that someone threw a piece of fruitcake and knocked out their spouse, as if that is even possible. Talk about hyperbole. It's all about taste, and a good fruitcake is packed with taste, and those that love fruitcake will agree, it's not Christmas without it.

It wouldn't be human without contention and disagreement, choosing up sides to fire off against opponents. What is it about people that they just can't enjoy themselves and allow others to do the same, even if what they enjoy isn't what you enjoy? There are so many things in life to choose that it is a waste of time to sneer at others who choose something else. People able to afford cashmere give the cold shoulder to someone wearing a polyester blend sweater or a cardigan someone knitted or crocheted as a gift. Drivers of BMWs thumb their noses at drivers of Mercedes and Volvos who in turn look down their noses at anyone who drives a Ford Taurus or Chevy Cavalier, and all of them look enviously at the couple with the top down driving the vintage Ford Mustang or classic Jaguar or Spider. It's plain to see they like what they bought, so there's no reason to denigrate someone who either couldn't afford or preferred another type of car.

We're all about contention and disagreement. My mother is famous for it, calling me up just to argue because no one in Ohio will argue with her and she knows I will -- or rather I did until I figured out that was her game. She picks and pushes buttons until I -- or anyone else -- respond and push back, verbally of course. Luckily, I live far enough away so that it doesn't matter if I decide to make or buy a fruitcake. It's too late to make one, although I have the cheese cloth and the liquor store isn't far away, because I don't have a month or two until Christmas to age the fruitcake properly in the closet soaking in rum or brandy or whisky. It takes time to make a fruitcake the right way, the traditional way.

In the meantime, I'll keep looking and avoid the place where I bought one last year. I got a tiny fruitcake, hardly more than 2 good slabs, for $30 and I want fruitcake to spare for the holiday, or until the new year, whichever comes first. Mock me if you will, call me names, and snicker when you read this, but I will enjoy every morsel and crumb of my holiday tradition and you can enjoy yours, even if it does involve a liquor-soaked flaming plum pudding.

Come to think of it, I need a good old-fashioned mincemeat pie, too, just like the one Mrs. Jonathan Frake won the blue ribbon for at the Iowa State Fair.

Happy holidays.

Who's a Bully?

The only person who ever bullied me was my mother. Bullies come in all shapes, sizes, and backgrounds, which is something I was reminded as I watched The Big Bang.

I was talked into watching the show and I love it. Last night's show was about bullies.

Leonard got a message on Facebook from one of the high school bullies who made his life hell. He wanted to meet and Leonard finally agreed to do so -- with his friends. Penny, Bernadette, and Amy were trying on clothes and having a little hen party and Amy and Bernadette talked about their bullies. Penny had no bullies in her life because she came from a nice place where no one bullied anyone else, but they did play pranks on each other. That's when it came out that Penny was the bully.

As I watched these adults work their way through the demons of their past, or realize they were the demons of the past, it dawned on me that Sheldon is a bully. He hides behind his intricate rules and ways of doing things and makes everyone's life miserable until they fall in line. Bully. That reminded me of another bully, a woman who was a close acquaintance and who bullied everyone in her life, but not with pranks or tricks. She bullied with her intellect, which wasn't all that great, but definitely above the average.

Sheldon and my acquaintance are bullies of the intellect, using their intelligence to make everyone else feel smaller and less accomplished, and that is just as bad as some big brute or beautiful girl who uses their assets to make everyone less brawny or cute to feel just as small, even when they don't stuff them into a locker.

When you get right down to it, bullies are basically narcissists, among other things, and they feel inadequate so they must knock everyone else down to feel superior. Come to think of it, I've known a lot of bullies in my life, and they were often people I looked up to (for a while) or called friend, but not for long. Their true natures eventually came out and I walked away, not without some emotional bruises and scars, but I walked away all the same.

Bullying happens in writing and publishing, too, but the only bullies seemed to be traditional publishers. They are no longer alone. Bullies crop up every day in indie publishing and among the writers, too. It still comes down to the same equation. If you feel inadequate or small, make everyone around you feel small, and sometimes the bullies are a little hard to detect because they seem to be doing you a favor or telling you some truth. Let me give you a hint: Even bullies know a few things and they're not shy about sharing -- or making you feel stupid and small.

Any time someone cuts you down or denigrates your choices, you may be in the presence of a bully. Any time you feel like your success has been turned to dross, a bully was likely behind it.

The only way to exorcise bullies and weaken their influence is to walk away and ignore them. Take what's useful and discard the rest. If someone makes you feel stupid for going the traditional or the indie route in publishing, ignore them. It's your choice and you're the only one who has to live with it. If it doesn't work out, then choose something else, but do not allow anyone the power over you to make you feel small or question your choices. All questions should come from inside you and not from some bully.

Life is difficult enough without being bullied, and there are plenty of bullies in every walk of life. Keep one eye on the bullies and the other on your path. Make your own choices and ignore the rest. It's your life after all, and bullies seldom change. They just switch games.

Marking Time

I was shopping (well, browsing) and I saw the signs for a 2012 calendar. I'm usually figuring out budgets and when I can afford to get my 2012 calendar, usually some time in January when they go on sale. This year, even with the lapse in paychecks (fired and then hired and then waited for a month to get a check), I bought my 2012 desk calendar two months ago.

For most people, a desk calendar is a way of marking days. For me, it's mini version of my journal with birthdays, anniversaries, and notable moments along the year's path. It's also the place where I keep a record of paying bills and buying food and appointments. A glance through any desk calendar will give you a quick view of what I did that year.

Yes, I keep them to refer back to for details, as a goad to memory when I know I did something at a certain time but just cannot remember when, and as a way of reminding myself how full -- or usually empty -- my days were of writing. Book launch days, personal appearances, the road to publication and the marketing and struggle to get people interested enough to buy and review my books, it's all there on the page, and I don't have to read through hundreds of pages of writing to find it. It's quick. It's simple. It's there.

I did get smart, though, about the time I found Levenger's metal page markers. Little pointed arrow-like metal clips that fit over the page to mark a passage. I began using them in books I was reviewing when highlighting text I would use in the review and then decided it was a good idea to use them in my journals to mark the spots when I was writing through problems with a book or fleshing out characters or themes or whatever in books I have yet to write. Again, it's better than having to read hundreds of pages to find one little moment when I had a brainstorm. My journals have a glint of gold about the pages in various spots, pages I marked with the little metal arrow-like thingies. Now I need to find a way to note what book the passages mark, so I don't have to read all the pages with markers on them.

There are paper arrows with space enough to write on, but that's not going to work. Paper gets torn and crunched up when they sit on the shelf, and the glue gets old and the arrow drop off if I don't get around to it for a while. The metal thingies work perfectly. I guess I'll have to work with what I've got and take those trips down memory lane more often until I memorize which journal, which year, and which months (a journal lasts me about 2-3 months) to look in. I have hundreds of journals written day by day over more than twenty years. If only I could turn them into books or, better yet, they would turn into books. Alas, that's not likely.

Maybe I could make a notation on the desk calendar about that, too. Some pages are awfully blank. Then again, some are pretty full, just like life. Some days, nothing, and then days when there aren't enough hours to get it all done. And so it goes.

I'll figure it out, but suggestions are welcome.

How do you use your desk calendar -- if you have one. If you don't have one, why not?

By the way, the little picture up on the right is of the page nibs (arrow-like thingies) and they're available from Levenger's. They make good bookmarks and great gifts for the writers and readers on your list.

Economics 101

Occupy Wall Street has gone global. People are angry and they're not sure why or to whom they should direct their outrage. It's really about economics and what should be going on and isn't. Take a lesson from the King of the Elves in the following cartoon. He sets the shoemaker right. This is Economics 101. It's not difficult and it's not about power or grabbing as much money as possible, but about using resources intelligently to make a product to sell that people want and/or need. In this case, it's shoes. Pay attention. There will be a test. It's called life.

That is all. Disperse.

Nothing to See, Lots to Write

The water is running in the bathroom and kitchen and the water bill will be higher than usual because of it. I don't care. I can't, not when the alternative is frozen pipes and no water for a few days. I went through that at the beginning of the year and I don't want to go back there again. No toilet, no water, and bitter cold. So I'll pay the extra because of the subzero weather and be grateful for the water.

It's amazing what makes me grateful these days. Running water and heat. Being able to buy a book or indulge myself with a pizza instead of the usual round of frozen and shelf stable dinners. Being without a paycheck for six weeks will do that. I'm back and the paychecks have started up again and I'm doing all right, except that I can't figure out what OASDI is on my paycheck and why it's deducted from my pay, so a quick check was in order. It's the new name for Social Security: Old Age Survivors and Disabilities Insurance. Okay, so it's descriptive, but what was wrong with Social Security? More useless labels, just what everyone needs, and I can do without.

Nothing like reminding me that I am getting older and should be closer to the end than the beginning, and I would be if I weren't going to live another 96 years. Yes, I plan to live to a ripe old 150. I can dream, can't I? It's where it all begins -- dreams.

I still have dreams about writing lots of books and getting paid for them, of people talking about my books and getting what I put into them, of living a life different than the one I live now where I'm grateful for breezes around the windows and doors because it keeps out the specter of carbon monoxide and running the water all night, and all day if necessary, keeps the pipes from freezing. I don't like having to rely on other people and, as long as I rent, that's what I'll have to do. I'm at the mercy of a landlord who doesn't care enough about keeping this house up, like making sure it's insulated, everything works, and the roof doesn't leak like a sieve. He's too busy on building his other properties while this one deteriorates at an increasily rapid rate. I'd buy it, except he wouldn't sell and I can't afford it right now, not until my books sell more than they have.

That's the way it always is, dreaming about what you don't have so you don't enjoy what you have. I get that way sometimes, but only when the weather is below freezing and the water is running. It's the way of things, the need to focus on the bad and forget about the good, like reading there could be a cure for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's in the lichen used to create the red dye so prevalent in junk food. No wonder my mother is still around. She eats nothing but junk food. She forgets things sometimes, but that's just atrophy in a brain that's used for little more than arguing and demanding her children (that would be me and my siblings) see she's right when we all know she's wrong. She has no good memory of things but she insists that she remembers. It's the usual dichotomy of someone who spent all of her life controlling the people around her, mostly Dad, and is suddenly cast adrift because her favorite focus of abuse is now dead, and we all deal with her in various ways.

My brother, the Mushroom, stays away from her and keeps his life and himself to himself. Beanie avoids her, except at the beginning of the month when she has to give Mom her B12 shot and whenever she blows up Beanie's phone while she's at work. Hoity-Toity lives with her, but spends all her time at work so she doesn't have to deal with her too much. Well, that and because she doesn't have a man in her life for a change. He got tired of Hoity-Toity's controlling ways and constant niggling about how cheap he is and gave her the gate on Valentime's Day over a year ago. I heard he's come back with a motorcycle and plans to take her out again. He's either addicted to the nagging and belittling or he is a classic masochist missing his daily dose of sadistic treatment -- probably a bit of both. And then there's me.

I keep my contact with Mom brief and usually talk to her on Thursdays, unless she calls me to ask who this actor or that author is because she can't remember. Like Tom Wingo, I am her memory -- on everything but my own life, about which I cannot be trusted to remember. I used to argue with her about that, but gave it up when I realized that was mostly the reason she started the argument in the first place. She knows my buttons and she pushes them with gusto and unholy glee. I've learned to just tell her she's right (not very often) or say I have to go to the bathroom, which gets me off the phone and gives me time to realize she's pushing my buttons again. She lives for confrontation, which is why all of us, my siblings and I, have an aversion to confrontation . . . in varying degrees. I, less so, because I have had to fend for myself by myself a long time. Mom lives to argue and I have been her favorite opponent even before Dad died. It took me a long time to figure that one out, and that is one thing I had that I do not miss now that I don't have it -- or at least avoid it most of the time.

But, without Mom and my estranged siblings (except for Beanie) and my lack of luck with man-woman relationships, I'd have nothing to write about. It would be all sunshine and flowers, sweetness and light, and who wants to read about that? It does get boring after a while, which is why I write what I do. Oh, well, life's a mixed bag of tricks and each comes with its own warning -- most of which we don't understand until they land on us full force -- like the water bill when it comes. I'll have at least nine months to recoup. Meanwhile, I'm thankful for budgets on utilities that take the financial kinks out of what could be a disaster, but a small disaster compared to replacing pipes and hiring plumbers when the pipes freeze from the lack of insulation, old works, and absentee landlord, except when the rent is late 5 minutes. That's life in the big city.

And, yes, I still miss the cabin. I do not miss the owners of said cabin who dropped in whenever they liked without a phone call or the balloon payments on propane and paying twice for something that was on the budgets. Yes, more stories, and stories upon stories, from the highway pile-up that sometimes resembles my life.

There are shining moments when a helping hand reached down to me or I was able to reach down for someone else, but those are best left untold. In that at least I prefer to remain anonymous.

M. Eve and Spartacus

The M in M. Eve is for mitochondrial. Mitochondrial Eve is one of the clan mothers, the first clan mother, who had at least two daughters who lived to have two daughters who had two daughters and so on up to the present time. Mitochondrial DNA is a circular spiral that has a neutral section that collects mutations, about one mutation for every 10,000 years, and is used to track connections between the generations. It is accurate and stable and it comes down to us through our mothers, the one parent we know without a doubt is the parent. Fathers? Not so much.

During conception, the sperm sheds its tail and his mitochondrial DNA when it enters the ovum during fertilization, which is why mitochondrial DNA can only be tracked through the maternal line. How do I know all this? I just finished reading The Seven Daughters of Eve, a book about the seven clan mothers, mitochondrial daughters of M. Eve, who are the progenitors of the peoples of Europe. Their DNA is in a large percentage of the European population and has been used successfully to determine whether or not archaeologists are correct about their assumptions regarding how people moved from continent to continent, where they came from, and what they did (hunter-gatherer or farmer). The book also shed light on some fascinating facts that turned archaeologists and historians on their ears.

There have been two camps, for instance, in determining where the polynesians came from, and it wasn't the Americas. They came through SE Asia and Tawain across the Pacific Ocean and against the prevailing currents to settle the islands between Asia and the Americas. Sorry about that, Thor Heyerdahl. His epic voyage on the Kon-Tiki was indeed a marvelous achievement, but it was wrong. The polynesians actually did come from Asia. The inclusion of yams, or sweet potatoes, in the diet was as a result of trade and not because they came from Chile or South America. Good guess, but wrong, although there is DNA that proves some females came from South America on a few of those trading expeditions and became part of the polynesian DNA. That's there, too.

As for Europe, it seems that the farmers did not push out the hunter-gatherers. They're still in Europe and they are the predominant population. They weren't pushed out; they adopted agriculture because they knew a good thing when they saw it. Historians and archaeologists were wrong about that one, and that was a hard fought realization in scientific circles.

The Seven Daughters of Eve is fascinating and even shares a bit of fictional fancy when reconstructing the lives of the seven women whose DNA is visible in the European population. I'd have to say the science is just as fascinating with its in-fighting and battling publications about the veracity and efficacy of using mitochondrial DNA. I enjoyed it thoroughly, so much I decided to begin another nonfiction book, The Spartacus War, something I haven't been able to do much of (reading, I mean) for years, not with my book review load.

I began The Spartacus War last night and dove right into the deep end of the pool. Spartacus was a Roman trained soldier who, for whatever reason (bandit, brigand, thief, or insurrectionist) was sold to a gladiatorial school. He was not a poor and ignorant slave, but a free man who was taken by the Romans and thrust into warring for them after Thrace was conquered. That's the way they did things back in the Roman days.

No wonder the Romans so feared Spartacus. He was a trained solider and a gladiator from a race of war loving people who knew how to fight a guerilla war, strengths that kept Rome from capturing and killing Spartacus for two years, while Spartacus freed rural slaves and wreaked havoc against Rome, while Rome fought two other battles, one with the Silesian pirates and the other with Mithridates. I haven't gotten very far into the book, but I already know it's going to be riveting.

I shouldn't be surprised that Stanley Kubrick took the facts, such as they are, and made a Hollywood movie, a movie, I might add, that I have enjoyed for decades. That's the way Hollywood does things. They take the facts, twist them into what they believe is a better story, and pass them off as entertainment. It worked -- to a point. I was entertained, but my interest has always been more for Spartacus's son and what his life was like after his father was crucified. I doubt I'll find out about that, but I can still dream there's a book out there that will shine a light on his son's life.

Or I can write one.

As much as I enjoy fiction, I often prefer a good nonfiction book on science and history. I haven't read a mathematics nonfiction book that really held my interest, but I keep hoping. Give me DNA and ancient history, astronomy and archaeology. Give me quantum physics and medicine once in a while and I will count myself content. Besides, all that nonfiction is fodder for fiction in helping the reader suspend disbelief and get into the story because there is a ring of truth. In the last case, the ring was mitochondrial DNA. I'm not sure what the ring is with Spartacus, but I'm sure I'll find it.

That is all. Disperse.

Humpty Dumpty Fell Off the Wall

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.

Humpty Dumpty should have been more careful and it's his fault he fell off the wall. Eggs, especially big eggs, have rounded bottoms. Without some kind of support, they fall over and roll all over the place just like they do on the kitchen counter -- and anywhere else they tend to be. It was Humpty Dumpty's fault he fell off the wall. He should have been more careful since a broken egg is not something that can be put back together with the insides intact, unless they were hard boiled, which negates Humpty's living existence, and we're back to the main point. It was Humpty Dumpty's fault he fell off the wall.

As in everything else in life, we are responsible for what happens to us, even when random violence strikes, because nothing is really random. It's all about behavior and foreshadowing and the choices we make. Had he not been walking down an alley in the middle of the night in a bad neighborhood to cut short a long walk or taking the garbage out at 3 a.m. because she forgot to do it earlier in the day when the sun was up, neither would have been harmed. Of course that does not negate the situation where someone drives a car through the front of the house, but, honestly, how often does that happen? 

It's like this morning. I have 10 days until the next VE session and have to send out emails to make sure we have a room, ham radio operators wanting a license or an upgrade, and the volunteers for the session are informed or there will be no session. Since we hold our licensing exams at Colorado Technical College and since they tend to change the person I need to request a room from changes quite often, and the person currently in charge does not respond in a timely fashion, I chose to send out the email this morning instead of waiting until Saturday, the way I have done in the past. I don't like surprises when I don't have time to fix the situation, so it was a no-brainer; do it now or get surprised and maybe not have a room. Good thing I chose to do it this morning because the person I've been reporting to recently is not longer at CTU. Luckily, there are always other people copied on emails, so I send out a group email to all of them so that someone will respond. Now, I have asked many times for them to inform me when they are no longer in charge of assigning rooms, but no one listens and I am never informed. This is my last exam session to arrange before someone else takes over, and I'd like to go out with a quite whimper and not a chaotic big bang, hence my need to be careful.

Life is full of small moments like this, moments that can be tracked back to me when someone decides to assign blame. If I had followed the usual method of emailing CTU the same time I email the volunteers and the public at large, then I would have been in a world of trouble and would have had to go into last resort measures to get things done. When the volunteers don't respond, all I need to do is add a dash of guilt and another feminine plea edged with tears welling (metaphorically speaking) and they respond. I can't do that with CTU and whoever is in charge this month. I get it. I need to plan better, and so I do.

My sons are always asking why me when trouble finds them, as it inevitably does. I have no sympathy for them. It's always them because they set up the situation. When they spend their money on frivolous things instead of paying the bills, then they are going to get caught short and have to scramble to keep the lights and phone on and not have to move. I learned that one a long time ago when I was a live now and pay later kind of gal. I was immature and irresponsible and always running one step ahead of trouble. It's what happens when a child goes out into the adult world without the proper preparation, and I was not prepared. I learned and I eventually figured things out, like sending emails ahead of time and being ready for trouble or putting off buying more stationery when the phone and utilities have to be paid. I've learned a new one, which is not all that new, and that is to put some money aside in savings every week so that when trouble comes, and it always comes, I will be prepared and the phone, utilities, and rent will be covered. It's another one of those no-brainer situations.

Everything happens for a reason, just as in a novel, television show, or movie. If you read and watch carefully, there are signs that what you see is not what is actually going on, that there are clues peppered throughout the book or show or movie that lead to the big ah-ha moment, like last Sunday on Dexter. It shouldn't have been a surprise that Gellar was dead and that Travis was actually doing the work and setting up the tableaus. Yeah, we saw Edward James Olmos doing the work, but it wasn't really him; it was Travis. He had taken on the persona of his mentor and his personality had split. He was still fighting that part of his personality, but one of the first clues should have been a dead giveaway. Dexter found a piece of parchment like Travis uses to restore old manuscripts that was used to repair the angel's wings. Why would Travis repair the wings if Gellar was the one who made them? Bingo! And there were other hints.

Another big surprise shouldn't have been a surprise on The Walking Dead. Shane is a jerk, a big, honking, Neanderthal, gun-toting jerk. He shot Otis and left him for the walkers so he could get away and he nearly killed his best friend and partner, Rick, when he rejoined them up in the mountains outside of Atlanta, so it should not have been a surprise that he would've have taken control of Herschel's farm with a gun in his hand. It's why Dale was going to sink the guns so that Shane would not have the firepower to do what he did at the barn. Dale was right when he said Shane was made for the world of the walkers. He's a violent man with no conscience, a law unto himself, and the zombie apocalypse freed him to be all he was and was meant to be. Dale should have killed Shane when he had the chance.

That's the thing about life and creative works. Even though it is said that what happens in real life would not fly in a novel, it's not true. It would fly because it does fly. Novels are the mirror image of life, pared down to the essence of things, but a clean and shiny mirror that shows everything, good and bad.  You just have to know where to look.

Unless you had the key, what you see in da Vinci's Last Supper or one of Ellis Peter's Cadfael mysteries is all a mystery. Look closer. All the clues and the evidence is there, just as in life. Set aside the emotions and outrage and look with clear eyes and a clear mind; you will see that it all tracks back to choices.

Why me?

Why Humpty Dumpty?

Isn't it clearer now?

The Real Meaning of Thanksgiving

We tend to forget what Thanksgiving is in celebration of. It's not about the food, although there was food at the first Thanksgiving, and more about giving thanks after a brutal period of time when there was little food and people died from privation, cold, heat, and disease. Many of the plants and seeds they brought with them wouldn't grow in the soil and their stores quickly dwindled. They were unfamiliar with the land, with the food growing all around them, and with the diseases and pests that took them down one by one. If it had not been for the natives, the Pilgrims would have died altogether, or disappeared like they did at Roanoke not many years before. When the second year came, the natives had taught them how to grow and harvest the new crops and how to survive.


That first thanksgiving dinner when the pilgrims thanked the natives and their god for bringing them through the year wasn't lavish by our standards. Game was plentiful and there was fish in the sea, but much of what was harvested had to be prepared and stored for the long winter months, and yet enough of it was left for them to share with the natives who made living in this land possible. It wasn't the food; it was the the chance to celebrate a good harvest and good friends.

Thanksgiving is a time to harvest the crops and celebrate the trials and tribulations and the triumphs of the year. I've a lot to celebrate.

This year I went independent and published a novel in print and ebook form. Sales have been iffy, but it's selling and I'm proud to have written the book, although there are still some problems with formatting and conversions I need to deal with.

I also lost a job that has caused me no end of heartache and frustration, a job I have worked for 6-1/2 years. While it seems like a mark in the negative column, it's really a blessing because I no longer have to be raped and pillaged by that company ever again. It also gave me a chance to find a better job, and that I did 2 weeks later, except that led to problems of its own. I had to wait a month to be paid, so that was 6 weeks without a paycheck and my previous employer made sure I didn't get unemployment. I fought her on that and the results of that fight are not in.

I finally got paid, which was enough to catch up the bills, but not buy the turkey dinner I was dreaming of for Thanksgiving, and I have to work the holiday since hospitals don't close and I don't have enough time saved (I actually get to see how much now) and didn't have 30 days to let them know I'd be taking the holiday. On the up side of that, I get paid time and a half for my time, and that is going to look good come the yule season since that's when I'll savor the fruits of this particular harvest. Pay is always 2 weeks behind the earning. My next check will be a tidy sum and I will be able to do something good with the money, like buy my granddaughter Savannah a birthday gift and that turkey dinner I was hankering for. I'll have a frozen Marie Callender turkey dinner for today, suitable thawed and nuked, but it will be alone at my desk in the chair that makes working a whole new level of ache.

I still have the new job to be thankful for and being back to regular paychecks with a place to view my earned vacation time and the occasional bonus for holidays. I get another benefit this year since Christmas and New Years are both on my days off and I will get paid and be able to enjoy the fruits of my labors and the changes in my life with a little peace, holiday music, and that turkey (or goose or ham) I've been waiting for.

All in all, this has been an interesting year with lots of changes and more changes to come in the new year. There will be tough times and times of joy, but mostly days I will have to get through one way or another. It hasn't been all good this year, but it hasn't been all bad either. I have friends. I have work. I have paychecks. I have lots to be thankful for, and that's what this holiday is all about -- the thanks. I give thanks for it all and for the chance to sit here and write my thanks for all the people who have made my life a little bit more interesting, a little bit tougher, and a whole lot richer.

Happy Thanksgiving.

That is all. Disperse.