To DRM or not to DRM.

It was Helen Ginger's post about DRM this morning that made me think seriously about book piracy, and piracy in general.

I used DRM on my first foray into self-publishing, but I no longer use it. The bottom line is that there will always be pirates, so why not make it easy for them. It's not just about pirates, though; DRM is about making life better for publishers and less so for the people who read. That's why Benjamin Franklin created the library system in the first place, a system that is in dire straits in the United Kingdom where libraries are being closed faster than a publisher's purse strings. 

DRM or Digital Rights Management keeps, as Helen writes, people from sharing a book between devices. You can create a Cloud as Amazon did or as Apple did with iCloud. Without DRM, a file sharing application isn't needed and you won't need a cloud just a connection between devices to share a book with a spouse, child, or friend, or even with someone you don't know. That's how libraries do it. No cost. No fuss. No membership. Go to the library, pick out a book, movie, CD, or magazine and take it home. You have to take it back to the library so someone else can borrow it, but that's a small price to pay.

I remember reading how Paul Coehlo, author of The Alchemist pirated his own book and uploaded it to BitTorrent to beat the pirates at their own game. The pirated copies were dreadful and had lots of errors. Coehlo uploaded a clean copy of his novel. His publisher was incensed, but the author felt it was the right thing to do. His magnanimous gesture didn't kill his book sales either. With more than 7 billion people on the planet, many of reading age, it's a big pool to fish for sales.

After I read what Coehlo had done, I decided to do the same with my novel, and I often hold promotions to give my first self-published novel, Among Women, for free. What I was surprised to find was that people continued to buy the novel after it was no longer free, even from as far away as Estonia. Of course I've sold more copies of my novel in Estonia than I have in the UK, but it's a beginning, and sales in the US have exceeded my expectations, both as free books and books sold. 

DRM is more a benefit for publishers than it is for authors or readers. DRM means you cannot share your book and another copy must be bought. That's short sighted, but publishers aren't known for their long game or for thinking beyond today's sales. If they did, books would be available, marketed and advertised for more than a few months. Instead, publishers end up dumping millions of books into landfills and selling them to remainder businesses. Very short sighted indeed.

If I can sell more books by giving away a few thousand, that should be enough evidence that removing DRM will not hurt book sales. Like I said, there are 7 billion people on this planet. That is a very big pool of potential readers and book buyers. Even if 1 billion people get the book for free, there are still 6 billion people left, some of which would be able and willing to buy a copy.

There is an old saying that you have to spend money to make money. In this case, it could be said that you have to give books to get book sales. If my recent experience is any indication of what is possible, I'll be giving away more free ebooks. The odds are in my favor, and you can be certain there will be no DRM. I invite readers to share and share alike. There are plenty of electrons -- and ebooks -- left.

In the end, I have to ask, what is the difference between DRM and censorship. What do you say?

Publishing Portents

Everything changes and yet everything stays the same. Seems like an oxymoron. In publishing, that is exactly what it is -- an oxymoron. The more things change, the more publishers seek to maintain the status quo, scaring authors into believing there are nothing more than an unimportant cog in the vast machinery of publishing.

I began writing about the truth in publishing years ago -- 8 years ago -- when a writer I knew set down the path with a specific agent in mind. The writer was determined to have this one agent and approached the agent to take her on as a client. The agent refused; the  writer had no backlist and no publishing credits to speak of. It didn't matter that the writer had more than 10 years of experience writing articles and blogs and had co-written a book on writing; she didn't have enough experience -- or income -- to interest the agent, not even with a book that had series potential.

The writer went out and got a contract with a publisher through unusual channels and went back to the agent, newly signed contract in hand, and begged to be taken on as a client. The agent said yes and took her 15% off the top for doing nothing. The writer had done the hard work and, hat in hand, was shark bait.

I was outraged that the writer had so little faith in herself and couldn't see what was happening, but when the agent's contract, which the writer asked me to read, included an annual fee for the cost of doing business, I begged the writer to look for another agent or at least tell the agent to forget about the contract unless the annual fee was deleted. The writer signed anyway, consigning 15% of the hard earned royalties to agent for the life of the book, and the planned series. I wrote about it in 2004, but it was merely a portent of the coming storm. Other writers with a wider readership and more years in the publishing business began writing about what was going on behind the scenes.

Since the Dept of Justice case against 5 of the Big 6 publishers and Apple hit the news, Joe Konrath has written extensively about what is happening, and he continues to inform the reading and writing public exactly what it all means. It's all about who has the power.

Writers do not seem to understand that they have the power. Without the words, publishers have nothing to publish. Readers don't generate books. Publishers merely print what authors write and without the words, there is no business. As I explained to my writer friend 8 years ago, a conversation that ended our friendship, the writer has the power, not the agent. An agent might have great contacts, but those contacts exist because the agent is representing the writer. No writer, no words, no contract, and no money, despite the fact that agents are determined to bite the hand that feeds them.

Agents may believe that publishers feed them, but that's only because publishers take agents out to lavish lunches and dinners, give them booze, invite them to launch parties where the food and booze flow freely, and sign the check made possible by the author who put the words together so a book was possible. It's hard to see who is really paying the bills when the publisher's name is on the check, a check that wouldn't exist without the writer. It's called exploitation and agents and publishers have been exploiting writers since the first mass market book rolled off the Gutenburg presses.

When workers, in this case writers, are exploited, they form unions that bargain for the collective power of the workers (writers) and strike if necessary until terms are met and conditions changed. Writers have a union of sorts in the Authors Guild, but that union hasn't been doing much to help out the people (writers again) that make the Authors Guild possible. Joe Konrath and Barry Eisler hit it out to the cheap seats. Once again, people, even authors, forget who has the power.

That writer friend I mentioned told me that refusing to sign the agent's contract, annual fee and all, was not an option since the writer was a small fish in a very big ocean. I still believe that someone must take a stand and put a stop to the exploitation of writers. I would have refused to sign, but then I wouldn't have chosen that agent in the first place. The agent has done little for my writer friend's career except collect her 15% and she still charges for the cost of doing business, rather like the phone company or the utility company adding an annual fee for the paper clips, ink, paper, and postage necessary to send you a bill. Those charges, overnight mail fees included, should come out of the 15% the agent already gets. Thinking that only a Stephen King or J. K. Rowling could stand up to the agent and get the annual fee rescinded is wrong thinking. Every writer, every author who writes a book that is published is powerful enough to say NO very loudly and be heard -- and heeded.

There will be scabs who will work during a strike because they have no other choice, but Joe Blow who has never written a book before cannot replace a Barry Eisler or Ted Dekker, and that will become obvious when sales fail to make it possible for publishers to take agents out to lavish lunches where the martinis and whiskey flow so freely.

The signs are obvious. Pay attention. Writers have the power. They always did. It's time to use that power. We are authors, hear us roar.

 

As in Cross-Stitch, so it is in Writing

One of the things I love most about cross-stitch is the way the picture emerges from tiny stitches and colored threads.

It begins with a blob of color that grows with each stitch and each new color from nothing special to something quite beautiful -- if I do it right. I have moments when I get frustrated and tear out stitches because I've counted wrong or read the wrong part of the pattern, but mostly I get it right and can't resist stopping to unroll my work just to look at what emerges.

I'm working on Xmas stockings for my grandchildren this year. It's different than what I've given them in the past and I hope it will be something they will treasure and use each year, remembering that it was made especially for them.

I'm working on a cute pattern that is much prettier as it emerges from the amorphous collection of stitches and colors. I have just finished the bottom half of the stocking and am now working on the top, finishing off stray stitches and making sure the back is as neat as the front with no loose threads. The cat and kitten's eyes are finished and I'm moving on to the rest of the tree and ornaments.

Cross-stitch is calming, despite scattered moments of frustration, and reminds me of how I feel when I paint or draw -- and especially when I write. I begin with an idea, begin writing, and from the words and sentences, paragraphs and pages, emerges a book complete and far more inventive than what it was when I began. That is true of all the creative projects I have done and continue to do.

I feel best and happiest when I'm creating and, for a while, cross-stitch has fulfilled my need to create. I will continue with the stocking and the last 2 I need to make for this year well ahead of schedule, and I will also continue writing, exorcising the dreams that plague me with snatches of conversation, plots, description, and the urgency the dreams fill me with when I'm not writing. There is room enough for more than one creative art in my life and I must have writing or be caught in an endless cycle of realistic dreams that invade my waking and sleeping worlds. At least with cross-stitch there is an end and with writing there is always one more thing to add, one more paragraph to trim, and a few more words to choose to exorcise or leave.

In a couple more weeks, I will have another Xmas stocking for one of my grandchildren, and maybe a new book to begin fleshing out and preparing for publication. It is the journey I love with a goal at the end that never fails to make me smile.

Review: Vestal Virgin by Suzanne Tyrpak

Rome and Nero are fascinating subjects, as are the vestal virgins, women who are educated and held sacrosanct, priestesses of of the goddess Vesta who are responsible for all the legal documents in the Empire. Matching a vestal virgin with Nero, throwing in a Sibylline prophecy, and fleshing out the story with details of what it was like to live in Rome during the time of the rise of Christianity and Nero's excesses is what Vestal Virgin is ostensibly about, and the author, Suzanne Tyrpak, has done her homework, evoking a Rome in all its glory and squalor.

What Tyrpak fails to do is flesh out her characters sufficiently and keep the plot moving, finishing up with a bang that fizzles around the edges. However, Vestal Virgin is a good first effort and and intriguing story that offers an intimate look at what Rome was like in the first century.

The story centers around Elissa Rubria Honoria, taken at the age of 9 to serve for 30 years as a vestal virgin. She is dark and beautiful and considered incorruptible by her younger sister and another vestal virgin, both of whom are ready to take her down, charging her with violating her vow of chastity, a charge that will end with her death by entombment.

Nero is fascinated by Elissa and he wants her. Unable to corrupt Elissa, he instead corrupts her younger sister, appointing her a vestal virgin though she is 14 and too old to be considered. Nero changes and violates the rules to get what he wants.

Elissa is, however, in love with a Roman soldier who has become a Christian, studying under Paul of Tarsus, who is under house arrest in Rome. Elissa and the soldier exchange letters but they are not of a sexual nature, and yet their content could condemn Elissa.

While Tyrpak weaves a spell with her words, she loses focus in the middle of the story.  The ending does have moments of high intrigue but loses power and leaves the fate of Elissa's younger sister in question. Vestal Virgin begins strong and ends with fizzled satisfaction.

While I did enjoy the novel, I found it weak and unfocused and erratic at times. Vestal Virgin is a good first novel from a talented author who needs a bit more experience and a good editor to help her tighten the plot and flesh out the characterizations. It's almost there, but not quite.

RATING:  A solid C

Review: White Horse by Alex Adams

There's nothing worse than getting to the end of a book and reading the author bio on the back flap of the dust jacket to find out what you thought was over has just begun, that it's the beginning of a trilogy.

There's nothing better than finding out a story will continue, that it's the beginning of a trilogy.

There are few serial novels that have sparked my interest as much as Alex Adams's White Horse. In short, it's Alex Adams's debut novel and the book is good. The girl can write. No doubt about that, not after being lured into accompanying Zoe on her journey through the landscape of hell and out the other side into a whole new kind of Gehenna.

Zoe is a reluctant heroine, a Pandora who resists the urge to open the box full of disease and pain and loss -- and the gentle spark of hope at the bottom of the jar. She begins by seeking help from a therapist, Nick Rose, who is attractive and dark. Zoe can resist opening the ancient sealed jar in her apartment as easily as she resists Nick's charms. She is a girl with a mission, a janitor working for a pharmaceutical company so she can afford to go to college and get a better education so she will have a better life. Hers is a life on hold while she keeps her eyes on the future, a future that quickly slips through her grasp.

Zoe's colleagues, friends, and family die one by one as a disease cooked up in some lab and dubbed White Horse by a southern minister decimates the population, leaving 90% of the world dead and the remaining 10% either immune or genetically changed into abominations. Zoe is immune, although why she is immune is anybody's guess, and there is no one left to strap her to a table and dissect her to find out.

What begins with an ordinary woman on an ordinary day quickly becomes a juggernaut that barrels through the barren landscape of the present while trying to find meaning from the past. White Horse isn't talented, it's brilliant in concept and execution. Alex Adams has hit on something that could be lurking around the corner waiting to pounce tomorrow or next year and woven a spell of seductive power that has long, strong legs.

And there's a website with all kinds of goodies just waiting to be devoured until the 2nd installment of this promising trilogy is released.

I can hardly wait.

That's the problem with trilogies -- waiting.

Behind Your Back

While you've been toiling away on your next novel, your agent has been busy, but not in the usual sense. Your agent has been colluding with the Big 6 publishers in their struggle with the Dept. of Justice (DOJ) over ebook pricing. Your agent has been working to shore up the Big 6 publishers' case while stabbing you in the back. Your agent. Your voice in the marketplace. The person who is supposed to be looking out for your interests. Think I'm kidding? Check it out.

Joe says it better than I can.

He also allowed Ann Voss Peterson to have her say about publishing with Harlequin, something I have known about for years, which is why I never went after a Harlequin contract. I don't believe in slavery or serfdom.

Are you done yet? You should be.

Decades ago, when I first began writing seriously for publication, I met my first real live published author. I was thrilled that she deigned to sit down and talk to me. Having lunch was icing on the cake, but the cake had a bitter taste.

The author was a best selling novelist under the Harlequin imprint. I had read several of her books back in the days when I was doing research to become the next Harlequin publishing find. She still had her day job, not because she loved it (although she did enjoy the job) but because she couldn't live on what she made with Harlequin. Huh? She couldn't live on her earnings from the publisher, not even with 60 books in print? How is that possible? She explained, forgiving my shocked outburst and my rude questions.

After 60 novels, she still never got more than an $8000 advance, all of which she earned out, and she made pennies where I thought she was making tens of thousands. She made more money with her day job and she had three children to support, three children she hoped would go to college.

"Sixteen tons and what do you get, another day older and deeper in debt."

She owed her soul to the company store. E-books had not been heard of and millions of homes didn't have computers. She (and I) were still typing out manuscripts on typewriters. Electric typewriters, but typewriters not computers.

My dreams of having dozens of books published by Harlequin were shattered and my hopes that I could quit my day job died that day. I still wrote but focused my sights on something achievable. I became a stringer for local newspapers and concentrated on writing articles for magazines and writing speeches and PR work. I still worked on my novels and stories and kept my eye on the trades for an opportunity to break in, one that didn't come for another decade, and several computers later.

I made my break with my first solo novel with a traditional publisher, one that sends me annual earnings statements and under reports ebook sales, paying quarterly royalties every 12-18 months. I've been published in several anthologies but decided to self-publish my second solo novel and I get paid every month on books I sell. The vendors don't cheat me on points and they don't under report my ebook sales. I get every penny. I'm still not ready to quit my day job but it's coming within the foreseeable future.

I don't have an agent and I'm glad now I don't. When agents collude with publishers to cheat their clients out of earnings just to line their pockets and keep the publishers rich, I know I chose right when I chose not to have an agent. Check out Joe's article and read the signatories on the letter the Association of Authors' Representatives (AAR) sent to the DOJ. If your agent is one of the 13 out of the 462 who supposedly represent you, it's time to make a tough decision. It shouldn't be too difficult since the only question you need to ask is: Whose interests does my agent represent. If the answer is the Big 6 publishers, it's time to make a change, or hire a lawyer and do without an agent. There are other options. Work for yourself or be a cog in the wheel not getting any grease.

What is your agent doing behind your back when s/he is supposed to be representing you?

 

 

Feeling Sluttish

I'll bet you think I meant wanton, depraved, and sexually promiscuous. Not a jot of it.

Sluttish refers to be lazy and untidy.  Even Chaucer used the word in reference to a slovenly man.

What I mean is that I don't feel like cleaning up or even getting out of bed, except I have to clean up and get out of bed if I want a shower, and I do so want a shower right now. It's not that I'm dirty or unkempt (well, maybe a bit unkempt), but a shower would feel wonderful when I feel so blah.

I woke up before 6 a.m. this morning, got up to answer Nature's call, and promptly went back to bed without brushing my teeth. I did get a cup of yogurt with fruit (pomegranate and cherry) and had that while reading a few chapters of Pyramids, but then slipped idly back into the deep well of sleep and didn't get up again until after noon. In my defense, I was up until after 2 a.m. and just couldn't sleep, but I caught up and then some. I have so few days when I can actually sleep more than 4 of 5 hours at a time and I need more sleep. Catch me on a day when I've not had much sleep and you might come away like a male praying mantis that has been rutted. To death. Without a head. Except for the rutting part. I am definitely not feeling at all in the mood for sex or anything related to sex. I want sleep.

I also want someone else to do the cooking and cleaning and hauling away the trash so I don't have to do it, but I need the exercise and it's better than having to purchase a Stairmaster when I could just get up and move about doing all the things that need done.

That is the trick, though, doing the things that need done. In today's world the list grows greater every day. Having all these electronic conveniences has not lessened the list of chores, but it certainly has lessened the amount of available free time, and they suck up lots of money. Then again, I wonder what life would be like without all those conveniences, minding of course that I don't want to get rid of affordable and available water, sewers, or electricity, just get rid of the extraneous stuff like clothes dryers, computers, mixers (except for a brand new KitchenAid), waffle irons, electric grills, televisions, radios, etc. All the conveniences of life that make life so inconvenient.

So, electricity, safe water and sewage, a refrigerator, maybe a stereo or radio, a clothes washer, an electric typewriter (I don't think I have the time to mess with a manual typewriter), a car for going to town, and maybe a good chest freezer and a gas stove and furnace (that work). The bare necessities.

The result would be clothes hung up outside on lines or in the basement when it's too cold or wet to hang out the clothes. Food would be cooked manually. Think of the benefits to the triceps and biceps by whipping cream to a frenzy or mixing thick batters, and all that walking and standing and stretching hanging out the clothes and taking them down. An iron would be necessary to get out the wrinkles in dress clothing. No one needs ironed sheets or underthings. At least I don't.

A big fireplace would provide plenty of heat on cold days and sleeping in the living room in front of the fire on a comfy couch would not go amiss. The wood would need to be chopped and hauled and the ashes shoveled out and disposed of, but that would all go on the compost heap with the rest of the kitchen detritus rotting and providing work for bugs and enrichment for the soil come planting time because a kitchen garden is absolutely essential for fresh vegetables. I have wonderful memories of summers spent planting and harvesting vegetables to be frozen and canned for later use. Opening those cans was like a breath of summer air in the midst of winter and baking pies bubbling with summer berries and fruit brought back scorching days picking blackberries in the shade of trees and scrambling among the brambles. My skin itches just to think about it.

All that physical work would have extra benefits, like keeping me healthy and much slimmer and I'd have a blush of tan where the wide straw hat didn't quite shade my exposed skin, but that's not too bad since vitamin D is the sunshine vitamin.

As lazy as I feel today, most of that sounds wonderful. Being pleasantly tired from a day of chores would help me sleep at night and the quiet, punctuated only by the sound of typewriter keys clacking away while I listen to Mozart or Mahler  would be heaven. I could think without the constant hum of electricity through dozens of gadgets I don't really need but thought I did when I bought them. The computer has become a source of entertainment and wasted hours as much as it has been a boon to writing and publishing my work. With the good inevitably comes the bad -- or at least the downside of the benefit package that is modern life.

And I'm back to feeling sluttish again. One day I might make a go of the simple life and get rid of most of my conveniences, but not today. Today, I have pages to write and books to read for review and the computer will make both easier since I have to get the reviews to my boss by Tuesday morning at 10 a.m.

It's not easy going back to the basics. I need more money and more time to get there.

In the meantime, I'm going to indulge those sluttish fantasies and go to bed with a book (good or bad remains to be read) and a box of Cheez-its. Or maybe another yogurt with pomegranate and cherry and a big jug of water. Nature's call is all that will get me out of my comfortable position -- at least for the next several hours.

Behind Bars

It has been 1 year since I self-published Among Women and I decided, in honor of that anniversary, to offer the book for free download this weekend. From today, Friday, May 4th, to midnight Sunday, May 6th, Pacific Time, Among Women is available on Amazon and Smashwords for free.

The book is about a young woman who finds herself homeless in New Orleans and, just as she has worked herself into a position where she can move back into the regular world, is arrested and thrown in jail on a bogus charge. The woman they're looking for had been committing her crimes for years and Pearl Caldwell has only been in New Orleans for 6 weeks. She is sure she will be out in a few days, once the mistake is cleared up, but finds herself stuck in jail without a lawyer or visitors or anyone who knows she is there. She has to make the best of a bad situation, and it doesn't get much worse than being locked in with more than 50 criminals. She has to find a way out, but first she has to survive.  There are worse things that living among criminals, like having someone trying to kill you.

The book is based on fact with a healthy dose of fiction. So far, the reviews have been favorable with 4/5 stars, and for that I am grateful, but no one can review or even read the book if they don't know it exists, and that is what this weekend's promotion is all about -- getting the news out.

As I watched the numbers change and books being "sold" in the UK and Denmark, I thought about all the women behind bars, the ones I got to know and the ones currently either behind bars or in an oppressive society that counts them as nothing.

The movies like to portray women behind bars as sex hungry animals ready to stick a shiv in someone's back or hump the nearest cellmate or amoral guard to get a few privileges. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mostly, being in jail is boring and regimented and without much in the way of joy, outside of playing cards or just surviving from day to day. The worst part is that our own representatives are currently on a witch hunt here in the United States to minimalize and marginalize women even further. We might as well be wearing bourkahs and veils as Congress and legislators look for ways to take away our rights and control over our own bodies.

From the beginning of human existence, there have been women helping women to abort an unwanted child and to take care of each other. It was a woman's world where few men ever ventured because it was none of their business. Wise women, medicine women, helped women prone to miscarriage and giving birth to stillborn children to keep from getting pregnant. It was steeped in magic because they didn't understand how children were created and born, but it was also steeped in care and love for each other.

As civilization came into being and people began living in towns and cities, and men took over ruling everything, they looked at women and decided women were evil and must be controlled. After all, what is a women good for if she doesn't cook and take care of the home and hearth, and if she is unable to bear children, preferably sons? Women found ways around the strictures by ministering to each other, by talking and sharing their knowledge, giving aid and comfort wherever possible. But we live in an enlightened age where spouses and partners go into the delivery room to see and participate in the birth of their children. Men couldn't possibly underrate women. And yet they do.

In China, women are allowed to have 1 child. If the child is a girl, she is either killed or sent to an orphanage. Male children are valued, except how many males would be born if there were no females?

Here in the United States, legislation has been talked about and is going through the process to become law so that life begins at conception. A woman who has an abortion will be branded a murderer and I'm not sure what the law will say about stillborn children. Who will be to blame for that? Women, probably.

Women will be forced to carry children they don't want to full term with the excuse that there are thousands of families who can't have children ready to adopt those unwanted children. Can you say, baby factory? Sounds like a new twist on an old Johnathan Swift screed, A Modest Proposal. Women's bodies have now become the property of state and federal legislators high on organized religion and certain of their inalienable rights to determine the fate of another human being -- a female human being. They would never do this to a man. Men are far more valuable than women, in spite of the fact that men cannot procreate by themselves or give birth. They need women for that and they haven't figured out how to make the Ixian Axlotl tanks work, which are basically brain dead females that nothing more than mindless wombs. Sometimes it feels like that is how some men feel, that we are mindless wombs.

When women speak, men muzzle them, as they do in the Middle East and other countries where sharia law and strict Islam is taught. It doesn't matter that beneath their shapeless black prisons women are dressed as flamboyantly and beautifully as any model on a high fashion couture runway. They are still imprisoned and throwing them crumbs is not a substitute for equality and the right to speak their minds without fear of retribution -- and prison.

While I am not on board with feminism, except where it pertains to equal rights and equal pay, I do understand how being oppressed can make a woman mad enough to want to marginalize men as they have marginalized women for centuries -- for millennia. No one should be marginalized and no one should be forced into silence or imprisoned behind bars, no matter how comfortable and safe it seems.

And no one, man or woman, has to right to determine what a woman does with her own body, even if she decides to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. There is no way to save the unborn child without holding the unwilling mother hostage. It should be free will and free choice and yet the only ones exercising free will and free choice are determined to imprison those that stand against them, those that speak against them, those that choose a different path. 

Here I am, once again on my soapbox, off topic and into real world issues when all I wanted to do was let you know about a free book. A free ebook at least. A story of a woman imprisoned for something she had not done and forced to face herself and women she marginalized in her own mind because they were different, because they were criminals.

Pearl Caldwell was a prisoner of her upbringing made a prisoner by circumstance who found freedom in the company of criminals. That is the story behind Among Women and one I hope you will at least take a look at, read, and offer your comments and reviews. You can pick up a free copy of Among Women this weekend at Amazon.com for Kindle and Smashwords (use coupon CJ84D during checkout) for other e-readers. Find out what it's really like behind bars and meet Pearl Caldwell, a woman much stronger and more resilient that she knew.

You can also purchase print copies for $9.95.

Are We There Yet?

I had to take a break from reading A Dance With Dragons and pick up something else. In this case, it was Terry Pratchett's Pyramids. Yes, I'm still reading Pratchett since I recently discovered him. I'm now working my way through from the beginning, no matter how much I want to skip down the list and get to Going Postal. I've seen the movie, and it was good, but I want to read the book, too, which brings me back to George R. R. Martin.

I wasn't halfway through A Dance With Dragons when I began to notice I was leaning forward as though trying to make a slowing vehicle keep moving, preferably faster. It didn't work. I had to stop and pick up something else.

It isn't that I don't enjoy the different birds' eye views of what is happening in Westeros and across the Narrow Sea, but that the story should be further along. I also just want to slap Danaerys Targaryen (do Dothraki have last names?) because she has turned into a whiny, indecisive, and utterly boring character afraid of her own shadow and second guessing everything and everyone. She has become weak where before she was a force to be reckoned with. Now she is just puling.(Spoiler alert!)

Puling. Now that is an interesting word. It's another word for whining and whimpering. Okay, so one of the dragons has eaten a child so you lock the others up and keep them chained in the deepest dungeons. Is that fair? They didn't flame and eat a child. They stuck to sheep. There is no reason to believe that Drogon did it on purpose. Well, he had to do it on purpose since he ate the child, but not with malicious intent. For all you know, she was dressed in sheepskin and looked like a tasty sheep. Dragons have to eat, don't they? That's no reason to chain the others in the dungeon and stop visiting them. Dragons are intelligent. Train them and they will obey. You are the dragon mother after all. But I digress.

The whole point is that A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons could have been combined in a much smaller book and the story advanced. The fourth book should have been the end of the story -- or at least getting closer to it than it is now. It's time to bring things to a head and close it down. If George wanted to write more, he could do anthologies of stories from Westeros with the characters he has introduced and even create some more, but this series should be done by now.

I'm a writer and I certainly don't like people telling me how to write or what to write (except for my editor, and I reserve the right to disagree on issues of plot and story lines, and the occasional comma, but never about grammar). The problem here is that a series should end at some point, but not like Peter Danielson did in his Child of the Lion series where he screwed with history and time just to keep the same players and their offspring playing in the same field instead of the hundreds of years that passed in real time. That's why I gave up the series. As much as I liked Shobai and his brother Hadad's children, and the whole children of Cain series, I couldn't get past the time thing. Danielson wrote 19 books in his Child of the Lion series; is George Martin aiming for the same number of books? If so, he's going to have to move the story forward faster. At least in Danielson's books, the story moved quickly and something happened in every book to advance the series. With Martin, not so much. It feels like treading water in a drying mud pit.

That is not to say that I don't enjoy all the points of view or the story (what there is of it) but that I want the story and characters to actually move forward. The White Walkers haven't been mentioned in ages and haven't made an assault on the Wall. It is as if the White Walkers have stopped being a threat, what with all the resettling of the wildlings and such. George seems to have lost the thread and is wandering around trying to tell too many stories without advancing the plot, which brings up the question of when is a book done? 

I've asked that question with every book and story I've written -- or began to write. When does it end? When is the story done?

The answer in one case was never since I had no middle, only a beginning and an end. I had fleshed out the characters and got caught up in the relationship of the characters without having any idea what the middle of the story that took me to the end (girl gets boy) really was. I shelved the book, and rightly so. I didn't have a clue what the story was about, just an idea and something I wanted to say. I knew I'd lost the thread after about the 5th or 6th chapter and decided it was enough. Time to shelve the book. I had some great scenes and wonderful characterizations going, but no story. It was time to shut it down.

It feels like Martin has the same problem. He's become mesmerized with telling so many points of view that he has lost the thread of the story and the initial impetus to get going. That doesn't mean he doesn't tell a great story -- or at least he usually does -- but that he needs to get back on track, focus, and get moving on the main event, which is the coming of winter and the White Walkers and bringing Dany to Westeros with her dragons ready to fight and take back the iron throne from the Lannisters -- or rather from Cersei Lannister, if she gets to live now that she is in peril of her life from her actions. (I haven't finished Dragons yet, so I don't know whether she will call on ser Gregor Clegane from the pit or if Jaime will at last be able to fight with his left hand and win the day for his sister, lover, whatever.)

It is so easy to get caught up in telling so many different stories in a series that you lose focus and the point of the main story, which is to make good on the promise of the first book, the very first words. If a writer cannot maintain that focus and keep moving forward, it is far too easy to get lost. Don't want to kill all those wonderful darlings, and yet the writer must if he is to keep his audience and not coast on his laurels.

With series books, and even with trilogies, there is at least a year wait between books and, while this seems not to be a big deal, for those who began reading when the series began, to have to wait for so many years is asking a bit much, especially when there is an 8-year gap between the first 3 books and the 4th. I don't think I want to wait around another 8 years for the next book, and I doubt the 4th book would be out if HBO had not decided to make Game of Thrones. George wants to see the whole story told on the screen, and so do the fans, but what if the series doesn't pan out? What if it becomes too costly to continue making the series? Will HBO cancel it before we get to the part where the dragons reach Westeros and battle with the White Walkers and winter is joined? Will George ever finish the series?

Too many questions with no answers as yet. So far, we have season 2 of Game of Thrones and season 3 has been promised, and is likely now getting ready to film, but that's no guarantee of season 4 or the finish of the story.

A word to the wise. When a story begins to pall and you're treading drying mud, it's time to reassess what you have. If it's a story where the middle can be found and put in (not possible with my aviatrix and her lost aviator love in enemy hands) or the main thread can be found and followed to its inevitable conclusion (whatever that will be), then get busy and get on with it. If not, it's time to consign the story to the shelf. It's time may come, or it may not, but at least there are more stories to tell.

So, if I had any advice to give George (and who does not?), I'd say get back on track and save all these little stories for an anthology of stories from Westeros -- it would sell millions -- but get back on track and finish the story you began in A Game of Thrones. It's time to kill those darlings (or save them for an anthology) and move along or a lot more people are going to be puling, "Are we there yet?" And that's no good for anyone.

Go phish

I like having easy access to my money and being able to shop online. I don't have to pay high card fees because I have a debit card, even if it means that I often cannot buy or subscribe where I want because the vendor refuses to accept a debit card. Small problems really.

But when I have to wait nearly a week to get a new card because the old card was phished, something must be said.

To the bank: There is no reason why you could not have sent my card by priority or next day mail. I did offer to pay the extra charges -- with my own money. I don't care what your protocol is. I have one credit card and use it for all my purchasing needs. You are refusing to allow me access to my money when I am the one putting it in and keeping a substantial amount in savings. You have been wonderful in this past, but on this issue, you need to rethink your policy.

To the phisher:  This is the second time you have tried to use my money and failed. Most of my money rests in savings and I get instant email and text alerts anytime money is added or removed from my account. I am not a drunk or a drug addict and have perfect recall of everything I spend, so when you decide that one or two charges will pass unnoticed you're wrong. I did notice and shut down my account. It was a hassle for me, but I will not share my money with you. You certainly have not shared your money with me so that tells me you either don't have any because you don't have a job or because you spend everything you earn and have decided that I am your backup savings fund.

For the first, get a job and earn your own money instead of living off the proceeds of someone who does give up their free time to earn it.

For the second, consider psychiatric treatment and voluntary in-house treatment in a locked psychiatric ward because there is never going to be a time when I will be your backup savings fund. I earn my money the hard way by working for it and the only people I am willing to help out financially are people I know who have had a rough time, either because of health or accident. Since you fall into neither category, I would suggest the voluntary (or involuntary if you haven't the gumption to commit yourself) commitment to a psychiatric ward.

I am not angry at the phisher. I am a little peeved at the bank, but all is well. I have my new card and have decided to be less free where I save that information online. Yes, it is a hassle to input the information every time I use the card, but I am a fast typist and can readily remember my information because I input it so many times. My brain still functions well enough for that despite having passed 50 on the age scale. Mostly, I was inconvenienced, but not so badly that I could not deal with it.

Okay, a good friend failed to get her birthday gift, but that turned out to be a good thing since her family bought her the same thing. I had to figure out another option and came up with a good one, so no harm done. And I saved a considerable amount of money while I waited for the new card inasmuch as I was unable to access my account for the purposes of emptying it slowly and with feeling. No harm done.

There are good and bad aspects to being phished, but I have great safeguards in place and I am likely to lose very little. I stopped worrying about my credit rating a long time ago since I don't plan to buy or build a house until I can afford to do so in cash. I have simple needs and very few wants that I cannot fulfill at my leisure and, as Gram always told me, my wants won't hurt me.

Delayed gratification is a good thing and it reminds me that there have been times when I had no rent to pay because I had nowhere to live. I had no utilities or phone bills every month because I had nowhere to live. I didn't need to worry about cleaning house or whether or not the refrigerator and stove worked because I had no groceries to buy; I lived on fast food and the wide assortment of fresh food found at delis and markets, buying only what I could eat in a day or two. I got more exercise because I didn't have a car and used public transportation when I could afford it.

My life now is comfortable and I don't stint on the necessities or momentary whims. I had a few days of minor discomfort, but all is well now. I have purchased my belated birthday gift and spent an enjoyable few minutes talking with my friend when I called to wish her happy birthday and explain the delay. Sometimes a Facebook post is not enough.

While I wouldn't go back to being homeless and destitute living on the edge without knowing where tomorrow's meals and housing will come from, there are times when I long for the simple life -- as long as there is money for laundry and a place to shower every day. It was often a hard scrabble life, but I got lots of material to write about and I lived. I didn't simply exist. And I worked for everything I had then and have now, as should the phisher, who should work as hard to get his own money as he did trying to steal mine.

I'm watching and waiting and I will cut off every phisher who attempts to steal what I have worked so hard to obtain. You can be sure that if I find the person, I will make sure they have 3 meals a deal and a place to sleep with a whole lot of other people just as cavalier with other people's money and intent on destroying themselves and they will never have to worry again about housing, food, or freedom. Beware.

And so it goes

I returned to work this week with a new account and new hours. I'm working later, which has its benefits, and I finally have the whole weekend (Saturday and Sunday) off. Before, it was Sunday and Monday, and I did like that arrangement as it allowed me to handle chores I couldn't do during the week since I had to begin work so early. Bonus on both accounts: weekend and later starting time to get necessary chores done.

The new account is (at least so far) a good account. The doctors (even the foreign doctors) speak clearly with a few minor exceptions of motor mouth and mush mouth. I doubt that will ever change. The account itself is straight forward without a lot of "except in this case" situations. So far, I like it, and I still have my once primary, now secondary, account and it was at least familiar and workable. I've gotten used to the motor and mush mouths and the doctors who have trouble enunciating and pronouncing English words. I can deal. And I don't have to do the very complicated children's hospital account, which I did not like at all.

Mostly though, life after returning to work has been fraught with nerves and trepidation. Work should help the grief, but it really doesn't. Work takes my mind off things for a few hours, otherwise how could I function and do my job properly, but the grief descends like the clouds preceding a bad thunderstorm and promising tornadoes. C'est la vie. (That sounds so much nicer in French.) I still have moments when I break down and times when I drift numb in a sea of emotional ice. I suspect that will always be the case, although it will happen less frequently as time goes by and the loss is less fresh, less keen-edged. I've been through this before with Dad and other people I've known who have died. It gets easier, except when it isn't.

I have been wallowing a bit, as one would expect, but less and less. Books took me out of the real world and put me in places where someone else's problems and dangers consumed me. That's not such a bad thing. I did enjoy what I read, even if I haven't yet finished A Dance With Dragons yet. I had to take a break as it felt as though, good and engrossing as the story is, it was going nowhere at a snail's pace. I understand how the book earned so many negative reviews. It does go on a bit -- a bit too long. It's not that the characters are not as unique and engaging as before, but that it feels time to cut to the chase, especially since this is the second half of what was supposed to be a single large book. It's enough already. Let's get to the dragons and Westeros and removing the Lannisters from King's Landing already. It's time to bring things to a head. There are wights to battle and the winter that never ends headed up by glowing blue-eyed Others we have yet to see. Wights we've seen, but, again, let's cut to the chase.

In the meantime, I've a new shipment of review books that I have to open and read this weekend, but I have a weekend in which to do it, with a whole half day before the review needs to be written and sent in. It feels like a luxury of time and I intend to wallow in that instead, especially since the weather cannot make up its mind if it's winter, spring, or summer. We've had all three in the past 2 weeks. About the only constant is the April sprouting of the lilac hedge out front and the pervasive smell of lilacs through the open window morning, noon, and all night long. After a while, the pleasant scent of lilac becomes a stench, and the honeysuckle has yet to bloom. It will be in full scent by June, complete with the moths that appear at dusk and crowd around the blooms spreading pollen and getting their probosci full of nectar. The year turns and turns and turns.

Life goes on even when it feels like it should stop for a while, a galactic moment of silence. And so it goes.

Review: Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

I was fascinated by the movie, Memoirs of a Geisha, and decided, as I often do, to get the book. I was not disappointed.

There were several changes from book to movie, like changing the Minister of Finance to an American army officer and giving Nobu-san back his arm, among other things, but reading the original did not take away from the experience of the movie. It is best in cases like this where the movie is good to treat book and movie as separate. There was no mention of Sayuri's danna or the trip to the island where Sayuri plans to make sure that Nobu-san does not become her danna as this was replaced by the American army officer. Again, it did not detract from the book or the writing.

Memoirs of a Geisha is written in a flowing conversational style that is more like confidences between new friends sharing their lives. This is mostly because Arthur Golden took Chiyo/Sayuri's story directly from the source and retained her style and voice. It was very well done and made the story move quickly. I often had a hard time putting the book down and got through the whole story in about 2 days even though I worked and did other projects as well.

I was captivated by the story and the details of life in a geisha district. It was different from the world I know, but not completely unknown since I have been exposed to Japanese culture through my father and our military travels. I already knew that geisha were not prostitutes but entertainers.

Where the movie excelled was in depicting the artistic moments of dance, the richness of the culture, and the beauty of kimono. The book did well to describe the scenes and kimono, but there is no substitute for seeing the real thing, and yet Golden did an exemplary job of describing the scenes and characters with rich detail that sparked imagination.

There is so much detail in Memoirs of a Geisha that reading it several more times will be a pleasure, gleaning every detail to its smallest moment. The book is rich in cultural detail and emotion and the story, although simply told, is one that crosses cultural boundaries. Who has not loved and lost only to find love again while bearing the anguish of possibilities hoped for that may never be realized? Memoirs of a Geisha is such a story and one that remains poignant and palpably real in the shifting landscape of a disappearing Japanese culture that had lasted for centuries. I highly recommend the book -- and the movie.

Power in the Words

A friend posted about a gift she was given because of something she wrote. The recent tragedy of my grandson's unexpected (and so far unexplained) death earlier this week brought people together to offer their condolences and we shared our grief in a very public way. The obituary about Connor's death brought strangers to the funeral home on Friday night and they brought flowers. They didn't know my son or his family and they didn't know Connor, but the words of the obituary reminded them (as if they could ever forget) that they lost a daughter 21 years ago when she less than a year old to SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), what was once called crib death. They wanted my son and his family to know they weren't alone and that Connor had touched their lives, however briefly.

Words have the power to hurt and to heal, as well as to inform.

The friend who posted about her unexpected windfall as a result of her random post felt bad when I mentioned that I wish I had thought about posting that I was cooking and baking up a storm and always wanted a KitchenAid mixer, the kind that has all the attachments and add-ons, like a sausage stuffer and meat grinder, among others, so someone would send one to me. I was teasing about the post, but not about wanting a KitchenAid. My comment to her, however light-hearted, made her think she was begging by writing about her thoughts and actions and feelings. Not at all. That is what we bloggers do -- communicate. Through communication wonderful -- and not so wonderful -- things happen.

In her case, someone was given 2 KitchenAid stand mixers for Christmas and she decided that instead of giving one of them to the church or a charity she would give it to my friend. That was a lovely gesture and one that made my friend happy. She hasn't been happy for a long time and has been blown and battered by the storms of fortune -- or rather, misfortune -- for a few years. She has had it rough and the idea that what I said in jest made her feel bad about the gift she received makes me feel bad. It also reminds me that words have so much power.

In media like blogging and writing stories or articles, we reach millions of people. Not everyone will get what is said and may put their own spin on things that have nothing to do with the author's intention. Even though my words about my son were not accompanied by a teary-eyed and heartbreaking video, people responded with sadness, shock, and condolences. My friend responded to my teasing with shame and guilt. The words were just words, but the emotions sparked came from different places.

How many people can read a child's obituary and not think of lost future? If someone has lost a child, especially a small child, they bring their own grief to what they read and the emotions come back as fresh as the day they were born, even 21 years later.

When someone reads a comment meant to be light-hearted and they have been beaten up and thrashed by life, they bring something entirely different to the fore. In this case, my friend, who has had it so difficult for so long, felt guilt and shame that she didn't have the means to buy what she wanted and had to accept it from someone else. Her emotions do not negate the joy of having the gift but, like a whipped dog, she wanted to cower with her tail between her legs because doesn't feel like she deserves to have the gift in the first place. There are so many people who need what she was given more than she does and she felt unworthy, hence her reaction to my teasing with shock and shame.

She wrote that she had not realized she was coming across as a beggar. She wasn't begging when she wrote about the joy she had found in cooking and baking. She wasn't begging when she mentioned wanting a tool to make her task easier. She was writing about her life and enjoying having something that lifted her out of her sadness and misery for a while. Someone saw that post and responded by sharing what she had been given too much of. No one begged and no one looked down and felt superior because she could play Lady Bountiful. That's not how things work in the world, at least not this time in this world. It was 2 people who communicated, one expressing joy and the other responding with generosity and kindness. There is no better sense of communication.

But words can be lethal. They can maim and scar and destroy.

My son David Scott used to get into fights over words. He was fighting because someone had said something mean about me. He was a child and responded the way a child does with violence, and probably quite a few tears. He was defending me. I told him there was no need to fight for me over words. The words didn't hurt me or change who I was, and I was wrong.

While the words would have hurt me when I was a child, they didn't even touch me as an adult. I had become immune to the words, to slough them off like filthy rags. I had forgotten what those same words had done to me as a child when my mother threw them in my face and my siblings chanted them at me, when other children took up the chant and threw them at me like jagged rocks. They hurt. They dug deep into my flesh and struck bone, and that is how they felt to my son. The words were thrown at me, but they struck him, and I dismissed his feelings and his sense of pride for fighting against the kids who, at least in his mind, had hurt me. He was battling hyenas like a young lion cub and winning and looking to me, his mother, for praise, not dismissal.

It didn't matter how much I loved my son and didn't want him to fight and get hurt. What mattered was that I failed to recognize the gifts he gave me -- his battle scars and sense of pride in his chivalrous act. The words that failed to hit had wounded him and I rubbed salt into his wounds by not recognizing and applauding his valor and prowess.

Parents make mistakes, and I have made my share. Friends also make mistakes when they fail to recognize their simple teasing words can become weapons without realizing it.

I am sorry my friend took my words as chastisement when I meant them in fun. I apologize to my son for not recognizing his valor and strength and his unbounded love for me. I do not, however, apologize for these words. Take them how you will, but they are meant to show that words do have power, power to hurt and to heal. I hope this time their power is in the healing.

Funeral Flowers & Ancestry

Uncle Bob called tonight. He received the note and picture of Connor and Sierra in their Easter outfits. He mentioned that Sierra looked bigger. I had noticed the same thing, but it wasn't until I was writing and thinking about all the fraternal twins in my family that something else came to mind.

Fraternal twins run in my family, the Cornwell side of the family. Doral and Dorothy, Carol and Cary, and Connor and Sierra. Fraternal twins skipped my generation, but we had lots of boys, which is also strange for our family since a plethora of girls tend to be the norm.

The female twin is always dominant in every case, and I could go back generations and find the same thing. It's sort of a family legend Great Grandma Cornwell, the corncob pipe smoking matriarch of the Cornwell clan when I was a child, imparted to me when we would visit.

Doral died at 10 months from a congenital heart defect and pneumonia, the same pneumonia that took his mother, Dad's mother. Cary was born with his brain visible beneath a thin membrane that separated his brain from the outside world; the skull had not completely formed on that side of his head. Cary was mentally retarded and had seizures all his life. Carol was and is quite robust. Connor, my son David Scott's child, died this week from unknown causes. The ME's report was inconclusive, no attributable cause of death -- but they're still testing.

As I was writing about this family legacy, I suddenly realized that the males in fraternal twins in my family do not fare well. Females have been dominant in numbers as well as in fraternal twin births and that has not changed. Is there something in the genes I passed to my son and he passed to Connor that caused his death? Am I the reason he's dead?

These are the things that pass as thoughts right now. I want to find a reason for my grandson's death. I need to find out why or how his young life was cut short. We all want to know why.

All the females in my father's family are dominant and have been dominant for centuries. There is also a legacy of female shamans from our Cherokee heritage, and a few fraternal twins in that ancestry as well. We females are survivors and most of us are and have been gifted.

Until there are answers, all this is conjecture, and bloody-minded conjecture at that. I sit here and wonder why I am still alive and my sweet grandson dead. I will never understand it, especially with so many questions left unanswered, and so I go down dark paths ready to take the stroke that will scythe me down if it comes. It won't bring Connor back nor will it change anything.

I bought flowers for Connor's funeral this evening. As I looked through all the pages of sprays, wreaths, casket covers, and arrangements, the smell of funeral flowers fills my nostrils. Every funeral I have attended in my life comes back to me in vivid memory. The overpowering reek of dying flowers, the clash of perfumes and colognes and after shave, the sights and sounds of grief and pressured laughter as people move farther and farther from the casket, turning their backs, putting objects, people, and distance between themselves and the deceased.

David Scott told me last night that when he went to Mom's funeral he didn't get closer than 3 feet to the casket. "She didn't look like Grandma," he said. I filled the heavy silence with a joke. "Well, then you didn't get your York peppermint patty from Mom's coffin." I could hear his disbelief and shock. Candy from a dead woman, and they were the rest of her candies. She was on a York peppermint patty kick at the time. She always changed her candy obsession, but never gave up the junk food or the candy.

How will he be able to bring himself to get close to Connor's casket? He will have to find the strength somewhere because Sierra and Alanna will be at the funeral. It's the whole point of an open casket. He will have to be strong, to override his fear and pain, and bring them to the casket so they can see Connor and know, at least as far as their 2- and 3-year-old minds can comprehend, the meaning of death and why Connor will never come home. How much will they understand? Whatever it is, we will not shield them and there is no way for anyone to go and buy a Connor that looks as close to the original as possible so Sierra and Alanna won't know the real Connor is dead. Oh, how I wish they did not have to see death and know it so soon.

What I understand is that this family, my family, is hard on males, especially when they are one of a set of twins. What could I have done to prevent his death? What could anyone have done?

I am tilting at spiked windmills knowing that it is a hopeless fight and yet I tilt on, confused, sad, and empty with a Connor-shaped hole in my heart.

It has been 2 days since my grandson Connor died. Time weighs me down and numbs my brain. I can't think. I don't want to think. I don't want anything, except for Connor to be alive, for all of this to be a hoax, a mind warp, an alternate reality, an aberration of this reality, my reality. I want Connor back.

And I want to hear from my son. I'd left messages for 2 days with no response. I was jealous of Beanie because David Scott returned her call and not mine.

Julie's dad called me this morning while I was passed out from lack of sleep and grief. I didn't hear the phone and I'm a light sleeper -- on a normal day. These have not been normal days. Mr. Larkin wanted to know if I had heard from David Scott or Julie. I hadn't. My first thought was they had dived into twin bottles and were on a binge. He was considering calling the police and reporting them as missing. My heart raced and then stopped. I wanted my son to be all right. I cannot lose anyone else.

I called Beanie to ask if she had heard from David again. No. She sent him a text message but he had not returned even that. Two days. No word. What could he be thinking? Where the hell was he and what was he doing? I called David Scott one more time, not even hoping the phone would be turned on this time. I waited for voice mail.

"Hello?"

It was David Scott. I should have known what he was doing, what he always does when he's in pain. He was hiding. Not communicating. Curling into an emotional ball around his pain and shutting down.

"Where the hell have you been?" I yelled.

As angry and worried as I was, I was happy to hear that petulant tone in his voice even as I told him not to yell at me, to moderate his tone.

Julie tried to throw herself off the balcony, to kill herself after having turned on everyone else, blaming them for killing her son. My son responds by hiding like an octopus pulling his tentacles and his amorphous bulk into as small a space as he can find. My daughter-in-law responds by cursing and lashing out at everyone and anyone who comes within her sight.

David Scott has been staying with a close friend, meeting with his sponsor and great grand sponsor (recovering alcoholic), and Julie has been in the hospital in the psych ward on a mandatory 72-hour watch because of her suicide attempt. No one knew what was going on. Now we know.

This has been a trying time for all of us and more so for my son and his wife because it is their child who has died. It doesn't help to know that Connor's cardiologist didn't know of our family history of a congenital heart murmur or that my father's youngest brother, a fraternal twin like Connor and Sierra, died when he was 10 months old of pneumonia complicated by his heart defect.

It may not have been Connor's heart. I still think the autopsy will show an aneurysm that burst while he slept. But it doesn't matter what caused his death. He is gone.

Everyone is blaming himself or herself and casting blame around like a hot potato. No matter what medical science will tell us, it will not assuage our grief. My 2-year-old grandson is dead and nothing, not even medical science, will bring him back. All we have left is questions with no answers and grief and my son and daughter-in-law are not dealing well with them. In spite of their ages, they are not equipped to deal with this. I am much older and, despite my seeming calmness in the face of this tragedy, I am not equipped to deal with this. I know there is a logical reason and I know that there is no reason, at least not a reason my heart or my aching soul will accept.

Death is never easy and I've had a lot of it to deal with this year with Mom dying in January and now Connor. Last year it was my half brother and a close friend. I expect to lose people, to lose family at this stage of my life, and yet I don't expect them to die. It is not logical; it is emotional, and I am very emotional right now. I doubt I will ever be un-emotional where this is concerned.

In the larger context, Dick Clark, the immortal Dick Clark who was hundreds of years old, has died today. In the end, even he was not immune to death's final embrace. So why do I feel like in the end it will be cockroaches, moths, and me left on this planet? I always thought it would be Mom.

It's Monday and I expect bad things to happen. It's Monday.

This morning brought some good news. My tax refund was deposited in my account 3 weeks earlier than expected. With the good comes the bad and this morning it came in the form of a phone call from my son David Scott. I could barely understand him he was crying so hard. His son, Connor James, was found dead this morning.

Connor wasn't in an accident and he didn't do drugs, unless you consider milk a drug. Connor was 2 years old and he was fine last night. This morning he was gone, lost to us and to his twin sister Sierra. She wants to know where Connor is and there are no words to help a 2-year-old understand that her womb companion, her brother is gone.

My son and his wife are devastated and I am thrown back nearly 30 years to the call that came to tell me my sister's son Brandon was dead. Brandon was 3 months old. He died of SIDS. His loss still touches us and his brothers, Ants and Cody, will never forget him even though Brandon was born first.

My son is devastated and wants someone to punish for his son's death. He wants to know where God was when his son was taken and why God allowed this to happen. David Scott wants vengeance.
There is no rhyme or reason to Connor's death. When the autopsy results come back we will know what happened in Connor's final moments, but nothing will ever help us understand why him, why my grandson, why my son's only son, why a child had to die, why Sierra's twin was chosen on this day of all days.

It doesn't help to know that thousands of children died last night and this morning and will die today and tomorrow and all the tomorrows to come. I don't know those children. I feel sad when any child dies, but this is personal. This death devastates my family, not some third world or privileged child anywhere but here.

Yes, I am angry. Yes, I understand that my grandson will never grow up and kiss a girl (or boy), will never go to prom or graduate high high school or college, get a degree, meet someone and marry, have children and grandchildren. All his tomorrows are null and void; they are gone.

Sierra doesn't understand where Connor is. Her days and nights and everything in between have been filled with her twin. What does her 2-year-old mind understand? What will she understand now? She will know a void in her life that can never be filled. Something will always be missing and she may not know what; it will be a Connor-shaped void, a much bigger void than the Connor-shaped void that fills me, my son, his mother, and all the people who knew and loved him, who will miss him now and all the days that follow.

I'm selfish. I want my children to be happy and for their children to be happy grow up and have happy children. Now all I can think about is the Christmas stocking I cross-stitched and finished 2 months ago for Connor. He'll never get to use it. He will never hang it on the mantelpiece every December and take it down Christmas morning filled with little gifts, fruit, nuts, or candy. I can't send it to my son because that is not a pain I want him to feel. He does not need tangible evidence of the future he and his son will never share. No, I'll pack it away and put it on a shelf and I will never look at it even though I will see it for the rest of my life without opening the box and taking it out.

My mother died 3 months ago on Friday 13th. My father died 5 years ago March 1st. In the interim, I have lost aunts, uncles, and close friends.

My grandson, Connor James Woodard, died April 16, 2012.

There are no words.

Beyond the Sling and Other Child Rearing Mishaps

I wrote about some experiences that came up while reading Beyond the Sling by Mayim Bialik, PhD yesterday and both times, since I was working on a laptop, everything disappeared. It is hard enough to write humor without having to do it twice and failing to be funny or even the slightest bit interesting. I'm going to give it another try with a real keyboard instead of the laptop keyboard and see where that takes me. Let's give it a go. At least there is no touchpad to keep fouling up the works and I might get a whole post down.

First, let me say that I enjoyed reading about someone's experiences who mirrored my own, especially when it came to following my intuition and having to deal with all the people, most of whom had raised children, who knew how it was supposed to be done and done right. My mother was the most vocal of the group and I tended to defer to her judgment in everything with my first born child that now I wish I had ignored politely and done my own way. It all started when she arrived shortly before my due date and dug in to wait for her first grandchild. I was completely beside the point. I was just the one delivering the blessed grandchild, an after thought according to my mother.

She and Hoity-Toity moved into our little apartment across the street from the base in Denver where my husband was going to tech school. It was crowded, especially since I was as big as a house (pregnant) and a bit uncomfortable, what with the swollen feet, changed center of balance due to my frontal girth, and being stuck together in a 3 room apartment, one of which was the kitchen, with my mother and sister while being miserably, hugely pregnant.

During one of our outings I fell so hard my son (or sons since the doctor told me I was having twins and possibly triplets, thus explaining my house-sized girth and being unable to sit any way but sideways in a booth at restaurants) was knocked out of the birth canal where he had been making himself comfortable before making his long awaited (and long overdue -- 5 days overdue) appearance. Time was getting short (and my temper shorter) and Mom decided to move things along. Enter orange juice (my favorite juice) and castor oil. These 2 liquids, and I use the term liquid loosely in the case of castor oil which is not so liquid but more viscous, do not mix. When the first dose did not work, my mother insisted on a second dose. She had a life to get back to and was determined to be at her grandchild's birth.

Mayim Bialik, she of Blossom and The Big Bang Theory fame, also was talked into (forced) to drinking castor oil to move things along. My experience was exactly like hers and the smell of castor oil produces the same smell that root beer does -- violent retching -- because root beer smells exactly like Fletcher's Castoria, a potion my mother dosed me with repeatedly and nearly nightly to help move things along. I couldn't drink orange juice for years because the smell reminded me of castor oil. Not a pretty sight in restaurants especially when the other patrons begin retching in sympathy. I could clear a restaurant faster than someone dropping dead in their omelet due to food poisoning.
At any rate, things moved along and the cramping and discomfort I had been feeling for 2 days became full out labor -- for 36 hours. Well, there was that short period when my labor slowed and stopped and it felt like days but was only about 90 minutes before getting a good running start before turning my insides outside of everything but the baby, who was hanging back and hanging on.

As soon as the baby was delivered and Mom and Hoity-Toity had a good look, they were gone and I was alone with nurse Cratchet, she of the spatulate fingers and no sense of boundaries who made it her job to humiliate me in every possible way. There was the first day when she walked blithely into the bathroom, wrenched the wand with which I was sluicing my torn and stitched nether regions and proceeded to pry my knees apart and lay me open to comment and scorn with the bathroom door still open and people milling in and out looking at my roommate's child and glancing in through the doorway while Nurse Cratchet continued to sluice my stitches. At least she shut the hallway door and pulled the curtain when she once again pried my tightly locked knees apart and spread my hooha wide open to position the sunlamp just so to dry out my episiotomy stitches, but it was too little too late.

I had decided to breast feed my son and was sitting in the rocking chair, baby cradled in my arms, and trying to get him to latch on to my nonexistent nipples. Unlike most woman, my nipples do not stick out like thick erasers. My nipples are more like suggestions than actual nipples even when responding to cold, arousal, or rough fabric. They are still mere suggestions. At least they aren't inverted.

Nurse Cratchet flung the door open as if entering an old western saloon for a bar brawl and grabbed my generous areola and began stuffing it into my son's mouth, her thick spatulate fingers treaeting me as if I were no more ground pork stuffed into a tight casing for sausage. I was completely extraneous and obviously had no sense of feeling or feelings. She lectured me about giving my baby enough to latch onto while she grabbed more of my breast and continued stuffing, grabbing and stuffing as my son continued to suck as though tucking in the ends and until it seemed as though half my very generous breasts were in his little rosebud mouth, which looked as though the jaw unhinged as he latched on and on and on.

It hurt. A lot. But he was nursing so I gritted my teeth and stayed out of Nurse Cratchet's way while she oversaw the process, repeating it a few minutes later when I transferred him to the other side and she began stuffing my breast into my son's mouth. I could wait to get out of there. Sooner would be better, but I had lost a lot of blood during delivery -- and after -- and the hospital refused to let me go until my blood counts were closer to normal. And presumably until after Nurse Cratchet had finished humiliating and stuffing and manhandling me sufficiently.

When I did get home, nursing was difficult. My nipples cracked and bled and I wish now I had read Beyond the Sling and knew that my milk would heal my almost nipples and soothe the ache and raw pain of nursing.

Two weeks after my son was born, my husband graduated from tech school and we packed the car and made our way across the frozen flat space of Kansas while listening to the OSU-Michigan game on the radio and me nursing our son with a cloth diaper draped across my shoulder and over his face so truckers wouldn't be treated to the sight of my child attached to my naked and very sore breasts.
As soon as we reached Ohio and my husband unpacked my son and I from the car, my son was snatched from my arms and began to cry. My mother decided he was hungry and I needed to nurse him, all the while undressing me in front of all of my relatives, and my grandfather and Dad, and urging me to just ignore everyone and take care of my son. It wasn't long before she decided he wasn't getting enough nourishment and needed food, real food. How could he get any nourishment when me breastfeeding him was such a circus and my milk seemed to clot in my breasts no matter how much I massaged and yanked them about the way Nurse Cratchet told me I should when she manhandled me to free the milk ducts. Personally, I think she just enjoyed playing with my ample breasts.

I caved. My son began eating rice cereal mixed with cow's milk in his 3rd week of life. I didn't know that my breast milk was sufficient for him until he was a year old and that he didn't need baby food until then. What did I know? I was a new mother who, utterly exhausted from my son's every 2 hour feeds (the books said he should be fed every 4 hours and no one mentioned 2 hours), broke down and slept with him rather than have to get up from the bed and go across the room to the bassinet to pick him up, settle him before baring my breast and feeding him yet again. I was utterly fagged and often fell asleep sitting up while he was still nursing. Sleeping with him just seemed the natural thing to do.

According to Mayim Bialik, it is the natural thing to do -- sleep with your newborn child. There's nothing lazy or wrong about it and my son was calmer and less fussy when he was asleep in my arms or when I curled around him while he slept. He was perfectly safe and it was convenient when he woke up in the middle of the night -- every 2 hours -- to nurse.

I wish I had had the sense to dig in my heels and find people who knew more about children and nursing instead of caving. What is a new mother, worn to the merest nub and exhausted beyond words or the ability to make a fist, to do? My mother knew more than I did; she had given birth to 3 children and nursed and raised them. I knew nothing and my instincts were not reliable.

I eventually gave up nursing 3 months in and didn't nurse either of my other 2 boys, suffering through mastitis and sterilizing bottles instead. I wish I had stuck it out and had someone to tell me that my instincts were right.

Except that they were. Okay, they weren't reliable when I called my father in a panic to ask him what to do when the plastic bell fell off the head of my son's penis and his penis looked like a swollen, pussy, and grave worm white thing instead of the head of a normal penis. I had no experience in boys, except for my husband, and I didn't often examine his penis even during the most intimate moments. But my other instincts were right.

While Mayim Bialik's fondness for elimination communication (EC), or the belief that babies already are potty trained but their parents aren't, is a little out there, it does have some merit and I did something similar when my boys had diaper rash. I let them run around naked (when it was warm since diaper rash and summer had something evil in common) while it healed, catching them when they had "that look" and were about to soil the floor (or the bed, the couch, and whatever surface was handiest when they got "that look"), and holding them over the toilet. I've decided to send my review copy to my oldest son. The twins are 2 years old and are bottle fed, but some of the other issues they are facing and have yet to face will be addressed and they might get something useful from Beyond the Sling that I no longer can since my childbearing days are behind me -- far behind me. At least they won't have to listen to horror stories about the mistakes I made and the the way Nurse Cratchet manhandled my anatomically inadequate breasts. Information is a good thing -- especially when it's not intrusive and demanding and belittling. I'll provide the book and they can provide the belief or disbelief and do it their own way.

That's what raising children is all about -- the freedom to ruin your children in your own way without any help from Mom. I made my mistakes; it's time for me to step back and let them make their own mistakes while I provide chocolate and grandmotherly spoiling.

I do suggest you get Beyond the Sling and forget that although Mayim Bialik has made her career in television and doesn't allow her children to watch television, just one of her quirks. The rest of the information is good and she has some experience garnered from raising her two boys. Take what you want from the book and ignore what doesn't work for you or that you take issue with. It is in essence another way of doing things from a mother who has been there and done that and still stuck to her guns. That in itself is worth the price of admission -- having someone your own age in your corner.

We Validate

I just read a blog post about a writer who is answering the question, Why do you want to be published by a traditional publisher? Right off the bat, the writer said, "Validation." She would feel validated because a bunch of supposedly widely read people chose her book to publish. I guess there's no validation in people who actually do read books and are willing to put their hard earned cash on the line to read her book. It might be true that in days gone by that publishers staffed their houses with people who were widely read and knew something about books and how to value books, but those days are long gone, the widely read editors and staff replaced by MBA from Harvard, Yale, and NYU. It's all about numbers and not so much about good books, as anyone who has read the current crop of best selling authors will tell you. Larded in among the authors who actually know how to write are dpeople who rely on gimmicks to entice the reader and authors who have sold their souls for fame and riches and let their characters languish, writing cookie cutter books where the names and places and jobs have changed, but the characters have not. I want validation of a different sort. I want the validation that comes with having written a good book, or books, and people plunking down their hard earned cash to buy my book. That is validation. There is no real validation in a business that is all about numbers and branding and less about the quality of the work, at least in my estimation. My first solo novel was chosen by a publisher and published. My second novel was self-published and I'm prouder of it because people actually want to read and buy and recommend it to other people who buy and read. Yes, I would take a look at the contract if a traditional publisher wanted to pick up my self-published titles, and I might even considering signing it, but I already have my validation. Going with a traditional publisher has to come with a lot more oomph than validation. It would have to come with a great marketing and design package and a lot more money than I can make on my own. I am no longer dazzled by 5- and 6-figure advances because I know what that really means. Big advances are big loans that have to pay off to continue to get big advances, and they are paid in installments. The money doesn't go to the author right off the bat. The author gets a quarter of the money for signing, a uarter for finished book ready to edit, a quarter on publication, and the rest at some unnamed date, or the advance goes in thirds. Royalties aren't paid until the advance is paid off. No one tells you that best sellers often are based on inflated numbers. The best seller list numbers come from number of books contracted for sale and not the actual sale of books. Often the books that go out the warehouse door end up in landfills and on remainder tables or come bac to the warehouse dirty and shelf worn because they didn't sell. Yes, consumers can be lemmings, but not always. When an author self publishes and sells tens of thousands or even millions of books, those numbers were actually bought and the books delivered and read. There is a lot about publishing that still has some value if you believe well read individuals with a track record for excellence have chosen your book, but it's smoke and mirrors. I'm mercenary come to that. I prefer my validation in dollars and cents -- and in people talking about my books and the characters and asking me when the next book is coming out. Publishing traditionally or self-publishing is about learning the game. Mistakes will be made, but I've learned that being on the upswing is far better validation than being on the down swing.