Anonymous Letters and Anonymous Turds

I haven't posted here since the demise of the Manny. Nor have I written very much at all, despite the desperate pleading from my legions of fans for the sequel to my novel, The Hundred: Book Two. It's in the works, I assure you, you girl who sleeps with Book One beneath her pillow (that doorstopper must give her a crick in the neck!), you wanna-be author boy in that one school in the Bronx, and you creepy guy in the trench coat at the end of my driveway. Fans!

I just happen to be very busy right now. We moved to a new state two months ago. (Rah Rah Connecticut! And hurrah for our state animal, the Sperm Whale! Really? I just Googled this and I am a little shocked. And thrilled. Did you know that Moby Dick was based on a real Sperm Whale who was called...wait for it...Mocha Dick! He roamed the South Pacific in the 1840s. I'm not kidding at all. From Wikipedia: Mocha Dick was a notorious male sperm whale that lived in the Pacific Ocean in the early 19th century, usually encountered in the waters near the island of Mocha, off southern Chile. He was often accompanied by Whatta Dick and Totall Dick, his brethren, who pretty much destroyed everything. Mocha Dick survived many skirmishes (by some accounts at least 100) with whalers before he was eventually killed.)

Told you Mocha Dick was real! You were inclined to disbelieve me, weren't you? His bwuddahs are real, too!

So, back to me and my writing, or lack thereof. I wrote several songs in the last few months, and they even have real chords! And I can play piano and sing! (Albeit like a dying goat.) I also wrote some anonymous letters to strangers in my old neighborhood, before we moved. No, no, they weren't those sorts of anonymous letters! Not the kind of letters that also include a turd lovingly Scotch-taped to the envelope. (Although, I must say, some individuals might have merited such a delivery.) They were lovely handwritten letters, containing hope, inspiration, intriguing quotes, and sometimes a full shot glass worth of Vodka, if you wrung them out carefully.

I did it as a sort of experiment. I was feeling a little ill-at-ease at times before our move, and also overwhelmed, so I thought: Why not spread some love/happiness/surprise/whatnot into the void of the neighborhood by penning these completely original letters and then slipping them into random mailboxes? I'd write them at night. No copies were made, so I can't prove to you what they said. Of course, there's the beauty in it, right?

Then, on the way to the gym or the post office the next day, I'd scan houses and mailboxes for the right "vibe." When the house felt just right (maybe maybe it would have a little sad feeling, as if the people who lived there might need one of my letters), I would quietly steal up the walkway and slip the letter in the mailbox and then scurry away.

Then I would always get a really pleased feeling, like the kind of feeling you get when you have placed a pickle under your friend's pillow and you can just deliciously picture them discovering it at 3 a.m. and shouting, "What the fuck? Who would put a fucking pickle under my pillow?!?"

This is simply a pickle. Ever found one under your pillow? 

Except this was awesome and different! Not a pickle. A nice letter, written by a former English major with a Master's Degree in Writing. Me! So instead, they might say, "Honey, there is a psychopath around here writing anonymous letters filled with goopy sentiment, and the paper smells a little like Cheetos. In fact, there is some orange detritus on the edge of the paper here. But, gee, I feel so much better suddenly about my life, and now I shall write anonymous letters as well and the joy will spread throughout the world and defeat terrorism and other bad things. Yay!"

Weirdly, after delivery of a letter, something good would often come my way. Not checks and barrels full of money (Poo poo on you, The Secret), but a bit of good news, or a happy day, or someone using the serial comma without provocation, or some such.

I don't know if anyone reading this received one of my letters, but, by gosh, you should note it in the comments if you did.

So when we moved into our new home, a new sort of anonymous "delivery" began to appear. As background, our family loves board games and has often played the game "Balderdash," which is the same thing as the old game "Dictionary." In Balderdash (or "Bladder Dash" as someone most famously called it) you get an obscure word and then everyone has to write a phony definition that will fool people and garner votes. One day when we played, the word was "Thob." Someone submitted the definition: "A poo that doesn't flush." Ever after, should a son fail to flush the toilet after expulsion, it was by definition a "Thob."

Thobbie the Thob!

Then it began.

Day Two in our new house: I enter the downstairs bathroom and find a horrible, fat Thob covered in acres of toilet paper. "J'accuse!" I said to our youngest boy, who denied any part in the matter.

Day Three: A fresh Thob discovered, same toilet. Same acreage of TP. Many fingers were pointed.

Day Four: More Thobs, this time in multiple toilets. We suspect copycats. Guests are present and they are also queried.

Day Five: Another lone Thob in a toilet previously unsullied. The atmosphere is grim in the house, and accusations fly.

Day Six: This time, a Thob in the toilet closest to the boys' bedroom. Middle Child discovers it and reacts with terror and wild running-about. "It smells bad!" he cries.

Day Seven: Quiet and peace reigns. Is it over?

Day Eight: A new Thob! Back to the original, with a full roll of toilet paper nearly hiding its glistening pelt. Horror in the household.

Soon after that, the Wild Thobber left off his repulsive activities, and we have not seen a new Thob since. But I await its arrival, with anticipation and a little bit of glee.

For who amongst us hasn't wanted to leave a surprise for someone else? Or find one. A pickle under the pillow, a Thob in the executive washroom, an anonymous and completely random letter to the lonely, housebound person who used to work in the sad office with the diner plants and the candy trays at every fluorescent-lit cubicle? A little cairn of rocks where there isn't supposed to be one. A note duct-taped underneath a bench in an out-of-the-way train station, from which very few people ever leave. Write letters to the world.

My New Children's Fantasy Novel, The Hundred, Is Published!

I'm excited to announce the publication of my new YA/MG fantasy novel, The Hundred: Fall of the Wents! 

Best for ages 10 and up, the book takes readers on an epic journey into a future where humans no longer exist. Evolution has produced a host of wondrous and intelligent beings: shape-shifting Fantastic Grouts with globes of light atop their skulls; creatures descended from flowers; and massive swarms of bees that can bore perfect holes through metal or bone. 

But some seek a way to bring the humans back into the world—a world filled with creatures like twelve-year-old Tully, a young, amphibious Eft who imagines humans as nothing more than old bones and fairy stories. When his beloved guardian is stolen by a menacing black shadow, Tully must embark on a journey to a cruel, northern land to save her and his entire species. In an adventure that blends time travel, magic, and science, Tully learns whom he can trust, and who will betray him—for the price of reawakening the Hundred.

It's already received a positive response on Amazon, but the most amazing reward for me are the early and personal notes from parents. Among them:

"In the future please consider publishing your books during school vacation. I had to wrestle the Kindle from my daughter's grasp 1 hour and 5 reminders past her bedtime. If her grades suffer it is on your head!"

"My daughter and I just read the first chapter of your book...hooked! It's brilliant!"

"Your descriptive writing made the book SO GOOD! The plot really held her attention, and that is something that is sometimes lacking in YA fantasy books!"

You can find the book here on Amazon:

Print version

Kindle version

Add it to your Goodreads "to read" list!

(Are you a blogger who is interested in reviewing a copy? Email me at jennyphresh (at) yahoo (dot) com.)

Please let me know what you think, and spread the word to any young (and old) readers you know. Thank you for all your support. My next blog post will tell the story of how this book came to be. 

Eldest Son Unleashes the F-Bomb (and the Kraken!)

Eldest Son (age 8) is enrolled in a special creative writing workshop at his school, which meets on Fridays. When I arrived home tonight he told me he had completed his short story for the week, and would I like to read it? Then he leaned over and whispered in my ear: "It's sort of inappropriate."

I was expecting a panoply of farts and poo talk, so I took the paper he handed me and started to read it out loud. The story was titled "How The Kraken Learned to Hate Bad Words." It starred a sailor named "Sdrowdab" ("Bad Words" spelled backwards) who gets into some hijinks on the high seas with the infamous Kraken. The Kraken and Sdrowdab get into a tussle, at which point ol' Sdrowdab unleashes some language that would make a sailor blush:

'"Fuck Fuck Fucky Fuck!" yelled Sdrowdab. "You're one slimy ass Kraken! Oh, Fuckity Fuck Fuck!"'

"Profanity offends my finer sensibilities," said Geoffrey Q. Kraken. "I'll take a double espresso, sir."

I did a double take, stopped reading, and gaped. Eldest Son smiled meaningfully.

"Ah, yes, what you said about inappropriate? Um, well..." And then I searched for a delicate way to put it. "Your teacher might be a bit...surprised. Shocked, even."

He burst into tears and snatched the paper from my hands.

"I knew it!" he screamed. "I'm gonna recycle this!"

Middle Son got very excited and managed to get his hands on the paper. He has just learned to read and is very proud of his skills. So he sounded out the word: "Fuck-tee? Fuck-tee? Fuck-tee!" He looked to me for approval.

Littlest Son said "Fuck-tee! Fuck-tee!" and laughed with great gusto.

"That's kind of a...bad word," I said.

Eldest Son burst into tears again and displayed his uvula.

"Wait, wait!" I said. "It's not like you have to scrap this story. How about you change the 'F' word to 'Fart'?"

"You know that will ruin it!" he wailed.

Well, he was right. Sometimes the F bomb just can't be replaced with a tame little replacement like "Fartity Pants" or "Farty Fart." Would Go the F to Sleep have become a bestseller? I don't think so. "Aw, sugar!" a coworker said recently. I cringed. Let's call a shit a shit, after all.

I asked him, "Where did you hear this word?" (Had he been reading mother's blog?) He shrugged his shoulders.

"You know, Eldest Son," I said. "It's just a word. Words can't hurt us. We shouldn't be afraid of words. Did you know that some people have banned books because they have bad words or thoughts in them that people don't like? I think you ought to bring that story in. Just be prepared. Your teacher's eyebrows will go up."

Why was I saying this? I don't know. I didn't want him to feel censored.

It was no use. He tore the story into little bits and ran off crying, saying things like "I wrote a banned story. I wrote a story that's gonna get banned." I gathered the bits and saved them. The pencil marks had faded from his grubby, angsty clutch. I could barely read the end, where the Kraken, deeply offended by the slew of bad language from the potty-mouthed sailor Sdrowdab, sinks beneath the waves "never ever to be seen again."

Fuckity fuck fuck, it was a pretty good story! But he made me promise not to tell a soul about it.

I lied very sweetly.

When Rejection Makes Us Young Again

For the writers among us who want to be published (and for everyone who has ever been spurned, or loved):

A request for a full manuscript offers the same giddy anticipation of Christmas morning—a package waiting to be opened. Will it contain coal, poo, or something shiny? It is hovering, an energy waiting to be born. A stone on a hillside waiting to be pushed. A request feels like the lurch of sighting the admired boy in the lunch line, seeing oneself in window glass and wondering "Am I pretty today?" And then he turns to look at you.

The loveliness of that request, that look, can carry one through the day, like those lazy afternoons in high school when the boys streamed out across the playing fields and the sun fell low. There's a crispness in the air and everything is possible and melodious.

It's all longing, and all your youth is longing.

Then the rejection, sudden, which feels inevitable when it arrives. Always, there's a heat within it. It feels like a slap, but one devoid of any true anger and love. It's a slap that shouldn't sting, but it does—every time. There is an immediate urge to cover the screen or the paper with your arms, and you wish that they were swan's wings. Your heart is beating in your face.

The sting fades faster each time, but it's still a sting. Suddenly you don't want to look your children in the eyes. The day is beautiful, but you feel a bit faint and lifeless, like someone abandoned you at the dance. All that possibility. The lovely things that might have come to pass. Is there a fine place to hide?

You remember what the boy said. He is your oldest son. He reads everything.

He says: "When is your book going to be published?"

"Not yet," you say. "Not yet."

"Well, you'd better be writing the next one in the trilogy. You'd better start tonight."

"Okay."

He turns in the doorway and adds, "I don't want you to write the next one. I need you to write it."

Your arms feel like the wings of birds at your side, this time not for shame.

The longing never goes. You are young, and want everything. People will say "no," and you still want. You have the recklessness of the toddler who smacks his head on the stairs in his efforts to climb. You continue to pet the dog that snaps at you.

Fool child, who keeps climbing trees and falling out, falling with tarry hands and brambles in your hair and the taste of the moon. Good for you. Someone should still be climbing trees on this earth.

Belated Blog Awards

As many of you know, I spent the last several weeks languishing in the belly of a large ursine animal. I shared the space with one can of tuna, a jar of peanut butter, a belt buckle or two, and a very surly hiker who insisted on complaining and not making the best of the situation. I escaped, and returned to civilization to find that I had been given some lurvely blog awards. I now have the wits about me to bequeath them to other deserving ladies and gentlemen. (Or just ladies. It seems I have left the men on the sidelines holding their dance cards and their winkers. Next time, boys! It wasn't meant to be a slight. But you always tend to misplace my awards next to the urinal, you know.)

The Liebster Blog Award is given to bloggers with less than 200 followers, all in the spirit of fostering new connections. The rules are delightfully simple:

1. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.
2. Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3. Post the award on your blog.
4. Bask in the love from the most supportive people on the internet—other writers.
5. And best of all – have fun and spread the karma. 

I received this award from TWO people: The lovely Catherine Stine, author and illustrator and all-around talented individual, and Angela V. Cook, writer, great pal, and member of the nefarious #goatposse. Thank you both!

And from Lisa Ann, animal trainer and aspiring writer who snuggles with the four-legged and finned on a regular basis, I was also gifted with the Blog on Fire award. I had it, but getting it again means I am SUPER META ON FIRE AND LIKELY TO CAUSE A BIG CONFLAGRATION AND DRIVE PEOPLE OUT OF THEIR HOMES. So thank you, Lisa Ann!

I will re-gift the Liebster to the following people:

1. Tori: I dunno how I found her, but her writing is Grade-A, marvelous, amusing, and so weirdly original and offbeat that she needs a big fat following now. She's just sending out awesome beauties into the universe. I don't think she is an "awards" kind of person so she may trunk this award in a chest with some Fitzgerald and Hemingway novels.
2. Jennifer of Serendipity's Library: I cannot figure out how many followers she has because she is so durned secretive, she must have hidden them under a pile of Harry Potter paraphernalia! But she is lovely, and seems to write all her posts in verse, as they are center justified. Crazy! Cool!
3. Carissa Elg, who is the author of the Pendomus Chronicles, a sci-fi genre bending dystopian series that sounds fascinating! Follow her. I command this.
4. Riley Redgate, who is super-talented and funny and clever and also is, by all reports, a teenager. Wow! She is also a member of the Skeleton Key Blogvel crew.
5. Mary Frame. Mary, Mary, Mary! She is a goddess among men. Can it be that I am first to give you this award, or am I just too drunk and stupid to find it among your recent blog entries? Either way, to you it shall be given.

The Time-Traveling Dead Girl Who Is Secretly a Princess

After reading this post on Openings to Avoid by Nathan Bransford and also this one by Kristen Nelson, I thought I'd take a stab at trying ALL OF THEM (in reality just "most" of them, because I couldn't bear to write a prologue), with some extra bad sauce thrown in. Just because I am bored, naughty, and all that.

Strangely enough, I sort of want to find out what happens to ol' Miranda after writing this fish-wrapper-worthy opening. Will she find the magic crystal? Why were all the dudes on horseback fighting each other? What cocktails do they serve in the land of the dead? Read on...

THE TIME-TRAVELING DEAD GIRL WHO IS SECRETLY A PRINCESS

Miranda woke up by the side of the forest pool, yawned, and stretched. She’d had such a lovely dream—something about a castle by the sea, and a heavy crown being placed on her head. Foolishness! She was but a poor farm girl, not a princess or a queen. She resumed her task of gathering herbs, which she had been occupied with before succumbing to a brief nap.  

Miranda sought the herbs in the densest, darkest part of the forest, dropping the hensbane and gnarlyort into the braided basket that hung over her shoulder. It was the eve of her sixteenth birthday, and she had led a rather ordinary and boring life. Little did she know that everything she knew and loved was to change—irreparably and abruptly.

            Miranda glanced into the pool of water at her feet, around the edge of which grew the healing herbs that she used to make her tinctures and potions. She saw a lovely pale face framed by red tresses, her eyes green and large. Her mouth was as pert as a rosebud, but with a sultry little quirk to it that suggested mischief.

            A noise caught her attention. It was a party of elves, dwarves, and gnomes, trooping past on their way to the salt mines. Miranda smirked and shook her head at the little creatures as they scampered along, their green cloaks and jerkins blending with the colors of the forest.

            “Folderol and higgledypuff,” said one of the elves. “The legions in the west are massing, but the clouds are brewing in the east as well.”

            “Sure as shenanigans,” said a fat dwarf.

            “But what of her ladyship?” said the elf, his small pointed ears twitching. “There’s been talk of her being sighted on a white horse at the cliff’s edge, and I say it’s not poppycock!”

            “Blither and blast,” said a gnome. “Will ye stop talking when there’s work to be done?”

            “Ah,” said the elf, ominously. “When the magic crystal is found, then the work won’t matter so much anymore, will it? Only a young girl can find it, they say. A young girl with magical powers and whatnot.”

            Suddenly, there was a cracking sound. Miranda glanced up sharply to see a man on a white steed, gazing at her through the trees. He was joined by another, and another, until the forest was filled with men on white steeds. Miranda froze, hardly daring to breathe.

Suddenly, the steeds charged at each other, and the entire forest echoed with the sounds of clanging steel and the screams of dying men. The battle raged, with trebuchets rolling, horses dying with great gusts of blood bursting from their bellies, and explosions bursting in the trees. Men died by the cartload, their corpses piling up on the forest floor like wheat sheaves. Miranda screamed and ran hither and thither, finally crouching low next to the pool with her basket of herbs over her head.

Something exploded in the water and Miranda was sucked violently through the pool and into a bedchamber, where a handsome teenage stranger lay on a bed, wearing nothing but a pair of boxer briefs. A calendar on the wall read “Hot Guys and Baby Animals 2011.” 

            “Where am I?” muttered Miranda. The voyage through the portal had disarranged her garments, and she noticed with annoyance that her basket of herbs was gone—no doubt flung into another dimension.

            The handsome stranger raised his head. It was only then that she noticed his eyes were hollow and soulless.

            “Why, you’re in the land of the dead,” said the man, and smiled, revealing two very white and pointed canine teeth. 

Why Do We Write?

"I'd rather be known as a writer than do the actual writing."--My friend Sam, a published author

"I hate writing. I love having written."—Dorothy Parker

I wonder: Is writing really all about the completion, the ensuing love? Why choose this path, when one could have been so many other things: a goat herder, an accountant, a nailer of nails, a carrier of rocks, a subway mime? Fame and satisfaction might be theirs, too, and a lot faster.

Yes, having it done and sealed up and your love assured is fine and good, but then—the hovering expectation when anything can still happen. That is better, perhaps. The moment when the world goes still and silent and the only things still moving are your hands, small and clumsy in the glare of the screen. (Or, if you've taken a proper typing course, capable and sure. I have not. I have already established that I am a fool, and type with a special blend of four swift fingers.)


Why take this path? Why, for example, did I rise at 4:00 am last Wednesday and wander to the computer screen to type a single line of text? It was a title for a story, nothing more. What mad and foolish pride would let me think that precious line too good to be lost?

My title contained a character's name. I worried that if I left him at the edge of sleep, he would wink out of existence. Perhaps it's something like wondering if I had turned left that day, instead of right, my children would never have been born. I woke in the morning and leaned over my saved document, like patting my pocket for a stone I found.

"Write it down, write it down, write it down," the voice says. It says it at the most inconvenient times:  when I am weighted down with bags and wedged in like a cow in the subway. I obey, even if it means the anger of lost sleep and a scrabbling after linty, sticky pens. Sometimes the pens are wrapped around with stray hairs and their nibs poke holes in my baggie of "emergency almonds"—my purse is a cruel wasteland. But it always contains a pen.

Do we write for adulation? Do we write to see our names on the wall? When I'm gone, there will be more than baggage and tag sale treasures to turn out of my house. I have saved the lives of characters. I have loved words. What else could I have done? I could, instead, step out into the wide world and be nothing, nothing at all. I could close this screen and step away, and I could be happy. I would go to the park. I would speak with people.

But no. We occasionally choose disaster and heartbreak. We invite joy. We want to live all the lives we could have had. We are greedy hoarders, revelers, egomaniacs, bearers of sadness, fools for long and fine moments when even the house seems to tremble and await what we'll bring. We wake in the night.

Query: MY HOUSE

Binxie Durbin

Weichert, Realtors

Larchmont, NY

 

Dear Ms. Durbin,

 

"They haven't done a thing to keep it up."

 

"What a disgrace! No curb appeal."

"That old dump should have been razed back in the 1890s."

 

That's what the neighbors mutter about 42 Terrace Lane. But what they don't know is that the house hides a secret. Behind the crumbling plaster, musty shag carpets, and hideous 1970s wood paneling, 42 Terrace Lane is bursting with potential. Yes, she has crickets in the basement and a poltergeist in the wainscoting, but when a new owner sinks approximately half a million dollars into her, she's going to be gorgeous.

 

A little down on her luck, 42 Terrace Lane is determined to make something of herself. They won't dare call her a "filthy eyesore" anymore. This time, she's going to have shiny granite countertops, not Nu-Econo-Brik. This time, she's going to have a porch that doesn't sag, and a back deck with a brand-new Weber gas grill, and there are going to be really good dinner parties with fine china in her dining room, damn it. If she can just get there before a potential owner's spike heel punches through the rotting wood on the stairs, she's golden.

My Victorian dystopian for adults and several children, MY HOUSE, is complete at 2,467 square feet. It’s like a cross between THE JONES’S HOUSE, MO 'N' JACK'S SPORTS BAR, and FOLSOM PRISON. Please let me know if you care to see any portion of it; I'd be happy to provide access to the front porch or foyer. I am open to suggestions for revision, including tearing off the back half of the house so that a little sunlight might get into the damp corners of the living room.

MY HOUSE is my second dwelling; MY FIRST HOUSE was sold to a nice couple from New Rochelle in 2008. I have other works on the property, including MY GARAGE and MY ROTTING STORAGE SHED WHICH PROBABLY CONTAINS SOME ANIMAL FAECES, which may also interest you.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

The Insects Are Going to Sit On Us

My husband heard on NPR the other day that there are 200 million insects for every human on the planet.

"Just suppose," says he, "That they all got wise, and that they decided to gang up on us. It would be 200 million to one!"

I thought about this, and said, "Yes, even 200 million butterflies would win against one frail human. They could all flap their wings in unison. What about 200 million blackflies or mosquitoes? What if they decided to fight us? They would win!"

"Who said anything about fighting?" said my husband. "All they'd have to do is sit on us."

You see now why I have an anxiety disorder.

I thought, "What a great idea for a new book!" so I wrote one immediately.

My new book THE INSECTS SAT ON US is a YA Paranormal Romance, in which our heroine Brittanee meets Jordan, a football player, but their romance is ruined when they are both sat upon by aphids, earwigs, and termites. It is complete at 32,345 words, which is as far as I got before I was sat upon by a cloud of moths, who ruined my typing skills. I am sending it to you, agent, who are now likely being sat upon by locusts and boll weevils. I don't expect a response, but if you should reach out to some editors you know before they, too, are sat upon by mites and beetles, this book may yet stop the plague which is now upon us.

THE INSECTS SAT ON US is like a cross between ARE YOU THERE, GOD? IT'S ME MARGARET and THE BIBLE. And maybe with a bit of LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE and TWILIGHT and some Kafka and Dante thrown into the mix. It would be best to accept this book because I think now that the insects have become my friends, and will sit on those who spurn me. They will sit with alacrity! They will sit with their antennae fierce and erect! Do not cross them.

Respectfully and now totally controlled by insects, who are cooking my supper and braiding my hair,
The Party Pony

Willful Blindness

A week or two ago I was riding home on the train from work, and I'd had enough of the sting of my contact lenses, which were burning my dry and computer-dazzled eyes. So I plucked them out and threw them on the floor. (The lenses, not my eyes, silly readers...although I would have delighted in shouting "Out, vile jelly!" and causing the commuters to make hideous typos on their Blackberrys.)

Without my lenses to guide me home, I might as well have been legally blind. I walked off the train in a sort of daze, moving along with the stream of commuters. Surely, I would have been left for dead in the days before corrective eyewear, always stumbling to catch up with my sure-footed tribe, glaring through a water droplet on the edge of a plucked blossom, shouting "Hey, fellas! I can't see you. Is that you, Og?" Eventually they would have tipped me into a watering hole or failed to mention an approaching mammoth.

So I walked home blind through the dappled leaves, my face open to the world because I could not construct a symmetrical response to whomever or whatever was looking at me. My expression was as bland and naked as my hands, and my hands swept through the air. The pink house on the side street, a blur, looked like that Cezanne painting we had to turn upside-down in art class so very long ago, to look for the shapes and contours only. "Forget what you are seeing, for an instant," said the art teacher. "That is not a house. Look for the spaces between the houses; look for the colors, and the light."

Something glimmered on the edge of the sidewalk: A lost credit card? A candy wrapper? Whatever it was I could not tell. It flickered blue and metallic, like a strange fish swimming away before me through the hotness of green and the light all falling down.

The world seemed softer when I was blind. It seemed to cradle me, and I was a small thing moving safe and warm through it. And I remembered that as a child—as a teen, really—I hadn't wanted to wear my glasses at all, and sometimes hid them in my coat pocket upon arrival at school. I would mark the colors my friends were wearing in the morning, and spot them that way throughout the day. Sometimes I would make a pinhole lens of flesh by curling my forefinger tight next to my thumb, and sight the world through that. (More often than not I would be felled in gym class by the rubbery thump of a dodgeball to the side of the head, and wish I were not so vain.)

Now, on this walk home through a suburban spring, I heard birds, whispers, my own breath. I saw human shapes, walking, a distance away. Someone was coming up behind me, swinging a bag. Did I know him or her? I turned and framed a quick smile so I would not insult. A stranger, the person may have smiled back; I'll never know. Did it matter? I could assume love from the universe.

Trees seemed to be lit from within by their blossoms; honeysuckle, red rhododendron, pink azalea (dying when viewed closely, but still alive to the half-blind). And the patches of light, dancing on the green trees. Shadows of trees on the sides of houses, houses as big as barns. I looked and was amazed. I saw nothing. I saw everything. The world cast its gaze on me as I stumbled home unseeing and alive. 

Writing Is Like a River Trip

My blogger friend, the ever-inventive and imaginative and wildly funny Greenwoman, has come up with a new challenge. It's called Writing Is Not Like a Box of Chocolates: A Meme.

These are her rules:
"Take the phrase “Writing is like . . .” and finish it. Post it on your blog. Tag three others to do the same. That is all. See how easy that is?"

I know that Greenwoman expects me to say that writing is like dancing with goats wearing spangly pants, or like battling a woodchuck who keeps taunting me with a blank sheet of paper and rude hand gestures, or like wandering into a drainage ditch wearing my best Lilly Pulitzer frock—but finding a crop of diamonds and a chilled martini shaker at the bottom of the ditch.

There, now I've said all those things to please her, because she deserves it. But I'm going to write something else. Something "not silly" and "not funny." (Hold onto your party hats!) I'm used to being funny, so writing something "not funny" feels like I just tossed my pants into the hog pen and am standing here looking wan and dumb, and the scarecrow is giving me the leery eye. (Maybe this happens on Greenwoman's farm?)

Sometimes I don't gotta be funny. Here you go.

Writing is like paddling a canoe through a tract of waterways as vast as the world. Your boat moves through glades and narrow channels, whisking down rapids. You move north, ever north, through a landscape that you made and lost once in a dream.

At times, the river widens and spills you out onto a great body of water, and you are a small thing under a hollow and terrible bowl of sky. The distant shore cannot be seen, although you shade your eyes with your hand. You pull forward all the same. There is the outlet, there is the way home. The river closes around you once again, and the current takes you.

Sometimes you hear laughter and voices over the hedges that line the banks. One morning a dragonfly settles on the gunwale, and stirs its blue wings. You are lost, quite fully lost, and you know it. You can let the canoe drift in lazy, spinning circles, or you can paddle fierce and hard for the far shore.

Either way, you’ll get there. You will be carried. You will carry yourself, when the drought comes and dries up the riverbeds.

You emerge into a bright patch of sunlight and hear the buzz and fall of summer heat. Sometimes your boat slips down dim alleyways of water lined by stately trees. Sometimes it rains on the big lakes, and you pray you’ll make it home alive.

You might look over the edge of your boat one day and see a gift on the bottom of the shallow river, shot through with light. A bag of stones. A letter from a loved one. A ribbon, a coin, a flash of fish scales in the murk, falling down and down. Trivial, lovely.

You pull up your treasure. Your boat drifts, and the dusk falls. Your hands are dripping with discovery. You wonder: Who put this there? Who left this gift? Then you remember: You yourself dropped that bag of memory into the dark waters. You hid it there. Everything beautiful is waiting to be found.

________

Now I'm tagging three people who shall take this meme and run with it. They are:

Mary Frame
Because her excellent and helpful blog posts about the craft of writing lead me to believe her answer to this will be thoughtful and thought-provoking. (No pressure, Mary--if you want to say that writing is like a jar of pickles and not explain why, you go right ahead.)

Kalen O'Donnell
Because he's crazy! And he threatened me for my ARCs! So now I have him dart-gunned, bagged, and tagged. (By the way, his threats have paid out, and ARCs will be given away next week. Stay tuned.)

Tracey Hansen
Because she will do what I should have done and write something lewd, rude, and soaked in wine! I hope. Yes, please?

Flash 55 Blog Challenge!

A challenge: Flash us! Trim a blog entry to 55 words max. Say something witty, dimwitted, scatological, eschatological. Direct eyes via “comments” to the slim gams you revealed under that trench. Hide them hamhocks. You can eke out more mileage with ginormous and verbosalicious vocabulary, if it suits, but keep ‘er clean ‘n’ pithy. Yar!

(55 words)

Oh sir, your blog entry is so wee, so compact! But your photo caption is so lardy and fat. Did I mention that captions don't count in the word count? No, they don't! May I mention it again? I feel I have a lot to say here. Blah biddy blah biddy blah. So anyway, he or she who posts the best Flash 55 blog entry in this cockamamie scheme may get a special award from ME! If your picture caption is as painfully rambling as mine is, you will most certainly get extra points. My award will probably be offensive to the eyes and you'll want to tuck it into your sock drawer immediately, away from prying eyes. But hey, why not try to fly close to the sun? Just like that Greek guy with the wings made of wax and bits of gargled cat hair and denuded birds. 

Here's to You, Anita Howard

A few months ago, I was feeling rather low. I was consorting with worms, and sticking my head into the compost bin to drown out the harsh and awful daylight.

The words "pull yourself together" could not be more apt for a person like me who struggles with panic and anxiety on a frequent basis. At its worst, fierce panic makes one feel like one is literally "falling apart." These clichés were born of truth.

I had days that were not good. Sometimes I had maniacal thoughts: that my kneecaps would just plain fall off my legs, or that my teeth would fall out into my soup. It's called "personality disintegration" or "depersonalization."

I tried many things, including fancy lights, tinctures, pills, breathing through only one nostril.

I also had what's called "derealization"--that funny sensation that the world is not real. I swam out into the world wearing fogged and hopeless goggles. I forgot how to get home, sometimes.

(The story of all this is being told in a book I'm writing called PURSUED BY BEARS.  I hope it will one day have a spine, rather than a blinking cursor on a screen.)

Then one day a fellow writer named Anita Howard visited my blog from Query Tracker, and left me one of the nicest comments I have ever received. I had been keeping this blog for a long while, but hadn't even bothered to tell my neighbors about it. (It is a pity that I've told them now, because now I can't write about them as freely. Oh neighbors, I wouldn't say a thing about you, and you know that!)

Some friends had read my blog, sure, and they said awfully nice things as well. But Anita was a stranger. And she talked to me like she was an old friend. I knew right off that she was a good egg.

You probably know her. As another blogger recently said, "she knows all the cool kids." If you don't, go and visit her. I'll bet she'll say something nice to you, too. And she'll mean it. No fakies.

I wanted to say thanks, Anita. Because one never knows when that kind gesture, that thoughtful word of hope, that effort to take time out to reach out to someone will matter. It's true online and in our everyday lives. Smile at a dour person you pass on the street and say hello, and see how his or her face changes. It's magic, ain't it? (Unless they are touched in the head, in which case they may bite you with razor-sharp fangs. Best to be warned. It's not my fault if this happens.)

Here's another fat cliché: Ray of sunshine. And another: Ray of hope.

So yesterday Anita gave me this blog award--one of many that she has given to some other wonderful writers on this Bloggy Wonderland post. It sort of says that I am mad as a hatter. In fact, that's exactly what it says.

If I'm mad enough to startle when a butterfly flaps its wings in Tibet, or despair at my own lurching heart, or count and multiply the ceiling tiles in an effort to avoid staggering into a ditch of my own making, then I am also mad enough to dream, to write, to run for the far borders of my imagination.

Thanks for the reminder, Anita. Oh, and you get the Bacon Award AND the Hot Buttered! I don't suppose you want the sebaceous cyst award? Didn't think so. Damn it.

Why Query Tracker Is Like Fertility Friend

Years ago, before I had birthed me three buoyant boys, I used to frequent a site called Fertility Friend. One could track one's BBT (basal body temperature) each morning to determine when the time was ripe for baby making. You had to lie quite still and slip the thermometer under the tongue, lest a sudden movement jack your temperature up a degree and skew your results.

This clever site would track your ups and downs on a little chart, showing the slight dip in temp before the release of this month's Most Glorious and Noble and Hopeful Egg, and then the rise afterward. And, if the egg met its match among those wee struggling swimmers, the upward trend might carry on, up and up, and on...on toward baby, and infinity.

Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match!

I used this site not because I had any real trouble making those babies--in fact, quite the opposite. I made a whole slew of 'em. I used it because I was obsessive. I had to know. I didn't want to guess. I wanted to see the telltale rise that spoke of success long before an EPT from the local drugstore could pick up the minute traces of whatever hormone etched two pink lines instead of one.

I have always hated waiting.

I gave all that obsession up after my first son. It didn't seem important anymore. I had one now, and that was all that really counted. I suppose I ought to visit again, should I ever find my password, and say: "Carry on, good folk! Your day will come!" But I'd feel like an interloper by now.

But I still remember the forums--the hopeful "baby dust" that posters would scatter on the mournful whose charts went awry. Posts were filled with dancing "hugs" and sparkly unicorns and angry little green faces of rage at AF (Aunt Flo), whose arrival put off success for at least another month. There was also a gallery of charts--failed charts, charts that showed ovulation, charts for women 40 and older, charts for overweight women, charts for women five feet tall who lived in Poughkeepsie, and charts that resulted in squealing babies.

It was all completely fascinating and addictive.

So not long ago I found this awesome site Query Tracker, where hopeful writers gather to find an agent, and track their stats for queries, submissions, rejections, feedback, and more. I was reminded of those long-ago days when I would scour the Fertility Friend forums. On Query Tracker, instead of uncomfortable details about "fluids," one can find out whether an agent is a non-responder, writes a polite form rejection, or mocks her own slushpile through her Twitter feed. One can search for success stories that show the hopeful line of dots on the chart trending higher (a partial request!) and higher still (a full request!!)  and finally—sometimes—reach a pinnacle of delirious excitement (I got an offer of representation!!!) Jackpot, baby, you've got a bun in the oven.

One can console the downtrodden who, week after week, failed to find themselves "knocked up" but have a gleam in their eye that won't quit. One can cheer on the excited who are "late" and waiting, waiting for that answer. One can gnaw vaguely on one's jealously while reading the stories of others who have made it. Yes, we're happy for them, but I want one too, damn it!

It is all completely fascinating and addictive.

One hopes that each and every one of those Trackers will walk away with a twinkle in the eye that, 9 months, or 18 months, or 2 years later will bear fruit. They'll have something to hold in their hands. They'll say, "I made it. I made this." Isn't there enough luck and goodness in the world for all of us, then?

And one day, walking home from the train on a spring evening, a glimpse through the trees of red shirt, green shirt, flashing among the shrubs. Boys—grown boys, laughing—chasing through the spangled light. And hope.

Three Rejection Letters: Should They Sting and Burn?

For those of us who are writers, it's hard not to take a rejection letter from an agent or editor personally—especially early in the process, when each word of a simple form rejection can feel like bee stings, BBs in the buttocks, or hot acid. And it's difficult indeed to see querying, and the inevitable rejections that come with it, as the subjective process it is.

Let's imagine then, for a moment, that rejection letters were par for the course in other very subjective contexts. Would you still take them personally? Would they still sting and burn? Does rejection stink no matter how it's served? Or are we sometimes wearing puce-tinted glasses? I wonder. Let's see:

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Lugnutz,
Thank you for the opportunity to tour your lovely home at last Sunday's open house. While we admired the billiards room and the wet bar in the master bedroom, we're afraid to say that we just didn't quite fall in love. We're looking for something very specific, you see: A home in which we can raise our pet ferrets in a hutch in the backyard. Upon measurement, your backyard—while filled with fragrant spring flowers and that pleasant tinkling fountain—just doesn't have the correct contours for our needs. We hope that you find a buyer who will bestow upon your house as much love as you have clearly put into it.
Best,
Misty and Hugh Greenteeth

Dear Sadie-Lou,
I enjoyed our blind date on Saturday. You are clearly a personable young lady, with many charms. Among them are your very voluptuous rump and your extremely advantageous bosom. Despite these assets, I just didn't feel the chemistry required to see you a second time. You deserve a man who will want to ravish you at each and every opportunity, and for a reason I cannot fathom (and at times excoriate myself for, for you are a hot number), I am not that man. I wish you the best of luck in finding love elsewhere.
Sincerely,
Bobo Bunface

Dear Freckles, Sassy, Jiminy, and Bobo,
Thanks for the opportunity to consider each one of you to be my new puppy. I enjoyed your boundless enthusiasm and the spittle that flew from your tongues. Unfortunately, I may choose only one puppy whose poop I wish to scoop during endless walks, and that will grow old with me by the fireside. When I saw little Spot—plain and piebald though he was—my heart jumped, for I sensed a kindred spirit. I know your angry little hearts are burning with jealousy and rage now, little pups, but you want an owner who will be true to you through all. Trust me, you will find someone who loves you. Yes, even you, Freckles, with that bum leg and that wandering eye...for perhaps you will try harder to beat the field than any of them.
Yours,
Orphraim Zizzlewat

Funny, I set out to prove a point here. But I'm still feeling a wee bit sad for the Lugnutz couple, Sadie-Lou, and the little Lumpen puppy Freckles. I hope they keep their chins up. I think that they will.

Early Drafts of Famous Clichés: Now Discovered in a Cache Near the Dead Sea!

These early drafts of famous clichés were recently unearthed in a cache near the Dead Sea, proving once and for all that all writers—even those of famous clichés—must undergo an arduous revision process. The notes contained many crossings-out and occasional curse words in the margins, and I have attempted to replicate them here as accurately as possible.
Those who live in a house of meat must not throw forks.
Those who live inside an egg should not peck with their sharp beaks at others who live outside the egg, for they will surely crack their own egg in the process, and be sad, and will be born before their time as chickens.
Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
[Writer's margin notes: I am going to get representation for sure with this beauty. Agents, take note!]

Depressed losers generally like to hang out with other depressed, pathetic losers.
That miserable shithead John is dating that wretch Sally. They are frigging perfect together! I sort of hate them both, and their long mournful faces.
Misery loves company.
[Writer's margin notes: I am feeling kinda low myself. Hey, maybe I will seek out the company of other writers! But writers are weird. Sometimes they gaze out the window and spill soup down their shirtfronts while they obsess about this character or that. I hate writers. But I am a writer. Damn it, this cliché is so good I cannot stand it. I need a martini.]

My white friend Bill called my other white friend Jim "white." It seemed kinda dumb.
That's like the squirrel calling the ferret a rodent!
That's like the pot calling the kettle black.

[Writer's margin notes: My kettle is stainless steel. This doesn't really work. I'll fix it in the next draft.]

Caught between my winkie and my anal aperture.
Caught between Scylla and Charybdis. Shit, that's been used. Why can I not be ORIGINAL?
Caught by my wife in bed with another woman, and unable to attend to the dinner that is currently burning on the stove and setting off all the smoke alarms.
Caught between a rock and a hard place.[Writer's margin notes: No one will buy this. My writing sux. "Rock." "Hard Place." How much more boring can I be?]

Worth one's weight in pork products and fatty sausages.
Worth one's weight in doubloons, unless one is really skinny or even anorexic.
Worth one's weight in gold.
[Writer's margin notes: My professor will like this allusion. I will get an A. Not that HE ever wrote anything so spot on. Are clichés like this selling these days? Who can predict the whims of the market. I have to have faith.]

A crazed toddler in a store filled with expensive breakables.
An angry marmot inside the pants of someone with a weenie made of porcelain.
A big machine running roughshod over a person who has porcelain arms and legs! And also a porcelain head!
A bull in a china shop.
[Writer's margin notes: Nailed it. But, will editors be familiar with bulls? Perhaps I should use "rampaging pony" or maybe "stompling lion." Too wordy. I am riddled with doubt, as always.]

Laughter makes me piddle my pants and forget about my sorrows and failings, so busy am I changing my pants and doing laundry, endless laundry, as well as changing my underwear. Could I be incontinent? Damn it! I should not have had all those children, for they damaged my undercarriage.
Laughter is the best medicine.

90 Minutes a Day

Instant gratification via the blog quickly becomes a drug of sorts.

Choice A: Work on new novel, which may take 184 months to ever see the light of day.

Choice B: Dash off a blog entry which can be published…now!

This would be easier if I had more hours in the day to write. Here is my so-called writing schedule:

7:04 am: Wake to the snuffling movements and thrashing vagaries of Second Son, who has crept into our bed. He often mutters to himself and tells knock-knock jokes in loud whispers, making sleep impossible. He also makes noises out of his anal aperture. Oh, Second Son! One day you will be great!

7:30 Breakfast for three sons. Sometimes involves a great deal of buttering of flat, inanimate objects.

"Moah miwk pwease!" Jellies are spread. Many jellies wind up on the face and lap of Third Son, who announces: "Clean my hands and face and I am all done!"

8:15 Sons off to school. Involves much gesturing and stern talk and not much any writing.

8:32 Train to NYC (or, if working from home, to the email!) Sometimes can get writing done in small, wavering notebook on lap. Eye on fellow passenger who may or may not be about to slump into me with gaping, drooling maw.

Lunchtime: Gym class (when possible). At best, dreaming up plots and ideas while on bike, elliptical trainer, or during kickboxing class. No notebook available to jot down ideas. Great angst that they will be forgotten.

5:30-7:30 Boys' dinner, games, books, bed. Told to fold more paper cranes for Japan by Second Son. Pulled into "secret discussion" with First Son in which he tells me (sotto voce): "Did you know that there are three books in Pullmans' His Dark Materials series?! Can you imagine how cool that is?" Yeah, I suppose I can! Third Son (age 2 and 3/4) wants me to dance to Salt 'n' Pepa circa 1993, which he has yanked off the CD shelf: "If I/ wanna take a guy/ home with me tonight/ it's none a ya bidness!" Um....

7:30 Time to write! Briefly distracted by large, brimming martini set down next to laptop. Thank you, Husband!

9:00 It’s all over, baby. I need to eat dinner.

10:00 Sometimes a resurgence and a slew of writing until late-late, which will usually lead to grogginess and angst when 7:04 item (above) repeats itself, as it invariably will.

When the hey do you all write, anyway? I am curious to know!

So anyway, here's a neat Charlie Rose video with Stanley Fish and Roger Rosenblatt about writing, which I watched tonight while eating dinner. Watch it! It's inspiring. I am dreadful tired. Beautiful sentence after beautiful sentence after beautiful sentence....

Pursued by Bears

As some faithful readers of my blog know, I suffer from panic disorder and generalized anxiety. If that sounds a bit passive (for shame!), there is a reason: That's what it feels like. It's pretty horrible and debilitating, to the extent that driving a car much past the grocery store can result in palpitations, dizziness, feelings of unreality, and rabid wildcats loosed in the passenger seat. I will win, however.

The more attention you give the thing, the more it grows. Feed it and it lives. Starve it and it dies. If you distract yourself effectively, or forget that you are driving a large piece of machinery, you can trick the anxiety down into normal levels. The anxiety and panic and fear are entirely created by you, and no one and nothing else. Medication won't cure it. Rather, replacing the bad habit of anxiety with other, better habits—including robust, intellectual diversions—is the cure.

So here's the weird conundrum. One of my "robust, intellectual diversions" happens to be writing. What should I write about? S'pose I wrote a really strange and funny memoir about battling years of panic disorder? (Oh, I have plenty of fodder. I had my first panic attack at the age of three. I decided the toilet was coming to eat me.) Or should I divert myself with the silly YA novel that I enjoy writing? But if I don't write the book about the panic disorder, will I eventually heal myself and then forget what it feels like to have panic disorder and then lose all the horrible details to unreliable memory?

Aw, hell.

I think I will call my book PURSUED BY BEARS. 

Anyway, my 7-year-old let loose with a good old-fashioned panic attack himself tonight. He started out tired and hungry, which is a recipe for disaster. He was taking a shower and he suddenly started screaming like big, black bees were pouring up out of the drain. I ran in and found him covered in suds, with shampoo draining down into his eyes, his elbows at his side in a fixed, bent manner.

"Gemme out of here!" he screamed, hysterical. "I can't breathe! I can't see! My elbows hurt!"

The kid doesn't do well when he doesn't eat right, or exercises too much, or decides that he's had a funny/weird day. Today was a vicious combination of all three—trampoline jumping, garden work, soccer—and he went quite bonkers. I hugged him tight in a towel and thought how alike we are, and about the strange sway of genetics. I heard him say: "This week has been all bad!"

I said, "No, you had a great deal of fun this week. You did so many fun things."

"The week has just started!" he corrected me. "It is Sunday, and the beginning of the week. And the week so far has been all bad. It will not get better. It will go downhill from here."

I dressed him like he was a baby, his white skinny legs goose-pimpled with cold and his hair in stiff wet spikes. It was startling how he reminded me of myself, and the untethered and fine imagination running wild, fast, and reckless to the borders of the garden, pursued by something he has dreamed and divined. Pursued by bears.

Evil Naughty Bad Synopsis!

In order to query certain agents, I have to have a 2–3 page synopsis of my novel. I tried writing one earlier, and I was up to 2 1/2 pages and had not even gotten past chapter three. I was doing something terribly wrong. It had started to read like I was rewriting the book, except this time it had no voice, no lyricism, and was concocted by a fifth-grade dullard. For example (not from my actual book):

Tom gets up. He turns the door handle. He opens the door. He goes outside. He is suddenly attacked by a meerkat!

So I tried again. This time better:

Tom is attacked by a meerkat!

But basically, this whole thing sucketh. I thought writing a query was tough, but this is horrendous. How can I possibly explain the intricacies involved in minor character C's small action which lead to very large revelations, which will play out about six chapters later? How can I include the various time travel sequences in my middle-grade novel, which are integral to the plot but in a synopsis would read as if I wrote it while riding on a tilt-o-whirl, drinking shots, and shouting "whee!"

After attempting this I have realized one nice thing: my novel does not lack in complexity. It has foreshadowing in Chapter One that only pays off at the very end. It is an intelligent person's novel. It defies easy observation. It is a clever tapestry in which, if I untie one thread, the whole might fall apart.

Damn it!

(That was kinda dumb of me to write a novel like that. Maybe I should have tried a debut book such as Billy and Boopsie's Trip to the Grocery Store, Little Cub Gets Lost, or How to Make A Sandwich?)

I would like to trot out this naughty synopsis in the public square and give it a good flogging, as it has been bad, and has treated me unkindly. Maybe a night in the stocks will serve it well. Yes. Yes. I will show it to the Time Out chair and let it know I mean business. It will gaze at me with red, angry eyes, however, and it will win. I will have to finish it.

Right now we are in a stand-off, and I do not like the rude looks it is giving me. 

Putting the Query Horse Before the Novel Cart

For my next WIP (Work in Progress for those of you not cursed with the joys of being a writer), I decided I would try a different tack. I would write the query first, and then the book.

The query, or the short pitch that goes out to agents, causes writers much angst. It has to be a little work of art on all its own, a short-form beauty that gives just enough information about the story to entice (but not too much! A man in boxer shorts gazing off at the clouds is infinitely more sexy than a man eyeing his exposed privates with a dumb, simian gaze.) It must convey voice, a delectable suggestion of the plot, originality, and no grievous errors that might cause an agent to shout: "Fail! Delete!" Whole query-writing forums have sprung up to address the delicate issue of writing the perfect query. I cannot possibly address all the intelligence here. Many much wiser than I am have written much on the topic; Google it, and visit Query Tracker—an amazing resource.

Writers complain a lot about the query. And the truth is, it is tough to distill your chef d'oeuvre into a nugget of wonderfulness that will cause an agent's hair to spring into wild, excited curls. Or, if she/he is curly-headed by birth, to give him/her an instant Brazilian Blowout. Tough, but then you realize: It's another writing exercise. And I am a writer! How handy. I shall use my skills to turn this task into an excuse to dodge, parry, thrust with my keyboard. Ha! Take that!

But then I thought: why not try the opposite? I'll write a query for a really fun and ridiculous book—the query that I would love to send out if only I could. And then I will have to write it. Oops! It was different. I wasn't trying to distill a book. Instead, I was just having fun with my keyboard. It was like a miniature short story. When I saw what I had written I thought: "Well, how the hell will I achieve that? What on Earth did this character do to get where he is? Did I have to include murder? Who the 'hey is getting murdered? How do I get there, anyway?"

The challenge is set. I have set out to meet my query. 5,000+ words and growing. If my blog grows dark on occasion, you will understand. Huzzah!