It's The Great Tea Debacle, Charlie Brown!

It's now Tea Minus - well, whatever time is left between now and midnight, when The Great Tea Debacle begins.

Time to get those notes in order. Time to program the coffee pot, fill the tea kettle, set that chocolate up in neat little rows. And you'd best go potty now, 'cause once this bus gets moving, we're not gonna stop for anyone. (sorry, I was channeling my dad and our family vacations there for a minute)

How do you feel? Any aches or pains? Can you sit at the computer for long hours? Can you hold that pen for 4 weeks non-stop? Is your spouse willing to put up with this? Who's gonna walk the dog?

Did you pick the wrong month to quit crack?

What's your clearance, Clarence?

Okay, deep breath. Almost there. Wait for it.

Wait for it . . . !

Strategy, I has it.

So apparently several of my fellow Tea Debaclers have fallen ill. They've got the "crud", as it were, and here we are - 3 days from Start.

I - the one who never gets sick - thought ahead. I figured "whilst I never do fall ill, it would be inconvenient of me to catch the sniffles at the beginning of November." So I decided to go ahead and have my virus last week.

I had the sore throat wherein the only thing I could eat was soy ice cream and Kahlua. I had the sniffles so bad I was forced to sleep with some Kleenex shoved up my nostrils. And yes, my knees ached with that almost-fever feeling that gives you a glimpse of what life with be like when you're 90 and arthritic.

But that was last week. As I said, I thought it prudent to get sick and get it over with, so that when The Great Tea Debacle began, I'd be healthy and ready to go!

That's called Planning, people!

That's a Strategy!

That, shall win me Tea.

I can haz Icon?

Okay, I was over at the Nano site poking around looking for some contact info - and whilst stumbling about - realized they have those nifty-neato-keen participant icons people can put on their blogs and web sites and use in their siggy-lines on forums and such . . . And I thought "Hey, we need one, too!"

Actually, I thought "Crap, I'm bored!" and this was a useful 10 minutes.

So here, and I'll see if I can figure out how to put it on my bloggie.

The Solitary Tea Drinker

A discussion in the comments section of our Great Tea Debacle page of Official Announcements reminded me of how solitary writing can be, especially to those of us who might not have a black book filled with friends and acquaintances.

Many of us, not just writers, have our lives compartmentalized - in that, we have our Work Selves, our Home Selves, and probably one or two Hobby Selves and sometimes never the twain shall meet. We probably don't socialize much with our coworkers, aside from the usual office BBQ or Holiday Party. Maybe our hobbies involve us with other people, and that's great, but we're less likely to include those folks in our every day business.

More often than not - though there are exceptions - many of us keep our Writerly Selves secret from friends and family. I talk about writing with my one sister, naturally, but never mention a word of it to my mother, stepfather, other sister or nieces/nephew. None of my friends know, and not a single person I work with has a clue I'm a writer.

Writing itself - the development of ideas, plots, characters - is all done inside our own heads, and there's nothing more personal or private than our own thoughts. That's why, if you locked up a writer in a room with no pen, paper, pencil or typewriter, we could still happily entertain ourselves for years and years, working on our novels inside our own heads.

I've said before, that writing is an almost ethereal blending of two polar opposites. It's something very personal, that holds deep meaning to each of us - something that's done in a very private manner from inside our minds to quietly appear on paper, shown to precious few if any until completion - then it's offered to complete strangers in the hopes that masses of the general public will read it for generations to come.

It's true of all the arts, really, except people can usually tell you're a painter, or see you sculpting before it's done, or even hear you play that piano before you perform the concert.

Sometimes I think I'll explode if I can't share when an awesome plot idea suddenly fills my mind - especially when the solution to a situation I'd been struggling with bursts into my head with such clarity and genius, I'm dying to see it come out. But I don't. Mostly it's because something like that is too detailed and convoluted to share with someone without literally boring them to death with detail, and also my sister - who is my reader - doesn't like spoilers.

November is going to be a very solitary month.

It could be a very lonely 30 days.

You're going to be writing your little fingers off, desperate to beat Pete the Chest Thumper, Lori the Wise and Determined, and Kristine the Energizer Bunny.

What about your friends? Your family? With Thanksgiving coming up, aren't you going to want to spend time with them? You've got that big meal to plan, and Grandma is going to want to give you tips on baking those pies.

And do you remember where you put Aunt Edna's lace tablecloth?

Then there's Christmas. You realize, as of November 1st, it's only 54 shopping days away?

Writing can be such a solitary undertaking. No one's going to fault you if you find yourself staring wistfully at those holiday decorations in that box in the basement. If your spouse needs a cuddle - if little Jr. has a rough time at school - if the leaves are piling up in your yard, making you the scorn of the block . . .

There is no shame in mailing the Tea. History will remember you.

Incentive

As if winning gobs of Tea from a bunch of losers, and having the skeleton and muscle structure of a publishable novel to show for it, weren't enough, the Winner of The Great Tea Debacle will have this great and wonderful Award to display on his/her (read: my) web page and/or blog.

So roll up your sleeves, Oh Ye Great Tea Debacle Writers, and get those tea pots boiling !

Okay, then make some tea, and maybe put on a sweater - 'cause we've got a week left to go.

The Long, Dark, Tea-Time of the Soul

Douglas Adams. I miss him. That man was one of the greatest writers this planet has been graced by. It was his humor that spurred me onward to strive to write and become disgustingly famous myself, and while we're waiting for that to happen, we drink tea in his memory.

I would never presume to suggest, or even dream that I could write in the style of Mr. Adams - to do so, even if I thought it would get my middle toe in a door, would be foolish. They say that, as writers, we should be able to compare ourselves or our writing to another published author or his/her works. Designed to give a prospective agent some frame of reference - of comparison - and to show that prospective agent we, the writer, have done our homework and read everything printed since 700BC and know exactly who our target audience is.

Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration. They really only expect you to be fluent in works from 658BC.

I wish I could be half as talented as Douglas Adams' left foot, but even if I were, or just thought I was, I'd be too timid to declare that to anyone. Though I did write a humor piece last year inspired by thoughts of the great writer, called: Mick Danger; Private Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat.

It's been set aside, in need of revision and edits, and a few thousand more words. I'm not entirely sure why I set it aside, but I do intend to pick it back up again. I think, when I took a good hard look at it, I had this odd sort of fear that THIS . . . This would be the novel that gets me an agent. This piece, this humorous Fantasy - of which I have never penned before - written in First Person - something I'd never even tried before - was going to be The One.

And I wasn't sure I wanted to be "known" for that. Did I want this humorous Fantasy to be my coming out, when all my other work is character driven Science Fiction? Did I really want to consider writing more just like it, and being known as a Fantasy writer?

Even now, while I have one of my best-loved pieces off - being read - I can't help thinking that Fantasy piece is going to be what breaks me out. Although it's a bit niche. It's about a writer who was murdered by his editor, who is then murdered herself.

All I have to do is dig it back out, edit the crap out of it, fluff it up a bit more, and pen a query. And I will.

I'm pretty sure I will.

But that still won't put me anywhere near a par with Douglas Adams.

In fact, sometimes just thinking about my favorite authors and their great achievements and works of amazing fiction humbles me into shame. Who am I to imagine I could join their ranks, and sit on bookshelves beside them?

These thoughts can be paralyzing at times, educational at others. In fact, I encourage you to sit back and consider the works of your favorite authors, or any of the greats, and ask yourself: Am I good enough to join them? Do I have what it takes to sit in a café next to Neil Gaiman and pass him the sugar? Would Ernest Hemmingway even let me pet one of his cats?

Humbling, isn't it? Makes you want to curl up on the couch with your wooby and eat chocolate. Then you'll flick on the TV and see they're running reruns of Firefly - written by another of writing's gods, who you couldn't even hold a Bic lighter to, which puts you into an even deeper funk only slightly alleviated by the amazing dialog and acting.

It's okay. We all feel that way at times. It's a bummer this is hitting you so close to November 1st, but you just can't dictate when these feelings of inadequacy will strike, leaving you sniffling into your wooby while the candy wrappers pile up.

In the immortal words of the late, great Douglas Adams, it's: "Almost but not quite entirely unlike tea."

Don't worry, or let it get to you. This, too, shall pass. You'll get over it, and soon - probably sometime early December, you'll forget all about that and once again believe you can write.

You can write just as well as anybody!

Then you'll launch off that couch, toss you wooby aside, pick up a pen - and write my address on that lovely box of tea.

And I'll leave you today with yet more words of wisdom from Mr. Adams himself: "Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable, let's prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all."

Last Night

No, I don’t mean Saturday, I mean the Indie Canadian flick called Last Night. It’s pretty obscure, and several years old, and – like many Canadian films - it’s a bit dark and depressing, but compellingly written.

At the start of the film we’re made to understand the world is about to end, and that this is everyone’s Last Night. While the movie is about a handful of people and how they’re spending their last night on earth, we’re never told what’s causing this destruction. It’s clearly been known for a little while, since most of the city has been abandoned as people flee to other places – presumably wherever they want to spend their last days, or perhaps thousands of them thought they could find a safe place.

It’s clear that the entire world is ending, at midnight, and everyone’s aware – but what I love about the film is that we, the viewer, never understand why. It’s not important why, it’s only important to know that all life on Earth comes to an end, and this is everyone’s Last Night.

Different characters deal with it differently, of course. Many are gathering in a park to watch “it” happen, while others are huddled at home surrounded by family and friends. One guy is working on his quest to have sex in every possible manner before he dies, while another is desperately trying to get home to die beside her husband.

One man, the previously mentioned woman’s husband, has left work and is home waiting for his wife. He only stayed at work because he runs the power company, and they vowed to keep the lights on for everyone, up to their last moment. This man and his wife planned to have a special last dinner, and die in each other’s arms. He doesn’t realize his wife is having serious trouble getting home, so he’s there waiting – his wife’s story is more pivotal to the movie, but I found this man’s short entry most compelling.

You see, while he’s waiting, and the clock is nearing 11:00, there’s rioting outside. He opens his door to suddenly face a young man with a rifle. An argument ensues, and the young man blows him away.

Keep in mind the entire world is ending at midnight. Everyone is going to die. The planet Earth will Cease To Be, and this man has just been murdered.

He’s known midnight would be his end, along with everyone else, and now he’s been killed – senselessly. His final hour stolen from him. It struck me as such a waste, and such a horrible thing to happen. Like having a doctor tell you it’s cancer, and you have three weeks left, then you’re leaving the office to go tell your family and make final preparations, and you’re run over by a bus on the way to the car.

The film did end with the world ending – we never found out what it was, or why it happened, but the final scene is a flash of white light, then the credits roll. His wife, unable to reach him, tried to commit suicide with another man, but they ended up dying in an embrace. The sexual deviant died in climax, and the entire planet vanished.

Of that whole movie, the most tragic part for me was the man who was murdered in that last hour. It left me with such an empty feeling, such a waste of hope and life. Much the same way I’ll feel about my competitors when November ends.

You’ll all have struggled so mightily – penned so many words, downed so much caffeine, and lost so much sleep – and it will all be for naught. In that last hour, when you know the First Great Tea Debacle is about to end for all involved, when you have that bottle of celebratory wine ready to pop open at midnight . . . That’s when it will happen. You’ll check your word count and realize you’re going to fall short. It was all for nothing – the entire month of grueling, torturous work. Such a waste.

You’ll cry, you’ll rage in denial, and your spouse will find you curled in the fetal position, fingers raw, mumbling incoherently about plots, verbs and tea.

Wouldn’t you rather go out with dignity, grace and style? November is the start of the Holidays, when your attention should be focused on family, the coming Winter, and a winding down of those Summer-time ambitions.

November 30^th is your Last Night. Why don’t you put down that pen, set the computer aside, and bake some cookies. Spend that Last Night with your family, remembering the good times, and what life was all about. Write up your Will, and let your loved ones know what your final wishes are.

I shall raise a tea cup in your honor, and keep your memories alive.

I hab a toad

Two days ago, I started getting this dry, scratchy throat. "Not to worry," I says to myself. "I never get sick."

That's my mantra - I never get sick. And I don't, hardly ever at all. Each December I have to sell back sick leave because we can only carry over so much from one year to the next.

Whenever I do get the sniffles or a sore throat, I go to work to spread the joy. I figure if I'm gonna feel like crap, I might as well be at work. Now sure, if I have a fever I stay home. But like I said, I just don't get sick.

My constant state of denial serves me well.

So I'm sitting here on a Friday with a horribly sore throat and that otherwordly feeling you get from cold medicines, and I'm happy.

Why? You ask. Well, because it's October 19th. By the time November 1st hits, my throat will be fine, my snot will have run, and I'll be healthy and ready to take on The Great Tea Debacle with vim and vigor. Add to that the fact that it happens to be Fall, and that means grey skies, grey water, and solid rain - the perfect recipe for staying inside at the keyboard, plugging away at my novel.

That old Fall/Winter depression that hits so many this time of year -- when you realize the cheer and color of Summer is long gone, and you've nothing to look forward to now save for cold temps, rainy days, impending snow, Thanksgiving with the in-laws (and all that bickering, burned turkey, Grandma's harping and the baby puking up on the fine linen tablecloth you inherited from your Great Aunt Edna) -- doesn't affect me. I've lived here all my life, grey is my favorite color. What do you have coming? Christmas, and all the dashed hopes, ruined plans and Visa bills.

Wouldn't you really just like to curl up on the couch under a blanket, get yourself some hot chocolate with the little sprinkles on top of your marshmallows, the TV remote in one hand, some cookies in the other, and begin that long, Winter's nap? Your favorite shows are on, and those slippers with the warm, soft fuzzy insides are calling your name.

Go ahead and put down the laptop, close it up, and pull out that book you've been dying to read. Let the rain fall, let the wind blow, just feel the steam from your mug of hot cocoa as it warms your nose. Enjoy the soothing warmth as it slides down your throat, and try not to think about those heating bills to come next month.

How's about some Peppermint Schnapps for that mug?

You know, there's plenty of time to get that novel written. Just kick back, enjoy the early sunsets and long, dark evenings. Maybe knit yourself a sweater for the coming blizzard.

Oh, and if you need my address for mailing all that tea, just let me know.

What the -- ?

Who, What, Why and Where. Writers often use the What If tactic to either come up with a plot, fix a plot, figure out a plot, or plug up a plot.

I do it now and again just to amuse myself, but I'll also utilize it for working out a plot when I need to know the best way to get from point B to point C. And it's a good tool for checking over your novel when it's completed - asking yourself some questions to see if you've left anything open and dangling in the realm of stupidity that your agent/publisher/readers will catch.

The question that I've been pondering lately involves time travel, which usually makes me roll my eyes because too many writers (books, movies, and tv) really screw it up. But my question is: What if those predictions from the 50's were true, and by the year 2007 we're all flying around in our personal hovercrafts, leaving the household chores to our robots, working two days a week from the comfort of our home offices, using our virtual reality computers, and taking long vacations on a resort on Mars?

What if all that were true, and a reality, only someone from the future invented a time machine, traveled back into the past on a lark, and stepped on a butterfly. And thanks to that hapless twit, we have the reality we live in now - which is technically an alternate, someone-screwed-up-and-changed-it reality. We're completely oblivious to this until that hapless twit shows up and apologizes for having fucked us over and set the human race back about a thousand years.

The consequences of that question are explored to a certain degree in my new novel - the one I'm competing with in the Great Tea debacle.

Now, I know what you're saying: If this guy from the future travels to the past and changes the future, wouldn't that cancel out his own existence, thus making it impossible for him to travel to the past in the first place? That's called a time loop, which is solved by the parallel universe theory.

Let's imagine Fred, Barney, Wilma and Betty are standing in Fred's basement, watching as Fred steps into a time machine. He goes "poof" and heads into the past. While he's there, he steps on the proverbial butterfly, thus causing dear old Betty to never have been born. When he returns to the present, he finds Barney and Wilma waiting for him, anxious to hear about his adventure - but no Betty.

Fred stepped on the butterfly, Betty was never born. Fred remembers Betty, realizes what he did - but Barney and Wilma have never heard of Betty. She was never born, so they don't know she's gone.

You're thinking - But, if Betty was never born, then she never married Barney, who then never took that job at the rock quarry, never met Fred, and wasn't there to help him build the time machine in the first place.

Now instead of following Fred, let's stay with Barney, Betty and Wilma. They wave as Fred goes 'poof' then stand there, chatting and enjoying the cheese platter, and wait. Fred has now squashed said butterfly. Does Betty puff out of existence? Does she vanish, leaving Wilma and Barney with a serious case of amnesia? What happened to her wine glass? Did it fall to the floor?

No. What happened was, Betty, Barney and Wilma are left to wait forever - because Fred never returns.

The reality Fred is alive in is the one where the butterfly died, and Betty wasn't born. So that's the only reality Fred can return to.

The reality Wilma, Barney and Betty are alive in is the one where Fred left in a time machine and never came back.

So, could the Terminator have traveled back in time and murdered Sara Conner - thus preventing her son from being born, which would have eliminated the Terminator from ever having to travel back in the first place?

Yes and No. He would have traveled back, killed Sara, and prevented the kid from being born - but that would not have affected the people who sent him. It would have created an alternate reality, wherein Sara Conner was murdered before ever having a son.

Dizzy?

Don't worry - when I go back and spray Raid all over the Jurassic and prevent your birth, it'll only be a reality somewhere else, which is where I'll be, which kinda makes it a win-win for me, eh? :D

A little fix

Some friends brought to my attention that my settings were only allowing registered users to post comments - I didn't realize I'd set it that way, so I fixed that. Still have the word verification anti spamalot thingie, though.

:)

Obsessive Compulsive Slacking

Not too long ago, a writer by the name of Robert Jordan died. A sad occasion, to be sure, but I've heard it said that he was the type of writer who took copious notes. So many notes, that it's possible his next novel could still see the light of posthumous publishing. Good news for his readers.

The other day, my sister and I were discussing this, and she pointed out that - should I pass while in-between novels in a series -- it would be impossible for my 'last' novel to be completed, as I take no notes. Not even she, who lives with me and functions as my best Beta reader, knows what I have in mind. She prefers to read the novels green, without hearing what I have planned ahead of time, because that ruins and/or could influence her thinking as she reads.

It's true, I don't take notes.

I wish I did - I honestly do think they'd be a good idea. And I love notebooks! I have several, some hand made for me as a gift, and several of these black leather bound numbers with a magnetic clasp. I'm drawn to notebooks at the office supply stores, and constantly look for new styles.

Thing is - I'll get a new story idea in my head, and sit down with a pot of Lapsang Souchong, some cookies, a nice micro-fine black gel pen and crack open one of those notebooks . . . then turn into some kind of Wereidiot.

First, I can't use a pen for more than ten minutes before my arm cramps up and my penmanship circles the drain. Second, while I'm not anal-retentive or a neat-freak, my note taking screams for perfect organization. I must have headers, bullet notes, clear, precise and logical points and details.

Basically, what happens is this: Sit down, start writing out character names to get proper spelling. Write the header Chapter One, sit for an hour staring at the lint on the floor, remember what I was doing, jot down some high points, change my mind on the spelling of one character name, rip out the entire page so I can start over.

Yep, can't just cross it out, gotta start over so the notes will be pristine and easy to read!

After a few pages of this, and several re-starts, something will snap inside my head and I'll start inserting lines, crossing things out (like normal humans) and making notes that even I can't read. Then I'll change my mind about the entire plot, need more tea, see something shiny and never open that notebook again.

So, when I become a famous, published author, then die right smack dab in the middle of a series, my readers are gonna be shit outta luck!

But, before anyone think this gives them a distinct advantage in the Great Tea Debacle - fear not . . . For I once penned a 240,000 word epic without jotting down One. Single. Note.

Bwhahahahaha *cough* 'scuse me.

A Nano-we-will-Go!

It would seem that not only am I doing Nano for the second time, but I've entered into a wager with Pete, Carrie and Lori (and anyone else who wishes to chime in before we begin). To the victor goes the Tea!

The thing about Nano (national novel writing month) is that you're allowed to write garbage, so long as you're writing. It's all about BIC (butt in chair) and getting things done. It's helpful for the newbie writer who has never completed a novel-length story, and for writers who might have the occasional issue with Newton's First Law (like me) and it's also just there for those of us who wanna have fun.

Writers often place bets with each other, offer up dares and challenges. Those are useful for the participants who have no idea what they want to write during Nano - someone will challenge the creation of a story with vampire robots, for example, and - having nothing else in mind - a writer(s) will take up that challenge and (try) to whip out 50,000 words.

But then there's us. I'm pretty sure all of us: Me, Pete, Carrie and Lori, have something specific in mind. Novels we fully intended to polish and submit for traditional publication. Nano exists for that, too. It's a way to force out a first draft, or at least the first half, of a novel you wanted to get done and decided to use the challenge as a way to do it.

The orginators of Nano encourage writers to feel free and uninhibited, so they encourage you to put away the internal Editor and go forth, writing garbage if need be.

What might hinder me in this competition is my inability to do just that !

Oh, I can put the Editor away for a while. I often write that way, for the most part. But what I can't do is breeze through a tough scene by simply typing: Insert Better Scene Here. I'm a linear writer, and can't skip ahead or jump around. So when I hit a scene that isn't coming out well, it's like hitting a brick wall with no airbags. I have to write that scene before I can do the next one.

Putting in this blank section with a promise to myself that I can go back and fill it in later makes my hands shake. So this should be interesting. I did complete Nano last year, my first try, successfully, which tells me it can be done, and I can knuckle down and get busy with it when necessary.

And I have a secret weapon this year: Several days of annual leave scattered in around the month. Thanks to a ridiculous work ethic that netted me the nickname Energizer Bunny, I always end up with well over the carry-over limit of leave allowed in a year, and have to scramble to use it up before December 31st.

But - should this leave my competitors trembling in their booties - I also have an art show during the Veteran's Day weekend, and I experience some small difficulty writing at home vs writing at work.

So . . . countdown to the Great Tea Debacle: Tea minus 16 days (or something).

I'll try and put up a counter to show some progress, if I can figure this thingie out.

Mental Dry Heaves

What a pretty topic, eh? That's how my day's going.

It's Monday, and I've come back from having a week off, so naturally I'm grumpy. Having the alarm wake me at the ungodly hour of 5:30 a.m., then finding a week's worth of backlog piled up on my desk, along with a tummy ache and - I think - a bladder infection, coupled with no less than 5 false starts for blog posts that I ended up deleting.

I couldn't seem to settle on the best topic for today. My frustration at the Automatic Reset Button tv shows keep using. The absurdity of writers who sit around and whine about how hard it is to write. A good rant about how hard it is to write. Or the chaos that is my preferred method of existence.

Then there's the pet peeve I get when watching shows like Property Virgins or House Hunters and see these women who turn down any house that doesn't have a two-hundred square foot closet for their clothes. Here's tip, ladies: Your closets aren't too small, you just have too many clothes!

But not one of those topics is really blog worthy today. Ironically, blogging about how I can't settle on a blog topic is pretty non-blog worthy, too. And yet, here I am.

Trying to avoid that backlogged pile up on my desk. Which, I'll have you know, is now reduced to a small, three-car collision.

Maybe tomorrow I'll blog about something worthwhile. Like Nano. Yes, I'm doing that again, and you know why?

I'll tell you why - It's the law of physics. Newton's first law, to be specific. A body at rest tends to stay at rest until affected by an outside force.

Basically, I'm lazy, and unless I have good reason to sit down (butt in chair, as we say) and Get It Done, I'll find reasons to sit and ponder my next scene or chapter until moss grows on my ass. And here in the Pacificnorthwet, that really doesn't take as long as you might think.

So I'm gonna Nano this new sequel. Yes, it's already started, but I won't be counting the words already written down for Nano. I'll post my word count on November 1st, and work my moss off to get to, if not beyond, an additional 50k by November 30th.

Cheating? I dunno, maybe. I don't think so. Nah. Could be. Not really. Prove it.

Nano nano.

Evil! Pure and Simple from the 8th Dimension!

I may have mentioned before that my sister and I look alike. Same height, same build, same curly hair – hers is auburn, mine blonde. She has brown eyes, mine are blue. But sure, if you see us together it’s clear we’re sisters.

Since when did that become so unusual as to be newsworthy?

We’re used to getting that “Are you twins?” question from waitresses, the occasional salesperson, some dude at Best Buy who’s helping us find the right cables to set up the laptop to the television. But this . . . This was too much.

Friday we meet after work, leave her car at her workplace, and go to dinner. Nothing unusual there. It’s easier than both of us driving home, getting into one car, and driving all the way back to where we were to have dinner.

It was after dinner, things got nuts.

We both wanted to pick up some new sweaters, I’m in the market for a new bedspread, and we needed a bottle of wine for Saturday dinner with Mom. So we cross the street to the mall, head into JC Penneys, and make our way through to the escalator so I can glance at bedding. As we pass this woman helping a man compare jewelry boxes, she suddenly looks up, mid-sentence with this man, and points at me and declares “Sisters!”

That poor man looked bewildered. My sister hadn’t heard her, and I just rolled my eyes and kept going.

We get up to the houseware section, and I’m glancing at bedding – finding nothing I like – then wander through the furniture department (we’re in the market for two chairs and a table). As we pass a couch that a couple is seriously contemplating, the saleswoman helping them looks at us as we pass and says, out loud “Oh, look at the sisters! You two could be twins!”

My sister smiled, I shook my head and we kept going.

Making our way out of the furniture department, we head back down, making straight for World Market to get wine. Now, in our mall you have to pass through half the mall, then walk through the Barnes & Noble to get to World Market, since there’s no mall entrance for that store. I paused in Barnes & Noble to try and find some books by friends of mine that have recently been released (couldn’t find a single one) but did hear one woman telling her friend “Look at those two sisters! How about that?”

We left, went to World Market. Bought wine, had a nice conversation with the wine lady who, thankfully, didn’t think remarking about our family ties was appropriate.

But the cashier sure thought it was wild ! “Sisters!” she declared as if we were unaware. “You’re twins, aren’t you?” “No,” was my reply. Then she got upset, like we were being rude in denying it.

We get out of World Market, make our way back toward Penneys – hearing “Sisters!” and seeing pointed fingers twice more along the way.

Back in the store, where we find some tops, we endure two more clerks declaring out loud, with pride and astonishment, that we’re sisters. Followed by the inevitable “Twins?”

Okay. I get it. We look alike. Not really, but I can see how people think that.

What I don’t get – what I will NEVER understand, is this need people have to declare it loudly and proudly, like they’ve just seen proof of fairies. My GOD, people! Sisters exist. Yes, sisters really do exist. Grown women, related to each other, often do go shopping together. They can be found having coffee together, looking for clothes together, even – on occasion – having dinner together in public !

Shocking, I know. It’s even a little terrifying. But let’s try and remember, if we can, that sisters are just people. Just regular people, like you and me.

Even sisters put their pants on one leg at a time.

So the next time you see two women together, walking down the street or browsing in the shoe department, see if you can refrain from drawing attention to them. And maybe, just maybe, if you’re polite, quiet and discrete, they’ll leave a quarter under your pillow.

Thank you, Dr. Scalabrin

I had a light bulb moment yesterday while driving to work.

With my current novel, I had the plot worked out, except for a couple of rather major points, and they were beginning to give me fits. I knew my major players were going to find A, and discover B about it, and go on to use C. But I was having a real hard time figuring out how and when they should find A, and the best way to go about them learning B.

Oh, I came up with ideas, but not one of them held enough water to satisfy me. There were weak sections, and part of it sounded like a serious cop-out. The whole issue was looking more and more like lazy plotting and I won't tolerate that.

Do I panic? Does my brain lock up when faced with a plot problem that's looking more and more like I should give up the whole ship and find a new ride?

Nope.

And I have my childhood dentist - Doctor Scalabrin - to thank. When I was young, in 4th grade, I had an accident in gym class playing volleyball, the result of which was a dislocated thumb and a broken front tooth. Naturally following that, I had to have a root canal so I could get a new front tooth - and as luck would have it, since there was still growing to be done - that false tooth had to be replaced a few times as I grew.

Naturally I wasn't a fan of those injections in the mouth - who is? So I'm sitting there in that chair, anticipating the needle, all tensed up and unhappy, and my dentist explains to me that the only reason those injections in the gums hurt, is because patients tense up. If you would just relax, and I mean seriously relax, every muscle in your body (except the bladder!) then they wouldn't hurt at all.

So he showed me how to relax. He taught me right then and there how to loosen up every muscle in my body, force them all into a more relaxed state, and calm my mind. Then, once I was pretty sure I'd done it right, he injected me (several times).

I felt nothing.

Seriously. I. Felt. Nothing.

Since then, with every dental visit I have that requires injections, I practice the same technique and the visit goes so smoothly, I've on many occasion fallen asleep in the chair. I'm so good at that, whenever I so much as enter the waiting room of a dental office, I get drowsy and have dozed off just waiting for my name to be called. I've had two more root canals since then, and twice had a "deep cleaning" wherein they inject you 8 times to numb your entire mouth to use the ultrasonic cleaner. Each time they had to wake me when it was over.

Long ago, I realized that same method works extremely well with writing.

Any time I've come up against a plot issue, or a stumbling block in a story, I've learned if I simply relax - don't panic - and keep myself open to possibilities, the solution will suddenly come rushing into my head. Sometimes this takes a week, sometimes just a few days. Usually it comes when I'm beginning to fall asleep, sometimes in a dream that I'll remember, sometimes just as I'm waking up, but often - - as it did yesterday - - the perfect solution pops into my head when I'm not thinking about a thing. You know, driving a car doing 70mph in a 60 zone (aka, not thinking about anything)

Like this one did.

Not only is it a fantastic solution to the little problem I had, but it brilliantly ties in something that took place in another novel, wrapping up some ends that were left open, and also opening up some amazing and really exciting avenues I hadn't thought of before.

I'm pumped ! I'm thrilled this solution came along and provided me with so many other solutions I didn't realize I needed. I'm a linear writer, and can't just avoid point C and move from B to D with the intent of coming back to fix C. Some writers can do that, and bully for them, but that ain't me.

I gotta go from A to B to C. That's just me. So when a gap appears, I've learned to relax, let it stew and contemplate it with no pressure applied. Let those muscles loosen up, remove all resistance and anticipation, and the solution can slide right in there between the fibers and painlessly give you a solution.

And I owe it all to my dentist.

Obession, by Calvin Kline

is disgusting. But my latest obsession is a show on the BBC called Torchwood.

Funny story - when this was first being advertised here in the States, I thought it looked pretty cool. A little dark, a little adventurous, maybe good for some action that I'm not finding in anything else. And yes, the leading actor is easy on the eyes (and yeah, I know he's gay - like I had or even wanted a chance! It's just eye candy, people).

But I wasn't sure. I knew it was a spinoff from Doctor Who, and I don't watch Doctor Who. Not that I don't believe it's an interesting show in and of itself - it's just that every year they get the most unattractive actors in all of the UK to be the next Doctor. And, since I've been avoiding that show all these years, I have no idea what's going on.

Anyway, I read a few articles about Torchwood and decided I probably wouldn't like it after all, but the previews still tempted me. So then the first ep comes on, and I missed the first half, but turned it on and saw a scene with the leading man explaining Torchwood to a female police officer, and it was . . . odd.

This dude had no accent.

The show is set in Cardiff, with some of the best accents around, and this leading guy had absolutely no accent whatsoever. And that, for some reason, threw me. I didn't know he wasn't British. I knew nothing of this guy, and I can't say for sure why that threw me so much, but it did.

Then a silly conversation ensued over at AW, the result of which was me giving Torchwood another try. And --

I was hooked.

Well that's my funny story, and I'm sticking to it!

Another show that surprised me was Eureka. I found the premise to be ridiculous, based on the promos when it was brand new, and wrote this one off completely. Then caught the premier on accident, and fell in love. It's quirky, the characters are different, less contrived and clichéd than most.

It worked that way for The Dresden Files, too. I won't bother linking, since that one got axed. And before you ask, I don't read Jim Butcher. I don't care for magic, and I mostly ignored that aspect of the show - I was in it for the film noir aspects of this PI.

For the most part, I can't tolerate network television these days. I find my entertainment on the BBC, sometimes even ordering DVD's straight from the UK that have never aired here in the US. I can play them on my laptop, and thanks to some cables and a switch, watch them on my TV screen.

I'm also heavy into Discovery Channel, HGTV, A&E, and sometimes even Chiller.

So there. And I refuse to apologize! I stopped making excuses and apologies for what I like years ago. Same with my opinions. They're free, a little moist - especially in the winter months here in the Pacific Northwet - and while I rarely ever set them free, they smell pretty.

Helluva lot prettier than Obsession, by Calvin Kline

I'm Gumby, Dammit!

I'm a writer.

I don't care what anyone says. I've written 12 full length novels, and I'm penning #13 as we speak. They've been read by thousands, albeit for free, via e-publishing. Sometimes I just have to remind myself of that.

Remind myself that I do have a talent.

You wanna be a writer? Writing, itself, is the easy part. You get to create entire worlds, invent people and places, thrust them into dramatic and interesting situations, and watch them come out the other side changed, and maybe even ready for a sequel.

Let's say you have a good grasp of your, grammar and punctuation aren’t foreign ideas to you. You have spare time, wherein you type out your tale (or use pen and paper, if you're lucky enough to manage that). And you have all the time in the world.

Once you're done, you'll edit it, make cuts and changes until it's shiny. Maybe you'll even share it with one or three people, to get their opinions and take on it.

Then the worm gets in your brain.

You wanna publish this sucker. You learn all there is to know about writing a query letter. You study and study until you can get a synopsis of your novel down in two pages. Then you start looking for an agent.

You have to start at the top, they all say it. So you check them out -- only the cream of the crop -- and find a handful who rep the genre you just identified yourself with.

After they reject you, you move down the ladder just a bit, and find another, albeit smaller handful of agents accepting queries from the likes of you, the unwashed and previously unpublished masses. (If someone tells you there are hundreds of good agents out there, don't buy it. When you narrow it down to your genre, then narrow those down to who's accepting queries, then narrow those down again to only the legitimate ones, you're in double digits).

By now you've learned just how hard this could be. You've seen slush piles, read horror stories of being passed over, forgotten, your manuscript returned with coffee stains and a rejection letter printed on the back of some dude's electric bill.

Good writing trumps all, they say. If you wrote a story worth publishing, it'll be published.

Actually, that's about half right, a quarter misleading, and a good quarter moldy Yak droppings.

You do need to write a stellar novel. That's absolutely paramount. But then you have to get that novel in front of just the right agent, at just the right time, and hope he/she reads it while you're still living. If the average slush pile fell over, people could be killed. I'm betting it would register on the Richter scale as at least a 2.0.

They say if you can spell and punctuate and have a grasp on the language, you're already in the top 10%. Trouble is, in order to get to your query, they have to read that other 90%, so that by the time they get to the top 10%, they've already drunk themselves silly and gouged out an eyeball with their lunch fork.

So let's say you hear back from your second wave, and get nothing. You move on to stage 3 - the even lesser known agents.

Now we're in dangerous territory. Now we're talking about agents who might be brand new in the business. Maybe so new they haven't made their first sale yet, but no red flags appear beside their names - they're not scams, just wet behind the ears.

Kinda like you, the new writer.

Here's where the pros tell you to run away, maybe not screaming, but doing a quick shuffle.

Why?

Because they're new. Because they haven't made a sale yet. Because while they might be legit, and perfectly well intentioned, they're not a proven winner. So back away, wait until they make that first, second, even tenth sale, then go ahead and give them a second glance.

Kinda reminds me of how you can't get published unless you've already been published.

I'm a writer. I love that part. I hate the rest. Loathe it. My brain starts to shut down in the same way it does when I think I should balance my checkbook. The same way it freezes up when people talk about interest rates and inflation. But it's all part of the business, so I have to deal with it. I have no choice, unless I wanna give up.

This process, as sucky as it is, does work. I get to see it happen all around me, all the time. Writers are landing agents left and right (in that slow motion, Bionic Man way). But after a while, you start to realize you're not the Bionic Man. You're not even Wonder Woman.

After a while, you realize you'd aspire to be Underdog.

That's why when you're hungry, and they've run out of steaks at the BBQ, that ground chuck starts looking mighty tempting.