Slow repairs in G-town

It's depressing how many things are still broken in Galveston since Hurricane Ike hit more than a year and a half ago.

Don't get me wrong--a lot of stuff is fixed, the city is livable. It's even a fun place to be.

But people are just now getting FEMA money to fix their houses. The city's just now suctioning out all the sand and debris left by Ike in the storm sewers. And--well, the stop lights are still barely working. They have been working on duct tape and hope ever since the storm, and every time there's the least little bit of moisture in the air, sundry traffic lights go on the fritz, leading to long lines of traffic doing the four-way stop thing.

Usually, it's the older traffic lights on the less-traveled streets that stop working, but we usually get at least one set of lights on Seawall Blvd. doing the blinky thing. More rarely will a light on Broadway go out. Broadway is the road the causeway/freeway dumps onto. It's the starting point of I-45 from Houston to Dallas, it's six lanes across (3 each way) with a tree-planted median all the way through town, until it merges with Seawall at Stewart Beach. (I think it's the only traffic median on the national historical register...)

There where the freeway ends, Broadway also has two turning lanes to the county courthouse, so it's 8--no, 9 lanes across. (There's an extra lane added on the "outbound" side to send two lanes down the access road.) So it's a Huge Intersection, with a light.

Today, that light was out. It had sorta rained earlier. Pathetic, pitiful rain--more like mist, really. Or like really, really thick humidity. But that was enough moisture to knock out the stoplight. So, of course, the traffic backed up. It wasn't too bad--probably wouldn't have been as bad as it was, except they'd blocked off the inside lane, I think to mow the medians, or some such.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is that most of the traffic lights on the island were damaged in the hurricane. They have them working--sort of. But every traffic light in the city needs to be rewired and replaced. Galveston is supposed to be getting some federal help in doing it, but that help is very, very slow in coming. The fact that the economy collapsed the month after the hurricane hit didn't help any. We're still the city the country forgot. Sigh.

But we're hanging in. Bit by bit, the city is getting put back together.

Oh, and that house hunting thing? The banks aren't being cooperative, so we're going to wait a while before we move. Stashing more money. I also need to sell another book. Which means I'd better finish the one I'm working on. And I didn't write a blessed thing today. I did however, finally get my computer put back together. Now I have to go reload all my programs.

TBR Challenge: The Quiet Gentleman

I read this month's book early in the month, unlike last month. I'm actually doing pretty well in my challenge reading for this one. Last year, I think I'd given up by this time. (Yeah, I know. It's only the 4th month. *hangs head in shame*) But I'm keeping up this year, so far.

I'm not sure how I'm doing on the topics, but I am clearing some books out of my stacks/shelves. So, this month, my book was THE QUIET GENTLEMAN by Georgette Heyer.

This was a nice quiet read--despite the fact that there was a mystery in it. The Gentleman of the title returns home from the wars. He's inherited the title after his father died-apparently his mother ran off with a footman, or some such, then quickly died, so dad could re-marry. Since the new earl (or whatever) resembles his mother a great deal, Dad never liked him, and when the oldest son went off to fight Napoleon, everyone hoped he might just, accidentally, of course, die, so the younger son, by the second wife, could inherit. But he didn't, and now big brother's come home to take up the reins. And none of the family--especially his younger brother--is happy about it.

There's a cousin, and a neighbor's bluestocking daughter who's staying for a visit while the parents are away, and the stepmother, and another very pretty neighbor who's something of a flirt. The younger brother's had his eye on the pretty neighbor, and when her head is turned by the new earl's showing up, little brother has a temper tantrum or two. Then the earl is warned away from a dangerous bridge. And he flirts some more with the neighbor, and bubba has another tantrum. And they go to a party, and have a party, and somebody shoots at the earl, and--well, it's a nice little story, and truthfully, not as exciting as it sounds here.

I enjoyed it, but there were large stretches where nothing much happened. Often I enjoy Heyer's "nothing much," but this seemed like less "much" and more "nothing" than I usually get in her books. It poked along a little too pokily, maybe, than what I prefer. Or maybe it was that we got so very, very little of the internal goings-on of the Quiet Gentleman and his family. I prefer to get a lot of what's going on inside peoples' heads--more emotion and thoughts and such, and we don't get a lot of that. I think some of it is deliberate, so that the happy ending is more of a surprise--but I don't read romance for the surprise. I read it for the journey. So, while I liked the story overall, it's not one of my favorite Heyers.

Misadventures in Research

I have issues when people mess up the research for their stories. Not just in books, but in movies and television shows. Sometimes I can shake my head at the silliness (Human beings Diving From Space into Atmosphere in their BARE Skins, with no consideration of re-entry heat or turbulence, as in the Star Trek reboot) and enjoy the story anyway. But sometimes, it can really mess up my enjoyment of the story. Especially when people mess up stuff about Texas.

This has not been a recent issue. My annoyance dates back at least as far as the series premiere of the old television series Dallas. When they had the main characters cowering in WACO for fear of a hurricane, you KNOW the writers do not have a CLUE about much of anything having to do with Texas. FYI, Waco--where I was living at the time with my brand new spouse--is more than 300 miles from the coast. When evacuating for a hurricane, Waco is where people go to be safe. (My son went to Waco to visit his girlfriend when Hurricane Ike made landfall in 2008. I didn't go that far...) When we lived in Waco, we liked hurricanes, because they usually meant rain, and most of the time, we needed rain.

I'm feeling particularly grouchy today, because I have bumped into more than one instance of gross Texas ignorance in the past couple of days. This ignorance has nothing to do with the way outsiders see Texas as one giant monolithic mass of redneck Republicanism--which it most definitely is not, but that's beside my point today. I'm talking about the kind of ignorance that is easily solved by Picking up a map. Or Asking somebody. Or checking out a government website, or a high school text book. Simple research.

For instance, I have already mentioned the book in which the Texas State Football Championship (A, AA, 3A, all the way up to 5A) is played in the school's home football stadium rather than in the capital city of Austin. All that author had to do was to ask on any e-mail author loop she belonged to: "Hey--where's the state football championship played?" and there would have been an author from Texas who could tell her. There are always authors from Texas on any writing loop, because it's a big state, there are lots of people here, and lots of us write books. Ignorance has no excuse.

The book I read today--isn't actually wrong. It's just Vague. Which isn't a sin. I blame the vagueness on New Yorkers. Because I know this author personally, and I know darn well that she knows that the city of Galveston is on an island. An island that is over a mile from the coast of mainland Texas. You can't really swim your horse across, even if large parts of it are no more than 4 feet deep.

But she has her Texas Rangers riding a day south of the city to a little ranch without ever showing them crossing water. Now, in 1859, the city of Galveston was confined to a small section of the east end of the island, which stretches 30 miles to the west (southwest), and it takes about a day to ride that far, so they could have ridden to the other end of the island and confronted outlaws there. Outlaws that somehow got over to the island themselves... On the other hand, she referred to riding South out of the city. Here's another thing. If you go south from the port of Galveston, you cross the island the short way and wind up in the Gulf of Mexico.

After much confusion (since, after all, I live in Galveston), I finally decided they must have crossed over somehow, and ridden south toward Matagorda or Freeport or somewhere inland. Those places are south, but they are also west. I also got confused when her people rode past Galveston on their way to somewhere else. If you're inland, and you're going somewhere else further inland, there is no way Galveston is on the way. It's pretty much not on the way to anywhere. I blame that on the copy editors as well.

I think a large part of my confusion with this story was due to the fact that I couldn't place the heroine's home ranch or the outlaw's hideout anywhere specific, so I couldn't visualize where these people were riding around. And that was my issue. Someone who hasn't traversed that same territory every couple of weeks wouldn't have had a problem at all. And the author did once mention leaving Galveston on barges. Late in the story. Still, it was annoying when I kept wondering how these people got off the island, and the fact that it IS an island was never, ever mentioned. Is it general knowledge? That Galveston is an island???

And then there was the Criminal Minds episode this week. Besides the fact that the Texas border with Mexico is a RIVER along its whole entire length, which makes the digging of tunnels under the border a little problematic, seems to me, and the fact that Terlingua, Texas isn't actually a town, anymore--I'll let them get away with that. People make up towns all the time, and Terlingua used to be a town. That's okay. The tunnels were silly--did nobody think that there was a river in the way? But, that wasn't the big issue.

See, a large part of the motivation of the villain was that the sheriff just moved down from New York City and got hired as the sheriff. She came in as an outsider and took over, and the villain, who grew up in the town, was jellus. Problem is, that would never happen. Because every sheriff in every one of the 254 counties in the state of Texas is ELECTED. And no outsider could get elected. Now maybe, if the previous sheriff died in the saddle, so to speak, the Commissioner's Court, or the county judge (who usually isn't the judge of a court, but the administrator of the county) could appoint somebody as sheriff, but that appointment would only hold until the next election, and since just about every office in the state of Texas is elected, there are elections every five minutes--or so it seems. Which made the major conflict in the story, or one of them, well--silly. And impossible.

So, those of you who are not Texans or ex-Texans who might be considering setting a book in Texas-- just remember. If there is a public office or government position that might be elected, it probably is. We even elect the county treasurer (if there is one) and the tax assessor/collector. We elect county clerks and constables and justices of the peace. I'm really surprised we don't elect the county janitors. Oh, and it's not the sheriff's station or sheriff's department. It's the sheriff's office, for both the location and the organization.

Really, people--just do your homework. Don't assume that all states work the same. 'Cause they don't. Oh, and when you get your map of Texas to use in plotting your story (I do recommend using maps--it makes things so much easier), do pay attention to scale. It's farther than you think it is.

Retreating to write

I was waiting to write/post this blog until I got my wildflower pictures downloaded from my camera. But my computer is still in the shop, and while I could climb over the boy and use the back-up in his room, it's a real pain. So I haven't downloaded my pictures. I'll borrow one from the dayjob photographer. Jennifer Reynolds is much better than I am. And yes, bluebonnets do come in pink.

Anyway, I went up to Valley Mills, TX to "camp out" and write. I actually went up to do a workshop on using Tarot to spark your writing, but that was just for several hours on Saturday. I drove up on Thursday and stayed till Sunday. We wrote, hashed out plot issues, talked, ate salads and chocolate cookies, took a walk to look for wildflowers--didn't find the big field out where we stayed, but we found some others--and wrote some more. It was wonderful.

I got a sticky point figured out. I knew, sorta, what I wanted to have happen at the end of the story. Problem was, given the date where I started the story, the actual historical events didn't cooperate to create one of the endings I wanted to write. I just couldn't drag out my hero's assignment three weeks longer than it ought to be, to make them do what I wanted. So, I had to re-read my research book and see what my timeframe was and what I could to do wrap things up. And I did. I've got a handle on things now. And I'm closer to the end than I thought I was. All through the benefits of talking things through with critique/plotting partners.

Oh, and I wrote about 12 pages while I was there. So I'm very happy. :) I haven't written so many pages since I've been back. I've been Really Tired.

I'm doing some re-reads of historical novels I liked a lot, and reading some new ones. Trying to read the Rita finalists. Need to pick up more of them. And we're out of breakfast food. Since I'm the only one in the house who eats breakfast, this means I need to go buy myself food.

Wish my computer well, if you would. I really would like to have it back again. Thanks.

Things in books that drive me bonkers

Somebody else has written an essay on something to the effect of "What makes bad books bad." I haven't read it (yet), but since I was trying to come up with a topic to write a blog about, I thought I might write about that. Because there Are things that make bad books bad, generically speaking.

However, those books are bad enough that they don't usually get published. (Hopefully, anyway.) I'm talking about books with bad grammar, or "fishheads," (also known as backstory dumps at the front of the book). There are manuscripts out there that detail Every Minute of the Character's day. Taking a shower. Eating breakfast. Walking on the beach. Driving to work.

Now--walking on the beach can be fascinating in real life, obviously. I've written way too many blogs about it (probably). But in a book--if your character is going to walk on the beach, something has to happen on that beach that will change the story. He has to find a body washed up on shore--maybe tangled in the tentacles of a Portuguese man-o-war, but the jellyfish isn't what killed her. Or she needs to kiss the hero. Or fight with the hero. Or make a confession of some kind to the hero. EVERYTHING that happens in a story must be important to the story in some way.

But what drives one person crazy (me) might be what another person loves about the book. So I'm just going to talk about the things that make it hard for me to finish a book, or have me arguing with the author/characters.

One of the things I've already mentioned: Nothing happens. I remember reading a historical romance--a traditional Regency, if I recall correctly--that opened with the heroine wandering over the hillside pondering the recent events in her life. I stuck with it, but it didn't improve much. The pace remained abysmally slow. Which is kind of the same thing. Slow pace = nothing happens. Some slow paced books can work, but mostly, they just aggravate me.

Ponderous, purple prose. That annoys me. Sometimes it's not even purple, just ponderous. Stilted. Like they think authors are supposed to write in lofty language. That works for Georgette Heyer. Barbara Metzger can do some very interesting things, playing with Heyer-ish language. Others--not so much. There are some authors who write mostly in that lofty tone, and then the characters will suddenly use slang. Or think in slangy, contemporary language--when they haven't been for 2-1/2 chapters.

That's another thing that can drive me bonkers. Inconsistency. If you're going to use a historical-feeling tone, then use it. Don't jump back and forth. Characters need to be consistent too. Obviously, emotions can change, but I'd like to be able to follow the change. You can let your characters do whatever they must--if it's motivated. Too many unpublished authors (I've judged a lot of contests) don't get enough internal thought, emotion and reaction into their stories, so their characters seem flighty. Unfortunately, there are a few characters in published books who don't make a lot of sense. I want to be able to follow the character's thought process as they make a decision. Not a bunch of wishy-washiness, or hand-wringing, but what they think, and why, and how they move to this decision, whether it's a major change of heart or simply an important decision.

There are other things that make me crazy--poor historical, or even contemporary research. (IE. A state football championship in Texas that is played in the school's home stadium. Excuse me? Even the 6-man football championships are played in AUSTIN. (The state capital) ALL championships-whether sports, music, academic--all of them are Always in Austin. Period. And it ain't that hard to find that out. Geez.) (Okay, the UIL Solo & Ensemble State competition for band and choir musicians is in San Marcos for 1A schools--but San Marcos is only a little ways south of Austin.) Bad research can throw me so far out of the story, I'm arguing with the author in absentia for hours.

And then there's the language that isn't bad, but has no spark to it. It's just--well, dull.

Are these things that annoy most readers? Are they things that make the books objectively bad? A case could be made, I suppose.

On the other hand, it could be argued that some of these things are just my subjective taste, like my mild distaste for vampires and pirates. (A vampire story has to be really good, and probably different, for me to like it. Same with pirates.) On the other other hand, I'm always willing to give a good Western, or werewolf/shapeshifter, or marriage of convenience story a try. I'm willing to recognize my prejudices and subjectivity in those areas. My disposition against slow-paced stories falls in this category, I think.

Which is why I gave this post the title I did. These are things that drive ME bonkers. They might make you nuts too. But then--you might not care. :)

What does annoy you when you're reading? What kinds of things will make you set a book down and not pick it back up? I'm not necessarily talking throwing-it-against-the-wall, though you can share those too, if you want.

I'm leaving town this afternoon and won't have Internet access way out in the wilds outside Valley Mills, so y'all play nice. :) I'll try to check in before I go.

First beach walk in 2010

That's right, folks. Today, I went out to walk on the beach for the first time in 2010. It's been really cold, and then it's been wet, and I've been lazy (and enamored of my new Wii & its Wii Fit game), and it's taken all the way to APRIL to make it out to walk barefoot on the beach. Okay, I haven't walked barefoot much before April in any of the years since I've been here, but I've been out with shoes on. It's just been a cold winter.

Spring has arrived in a rush, and while the water is still quite cold, it is definitely spring. So it was time to hit the beach.

The place where I like to walk when I drive over (as opposed to when I walk up with the dog) has been very low in all the years since we moved here. It's just east of the park where this dolphin statue is. (The picture of the statue was taken before Ike--the wall behind the dolphins is broken, & the soil where the flowers are was washed away.)

By that, I mean that the sand hasn't reached high on the seawall, the giant pink granite boulders in front of the seawall were exposed, and often awash in water when the tide was in, which meant you had to pick your way through the rocks to get to the next jetty and cross over to a wide, high beach with the boulders all covered up. But today when I arrived and climbed down the stairs, I scarcely recognized it.

The parks people (and maybe the Corps of Engineers too) had brought sand in and raised the beach level, covered up all the boulders and moved the waterline out where it didn't lap on the bottom of the stairs. So I had to cross about 30 yards of very soft sand to get to the hard, easy-to-walk on part.

Not many seagulls or other birds out this a.m. I don't know whether I was too early for them, or too late. I did, however, see lots of critters that got washed up on the sand. The saddest were the four dead willets I saw spaced along the length of the beach where I walked, like some sandpiper mama had lost so many children just as they were learning to run and forage along the water. Poor birdies.

I also saw 10 (yes, ten!) clear/white jellyfish washed up on the shore. I've been rummaging through the Internet trying to figure out what kind of jellyfish they were--they're the big (cantaloupe sized) clearish ones that look like abandoned plastic bags from a distance, and don't have long dangly tentacles. Either that, or all their tentacles had been broken off, but since I also saw a bunch of Portuguese man-o-wars (men-o-war? Is that proper for jellyfish (even though the man-o-war is apparently technically not a jellyfish-something I learned in my rummaging) terminology?), and they all still had their purple/blue tentacles trailing across the sand, I think the big clear jellyfish must not have long tentacles.

I did not know till my research today that the oblong purple/blue/teal jellyfish (see picture) are actually the man-o-wars, and the big clear ones aren't. I've been stung by the clear ones, and it hurt like crazy--but the man-o-war is supposed to be worse. Maybe. I've been stung by jellyfish I didn't see, and it sure hurt, so it might have been a MoW... I think the clear ones might be Sea Nettles--they're not Cannonball Jellyfish, because they are colorless. I am still researching. Maybe I will ask our neighbor. He's a marine biologist, I think.

Anyway, while I was walking along the water's edge, carrying my shoes and counting birds and jellyfish, and noting the long tentacles & such, I also picked up any nice-looking oyster shells I happened upon. My friend @KristenEthridge (as she is known on Twitter) makes jewelry out of oyster shells. I rather like the white and purple shells. The little ones looked a little nicer, because they hadn't had time to get seacrud on the outsides, so you could still see the purple on their outsides, as well as their insides. (Seacrud is a technical term.)

And because I put the shells in my pocket, I had to rinse the sand off them, which meant I got my feet in the water. It felt really cold when I first walked in, but by the time I left--I think my feet were so cold they didn't know what was cold and what wasn't. But it was nice to get my feet in the water, to be out on the water, and find shells and things. It was so incredibly windy--my hair blew all one direction, then all the other when I turned to walk back. There was lots of choppy surf (the surf in the Gulf is never Big here), and lots of irridescent seafoam, and my glasses got all salty. My wet feet got Very Sandy because I had to walk across that soft, fluffy sand (with lots of bitty shells in it, because it's dredge sand) back to the stairs, and I had to go in the back yard and wash them off before I could go in. The dog kept her distance, in case I decided to wash her. But it was a nice walk. And I've had fun looking up jellyfish. And sooner or later, I'll get together with @KristenEthridge and give her the shells, if she wants them. (I have no idea whether they're the kind she uses, but I picked them up, so...)

I'll try to get another blog in here before I leave town, but I'm heading up to Valley Mills, TX to a writing retreat, just me and my friend B, on Thursday. We are going to stay at the usual dude ranch (it is mostly ranch, very little dude), and talk and write. I can't wait! Hopefully I can solidify how my book needs to end.

Friday follies

It's Friday, and what day is more foolish (isn't that the adjective that goes with folly?) than Friday? At least it's alliterative.

Although I'm not going to write about folly today. This is going to be a Random Stuff blog.

Like: I am a graduate of Baylor University, and as such, I am hugely enjoying the NCAA tournament playoffs of both the men's and women's basketball teams. The men's Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight games were in Houston which, as you may know, is just across the causeway (and the rest of Galveston County) from the island. So we mounted an expedition to venture into the Enormous City to go to the regional playoff game and see Baylor play against Duke. The Fella, the Boy and myself met up with The Older Boy, had lunch at Luby's near the stadium, and went to the game. We enjoyed the game tremendously, right up to the very end, when the Beloved Bears couldn't quite pull it out, and bid a fond farewell to the Older Boy who had to drive back to Dallas, after driving down just to go to the game. (He's in school to become a coach--he'd probably drive even farther for almost any sporting event.)

We are not going to San Antonio to go see the Baylor women's team in the Final Four of the tournament. Even if it was the men's team in the finals, we wouldn't go see it. If they're in the finals next year, in Houston, we might go. But we are excited, and will watch them play. Go BEARS!!

Then, on the way home, the Fella decided he wanted some oysters, and since the Boy had told us of an excellent oyster bar he'd gone to only Friday, we desired him to take us to said bar so we could partake of fire-roasted oysters. (Not me. I'm not a big oyster fan.) (Can you tell that I've been reading Georgette Heyer today? Sorry. I'll try to control myself.)

Anyway, the Boy couldn't remember exactly how to get to Gilhooley's. A large part of the problem was that there are a lot of Farm to Market roads on the Galveston County mainland with similar numbers--1765 and 1764, as well as 517, and 519. And the Boy couldn't remember whether they'd gone down 517 or 519 to get to the place. We finally had to call and ask. (It's on 517, just FYI, in San Leon.) But they did have some excellent oysters, and while I didn't order a whole dinner-full of oysters, I did allow myself to be persuaded to eat one. (The menfolks ordered a dozen each--and received 14 and 15 oysters each, in all.) And it was the first oyster I've ever eaten that I actually rather enjoyed. It was extremely soft and fluffy-but I don't really mind that texture. It tasted mostly of woodsmoke, but darned if it wasn't pretty good. I'm not sure I can be persuaded to eat a whole dozen of the suckers, but one at a time, it was definitely edible.

In other matters--I have written Eleven pages for this week. That's the most I've done in a while, so I'm happy.

I only looked at one house this past weekend, and it was so much more suitable as a duplex than anything, it really wasn't worth posting about. Still haven't heard from the bank, so we're not looking hard yet. And since the government let the flood insurance program expire and haven't got round to re-upping it yet, it may be a while.

The Girlfriend has come down for the weekend. We are hoping Dolly will got more walks.

We have a new fence, on one side of the yard. The fence in the back was already replaced, shortly after Ike. The fence on the north side is still in good shape. The fence on the south side was rotting and had to have boards screwed over it to keep the granddog from biting holes in the rot and escaping. So now we have a new fence. The fence guys came at 7:30 a.m.! It wouldn't have been a problem, except I was bad the night before and stayed up reading till 4:30 or so, and was Very tired at 7:30. I let them move my vehicular beast from the driveway, and stayed awake long enough to eat and take meds, and walk the dog. But the fence is done.

Following the Characters' Lead

I've been trying to write a love scene for about a week now. (At least.) I know that a love scene is the next thing that happens. I know that it will happen eventually. But my characters are being amazingly difficult about the whole thing. It's kind of like trying to lead a critter that doesn't want to be led. Which has me thinking about my process, and wondering whether non-writer people would understand. (Probably not.)

See, I'm not one of those writers who sits down and just starts writing, flying by the seat of my pants into the mist to see where the story takes me.

Conversely, I'm not one of those writers who plans out the story scene by scene, chapter by chapter. I don't know where my chapter breaks will fall until the second draft, at least.

I'm something of a hybrid between the two. I have to have some structure--a plot skeleton to hang the story's flesh on, and often, a list of scenes I think I want to write. (Though that list is often not developed until I reach the roadmap's turning points, to mix my metaphors.) But I can't have too much.

Basically, what happens when I write: I have my roadmap, or skeleton, or beat sheet--whatever term you want to use. I have turning points and Major Scenes written down. I might also have a list of things that need to happen after This turning point, in order to reach That turning point. Beyond that, I really don't know much.

I line my characters up--put them on their marks, to use acting jargon. She is here, doing this, wearing these clothes (or not, as the case may be). He is over there, doing this other thing. There are people outside, or in the room around them, or maybe the characters are alone. Then I tell them--this is the situation, this is what has just happened, and this is what is going to happen in this scene.

The one I'm trying to write is a love scene, but it could be anything. I could tell them: "This is the scene where He tells Her about his dead child," or "In this scene, She gets His shirt off to look at an injury and is mortified by her attraction to him." Or whatever the scene might be. I tell them what the scene is, and then I say, "Okay, Ready? Go!"

And I write down what they do. (It's kind of like improv, that way.) I write down what they think and what they feel, how they react to what the other person says. And quite often, they surprise me.

This particular love scene comes fairly late in this book. I know my characters well by this time. I know how they'll react to things. Which is where the stubborn comes in. I know good and well these two people are going to do it. But I am having the dickens of a time getting them to the point, because of who they are. I can't say it's because of who I've made them, because I'm not sure I can claim that. I tend to get acquainted with my characters more than I invent them. My hero is a good guy and he's damn proud of that. He's a little rigid on the point, which is what will make his fracture so delicious. And my heroine is crazy. But she's not as crazy as she'd like to be. I'm hoping that tomorrow I may be able to move beyond the talk into some action. I hope. (Please, people!)

I know already that I'm going to have to go back and thin out some of the repetition, and probably shorten it, because it feels long. (Though it may not be as long as it feels, because I haven't written that many pages over the week of trying to get them started.) But I had to write all that to know what actually happens. To turn my characters loose and let them lead. Because for me, that's when I know the story is going to be what I want it to be. If the characters have taken over, that's when it's working.

So while I'm frustrated that they're taking their own sweet time about this, I'm also content to let them do it the way they want.

And how are things going for You?

TBR Challenge: I Capture The Castle

Well darn. I didn't make the Blog Post Day for the TBR challenge--but I have done it! The Official day for the TBR blog post was March 17, but I hadn't finished reading the book by then. Sigh. So I'm posting my mini-review today.

This month was supposed to be Historical Fiction/Romance/Mystery. I read a YA book set in the 1930s, so it was technically historical, but I'm going to count this as June's YA book, and read a historical (or something else) then. I am going ALL out of order on this thing.

So. I read I CAPTURE THE CASTLE by Dodie Smith.

I think I'm just not in the target market for this book. I liked it okay, but it wasn't "the bestest thing ever." Probably because I'm so much older than the age group it's really written for. I appreciated the message that "You shouldn't settle for less than what you really want." But I've known a lot of 17/18-year-olds who were/are a lot more mature than this girl. Maybe it's the difference in era, too. Kids today are a lot more sophisticated, in a lot of ways.

The story is about a self-aware 17-year-old who lives in a rundown castle in rural England with her family-older sister, younger brother, stepmother and father who was a "one-book wonder," making lots of money with a highly acclaimed experimental novel, and hasn't written anything since. They're desperately poor, and the sister hates it. The heroine, who tells us the story in her journal, isn't wild about being hungry or having ratty outgrown clothes, but she's not so desperate. She wants to be a writer, wants to "experience life." Oh, there's also another boy--very handsome, but "lower class" (his mother was their housekeeper, till she died)--who lives with the family and works for them. He gets room & board, but doesn't get actual wages, and he's got a crush on the heroine.

I spent a lot of time wanting to smack the heroine upside the head and say "grow up!" She talks about how it's immature to kiss someone and think one's in love--but she does it anyway. And I never did understand why she was so snobbish to the "servant" boy - I could see how she might not "love" love him--he was essentially like another brother--but it wasn't explained like that. Maybe the narrator wasn't conscious of it--but she was conscious of so much else. That may have been part of the reason for my impatience with her. She was so self-aware about so much--and so dim about so much else.

But then the adults in the book needed smacking even more than the heroine, so... I have even less patience with people who "wait for the muse" when they want to create. The muse shows up when you give it a place to appear. You create the opportunity, by sitting down and starting the work, and the muse has space to work.

In the end, I'm not sure what the point of the whole story was. It felt very much like a slice of life story without a real ending to the story arc. Either that, or I missed what the arc actually was. And yes, there was the "Don't settle," theme, but... I guess the end left me feeling as if the story just fizzled out.

I did like the book, but it wasn't anything to swoon over, IMO.

I had all sorts of inspiring ideas for a blog--but didn't write them down, and when I get to the "New Post" page on the computer, I have forgotten them all. Alas.

I have written pages this week, despite having doctor appointments and such. Need to go get mail from the post office today. Should have a new Netflix movie in.

I will try in future to write down blog ideas so I will not forget what they are. :)

Oh! The middle grandson is learning to ride a bike! He does pretty good, except--when he sees a car coming their way, 2 blocks away, he yelps, jumps off the bike and hides behind the nearest tree. (He's autistic. He's doing good, considering.)

Y'all have a good weekend.

More House Hunting

We are still waiting to hear from the loan company. We want to know if we can do this the way we want to before we really start getting seriously serious in the house hunting. So we're just going to open houses and such. This past weekend, there weren't many houses open--not houses we wanted to look at anyway. One was on the street where we rented for 6 weeks when we first moved to the island--where Ike flooded everything about 12 feet or more--and it floods often, even without major hurricanes. Nope, not going to move over there...

Anyway, this house was also in the historic district, which looks VERY different with all the trees gone (Hurricane Ike killed them). When we drove up, the fella was already going "Nope, nope, don't like it, don't even want to go in."

It looks pretty good in the picture, doesn't it. But that paint job is starting to peel on the sides, and the roof's bad, and those balusters on the porch? They're the style that bulges out. (You can kind of see it on the non-stair side.) I think it looks seriously funny. Plus the porch sags to the front.

Inside, it looks a lot better than outside. They've done a lot of nice things--first floor master bedroom, new kitchen cabinets, etc. But the dining room is also the walkway through to the kitchen, there's no den, and it's a little pricey for what still needs doing. There's a huge garage with a garage apartment out back--3 cars' worth (one for the apartment)--but it hasn't been touched since the storm. There's still Ike water in the outside light fixtures.

It's one of those deals where--if you offer the full price, you'll get a new roof and the apartment redone and all, but if you don't--well, there's the house--You fix it. Like I said, the interior re-do looks very nice, but the floors slope, and the doors stick, and the outside doesn't look so great. So I don't think we're going to go with this slant-roofed Victorian. (Even though it is just a few blocks away from The Original Mexican Cafe.)

In other news... there isn't much. I had a blister, or swollen vein or something in my mouth that made my teeth hurt for a week. It finally burst and feels much better--I can eat now--but it has turned into one of those mouth ulcers. Ugh. Still, when it was really hurting, I couldn't sleep and sat up in the recliner dozing to the Weather Channel all night. So I'm really glad it's over, mostly.

If I'm going to get anything written today, it will have to be tonight. Spent the morning getting the oil, the power steering fluid, the gas filter and some other kind of fluid that goes to the universal joints changed, and some other thing cleaned out on my massive beast of a vehicle. Now I am at the paper, getting stuff done here. Back to work.

A few more thoughts about contests for writers

Back in December, I wrote a blog about contests. (You will have to scroll down to the Dec. 9 entry, because apparently, Blogger won't let me link to individual posts in my archive.) In this blogpost, I talked about whether entering or winning contests could get you published. (Nope- but it can do other things.) Now, I feel the need to talk about other elements of these contests for unpublished writers.

See, RWA has a ton of 'em. Seems like every chapter of the organization has a contest. I may be exaggerating, but not by a hell of a lot. There are other contests out there, run by other local writers' organizations, which tend to have different rules, but I'm most familiar with the RWA contests, because over the years I've entered, and judged, a lot of them. Usually, these contests have three judges, who are given a scoresheet with numeric scores, which can add up to over 100 points. (There are often posts on various loops begging for additional judges, because of this multiple-judge rule.) The scoresheets have places (usually too small) for comments, and judges are usually encouraged to write on the manuscript. (I tend to write a lot, because I'm wordy.)

And invariably, when entrants receive their scoresheets and manuscripts back (whether electronic or hard copy), the score analysis--and often the moaning--begins. Contest entrants want to learn from these contests. They want to understand the scores. And often, when they receive a 90, a 97 and a 51 as their scores, they are confused.

The thing is--writing contests are judged by human beings and no two human beings think the same way. In fact, often, the same human being will think differently on two different occasions. Also, numeric scores are tough to calibrate, especially when relating them to things that aren't numbers. One person's 5 might be someone else's 3, and vice versa.

Most people agree that if only one person dings you for a particular flaw, you may not actually have that problem in your writing. However, if two or more people comment on it--you'd probably better take a closer look.

And here's another thing to think about. This is just My opinion, of course, but I'd rather have a story that people either loved or hated than a story they felt lukewarm about. This is another reason some contest entries can have a wide spread in the scores. If it's different, some people will love it, and some won't, and they can be vehement about that love or hate.

So--contest scoresheets and comments should be taken carefully, with a fair bit of salt, and even more time to get them down. This is when it becomes gut-check time. 'Cause really--you know in your gut if the comments are right. Really. You do. Those are usually the ones that cause the biggest denial, the biggest defensiveness. If the comments are way off and don't suit your story at all, those comments you can laugh at. It's actually possible to laugh. The ones that are true--those are the ones that pinch. They hurt, because you know they're right.

So are you going to get all defensive and post an ugly rant about how the judges don't know what they're doing, etc., etc.? Or are you going to cowboy up and do the work?

Yeah, I know sometimes it feels like the judge is taking your story apart and making it into something that's not really yours. But is she/he really? Is it a fundamental change in what your story is about--or is she just trying to get you to cut off the fish head?

("Fish head" is a term from Britta Coleman, author of Potter Springs. Just as, when you cooking a whole fish for your guests you need to cut off the head and set it aside (because those grandkids won't eat anything that looks at them) you need to cut the fish head off your story in order to serve it properly. The fish needed it to get around before it made it to your kitchen. The story probably needed it to get written--but you don't need it now. Cut that sucker off. It's done. Start the story on the day that's different.)

And stop obsessing about scoresheets. Think of it as practice for submitting your manuscript to an agent or editor. They're people too. Some of them will like your story, and some of them won't. If you're very lucky, some of them will make comments about things you could do to improve it. Most of them will just send a polite "No thanks." That's when you pull up your big girl panties and deal.

Don't get mad. Get even. Write a better book and sell that one.

House Hunters a la Galveston Island

We are finally doing some serious looking for a house. This may all change if we don't get the answer we expect from the mortgage company, but we have started the process and have been to some open houses and gone driving through neighborhoods, as well as doing a lot of cruising on line. Some houses look better in person than they do on line. Some look worse, especially after you drive by the neighbor's houses.

Anyway, because I get a kick out of watching House Hunters on HGTV, I'm going to do my own little version of House Hunters here on my blog. We will have more than 3 houses to pick from here, because I have infinite (sort of) space to post stuff. I probably won't post Every house we look at, just the ones that are possible.

So, that said, we went to some open houses on Sunday. One of them moved directly from our "possible" list to our "no" list--the house had been damaged in Hurricane Ike (all the ones we looked at on Sunday took on water during the hurricane--75% of the houses on the island flooded) and hadn't been put back together well. The other two--one of them moved from the "probably not" list to the "might work" list, and the other from not even on the list to the "liked it-but there are issues" list.

So, the house we liked is a historic home across the street from the medical school on the island. The current owner works there. We do not, but it's a quick hop to Harborside which is a mostly straight shot to the newspaper, and a pretty quick jaunt to the fella's work.

It's a pretty house, with essentially no yard whatsoever. There is a small flower-bed-type area in front of the house. The back of the house is a patio. No room for trees--except maybe a palm tree, and given that they mostly survived the hurricane and the freeze this winter, that might not be a bad idea. There is also a small deck on back of the house. It is much larger inside than it looks from the outside. And those 14 foot ceilings (or maybe higher--they are Very High) make the rooms look even larger.

It did take on about two feet of water in the hurricane (Everything in Galveston is divided into "before Ike" and "after Ike"), but the remediation job is gorgeous. The original wood floors were completely refinished, the walls redone--the job was done Right. (And 2 feet of water is nothing, considering downtown businesses mostly got 8 to 10 feet of water, and houses near us took on 4 feet.)

The rooms are large--except for a tiny little den-type room they have set up with a TV. I think it's too little for our den furniture. There's a sunporch-type room that might fit our stuff and be usable as a den, and I would take the den room (with the laundry room right off it) for my office, but the fella makes a face when I say that.

The bedrooms upstairs are huge. There are two full baths upstairs, and there are actually closets (which can be an issue in an older home-this one dates to 1897 or so, which means it survived the massive 1900 storm too). And there is a garage. Two cars with storage. Those are the pros.

The cons--those 14-foot ceilings mean the staircase is Very Long and kinda steep. (This is the view from the top of the stairs, looking toward the front door.) I have bad knees. The idea of carrying a laundry basket down those stairs gives me the heeby-jeebies. And the den/study issue is problematic.

Also, the exterior is wood siding. This is an island on the Gulf of Mexico. The weather is Hard on paint. Things that would require re-painting inland in 10 years tend to need painting in 5 years here. And the fella isn't wild about that idea--having to paint frequently. You saw in the picture just how much there is to paint on the outside of this house. (Even those 30-year paints only last about half as long in this climate.)

The missing yard is an issue too, given that part of the reason I want my own house is that I want my own dog. A small dog would be all right, but the fella isn't wild about small dogs. (He scowls at the idea of a dog at all...)

So--this is on the "liked it" list. It has all the requirements. The location is decent, though it's not in a neighborhood, per se, being across the street from the hospital. It has a separate den/TV room, or a room that could be used that way. It has a garage. I could see myself living here (except for that laundry-basket-on-the-stairs issue).

The other house that's on the "might do" list was on the other end of the city. We did drive out past the end of the seawall to look at houses in the closest bayside subdivision, but--besides not caring for the houses--the fella decided it would take too long to get to work in the mornings. So we're pretty much looking in the city, behind the seawall.

This second house was much newer (by about 100 years). It took on several feet of water--somewhere between 2 and 4 feet. The repair was done well in some places, and not so well in others.

It has a small parlor-type room right inside the front door, then opens out into a good-sized dining room with a den/living area beyond. The kitchen's off to the right with a breakfast area, and a little courtyard right outside that is in pretty good shape. The tree is still deciding whether it's going to live or not, but it's a pretty area. There's a good-sized covered deck off the den (needs paint) and a smallish yard--but it is a yard. And the master bedroom is downstairs. The re-do of the master bath is very nice. Slate floor, slate around the bathtub, separate shower, double sinks.

The not-so-good stuff--the kitchen re-do is not very good. You can't see it in this picture, but the counter tops are pretty. Red-and-gray granite. I like the counter tops. But there's not much counter space, that central hood thing is weird, and the oven and microwave are almost too tiny to cook in. And--see how the counter top on the island extends beyond the cabinet? There's a gap like that next to the refrigerator. About a foot more counter top than there is cabinet. It looks weird. We would probably have to redo the kitchen again. The house is priced so we could do that, but it would be a pain.

Also, the stairs--they are not so good. I can't get my whole foot on a stair tread. The stairs used to be open at the back--suspended--and now they aren't. So they're too short. Admittedly, I have big feet for a girl, but that means that almost no adult male alive can get his feet on the treads. There are two bedrooms upstairs, one of which would have to be my office. It would be a good thing to be able to fit my feet on the stairs. But at least there's only about 10 feet worth of stairs, not 14 or more. And once the boy graduates (in May, we hope) there wouldn't be laundry upstairs that needed bringing down.

This one is an "okay, but not wonderful" house.

We're still waiting to see what the bank says, so we haven't called any agents yet to get in to see some of these other houses we've found online. We'll do more open houses this coming weekend. Maybe we'll find some more houses to go on the "liked it" or "might do" lists.

Songs, Poetry and Lovely Words

Once upon a time, I was at a conference, and the faculty member/poetry judge (who was an English Lit prof) said something to the effect of "It doesn't necessarily have to make sense, as long as the language is beautiful."

To which I recoiled, aghast. (Which is a fun word, in itself. Aghast. It's even spelled in a fun way.)

As said last week, or the week before, I'm all about the story. If the art doesn't serve the story, it should be excised. However, I'm a novelist. I'm not even very good at short stories, much less short-shorts, and flash fiction? Fuggeddaboudit. (Or however that's spelt.)

When I was in high school, my English teacher gave an assignment to rewrite Beowulf as a Western. I wrote 13 pages (front-and-back, college-ruled paper--and I write pretty small), and wasn't through. I have never been a short-storyteller. But, I think there IS a place for pretty language that doesn't necessarily serve the story. Poetry.

I don't read a lot of poetry. It's not really "my thing," and--as in many other areas, I have what's considered rather plebeian taste in poetry. I like rhythmic, rhyming stuff. Things that are almost songs, just in the words. And I like poetry a lot as song lyrics. There's some pretty bad poetry in lyrics, but there's some good stuff out there too.

Thing is--and I don't think this is a contradiction--I don't like song-stories, otherwise known as ballads, very much. I like the older ballads well enough--things like The Highwayman or The Ballad of New Orleans--but things like "Lucille" or "A Boy Named Sue"? Not so much. Because once I've heard the story, I've heard it. I don't want to hear it a bazillion times more, even if it is set to music. I know how it comes out. (When combined with my antagonism toward monotonous boring music, this makes "Ode to Billy Joe"--the old 60s song about how "Billy Joe McAlister jumped off of Tallahatchee Bridge"--into my most despised song Ever.)

I'm sure y'all can name any number of exceptions, but I really prefer songs that--like poetry--create an emotion. A moment in time. A bit of "this is how I feel at this moment." Poetry is, to me, more like painting and music. Ephemeral stuff that bypasses the logical left brain and does a whammy on the emotive right brain--except poetry uses words and so has to bring the left brain in on it. Even poems like "My Last Duchess," by Robert Browning (which is a favorite) is about a moment. It tells a story, but it's still a moment in time, a kick of emotion.

So--poetic words can have their place in a novel, by creating moments of emotion. But in a novel, they have to serve the story.

I'm not sure I've made any sense at all here. I know I've wandered all over the place and probably haven't conveyed what I was attempting to say--but I tried.

Oh, and it looks like I may be going back to a more regular PT job. The girl who took over during my "leave of absence" is departing at the end of next week, and I'll be back at the newspaper on a more regular basis. Not sure how I feel about that, but... We'll get by.

My new pretty thing

I was going to blog about poetry and words and art and stuff, but I'm not feeling very poetic. Or wordy, or art-y, though I might be feeling somewhat stuffy. Anyway, I decided not to blog about that, but instead, to see if I could show you my spiffy new sorta-toy.

It's not really a toy. It's a beautimous cover for my toy. You can see the Sony e-book reader inside the open cover here.

See, I broke the cover the reader came with. I dropped it, and the plastic spine up the back cracked. I read it for several more days before the end cracked all the way through, but eventually, it broke in two pieces, and would no longer hold the book reader.

I still kept it in the original reader, for protection, when I wasn't actually reading, but I took it out to read. Still, it would slip out when I put it in my bag, and slide around and annoy me. And I found this Place. Oberon Design had a PR post card at ApolloCon last year. They may have had jewelry and leather also, but I don't remember. I went to the website to look at jewelry--which is very cool--and saw the Very Neat leather goods. With e-Reader Covers! They have them for Kindles too, but I don't have one of those, do I?

Now I will let you look at the awesome design on the front. It is a Chinese river garden. They have many, many awesome designs, and I was sorely tempted by the dragon, and the raven, and the starry sky. But I wound up getting this one, because it was the one that kept drawing my eye first off. (The design continues onto the back.) And it's red. Each design only comes in a couple of colors. I like red, though I didn't get the red Sony reader.

Anyway, I think the cover is very spiffy. I like it whole bunches and have to show it off to everybody. And sooner or later, I will get around to writing about poetry and songs and art and words and stuff. When I'm feeling more arty. :)

TBR Challenge: Silent on the Moor

I think the post date was Monday, and Monday I was at the parents going to the doctor with Daddy & gathering up all the tax stuff. (Ooooh, there's a big lightning/thunder thing outside!)

So, I'm doing this one on Friday.

Silent on the Moor is the third book by Deanna Raybourn about Lady Julia Grey and the half-gypsy detective Brisbane. She goes to Yorkshire to stay at Brisbane's house and "have it out" with him about their relationship--and winds up dropping into the midst of a bizarre family situation. Between the mummified infants she finds in the walls and the near-poisoning of one of the residents, Lady Julia has quite an adventure. The problem for me was that she mostly had it alone. While Brisbane is the love of her life, they spent far too much time apart for my preference, and what time they did spend together, she was usually spitting mad at him. Which made the happy ending a bit abrupt and awkward-feeling to me. I didn't get quite why she was so keen on him.

But I still liked it. So... That's the book report.

Art must serve Story

Several years ago--so long I don't remember where it was, much less when--Jennifer Crusie spoke to RWA's national conference as keynote, or one of the big speakers, she said "We need more storytellers and fewer writers."

The whole ballroom full of published and aspiring writers burst into applause.

Genre writers understand that it's about the story. Yes, language and craft is important, but without a story to tell, you might as well be writing poetry.

Not that there's anything wrong with poetry. I like poetry just fine, but I have to admit that my favorite place to find poetry is in song lyrics. I don't read a lot of it, and I don't write it, because--well, I'm all about the story.

A novel is a story--or it had better be. Otherwise, nobody much is going to want to read it. All the art must be in service to that--to the telling of the story. You can be just as pretty or writerly as you want, but if the pretty words don't serve the story, you have to chuck them out.

Because There Are Only Two Rules in Fiction That You CANNOT Break. They are:

1. Do Not BORE Your Reader.

and

2. Do Not CONFUSE Your Reader.

An interesting Plot with interesting Characters takes care of Rule #1 (for the most part). Decent grammar and clarity of language helps with Rule #2. And sometimes, pretty words get in the way of Rule #2.

Every other rule out there that people tell you about--feel free to break them, once you know how and why they work. These two? If you break 'em, you won't sell your book, because your first readers--your prospective agent or editor--will get bored and/or confused and they won't buy or help you sell your book.

Art is great. I got nothin' against art in any shape, form or fashion. (I know, resorting to cliches. Deal with it. It's a blog.) But in fiction, storytelling comes first. Art must serve the function--which is story.

Quick referral post

I blogged over at Paranormality about Steampunk and the blood magic universe books. So while I'm off checking on the parents & accompanying them to more doctor appointments, y'all can go read what I wrote over there. :)

Picture post

Ha! finally got the pictures downloaded off the camera. (The fella STILL hasn't downloaded the San Francisco pics onto his computer, and that was back in October! Grr.) So, y'all are getting the whole shebang.

First, here is the princess wussy granddog with her tug-o-war rope. That spot on her nose is the bobo she got when she scraped a nickel-sized hunk of skin off her nose on the fence while jumping at a possum. It's almost well now, but it made an icky scab.

I have posted about Mardi Gras, and here are some of our Mardi Gras pictures. This first one is of The Strand--Galveston's main downtown street--just before the Knights of Momus parade on the second Saturday of Mardi Gras. The fella took all the pictures of the Aquarius parade on the first Saturday, and I don't know any of the people in it, so I'm skipping to these pictures.

The son's girlfriend came down for the weekend, which was Valentine's as well as Mardi Gras, so for the big parade, we went downtown, had dinner at Bistro LeCroy (on The Strand) and then watched the parade on 21st Street.

This is us--me, the boy and the girl (kinda blurry--the fella took it)--on the street waiting for beads. I think we're just between floats. I did catch a respectable number of beads at this parade, including some fancy gold ones with crowns.

There was a guy who wanted to trade me for some of those crown beads. He offered me a string of plain beads plus a drink of his vodka. Um--no thanks. I'll pass.

The parade theme was "Treasures of the Sea." Hence the shark float here. You can maybe see the beads in mid-air. Some of those people could really throw those suckers.

Okay, so then on Sunday, we went to the midafternoon parade of the Krewe of Barkus & Meoux--the pet parade, sponsored by the local Humane Society. Any pet could march, but aside from a few ferrets in a cage in a wagon, most were dogs. And Oh the Costumes! Here, you see the Elvis Dog. There were greyhounds in Mickey & Minnie costumes, a standard poodle dyed green and purple, and dogs in just bandannas. Lots and lots of greyhounds.

We met up with a friend of mine who went to Baylor too, several years after I graduated. She was a writer friend while she was in Baylor, and now, we both live in Galveston (though she's now way out on the West End).

There was a children's parade after the dog parade, and we got tired and sat down to wait for it to arrive.

She brought her toddler, who is massively cute, and warmed up to me enough to give me a hug, which totally warmed this Gigi's heart. The Toddler also danced. No music, she just danced.

We got massively annoyed at the grownups who brought their beer cooler and snatched the beads away from the children at the Children's parade. I didn't actually Catch any beads at this parade, but I picked up a few--we gave all ours away to the kids. (The folks with the beer cooler didn't.)

The last pictures I want to share with you are first: Orchy, the first grocery store orchid I have ever been able to get to bloom. It's only the third one I've ever bought--the one I bought in the Panhandle dried up, poor thing. But the 1st one I bought in Galveston grew a baby on its flower stem I didn't cut off. It survived the winter inside, and thrived, apparently, outside in our humidity and heat. So I bought another one. And look! It's blooming! I'm all excited. I guess you can tell, huh? I mean, I named the plant. (sigh)

The little clay pot in the background is the baby orchid I cut off from its Mama, finally. It seems to be doing well. Growing a new leaf and everything.

And finally, another flower picture, just because I think they're so pretty. After Valentine's Day, the local Kroger put all its tulips on 2/3 off, so I bought Two bunches. (Hey, they were cheap, fresh and so pretty.)

Those are all the fella's books. I have three bookcases in my office (2 huge), plus some built-ins and another big bookcase in the living room. This does not count all the books in boxes in the garage, or the e-books on the SD card. :)

Oh, and the basket? Corrals all the Wii-motes and Wii games. Mama likes to play. :)

Seven Things About Me

The lovely Carol Burnside presented me with this award on Monday because-- well, maybe because I was somebody she knew with a blog who hadn't received it yet. I'm not sure what it's an award for. Oh, I know!

It's for Being a Great Person! (If I present it to you, you can make up your own reason for receiving the award--or you can use mine.)

The conditions that come with this award are that I must tell you seven things about myself that you may not know, and I must send it on to seven more people.

So, without further ado, here are my seven things.

1. I am an oldest child, and despite my disorganized nature, have a tendency to want to organize others.
2. I have two-toned eyes. Really. Yellow in the middle, and blue around the edges.
3. I am BONE lazy. Alas. My ideal day would be sitting around, reading books all blessed day long.
4. I wrote my thesis for my master's degree in history on Baptist missions in China from 1911 to 1945. Really.
5. I sing alto. I really prefer singing the harmony, and not just because I can't hit those high notes.
6. I once had the Hallelujah Chorus memorized. (Alas, no longer.)
7. I played the flute (not very well) in marching band from junior high through college. (I mimed the piccolo part on Stars & Stripes Forever.)

Now, who shall I present with this lovely award??? I am presenting it to you because you are ALL Great People!!

1. C.E. Murphy (of Urban Shaman fame) at the essential kit.
2. April at In The Face of Dragons (like she needs more to do)
3. Kristen Ethridge, my Baylor Buddy
4. Robin D. Owens the Rita Award winner and Book Cover award winner (Congratulations!!)
5. Nalini Singh, of the new Guild Hunter books and the wonderful Psy-Shifter stories. (I love to say "I knew ya when.")
6. The fascinating Arwen Lynch at her blog Tarot by Arwen
7. Anne Marie Novark who is hugely supportive to writers at Just Write!

(Feel free to ignore me, but it's a nice picture to put on your blog.) (And hey! It's an Award! For whatever you feel you need an award for!) (Also, if you can't think of anything to blog about--which is not a problem for some of you, but sometimes is for me--this gives you something to blog about. Bonus!)

So. There it is. My award. And my awardees.

Mardi Gras and Mania

No, Mardi Gras did not cause my mania. That came from an entirely different source. But Mardi Gras was a whole lot of fun.

Last weekend was the first weekend of Mardi Gras. Galveston celebrates it too, on a scale commensurate with a town only 1/4 the size of New Orleans. There were three parades along Seawall on Saturday, one at noon, one at 3 p.m. and one at 6 p.m. I was going to ride with the fella in a convertable in the noon parade and toss stuff for the college, but the convertable owner/driver busted up her right foot recently enough that the doctor wouldn't let her drive (Maybe just the night before.) I didn't think there would be room for me on the float (besides I would have had to stand up), so I sent him off to fling beads on his own, and walked down to Seawall with the boy. (The picture is of the arch downtown, at one of the downtown parades. They're next weekend.)

One of his friends had set up a flatbed trailer in front of the grocery store, with a grill, and he and his family were grilling all sorts of things. Chicken, venison-cheese-jalapeno sausage (Yum!), brisket, ribs, boudin--you name it, they were cooking that stuff on that grill. Ate a sausage and a chicken leg, hollered for beads during the Aquarius krewe parade, got sunburned, then walked back to the house. At 6, some more of the son's friends showed up--for the parking. Our house is closer to the seawall parades than a lot of people have to park. So we all walked back up to the grill trailer to watch the Gambrinus parade. Including Dolly the granddog. She was very good for the parade. The Budweiser Clydesdales fascinated her. The drums in the bands scared her, the first few of them. She ate lots of rib bones and snackies, (I had another half-sausage & a Mojito cooler) and she met a dog that looked almost exactly like her. The other dog had the same shade of brindle coat, same white face, same patch over the left eye--the main differences were that the other dog is 11 years old, and Dolly is 3, Dolly is a little bigger and heftier, and she has a white tip on her tail.

I scored some good beads. The fella threw me a string with harlequin jester heads, and never saw me waving at him. But he got me good beads anyway. :) And I got a strand of beads with beer mugs on them that night.

Then the next day I was packing up to travel to check on the Alzheimery parents, and got a phone call from my mom that my dad was in the hospital. So I hurried up to get here--He's home again now. He caught a stomach bug that he needed an IV to recover from. It's been pretty hectic. Haven't been able to write, for taking care of folks. But things just worked out okay. Now to get all their tax stuff together...still missing a couple of 1099s. Sigh.