Susan Buffum's Blog: Welcome to My World, page 31

NaNoWriMo Winding Down

My daughter is annoyed with me. I finished my NaNo novel on the 20th with a staggering 117,129 words written in 17 days (I scraped the 27,000 plus first attempt after three days and started fresh on the 4th.) This is just how I am and always have been. There is a well of words inside of me that I tap into and once I start stories just flow. I also have a little more free time than she has because I stay up late. She needs her full eight hours of sleep before getting up to go to work. I manage on six hours or less. So, while she is annoyed that I'm already finished with my novel, I am, on the other hand, proud of her because she is 41,000 words into her NaNo novel. She was done writing with only 43,000 words last year- there was no more story to tell. This year she has discovered the 'write what you know' philosophy and it is working well for her. I'm happy. At tonight's NaNo write-in she looked at me and said, "I can finish this one. I have enough story to do it this year," and she looked both happy and excited as she said it. I can't wait to read her novel because she's laughed and cried while writing it. I'm rooting for her to get those last 9,000 words written to hit the goal. I wish the same for all the NaNo novel writers out there. Keep writing!

Giveaway #2 starts Next Week

Watch for The Subtlety of Light and Shadow to appear on the Giveaway list at midnight on December 1st. I wrote this romance novel last year and entered it in the RWA Golden Heart contest this year. It did much better than previous entries and earned a 10 of 10 from one judge and scores ranging from 6-8 out of 10 from the other four judges. It was a huge hit at work (I work with a lot of women ages 19-61). I think Rex Royce was one of my most difficult characters to write. He is a dark, damaged, difficult man and is not very likeable as the story begins. He remains remote for much of the story, but careful reading reveals subtle changes in him as the story progresses. Young, innocent, vibrant Lucie Palmer intrigues him when she applies to be the gallery's new public relations/publicity manager. He has never interacted much at all with any of the gallery staff at Perspectives, yet right from the very beginning the reader, if paying attention, can see that he cannot stay away from Lucie, even when they ruffle one another's feathers and wound one another. Royce has secrets that Lucie discovers inadvertently and this causes a bond to form between them, something Royce is not used to and has avoided having happen for years. Lucie struggles with a job she is not prepared for, a stalker, flare-ups of an illness and the death of a friend, before she is kidnapped by another artist with a grudge against Royce. His ultimate revenge on Royce will be killing the one person Royce loves, Lucie, after he's sent a series of pictures of his torturing her and assaulting her to Royce via her phone. Their relationship is volatile but also surprisingly passionate when he is no longer able to resist his rampant desire for her. He discovers an equal passion burning in Lucie and must struggle with issues that have kept him isolated and distant from people. This is the book that made my adult brother cry twice when he was reading it. Rex and Lucie are two of my favorite characters, and appear in a novella, Not Always Black and White, in the book Love Me Knots. This story relates what might have happened to them if they had separated in The Subtlety of Light and Shadow. Two years have passed and Royce suddenly comes back into her life unexpectedly and old feelings are rekindled. The girls in the office have loved this novella too, and the other four romance stories in Love Me Knots as well. Even a cousin who doesn't read that I send a copy of Love Me Knots to had to call me up and tell me that she did read the book and she loved it! High praised from a non-reader! What for the upcoming new giveaway!

Christmas Books

One of the primary goals in my life has been to gather all the Christmas stories that I've written since the late 1990's up through 2014 into one volume. When I gathered them all together I found I had over twenty-five stories! Several of the stories were character specific to novels that I have written, so unless a reader has read the Talon series, The Archetypes series or the as of yet unpublished Ghost Chaser series (only kicking around in manuscript form at present) then they wouldn't know these characters, so those stories have been added as bonus stories at the end of their appropriate novels. That left me with 22 unique freestanding stories ranging from traditional to humorous to inspirational and contemporary. I put all the titles and words counts on separate index cards one day and then Kelly and I moved the cards around on the table and put together three volumes of stories with word cunts of around 80,000 apiece. I then began putting the books together, getting them ready. I designed the covers and then had a contest to name each volume. Yuletide Stories was self-published first, followed by Always Christmas in My Heart and then Together for the Holidays. The contest winners won a set of the three books apiece and were all happy about that. I recently put together a gift basket for the Friends of the Southwick Library where I donate a lot of books from my personal library for their book sales. In the basket I put a set of the three books, a grown up coloring book with a "calm" theme, a box of colored pencils, cocoa mix, tea bags, cookies, Hershey Kisses, peppermint candies, a lovely mug and matching bowl and a plaid fleece throw- giving the theme of the basket as "A Warm and Cozy Winter's Night." I love the stories in these volumes because I wrote them for my family and friends from the heart. Christmas was always a magical time for me when I was growing up in the 60's. The whole family would pile into the car and Dad would drive us around town and through neighboring towns to look at the Christmas lights. It was a more innocent world back then where family values mattered and technology had not driven wedges between family members, isolating us from one another by our absorption with a little hand held device that sucks our attention away from what really matters most- face to face interaction with real people. I've tried to capture the feel of those days. The stories range from the time of the Great Depression (when my parents were growing up) up to modern times. I wrote my late friend, an elderly button collector who became my surrogate mom and Kelly's surrogate grandma, into Christmas Cakes. She was gone from our lives last Christmas, our first Christmas without her and I was missing her. I had told her that when she passed I would write her into a story whenever I was missing her and her voice would come through that character and fill my ears and heart. She was always tickled to find herself as a character in one of my stories as she struggled with health issues in her early nineties. She didn't live long enough to hold one of my books in her hands, but she did read piles of stories in manuscript form over the years that I knew her and considered her house my other home. These Christmas stories were among her favorites, too. I'm happy that my long time goal has been attained in time for Christmas this year. If you put your heart and soul into a project you can get it done!

Giveaway Winners-Miss Peculiar

Hello and thank you for your interest in my book. I have received the list of 10 winners names and will be mailing the books out this coming week. Happy Holidays!

If you didn't win a free book this time around please watch for my next giveaway!

To the winners- I hope you enjoy the book!

A Ghostly Tapping

A spirit came to call last night. I went to a funeral on Wednesday- the mother of my best friend. When I got home I decided, upon seeing the memory lamp I received when my father passed away in 2011, to order a similar lamp for my friend, and one for her daughter who is my goddaughter. I did that- so I still had my Dad and her mother on my mind on Thursday. I sent my friend a message on Thursday evening to let her know that two packages were being shipped to her house on Friday as there have been thefts of packages from neighbors' homes in her neighborhood in another state recently. Kelly and I went to a NaNo write-in for about two hours then came home. She was done writing for the night, I continued on. At 10:00PM I was sitting at the kitchen table with my back to the dining room and the double window there facing the deck. Suddenly there was three quick raps on the window, a pause then three additional raps, like a knuckle rapping on the glass. My husband heard it in the living room. I spun around and could see out the window because the kitchen light shines out onto the deck. No one was there. Our two cats were instantly flipping out in the dining room and both jumped onto a box on a stool I had set up for them at the window so they can bird watch. They were looking out the window and all around, kind of bug-eyed.(They say animals are sensitive to spirits and they appeared to be watching something I could not see.) By then I had the exterior light on and had verified that there was absolutely nothing on the deck. It was raining steadily but there was no wind. There is nothing hanging near the window outside. One minute later my phone chimed to let me know I had a message. It was my friend letting me know that she had received my message about the packages. Our spirit caller rapping at the window had to have been either my Dad, because I had been thinking about him, or my friend's mother who'd come to say goodbye along her journey into whatever lies beyond this life. I think it was her because at her funeral I had had an odd experience...I was sort of transfixed in front of her casket having a conversation with her in my mind. I couldn't move away. The funeral home director had to sort of nudge me out of his way so he could get us reciting the Lord's Prayer and then get everyone moving out to their cars. He interrupted me in my mental conversation with and my saying goodbye to the woman who had been my other mother through 40 years of life. Maybe she was aware of this and came to rap on my window as a sign. My own mother had rung the three-sided bell that hangs high above my kitchen sink to send me a sign shortly after her passing, and she had also tossed a Hallmark ornament box at me as we'd sat down to dinner at my house with Dad a month and a half after her passing. The box flew out from behind a set of stacking boxes on the huntboard behind my chair and landed on the floor between my seat and Dad's seat at the head of the table- the theme of the ornament? Baking cookies at Gramma's house- a favorite activity of my Mom's and my daughter's. Kelly was 9 years old the year Mom died. This sort of thing has happened all throughout my life- I didn't really get scared with the rapping, just a little startled and then frankly, curious. I even looked for marks on the exterior of the window from a ghostly knuckle this morning. There were a few places that might have been knuckle marks...but who knows. One last thought- it reminded me of Poe's The Raven with the rapping and tapping at his chamber door. Maybe he'd had a spirit caller, too?

Giveaway-Miss Peculiar

I am excited by my first giveaway and hope the ten lucky winners will enjoy the book. I have been entertaining my family and friends for years, and wrote stories for my daughter all the while she was growing up (Now she writes for me!). In everything I write I hide something from my real life for my daughter to find. I have a quirky sense of humor and am a sucker for sweet romance.

I'm thinking I'll have another giveaway soon but I don't know which book I should offer. Maybe My Magical Life which has the coolest cat ever since Puss in Boots-and he talks. He's a wise guy with a big heart, an appreciation of the female form and a taste for fine whisky. The book is about Evangeline Teale, a witch, and her lover throughout time, Ardis, who just happens to be a vampire but doesn't like to admit it. Her father has killed him in his every incarnation. Now her father is dead, thanks to a flower that grows on her property. So Ardis is back, shooting for the happily ever after this time around, only now they must get rid of her nasty, alcoholic witch mother. And then there's the matter of the powerful, evil vampire who created Ardis- he's got to go, too. There's also a quest for a grimoire that may contain the spell Evangeline needs to transform Ardis back into a living, breathing human being. The need to find that is on their To Do list, too. It's their story, but Jazz sort of steals the spotlight in some scenes with his wisecracks and attitude.

I may end up just drawing a title out of the hat...unless anyone has a suggestion?

Funerals

I have a binder full of stories under the category Funerals and Weddings. Today is a funeral day as my family and I travel east to Boston and beyond to bid farewell to my best friend and former college roommate's mother. She was my second Mom for a forty years. I could go to her home any time and always be welcome. The same was true for Carol- she was always welcome in my parent's home.

I lost my mother in October 2000. She's been gone for fifteen years. Today Carol starts her long journey through the lanes of sorrow and acceptance, and discovery. She will weep whenever she sees a movie in which a mother dies, or reads a book in which a mother passes away, or has a friend who loses her own mother. A woman loses a part of herself when she loses her mother, however, as the years pass she will discover that her mother lives on through her. I hear and see my mother in me now that I am older. I will say something and then think, 'I just sounded exactly like my mother' and it both jolts me and gives me a warm feeling inside. I hope it is the same for her, that the bond a woman has with her mother continues even after she is gone.

Fifteen years later I still miss my Mom and wish I could pick up the phone and call her. Maybe that's why I write so many stories about funerals, the ache of loss and the journey one embarks upon when we lose someone we love.

It's a sad day but I'm glad I'm free today and able to go and be with Carol to give her love and support as she begins her journey through the rest of her life without her mother.

Stare Down

In November 2011 I adopted a 3-4 month old short-haired gray cat with a white bib, belly and paws. He was homely and had terrible juvenile gingival hyperplasia. His gums were swollen, inflamed and growing down over his teeth. He had horrendous halitosis, yet he was sweet and affectionate despite all the dental and mouth pain he must have had.

We brought him home and he adapted quickly to life with his tuxedo brother Revere whom we had adopted at the end of June that same year.

Gradually, my little short-haired gray and white cat began poofing out into a long-haired cat! He was suddenly no longer a homey little guy but a gorgeous cat! After several trips to the vet with the possibility of having to take him to a feline dental surgeon to have ALL his teeth extracted looming in the future, his vet here said he'd give laser gum surgery a try to see if it might help him keep his teeth longer, that sometimes a cat would outgrow the condition. He lasered the gums back, extracted a couple teeth that had been partially absorbed with root exposures, cleaned and polished Beans' remaining teeth and we brought him home. He was on antibiotics for fourteen days and did well. Soon he was eating dry food. He goes to the vet annually for regular dental cleanings and his condition has greatly imoroved. He's a happy if somewhat oblivious little guy.

He's unbelievably sweet but he has one unnerving trait- when Kelly and I are sitting at the kitchen table writing he will come and stare me down. He will literally stand and stare at me and not move, not blink an eye until he bends my will to his and I either let him jump up onto my lap so he can get his ears rubbed, or I go find a toy and play with him.

Tonight he tried the stare down at dinner. He wanted to be fed. He came and stood on the rug in front of the sink and just stared at me. I tried to ignore him but I don't think there's anyone alive who can ignore those pea green orbs of feline intensity. He wanted to eat and he was not going to back down.

He got fed. (He's so damn cute.)

I am weak. (I love him so much.)

The cat won. (Somehow I don't feel like a loser.)

When we adopted him he was labeled a chronic by the vet and we were told that he might live two years at most with his dental issues. On Thursday we will be celebrating the fourth anniversary of his adoption day.

All good writers have fantastic felines, or literary kitty cats (or they should, although I suppose there are writers who prefer dogs)- Hemingway, Edgar Allen Poe...I just wonder if their cats ever did the stare down thing with them?

Tonight's Surprise Phone Call

I have been playing phone tag with my late mother's cousin for about a week and a half now. Finally we managed to connect. What was the call all about? About a month ago I mailed her a copy of Love Me Knots because I didn't want her and my mother's other cousin, Judy, to feel left out of the loop. She has been trying to call me to tell me that SHE IS NOT A READER- however- SHE READ THE BOOK AND SHE LOVED IT! She wanted to thank me for sending her a copy. At first she said she set it aside, but she is a widow and one warm afternoon she took it out on the side porch, sat down and began reading it- one or two stories at a time. She really enjoyed it. I am so happy I can't stop smiling. And she is still amazed that she read a book and actually enjoyed and liked it! Therefore, I can only conclude that I must be doing something right if I can make a reader out of a non-reader! Thank you, Ginny, for the surprise call! You made my night!

Do You Need a Dictionary?

I was at a button show yesterday and sold the two Archetypes books to one of the dealers. I was glad that she chose them as I think she'll enjoy them. Kelly has labeled them action/adventure and there is that aspect to them- stuff happens pretty fast and frequently, but it is also the story of Benjamin "Beans" Carter and Amanda Pennington- archetypes who were created to love one another. With everything that her mad scientist father did wrong, he got that one thing right- or did he? Benjamin's father and mother are also very passionate about one another. Maybe that gene was inherited while other genes were indeed altered to make Beans an archetype? (There's also the Rex family affinity for early bladed weapons that "Beans" shares with them.)

Anyway- in the board meeting Marie asked if I wrote the kind of books that required the use of a dictionary when reading them? Hmmm...I certainly don't dumb them down to easy reader level. I've always liked language and learning. I have always absorbed things like a sponge. I am influenced by PBS and the BBC. Kelly and I have our own way of talking to one another- trying to use different words other than the easy, common ones. It's sort of like a long standing challenge between us to find unusual words or seldom used words. We like words like provocative and esoteric. I don't think anyone would need to use a dictionary to read anything we write because the meaning of the words is pretty clear in the context of the sentences they're used in. You'd have had to have just recently crawled out of the primordial ooze not to grasp the meaning. We're just like that- we love language with a passion. We're writers! When we play Words With Friends we always try to hit the rare to very rare lines on the scale. She's a geeky, nerdy engineer- she knows way more unusual words than I do!

But, the answer is no. A person would not need a dictionary to read any of my books, however, I am constantly referring to a dictionary and a thesaurus to make sure that I'm using the exact word I want and in the right way- because I don't want to hear about it from Kelly if I'm not! She already hounds me about my excessive use of commas! My bad!