MaryJanice Davidson's Blog, page 10

I Unleash A New Danger Upon The World

We are an immediate family of four, and have added a new driver to our roster of two. This new driver has, statistically speaking, a higher crash rate than my husband or me, though she's only had her license for 96 hours. Yep: my teenager passed her driver's test and, as a 16 year-old, is in a group with the dubious distinction of having the highest crash rate of any other driver of any other age. Including those 96 year-old guys who get the accelerator mixed up with the brake and plow through a farmer's market killing 28 people in 3.2 seconds. We're excited!
The whole thing, the paperwork and coughing up $$ to the DMV and the test itself...well, it was very exciting and stressful. There were times I was worried I wasn't going to get through the ordeal, but I prevailed. Because, as above, it was exciting and stressful. For ME. Hey, it was! You have no idea what I went through. This was a huge milestone for me: it marked the day when I could start dumping all my can-you-run-to-the-store-for-milk-and-Advil chores on someone I gave birth to. It's about time one of these parasitic bums started pulling their own weight. There's only room in this family for one lazy-ass parasite who puts herself before everything else.
My kid was born in August, but didn't take her test until October. This was because the state of Minnesota was closed for a few weeks this summer, also known as the state shut-down, or What A Pain In My Ass. I still remember being in Wisconsin and having people ask me, "So, Minnesota's closed, right?" "Uh...well, we're not meeting people at the border and escorting them past the state line at gunpoint, but essentially: yeah." This meant, among other things, that the DMV wasn't playing nicely with anyone. More than usual, I mean.
By the time Minnesota opened back up for business ("Come on in! We've got 10,000 lakes that are open again! Swim until you're one great big wrinkle, we don't care. Also, we can sell booze again."), the waiting list for the driver's test was months long. And I was really impressed at how my daughter took the news: very matter-of-fact, very "well, there's nothing I can do about it but practice, so let's go practice". Much, much better than I would have taken the news at that age: "Are you kidding me, DMV? What, you mean I have to wait TWO GODDAMN MONTHS before I can legally hop in a car and get the hell away from these people? Are you trying to goad me into beating you to death, DMV? Because I'm up for it, DMV! I am ABSOLUTELY UP FOR IT!"
(It's not the first time I've been grateful my daughter is, at times, her father's daughter, instead of Princess Asshat, heir to the throne of Asshat.) I felt bad for the kid, but also secretly relieved: two more months to practise! To get better, to get safer. Two more months I didn't have to acknowledge that my l'il asshat will be a legal adult in less than two years, free to call me an asshat and move out or get married or head for a war zone or start racking up credit card debt. Or just the former. Okay, technically she's free to...you know what? I'm getting off-course.
So, we practiced and practiced. Sometimes I'd try for the high road. My depth perception is lousy, so there are times when my life is like that scene in Jurassic Park, when the T-Rex is thundering down on a terrified Jeff Goldblum who sees the slavering dinosaur through the objects-are-closer-than-they-appear reflection of a car mirror. Insert a writing deadline or irked editor or annoyed husband for the T-Rex and you have my life. So I understand intellectually that sometimes while my kid is driving, it looks like a close call when it really isn't.
Intellectually. Not, you know, realistically. So the kid would endure outbursts like, "Watch out! You almost hit that semi and all those school buses and those four dogs and that weird-looking cat!" "Mom, they're on the other end of the street. Four blocks away. And those are first graders, not weird cats and dogs." Or, "Watch it! You almost clipped that pedestrian!" "Mom, you're the one driving. See? I'm in the back seat. Trying to pretend I'm an orphan. YOU almost clipped him."
Like I said, sometimes I realize what I'm doing and try to correct the behavior. A few days ago she took a corner I thought brought her dangerously close to a parked car, but told myself to shut up. As we passed the car, I saw that she was several feet away. I congratulated myself for not saying anything (it's way too easy to freak out an inexperienced driver...there's no sport to it at all).
But I never fooled the kid for half a second. "Mom, it's okay." "What? I know.""You didn't say anything, but you squeezed all your toes.""What?""Your toes." (One of my many bad habits: I have freakishly long legs, and so rest my feet on the passenger-side dashboard.) "You've squinched them all down super-tight. They're white, mom. All your toes are dead white." (Stupid sandals.)"Sorry. I thought you had it covered. I tried really hard not to say anything.""And I appreciate it. Let's go home. I think you need a nap.""I'm not tired!""No, no, of course not. Listen, we can go home and I can read you part of your manuscript and then you can have a cookie and then rest on the couch.""I don't need a nap!""No, no," she soothed. "Just rest for half an hour. Then you can get back up.""TWO cookies.""Okay, Mom.""And cocoa.""Okay.""Because you're not the boss of me, young lady.""Of course not.""Okay, then."
Fast forward to the day of her exam. We had an hour to practice, so we drove around downtown so she could work on parking and not running red lights, which I guess DMV examiners frown upon. But because the time of her test was so close, she was getting rattled, so I was getting rattled, which got her more rattled. "You better try that again...no, no, that was terrible! Look, just do it like you did yesterday. You did perfectly yesterday. You've done it perfectly every day for three wee...no, no, no! My God, if there had been a dog in that crosswalk you would have creamed him! Why would you want to bring the ASPCA down on top of you? Terrible! Terrible!"
Then my inner voice, which sounds like Satan, which sounds like Lena Olin, kicked in: "You're at least as nervous as she is. So you're over-reacting. And you're just making things worse. Shut. The hell. Up."
"I just think you're over-correcting is all," I finished meekly, followed with, "Look, you're fine. The DMV, uh, loves it when you're a foot and a half from the curb. Why don't we head over?"
So we did. And as usual, there were several confusing signs which contradicted the instructions on various forms, which we weren't sure we were supposed to fill out just then, or if we needed entirely different forms, and there was a long line just to find someone to ask...I was delighted. The quicker she learned about the hell-on-earth that is the DMV, the better.
I thought I was fine until the examiner called her name. I really did. I was saying things like, "Look, you'll be fine. You'll be astonished how low the state sets the bar for licensed drivers." And, "Listen, I'm sure you'll be great, but it's no big deal if you don't pass. We'll just practise more and you'll do fine next time. Really, it's not a big deal." And, "Do you have a cookie in your purse? I'd murder for a cookie right now. Am I talking really loud? In my head it sounds like I'm talking really loud. God, it's hot in here!"
Then he called her name, a big bluff older man who had a stern expression. I was instantly a nervous wreck for her. This guy looked like a no-bullshit kind of fellow. Was the frown a permanent expression? Was it a cramp? Or was he having a bad day? Or did he hate teenagers? Oh my God, he hates teenagers. He hates MY teenager. He's already flunked her in his mind. THEY ARE NOT EVEN IN THE CAR AND SHE'S FLUNKED. You bastard! "You can tell the DMV that MJ is coming and she's bringing hell with her!" Wait. Was that out loud?
That's when I realized I was, um, a little nervous for the kid. Weird. Normally my own needs and desires are paramount. Too bad I didn't see this coming. Why didn't SHE see this coming? Typical teenager: no thought for how difficult and stressful this was going to be for me!
I watched them walk out together, chat, then get into my filthy Escape and drive into the sunset, if the sun had been setting. Then I pulled out my book and tried to read. Which is when the lady next to me said, "So, that's your daughter?" "Yeah." "I'm sure she'll be fine." "Yeah." "My daughter did great." "Okay." "Until that guy tricked her into flunking."
"What?" I instantly lost interest in re-reading SPOCK'S WORLD. "He tricked her?"
"Well, he told her to turn here, and here, and then to take a left...except it was a one way, and by taking a left she broke the law. But I had told her to do everything the examiner said. So she did. And he flunked her."
But...I told MY daughter to do everything he said, too! "He's gonna tell you where to turn and which streets to drive down, and you just do what he says and you'll be fine." Unless he secretly hates all teenagers and has a wicked agenda to flunk them! I instantly regretted telling my kid anything. Ever. At any time.
The woman must have watched the blood drain from my face, because she added, "I'm sure it'll be okay. But my daughter was really bummed. It took three months even to get in here because of the backlog from the state shut-down. The earliest she could re-rest would have been the end of December."
"That sucks," I said, and meant it. Flunking was one thing...anybody can be nervous and make a mistake. Having to wait almost three months to re-test because the state legislature wants to play Keep Away with the budget is something else.
"So I took the day off from work, and we came here, and we've been here all day without an appointment, hoping they might be able to squeeze us in."
"That sucks, too," I said, and meant it. Ballsy move, probably doomed to failure. Showing up WITH an appointment was no guarantee. And to burn a vacation day for it? Yikes. "I hope it works out."
"When we were here before, I was talking to a mom whose daughter had flunked the test six times." When I gasped in dismay, she warmed to her topic and we gossiped for a bit.
Normally I hate that. I'm owning it: I can be unpleasantly anti-social at times, which is why I bring a book everywhere. If I'm stuck in line at the bank, or the DMV, or the Post Office, I have a plan. I've been lugging books into lines for over two decades. And I hate it when someone who didn't bring a book decides to chat me up because she's bored. Hate. It. "Do you really not see that I'm reading? What is it about my stiff, unfriendly posture and the nose in my book that projects, 'Talk to me about something I don't care about, stranger!'"
Not this time, though. Having tried to read the same paragraph about a dozen times, I gave up and shut the book and traded DMV horror stories with the mom. Her kid popped in and said to me, "Hey, he's getting out! I think something's wrong: she's parking, but he got out. He didn't get out during mine." Just when all the blood had finished pooling into the bottom of my freshly bleeding ulcer, the other mom came to my rescue with, "Yeah, but she's got an SUV. We don't. He has to get out to see how far from the curb she is. That's all it is."
"Oh, okay. It's okay." I probably looked pretty green and sickly by now, because the teen I didn't give birth to was all, "She did good, though. She's doing good. It's okay." Then she went back to the window. "Here they come! I think it's okay."
Naturally, I was too polished and mature to jockey for position at the window like some gawking bystander. So I stayed in my seat and shrilled, "Is she out? Are they out? Are they still in the car? Are they out? Huh? Are they?"
"Here they come," the teen I didn't birth announced. "I think it's okay. She's not crying. I cried."
I was gonna cry, too. Any minute. I shot to my feet (polished and mature...who did I think I was fooling, exactly?) and practically hip-checked the kid out of the way. My daughter looked...neutral. She had a completely neutral expression on her face. I've seen this kid almost every day for the last 16 years and had no idea if she'd passed or failed.
"I...can't...tell!" Squint, peer. Glare, glare.
Chris walked in, the examiner right behind her. She looked at me and gestured for me to come over, being a little surprised to see that about half a dozen people besides her mom were staring right at her. I thought, is it good news or bad that she wants me? It might be time to go if she flunked. Or time to cough up the bucks if she passed.
I rushed up. "So...so?"
"Yeah, I need my social security number." I must have stared incomprehensibly at her, because she added, "Are you okay?"
"What? Did you? What happened? What? What? Whaaaaaat?"
"I passed," she said, looking amazed I'd had any doubts. "What did you think happened?"
"I didn't knoooooooow!" I wailed, startling nearly everyone in the building. Then I ran back to the waiting room and gave the mom and assorted teens a double thumbs up. They all grinned: "She passed? She passed!"
I ran back to my kid. "I told them you passed," I panted. "What? I couldn't just leave without telling them."
She was staring at me like she'd never seen a harassed mom sweating profusely with a brand-new bleeding ulcer who talked to strangers when she had a terrific book in her purse. "What have you been doing?"
"Freaking out," I admitted. "A lot."
Forms were filled out, her picture was taken. She lost points on being a bit far from the curb, and one of her turns was a bit wide. All else was aces. My shrill nagging and desperate screaming during our many tutorials had worked! There was a new (hideously dangerous, according to every insurance company on the face of the earth) driver in our family.
On the way out, I paused and went back to the waiting room once again. "It was really nice talking to you," I said to the other mom. And, to her kid, "Good luck. I hope it works out for you."
My kid was still acting like I was somene she'd never met. "You...didn't...read?" She seemed unable to comprehend this, which was weird. I was always reading about how resilient teenagers are. Ha!
"I passed the time chatting instead."
"You...what?"
"What? SPOCK'S WORLD isn't going anywhere. Listen, that guy looked kind of grim. I was, ha-ha, a little worried." I tried another unconvincing laugh, which was more croaky than the first. "Was he nice?"
"Oh, no. In fact, he was really sarcastic. REALLY sarcastic." I was overjoyed. He spoke my daughter's mother tongue! He was fluent in her mother tongue! "Yeah, so I, like, instantly relaxed. It was a piece of cake after that." What were the chances of stumbling across a government employee fluent in sarcasm? Truly, the kid had been born under a lucky star.
"I'm so proud of you!" I hugged her so hard I nearly knocked her into my car. (Or, as she probably thinks of it now, her car.) "You did great!"
"Yeah, and..." My tall gorgeous smart sweet daughter hugged me back. "Thanks. You know. For all that stuff you do. The driving stuff, that's the least of it."
It's okay. I didn't cry or anything. Okay, a little. Maybe a little. But there were tons of McDonald's napkins squashed into the side pocket of my door. I save napkins from everywhere and keep them all over my car. You never know when your kid will reach a milestone and thank you while having no clue how deeply precious she is, and equal ignorance of all the terrible, illegal, monstrous things I would have done to the instructor who tricked her into flunking.

I Monopolize Midwest Fiction Writers

In still more proof that no one learns their lesson (Kare 11, Australia, the San Diego RWA chapter, the Romantic Times Conference, etc.), I'll be giving the keynote speech at the Midwest Fiction Writers annual conference, "Fall Harvest Workshop". It's this Friday (9/23), at 7:00 p.m. at the Brooklyn Center Crowne Plaza (Minneapolis North).
Those of you already planning to attend...I'll see you there. Those of you planning to stay away...it's possible that's just as well, too. I'm gonna do a lot of over-sharing in my speech. Because that's how I roll: with the over-sharing, all the time. I...can't explain it. And don't care enough to try. Hey, come on up for no other reason than to laugh at me! (I would come on up to laugh at me...)
I'm also smuggling a few copies of WOLF AT THE DOOR to give away while I'm there...since WatD isn't out for a couple of weeks, you guys could make big bucks on eBay by selling them early. If nothing else, they make great blunt instruments!
See you Friday night!

I Talk About Werewolves and Angry Bostonians

My publisher asked me to talk about WOLF AT THE DOOR for an upcoming newsletter, and ignoring her sensible suggestion of a page, I wrote six. So I'm posting the thing in its entirety below, whether you like it or not. How 'bout THAT (Um, seriously, thanks in advance for your attention.)

The characters in WATD have been trapped in my head for years, poor bums. When I wrote my first single-title werewolf novel, Derik's Bane, I had no idea readers would be so intrigued by the idea of werewolves living on Cape Cod, and would want to read more about them.

I was intrigued, sure, but that was because I was putting my husband through Harvard with a series of wretched temp jobs, and for the first time in my life was living 1500 miles away from my family. (Irony: as an Air Force brat, I swore when I hit 18 I'd never, ever move again. Then I met someone who lived 1500 miles away. Thanks for nothing, irony, you jerk.)

Massachusetts was an eye-opener for a former Midwestern trailer-park inhabitant. Noisy, fast, fuming, and noisy. For some reason, nearly everyone I talked to out there seemed to be furious with me. I found this puzzling, since usually people needed to be with me for at least half an hour before the Hulk rage overwhelmed them.

I can hear it now, so shush: "That's a stereotype! I live in Boston and I'm super-nice, ya vapid dumbass!" I'm sure you are super nice. I'm sure you're super delightful. And I did meet many people from Boston and the Cape who I adored and are friends with to this day. But I also met a lot of people who seemed to be enraged by my very presence.

So there I was, trying to learn the subway system, getting trampled at Filene's Basement sales ("Please...I—I just want to see if that shirt's a twelve...please get off my neck...ow..."), and adjusting to a society that had little use for cars.

Of all of them, the car thing was the most amazing. When my then-fiancé told me I could sell my car before we moved to Massachusetts, I flat-out didn't believe him. It sounded impossible and dangerous. You'd die in Minnesota or North Dakota if you tried walking to work without a car. You could die checking the mail. If the elements didn't get you, the wolves would.

But he'd been right, and I sold my car. After some nervousness ("Is this the train to Harvard Square? Also, please don't rape or kill me." "Kiddo, I'm 82, and you're not my type."), I learned to appreciate the T...it was nice being able to let someone else drive while I read or snacked, or snacked. The trains were (relatively) clean, and I was never bothered. At worst, some poor idiot would assume I knew what I was doing ("Is this the train for the Aquarium?" "Kiddo, I gotta get ready for my 83rd birthday pahty, whyncha leave me alone?"), and ask for directions. I went through tons of books during my commute, and listened to tons of Ace of Base on an ancient tool once called a Walkman by my people.

I was homesick for the Midwest, sure, but Boston and Cape Cod quickly grew on me. I found myself grazing at Faneuil Hall, spending hours browsing the Barnes and Noble on Park Street and the Wordsworth at Harvard Square, and being morbidly aware that the letter R was usually nowhere to be found in the mouths of the people around me.

"Anothah stereotype, ya useless hack! I've lived in Bawstahn my whole life, I been to Fenway Pahk, I grew up in Chahsten an' if you do that thing, that 'pahk the cah in Havahd yahd' thing I'm gonna smack ya upside ya big fat head! All that's nothin' but hate-mongerin', jerk!"

Like I said: surrounded by awesome food, gorgeous beaches, and people I didn't know who were super-pissed at me. I started wondering why: something in the water? (This was before we all started carrying our own clear fluids in Aquafina bottles.) Something in the subway? Something in their...nature? Their genetics? (I actually heard the light bulb blink to life over my head: ding!). Thus, I got the idea that werewolves lurked among us, werewolves who were always fighting their natures and trying to hide in plain sight. Werewolves who would lash out when the stress got to them. And a ton of them lived on the Cape.

So Derik's Bane was born, and it was such fun. I really liked the Cape Cod characters, because I was a born tourist and once I got over my apprehension, loved the museums, loved the parks, loved the beaches, loved the peanuts and lemon ice you could buy on the street. I loved how I could shatter the kneecap of the woman lunging for the same jeans I was at the annual Filenes sale. Best of all, I loved the sense of history. I had to walk past Benjamin Franklin's grave every day on my way to work. I lived within walking distance of the Mount Auburn Cemetery. I sat in the Old North Church and tried to imagine "one if by hand, two here by me", or whatever Paul Revere was supposed to have figured out.

By the time I sat down to write Chapter One, I'd come to love the Cape's beauty, the friendly and straightforward people, the truly awful driving that gave me a new appreciation for life every time I returned safely from the grocery store...and don't start with the stereotypes again. That one's true and you all know it. Boston drivers are more dangerous than a baker's dozen of serial killers.

True to my frivolous and contrary nature, I cried when it was time to move to Boston, and I cried when it was time to move back to Minnesota. In five years, I'd embraced and admired a part of the country that was wholly different from anything I'd experienced the first twenty years of my life. They could have seafood as fast food out there! They thought nothing of dropping everything and heading to a beach, sometimes without sandwiches! They fearlessly crossed the street during rush hour and lived to tell the tale!

All this to say, I was homesick and confused when I wrote Derik's Bane, and writing that book helped me get over myself and appreciate where I was.

Fast forward a few years, I asked my editor if I could write another single-title about the Wyndham werewolves, since readers had been asking for that book for years. She agreed at once, and I got to work. By then I'd been back in Minnesota for a few years and was writing full-time. And though most of Wolf at the Door takes place in Minnesota, the few bits in Boston reminded me how afraid I'd been to move there, and what I dumbass I'd been to be afraid, and how much I wanted to see the area again.

So I finished the book, talked to my hubby/writing partner (we co-write the Jennifer Scales series), and as it turned out, this year we'll be having Thanksgiving on the Cape. What can I say? It's gorgeous out there, and the people are great. Anyone who says different is an idiot. A blonde, six-foot tall idiot.

Ah! One more thing, a timeline issue. The events in Wolf at the Door take place after Undead and Unstable, which will be out in June 2012. So, yes, this book comes out with information that won't be explained for eight months. This is on purpose. Please bear with me. I really do have a plan, and it's no fueled by booze smoothies, so I think it'll work. Don't be scared. It's not like I'm asking you to leave your friends and family and move across the country. That'd be insane.

So that's the scoop, and I thank you kindly for your attention. But I'm closing the laptop now...gotta go pahk my cah. Did you know you can actually get your point across more quickly if you omit needless consonants?

I Buy Myself at Cub

This afternoon I took a break from the back-breaking slavery of setting my own hours to do one of my favorite things, and went to Cub Foods. For those of you who don't live near one, Cub is a grocery store chain, no, NOT offspring sent by Hammock to torture me.
I parked in a fake reserved pharmacy spot (the kind "reserved" for people just dashing in and out again of the pharmacy part of Cub Foods, not the pharmacy part of Cub Foods), which was legally and morally okay because I had to buy some Advil. I like the candy coating on their ibuprofen. And while I was there, I saw myself, just like that picture above.
I literally said to myself, "I think I'll check the book and magazine section; there might be something there to read." Then I saw a terrific color cover: "Me Myself and Why...? What kind of a weirdass name is that for...wait. There's something familiar about this." I pondered; then, in a flash: "I wrote it! That's why it sounds so familiar. I wrote that book. Wait. I wrote THIS book. So...to answer my original question, there isn't something over here for me to read." I literally pondered to puzzle this out: I write books. Cub Foods sells books (and occasionally food). Cub Foods has bought my book to sell to their customers. I am a customer. I am now face-to-face with that book. That is the sequence of events: I am seeing myself. Now I am buying myself.
I know it's weird. Buying my own book? It's not like I don't know how it ends. But there was something so weird and cool about seeing myself for a split-second outside of myself: this is how it feels to be an MJD reader: mildly interested in a book with a pretty cover. And can we talk about the wonderful cover? With a back list of over sixty books, I'm not only used to covers but am stupidly lucky in that I'm used to good covers. And yet the first thing that hit me when I saw the cover flat for MMY was that gorgeous dark-blue-turquoise-ey background that I instantly liked. I still like it. I should be looking at it right now, instead of writing this blog. If only there was a way I could do both. Hmm, like have the cover color be my background cover...not the picture or annoying text, just the cover? It's weird that I'm only just now thinking of this.
Done! Okay, so I pitched a book I wrote into my cart (lame). Then I whipped out my phone and took a picture of the other copies of my book on a shelf (again with the lame), which I posted above. And I just now realized I'm between Stephanie Meyer's New Moon, and Stieg Larsson's Girl with a Dragon Tattoo. Which in case no one ever tells you is AWESOME. All those writers who pretend to be too cool for school when their book is on a shelf with Stephanie Meyers or John Grisham? Yeah, they're fibbing. They LOVE IT because it's AWESOME. If a couple of decades ago, if you'd cornered the kid from the trailer park and told her not only would she someday be published, but she'd be shelved beside best-sellers (and even write an occasional best-seller herself), she'd have laughed at you and called you an asshat.
Okay! Book gawked at, picture taken, book stuck in cart. Picked out food. Got in line at the register. Was intrigued enough to look into Jennifer Aston's pregnancy and then her abduction by aliens. Then the mom with the newborn talked to me.
The baby had the newborn look: all red skin and spiky black hair and pastel onesie. The mom had the look all new moms have: exhausted and starey-eyed and food on a shirt. Since my Not My Kid radar had been fully engaged; not only was I not noticing the crying baby, I hadn't even noticed her mom.The only reason I noticed her at all was because her mouth had opened and she talked.
While she was saying she was sorry about Not My Kid's crying I was taking in the pale face, and under eye circles so dark they were the color of ripe plums. Formula on her shirt. Long blond permed and (it must be said) at least one shower away from being pretty. At a guess, I'd say she had given birth two, maybe even three hours ago. I felt so bad for this woman; I knew exactly how she felt: "So tired oh boy the baby's so tired and crying a lot so tired gotta feed her so tired people will think I'm a bad mom because I'm so tired and so tired, I just can't get over there right this second because I'm so tired and jeez that's a lot of racket she's making probably because she's so tired".
While she was apologizing I noticed the mom in line behind me, a gal with four kids in the cart (apparently they were having a 2 for 1 sale on kids...I passed), and we sort of traded glances and then looked at New Mom. I thought, 'Not a big deal at all. Not My Kid isn't going to spontaneously combust if her mom doesn't rush right over and pick her up...not only does her crying not bother me, I hadn't even noticed it."
Then the mom next to me said, "Not a big deal at all. She's not gonna spontaneously combust if her mom doesn't drop everything and pick her up. Not only does her crying not bother me, I hadn't even noticed it."
I laughed and agreed, and now we were both looking at New Mom from our aisle: "Yeah, seriously, don't apologize. We really don't care even a little bit." I loved how we were all fluent in Mom. I loved how the new kid in our tribe looked so relieved and thankful, I loved that we were able to make her feel that way, even if just for half a minute. I loved that it wasn't me.
"It's uncanny, isn't it?" We chatted while we bagged our groceries. "I just do not care! Someone else's newborn crying her lungs out...it's like a white noise machine to me. Soothing, almost." The other mom nodded agreement: "Yeah, I've got four of my own. I quit noticing THEIR crying four years ago, never mind someone else's ."
Thanks, the new mom said. Nothing to be sorry about. No, really. Try to get some rest. Even--I know this sounds like an incredible unattainable Everest-like goal--but maybe even a nap. I didn't tell her it'd get much worse before it got better. "You've gotta be kind to yourself in these first few days." I didn't tell her that in some unexplainable way, looking back on this torture would seem worth it. Would seem even a bargain. Too hard to explain; just one of those parenting things. But all worth it, yep. That and more...and it's impossible to explain. Not trying to be patronizing. It just is, is all.
The mom with four kids said goodbye, and off we went in two directions. One of us saw her books rubbing shoulders, so to speak, with books that had sold in millions all around the planet. One was a sleep-deprived parent. They both had incredible, unbelievable, wonderful hard jobs, jobs they'd do whether they were paid or not. Oh, and one of us had to pick up his husband's dry cleaning. And one of us really mundane chore.
Still: worth it. That and more. I don't know why, but I'm gonna keep going with it. That seems to be working great for me; I don't know why, but I'm grateful. I don't ever want to take it for granted. It's good to be reminded by something outside yourself how very, very lucky you are.
And I am!

I Command My Monkeys

My husband and I have done a Bad Thing, and rather than repent, we're gonna embrace (literally and figuratively). We're also going to ask our readers to be complicit in our wickedness. Because that's how we roll: unrepentantly.

The bad thing: writing the Jennifer Scales series together, books which we ruthlessly wrote for the fantasy genre. That means that when the new book comes out tomorrow, EVANGELINA, some readers might not be able to find it.

The Betsy books, the werewolf books (DERIK'S BANE), the anthologies (FAERIES GONE WILD; DEAD AND LOVING IT), the Alaska books (THE ROYAL TREATMENT), the Gorgeous duo (DROP DEAD GORGEOUS), the Fred-the-mermaid trilogy (SWIMMING WITH THE SHARKS)...all those and more can be found in the romance section, under D for Dork (or, I s'pose, Davidson).

JENNIFER SCALES AND THE ANCIENT FURNACE, JENNIFER SCALES AND THE MESSENGER OF LIGHT, THE SILVER MOON ELM, RISE OF THE POISON MOON, THE SERAPH OF SORROW, and now (as of Tuesday, August 30) EVANGELINA can all be found in the fantasy section.

Yep. All of my books except the Jennifer Scales ones are in the romance section; JS and her ilk lurk in fantasy. That was the Bad Thing my husband and I did (don't worry, honey, I'm not breathing a word about the Bad Thing we did with all that silly string, or the Bad Thing we did with the pumpkin innards after we carved multiple Jack O'Lanterns last Halloween, or the Bad Thing we did with the honey butter they gave us at Anton's.). And since I just had a hardcover release in July, I wouldn't expect readers to think of checking an entirely different section in the bookstore for ever more MaryJanice (and Anthony Alongi).

But it's there! EVANGELINA should be there, cooling its heels in the fantasy shelves or, even better, on a New Release table near the front. If it's not, please don't hesitate to ask your bookseller or librarian to order it. Because Betsy and Jennifer are published under different imprints, they aren't marketed together. They have different editors, different marketing budgets, etc. And often, a bookseller or librarian will order my new hardcover for the beginning of summer, and then not even think to check a catalogue to see if I've got another book coming out 9 weeks later, at the end of summer.

But I do! And there's no escape. So don't fight it. As I said, it's our own fault Jennifer lurks in the fantasy section. We didn't have to write for that genre. Actually, we didn't: the Jennifer Scales books were originally written and marketed for the young adult genre. The trouble (though I'm not sure "trouble" is the right word) started when we began receiving fan mail from readers of all ages. In the same week, we had a fan letter from a 9 year-old boy and a 90 year-old grandmother. People of all ages were rudely going into the YA section and buying Jennifer Scales. The nerve! (And by 'the nerve' we meant 'that's awesome'.)

So! Marketing slapped a bunch of new covers on the books, and now they hang out on the fantasy bookshelves. Is it any wonder our readers sometimes have trouble tracking them down? We take full responsibility. And by "full" we mean "no".

Like we said: a Bad Thing. And like we also said: rather than repent, we could really use your help. If you want EVANGELINA (or the first in the series, JENNIFER SCALES AND THE ANCIENT FURNACE, or the second, etc.), check fantasy. If it's not there, mercilessly nag the bookstore manager. (Hey, that's what we do...and not even when there's a new book to bug them about.)

Fly, my winged monkeys! Fly!

I Almost Steal a Dog and am Not Mauled by a Bear (again)

We were up at our writer's retreat over the weekend, the house by the lake where bats and bears live. It's pretty quiet up there; the woods are all around. We've seen bald eagles, beavers, wild turkeys, deer, turtles, frogs, loons, and a bear we call Hammock. And this was a weird weekend, even by our standards.

I let my kid drive us into town to hit the Meat Shoppe (which is not the name of the business, but I like using the word Shoppe, so there you go). She's learning quickly; like her father and my father, she's an instinctive driver. Me, I've gotta think everything out and sometimes I still end up in the ditch. The little brat is already better at parallel parking than I am. (No Christmas presents for her this year, the lousy show-off.)

So anyway, we came out of Ye Old Meat Shoppe laden with bags of meat. The kid hopped into the driver's seat, I climbed into the passenger side. She checked mirrors, she looked behind her, and then she slowly started to back out. Then she stopped and (fluent in the local dialect we call Minnesota Nice) waved an older woman and her on-crutches husband to go ahead and cross behind her. The lady shook her head, so my kid began to reverse again...then hit the brakes. Hard.

"My smoothie!" I wailed. "Nooooo!" Then I realized: the man had fallen, and Chris had seen him disappear from her mirror. Aw, shit. Also: my smoothie!

While mourning said smoothie, I popped my seat belt and hurried out of the car. My daughter was right on my heels as she always is when she thinks someone's hurt, or that Mom's over her head. (So she's on my heels a lot.)

Turns out the poor guy had fallen...he was pretty unsteady on his crutches. His wife was trying to help him up (tricky, as he outweighed her by a good twenty pounds) with one hand while clinging to their dog's leash with the other. So I stepped forward, gently took the leash from her and said, "I'll hold him for you." And as I did that, my kid flanked me and tried to help him up from the other side.

What? Listen: the kid's got the strong legs and back. She's also, due to extensive martial arts training, much much more coordinated than I am. If she'd grabbed the leash and I'd hustled over to help the gentleman, not only would I have fallen on my ass, but the poor guy would have broken my fall. Why should we both get our hips broken?

Meanwhile, a few guys had pulled up and hopped out of their trucks to help. So while they tried to get him settled, I soothed the dog, one of those big friendly golden labs, the kind with a head like a fuzzy cinder block, and a tail three inches in diameter that numbs your shins in an instant. I think I did too good a job of soothing him, because he sure cheered up: "Ow. Ow! My shin! Uh..." I saw they were looking at me while still tending to the man. "I'm fine. Don't worry about me." Nice one, MJ. Your ass isn't the one on the pavement (for a change), so suck it up.

Someone came over with a chair, so he could sit and regain some strength and then try to get back on his crutches, and someone else brought him a bottle of water. Meanwhile, I was getting pretty enchanted with the lab...I've always loved hunting breeds, and this one was typical of labs, what with the friendly slobbering and the tail thwacking and the shin numbing.

Just as I had decided to encourage him to leap into my car (they'd never catch me! and my kid would probably be able to catch a ride home with one of the Good Samaritans in the lot), the crisis had calmed. "Thank you so much, and your daughter, too, for helping us," the wife said, reaching for the leash. I'm afraid I held onto it a little longer than was proper, and we had a brief tug of war over who got to kidnap the lab from the Meat Shoppe parking lot. She won. She was elderly, but spry and with wiry strength. So, dog-less, I slunk back to the car.

As we pulled back onto the highway, my daughter asked why I'd gotten out of the car and run over to the man on the ground so quickly. I told her, "I didn't know why he fell. I worried he'd had a heart attack. I know CPR, so..." I shrugged. "So you would have done it? If he'd needed it? Done CPR and mouth-to-mouth and all?""Sure, if there wasn't an off-duty paramedic or nurse or whatever around."

"I think that's cool," she said, delighted. "You probably know CPR because Grandma taught you."

(My parents suck at retirement, and both got certified so they could go on ambulance runs at all hours of the night in the middle of the Smoky Mountains. Because that's their idea of retirement: take tons of classes and a new job and invite strangers to haul your ass out of bed at 3:00 a.m.)

As it happens, my mom didn't teach me, but she sure could have. When she was learning CPR she and her partner had to practice on a dummy (one of the creepy ones, whose eyes follow you) to get certified. The instructor is supposed to push a button after a few minutes, which makes the creepy-eyed dummy appear to regain its pulse (eeewww!).

The button was broken, but no one knew. So my mom labored over the creepy-eyed dummy for twenty minutes. By the time the instructor clued in, Mom was thinking that even Jesus couldn't pull a Lazarus on the wretched thing. Natch, she passed the course, and the instructor loved that she didn't quit after four minutes and complain. A closed-heart massage will pop a lot of calories; imagine doing it for twenty minutes! I would have complained. Actually, I probably wouldn't have gone near the dummy in the first place. Natural selection, baby. If the dummy was meant to live, it'd live. Otherwise, let it and all its creepy kind die out.

So we saved the day (not really) and home we went. We'd had our adventure for the day. There weren't any more surprises in store for us.

Enter Hammock the bear. And then, enter me.

Some background: I hate working out. Frankly, I hate leaving the house. I'm working really hard on phasing myself out of my family's lives so I can make a fort out of sofa cushions and never leave the safety of said cushion fort. I love my sedentary lifestyle and I'm looking forward to being a shut-in. But I have to admit, walks outside (as opposed to a treadmill) make me feel good. And not just the ones where I bring chocolate Zingers in my fanny pack. (I feel safe wandering around the woods knowing I'm loaded with carbs, sugar, and fat. I cannot explain this. At all.)

Back to the walks: I'd grabbed my iPod, hollered to the kids that I'd be back in half an hour, hosed myself down with bug spray, and then out the door I went. Fifteen minutes later, as I was listening to the theme from the A-Team (my iPod is an eclectic place) I mused, "This isn't bad. It's maybe fun. And by doing this, I'm being kinder to my body. Really, there's no downside to...

(At this point, I glanced to my left and observed Hammock the Bear staring at me from the ditch about seven feet away.)

...aw, shit. Being mauled by an American Black Bear is not being kinder to my body. It'd be safer if I'd taken up smoking crack. Should have stayed in the house and broken open a new pack of Zingers.

I instantly resorted to survival skills learned in high school: I dropped eye contact with the popular kid. Caaaaaasually turned around. Slooooowly started walking away. Thinking: oh shit oh shit oh shit. Thinking, they can run thirty miles an hour. Thinking, don't YOU run. Thinking, maybe I can strangle him with the cord for my ear buds. Thinking, like I need another reason to hate exercise?

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, after Hammock the Bear had been spotted in our backyard a few months back, my husband insisted that I strap a fillet knife to my hip for my walk that day. So like all loving wives, I took that as a signal to scoff and mock him. Weeks later, in the middle of trying not to be run down and devoured, I remembered the scoffing and thought: Tony's gonna be heartbroken when they find my gnawed remains, but also vindicated. But mostly heartbroken. Prob'ly. He does sort of get off on I-told-you-so, almost as much as I do. Irony, why do you hate me? Well, that's it. If I lived through this, I wasn't gonna tell him. Because being devoured by a furry omnivore is actually preferable to an I-told-you-so. Don't ask me to explain the logic. It just is.

As I passed our ironically-named bear box (the thing we keep garbage in to keep Hammock out), I risked a glance over my shoulder. Hammock had left the ditch and was standing in the middle of the road, still watching me. I reminded myself that the black bear hardly ever attacks over territory; it's more likely to try to pull your face off if you accidentally scare it. A sedentary writer with dreams of a sofa cushion fort, it must have known, was no threat. Ever.

So I risked breaking into a brisk trot...our front door was only thirty feet away, and Hammock was now a ways behind me; I couldn't even see him anymore. I trotted more briskly (brisklier?).

Inside the house, my kids were puzzled, since they could hear my sneakers slapping on the gravel. "Who's jogging?" They looked out the window. "It's Mom!""What's wrong with her?""I don't know! Look at her, she's coming in pretty fast. Maybe it's a seizure? Some kind of weird seizure that makes her run?""I didn't know she even could run.""Maybe we should call the cops. Maybe that's not Mom at all."

My kids looked at each other, beyond confused, and then heard me hurl the door open, then slam it shut. "FUCK!"

"It IS Mom!" "Thank God. I didn't want to take on a robot or pod person or whatever. Uh...Mom? We heard you running. What's up with that?"

While wheezing, I related the tale. Then I went to my room to lie down and have a heart attack. Once my pulse had dropped, I cranked up the laptop and double-checked to make sure my Hammock knowledge had been accurate. It had been. Then I got on Amazon and ordered four cans of bear spray, which you can apparently squirt at them from ten or more feet away. Because I don't want to shiv Hammock with a fillet knife (this is the wilderness, not an episode of Oz), and strangling him with my ear buds seems iffy. But squirting something that will annoy him enough to keep him back without causing long-term effects looked like the way to go.

The funny thing is, I actually preferred the bear encounter to the whole bat thing this past winter. By a LOT. How dumb is that?

And to think: I had no idea what I was going to blog about this week. It's just been too peaceful around the joint. Thanks, Hammock.

I Reschedule Myself

Kare TV did not learn their lesson! They've invited me next week, Thursday, August 18. I'm already hatching diabololical schemes and working on my nice-to-meet-you-I-promise-I'm-not-crazy handshake. When you get right down to it, I have no choice but to go back...it's the only way they'll learn.

Diana Pierce And President Obama And I Are Not On TV

President Obama cut me off while I was talking vampires with Diana Pierce, which I never saw coming. I was okay with it, though...I think I even needed it. Because just when I think I've heard it all, something like that goes and happens. Which is good! It's never smart to forget the world's a weird place.
I had one of the best mornings ever, and not just because my teenager greeted me with, "I've got good news and bad; the good news is, you looked really pretty on TV." How often does a suburban mom get to hear that? And how shallow does it make me that I care? A) not more than once or twice a week, and B) really, really shallow. More than usual shallow. Bordering on Betsy shallow (yikes!); not one of my better qualities, but what can you do? Once a former Miss Congeniality, always a former Miss Congeniality.
Getting interviewed on TV is the best, unless you're the person of interest local law enforcement has been looking for. Believe me, that is not as exciting as it sounds. Don't fall for the hype! But if you're at the studio for other reasons, it's great. The place is always air conditioned (I'll admit I don't appreciate that as much in January), the green room is occasionally green, and the staff is unflappable. They can't be flapped in any way. After a while, you almost want to try and flap them, just to see them not flap. Which brings me to President Obama and how he couldn't flap them.

After the cheerful receptionist greeted me, the intern came out to bring me to the green-room-that's-actually-green. (I was always surprised when rooms that weren't green were called the green room.) Intern is an innocuous word for a job that's cooler and harder than can usually be summed up in two syllables. I wouldn't put the word up there with, say, teacher or doctor, but I'd put it up there with warden or hostage. Anyway, I've never run into one (intern, I mean) who was anything less than cheerful, professional, or harried, and today was no exception. In fact, given what they face each workday, I'm surprised interns aren't more wild-eyed, shrill, and/or tearful.
Like I said, this one was no exception; she came out to the reception area so she could bring me to the studio, and introduced herself so I could forget her name right away. I know...not too Cliched Big Shot, right? Is it worse that I instantly forgot names when I was a Cliched Little Shot, and a Cliched Nobody? That I think TV guests who don't recall proper nouns are Cliched Asshats? Because they absolutely are, and yep, I am their queen. You could donate a kidney and I'd still have to make an effort to remember your name: "I wanna say...Jenny?" "Beth." "Right! Thanks again for the gift of life, Seth." "Beth." "Right!"
Anyway, she explained that she wasn't sure when I'd be in front of the camera; apparently the president was going to make an announcement but they weren't sure when. So in addition to the crushing daily stress, the staff would have to be constantly be prepared to be interrupted on camera at any second for who knew how long, or maybe not, but be ready. Just thinking about it gave me a headache, but Her Name Escaped Me seemed to take the whole thing in stride. I always feel sorry for interns on account of their job being so horrific, and today promised to be worse than usual for her, but you'd never know it. You'll never catch an intern admitting to the horror of their job. Like retired people moving to Florid and pretending it's not hot (Mrs. Seinfeld: "Who wants hot chocolate!"), interns pretend their jobs don't entail long hours and constant stress for shit pay, or no pay. It's true! You can prompt them with lines like, "I can't imagine how stressful your job must be," and they'll smile and shrug off pressure that would give me an aneurysm.
But it was all good from where I was standing. I was square in the middle of the Kare 11 chaos because in a stroke of great good luck, one of the producers (I'm not using Christina's name, so as to protect Christina from the horrors of being blogged about) is a big Betsy fan. So this wasn't my first time at the rodeo. I'm not going to say that she schedules me to appear on an award-winning news show to find out how Betsy's going to avoid becoming the Big Bad of the future, because Christina is a thorough professional who puts the interests and needs of Kare 11's viewers ahead of her own summer reading list, but wouldn't it be the awesomest if she did? Think about how great that would be for me! A near-priceless PR opportunity practically in my own back yard, a chance not practical/foreseeable/feasible for 99 out of 100 writers, and it'd be right in my lap through no effort of my own! God, I get light-headed just thinking about it!

Anyway, back to the show. I told Her Name Escaped Me that I was camera-ready and could go on in five minutes or fifty, regardless of when Obama was coming on, or I could come back in a day or a week; however it worked for them. These things were all true, because the TV people were the ones doing me the favor; it wasn't the other way around. Her Name Escaped Me was thankful I wasn't lying on the floor drumming my heels and shrieking, "I wanna go on in the next segment I wanna go on in the next segment THE NEXT SEGMENT TELL OBAMA TO WAIT HIS DAMN TURN!" Oh, please. Like I'd ever act like such a brat if there wasn't chocolate involved.
Then Diana Pierce, the reporter, came in to meet me and talk about UNDEAD AND UNDERMINED. And I just went to pieces. Inside, where she couldn't see.
There's a reason I set most of my books in Minnesota: I've lived there the longest and I'm really, really lazy. I don't have to pop open Google to find out where 35W goes if you take the exit a few block's from Khan's. Oh, and also, I love Minnesota and think it's beautiful and feel lucky to live there, and when I wasn't living there I was homesick. When I chose to move to be with my husband, and knew I wouldn't be back for years, I cried. And because my parents had Kare 11 on all the time when we lived there, and when I visited, just hearing certain voices or names even as background would remind me of how homesick I was when I lived in Massachusetts. Even now, after living here for a decade, I'll hear a name and remember how much I missed living in Minnesota, and how happy I was when I moved back.
(Massachusetts, simmer down. You were beautiful, too, it just took me a while to appreciate you. And I love visiting you; I look forward to visiting you all year, I promise! I cried when I had to leave you, too, so don't get excited. Come to think of it, I cry a lot when I move. I guess I just really hate packing.)
Anyway, sorry to veer into the swamp of the sentimental, but there it is: certain names have deep significance to me, like Diana Pierce. Whose hand I was now shaking. I was touching Diana Pierce and she was talking to me. Two thoughts jumped into my brain as she introduced herself, and one of those thoughts was the truth and one was a lie. The lie was, "Hi, I'm not screaming inside my own head because it's so exciting to meet you because you are a symbol of all that I love about the great state of Minnesota, and I'm definitely not thinking about stealing your scarf or lipstick and keeping it hidden so I can secretly sniff it every morning after my Malt O'Meal."
I said the truth, which was, "What a pretty dress!" (It just seemed easier, and why needlessly alarm Diana Pierce?)
She said, smiling, "Thanks, I really like this dress. I got it last year and after a while some viewers asked if I had any other dresses, I was wearing it so often."
I thought: Those bitches! How dare they? HOW DARE THEY? They will rue the day, Diana Pierce! Just point them out to me, Diana Pierce, and I will kick their asses so hard their MOMS will feel it!
I said: "Well, that wasn't very nice."
I tried to get a grip on myself, and was a little successful since it's often total chaos inside my brain anyway, and this wasn't the first time I had to tell myself to just GET A GRIP already. So I told Diana Pierce that UNDEAD AND UNDERMINED had hit the New York Times list, and reminded her I'd gone to school in the area and was a Cannon Falls High School graduate, sort of a Local Girl Makes Good angle (which always sounded better than Local Girl Hears Voices).
Diana Pierce was pleased to hear it. Diana Pierce thought I was pretty great. "Also I'm the new David Hasselhoff in Germany," I added helpfully. Why? No reason. Wait...there was a reason. I had said that for a reason...the show! "They're making The Betsy Show in Germany." How great was it to bring that up?
It was exciting and cool just to be there, to have the chance to talk about my work on television, and of course it was exciting to meet Diana Pierce, but even better, it was acceptable to begin a conversation by telling Diana Pierce how terrific I was. Most times a reporter knows she's got maybe a minute and a half before the cameras come on to find out things she hopes will interest her viewers, so when I blurt "The Betsy Show in Germany", it not only makes Diana Pierce's job easier, it reminds everyone in the room (so, Diana Pierce and me) how terrific I am.
Before I knew it, Diana Pierce and I were gabbing a mile a minute, and had shifted from talking about Betsy (a fictional vampire and unemployed secretary) to Christina (a real life producer) and then incredibly, unbelievably, Diana Pierce said, "The three of us should have lunch! I think it'd be great if we could get together over lunch...we'd have so much to talk about! What do you think? Would you like to?"
What do I think, Diana Pierce? I think you've got a mean streak. I think you're playing a cruel joke. Because the obvious answer to, "Would you like to?" is yes. Would I like to see world peace in my lifetime? Yes. Would I like to crack the top ten on the NYT list? Yes. Would I like to have lunch with you and Christina? Doy, yes! (I'm trying to bring 'doy' back.) Doy, doy, a thousand times doy!
"Well, sure," I told Diana Pierce. "I mean, I'm sure I can fit you in. Go right ahead and mark me down for that one, ha ha!" My mouth has never been this dry. I have never uttered a faker laugh. My mouth is the Sahara. My laugh is the cackle of a dying parrot.
Now we're in the studio. I've been miked (and it didn't hurt a bit!). Nobody knows if Obama's going to have anything to say, or when he might say it (or not say it). The intern tells me to "go ahead and sit with Di", like Diana Pierce is a normal person another normal person could just go and sit with, like they were both normal. She's so adorable, thinking people can just sit down with Diana Pierce like that!
So I sit, I remind myself to sit up straight (I have a tendency to turtle...I can form my upper body into a perfect C without half trying). We're going live in about two minutes. We're talking like normal people. I have no idea what we're talking about. Probably vampires. Or books. Maybe both. Who knows? Like I can keep track of the voices inside my head AND Diana Pierce's voice? I'm just a woman, dammit!
We're live! Diana Pierce says something along the lines of readers being able to sink their teeth into UNDERMINED, and I cough up my strangled parrot laugh, and then Diana Pierce is asking how I came up with Betsy, and right around the phrase "plumber vampires" we get cut off. Viewers aren't seeing me anymore (or hearing my 'ha ha' dying parrot laugh), they're seeing...a bunch of suits milling around. They've interrupted our regularly scheduled program to show...nothing. They are going to tell us that President Obama is going to have an announcement for us...but not now. In fact, Obama hasn't even left his office. The network is going live to show...Obama not being there.
I burst out laughing; it never fails to crack me up when they show"LIVE at the bottom of the screen so we can see they are RIGHT THERE for the BREAKING NEWS that nothing is happening at that particular spot at that particular time, LIVE, right before our very eyes.
So Diana Pierce and I sit there, miked, watching...nothing. "If they cut back to us within two minutes, we can finish," Diana Pierce tells me, so we wait for the news to stop telling us they don't have anything to tell us, so I can go back to talking about plumber vampires. Unfortunately, they need the entire two minutes to tell us nothing. We're done; it's time for me to go.
Diana Pierce apologizes. Christina apologizes, and Her Name Escaped Me apologizes, which is really nice of them because what just happened was beyond their control. I threaten to come back. I mean, offer. I offer to come back. They pretend I'm the one doing them the favor, and agree to have me back on the show within the week. We talk for a bit longer about the UNDEAD series and my upcoming release, A WOLF AT THE DOOR, which is the first full-length werewolf book I've done since DERIK'S BANE. Right! Because this is my job and that's why I'm here, to talk about my job, which in this case is writing books. Not only do I get paid to do that, people then want me to come on television and talk about doing that. Which is why I'm here. I remember now! It's all coming back to me...
I de-mike myself and give Diana Pierce the mike. Then Diana Pierce asks for my cell number again, because the first time I couldn't hear her over all the static in my brain ("Kkksssttttt...Diana Pierce is talking to usssssskkkkkttttttt!"). Christina tells me she thinks lunch is a great idea, and we'll set something up. Of course lunch is a great idea. Of course we'll set something up. Because this sort of thing happens all the time. A TV producer wants to have lunch with Diana Pierce (no surprise) and me (gigantic shocker)! Ssssssskkkkkkkkttttttttttt!
Then I'm outside, blinking in the sunshine and clawing for my cell phone. It's so exciting! It's all so cool and exciting and this is my life and I'm lucky, lucky, in the whole world there's not one person luckier than me, so I call my assistant to tell her, and when she answers I greet her with, "Oh my God it was just too much fun and can you believe viewers can be that catty? It was a great dress. I think it's nice that Diana Pierce has good taste in clothes plus she's sensible about getting her money's worth. Plus they want me back and hopefully I'll get to come on and talk about A WOLF AT THE DOOR in addition to the next Betsy, right? I mean, I didn't even think of that, I was just jazzed to be there. Christina was really psyched about A WOLF AT THE DOOR, so maybe I can, you know? Wouldn't that be great? And the intern was really good at pretending her job wasn't a living nightmare what with all the stress, it must be just like being in Hell except everybody's great looking and has nice clothes. She never knew when Obama was going to interrupt us, none of them knew but they were super nice about it. I mean, that's what I'd expect but it's still great to see for myself, right?"
"Well, that's good," Tracy replied, because she's great at knowing what I'm talking about with no prep or hint of any kind. "Did they say when they could reschedule?"
"Reschedule?"
"Reschedule you to come back on the show."
"Why would--?" Oh. Oh! Right. Reschedule being on the show. In all the excitement of not being on the show, I'd forgotten I wasn't on the show. "Right! Reschedule. Gotcha." Of course, I'd have to check with Obama before I rescheduled a damned thing, but once we coordinated our schedules... "Sure, reschedule."
So I went home, and when I walked into the house my teenager had good and bad news. Good news: she thought I looked great on TV. Bad news: "They cut you off to show us a bunch of suits milling around because nothing was happening, and to tell us the President wasn't ready with his announcement and hadn't left his office yet. And then you never finished talking about plumber vampires because it was over."
Breaking news, bay-bee! And to think, a moment of living history, and I was there.

I Reward or Punish Libraries

Today, for no good reason except to display my hatred, we're having a contest over at my Facebook page: Why I think my library should have a full set of the Undead series. Or, Why my library should be punished with a full set of the Undead series.
To be serious (not for long, I promise) I talk up libraries all the time. I do that because, as many of you know and have been bored hearing about, I was an Air Force brat. The first thing I'd do in every new town was find the nearest library. Where I'd essentially set up a cot and a pillow (near the water fountain so I'd have someplace to brush my teeth when I got up) and move in until my folks had to pick up, per the United States government, and move again. Love, love, love libraries
One of the nicest compliments I ever received was from a soft-spoken librarian. I was signing some books for her when she told me my books never seem to make it back to the library. What, they'd get lost halfway?
Kind of, she replied. Readers always stole them. "Nobody ever brings a Betsy book back," she told me, trying to hide her alarm at the way tears welled up in my cynical eyes. "They just never make it back." Like in that movie Vertical Limit! Sometimes the mountain killed the Betsy books, like it tried to kill Chris O'Donnell's sister, Robin Tunney!
"Um, no, not like that at all," Shy Librarian, who was quickly being renamed Nervous Twitchy Librarian in my head, replied. "More like...I have to go."
She dashed off (super secret librarian business, probably), but I always remembered what she told me. I should have gone into stern scolding mode upon hearing some of my readers dabbled in petty larceny, but I went into touched weeping mode instead. There was something wrong with my eyes. Probably a recurrence of pinkeye. It was an infection, not proof I'm not dead inside.
Pinkeye, dammit!
Anyhoo. Head over to my FB page to find out how you can reward, or punish, your local libe with the awesomeness that is the Betsy books.

I Talk About How I Talk About Twilight

The poor bastards at Fresh Fiction gave me an open forum to blog about whatever I wanted. Naturally, I blogged about how the huge trend in all things vampire was occasionally inconvenient for me. They're giving away several copies of my new release, UNDEAD AND UNDERMINED.
The scene of the crime: http://freshfiction.com/page.php?id=3519
Don't be too hard on them. They truly thought I'd be mature and professional from beginning to end, as opposed to shrill and hypocritical. Read it and weep, gang!