Pat Bertram's Blog, page 130

Oregon Coast!

I had a delightful visit with my friend and partner in crime, Wanda aka Maggie. Actually, she’s your friend and partner, too — you met her in my novel Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare. (Because of course you read the book!)

We talked non-stop during the days I spent with her and way too far into the early morning hours for someone who is still coughing so much. (Ironically, one of coughing fits I had on the drive today after I left Wanda came as I passed a warning sign that said “congestion.”)

I had a special thrill when I got gas — most gas stations here are not self-serve, so I sat in the car and let an elderly gentleman fill my tank. Apparently they don’t see many Beetles up here because he didn’t know where the gas tank was located. And he didn’t wash my windows or offer to check my oil, so it wasn’t much of a throwback.

Highway 101 through Oregon is called the Pacific Coastal Highway, so naturally I figured I would have a steady view of the ocean, but mostly I drove through a canyon of trees. Still, the few times I glimpsed the ocean were even more stunning because they came unexpectedly.

It’s a good thing I decided not to camp. Even sleeping in warm beds isn’t helping my cough. I can’t imagine how awful I would sound after sleeping in a cold, dew-drenched tent.

Sometimes I think I am a fraud — I talk of adventure, and yet when one comes around, I wimp out and hole up at friends’s houses or hunker down in motels. But I suppose I could comfort myself with the thought that I am merely on an adventure of a different color.

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Life in the Slow Lane

The gas guage in my car still works, which is a bit of a surprise considering that both the speedometer and odometer have died, and they are all part of the same mechanism. I am already gauging gas consumption by mileage, and have been adopting a policy of keeping the tank topped off in case the gauge fails, too.

Oddly, having neither a speedometer or an odometer makes no real difference. I can keep track of mileage via sign or Google, and I have a good ear for how fast I am driving by engine sounds. Since my ancient VW hasn’t the power of more modern vehicles, I can’t keep up with interstate travel anyway. I drive in the slow lane and take things as they come. I was a bit worried about driving on two lane highways without being able to track my speed, but it was the same as always — I drove at whatever speed felt safest, especially around curves, so I was still slower than most drivers. If there were too many impatient drivers behind me, I pulled off to let them pass, and then continued my life in the slow lane.

Yesterday was a fabulous day. The car drove like a dream — well, maybe not. Let’s say it drove like a well-tuned and cared for Beetle, which of course it is.

But then, I wasn’t really driving — according to my car instruments, I went zero miles at zero miles per hour. Since I somehow ended up in Oregon last night, I can only assume that while I sat back, taking it easy, going 0mph, the world kept spinning beneath my wheels. The earth must have done a lot stuttering or backtracking during all those hours, because I ended up crossing the Sacramento River at least five times.

But that’s not the only river I crossed or the only body of water. I also saw lagoons, creeks, lakes, ponds, and an ocean. Wildflowers decorated the side of the road: sunrise-colored poppies, cheerful daisies, languid wisteria, chartreuse fields, spots of pink and purple and fuchsia blossoms. I went from desert heat to coastal chill, moving through agricultural areas, towns, cities, forests, mountains.

It’s hard to pick out the best thing I saw as the world passed by outside my window, but at the very top of the list was the small herd of elk crossing at an elk crossing sign.

Ah, life is good in the slow lane.

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(Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, Unfinished, Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.”)

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Car Noises You Don’t Want to Hear

My mother’s sister claimed that if everything goes as planned on a trip, it’s an excursion. If things don’t go as planned, it’s an adventure. And oh, am I having an adventure!

First, I got the stuttering starter fixed yesterday, and when I started the engine again a little later, the starter made a harsh grinding sound. So I went back to the mechanic. Apparently, he put in a heavy duty starter, one that’s wound differently than the old one, so it makes that harsh noise.

So, I packed the car and headed out. Everything went smoothly for the first hundred miles, then there was an odd rattling noise on the front passenger side. I stopped on the side of the highway, looked under the car, didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Got back in, same noise. Stopped again and rearranged things in the car in case something was rattling inside. Started up again. Same noise. I thought maybe a stone was rattling in the wheel well, so I sped up to as fast as the car could go, hoping to pulverize the rock. That worked. Whew! I certainly didn’t want to turn back after going all that way!

Everything was fine for about fifty miles, and then there was a horrible high pitched screech. I pulled off to the side of the highway, but couldn’t think of anything to do, so I started up again. No noise. Then about twenty miles later, the same screech. This time I was able to isolate the noise — my speedometer. It’s been acting up a long time — lubricant isn’t supposed to last 46 years, I guess — but generally on the highway in warm weather there was no problem, so I didn’t worry about getting it fixed. The thing kept screeching for about an hour, then it clunked and died. It feels odd driving without a speedometer, but since I generally drive in the slow lane, there shouldn’t be a problem. And after all this time, I certainly should be able to shift by the feel of the engine.

No more problems after that. I drove until sunset, then pulled into the first motel I found. I didn’t even know what town it was until a young woman at the gas station told me it was Chowchilla, famous for a horrible event — apparently on the 1970s some fellows kidnapped a school bus load of kids in Chowchilla and buried them in the quarry at Livermore.

I should be safe since it happened so long ago, but just in case you don’t hear from me again, suggest to someone that they should look for me in the Livermore quarry.

See you on down the road. I hope.

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(Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, Unfinished, Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.”)

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Stuttering Start

Yesterday I went to get gas and to run a last few errands before I started my trip. I was distracted at a light, and stalled my car. It’s not hard to do when one is weak from being sick — apparently, I did not have the clutch pushed in all the way. That’s not a problem. It happens. But what has never happened before is that the car did not start afterward. Nothing. No grinding, no sound at all. Just a dead click. I was in the middle of three lanes of rush hour traffic on a horribly busy highway. (60 miles per hour on the road, and stoplights every mile or so. Yeah. I know. Crazy.)

Cars all around me were trying to pull into the other lanes, and I just sat there with no way to pull off to the side. So I called my mechanic. We decided I’d have the car towed to him, but I tried one more time, and after a grumble or two, the thing started. So I headed to his garage, thinking all the while how silly I was to stall the car and then not be able to start it again. I mean, it’s not like it’s an unfamiliar car or anything — I’ve had it for more than forty-two years. (Wow. That sounds absurd. Who the heck owns a car that long?)

Everything was fine, and I felt sillier and sillier. Then, on another super busy highway, I heard something metallic fly off the car. So, I pulled over to the side and somehow stalled the car again. I couldn’t find what I’d lost (it was only later I realized the frame around the headlamp had flown away in the wind), and the car did start, but with that same grumbling noise.

About that time, I stopped feeling silly. Obviously something was wrong more than a weak clutch leg. As luck would have it, the mechanic finally heard the noise too. Apparently, the starter was stuttering, a sign of it going bad. So, instead of heading out early this morning, I head out to the mechanic for a new starter.

Someone told me that having the starter go out before a trip is good luck, and it certainly is. Better to have it happen here with a mechanic I know than out in the middle of nowhere with no mechanic at all.

This trip certainly has had a stuttering start, what with my getting sick and now car trouble. Let’s hope this new starter presages a new start for the trip, albeit several hours late, and that my luck continues to hold.

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Unfinished, Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Trip, Life, and Book Update

Planning is what we do before the adventure begins. Once the wheel is on the road or the foot on the path, you have to take it as it comes. In my case, the “taking it as it comes” started long before the plans were even finalized. Originally, I was going to have a six week adventure, possibly even more, but that was cut short when I agreed to do a dance performance at the beginning of June. (I couldn’t pass up a chance to wear my belly dance costume again!) So the six week adventure became four weeks. A terrible cold knocked that four weeks down to three.

Finally, I am well enough (I hope!) to leave tomorrow.

I’ll still be able to see the people I planned to visit, but the extended camping and hiking trips on the way to Seattle have been cancelled. In a way, I don’t mind — I’m still not completely well and I don’t want to take a chance on getting pneumonia, but more than that, when left to my own devices, I tend to just drive, only stopping for the night when I am too exhausted to continue. I really get into the Zen of driving — letting thoughts drift into my mind and then leaving them in the past as I continue to drive into the future.

Although I desperately need a wilderness trek, there is much wilderness within a day’s drive of where I am staying in the desert, including access to the Pacific Crest Trail and various national parks so it’s not as if this was my only chance to tree bathe. And who knows — if I feel well enough after I’ve made turtles (the chocolate/pecan/caramel kind) with my sisters in honor of our mother on Mother’s Day weekend, I could still do a camping trip in the Olympic National Park. (That was one of the camping trips I had to cancel because of my illness.) And perhaps even a short backpacking trip, but that’s up in the air since I’ve spent much of the past three weeks in bed and have little strength.

The one bright spot in all of this is that I finished my decade-old novel!! I hope I didn’t rush the ending to get through, but I had already made all the points I needed to make, and I couldn’t figure out a second-to-last twist, so I mostly summarized their idyllic existence in their near-Eden before I hit them with the big whammy.

I still don’t know what I am going to do with the book. I do not like Amazon, so I don’t want to “publish” it there, I don’t have a publisher for it, and I don’t want to do the horrific work of finding one, so as of right now, I am just sending a PDF to anyone who wants to read it. If you want to read the book, leave a message in a comment, and I will send the PDF to you. It’s not my typical story with a mystery — it’s more of a sometimes humorous, sometimes horrifying apocalyptic novel where God decides to recreate the world. If you do read it, I would appreciate a notation of any typos you might find as well as any sections that drag or speed by too fast.

See you on down the road!

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Unfinished, Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Badassery

[image error]Why does everything pertaining to strong women now have to fall under the category of badassery? There are so many groups of bold women online, so many websites geared toward women who want to lead a more adventurous life that seem as if they would be interesting or inspirational, but always, there comes that word — badass — which grates on my soul and makes me turn off my computer.

For one thing, the word makes me wonder why their behinds would be called bad. If the women are as athletic as they are portrayed, for sure they’d have good buttock musculature.

For another, the word is vulgar, vulgarity seems such a cheat, especially to one who loves words.

And, of course, the word is now incredibly trite. If every woman is a badass, then none are as special as they think they are.

Look at the words I’ve used so far to describe such women: bold, adventurous, strong, inspirational. And there are many others that would be as colorful: fierce, independent, rebellious, powerful, tough, intrepid, daring, audacious, free-spirited, awe-inspiring, formidable, admirable. Any one of those words makes badass seem namby-pamby. And any of those words I would gladly claim if I could. But badass? Never.

That’s all. As you were.

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Unfinished, Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

The Best Laid Plans

[image error]Plans gang aft agley, but it’s hard not to feel silly after one has posted one’s plans online, and then have those plans come to naught. All these months, I’ve been talking about the big road-camping-hiking-backpacking trip I’ve planned for May, and then zap! I caught a cold. A bad one.

I haven’t accomplished much of anything the past week— the book remains unfinished, the trip preparations have come to a halt, and trail foods never got fixed. (I haven’t even been blogging — didn’t want you to catch my cold.)

I still hope to be well enough to leave Wednesday as planned, but I even if I have stopped coughing by then, I might be too weak. If I left a few days later, driving mostly straight through and staying at motels instead of campgrounds, I’d still be able to visit the people I’d planned to visit (keeping my fingers crossed!) but I would have to forego some of the sights I wanted to see and the activities I’d hoped to experience.

But you never know. Everything could go as planned. And if not, well, I still have my trip book — the binder I’ve filled with maps and directions and descriptions of parks and places along the way — so I can take the trip another time.

It’s interesting (to me, anyway), the difference in my thinking when I am feeling well and when I am not. When I am well, I feel as if I can work toward impossible dreams and maybe even accomplish them. When I am weakened by illness (or by coughing fits), I feel as if even the possible would be impossible.

But thinking doesn’t change reality, even though people say it does. If you don’t think you can do something, you can still try to prove yourself wrong and end up accomplishing what you think you could not do. If you think you can do something, you can rely too much on the belief and do nothing to make it happen, you can fail to accomplish what you thought you could.

Whatever happens next week — and next month — I’ll continue working toward the goal of an eventual epic backpacking trip. That doesn’t necessarily mean I will take the trip because as we all know, plans don’t mean a whole lot if things change and you can’t implement them, but still, it’s the work that counts.

For now, I need to work on getting better.

Hope you all are doing okay.

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Unfinished, Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

What Would You Like Included in a Book About Grief?

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It seems as if I am being pulled back into the world of grief, not because I am having upsurges of grief, but because other people are discovering my grief posts and my grief book. Also, I have been talking to friends as they go through their grief upsurges, and at the same time, I am getting emails from newly bereft people who have read Grief: The Great Yearning, a sort of memoir about my first year of grief. (I wonder if I am the only author who cries every time I get a letter from a reader. I am glad they contact me, but oh, so much sorrow!)

As if this weren’t enough of a pull, people have begun suggesting that I write another book of grief, sort of a sequel to Grief: The Great Yearning, but from the perspective of eight years later. (At one time, I’d considered doing a sequel focusing on the second, third, and maybe fourth year called Grief: The Great Learning, but I didn’t have enough to say to fill even a small book.)

This isn’t something I can start today — I need to finish that decade-old manuscript first, then I have my trip to Seattle, and finally a dance performance. But by the beginning of June, I will have cleared out all my obligations, and would have time — both calendar time and mental time — to start a new project.

If I do undertake such a project, what aspects of grief would you like to see included in the book?

Is there a particular one (or many) of my grief blog posts you’d like to see expanded for the book? (For those of you who have already offered suggestions, I will be going through the comments and emails to find those suggestions if you don’t want to repeat yourself here.)

Are there any aspects of my life, such as my penchant for adventures, that should be included? Because a need for adventure is part of the grief process, not just for me, but for many folks. It’s as if once our lives are turned upside down, only undertaking something challenging helps get us back on a new track.

By its very nature (or rather, the very nature of the author), the book won’t be a practical guide for getting through grief, won’t offer platitudes or comfort except of the roughest kind (such as telling people what they already know — that grief is impossibly hard). There are certainly enough grief self-help books on the market, and anyway, I don’t have anything to offer along those lines. I think what I do have to offer is a safe place for people to explore their own grief, maybe even offer something for them to compare themselves to. (All grief is different, but for those who have suffered the same sort of profound loss, such as the death of soul mate, grief does tend to follow the same patterns.)

I hope I’m ready for such a project. At least it will be non-fiction, so I won’t have to relive grief through my characters like I did for Unfinished. That just about did me in!

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Unfinished, Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

The Pacific Crest Trail Theory of Writing

[image error]A new mystery writer posted an interesting question in a writing group I run. She wanted to know how to make her story unique.

It’s a good question because almost every situation imaginable has already been written. Almost every character is now a cliché because authors have taken the clichéd character, turned it on its head, and created a shadow cliché of the original.

But still, there is originality even in the most banal situation. A situation becomes unique and original if you fully develop the characters and the situation. You give the good guys bad characteristics and the good guys good characteristics. You show why your characters are the way they are, giving them good reasons rather than just throwing them into the mix fully formed. You tie them to the story, making their characteristics an integral part of the plot. When you find that your story is going too much in one direction (straight to the resolution of the plot, for example), you turn the situation and throw more trauma at your characters. What does this trauma do the clichéd drunk cop? Make him or her give up drinking? What does the new trauma do to a clichéd rookie cop? Make him or her stronger, weaker, more determined, go seek counsel from someone who has been a tormentor? And you work against their characteristics and strengths. If the rookie is smart, throw her into a situation where her intelligence is no help. If the drunkenness of the cop is a liability, throw him into a situation where the drunkenness becomes an asset.

You can also find uniqueness in what the characters see. (That’s what made Sherlock Holmes so popular — he saw things differently from other people.)

And you can look at things through a different kind of glass. For example, I lost someone very dear to me a few years ago, and now I cannot write a character that isn’t affected by that grief. For another example, people who hike the Pacific Crest Trail are always afterward affected by what happened to them on the trail.

So, this brings me to the Pacific Crest Trail Theory of Writing. Every year, thousands of people attempt to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the beginning to the end. The trail is always the same. It is what it is. In a way, the people are always the same, too, divided primarily into a couple of groups — the kids (mostly boys) just out of college and older recently retired couples. (Though people from all over the world of all ages hike the trail, these are the two biggest groups.) Despite this similarity, each of those hikers hikes a different trail and a different hike because each one of those hikers has a different motive and motivation, each sees something different, each reacts differently to what they experience.

And so it is with writing — it is the characters, their motives and motivations, how they experience what they experience, that makes a story unique.

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Unfinished, Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Free Review Copy of Unfinished

Stairway Press has just informed me they have review copies of UNFINISHED to give away! If you would like to review this novel about the secrets a grieving widow uncovers when she goes through her deceased husband’s effects, please leave a comment on this blog. Reviews are to be posted on Amazon and at least one other place, such as your blog if you have one, Goodreads, Twitter, or Facebook. Stairway Press would also like permission to post the review on their website.

The review doesn’t have to be brilliant, just a few words to tell your honest opinion of the book and how it made you feel.

If you’ve already read the book, and have not left a review, please leave a review on Amazon. As Stairway Press said to me in a recent email, “Your book is good. It should please readers and fan word-of-mouth flames. But, it’s just sitting there looking at us as if it expects us to do something.”

So, let’s do something! Even if you don’t want to review the book, please share this post so that it can reach as many people as possible. Thank you.

Click on the cover below to read the first chapter and see if Unfinished is something you’d like to read and review.

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Unfinished, Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.