Pamela Morsi's Blog, page 3

The Theory of Author's Husbands

I was recently asked to expound upon my theory of author's husbands, aka the male spouses of female writers. Typically, they are not writers themselves. They are as varied as the human race allows and do not easily lend themselves to being stereotyped, but I have never let anything like that stop me when voicing a stupid opinion.

I refer to this as a “stupid opinion” to differentiate it from more fact based observations and because I still recall its origin. Like most of my "stupid opinions", it came to existence in a book conference hotel room, late at night, surrounded by my fellow writers, all of us a little worse for the chocolate and wine. Though many have heard me voice these words, I hesitate to put them into print as I will undoubtedly be required to eat them later.

Disclaimers to start: I have been extremely fortunate in my life to have two of the best author husbands imaginable. Without Mr. Morsi, Pamela Morsi, would have never existed. I think I have duly credited him in my bio and elsewhere for everything he did in his too-short lifetime. And my new husband, Bill, is perfect…not perfect in general, but perfect for me. And in honor of yesterday and our 11th anniversary, I think I shall no longer call him my “new” husband. He definitely now fits into the category of “used”.

With that said: My theory of author's husbands has been honed over the last twenty-two years in this business. I have been fortunate to meet and become friends with so many writers. The ones I've come to know best have been women. And most of the women are married. Many husbands have been met, but even more have been spoken of, confessed upon and gossiped about.

These, I have divided in four distinct groups.

THE ROAD BLOCK: This husband will do everything he can to make sure that your writing dream never becomes a reality.

Amazingly, this particular guy often comes as a complete surprise to his spouse. They have gone along for years with nothing beyond everyday annoyances. But on the day the would-be writer shares her dream, it’s like a switch has been thrown. He is going to do everything that he possibly can to keep you from achieving your goal. Not limited to, but frequently including incredulity, derision and shaming.

Often, after a spate of kindly pointing out how much smarter or more educated you would need to be to pursue a writing career, he will offer you up as the butt of the joke at a family dinner where your mother-in-law can ask, “What on earth has gotten into you?” And the whole clan (his clan, of course, because they are probably a lot like him) can have a great laugh at your crazy idea. If that doesn’t work, he’ll expand to including friends and neighbors into the “you’ll not believe how silly my wife is” narrative. If you persist, he is sure to double-down with lectures about neglecting your children and your duty to your family by attempting to follow a selfish pipe dream.

“He just worries about me,” the writer will rationalize to her friends. “He couldn’t bear to see me hurt and disappointed.”

Apparently he is likewise loathe to see you happy and successful. Without highs and lows, there is no life, only existence.

I would never suggest that someone bug out on her marriage, and I won’t here. The truth about all of us is that we mellow in time. If you can hold out for a couple of decades, he might well come around. Just promise me that you’ll never believe of yourself what he believes of you.

THE GOLF SHIRT: This is the happy, easy going guy who is completely delighted for you to pursue any goal that you choose…as long as it doesn’t inconvenience him in any way.

I picked the term Golf Shirt for this guy mostly because it conjures up a certain image for me of a man who takes his own leisure as seriously as he does his life. This is a spectrum, of course. And a whole lot of fellows show up someplace on it. You probably had him pegged the day that you married him. But you married him anyway. A spectrum is something you can work with.

He may be a wonderful cheerleader. He’s happy that you’re happy. He’s excited that you’re excited. He’s ready to quietly listen though weeks of dinners about the upcoming conference and the pitch you’ve planned to make to the intimidating NY publishing house editor. He’ll be nodding and smiling as you try it out on him. Assuring you with absolute sincerity that the red suit does look powerful and does not seem to make your butt bigger.

Be prepared. On the morning of your pitch, as you’re puttering in front of the bathroom mirror, he’ll come walking in dressed in camo and orange.

“Why are you wearing that?”

“It’s the first day of quail season.”

“This is my conference day. This is when I pitch my book. You're supposed to keep L’il Buddy.”

He will turn to look at you as if you’ve completely lost your mind.

“Honey, the baby is way too young to take hunting.”

Suffice to say, it takes a firm hand to steer the ship of matrimony and sometimes it’s going to have to be yours.

THE MANAGER: This guy believes whole-heartedly in your writing talent and potential for success (I mean, really, how hard can it be) and he’s going to “help” you with the “business side of things”.

Now as a writer who really just wants to write, this guy can be very tempting. Does it not sound like heaven on earth to simply write stories and have them magically appear in the hands of readers worldwide? To give out your self-promotion bling at the Walmart without ever worrying what the stuff costs and how well it is translating into sales. To be able, after the niceties with your agent, to hand him the phone and let them hash out the inequities of the next contract.

Don’t. Like castor oil or the elliptical machine, there are things in life that are not pleasant but have to be done. You are as capable of learning “the business side” of things as anyone else. If your math is bad, use a calculator. If you’re shy, refer to yourself in the third person. If you don’t know anything, find stuff out.

This is your career and you must take responsibility for it. Giving over half is the same as setting up a scapegoat. This is not good for your self-esteem and it can be really hard on your happily-ever-after.

I mean, honestly, it is not as if being a husband automatically makes him better at this than you. Nothing in his background as doctor, lawyer or Native American CEO is anything like the book business. He’s faking it until he finds his way. You can do exactly the same.

THE BEST: This author's husband is the ideal. He’s a magical creature, but not a mythical one. Somehow he knows when to let you cry on his shoulder and when to tell you to shut up and get back to work.

This man has figured out how to paraphrase the golden rule into the marriage rule. He does for his wife, what he would expect his wife to do for him. He appreciates your talent. He also respects your time. He may put his foot down about you working on vacation. But he’ll unpack and do the laundry when you get home so you can get right into it.

Writing is not a 9 to 5 day job. In truth it doesn’t lend itself to a timeclock at all. It’s almost a calling. It requires cooperation and sacrifice from the whole family. Whether that pays off financially or merely in life satisfaction is always in question. Creativity, by its very nature, is hard to bottle and harder to sell. But the writing life can be lonely as well as fulfilling. Finding a helpmate that understands that sometimes it is going to be all about you, can be a bulwark in a world of stormy weather. And that is what marriage is supposed to be about.

Years ago Mr. Morsi and I went to talk to another couple who were having trouble. The man’s award winning, top-selling wife was something he hadn’t counted on.

“She wasn’t like this when I married her,” the husband complained.

In his very quiet, very wise way, Mr. Morsi replied, “Yes, but you did promise ‘for better’ as well as ‘worse’.”

As I said in the beginning, I came up with these husband types years and years ago now. From my observation, husbands generally seem to be improving. Maybe all those sons we raised are doing a better job at this than their fathers did. Those fathers, after all, grew up in a different world with different expectations for their wives. Or maybe we’re all learning as we go along.

I hope that somebody found this helpful…or at least entertaining. As for the wives of male authors, hey you’ll have to write your own blog. I look forward to reading it.

LET THERE BE (this little) LIGHT (of mine)

We're getting to that time of year when the morning sun is north enough on the horizon to shine directly into the east window of my office. Sunshine is a good thing. It provides light and heat. It helps our mood. And it's necessary to make the flowers grow. In college I arranged my summer schedule so that classes were early in the morning and work was at night. I spent every afternoon at the university's pool, greased up with Coppertone or Banana Boat. I got browner than a white girl ever should. Today the solar panels on my roof provide a third to half of all our energy our household consumes. Sunshine is good. So very good. However, like most good things, even very good things, it is possible to get too much. Between 8 a.m. and 10:30, I cannot read anything on my computer screen. It is one giant, shiny glare. This room, my refuge from the distractions of the world outside, takes on a temperature only experienced in Hades. And with my overhead fan running on high, all the papers on my desk have to be anchored down. Heaven forbid that I have to actually look through my notes, everything starts flying. Of course I could probably stick it all together with my own sweat. It's like a planned hot flash. I would strip down to my underwear, but the other window faces the street and I'm afraid of sending my neighbors into therapy. So instead I completely close the blinds, trying to blot out the effects. It doesn't do much for the heat, but it does cut down on the light. Cut down, as in narrow. It now comes inside the room in a series of pencil thin strips, making my office look like a film noir set. I guess this proves, in this time of national austerity, it's still possible to get too much of a good thing. I mean like, fast food. Everybody likes it. Sure it's great to not cook all the time. And how convenient to simply drive through and have some stranger hand you dinner. But it costs a lot of money, wastes a lot in packaging and limits the family palate. Not to mention upping your salt and fat intake. Or coffee. There is nothing that I like better. Most days I have my first cup before I even get out of bed. But if I'm still drinking it late into the morning, I start to get a little jittery. One really good thing that I've had WAY too much of lately, is politics in my church. I am a Baptist and I am very proud of that heritage. I am not a member of the Southern Baptist Convention, which I believe has misinterpreted Baptist history and practice. I'm an adherent of a much older tradition in our church as being the haven of free-thinkers. The "priesthood of the believer" and the concept of "working out your own salvation with fear and trembling" are tenets I am not willing to give up. I've written about this in more detail elsewhere, so I won't bore you here. But suffice to say, when Baptists and other members of "evangelical" churches were a poor, powerless backwater in national politics, we had to count on the separation of church and state to keep us from being swept up and disenfranchised by larger and more influential religious constituencies. These were ardent believers who were convinced that because our worship lacked creed and ritual it was not a religion. Which is worse being "not a religion" or being "part of a cult"?I am very disappointed in Pastor Jeffress up in Dallas, on a lot of levels. I am not aware of God giving him the power to decide who is a Christian and who is not. In fact, the Bible expressly forbids us from making those kind of judgements. But somehow the righteous can never seem to stop themselves from pointing fingers at somebody else. Not that I am guiltless here. My sister has been an Episcopalian for decades and holds a high position in her church. She would love for me to be a part of it. But when I'm sitting in that pew and the processional comes in dressed in robes and swinging those smoky containers full of incense, I know, without question that this is not the worship for me. But who am I to say there is something wrong with it? Let me answer that question. I am only human, and humans are narrow, tribal and suspicious of everything that is foreign to them. We are not meant to be the arbiter of such decisions. These days it looks like we evangelicals have the ear of government. Candidates are PTL-ing all over the place and hearing burning bushes under every tree. They try to one-up each other in the whose-a-better-Christian game. UGH. A lot of people think that the influence of religion in politics is not good. And other people, like me, think having politics show up in the middle of my worship service is a very, very bad.We know from history that political power is transitory. Those who are up today will be down tomorrow. And having the sun beat down on us, day after day, glaring our screen, heating up the room and causing us to fan up the papers we need to be working on, is too much of a good thing. Yesterday Bill constructed a new screen for my window. It's the same design he used for the ones on the front of the house, but on this particular one he used a special, heavy solar protective mesh. It works great. It allowed me to use this morning to write this blog.

Love's Laborer Lost

Happy Labor Day everyone! According to Wikipedia, who as we all know is just south of God in authority, this holiday came into existence to celebrate the American worker and their family. At the time, 1894, the term American worker, meant laborer. I've written lots of stories about working class people. Truth is, I've always found them interesting. Moreso than those from a more privileged background. I guess this goes back to the adage of "write what you know". I know nothing about elite private education or vacation homes. I am more familiar with the school of hard knocks and summer jobs.I grew up in the working class. My father was a pumper and gang pusher in the oil patch. My mom was a practical nurse. They worked hard for wages. They scrimped and saved and invested where they could. Ultimately, they did well. They were able to live comfortably, provide for their family and have a pension in their old age. That was their American Dream. My dad was a great believer in education. He never went to college, but from the moment I was born there was never a suggestion that I might not go. During my high school years, when Oklahoma was trying to put more money into education, a bumper sticker began showing up on cars that read: Only Ignorance is Free. I remember Dad jokingly stated his disagreement. "Ignorance is not free. I pay for mine every day." So Dad not only paid for his ignorance, but he and Mom paid dearly to rid me of mine. My older sister and I both went to Oklahoma State at the same time. My parents made that happen through buying "shacks" and fixing them up into rent houses. My mother finished her work week at the hospital by pulling 12 hour shifts every Saturday and Sunday for years. My sister and I worked, too. But without the sacrifice of my parents, I'd probably have taken that job as a "table braider" at the hose factory right out of high school. Maybe I would have ended up as a writer anyway, but I'm sure it would have been harder. Another quote from my dad, "What you learn, nobody can ever take that away from you." I got a Humanities degree at OSU and then went to grad school at University of Missouri. I often joke that becoming a Professional Librarian is like taking a vow of poverty, but it did provide me with a modest income and an interesting work day. I also married well. Well, not well as in novels of "marrying well" where the impoverished governess charms the dashing Duke whose inheritance is "forty thousand a year!" But "well" in the sense of a guy that I loved and who loved me. Who took responsibility seriously and was unashamed of being thrifty. Or as my mother once said of him, "He could squeeze the manure out of a buffalo nickel." Our squashed nickels managed to secure us a place among the middle class. The folks who, at least to some extent, can use their heads instead of their hands to make a living. That's very good for me, since my brain was always stronger than my back. I feel proud and blessed. But I also feel very, very lucky. Luck has a lot to do with it.Among the working class men and women in this country, and a lot of folks in middle class as well, luck seems lately to be in short supply. In fact, a holiday to celebrate the workers seems a bit out of sinc with the way things are. Technology and mechanization have increased productivity, allowing factories to pare down the staff. And companies have repeatedly relocated manufacturing overseas where labor is cheaper. With 9.1% out of a job, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of holiday mood. My dad grew up during the Great Depression. My grandfather had been partially blinded in a refinery accident at The Magnolia and was told that if he'd sign a paper absolving the company of blame, he'd always have a job. He signed and when hard times hit, he was the first man let go. There was one long winter when they had nothing to eat but black-eyed peas. They'd grown the crop to feed the cow, but skimmed off the peas to feed the children instead. A sad story like this is not meant to say to folks who are out of work and struggling, "hey, you don't have it so bad." I would not diminish your crisis in any way. Your fears, your Plan B and Plan C and Plan D42 are as scary as any bread line. What I hope this story reminds you, reminds us, is that while life is short, it is also long. The outlook today, the challenges we see, they are today's troubles. Tomorrow is the unknown. Forecasters, soothsayers, prophets may tell the truth or not have a clue. Ten years after the middle of the Depression, with two sons in harm's way fighting Hitler and Japan, that cold scary winter of the black-eyed peas must have seemed like the good old days. And by the time I knew them, all of them, it was as if only the happy memories floated to the top. In later life Dad was not averse to a big bowl of black-eyed peas. And my Uncle Bob, in his last days, would ask me to make him "mustard sandwiches" like his mama made him as a kid.What's happening to working people today, whether you make your living on the line or in a cubicle, is just plain crappy. If you've lost your job, you will never really forget that feeling. If you've lost your savings, you may never be as well-heeled again. But the thing about life is that it's always changing. The everyday people who feel overlooked today, are going to be the ones looking over the future tomorrow. Good times and bad, we must keep putting one foot in front of the other. A hard lesson for all of us. But remember what my dad said, "What you learn, nobody can ever take away from you."Happy Labor Day to all those who seek to do the best you can with the tools you've got.

Pine in the Prevailing Winds

One piece of basic advice for writers of novels is to use all five senses to stage a scene. The reader needs to see it, feel it, hear it, taste it and smell it. As you can imagine, the last two of these are sometimes the most difficult to set up. And even if you can, you might not want to. Yeah, sure, it's great if the fence along the lane smells of honeysuckle vine. But I'm not so quick to say, "the odor of left-over pizza and old gym shoes waifed through her box-sized, third floor walkup apartment."Smells are, however, very evocative. And we have a memory for them that, if calibrated like vision would be most often 20/20. I came home the other night to a scent in the air that really brought some things back to mind. In the terrible heat and drought we're having here in Texas, a big limb from a neighbor's tree broke off and just hangs down toward the yard. Because it's not in a dangerous place and broken off pretty high, our neighbor hasn't exactly rushed out to get it down, chopped up and hauled off. He works long hours, and in this heat, who could blame him? When I arrived home, in the darkness of an eighty-degree evening, I could smell that tree. The scent of rotting pine is one that is not easy to get out of your nose. Once you've smelled it, it stays with you for a lifetime. In 1989 Hurricane Hugo came through the part of South Carolina where we lived. It flattened buildings, washed away houses and either ripped the trees out of the ground or cut them off like matchsticks about 8 to 12 feet from the base. My family was so lucky. We had a yard full of 100 ft. longleaf pines. The ones in the front fell in the first half of the storm...away from the house. When the second half came through, the winds blowing in the opposite direction took the trees in the backyard, also away from the house. Our home was safe and my family in it. Like most survivors of natural disaster, I could write a very, very long story about what it was like. The storm itself, the immediate aftermath, the months of getting our lives back and our lingering feelings of loss and insignificance. And I don't just know my own story. One of the things that happens in this kind of situation, is that you need to say things. It's such an overwhelming experience and you simply need to talk about it. And the only people with the patience to listen are those who went through it just like you did. I remember the stories my neighbors had to tell. I remember the words of my friends. Not only the ones who held each other for hours in the hallway as both sides of their condo blew out and everything they owned disappeared. But also the ones who packed up the kids and the dogs and evacuated to Charlotte, only to face the same storm there, while stuck in a dinky, airless motel room. There was the guy that was barricaded under his bed, but had to pee so bad he decided to take the risk of a run to the bathroom. While he was in there, the bedroom side of the house fell down. My friend who went out to check his shutters in the calm moments as the eye passed over could barely walk for the hundreds of birds huddled on the ground that refused to move. And the working class hero that, tied with ropes, made his way across the roof of the hospital in the teeth of the storm to repair the emergency generator and keep the respirators running in the ICU. One of my favorite stories was an old Charlestonian, who'd inherited a beautiful 18th century home in the oldest area of the city. He felt as if he were the guardian of this incredible piece of architectural history. So while he sent his family off to safety, he stayed to protect the house. He boarded it up and prepared it as best he could to ride out the storm. When the water started coming into the front door, he took refuge on the second story. But when the roof began tearing off, he tried to go back down. The water was already several feet deep on the ground floor. He huddled on the stairs, pondering his fate of either being washed out to sea or blown away. It was then he said, "that I realized, that I'd never really liked that house. I had never wanted it. I'd never asked for it and I didn't care what happened to it." I think a lot of us have been there. Sometimes it takes being trapped on the stairs to make us realize what it is that we really value in our lives. I know he repaired the house, and the last I heard, he and his family were still living there. I doubt, however, that he's changed his mind, just his perspective. Bill is always saying, "It's not where you are, it's who you're with." And people interviewed post-disaster always reiterate that as long as their family is all right, the "stuff" they lost doesn't matter. Still, it takes time and money, hard work and sweat to get back on your feet again. And no matter how grateful you are for the second chance, there is going to be some grieving for what is gone. I hope the people in Joplin and the other, so numerous, tornado sites of the year, the people along the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers, and the folks dealing with the devastation of the wildfires know that even after their images have left the six o'clock news, there are people out here still thinking about them, and hoping and praying for them. And if it takes the smell of rotting pine to remind us, then may a limb come down in all our neighborhoods.

Two Heads Better in One

I just got my author copies of my new book. THE BENTLEY'S BUY A BUICK will be on sale August 23, 2011, about a month from now. This is my twenty-third novel. That's not counting several novellas and one story that never made it to print. A new book should definitely be no-big-deal for me. But that's not how it feels. I'm as excited about this one as I was about my first. I think it was Dorothy Parker who said, "I don't like writing, but I like having written." I can identify with that. There are definitely good days and bad days in the writing process. But when you have the completed book in your hand, it doesn't matter if the story poured out of you like melting butter or was painstakingly pick-axed out of granite, it's a feeling of accomplishment. I answered a question yesterday about how I first got published. I don't get those questions so much anymore and I don't think about it much. But pondering it yesterday, looking back, I simply had to shake my head in disbelief. Who could imagine that someone like me could ever get to have a career like this? It's a dream come true. Well, not one of those dreams. I didn't go to sleep one night, dream I was a writer and the next day wake up to be one. Not quite that easy. It's curious that in English the word "dream" can mean both are hopes, ambitions, goals and also mean those crazy things that go on in our heads while we're asleep at night. You know what I'm talking about. I know I'm not the only one whose gone through the nightmare where it's the final exam and you forgot to take the class all semester. Or where you're sitting behind your desk at the office and realize that you forgot to put on any clothes from the waist down. (My cure for that one has been the home office. I'm truly working in my pajamas more often than I'd like to admit.) One of the worst for me is losing my purse. In my sleep, I imagine losing my purse at least two or three times a year. Now there is not anything irreplaceable in my purse, but symbolically it freaks me out. My friend and fellow writer, Janece Hudson is an expert on dreams. Jan's a psychologist who's been writing and teaching about dreams for thirty years. She's always been willing to help me understand what my brain was trying to tell me. Especially so when my personal life was very tough. I saw her recently in Austin. Still frank and funny, I enjoy her company. And I recommend her classes and workshops. She's got a brand new book out now called Into Your Dreams. I can't wait to dig into it. Of course, there are a lot of people who don't think that dreams have any meaning at all.These folks suggest that our nighttime scenarios are just the brain misfiring. That what you see and hear and feel during them signifies nothing and you shouldn't spend a minute imagining that it's more. That may be true for some people. We're all different. We all use our brains differently. Those differences are obvious and vivid while we're awake. For me to understand anything, I've either got to create a backstory for it or hum it to a tune. My husband on the other hand, will need to put the data into a graph, or worse yet, a spread sheet. So while his dreams may be misfires, I see mine more as hints. I think that dreams are my subconscious mind working on the stubborn, rusty parts of my conscious mind. I am a big fan of my subconscious mind. I often joke that "my subconscious is a better writer than I am". And I readily admit that's true. I'm one of those writers that simply don't plan a lot of stuff. I start out with a premise and I just sort of see where it leads me. Disclaimer for those of you who don't write, or even for those who do: This is not a typical or even a preferable way to construct a story. It is definitely more sane and efficient to know what you want to say and plan how you're going to say it. Instead of that, I wander around in the wilderness, not really knowing where I'm going on what I'm doing. I'll be writing a scene, maybe something I've been thinking about for a while, and suddenly appearing before me on the computer screen are words and paragraphs about something completely unrelated. Something I may not know anything about, nor have any interest in. It's a "rabbit hole", a tangent, an annoying distraction from the direction of my storyline. My first instinct is to hit DELETE. I have learned, however, that those tangents, those rabbit holes are where the heart of my story is going to be. I've got to follow that and see where it takes me. Maybe my subconscious mind does better writing than me because it does not have the fears that I do. In my sleep journeys I will hang out in neighborhoods that I wouldn't venture into in daytime. I will attempt things that conscious daylight finds terrifying. Consciously I walk around so afraid of heights that I avoid glass elevators. In my dreams I joyfully leap from high places, unafraid. The same is true of my stories. My conscious mind warns me, "this is not what people are buying" or "what are my writer friends going to think?" But my subconscious apparently doesn't care about sales trending or the weight of peer pressure. My subconscious has a story it needs to get out. And it's only allowing my conscious fingers to do the typing. I once heard Sharon Sala say that her stories come to her in dreams and that she wakes up and writes the whole thing start to finish. I hope I'm not misstating her. But I was blown away by the whole idea of that. I couldn't even imagine such a thing. But I've come to think that my "method" such as it is, is not a bit less strange and miraculous. Some reviewer of my last book said something like, "surprisingly deep for such a frothy premise." Blame it on my subconscious. Consciously, I'm as frothy in my books as I am in person. Now if I could just figure out what my head is trying to tell me when that transvestite dwarf shows up.

RITA with a side of jalapenos, please

Leila and I were having lunch together the other day when she piped up with "This is my favorite Mexican restaurant!" We were eating at Adelante, a place I like to take her to because it's a kind of healthy Mexican, if such a thing exists. They use local and organic veggies, whole wheat and stone ground corn tortillas and have a no-lard policy. The food is surprisingly good and the friendly atmosphere is terrific. But in a city like San Antonio, where there is a Mexican eatery on nearly every corner, picking a "favorite" is not something I would want to do. You can't get a better breakfast taco than the ones at Twin Sisters. That hot orange salsa at Cafe Salsita is good enough to drink from a cup. Don't miss the tomatillo quesadilla at Betos. Or the yucca chips at Urban Taco.And any day is the day to try the special at Blanco Cafe.You haven't lived to you've eaten a tlayuda at La Gloria Ice House. I wouldn't eat cabrito any place but Mexican Manhattan. And margaritas are too die for at La Fogata. La Barrios, MiTierra, Jacala, Pico de Gallo or El Mirasol if you're hungry for some some spicy south of the border flavor, this is the place to come. How could anybody choose just one?That got me to thinking. Most of my writing buddies are busy this week in New York City. It's the national Romance Writers of America conference and tons of people you and I like to read have shown up there to meet with their editors, schmooze with important people in publishing and attend workshops and business meetings. Tonight, with much pomp and circumstance they will award the 2010 RITAs for the best romance fiction of the year. There are twelve different categories for the award, so short contemporaries don't have to compete with long historicals or midlength Christian inspirationals. But among 12,000 titles entered, only a dozen will be judged as this year's best.I am not a finalist for 2010. Yes, of course I am bummed about that. I'm always a little bummed. I've been a finalist at least a half dozen times and I've won twice, but still I kind of always want my books to be labeled as THE BEST. But I'm just greedy. There are so many fantastic writers turning out wonderful books everyday. Tonight some of the authors of the best will be taking home a statue and some of the authors of the best will be plastering a smile across the face and saying, "It's an honor just to be nominated." With so many wonderful books out there and so many tastes and preferences in reading matter, choosing a BEST is not only impossible, it's almost an exercise in failure. Some really incredible novels will somehow miss the golden ring. And some so-so stories can win by being sentimental favorites where the author's reputations give them the leg-up that their writing didn't. But mostly, every book in the running tonight is a winner for the readers that are lucky enough to pick them up. I won't be there to see who, among my friends, take home the trophy. I'll be here in San Antonio. Maybe we'll go out for Mexican food.

Hot summer and shades of gray

Well, it couldn't be much hotter here in south Texas. Okay, maybe it COULD be hotter, but we've set records the last couple of days...so who wants hotter? Not me. Like lots of people around the country who've been struggling with natural disasters, flood, fires, tornados. We too, have our problems. We're in the the throes of a drought. Not a baby, hey it hasn't rained for a while kind of drought, we're doing the least-rainfall-in-recorded-history kind of drought. There was a photo on the front of the San Antonio Express-News this morning of the upper Guadalupe River. It was just a pile of bleached limestone boulders, nothing was even damp. There's not a lot that anyone can do. We just have to wait on the clouds. I would say "pray for rain" but line is getting so overused by our politicians it's become cliche. Still, do it for us when you think about it. In our neighborhood we're on Stage 2 water restrictions. Without a change in the weather, Stage 3 should be upon us any day. We've been following the rules and have been very stingy with our plants and trees. Especially our trees. Our yard is not so amazing that anyone would ever comment, but we do have a couple of incredible trees. In the front yard we have a tall white oak that somehow manages to find a way toward the sky between the electric poles and overhead wires. In the backyard we've got a red oak that was probably planted when our house was new. It is about four feet across and tall enough to shade the entire back yard and the deck for most of the day. It is wondrously elegant. And in the early morning, way up high, it catches the suns rays and glistens when everything below it is still gray and quiet. The water restrictions allow us to water twice a week or by hand. We've been doing that. But it's a big tree and I know it gets very thirsty. Earlier this week, because of my thirsty tree, I began to feel bad about my baths. I love to soak in a bath. I have the best soaking bathtub on the planet and there is nothing I like more that sitting in hot water up to my chin. Yes, I admit it. Even in this time of drought, I have still been soaking up to my chin. The guilt has been driving me crazy. I decided that I must give up the baths. No, I didn't plan on foregoing hygiene completely, but I thought a quick shower would probably be good enough. It's my experience that sacrifice, both large and small, is a great boon to innovation. As I was contemplating a showery future, I began to think about how I could have my trees and bathtub, too. I decided that I would not drain the tub. After my leisurely soak, I would get my trusty bucket, dip out the water and carry it out to my oaks. After all, before the advent of modern plumbing a woman would have to tote water both to and from her tub. And those women were wearing long dresses and workboots. If they could do it I can do it. At least I thought that for the first few buckets. Water is heavy. Hmm. As I learned in school, "A pint's a pound the world around." So that makes my 5 gallon bucket weigh 40 pounds. And I'm...I'm... okay, I admit it. I'm a wimp. Way too much time spent sitting in front of a computer screen. The heaviest thing I move is the mouse. Sadly, I decided that I just couldn't bale out the bathtub on a daily basis. Once more I sadly bidadieu to my decadent soak. Bravely I vowed to shower. Then this morning Bill told me to go ahead and take a bath, he'd take care of the water. He pulled a hose in through the back door and siphoned the water left in the tub, out the back door across the deck and down to the roots of the red oak. Being, as he is, a math geek, he told me how much water this would be for our trees. 500 gallons a week. Five hundred gallons of gray water to keep the shade flourishing over our heads, eating up our CO2 and giving us back a lovely breath of fresh oxygen in our air. As God is my witness...I will never feel guilty about bathing again. Thanks Bill. Happy Father's Day.

Nesting Instincts

This spring I’ve been doing some bird watching. Not the kind where you hike into nature with binoculars, more the kind where I lounge around on the porch swing or the back deck and watch the activity in our bird houses.We have a lot of bird houses.
Last winter, Bill decided that he wanted to do some building projects with the little kids in our life.
Now, a lot of guys would have just bought some wood and maybe a plan and went with it. But, Bill, being Bill, had to do some research on bird habitat, try some experiments and produce a prototype or two before coming up with exactly the right project for three to six year olds.
He did and the kids had a great time. Everybody got to hammer something, turn a few screws and slap on primer or paint or both. The kids took home the birdhouses that they made, souvenirs of an unforgettable afternoon in Mr. Bill’s workshop.
We, of course, have all the prototypes and trial runs still here. So Bill put them up in different spots around the yard and they’ve been very successful. We’ve had wrens and tufted titmouses (titmice?) in the back and English sparrows out front.
The English sparrows got their house a little dirty and Bill suggested that’s because they are English. My heritage. I guess German sparrows would have been on their wings and knees every morning scrubbing around the perch!
Watching the mom and dad fly in to feed their screaming little nestlings over and over again is very addictive. But you know those parents must get sick to death of it. Here’s a worm. Fly away. Fly back. Here’s a worm. It doesn’t matter how exhausting or monotonous it gets, that’s what they’re supposed to do, so they do it.
That got me thinking about human families and all the things that we are supposed to do and somehow manage to do it.
I hardly remember a time when my mother didn’t work. Even back in those days, when most mom’s were stay-at-home, mine was not. It was partly economics. My dad made decent money as a laborer, but my mom’s paycheck meant more than pin money. And she really liked working. She was a practical nurse and a very good one. She took a lot of pride that. Pride she didn’t have in her haphazard housekeeping, messy sewing and brown thumb.
So with that example and all the time and money it took to get my education, it seemed pretty unextraordinary for me to have kids and a job. Until I managed to support myself with writing, I worked as a professional librarian.
Not that I would recommend it. Parenting is hard enough just by itself. Adding career on top of it, is probably crazy.
I remember very clearly what it was like. I’d finish my day at work and be just exhausted as I dragged myself through the parking garage to my car. Then I’d worm my way through traffic to the freeway which would be crowded to near bursting point. All I wanted was to get home.
Then the reality would dawn on me. Home was no quiet refuge or place of peaceful respite. The hours between my arriving home and the kids’ bedtime were the busiest of the day. Everyone would be grouchy and tired and hungry, especially hungry. I was supposed to monitor homework and referee sibling disputes while creating something hot, tasty and nutritious in the kitchen.
There would be laundry piled up and mold growing in the bathroom. I would have, unbeknownst to me, been volunteered to send twenty-five President’s Day cupcakes to school the next day. And there would be a very annoyed message on the answering machine from the receptionist at the orthodontist’s office because I’d forgotten our appointment again.
My husband helped, but he was tired too. More often than not we’d snap at each other. That is, if we got a chance to talk at all.
So as my commute continued, my mind got clearer. Approaching my exit, I confess, there were many days that I thought to myself, "What if I just kept driving?"
I could skip my exit, keep heading north and eventually I’d end up in Canada. Maybe they would never find me.
But every day, I clicked on my blinker and eased right onto the frontage road.
I did it, because that was what I was supposed to do.
Here’s a worm. Fly away. Fly back. Here’s a worm.
I guess that English sparrow and I have even more in common than I thought.
And I would venture to say that neither of us have any regrets.
This was first published in 2008, but this morning I decided it was worth re-posting. Hope you enjoyed it. P

This morning a theme dawns on us

While we were drinking coffee together in the gray light of morning, Bill and I began to discuss our philosophy of decorating. It's not a very common topic for us. Mostly because our life seems overfilled with other things. But I recently finished my next book and I'm waiting to hear the first comments from my editor. Typically this is the time of the year when I get my annual medical check-up, visit the dentist, embark on a new exercise routine and think about other things, like decorating.
I love to watch the cable channels with their home makeover challenges. It's amazing how they can make a room unrecognizable in 72 hours. But now that I think about it, my kids were able to do that in twenty minutes. Decorating is all about style and color and theme. Theme is BIG in the lexicon of decorators. It gives a home, a room, a handle to grab on to. Everything in the room should fit into it and enhance it.
Bill and I were thinking that in our house is lacking in theme, or dare I say, theme-less.
When we married in 2001, my little bungalow was pleasantly full of furniture, knick-knacks, treasured history and objects d'art. Some of it I'd bought, some came from the homes of my parents and grandparents. There are even pieces whose origin is lost to history. (Was this my sister's or did my college dorm mate leave this when she moved out?) Bill was living in a house just down the street from mine. He had plenty of things as well. And when we plighted our respective troths, well it got pretty crowded around here. Over time we've managed to "outsource" a number of things to kids, friends and Goodwill Industries to the point that we no longer have to clear a path to walk in and out the door.
We have established a rule, that neither of us can buy anything that we don't already have a place for. This works pretty well, but there are still the unexpected additions. This week one of the kids is moving and dropped off a bookcase end table that he no longer wanted. The sturdy piece, constructed from old growth walnut was built by my father in his high school shop class. It was a fixture in my grandparent's living room for perhaps sixty years. My grandfather kept his reading material there and when Grandma got too much for him, he was known to turn down his hearing aid and lose himself in Salvation Army Magazine, the Reader's Digest or the poetry of James Whitcomb Riley. When my grandparents died, it became mine and it has fitted itself into the numerous apartments and houses with purposes unique to each locale. I'm not sure exactly how it ended up in my stepson's bachelor pad, but it's nice to have it home again and living among those who might occasionally dust it.
Because it is dark wood and has the bookcase feature, we decided to put it here in my office. It fits in nicely and already looks as if it has been a part of this room forever.
So Bill and I sat here, sipping our coffee and admiring it, imagining the wood being carefully cut on the table saw at Oilton High in 1937. Thinking of how proudly Dad might have presented it to his parents, his grade 'A' marked in chalk on the underside. I remembered it covered with a crochet doily, as the location of the button jar in my childhood. And sitting next to my big reading rocker in my first home in Tulsa, the one with orange shag carpeting. We speculated on the books that had filled its shelf in the last 73 years. Maybe 1st editions of Cimarron and Grapes of Wrath, a dog-eared copy of The Greatest Story Ever Told. And my own reading history, when Girl of the Limberlost made way for graduate school texts on librarianship, which got replaced by What to Expect When You're Expecting and then Curious George.
That's how, in a discussion of decorating, we figured out our theme. Our decor revolves around memories. It's about looking at our life, and the lives of people we love, in the long term. And everything in every room encourages and enhances that theme. Some day maybe our grandkids will see it the same way.