Becky Clark's Blog, page 4

Stars in Our Eyes

My daughter in 1990

Yesterday was launch day for BOOKED, the first book in the Sugar Mill Marketplace series. Yay!

The early reviews are positive and make me very, very happy, because it’s scary to put a book out into the world!

Until the world at large sees it, you don’t truly know if you’ve done what you set out to do.

That said, reviews aren’t for the author. They’re for readers. Once the book is out of an author’s hands, it’s communal property and people get to have ideas about it, which is terrifying and exhilarating.

And the 5-star rating system? I was flabbergasted when I found out people used those stars for their own purposes. I had no idea! People told me they clicked the 1-star to remind them they already read the book. Or because they wanted to read it. Or they considered one-star the best rating. They were just as flabbergasted when I told them that’s not how those stars work.

There’s also a distinct difference between “bad” reviews and “negative” reviews.

A negative review points out the problems a reader had with the book. Too long, too short, typos, not funny, too sad, I figured out the plot. All of these (and more) are perfectly valid issues to discuss.

A bad review, on the other hand, is completely unfair, but often hilarious. One star because I ordered the wrong book. One star because the book arrived with a creased cover. One star because I didn’t like the font. Okay, I made up that last one, but you believed it for a minute, didn’t you?

These reviews from my author friends are funny because any reader who uses reviews to decide what to read will not be swayed against your book if they read one of these. They will think they’re funny too.

• “My dragon steampunk book got a one star because it had too much steampunk.”
• “This reads like a short story, about my 20,000-word novella.”
• “My urban fantasy was one starred for having a dragon in it. (I’m considering doing a FB ad using the quote.)”

This reminded me of my very favorite lemons-to-lemonade review moment.

A restaurant in Ireland did that very thing and people flocked to try the salad. I heard she also had t-shirts made with that image and can’t keep them in stock. That renews my faith in humanity.

Here are some one-star reviews that also make me laugh.

• Wolf of Wall Street: “No wolves. One star.”
• Great Gatsby: “My favorite thing about this book? It was short.”
• Wuthering Heights: “Vile people are mean to one another.”
• Emma: “It’s great if you’re into that old 1800s kind of speech.”
• The Runaway Bunny: “Terribly disturbing.”
• Gone Girl: “I was disappointed. Definitely not a happy ending.”
• Old Man and the Sea: “Worst book ever. Just throw the fish back in.”

Regardless, an author can never, ever engage with a reviewer. Not even to say thank you. Which is easy for me because I rarely read my reviews. I have a personal motto about reviews, whether positive or negative—Never read them; you might start believing them.

The only downside to a funny bad review is that it drags down an author’s star-rating. Not the be-all, end-all to a career, of course, but with high ratings come certain professional perks like higher ad placement, and “if you like so-and-so, you’ll like Becky Clark,” and the like.

I’m also reminded of a writing contest I judged. Unpublished writers entered the contest and as part of the fee, received in return a written critique of their three chapters. I read one person’s entry and was blown away. It was perfect. Literally. Everything about it was perfect. I gave it a high score, and sent off my glowing praise, about a paragraph long. I immediately got it back from the contest coordinator telling me I had to write some constructive criticism, since that’s what the writer had paid for. I argued there was nothing I could tell this writer, but the coordinator insisted that I had to write a full page of critique. I did, but I felt like the Peanuts gang writing their 100-word book report on Peter Rabbit.

[LUCY]

And they were very, very, very, very, very, very
Happy to be home

[SCHROEDER/SALLY/SNOOPY]
The end

[LUCY]
…94, 95. The very, very, very end

Don’t get me wrong. I relish every review I get. Each review is tangible evidence that a reader read my book and cared enough about it (or me) to want to discuss it in public.

For a writer, there’s nothing better than that. And if it’s tied up with a 5-star bow? Well, that’s something that will always feel like winning the lottery, the glittery sash, the belt buckle, and the blanket of 554 red roses all at once.

So I want to offer a huge THANK YOU to everyone who ever reviewed or rated one of my books. Even the person who long ago said about my 99-cent “healthy living” digital book … “a waste of e-ink.” It still makes me laugh.  

Do you write reviews? Why or why not? Do you read book reviews? Do they sway you in any way? Have you seen (or received) any funny reviews?

Of Rats and Newborn Koalas

March 23 was release day for RAT RACE (yay!). It’s the 99c novella that kicks off my new Sugar Mill Marketplace Mysteries series.

But I’ll tell you, I never thought it would get here. Not because I was wiggly with excitement like I usually am for a new release, but because I honestly wasn’t sure I could make it happen.

I’m sure you heard—because I whined about it incessantly and melodramatically—that I was sick for almost 8 weeks in January and February. And not with anything interesting … just a stupid cold! But I guess because I hadn’t been sick in so long, I have the immune system of a newborn koala* and it took its toll.

And—not to whine incessantly and melodramatically—it wasn’t just any stupid cold. It rendered me helpless … like a newborn—never mind. But I couldn’t work. Couldn’t function hardly at all.

The only thing I could do was wallow around like a newborn ko and think about all my work that wasn’t getting done.

Along with RAT RACE in March, I’m launching BOOKED in April, PLOTTED in May, and BOUND in June. I had a meticulous and perhaps overzealous writing and production schedule that suddenly had a rather dramatic eight-week gap in it. Egad.

But when I began feeling human again, a weird thing happened. Instead of bouncing up and diving into the task at hand to get back on track, I became paralyzed. Couldn’t do anything. Didn’t know what to do or where to start.

But more alarming, I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

You regulars here at Chicks probably know me well enough by now to know that I am the sunniest of optimists. Nothing gets me down. My glass is not just half-full, it’s overflowing with the elixir of happiness and Ghost-of-Christmas-Present-good-cheer.

This was a little bit scary to me, but oh well, I still had BOUND to write. So I shoved all that ickiness down deep and started typing until I got to a serviceable ending to the draft.

But then, it all bubbled up again.

Don’t wanna.
Why am I doing this?
This is a ridiculous endeavor.
DON’T WANNA!

I did a bit of soul-searching and finally had an epiphany … this is what burnout looks (and feels) like!

That changed everything.

I clicked away the manuscript. (I almost said I put it in a drawer, but c’mon, I’m not some eighteenth-century scribe sharpening the nub on my quill pen.)

And I quit thinking about the writing and started focusing on the producing.

I made this cool graphics hub for my Review Crew and other rabid fans. I formatted the manuscripts I’d finished. I set up preorders. I revamped my welcome sequence when people subscribe to my mailing list to give them even more freebies (squee!). I brainstormed keywords. I agonized over blurbs (which you’ll find hilarious if you go to the preorder page for BOUND). I rewrote procedures for my Review Crew so I wouldn’t sound like such a maniacal taskmaster when it was time to send them ARCs. I dealt with the US Copyright Office and lived to tell the tale.

In short, I engaged an entirely different area of my brain.

And guess what? I snapped out of it! It energized me in a way the drafting of the manuscript hadn’t.

And guess what else? I still met my launch date goal for RAT RACE, and I truly believe I’ll hit the marks for the next three books. (Although, just to hedge my bets and not put undue pressure on my delicate self, I did make the pre-order dates for all three of those December 1st. I’ll change them when I’m sure. Girl can’t be too careful with her newfound epiphany, eh?)

So, I’m happy and relieved that RAT RACE is out in the world, and the next three in the series are up for preorder and falling into place quite nicely.

I think I’ll reward myself with some eucalyptus leaves.

*no idea if newborn koalas have delicate immune systems but it has truthiness to it so I’m leaving it.

How ‘bout you? Have you ever become stymied by something you never even thought about before? Did a change of scenery—mental or physical—do the trick for you too? Do you think of me as a helpless and delicate newborn koala? Are you afraid that the tiniest whisper of wind will knock me from my eucalyptus tree?

Proofreading

Raise your hand if you think proofreading is a dying art.

Actual headlines …

• Man Kills Self Before Shooting Wife and Daughter … that is one talented murderer

• Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says  … Good thing they called in an expert.

• Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers … that’ll stop ’em

• Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over … very noble of him

• Miners Refuse to Work after Death … rest in peace

• Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant … well, if Scared Straight doesn’t work, then they are just about out of options

• War Dims Hope for Peace … such Negative Nellies

• If Strike Isn’t Settled Quickly, It May Last Awhile … yes, I think that might be correct

• Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures … those crazy global warming nutjobs are at it again

• Enfield (London) Couple Slain; Police Suspect Homicide … or was it Colonel Mustard?

• Red Tape Holds Up New Bridges … must be some kind of Super Duct Tape – and it comes in designer colors. Sweet!

• New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group … weren’t they fat enough?

• Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft … if he dealt it, then he should!

• Kids Make Nutritious Snacks … do they taste like chicken?

• Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half … they are strict there!

• Hospitals are sued by 7 Foot Doctors … because the ceilings were too low?

• Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead … Wait. What?

Got any more good ones?

How To Put Sunscreen On A Dog

I wrote this in 2016, but it popped up in my memory recently because I was looking at Nala’s nose, and even though I gave up without much of a fight, her nose has almost returned to normal. It’s not black, but the hair has grown back and it’s not scary pink anymore. But I don’t know when that happened! It’s like finally noticing that your kids are taller than you. What?? When did that happen? But anyway … I thought you’d enjoy this little peek behind the curtain of a dog owner.

Nala the WonderDog was recently diagnosed with Discoid Lupus Erythematosus (DLE). Colorado, where we live, has an extremely high rate of auto-immune diseases, both in people and in pets. And they don’t really know why.

Just like “people lupus,” DLE is an immune disease, but instead of affecting the whole body, it mostly just affects her nose.

Over the course of about 18 months, she has slowly lost the black pigment and cobblestone texture of her nose. No other symptoms, and it doesn’t bother her one bit.

There’s no cure for DLE, but symptoms can be managed with a topical ointment my dermatology veterinarian prescribes. [Yeah, read that again. I have a doggie dermatologist.] I expect to receive it in the next day or two and I’m told within a couple of months, we’ll see her nose return to its former glory. I’ll report back.

In the meantime, and forever, I’m supposed to put sunscreen on her widdle nose before she goes outside for longer than 10 minutes. It has to be broad-spectrum, at least 30 SPF, waterproof, and non-toxic.

I’ve been doing this for a couple of weeks, kinda sorta, and I’ve come to the conclusion there are Four Stages of Dog Sunscreening one must pass through.

First Stage—Oblivious

This is where you think “how hard can it be?” You dab a bit of sunscreen on your finger, rub it on her nose then walk away, thinking your job is done. That nose is licked clean before you even cap the tube.

Second Stage—Reasoning

Here, you apply the sunscreen using the same logic you would with your children or recalcitrant spouse, saying things like, “We can’t go outside until you put it on” and “All the other husbands are doing it.” It’s very similar to telling a child (or a recalcitrant spouse), “You can’t have your dessert if you don’t eat your veggies.” Unfortunately, reasoning of this kind is wasted on dogs who eat sticks, bugs, grass, and all manner of things you wouldn’t think to bribe them with. “Dessert” holds no special meaning to a dog, unless of course, it’s delicious, like zinc oxide.

Third Stage—Bait & Switch

This is where you apply it with your right hand, while you’re doling out love with the left. (Or versa-dextrous.) “Who’s a good girl, standing so still while getting sunscreened?” … scritch, scritch … “Who’s Mommy’s favorite?” … knead, knead … “Who’s getting more attention than my children ever did?” … pat, pat, scritch, scritch

But ultimately, you realize that none of these strategies are really working as you’d like. Which leads us to the

Fourth Stage—Hopeful

It looks like this: dab – lick – dab – lick – this time’ll be different – dab – lick – dab – lick – dab – lick – this time’ll be different – dab – lick.  Repeated until one of you passes out from ennui. Hint. It won’t be the dog.

This is very much an example of “pilling a duck.”

What ridiculous things have you done for your pet?

Cover Chaos

I really love the process of book cover art and working with my designer.

Until recently, that is.

I’ve worked with the same designer since I got the rights back to my Mystery Writer’s series. We decided we liked the idea of the chair on the cover of FICTION CAN BE MURDER which the original publisher had used, so we revamped that theme, using a different chair for each cover.

My sleuth Charlee Russo in the Mystery Writer’s series is a—surprise!—mystery writer so a cozy reading chair made sense. FOUL PLAY ON WORDS takes place at a writers’ conference in a hotel in Portland, so that’s the chair on the cover. A pivotal scene in METAPHOR FOR MURDER takes place around an outdoor firepit, so the Adirondack chair is perfect. And a Christmas play is the catalyst in POLICE NAVIDAD, so Santa’s throne is the obvious choice there.

My new soon-to-be-out Sugar Mill Marketplace series was a bit harder, but after a few stabs, he and I got something we both loved.

To refresh your memory, this will be a 15-book series, essentially five trilogies set in the same place with a huge cast of characters. The Marketplace is home to a bookstore, bakery, cheese shop, photo studio, and chocolate shop—and others, but these are the core businesses.

I wanted something other than the cartoony covers, maybe something a bit avant garde, at least in the world of cozies. Each trilogy had to be tied together, but at a glance, I wanted all fifteen books to be obviously part of the bigger series.

Here, the first three books center on Dena Russo and her used book store. I gave her the color blue, which you can see gets lighter as her trilogy goes along.

The bakery trilogy will be pink (probably), with a different storefront and the name of the bakery, and the cat and dog silhouettes in different positions. Same with the cheese shop, the photo studio, and the chocolate shop. I haven’t finalized their colors, but I want them to all look good lined up next to each other, nothing jarringly out of place. A lovely rainbow of book covers.

But before I could pull the trigger on the first cover, I had to make sure all fifteen would work. All the titles are one word and have to do with both the shop and the crime in the book. The three bakery books are BEATEN, FROSTED, and BURNED. The photo studio books are EXPOSED, SNAPPED, and MANIPULATED. The cheese books are CHEESED, GRILLED, and SMOKED. And the chocolate shop books are FUDGED, SUGARCOATED, and DROPPED. So I had to make my designer plop in the longest title and the shortest title to make sure they were all going to work in the template.

When we were happy with that, we found five stores we liked, and then fifteen different dogs and cats in different poses. Actually, we only needed fourteen German shepherds because Twist doesn’t show up until book #2.

But we finally got it all worked out … easy peasy, and relatively painless.

Then I had to decide how I wanted the cover of RAT RACE to look. It’s the bridge novella linking the two series together. I mentioned Charlee Russo in the Mystery Writer’s series. She lives in Denver and is the daughter of Dena Russo, who owns Thrice Sold Tales in the Marketplace series. RAT RACE stars both of them solving a mystery while Charlee is visiting Dena in Santa Fe, and Dena’s subsequent move to Sugar Springs, Colorado and opening the bookstore.

I had the brilliant idea of creating a cover that had elements of both series because technically, RAT RACE is book #5 of the Mystery Writer’s series and book #0 of the Marketplace series.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t think of how to pull this off. And neither could my designer.

Here’s a tiny sampling of our efforts …

You can see the first try was horrendous. We tried combining the chair with a weird Santa Fe background. Nope.

Then I sent him the historical building I was kinda-sorta basing my Marketplace on. Okay … maybe. We used the font from the Mystery Writer’s series and the tilt of the Marketplace series. There are three important things in the novella: a diner, a birthday gift, and a rat. The diner stool hearkens to the chair on the covers of the Mystery Writer’s books and the road shows the Marketplace is in a different place from the diner, so that’s cool, but that gift bag looks weird. The box looks even weirder. Not entirely happy with that rat hanging off the edge, and can we do something to make it look like a birthday gift?

I sent some screenshots of real-life gifts bags to my designer that I thought looked particularly adult-gift-bag-worthy, so he created a festive polka dotted one. But I couldn’t find a rat I liked better. The white tissue paper looks like part of the clouds, and can we add some curling ribbon and a “happy birthday” tag? Oops, forgot the subtitle. Oops the subtitle is wrong. Oops, the subtitle is still wrong.

But finally, after a barrage of emails, designs, ideas, suggestions, screenshots, and a few tears on my part (and maybe his), we got it right.

 

Or as close as I’m going to get!

The RAT RACE process was so frustrating because it’s the first cover where I had no idea how I wanted it to look. Zero, zip, zilch. And it’s only a 99¢ novella … just 120 pages! How can it be so hard??

It’s finally out to my Review Crew, and the first three in the series will be released in the next few months.

Whew!

My fragile ego can’t accept criticism of my covers at the moment—mainly because I already paid for them—but I will accept gushing praise, true and heartfelt or not. I’ve got to admit I don’t care much about book covers, as long as they convey a sense of the story, a hint of the genre. I don’t know if that makes it easier or harder to design them, though. But I am curious … how important are covers to you when choosing a book? If it’s an unknown author to you, is the cover more important than if you aren’t wild about a cover from an author you already know you like? Do you buy books simply because of the cover, or conversely, refuse to pick one up and explore further if you hate the cover?  

I Guess There Are Worse Stories

Today is the six-year anniversary of the date of my spinal surgery.

If you haven’t heard my sad, gruesome tale, frankly I’m surprised because I talk about it more than your grandpa talks about how he used to be able to service his own car.

But if you haven’t—or would like a refresher into those crazy days—here and here are a couple of links about the removal of a benign meningioma from inside (I know!!) my spinal column.

I talk about it a lot for several reasons.

One, I find myself endlessly fascinating.

Two, I process things by writing about them.

Three, it’s easily the most exciting thing that ever happened to me. And I’ve been on Space Mountain.

Four, I couldn’t find a single first-person account of this ordeal when I needed it, so maybe someone who is going through the same thing might stumble upon my words.

Fifteen years ago, my boys were going into the Navy and I wrote a ton about that too. I still get spouses and parents of the newly-enlisted thanking me for writing about it and shedding light on what to expect. Boot camp is scary—much like spinal surgery but with more people yelling at you—and offering a lucid, factual, humorous take on it was apparently quite appreciated.

But six years on from my surgery … what is there to say?

I guess I could update on the physical part of it all. My balance is still wonky. What was numb five-and-a-half years ago is still numb today: upper back, right armpit, entire left leg and foot. Nerves, as my doctor told me, can be assholes. I still get hilarious electric jolts, although much less frequently. I’ll be minding my own business, watching a movie or something, when out of the blue my left leg will pop up like Eggos out of a toaster. It never fails to make me laugh.  

[Side note here: if I hadn’t written about my spicy leg and foot, I never would have known how many people in my orbit had never experienced the thrill of putting their tongue on a 9-volt battery. I thought everyone embraced that rite of passage! If you haven’t, go do it right now in solidarity with my leg. Go ahead. I’ll wait. See?? Wasn’t that a hoot?]

At the time of the surgery, nobody could tell me what “healing” or even “healed” would look like, so, like a dummy, I decided it would be exactly like I’d been before surgery. Well, six months before surgery. I’d be back tap dancing, which I had taken up the year before and was advancing at poorly but enthusiastically. Now my tap shoes are dusty, and lacing them up is an exercise in … perhaps not futility, but something very similar.

In the six months or so post-surgery, every time I’d get in the shower, I’d have a tickle of hope that when I suds up my armpit, I’d actually feel it. I don’t remember when I quit expecting it, but it hasn’t happened yet.

I never, ever, EVER forget how lucky I am, though. My neurosurgeon was so calm and confident that it didn’t occur to me until I was back at home recuperating that I could have been paralyzed if he was just a hair off his game that day. My tumor, growing slowly for at least ten years, was bulging my spinal cord out. Instead of my spinal cord looking like a capital I, it looked more like a capital D.

So what if when I tap dance I look like a walrus running on the beach? (Truth be told, I probably looked like that before the surgery too. Enthusiasm, remember? Shrug.)

So what if when I walk down my driveway to get the mail my neighbors think I’ve been day drinking?

So what if my leg suddenly loses power going up or down the stairs?

There are benefits too, don’t forget. For instance, I’ve learned that if I use my numb foot to take that cold step across the bathroom tile, I don’t even feel the cold!

And there’s … um …

Okay, fine. That’s the only benefit I could think of, but it’s a pretty good one!

I kept a lot of notes about all this—A LOT. I intended to write some kind of memoir about it. But here’s the thing about memoirs. There has to be closure, some kind of lesson, a mountaintop epiphany, a character arc of some kind. My story doesn’t have that.

My story is simply, “here’s an interesting thing that happened to me, nothing really bad happened, I didn’t learn anything, and my life didn’t change much.”

I guess there are worse stories.

A Writer’s Charcuterie

I recently finished writing PLOTTED, book #2 of my new Sugar Mill Marketplace series. Right now, the Marketplace consists of a used bookstore, bakery, chocolate shop, photography studio, and a cheese shop.

My cheesemonger, Skyler (think Meg Ryan back in the day), is teaching a charcuterie board class after the Marketplace closes one Friday night, so I had to do some research about how to design cheese boards. It’s not complicated, but I wanted to make sure I hit the high points.

There are a zillion different kinds and sizes of charcuterie boards, mostly wooden, and they can have anything on them. Classic boards, though, are comprised of meats, cheeses, crackers, olives, nuts, fruits, and veggies. Maybe some sauces and spreads for dipping, maybe a bit of greenery, some cute little pickles. You arrange everything in an attractive style and voila … creative snacking.

photo by Sara Alder at pexels.com

My research, as usual, led me down some fun rabbit holes. There were thousands of photos of gorgeous, mouth-watering charcuterie boards, but also some unusual ones.

Pancake boards? Yes, please!

Easter candy boards? Count me in!

Football-themed boards with cheese arranged in the shape of a goalpost? Touchdown!

Holiday boards in the shape of Christmas trees or wreaths? Not even a Grinch could resist!

Charcuterie boards covered in round foods only? Boards themed by ethnic bites? Red food boards?

Check, check, check.

I began to wonder what else could be represented by a properly-arranged charcuterie board.

What about your fix-it bench? Wouldn’t it look much better with an artistic array of screws, nails, brads, toggles, and tools beautifully appointed on a polished mahogany board?

How ‘bout something to make housecleaning more lovely? Arrange a medley of bowls filled with cleansers and caustic substances alongside scrubbers, rags, and brushes. Think how much more enjoyable your chores would be!

My granddaughters have a wide assortment of hair doodads. How much easier morning routines would be if they could be presented with an exquisite display for their selections.

All of those would, of course, be quite useful. But any charcuterie tray should show the personality of the designer. With that in mind, I accepted the challenge of creating my very first Writer’s Charcuterie Board.

What items would you include on your personal charcuterie board? What would represent you?

The Zen of Stupidity

This blog post popped up in my memories the other day. Even though it was written in 2009, as 2022 begins to wind down, it seems like an excellent time to not only keep blaming the Broncos, but also to purge and back-up your digital life.

Normally I’d waste this space with my self-described hilarious blog antics but I’ve decided to try something different this time. I’m going to waste this space with a hilarious story about my extreme stupidity.

Lest you worry about my self-esteem, rest assured I am intact. Gorged and oozing, in fact, with self-esteem. I shouldn’t be, but there it is. One of life’s many mysteries.

I did something recently that is quite possibly the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, as long as we agree to overlook the 10th grade perm and the red pleather coat I begged my mother to buy me. (That’s when I learned that despite its delightfully shiny redness, pleather coats consistently fail to keep the Wyoming chill from blowing right through a skinny girl. At least I was smart enough not to complain to my mother who was itching to launch a well-deserved told you so.)

The perm and the coat don’t rise to the top of my Stupidity Scale, though, because I didn’t know any better. But I do know that hard drives crash and one should obsessively back up all computer data.

Duh. I know that. Third graders know that. Heck, even the squirrel on my deck knows that. Why else would he be twitching his tail in that holier-than-thou manner?

Do you see where this is going?

Did I obsessively back up all my files? No. No, I did not. Most of them, but not all of them. I have—and use—an FTP site … I have a million little USB drives … I email things to myself.

I know better, but I’ve never, in the 20+ years I’ve been computing, had a computer problem. I became complacent.

Here’s a weird karmic twist to the tale, befitting a BeckyLand story. My husband recently bought me an external hard drive so I could start using Time Machine which automatically backs up stuff every eighteen seconds. If the Broncos would have played at 2:00 instead of 11:00 that fateful Sunday, then I might have dodged a bullet. We would have set it up in the morning instead of waiting until after the game.

Guess when it crashed.

The stages of grief whooshed through my psyche at warp speed, so I was fairly calm by Monday morning. Waiting to talk to the Geniuses at the Apple Store was nerve-racking, until they told me it was hopeless and sent me home with a new computer for free. (Note to self: Apple Care ROCKS!) They even gave me my old hard drive and the name of a local data recovery place, Datatech Labs.

I visited them on Monday to tell them my sad story, one I’m sure they’ve heard a million times. Clearly, these are people who’ve been extensively trained in grief counseling. They spoke softly. They made no sudden movements. They even offered butterscotch candy and hugs …. Wait. I might be thinking of my grandmother. But they were very soothing. Never once did they mock or jeer or snicker behind my back.

My new best friend, Stephan, took my broken and battered hard drive into his softly cupped palms and carried it lovingly to the clean room to check it out. When he came out, he was smiling. “Looks like we can recover all the data.”

But then the bad news. $300 to repair the hard drive enough that they can get the data, then another $1700 to recover it. But only if they recover it. No recovery charge if they can’t get it.

[Despite the cost—and my ultimate decision not to pay for the recovery—if you ever find yourself in a similar pickle, you’d do well to call Datatech. They come highly recommended and they won’t mock you. They’d probably even give you a hug if you looked like you needed one.]

I’m not really into self-flagellation, but I do think I need to be punished. If you simply throw money at a problem, then you won’t really learn anything, right? That might be how Wall Street works, but we’re better than that, kids.

Realistically, nobody died, the sun keeps coming up every day, and I didn’t lose anything irreplaceable. I am much more fortunate than others. Everything I lost I can recreate, should I accept that challenge. It will be time-consuming, but not impossible. Some of the stuff I’ll probably never need again. As I tried to list everything I knew I lost, I’m sure I didn’t remember half of it. It was there because I had the space for it. So it seems like a good time for a purge.

Less like a tragic house fire, and more like a healthy, ruthless cleaning of my closets.

But the lesson is important … back up obsessively in several different ways because thumb drives can fail, large external drives can fail, software can fail. And always—always—blame the Broncos.

How do you back up your work?

Spatchcocking The Bird

(This is a post from 2009. But I stumbled on it recently and it made me giggle so I thought maybe you’d like it too.)

It sounds like as much fun as it was.

I promised the BeckyLand readers immoderate amounts of information and photos from our Thanksgiving bacchanal, so here you go.

The word “spatchcock”—for those of you not up-to-date on archaic vocabulary—is a combination of “dispatch” meaning to prepare poultry for cooking (including all the indelicate parts from killing to feathering to trimming; you know, the stuff you don’t want to know about) and “cock” meaning bird. Dispatch the cock. Spatchcock.

The more modern meaning would be “tell your husband to remove himself from the recliner because it’s time to fight with this slippery turkey and we have a zillion people coming over soon.”

Come. Join me on a pictorial tutorial through a half hour of our Thanksgiving morning. Apologies to my vegetarian friends and those foreigners who might not comprehend the desperate measures and sacrifices Americans make on this holiest of Eating Holidays.

Posing and dancing the bird on the counter is the first step. That’s how you know if it’s ripe.

Cut one side of the backbone …

… then the other …

… finally removing it altogether. Then hope your grandma doesn’t smite you from her heavenly perch for not saving it to make soup.

Almost spatched.

Turn it over. Maneuver it one last time in a demure pose. After all, how would you feel to be all naked on the kitchen counter like that?!

Press firmly on the sternum until it makes a delicious cracking sound. Like a really good chiropractic adjustment.

Spatched.

And posed one last time. Just because it’s fun.

Ready to cook …

Cooked. Quite delish.

The benefits to spatchcocking are numerous and include more than just getting to play with your food. Your turkey cooks in about half the time, but choose one that’s no more than 15 pounds. (This one was about 11 pounds. We did another one in the traditional way. You know, in a bag.) You can get the spices everywhere much easier. Breast and thighs are done at the same time. Crispier skin. Easier to carve. Guaranteed blog entry with maybe the extra bonus of angry vegetarian comments.

You will sacrifice the big Norman Rockwell presentation, but by the time that happens, everyone is all liquored up anyway and just wants to tear into a drumstick.

Chief Spatchcocker says I wouldn’t be able to do it myself but methinks he underestimates the mighty, mighty power of my willfullness. Or what I’d do for a blog entry.

So … what do you think? Will you spatchcock YOUR bird?

What Are You Waiting For Day

Years ago I read an article that has stuck with me. If you know me at all, you’ll realize how profound this statement truly is. I mean, I have to look up my own phone number most of the time.

But this article was written by a couple of wine experts who wanted people to celebrate Open That Bottle Night. They were advocating for people to quit saving bottles of wine for special occasions.

The occasions never seem to be special enough, so the bottles just sit. They want you to open the wine, recall the reasons … the memories … the special events you saved it for in the first place.

Enjoy it!

Their most important tip—be sure to have a back-up bottle in case yours has turned to vinegar. That could really put a damper on the festivities.

I really like this idea because, it can apply to other things as well.

I’ve started to use the teapot I bought in Winchester, England when I was a student there. It was crazy of 20-year-old me to think I could cart home a teapot, four cups and saucers and expect them to remain unshattered. But I was blessed with the optimism of youth. And sturdy luggage.

My teapot has always had a prominent place in the house, but for years I just glanced at it occasionally, reaching past it for some other kitchen gadget. I worried about breaking it and set it up high in the hutch thirty-some years ago when we started having kids.

But the first of these kids—I’ll call her “my daughter”—spent a semester in London when she was in college and took a day trip full of perfect coincidence and charming serendipity to Winchester, to see this magical town where her parents lived for a short time, but talk about constantly.

Because of her trip, we were back in touch with a zillion old Chapman College (now Chapman University) pals and seeing oodles of amusing photos from that time. Halloween costumes, unfortunate hair, shiny grins with a mouth full of metal. Ah, good times.

Anyway, memories keep flooding back. One was how my American roommate, Leslie, would put 20-pence on the porch of our house in Winchester before she went to bed and magically, in the morning there would be a bottle of milk waiting for her. We’d use the cream at the top in our tea, and she’d drink the rest. It was the beginning of my long friendship with tea.

I noticed my teapot recently and stopped what I was doing to make a pot of tea, savoring both the warmth in my cup and the warmth of those days gone by.

Why do I have to be reminded to get reacquainted with my teapot?

As of this minute I am launching What Are You Waiting For Day. To be celebrated whenever, wherever, and with whomever you want. The more often, the better!

Life is short—you never know what tomorrow will bring. Live your life … enjoy your special things … eat your hot dogs off Grandma’s china tonight … take that quilt off the wall and wrap up in it while you read to the kids … use a different spoon from your State Parks Spoon Collection to stir your coffee every day.

But remember where you got it and why you saved it.

What are your special things? How will you start celebrating What Are You Waiting For Day?