Judith Post's Blog, page 3

I’m Finally Getting Back To It

I’m still struggling with stomach problems, but I’m getting better, and I’m awake more hours than I was before. Which means, my fingers are finding their way to my keyboard. And even though it’s a bumpy start, I’m working on The Body in the Lobby again. I love this book. It has some odd, dysfunctional characters that intrigue me.

I read once that a culture’s view of religion is often based on how hard or easy it is to survive where they live. The Vikings believed that to get to Valhalla, a warrior had to die in combat. A bit of a dim view, but then, just to survive a long, bitter winter took lots of preparation and stamina. Many people didn’t make it until spring. Therefore, the Vikings viewed their gods as harsher than most. The Romans, who had an easier climate, thought of their gods as interfering and fickle. Jupiter often had affairs with beautiful mortal women, making his wife, Hera, so jealous she’d punish the women, since she couldn’t punish her husband.

In The Body in the Lobby, the victim is Janis. Her family belongs to a small, odd church that believes that they’re the only true believers who will get a free pass into heaven. When Janis shows signs of leaving the church, and is later killed, her mother tells Jazzi and Gaff that it might be better that Janis died while her soul was still safe. The remark bothers Jazzi until she learns Janis was mostly estranged from her family anyway.

More suspects show up, so Jazzi and Gaff start digging through more clues, all while Jazzi, Ansel, and Jerod are flipping a tea house into condos and later using shipping containers to make into houses. New territory for me, so it’s been fun!

There’s Always Weeds

I still haven’t gotten my stomach problems completely under control. I have good days and bad days, and I’m so far behind on working in my flower beds, it’s going to take the rest of summer to catch up. Why do weeds have to grow so fast??

I tried an experiment last year. For the flower bed beside our back patio, I planted tons of marigolds. They looked wonderful. My friend had marigolds lining the side of her house, and every spring, they reseeded and more marigolds took their place. That was what I was hoping for. Alas. Not one new marigold, but the perfect bare spot with rich dirt for weeds.

I worked on the roses in front of our house first and pulled every weed and sprout of grass around them. They looked perfect for the Memorial Day parade. But then I had a few bad days where nothing much got done. By the time I got out to the patio bed today, it was a sad, sad sight. HH came out to help me, and it took us long enough, but the bed is finally clean. No more annuals. I have six Stella D’Oro daisies to plant, 5 lavender plants, and 2 surprises my daughter bought us. All of them will spread, and they’re ready to bloom. Soon, that bed will look wonderful, and it should look good year after year.

After that, I need to get busy on my big flower bed by the curve in our driveway. It’s full of perennials, and bless their hearts, they’ve bloomed more than usual this year. Tons of daffodils. Some tulips. Tons of alliums and Siberian iris. Right now, the bulb plants are done but the bright yellow primroses and purple flowers with no name are gorgeous. (I bought them at a historical plant sale and no one knew what they were). The bed needs work, but it’s still fun to see when I look out our kitchen’s back windows. Lots of butterflies.

I’m doing better right now, and this weekend is supposed to be nice weather, so guess where I’ll be? Hope you have a wonderful Friday and weekend, too!

A Late Mother’s Day

Our daughter’s a nurse in Indianapolis. Between her schedule and ours, it gets tricky to get together, but she came up to visit on Thursday, spent the night, and then left for home after lunch on Friday. And she brought my Mother’s Day present. She spent too much money on it, but it was so sweet.

Back when I first found my agent, I was writing urban fantasy under Judith Post. Two of my novels were about the Norse god Tyr and the Greek goddess Diana. Most people who love Norse myths focus on Thor or Odin, but Tyr was an interesting god, too, the god of war, justice, and law. When the gods wanted to chain the demonic wolf Fenrir, someone had to keep him busy so the deed could be done. Tyr offered him his right hand to chew off while the others bound him.

For Mother’s Day, our daughter bought a metal statue of Tyr and Fenrir with Tyr’s right hand in the wolf’s mouth. She found it at a specialty shop and it made her think of me and my two books. It’s detailed and heavy. Pretty awesome. I’m not sure every mother would appreciate it the way I do, but I love it. Brought back lots of fond memories of early books I wrote.

Sex in Storylines

I’ve been writing for so long, I can’t remember when I actually got serious about it. I know when I started. I’d been a teacher for six years. I had my first daughter in 1976, A Bicentennial Baby. She got a certificate in the mail from Ronald Reagan. It’s in her baby book. Two years later, I had my second daughter, and all I felt I did was change diapers and feed babies. Robyn had 37 allergies, and I had to be careful what I gave her. I was beginning to feel Brain Numb.

HH signed me up for a class at our local community college for Writing for Fun and Profit. Joan Truitt was the teacher, and she was wonderful. I turned in one of my assignments, and she wrote back that I should try to sell it at Byline Magazine. That sort of shocked me, but I sent it off, and two weeks later, Byline bought it for a whole $25. I remember looking at HH and saying, “Writing’s easy!” LOL. Beginner’s luck. Writing is HARD, and it’s really hard to sell what you write. But I had a lot of luck with small, unknown publishers who often paid in copies. And I finally worked my way up to selling to Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock mystery magazines. I was on a roll, so decided to try my hand at writing a novel.

OMG. My first effort was a complete failure. I’d started out writing stories that were 3,000 to 5,000 words long. I outlined. I tried to develop settings and characters and came in at 20,000 words. Pitiful. Luckily, there was a small newspaper publisher who supplied stories for people getting on airplanes, Penny Paper Publishing, and they wanted GOURMET KILLINGS. A sale! They bought my next book (?) too, STINGS OF DEATH. HH and I even went to Baltimore for a big signing of that year’s stories that were published. But I really wanted to write a full-length book.

I came close to selling so many times, I don’t even want to think about it. Tor held a YA horror I wrote because they were going to open a new line for that, but after a year, I asked them about it, and they’d lost the manuscript and forgot to get back to me. The joys of publishing. An editor took an urban paranormal I wrote to a sales meeting to convince them to buy, but the salespeople told her they’d just promoted a book with Tarot cards, and they didn’t need another one. Publishing.

I finally got a good agent, but she couldn’t sell my paranormals either. The market was glutted, so she convinced me to try a romance. Easier to sell. And Kensington accepted COOKING UP TROUBLE.

For paranormals, I finally had to write sex scenes. And believe me when I tell you, they’re not strong point. A reader suggested that I have the two people go into the bedroom, close the door, and then look out the window to see fireworks. It would be more exciting. Not much of a compliment. But what I remember very well is that a member of my writers’ group, Ann Wintrode, was in her 80’s, and she got aggravated with me if I didn’t give her a finished manuscript to edit. I thought it was a lot of work and told her so, but she told me she didn’t have anything better to do, so to give her the damn draft. So I did. But I didn’t want to give her FALLEN ANGELS because of the sex scenes. I tried to wiggle out of it, and I told her why. She looked at me with her vivid, sharp blue eyes and said, “Sex is part of life. None of us would be here if our parents didn’t have any. Get over yourself and quit letting your mother read over your shoulder. You’ll be a better writer.”

And she was right. I DID worry about what Mom would say if she read that book. And once I quit fussing about that, I was a better writer. I’ll always remember Ann. She was just plain wonderful.

My Limit

For some odd reason, before I drifted off to sleep last night, I thought of the TV show Gotham. I loved it when it first started. Dark. Moody. Filled with conflict. And I watched it every week for quite a while.

And then, there was a storyline that took Jada Pinkett-Smith, who was a badass, to some weird place where she’d been kidnapped, and they used people to supply body parts for people who had enough money to pay for them. I watched that one episode, and it disturbed me so much, I erased the show from my “watch” list, and I never looked at it again. There are just some things that go too far for me. It makes me uncomfortable to follow them.

It’s not always something disturbing that turns me off. I might start a book where the writing’s so flat, I can’t hang in there and move to something new. The protagonist might be so stupid that I want to hit in her head because she doesn’t have a brain anyway. Or the mood might be so depressing, I feel like I should take a Valium to finish the book. There are many, many reasons that I give up on a storyline. And just like me, I’m sure everyone else has their own “enough is enough” moments in a story.

What turns you off? What makes you give up on a book and go on to the next one?

Bob

If you were a super smart and clever dog, and you witnessed a murder, how could you let anyone know what you know? That was the premise of Poirot’s Dumb Witness, season 6, episode 4. And I loved it. More than knowing who did what, Bob was falsely accused of the accident. The suspect placed Bob’s ball at the top of the stairs to make it look as though his owner stepped on the ball and fell down the stairs. Luckily, she didn’t die. But Bob knows someone tried to kill her. AND that person tried to make it look like it was Bob’s fault.

When Poirot and Hastings come to visit the house, Bob immediately recognizes someone who could solve the crime. He shows Poirot his trick, over and over again. He runs to the top of the steps, drops the ball, then races to the bottom of the steps to catch it and put it in his doggy bed. He never leaves it on the stairs. Poirot’s impressed but doesn’t get the point.Later, when the killer adds phosphorous to the victim’s medicine, and she dies, Bob tries again. And again, no one understands what he’s trying to share.

I have to say, this made me think of our chihuahua, Chewy. When he was alive, he’d come sit in front of me and start making all kinds of different noises, staring at me as though I’d understand what he was trying to tell me. I’d shake my head, and he’d try again. Eventually, he’d shake his head and jump up next to me to snuggle, but I knew he was trying to tell me something and I didn’t have an idea what it might be. Bob must have been as frustrated as Chewy was. Humans aren’t as intelligent as we wish we were.

Somewhere along the plot, though, Poirot realizes that Bob knows things he can’t communicate, and the two start working together to solve the crime. I so enjoyed this whimsical, little twist to a Christie mystery. And at the end, after Poirot exposes the killer, no one wants Bob. It was fun to watch Poirot tell a little white lie to convince two elderly ladies, convinced one of them has the ‘sight,’ that Bob would be the perfect companion for then. It was a fun, light-hearted mystery that I truly enjoyed.

Bridgerton Starts Tonight!

I can hardly wait. HH is at his Thursday night Legion giveaway. He goes every Thursday to meet his friends, play pull tabs, and buy tickets for prizes. He drinks a couple of beers and loves it. I warned him when he left, though, to be ready to watch Bridgerton when he gets home.

I love Bridgerton. I don’t watch many romances. Mostly mysteries. But Bridgerton just pushes the boundaries enough to make me love it. My BFF Julia Donner, who writes Regencies I love and can tell you how many buttons were on women’s dress gloves at a ball, isn’t a fan. She’s enthralled by history, and let’s face it. Bridgerton takes history and warps it into whatever shape it wants. There was no black Queen Chalotte. There were no black aristocrats. Even I know that. But when Regé-Jean Page walked on the screen as the romantic interest for Daphne Bridgerton, all bets were off. The man is gorgeous and sexy. And yes, sex is a big part of Bridgerton. I was a little surprised when there were naked people doing what should only happen behind closed doors, but hey, sex is part of life, right? And they made it look really good. And it fit the characters and the progression of the story.

I like the Regency period. I like the formalities, but people are people. Always have been. Probably always will be. So the emotions, motivations, conflicts…they all interested in me. Tonight, it’s Penelope’s turn to shine. The girl is overweight and far too clever for her own good, but she’s given up on the hope that Colin will ever think of her as anything but a friend. I can’t wait to see how her story plays out. And the show starts soon!

Oldies are Goodies

Last night, HH and I rented the old movie I.Q. with Meg Ryan and Tim Robbins. I loved the string of Meg Ryan comedy romances that came out for a while: When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, I.Q., French Kiss, Addicted to Love, and You’ve Got Mail. In I.Q., she and Tim Robbins create a sweet and tender chemistry. But the thing that really made me love this movie were the oldies who played minor characters.

Walter Matthau plays Meg’s uncle, Albert Einstein. He meets with his retired, brilliant professors every day and they argue the meaning of life. Does time exist? Is an accident ever really an accident or was it preordained, which would mean it wasn’t REALLY an accident? They’re geniuses and naughty and incorrigible. Which made them delightful to watch.

Meg Ryan plays a mathematician and Tim Robbins is a car mechanic who reads science magazines all the time. An unlikely pair, but the four “oldies” work together to make Meg take another look at him, trying to nurture a romance. The plot, of course, throws in all types of mishaps, and the four “oldies” don’t quit interfering until they get the results they want. Just plain fun!

Finally

I’ve been battling diarrhea for over TWO MONTHS. And it just kept getting worse instead of better. I went to a walk-in clinic and asked them to test me for c-diff. One of my BFF is a nurse practitioner. She said it’s the first thing she tests for when a person comes in with stomach problems. The clinic tested me for bacteria and parasites, then told me I had irritable bowel syndrome and gave me a diet to control it. I love to cook. We followed the diet. No fat, grease, fake sweeteners, fresh fruits or vegetables, and no fiber. No Change.

So, I went to our family doctor. I asked her to test me for c-diff. She told me if I had it, I’d be more miserable, in more pain, and sent me for a CT scan instead. The lining of my colon was swollen and unhappy. She sent me home with the same diet I got at the clinic and gave me antibiotics. Everything immediately got worse. I took them for five days, then stopped. By then, I was getting a little desperate. I couldn’t go anywhere, couldn’t leave the house. I didn’t even change out of my pajamas, because I was either in the bathroom or so tired, I was taking a nap.

Another BFF works in admittance at the hospital and told me enough was enough. If I went to the ER, they’d take me seriously and find out what was wrong. They were kind, sympathetic, but never called for a gastroenterologist or specialist of any kind. They gave me more potassium and magnesium and sent me home with the same diet the clinic and my doctor had given me. No Change.

I had to change doctors anyway because my old doctor wasn’t in our network, so I went to the new doctor. He didn’t think I had c-diff either but said he didn’t mind if I wanted a test for it. He listed a lot of labs. Five vials of blood. Four stool samples. And guess what? I have c-diff. IF SOMEONE WOULD HAVE JUST LET ME TEST FOR IT IN THE BEGINNING, I’D BE ALL RIGHT BY NOW. And that really bums me out. I missed going to Indy for our big family get-together to see my grandson and his wife’s new baby boy. C-diff is contagious, and no one wanted to take a chance.

I’m done griping, BUT I’d like to spare anyone the misery of what I’ve dealt with for weeks. I asked my health providers for help, asked for a c-diff test, and got turned down over and over again. I trusted their answers. I was wrong. The next time, I’m going to be more aggressive, more demanding. At least, I’m going to try.

In Network

We’ve had the same family doctor for years and years. She was our doctor before the boys were born, and Ty’s over thirty now. When we started with her, we chose her because her office is close to our house, convenient. We were young, healthy, and we usually only saw her once a year, and we liked her. Then insurance programs divided, and she went with the Parkview network, and we were with Lutheran. It meant that we had to pay a little more when we went to see her, but we decided to stay with her. We liked her, her office, and her staff.

In early April, though, Parkview announced in the newspaper that they were going to stop treating anyone that wasn’t in their network. I asked my favorite nurse, “Does that mean we’ll have to find a new doctor?” “I’d guess yes,” she told me. My sister’s doctor had retired the end of last year, and she’d started seeing a new, young doctor. She really liked him and recommended him. So, on Friday, HH and I went to meet him. And he’s wonderful. Low-key, droll, funny, and THOROUGH. He asked us more questions than we’ve been asked in years. And he came up with all kinds of ideas that might help us. I think he’s going to be a fresh, new start for us, and I couldn’t be happier.

HH hates change. I tolerate it. But this time, we’re both looking forward to it. We’d been dreading it before we met Dr. Wieging, but he’s at the Brooklyn Clinic, and they have their own lab. That, in itself, is going to make our lives easier. This time around, I think change is going to be good.