H.B. Pattskyn's Blog, page 16

M-Mulberry

Regular readers know that once upon a time not so long ago, I had a dog called Mulberry. We lost him to liver cancer back in December—and my husband (who doesn’t like dogs) went online and found another rescue xolo who we adopted a few days before Christmas. We miss our Mulberry terribly, but we’re very happy to have Jack in our lives. He needed a home and we needed a xolo!
What most people don’t know is that my Mulberry wasn’t named after the actual berry (although it does happen to be my favorite berry); he was named after a television character created by John Easmonde and Bob Larbey named, you guessed it, Mulberry. Mulberry was brought to life by Karl Howman and only ran for two seasons, although a third season was planned—it’s a true shame the it was never filmed, the writers/producers have talked about how it would have ended and it would have been beautiful.

Miss Rose Farnaby
played by Geraldine McEwan
who is probaby best known
for her role as
Miss Marple. Mulberry is described as a sit-com, but it’s more of dramedy, IMO, and opens with a mysterious man in a long overcoat (Mulberry) arriving at Farnaby Manner to apply for a job that hasn’t been posted yet. Miss Farnaby, a "cantankerous old trout" of a spinster has run off yet another personal assistant, leaving the remaining two servants (Bert and Alice) doubtful that they’ll ever find another—this last one lasted almost an entire fortnight, but only because she’d once been in the army. But, as I said, in comes Mulberry. Congenial, a bit peculiar, and full of warmth, wit, and charm, Mulberry quickly wins over Miss Farnaby and gets the job.
Bert and Alice (who have lived at the manor since they were children and grew up with the Farnaby sisters) are suspicious of Mublerry from the beginning. And well they should be.
Starting with the first episode, we see another mysterious man who only comes around to talk to Mulberry when no one else is around. This dark and scary looking stranger makes it perfectly clear that Mulberry is there to do one job and one job only: Miss Farnaby is supposed to die.
But all is not as it seems.
As the stranger makes clear in episode five that "I am not a gangland mobster and you are not my hitman. I am death and you are my son."   In "the Mysterious Guest", Death becomes so curious
about why Mulberry has taken an interest in Miss Farnaby
that he disguises himself as an ordinary man
and begins courting Miss Farnaby. While shortlived,
the relationship sends Mulberry into a panic.  I think my favorite episode is "The Accident", in which Mulberry takes a tumble off a cliff while flying a kite with Miss Farnaby. He is presumed dead and carried off to the morgue, where Death comes to shake his head and tisk. After all, the son of Death can’t actually die! *g*. Mulberry’s return to Farnaby Manor causes quite a stir and leads to one of the sweetest moments of the show, when Miss Farnaby asks Mulberry what dying was like (they all assume he died, if only for a few moments, and was then revived by natural means.) Mulberry smiles at her and says death is nothing to be afraid of, that it’s quite peaceful, and feels like you’re just lying there, waiting for somebody to come and take you somewhere. Miss Farnaby wonders what sort of somebody will come for her when it’s her time; Mulberry speculates that it will be someone who liked her. And of course the audience is in on it, we all know that that somebody will be Mulberry himself, which is how the series was supposed to have ended—but alas, we never got the last season.    


　
　Helen Pattskyn, Fantasy Artist, Gay Romance Author

L - Life, the Universe, and Everything

Yes, I'm a Douglas Adams fan  :D

But what this post really is about is me. Well, okay in a way, this whole month is about me, but this is just a quick list (another "L" word) about the things I like, my own personal "Life, the Universe, and Everything".   I was born on January 17, 1969, at about 3 a.m., in Madison Heights, MI.My favorite color is green. Green is also the name of one of my favoirte teachers ever--altough she's put her foot down that former students do *not* call her Mrs. Green, they call her Arelene. She's an amazing lady. My other favorite teachers are my second grade teacher, Mrs. Stockman (whom I haven't actually seen since elementary school) and my middle school creative writing teacher, Ms. Good. I also really loved taking Anthropology at OCC with Mr. Carpenter and Astronomy with Dr. Lamb was amazing.My favorite animal is the platypusI'm a total sci fi geek One of my favorite TV shows of all time is Doctor Who; Torchwood is pretty awesome too (we do NOT discuss Children of Earth or that atrocity that came after it, however). Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica (old and new) are also equally amazing. I love old Godzilla movies, but I love Gamera more. My hobbies include gardening and backyard astronomy.My job is writing and I love it!!My favorite movie of all time is Luc Besson's Subway. My next favorite movies (in no particular order) are Oscar, Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are Dead, Plunkett and McCleane, Pitch Black, Kinky Boots, Romeo and Juliet (the one with Leonardo DiCaprio) and Sense and Sensiblity.  If anyone can figure out what that says about me, I'd love to know!   I have way too many favorite books to name, but I am excessivly fond of The Black Jewels Trilogy by Anne Bishop and Steven Brust's Jhergh books. And of course, I love Douglas Adams!My favorite actor is Johnny DeppMy favorite guilty pleasure is Project RunwayMy favorite foods are Italian and Mexican, although my heritage is Russian, Irish, and Welsh.I used to be a vegetarianI love bacon! (Which is why I'm no longer a vegetarian  ;)  My favorite flowers are white rosesI have a wonderful husband who has never forgotten thatI have a pretty wonderful former husband who is now a very dear friend (he's on his third marriage, too; guess third time really is the charm!)I have a very low tolerance for bullshit. I try to be nice and accomidating and allow for the fact that we live in a diverse world and in a country where everyone is entitled to their opinion and beliefs, but one person's right to religious and philosophical freedom shouldn't mean that another person is denied basic freedom, things like the freedom to worship as they choose and marry whom they choose (you know, assuming everybody is a concenting adult and nobody's getting hurt.) In my old age, I speak up more when faced with things that piss me off!   Helen Pattskyn, Fantasy Artist, Gay Romance Author

J - Jack

Okay, by now anyone coming here even semi-regularly knows that this month isn't following much of a theme. Or rather, the theme is simply " Stuff that's important to me and stuff I just like ". And today's post is a perfect example of stuff I like. I like characters named Jack. I don't know why--I mean, what I don't know is why so many awesome characters are named Jack, they just are.  Everyone who knows me knows how much I love Torchwood's dashing Captain Jack Harkness. He's tall, dark, handsome, sexy, funny, heroic...and did I mention sexy? Really that's got more to do actor John Barroman than anything else, but hey, I'm not complaining!

 Many a happy hour has been spent crafting (mostly) happy Jack and Ianto stories for my little AU version of Torchwood.  (Which has really become a collective effort, thanks to some totally awesome writers who wrote fanfic off my fanfic--talk about flattering!)   When people ask me how I got started writing m/m romance, I just tell them that I'm a huge Torchwood fan (at least the first two series/season). I love Jack and I love Ianto and I love them together. If anyone is interested, here's my "fix it" for CoE .
It was only after I started really watching Torchwood that I realized there were several other Jacks I was exceptionally fond of.  There's the obvious:

 Anybody who knows me even a little bit knows how much I adore Johnny Depp; Jack Sparrow is one of my favorite characters. Probably not my absolute favorite, but definitely up there in the top three or four (how else is chomping at the bit, waiting for The Lone Ranger to come out?) And there's also the less obvious:   Because who can seriously resist a tragic, angsty, amzing guy like Jack Skellington? Okay, so he needed a little bit of a slap upside the head, but hey, that's what makes angst so awesome IMO.

Besides, everyone knows I'm a sucker for "happily ever after"

   There's also this other Jack that I really like:



Somewhere hiding in my peabrain, there's a crossover with Jack Harkness and Jack Carter... I'm seeing Jack and Ianto paying a "courtsey call" on Eureka....

I'm also seeing Jack and Ianto paying a courtesy call to Jack O'Neill (Stargate).


And yeah, that's about how thrilled I think O'Neill would be to have them there....

So what is it about guys named Jack? Why are they all so dead sexy?
Erm. No, really, no pun intended there.

What about you, do you have a favorite "Jack"?

How about some "Jack" trivia?

The Star Trek epsiode "Wolf in the Fold", feature's history's Jack the Ripper as an evil entity inhabiting the body of a man named Mr. Hengist. Hengist/Jack the Ripper murders a woman and Mr. Scott is blamed. Toward the end of the episode, Hengist/Jack goes off on a lovely tirade, saying that  everybody is going to die, he's going to kill them all.

The trivia part: the actor who plays Hengist/Jack the Ripper also voices Piglet, on the Disney's Winnie the Pooh.

Bet you'll never look at dear sweet Piglet the same way again!



 
Helen Pattskyn, Fantasy Artist, Gay Romance Author

I - Introvert

It might not start with "I", but today is National
Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day...
              
Now, onto the Letter I and Introverts....

The people who see me teach a class or participate in a panel discussion at a convention, people who wander up to my table in the dealer’s room to chat—people who I engage with at the grocery store—probably don’t realize that I’m an introvert, because most people confuse shy (a behavior) with being introverted (something that's hardwired into our brains). Not all introverts are shy and not all shy people are introverts (yes, believe it or not, it is possible to be a shy extrovert).

              So what exactly is an introvert (and an extrovert for that matter?)

                          Introverts gather strenght and energy when we spend time quietly by ourselves. We process things internally and usually spend a great deal of time ruminating on a situation--especially a new one--before jumping in. Very rarely will you see an introvert plunge in feet first to anything; we prefer to sit and think, and think, and think, and then wade into the pool. Of course there are other factors that lead to the decision of when and how to jump in, but the point is that even when we look like we're jumping in, usually we've given the matter a great deal of consideration--you just didn't realize that because all of that consideration happens inside our heads and you never hear it.           Extroverts, on the other hand, gather strenght and energy when they spend time around other people. They process things externally, by talking them out with friends and colleagues, and while they might spend just as much time as an introvert in deciding how and when to dive into the pool, everybody around them knows it. Their friends have heard the pros and cons and have been a necessary sounding board for the extrovert, because that's how extroverts process. That isn't to say that extroverts can't and don't keep secrets or that they're necessarily the chatty out going one at a party, this is about how different types of people process thought and recharge their emotional and spiritual batteries--whether they recharge in moments of quiet solitude or by going out and hanging with a bunch of friends.
           Realistically, very few people fall at the extreme end of the continuum, but rather somewhere in the middle--although I'm a pretty extreme introvert. Depending on the test (more about those in a moment), I fall somewhere between 70%-100% pure introvert. Knowing this has allowed me to make to take time for myself without feeling guilty about it.
         See, for years, I’d been told by everyone, friends, family, teachers, co-workers, that that Introvert = Bad. (That's a very common misconception in American society and has in fact lead to a great deal of stress being placed on introverts--I had a total stranger tell me once that by saying that I was an introvert, I was clearly NOT putting my best foot forward and little wonder I had no friends.) Further compounding my personal struggles, I’d been told for years by my family and even some friends that because I would rather quietly assess a situation before plunging in feet first, that I’m shy and that is also bad. Now, I'm not shy, but if you hear something long enough, you start to internalize it, so I had this strange double whammy working against me: I need time to myself, and I assumed that because I prefer to carefully assess a situation before jumping in that I must be shy and being shy is a Bad Thing. (It isn't, but it can be a difficult thing).
 So I pushed myself to get out and be with people and spent years not giving myself permission to take time to be by myself. Sometimes I had no choice but to go off on my own and take a walk or putter in my garden, but these hours of blissful solitude were always followed by massive bouts of guilt over having selfishly taken “me time”. As a result, I spent a lot of time miserable and angry. I was tired and cranky and I didn’t know what was wrong with me, why I couldn’t just be happy like everybody else, until the day I took a Myers Briggs test as part of a classroom exercise. I started out answering the questions with what I “would do”—then half way through I realized that even though those were the things I would do in a given situation, they weren’t the things I would want to do. I started over and answered honestly. The next class session was spent with our teacher going over what it meant to be an extrovert or an introvert, as well as the other parts of the test of course, but that “I” was the magic letter for me. Being an introvert was nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to hide from, and nothing we could even change, so rather than try, we should embrace it and work with it—work with inherent natures, rather than against them. Wow.
               Making that discovery and allowing myself to simply be who I am without guilt and that was a very important step toward making my life a whole lot happier.

              For anyone interested in taking a free version of the Myers Briggs test online, here are a few sites that offer it. The best results will obviously be garnered from taking the test with a human being to help you understand the results, but the free versions can give you some pretty awesome insight.
·        http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp
·        http://kisa.ca/personality/
·        http://www.personalitytest.net/types/index.htm
·        http://www.goddessflight.com/per/passess.htm
   THIS is one of the best articles I've about introverted vs. extrovert that read in a long time.
 
 
 Helen Pattskyn, Fantasy Artist, Gay Romance Author

H- HIV

Daniel, one of the main characters in my third novel Hanging by the Moment  is one of nearly 2 million  Americans, living with HIV. Two million.  When I started writing Hanging by the Moment , I didn't set out to write a book about a man living with HIV. I'd touched briefly on the subject of HIV and what it means to the people around you in my second novel, Bound: Forget Me Knot . In Bound , Henry's has a sister and his best friend  are both HIV positive (although the reader only knows about Henry's sister, I never revealed that David was also HIV positive. Yes, authors know quite a bit more about the characters than we sometimes let on  ;-)  It's not really because we don't want to tell you, it's because we try very hard to only put on the page the things that are important to the story. Henry was with David ages ago, so it's not relevant; he lives with Jenn, so it is quite relevant.)  That and the general subject matter of Bound made it a pretty intense book to write. So when I started my next project (which would eventually become Hanging by the Moment ), I wanted to write a nice, light, fluffly little story: boy meets boy, boy and boy fall in love, overcome a couple of obstacles, and live happily ever after. I'd just taken a job in a restaurant that's well...interesting is one word to describe the place. If you read  Hanging by the Moment you'll get the full details--and I only wish I was exaggerating. I created a cast of totally new characters, NONE of the characters in the book are based on real people, per se, just real situations (kids who don't want to follow in their parents' footsteps, a parent with Alzheimer's, and a restaurant that's falling apart at the seams). I already had my setting, so next I came up with a general premise, who are my boys and how do they meet, and started writing.  Possibly only fellow writers will fully understand what happened next. I was lying down, taking half a nap, thinking about Daniel, the super sexy delivery truck driver, and Pasha, the over worked, under appreciated cook/waiter working in his father's struggling restaurant, when Daniel simply leaned over and confessed to Pasha and me both that he had HIV. He didn't tell me how he'd gotten it, he just told me that he had it and that was the story I was going to write.  And there ended my nap. I needed to get up and start doing some research--and the more I did, the more I had to do, because I'd only  thought I had a handle on what HIV is. I mean, I know the basics, I have as good an idea as the average layperson of where it came from and how it got introduced into human beings. I'm aware, more or less, of how it spread so quickly and why (at least in the United States) it's still incorrectly stigmatized as a "gay problem", when in reality HIV doesn't discriminate. It's happy to occupy any body it finds itself in: male, female, anything on the in between, young, old, gay, bi, straight, black, white, brown, red... as a virus, HIV doesn't have the capacity to know or care what its host looks like or with whom they sleep or share needles. I was born in 1969. I remember, at least in a vague sort of way, when the first cases of AIDS started to make the news media (I managed to miss the era when it was still being called GRID, I was probably just too young to pay that much attention to the news). I've seen An Early Frost . HIV and AIDS scare the snot out of me. Which is why I do NOT understand "bug chasers" (people who intentionally try to get themselves infected with HIV) or anyone who treats it like it's no big deal: all you have to do is take a pill and you'll be fine. (You can follow this link to an awesome documentary on You Tube called "The Gift"). No, HIV isn't the death sentence it once was, but those pills are expensive and the side effects are life-altering. Many disrupt sleep patterns, the digestive system (really don't want to gross anybody out, so...well, just think about the last time you had the flu and nothing would stay down). Some cause rash and itchy skin. And yes, it's better than the alternative, but it's no picnic; once a patient starts taking HIV meds, there's no going back. It's a lifelong commitment.  HIV also carries a stigma; it's something you do to yourself. It's caused by carelessness. And despite the fact that this is 2013 and we should ALL know better, some people still treat those living with HIV like lepers. (By the way, I don't agree those first few statements; even if someone contracted HIV as the result of a momentary lapse in judgement, I don't for one second think it should be held agains them for the rest of thier lives.) If you don't think the stigma is that bad (I know I didn't at first), read this, or this, or this. Yes, there are some positive responses (thankfully), but it's the tone and ignorance of the negative responses that gutted me: people comparing dating someone with HIV to playing in traffic, or advising the asker to get out of the relationship (with someon who has HIV) as fast as possible because you'll never have kids and probably end up dead yourself. I wrote an blog post on the subject of HIV and dating a while back where I highlighted the worst of the worst. It seems like it's even harder to come out as positive than it is to come out as gay or bi.  And yet, without wanting to stigmatize anybody, it disturbs me to the core that there are still people contracting HIV in the United States and other "First World" counteries--places where we have access to education and prevention. Preventing HIV is easy: Use a latex barrier (either a condom--male or female condom--or a dental dam, depending on the activity in question) every single time you have sex. Use it correctly and use it consistantly. It's that simple. (It's just as easy as NOT sharing needles). Yes, condoms break (usually when they're expired or handled improperly) but in the event of an accident, seeking medical attnetion immediately seriously reduces the chance of becoming infected with HIV.  But there are over 1000 new cases of HIV amongst young people every month. There's a new case of HIV in the United States every 9.5 minutes. One in five people don't even know they have the HIV.  Some of them don't want to know.  Why? Because ignorance is bliss, right? Yes. It is. It's also deadly, and not just to the people around you. Having HIV means having a compromised immune system, it means having to take care of yourself better than the average person; it means regular doctor visits and antiretroviral drugs. It means telling everyone you want to become intimate with that you have HIV; it means safer sex, every single time. It means living with not knowing if that awesome person you met at a party last night is going to accept you and take a chance on dating you despite the HIV, or if they're going to run for the hills--or if their friends are going to pressure them to run for the hills. It means living with people making assumptions about how you became infected in the first place.  It's a viscious cycle and the ONLY way to break it is through education and awareness.  Tomorrow, April 10, is  You may not think we need another awareness day for HIV and AIDS, but almost 40% of new HIV cases occur in young men and women between the ages of 13 and 29, and only 23% of sexually active high school aged kids have been tested for HIV. Those are staggering numbers. I don't know if more kids are getting infected because schools aren't teaching safe sex as rigorously as they did when I was in school or if kids have bought into the idea that HIV is no big deal, or if maybe they just think "it can never happen to me". But it can. And it is. And it needs to be stopped.  Here are some resources to learn more:Advocates for YouthAmplify (a project of Advocates for Youth)Body and Soul (a UK based group dedicated to helping children, young people, and families living with HIV)Michael J. KaplanIf you're like me, you look at facts and figures like this and wonder "what can I do? it seems so overwhelming!" You can do what I'm doing: write a blog post. Maybe not today, but next month, when the mad A-Z hop is over. You can wear a ribbon. You can talk to your kids and grand kids, not just about safer sex and preventing the spread of HIV, but about accepting those who have it with compassion and understanding and ending the stigma.

You can give somebody a hug.




     Helen Pattskyn, Fantasy Artist, Gay Romance Author

G - Grandmother

Helen (Bobbish) Garzia Braund
That’s my grandmother. Her parents, Celia and Michael (Mikhail) Bobbish immigrated to the United States from Russia a decade or so the turn of the twentieth century; I don’t know the exact date, but I know my grandmother was born in Illinois, round abouts 1920/1925. I also know that the date of birth on her death certificate is off by a decade because my Great Aunt Mary, who was known by her friends to be the older of the two, didn’t want her friends to know how old she was, so when the funeral director asked me for my grandmother’s age at time of death, my aunt piped up with the wrong year! I love my family.
And I really mean that, although yes, they sometimes had me shaking my head.My grandmother raised me because, long story short, when my mother had me at 19, she was in no way ready to be a mother. (I’m not wholly unsympathetic, I was 25 when my daughter was born and felt completely ill equipped to do the job!)  Although she was briefly married to her fourth husband during my lifetime (I only barely remember him), my grandmother took care of me mostly on her own. She wasn’t perfect—I definitely wish she hadn’t let me eat the way she let me eat, it set me up for a lifetime of battling atrocious eating habits—but overall she was an amazing woman.
She was one of nine children (technically ten, but there was one who died shortly after birth), and fell somewhere into the middle of the bunch. Her mother died when she was ten or twelve years old—I still have my grandmother’s portrait of her mother hanging in my hallway, just like it used to hang in my grandmother’s hallway. Since I’ve never been a photograph collector, I don’t have very many photos of my family; mostly what I have are memories. I remember being very little and backing up into a bucket of dirty mop water…the rest of the story (as filled in by grandmother years later) is that she’d justgiven me a bath and put me in clean clothes and was mopping the kitchen floor. She wasn’t amused. I remember her telling me about marrying her first husband and moving to Michigan; all of her siblings ended up here, too. I suppose at the time, the Detroit area economy was better—certainly it was better than the little coal mining town where they grew up. Her brother’s worked in the mines, at least for a while—I’m pretty sure her father did too. I remember her telling me about the times the mines collapsed and people died, although fortunately no one she was close to. Still, it was scary stuff. I remember my grandmother telling how in the 1950’s, she had enough of her husband’s abuse and divorced his ass at a time when women just did not do things like that. She had two daughters, the youngest (my mother) was only about ten years old. The divorce rate in the fifties was about twenty percent and it was still frowned on by society, especially when it was the woman who initiated divorce. Women—mothers—just didn’t do that. After leaving her husband, my grandmother went to work waiting tables in a cafeteria, which was where she met the love of her life, her second husband Ramon Garzia. Yes, it’s really spelled with a “z”. Ramon was from Mexico and worked for Chrysler. When my Great Aunt Mary split from her husband shortly after my grandmother ditched hers, Ramon introduced Mary to his friend Jesse. Mary and Jesse were my godparents and I’m pretty sure that even though we’re not related by blood it’s from him I that I get my love of gardening, because he had the biggest home garden I’ve ever seen. Other people’s relatives tell “fish stories”—my Uncle Jesse told a story about a giant zucchini that his father grew and with every telling the zucchini got that much bigger. I didn’t think it was possible until the year I sort of missed a zucchini in my garden. It was at the very back of the yard and I just didn’t see it until it was almost three feet long! Anyway, my grandmother was married to Ramon for about eight years when he died; she said she sent him off to work one morning and he never came home. He suffered a stroke and was gone before they could even get him to the hospital. Although she was married twice after that, and one of them in my lifetime (although I was quite young), Ramon is the man I know the most about, because she spoke of him the most frequently. (Grandma’s philosophy was that if you couldn’t say something nice about somebody, you shouldn’t say anything at all. She barely spoke against her first husband except to say that he was a rotten husband—I’ve often suspected the abuse was worse than she let on. But back then a man couldn’t—legally—rape his wife.)From my grandmother I learned how to be strong, how to not put up with a situation if I was unhappy in it. She left her third husband, Mr. Braund (I’ve no idea why she kept his name) because in her words, he promised her the sun, the moon, and the stars. “Marry me and…” Well they got married and all that she got was a big fat nothing. She figured she was better off on her own, so she divorced him (my best guess on the timeline is that that would have been in the mid-sixties because I was born in ‘69 and I know he was before my time). Her fourth husband (early 70’s) did nothing but gripe at her. “My sister cooks it this way, my sister does it that way, my sister would never…”  So go marry your sister already! I don’t think they were together even a year. The only thing I really liked about him was that he lived right across the street from my Great Aunt and Uncle (Mary and Jesse) so I could go over all the time. The only thing I really remember about him personally was that he smoked a pipe and I loved the smell. After that, Grandma dated a few guys, but I think she was pretty much over the whole marriage thing. My grandmother taught me to cook and to sew; she taught me to think for myself. Somehow, even though she was incredibly narrow minded and conservative (we’re talking a HUGE fan of Rush Limbaugh), she allowed me to be open minded and liberal. She honestly believed that there were three religions in the world: Christianity (which is what you SHOULD be), Judaism (it’s not really their fault, they’re born that way), and “that cult that broke up the Beatles.” I’m pretty sure she meant Hinduism. Needless to say, when I told her I’d become Wiccan, it did not go over well. No, I wasn’t a Devil worshipper…no, I didn’t worship rocks and trees either. No I am NOT an atheist. No, I already said I wasn’t a Devil worshipper. About a month later, I came out as bisexual. I’m not sure, but I think that actually went over a little better—but no matter what, she never once threatened to kick me out or even hinted that she could ever love me any less. She just didn’t want candles and incense in the house and if I could kindly not tell her about my girlfriends, she’d really prefer not to hear it. There’s a lot of my grandmother in Ivan, Pasha’s father from Hanging by the Moment. Because we fought. Not so much about my sexuality (although of course she didn’t understand it), but about everything. My teenaged years were tumultuous. Sometimes I think we weren’t happy unless we were fighting—but another thing my grandmother taught me was to never hit below the belt. Never say something in anger you’re going to regret later, because once it’s said it can’t be unsaid. She taught me to fight fair. And she taught me how to apologize for being wrong and accept the other person’s apology when they were wrong. She taught me that you can be angry with someone, fight with them, holler until the windows rattle—but still love that other person so much you would never stop, never kick them out, never say “I hate you” or “You’re not mine”. Helen Garzia Braund passed away in 1994 after a miserable seven or eight month battle with cancer. It wasn’t really much of a battle; the chemo wiped her out, so she stopped after one treatment. I was with her when she passed. We’d been at the hospital most of the day—Grandma was too stubborn and independent to call me so my Aunt Mary phoned me at work to tell me how bad things were and she thought my grandmother needed to go to hospital. My first (by then ex) husband came and helped me get her there and sat with us for a good chunk of the day before I finally sent him home. Grandma died just after midnight. I remember going back to her house and sleeping in her bed because it made me feel close to her. The next day began the task of going through the paperwork and getting everything in order. She’s buried next to Ramon.

Because of my beliefs about life, death, and reincarnation, I haven’t been to the cemetery since her funeral. (And even my grandmother said that when you die you’re not really in the ground, that’s just the body). But I still miss her. When things are rough or I don’t know what to do, she’s the first person I wish I could call—because when she was alive I called her all the time (or at least every time I had a problem). Oh yeah, and all six of my grandmother’s pall bearers were wearing pentacles, because I enlisted a bunch of my friends to come help. I’m sure it was a sight ;-)  But by then we’d come to something of an understanding. When she had a problem, she asked me to light a candle for her. When I had a problem I asked her to light one for me. She lit hers in the church, I lit mine on my altar. She had to be the most tolerant intolerant person I’ve ever known. Helen Pattskyn, Fantasy Artist, Gay Romance Author

F - Fanfiction

I'm not going to completely rehash old news. I will however provide a couple of links from people who have made arguments about fanfiction.   Diana Gabledon (who is fervently against fanfiction)George R.R. Martin (who also dislikes it) Neither for nor against, just some facts Robin Hobb took down her original post about the evils of fanfiction, but as we all know, once word is out, once a page is up, it never truly goes away ... Then there's the other side of the coin, a cautionary tale, well told by author Jim Hines ( regarding Marion Zimmer Bradley ).And on the other end of the spectrum (although she's not alone) here are Anne McCaffrey's Rules for Fanfiction involving her works and worlds. I thought it might be nice to end on a nice note, before taking off into my own thoughts.  And actually, I *am* going to quote and discuss Ms. Hobb's words a bit, not to rehash or stir up the cauldron, but because her arguments aren't unique. I do, however, think they're wrong.  Okay, here's the quote (the bold is the general statement about fanfiction that Ms. Hobb is responding to, the italics is her response. I'll keep my post in plain ol' text).   “Fan fiction is a good way for people to learn to be writers.”
 No. It isn’t. If this is true, then karaoke is the path to become a singer I don't think I could disagree more if I tried. I know several good singers who love karoke; it gives them a chance to get in front of an audience and practice singing with people staring at them, which can be pretty unnerving. It's a chance to get over stage fright...kind of like singing in the school choir, which, by the way doesn't require you to write your own songs either.  coloring books produce great artists, and all great chefs have a shelf of cake mixes. Fan fiction is a good way to avoid learning how to be a writer. Fan fiction allows the writer to pretend to be creating a story, while using someone else’s world, characters, and plot.  Not all fanfiction is well written, no arguments there. But seriously, I've written over 200,000 words of Torchwood fiction; don't tell me there isn't a story line!  The only short cut is using someone else's world and characters (which actually helped me get a better handle on writing dialogue). I've read very few fanfiction stories that didn't have original plots (some wildly so), seeing as to most of us, that's kinda the point.  Coloring Barbie’s hair green in a coloring book is not a great act of creativity. Neither is putting lipstick on Ken. Fan fiction does exactly those kinds of things.  Seriously? It's not creative to color Barbie's hair green? (And by the way, I'm an artist and I started out coloring in coloring books, kinda like most little kids I know. It's no guarentee, but I think I was on to something when I decided that *this* picture was going to be in all different blue and *that one* all different shades of red. A creative child will be creative with whatever medium is set before them).
The first step to becoming a writer is to have your own idea. Not to take someone else’s idea, put a dent in it, and claim it as your own. You will learn more from writing one story of your own, no matter how bad it is, than the most polished Inuyasha fan fiction that you write.  No, the first step to becoming a writer is to write. It's learning basic grammar and sentence structure, plotting, dialogue, character development, tension, story arc, etc. ANYBODY can have an idea, it's exicuting it that becomes trickly.  Which pretty much sums up where I stand on fanfiction and why I support it...but there's more. I read somewhere else (and for the life of me I can't find the link) that fanfiction is a waste of time. It's no more a waste of time than playing baseball or chess or watching your favorite TV show--in fact, I think it's less a waste of time than the latter, because you're accomplishing something even if it's something that only makes you, the writer, happy.

Now, definitely do not misunderstand, authors have just as much right to their opinions as the next guy and certainly saying, hey this is copyright infringement is totally legit. Even saying, "I would really appreciate it if you didn't write it" is perfectly fine. But sometimes what authors say is a bit over the top. Gabledon said something to the effect of "it's one thing for fans to like red headed men and another for one of them to try and seduce my husband" when speaking of fanfic writers...so...she's equating someone who writes a story about one of her characters or otherwise set in her world with that aome someone trying to get Mr. Gabledon into bed ?! Forgive me for being dense, but I just don't see the connection. I love my characters, but I'm not married to them, they aren't even real! (By the way, I met the lady once very briefly and by all accounts she was both sweet and gracious, although of course I didn't bring up the subject of fanfiction.)

I also certainly understand that there are legal ramifications, although I don't actually equate writing fanfiction with stealing. In order to steal something, you have to take a thing away from someone else in such a way that it is no longer theirs. I'm totally mind-boggled about this concept that some writers have that  fanfiction infringes on their livlihood. That doesn't make it any less of a legal gray area (or maybe not so gray, because copyright exists for a reason), I'm just saying that my Torchwood fic hadn't taken any money out of Russle T. Davies' bank account and I know for a fact I brought a couple of viewers to NCIS because of my crossover stories. I don't think anyone else's fanfiction has stopped fans from buying the original novels, either.

Here's an interesting collection of pro and against authors and some of the things they've said. Click Here . Personally, I thing that attitudes on the subject are changing for the better. If you don't believe me, you are aware that Fifty Shades of Grey started out as fanfiction, right ? (And of all the irony, it now has fanfiction stories based on it).

  Helen Pattskyn, Fantasy Artist, Gay Romance Author

E-EDGE of Existence

Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered species  Everybody knows that the Giant Panda and the Polar Bear are endangered; everyone knows the plight of the Humpback Whale.  But how many of you have ever heard of or seen a Baiji? If you haven't, you never will, except in pictures. The Baiji was declared "functionally extinct" in 2007. What that means is that if there are any left their numbers are too few to sustain the species for more than this or possibly the next generation at most. None have been seen since 2006; prior to that, only 13 individuals had been spotted. 



 So what is a Baiji? They are...or were...one of four species of river dolphin in the world. The other three species aren't doing so well, either.
The Baiji died strictly because of human neglect. For years, scientists warned the Chinese
government that the dolphins--who are revered as river gods in Chinse culture--were dying out because of polution, over fishing (competition with humans over their food source), and too much river traffic. A refuge was proposed that wouldn't interfere with human needs...but the goverment never quite got around to acting on the suggestion.  Now, of course, it's too late, at least for the lovely Baiji. If people act, there may still be hope for her cousins in South America and other parts of Asia. I wrote a short story about the Amazon River Dolphin, the Boto; you can find it here . It's an m/m romance, but it's pretty PG rated.) For a video of the river dolphin, click here.

Ganges River Dolphin
Amazon River Dolphin Indus River Dolphin Not far behind on the Baiji on its way to extinction is the Yangtze Finless Porpoise  (warning, there are some pretty disturbing photos of dead propoises on that site).
These guys are dying out for exactly the same reason the Baiji died--and it's preventable, but only if we actually DO something to prevent it.
One of the major threats to the "river pig", as they are sometimes called, is mercury, which is being dumped into the river (and let's face it, that isn't good for anybody living in or around the Yangtze River!) Here's an artical with less disturbing imges ...but extremely disturbing facts.
But one of the "problems" with EDGE animals is that they're not all cute or cuddly like the Panda Bear and as a result they are often overlooked. For many, there is little to no conservation effort at all, in part because they just don't make good poster children--and in part because they occupy such a specializied and tiny niche to begin with, that nobody has even heard of them.


Okay, I find the Kha-nyou to be kind of cute and cuddly, but I may be in the minority ;-)  "Discovered" in 2005** (no, that is not a typo), these little guys may well be the only members of an ancient group of rodents to still exist. Between being hunted and having their habitat destroyed by logging, they may not be around much longer.

       ** 2005 is when they were first catalogued or described by scientists; locals knew they existed.


For some reason, a lot of people are just as
squicky about bats as they are about rodents, although that isn't the real reason the Fruit Bat is endangered (critically so). It's the same story: hunting and habitat destruction. Here's a page featuring several of Australia's endanger species .

And here's a pop quiz (don't worry, nobody will be graded!)

Anyone know what a thylacine was?

The last thylacine died out in the 1930's, in a zoo, after having been hunted to death in New Zealand, it's only natural habitat. There are persistant rumors of sightings on the Australian mainland--and there was even an effort to clone a thylacine from preserved DNA--but so far the sightings are up there with Bigfoot sightings (interesting but unsubstantiated) and the cloning effort failed. Thylacines were hunted to death in much the same way and for much the sam reason that coyotes and wolves are being hunted in the U.S.--cattle and sheep farmers blamed them for herd loss and sought permission from the New Zealand government to shoot on sight. Permission granted--and even encouragaged as money was paid by the government for the pelts.
Called alternately a "tiger" or a "wolf", thylacines were neither, but rather a species of marsupial.

There are countless other animals on the endangered and critically endangered species list; some get a lot of attention in terms of conservation effort. Some get none.

If we as humans don't act to protect and preserve our cousins by preserving their habitat and protecting their right to exist, we'll loose even more of them.

By the way, for the sake of time and space, I only chose to highlight mammals here today; there are countless endangered birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish on the planet as well. Most of them make even less attractive poster children for the cause than the fruit bat.


Sagalla Caecilian
http://biojournalism.com/2012/09/sagalla-caecilian-or-omg-what-is-it/
It's not a snake or a worm, it's an amphibian
Giant Salamander
http://www.edgeofexistence.org/amphibians/species_info.php?id=547
  Purple Frog
http://www.edgeofexistence.org/amphibians/species_info.php?id=549&search=focal



 Helen Pattskyn, Fantasy Artist, Gay Romance Author

D - Dialoge

D is also for "delays" -- I didn't get to finishing this last night and woke up with a screaching migraine... so. Here we go, hopefully better late than never  :)


DIALOGUE:

When writers write dialogue that sounds stiff, unnatural, or like their characters are a bunch of androids, it throws me right out of the story (unless of course the characters are stiff and unnatural or a bunch of androids). Speech should flow naturally from our characters' mouths. They should sound like real people--and they should sound like different people.

I don't talk like you and you don't talk like me. Don't believe me? Spend a couple of hours sitting in a mall or some other public place and just listen to different people talking. (That is, in fact, one of the best exercises I can think of for learning how to write good dialoge. Writers should be some of the very best listeners around.)  But let's step back for a second and talk about what dialogue really is. Simply put, it's two or more people talking (and the more people you have talking--the more in the scene, period--the more complicated it becomes). It is an exchange of ideas, it's a way for your character to get what he or she wants. (Every character in every scene wants something, whether it's to find out who-dun-it?, to win the heart of the boy/girl, or simply to get a glass of water. Tension comes when there are obsticals in the way of attaining that goal.) What people (characters) say and how they say it can ( should ) reveal quite a lot about them. How does a man refer to his wife? His mother? His children? And just because he calls his kids brats doesn't mean he hates them--if he says it with a smile or a quirk of his lips, it's obvious he means it as a term of endearment and we suddenly know a lot more about him, his kids, and their relationship. In my third novel, Pasha often refers to his father as "the old man"; it's an odd term of endearment, but watching their relationship, readers should pick up on the fact that Pasha loves his dad, he just considers him old fashioned and stuck in the past.  If someone is easy going and laid back, the way the speak will reflect that. If they're impatient and in a hurry, they'll use a lot of clipped sentences. Truly good dialoge requires very few "modifiers" (e.g., she said saddly, he said quickly). Instead of an endless sea of adverbs, try giving visual clues, show your characters' body language with an eye brow quirked upwards, a hint of a smile ghosting across his lips, hands shoved in his pockets, or her shoulders hunched. If it's your POV character, his gut can clench or his heart might race. Maybe he feels as if his blood has turned to ice water.  Dialogue can be used to convey information to the reader--but we have to be careful to a) avoid info dumps and b) avoid "as you know Bob". (E.g., Sam Marshal stared up into the sky, then glanced at his  friend. "As you know, Bob, here on Earth the sky is blue and we have a bright yellow sun." Seriously? No. That information belongs outside the quotation marks. The sky was clear blue and the sun shone brightly down on the two young men. Sam shoved his hands in his pockets and looked over at his best friend; a swarm of butterflies danced in his gut. You find "as you know Bob" statements more in science fiction and fantasy than contemporary writing, but I have seen them there.)  As for info dumps, it's highly unlikely that Bob and Sam are going to sit around telling each other how they met. They might tell someone else (and may even have very different stories to tell), but when it's just the two of them, they're unlikely to recount the story. Think about it. Do you call up your best friend and start out with "Remember when we met....?"  I have actually had that conversation with a friend; she was trying to remember exactly when/where we met, but if our story were a novel, it's a conversation that would never have made the final draft. It did nothing to advance the story, and like every other word in writing, dialogue must advance the plot in some way.

Whether it's giving us a vital clue to the character's personality or motives, adding or resolving tension, or just simply moving the story along, dialogue has to contribute something vital. If it doesn't:  That might sound brutal, but think about this conversation:Bob: "Hey Sam, I was thinking about going for sushi tonight. You wanna join me?"Sam: "Sure Bob, sushi sounds fantastic!" About the only thing we learn here is that both Bob and Sam like sushi. So why not just say, Bob and Sam decided to go out for sushi. Simple. Effective. Gets the point across, and hopefully something interesting happens at dinner.  Now if there's some reason that the sushi conversation is interesting, then go for it. E.g.:Bob: "Hey Sam, I was thinking about going for sushi tonight. You wanna join me?"Sam: He hesiated. He wanted to spend time with Bob, but he couldn't abide the sight of white rice. It looked like freaking maggots. He forced a smile anyway. "Sure Bob, sushi sounds fantastic."Now we know just how much Sam likes Bob.
I'm told I have a good ear for dialogue and tend to write it well--which I take as a huge compliment. I spend a lot of time listening to people when I'm out (sometimes I go to the mall just to sit and eavesdrop on conversations). I also spent a lot of years writing fanfiction, learning how to write pre-existing characters, "people" that audience members already knew and loved--and boy, if you bungle it, fans will let you know! (Anyone who's interested can check out my  insane Torchwood crossover series , in which NCIS's Abbey and Tim, and House MD's Robert Chase joined Jack, Ianto, and Gwen, well... yeah. Talk about some very distinctive personalities and speech patterns.) Whether you love fanfiction or hate it, you might want to write a little as an exercise; pick two or three of your favorite characters from different shows and have them sit down for coffee or drinks. It doesn't have to be a story, per se, just have fun and keep the dialogue on track.  As a final note, if there are only two people talking, you don't need dialogue tags after every single sentence, but it can be difficult if you've got a bunch of clipped one liners to figure out who said what. I totally adore Steven Brust, but he did that in Iorich and it drove me a bit to distraction. It went something like this: "Hi, how's it going?""Not bad, how about with you?""Okay. The weather's been kinda hot.""Yeah.""Do anything interesting over the weekend?""Lawn work. You?""Watched the game.""Really, who won?"
This isn't the exact dialogue, but the point is it's so banal there is no way to figure out who's talking. A few dialogue tags would have helped.

Remember: dialogue is what really brings your characters to life in the readers' mind. It's not just talking, it's storytelling and the better you know your characters, the better able you'll be to express them to your audience.

  Helen Pattskyn, Fantasy Artist, Gay Romance Author

C - Coffee

  Anyone who knows me even a little bit knows that I've been drinking coffe for...hmmm.... yeah.  A lot of years. I started drinking it regularly in the mornings when I was in the seventh or eight grade and to this day, my day has not properly started without a hot cup of fresh brewed coffee. Honestly, I don't even understand people who don't drink coffee (or at least tea) in the morning, even though I'm married to one. I don't understand it when my husband and I go out to breakfast and he orders a coke with his eggs and hashbrowns. I brew my morning coffee the way most folks do, in a standard coffee maker; it's not fancy, but it's fast and it gets the job done.
But sometimes on the weekends, or in the evening, when I have time to really enjoy my cuppa joe, I opt for coffee made in a French press (to your left), or better yet, a nice pot of Turkish coffee (to the right and just below).  There's just something about the way a French press works that delivers a really good cup of coffee--it reminds me of my aunt Syl's perked coffee (and truly, perked coffee is worlds better than coffee maker coffee, but it takes for freaking *ever*).
Just below and to the left is an old fashioned coffee percolator, just like my aunt used to own. If you've ever been camping you know the drill; water goes in the bottom, coffee grounds go in the basket and then you set it on the stove. As the water heats, it bubbles up through the stem and into the basket and eventually trickles through the little holes infused with coffee goodness; most camp percorlators are metal, but this nice glass one allows you to see the coffee perking, so you'll know when its reached the perfect color/strength. But like I said, it takes forever. A coffee press gives the same rich, steeped flavor without taking so long because you pour the hot water in all at once. After a few minutes (for me it's like six or seven), you press down the stem and pour a perfect cup coffee. The secret to a good cup of coffee is A) starting out with good quality FRESH coffee beans, B)hot water (between 195 and 200 degrees (F); if the water isn't hot enough, you're guarenteed to get a bittyer, nasty cup of coffee and C) proper measuring. Of course with C there's a little room for personal preferences. I take a fairly strong cup of coffee (or so my husband, who doesn't even drink the stuff, insists), so I may use a little more coffee in my coffee than other folks (I really don't think so!)  And I'll be the first one to admit that my morning coffee is usually just plain ol' Folgers. Yeah. It's cheap, it's easy, but it's got a good flavor, IMO, so it makes me happy enough for a quick cup in the morning to get the day started. Turkish coffee is really my favorite--but it's one of those things that has to be done right and that means starting out with a good beans (although Folgers will do in a pinch) and grinding them to a fine powder. Think espresso grind or finer. You're going to need an ibrik (also known as a cezve--or as we call it in my house: that funny looking pot Mom uses to make drain clearner...erm coffee! I meant coffee!) Turkish coffee also totally benifits from from a some cardamom seeds (mabye a quarter teaspoon's worth per pot) and a clove or two; other recipes call for cinnamon stick, anise, and / or nutmeg, but I tend to stick to cardamom and clove in mine, because that's the way it was first served to me.)  Measuring is simple: one cup of cold water per heaping  teaspoon coffee bean powder (you can get a fancy Turkish hand grinder--they're gorgeous--but I'm lazy, I use an electric grinder). How much you can make at once depends on how big your pot is; contrary to the image up above, you do NOT want to fill it to the brim. That would create a kitchen disaster. Also, most people serve Turkish coffee in a demitasse cup. I don't even OWN any demitasse cups. Total waste of time! I serve it in a teacup, sometimes even a mug (if I have company it's teacups, for myself, it's a mug).  If I'm making it for myself, I add sugar right to the pot; if I have company, I'll leave the sugar off until it's served. Your spices go right in the pot as well. So far it's pretty easy; it's the next part that gets a little involved.

Turkish coffee isn't the sort of thing you throw on the stove and walk away from. Nope. It requires a babysitter. You're going to heat this stuff up on very low heat until it comes to a gentle boil. It's during this boiling process that the froth builds up. When the foam reaches the brim, remove the pot from the stove and give it a gentle stir to bring the foam down--then return it to the stove. Let it foam gently up a second time. Remove, gently stir down and return to the stove. (I told you you have to babysit this stuff!). Let it foam gently up a third time and remove it from the heat and stir it gently down. Return it to the heat one last time and let it foam up to the brim. Yes. You're finally done  ;-)  The next bit simply involves pouring it into the cups so that everybody gets an equal distribution of the frothy, sweet goodness. And yes, likely a fair share of grounds as well.

Turkish coffee pots aren't expensive, by the way. A very nice one can be had from Amazon for about $20. The same with a decent French press. And yes, in my house, we have both as well as a coffee maker, cappuccino machine, and of course a stovetop cappuccino pot, because if you want a really good cup of capp, that's the only way to go! (I really just use the machine becasue I love frothy milky lattes  ;-)


cappuccino potNow, I'll admit, for my morning joe, I'm perfectly content with Folger's. It's not gourmet, but it's reasonbly priced, readily available, and has a flavor that I enjoy. Darker roasts are typically suggested for Turkish coffee, such as Sumatra (which isn't actually one of my favorites) from Indonesia. Beans from Yemen or Ethiopia make for a great pot of Turkish coffee, IMO--and my local Caribou carries both, and deals only in free trade beans.  (Coffee shops like Caribou and Starbucks are great places to go to sample the "coffee of the day"; it's always going to be something they carry and you'll get the chance to sample different types of beans without committing to a whole bag.)

My all time favorite coffee comes from Jamaica; Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee is as smooth as it
gets. It's also one of the most expensivre beans on the market. My second fave is Kona coffee (which is one of the second most expensive beans on the planet) from Hawai'i. Kona is a fairly "light" coffee, but it makes for a great cup in the evening.

The flavor of coffee beans, like the flavor of wine grapes, is influenced by where it grows--what's in the soil, the weather, the climate, all play a part in the final outcome. Click here for more information about different types of coffee beans and their flavor charactaristics.

Want to learn how to make fancy colored and flavored sugar cubes? Check this out! Talk about fun and easy  :) (Not to mention yummy... try rose flavored cubes by steaping some fresh rose petals in the water, or for a very old fashioned flavor, try making lavendar flavored sugar cubes. Lavendar was a favorite amongst the Victorians; it's an acquired taste, but I personally love it.)

Coffee also makes a great rinse for hair (it's great for the hair and scalp) and a wonderful moisturizing splash for your face. I do homemade face masks and scrubs, and often use coffee in the mix (finely ground powder as a gentle scrub, or liquid coffee as part of the mask itself). Coffee is said to stimulte hair growth on the head; I'm not sure whether or not its true, but it's nice as part of a hair mask. Coffee oil is great for making homemade soaps and lotions.

But no matter where it comes from or what you use it for, all coffee starts out looking more or less like this:

And then this:


The bean that we (or at least I) know and love is the seed inside those bright red "cherries". The seed comes out of the pod and has to be dried and then roasted before it can be turned into this:


See you tomorrow for Day Four! But gefore you go, have a cuppa joe on the Torchwood Team!  ;-)


 


Helen Pattskyn, Fantasy Artist, Gay Romance Author