Pamela Foster's Blog, page 14

‘N’ is for Nothing

So you want to be an author?

First, from Nothing but blank pages and a keyboard, with only your experience and imagination and talent to guide you, write a book.

Write another book. Write another one. Now, maybe you’ve honed your skills enough that someone else will want to read your creation. Find out if that’s true.

Convince someone else, in my case a small press, that the idea of the story, the plot, has a wide enough appeal that there is a market for the book. Convince them to read the book...

‘M’ is for Marijuana

Humboldt County in Northern California used to conjure images of Redwoods, six rivers, fog draped lagoons, the Pacific Ocean, and hard-headed and independent souls. Now, Humboldt County means marijuana. Much of which is being grown by the descendants of those hard-headed, independent pioneers. I don’t claim to know the economic evolution of the marijuana industry in Humboldt.

I know my generation stood in the middle of one of the most beautiful places on earth and did our best to figure...

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‘L’ is for Leftout and for Love

Yesterday I shared with you that Kindness is my cure for depression. Well, that post was after all brought to you by the letter ‘K’.

There’s a bit more to depression than that. First of all, ‘cure’ is a bit of a stretch. Continuing struggle. Daily challenge. That’s closer to the truth.

And, there’s more to the Foster cure for depression than kindness. Though I still maintain that helping others, getting outside my own head and needs and whining, is the most potent ingredient in the cure....

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K is for Kindness

For years I’ve dealt with depression. I think of the disease as like a warm, tempting fog that I walk through each day. For years, Prozac kept me from lying down and not getting up. Then that miracle drug began to shake and twitch and jerk my body clear off the bed each night. I’ve done therapy. Oh boy, have I done therapy. You learn a lot about the different therapists in this way. I may have learned a little about myself as well.

After all these years, here’s what I’ve found wor...

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Jackrabbit Tale

I lived for a few years amongst the ocotillo and mesquite and cows tongue cactus of Arizona. About this time of year, in that high desert, the jackrabbits get amorous. Lately, I’ve been thinking about the year Chesty was a pup and Jack and I had one good show after another watching those long-eared hares.

The way sex works with jackrabbits in the spring is that the males fritter away the purple light of late afternoon by leaping at each other in waist-high bounds and jumps in a great show of a...

Inspiration

At book signings I’m often asked:

How did you come up with the idea for Bigfoot Blues or Redneck Goddess?

The real question is:

How did I sort through the hundreds of ideas that popped into my head and choice those particular two tales?

My only answer to the second question is that I believe there are no wrong stories to tell. I pick a plot and write. It’s a bit like choosing a mate. Is one man a better fit than another? Who knows? Pick one. Fall in love. Give it your best shot and see where you...

HOME

I’ve moved around a lot since leaving Humboldt County in my Thirties.

Spent a year and a half in a tiny town in Germany.

Lived in the woods on the edge of the Van Duzen River.

Spent six months living in seedy motels in central California with two sons under the age of four while their dad worked twelve hour days training for a job.

Moved to Hawaii and lived in a tiny A frame on the side of Mauna Loa and then in a wood plantation house on Mauna Kea.

Lived beside Mexico’s Caribbean Sea,

on Panama’s...

Grandma Grace

I spent summers with grandma in her cabin about half-way between Peckwan and Weitchepec in Northern California. Bigfoot Country. Tall trees, clear rivers, bone-deep poverty, and wild salmon. Land of the Yurok. Grandpa lived in the cabin too but he owned a gypo logging company and was mostly gone, working in the woods. Grandma didn’t have a dog or a cat but she had dozens of pet toads.

I’m not making this this up, I swear.

Peckwan summers are hot and dry and dusty. While Grandma did her daily ho...

Fool, Fool, Fool

A fool is an unpaid, or poorly paid, person especially devoted to or skilled in some activity.

For instance, I am a writing fool.

Six hours of every day are spent on my widening butt in front of a computer screen. Or to put it another way, I spend six hours a day in a world of my own creation. I soar and plummet and kill and forgive. I feel the heat of an open fire on my face. Follow Bigfoot through the fog drenched forests of the Pacific Northwest. Experience the dull, gray ache of a civil war...

Ex-pat Adventures

I’ve lived outside the country of my birth for about twelve of my sixty-two years. My first husband, the dad of my boys, received his draft notice on our wedding day. You might say that kicked my expat-tendencies off with a bang. This was 1969. We got lucky and he was sent to Germany. I wasn’t supposed to join him, of course. If the Army wanted him to have a wife, they’d have issued him one.

My favorite song then was Fortunate Son. it was probably good that we had to live off base. I lived in...