Catching up. Much, much catching up.

I confess, I have been derelict in my reading. All writers must read, and read a lot, both in and out of their genre. I've seen a lot of New Year's resolutions about reading outside your comfort zone and I think it's a great idea. I'm a firm believer that if a book is well-written, I want to read it, regardless of what category it falls into.

The holidays afforded me a few chances to read, mostly because I had a cold and didn't feel up to doing anything I was supposed to do. Then, of course, there were the two days I spent prepping for and undergoing a colonoscopy. 

I got a lot of reading done.

Here are my recommendations for anyone looking for a good 2015 story. Full disclosure here: these authors are my friends, but I only recommend books I like. The writing is good. You'll love them.

1. THE STONES OF KALDAAR by Tameri Etherton (click for Amazon link)
A fantasy that will take you to a fabulous new world, populated by a cast of characters who are engaging, intriguing, and keep you guessing as to their deepest motivations. The main character is everything Tameri promises - a kickass heroine struggling to do what's right. And of course there is a handsome rogue to steal her heart. Yes, it is Part 1 of a Trilogy, but I promise you the ending is satisfying enough to keep you filled until the next book comes out.

2. IDENTITY ISSUES by Claudia Whitsitt (click for Amazon link)
Samantha Stitsill is a familiar woman to us all. Life for her is a constant juggling act, of marriage and family and friends and career. She is also a bulldog when it comes to a mystery and won't stop until she has answers. There are also three books to this series, and you can bet I'll be reading them all!

3. SHIMMY FOR ME by DeAnna Cameron (click for Amazon link)
This is a novella, about a part-time administrative assistant, part-time belly dance studio owner who has a one-night stand with a smokin' hot guy, then finds out he may not have been the best choice to scratch her itch. The only way I can describe this story is delicious. Just read it. You won't regret it.

Anyone have any recommendations for me?

If...

I was watching the Oscars last night and wishing I could hang out with some of the cool kids on the show, like Bette Midler and Bill Murray, and it reminded me of this book I've had forever called "If... (Questions for the Game of Life)". It's a book of questions, designed to make people alone think about stuff and people in groups talk about stuff.

Samples: "What insect would you like to eradicate from the planet?"
                "What one sentence would you have said to Hitler before he died?"

Most writers don't need what if questions in order to write, but we need this kind of crap if we want to have conversations with people (not counting the ones in our heads).

So I started to think about that age-old question, "If you could have a dinner party with any 10 people, living or dead, who would you choose?"

First of all, I don't want to have dinner with dead people. It's creepy.

Second, I can only invite seven people because there are three people in my family and if I didn't invite them it wouldn't be as much fun. And I only have place settings for ten, so I can't invite ten people unless I sit in the middle of the table.

Actually, that sounds like fun... sitting in the middle of the table on a Lazy Susan so I can turn around and get involved in all the conversations.

So who would I invite?

Marcus and Dale, of course. Dale would soak it all up like a sponge. Marcus would jump into any conversation.

My best gal pal, Tameri Etherton, because she's up for any party, and might be able to keep me from freaking out. (P.S. I already figured out this would be catered, so I wouldn't have to worry about cooking.)

As far as the famous folks? I figure I'd like a nice balance, which would be three women, three men.

Bette Midler is the top of the list. I admire her to death and just know she could talk about subjects that are serious and funny and important and mundane and she'd have something to say no matter what.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson is next. He's so freakin' smart, yet such an accessible guy. I'd love to get lost listening to him and Marcus discuss some scientific notion.

Lady GaGa. Surprised? I am, too, but I was super-impressed with her when I saw her on So You Think You Can Dance. She's incredibly savvy about her craft AND marketing it. I'd love to just hear her story, and how she takes an idea and runs with it.

Ben Folds. I watch him on The Sing Off and I love the way he talks about music. He sounds like he could discuss other stuff, too.

Connie Schultz. Yeah, she's not a superstar, but she's so danged smart. I'd pretty much love to sit down over dinner, coffee, hell, a glass of water, and just talk.

Bill Murray - I'd like to have him at the party, but I confess this is the wild card, only because I want everyone to have fun at dinner and he might not be comfortable. If he declines, my next pick would be Michael Jordan. Because, well, who wouldn't want MJ at their dinner party? BTW my house would look VERY SMALL with him in it.

Did I make anyone think, hmm, who would I invite to my imaginary dinner party? Feel free to share!

What day is this?

Finally met Andrew Kaufman. Sweet!

Howdy, Peeps! I'm home from the Southern California Writers' Conference in San Diego, where I spent three glorious days and one semi-conscious morning talking, teaching, learning, and laughing. I barely have a voice left, and my brain feels like pea soup, but I did want to give you a few highlights:



Tameri at High Tea on the Queen Mary

1. My workshops went over really well and they were fun for me to teach. The PowerPoint slides were invaluable, as they kept me on track and slowed my pace enough. In my first workshop, I thought I breezed through everything a little too quickly,  and kept saying so. My buddy Tameri Etherton, who attended the workshop, threatened to smack me if I didn't stop saying that, so I've modified my opinion - my workshop on Rhythm, Pace, and AMUSEment was perfect.

Rick gave out prizes!

2. I learned a lot from attending other workshops. One example: Rick Ochocki taught me some great tools for keeping my writing process flowing. He was referring specifically to NaNoWriMo (National November Writing Month), wherein writers everywhere try to produce 50,000 words in 30 days. This  is something I've tried once and failed miserably at. I don't know that I'll try it again, but I'll certainly use some of the tools.

3. I laughed a lot (and learned) from the conference directors Michael Steven Gregory and Wes Albers. Michael is mostly about film, and when he discusses why certain movies do and don't work, he gives me ideas about why certain books do and don't work, too. And in his new(ish) job as a coordinator for hostage negotiation/standoffs/SWAT activities, Wes gave me some rather fabulous insights into the recent Dorner case, psychological insights I can use in my books.

4. I discovered that if you are hopping from table to table in the bar and you leave your cell phone with one rowdy group, they are happy to take rude pictures on your cell phone. I don't know if they're happy to have said pictures posted on my blog...

Prepare yourself...

They only get worse

There may be more insights and discussions (and rude photos) later in the week, but this is the most I could muster with my thick gooey brain cells, and I didn't want to leave you hanging, wondering how the conference went.

Trust me, it was fabulous!

So... how's your weekend?

Personally, I seem to be recuperating.

I had scheduled some writing today, but my brain seems to be lagging. Noun? Verb? What speak is you language this?

Maybe I should keep my words little and sentences short.

I began the weekend with a few hours at Disneyland with my good buddy Tameri Etherton, who is just crazy fun. She was there to get pictures of the Halloween decorations. We were admittedly disappointed that California Adventure has no homage to Halloween at all. (Perhaps there are no holidays when you are having an adventure.) It was drizzling a little as we wandered around Faux-Fisherman's Wharf, desperately seeking coffee.

As if an Omen from Walt, the sun came out as soon as we hit the gates of Disneyland. After a thrilling ride on Big Thunder (where we might have frightened the small child in the next car by yelling things like, "Rattlesnake! Earthquake! Potted Light Fixture!"), we took the Jungle Cruise ride into deepest, darkest Anaheim.

We wish the animals wore Halloween masks!

There were two teenaged girls behind us in line, so Tameri was interested in what they read. Fantasy, the one girl said, which was perfect. Then she rattled off some of her favorite books, including Twilight. Oh, well.

Since the Indiana Jones ride was closed, we wandered a bit more through the park, then hit up downtown Disney for lunch and a trip to the candy store.

"YUM!"

I got home in time to change clothes and go to the Placentia Library Jewel Reception, a dinner held by the Friends Foundation to thank their big donors (and by big, I mean anything over $100). It was super lovely. The library director, Jeanette, even let this guy out of Nadia's office. Nice young man, but a little too stiff to be any fun.

Saturday was the Placentia Heritage Parade and Festival, which meant rising at 5:30 ayem, getting completely dressed and made-up, in order to be in the parade. The parade didn't start til 9:30, but I had to be at Tri-City Park at 6:15 to unload and set up my author's booth. By 7:00 I needed coffee.

Here's the thing about me and coffee and mornings... we don't always play nice. Getting up uber-early upsets my stomach. I could use the coffee to wake me up, but if I drink it on an upset stomach, it only makes it angrier.

So no coffee.

By 9:30, my booth was ready, I was in the parade car, and everything was great.

We're ready to roll out!

The parade was so much fun! I waved until my arm ached. Then I waved with the other hand. Then I propped my arm on the car and waved some more. My face still hurts from the smiling.

Yes, I wore the tiara!

My booth this year was not on the main path, so the bad news is, I didn't sell a lot of books. The good news is, I got two speaking engagements. The other bad news is, the way my booth was situated, people kept getting trapped behind me and walking through the middle of my booth to get to the path, tearing my sign loose. The good news is, Veronica from the Parks and Rec Department got two big "Road Closed" barricades and put them up to block people, AND I made friends with the cranky lady selling plush toys to my right.

After a day of excitement, I wanted to get into my jammies and relax, but instead, there was one more thing to do. Dale and I had to take Marcus out to his favorite restaurant for his birthday.

"Bucket o' Boat Trash" anyone?

As usual, I announced his birthday to the waitress, who did the whole "it's your birthday, shake your booty," ritual of embarrassment. It may be his birthday, but it's my entertainment.

What did you all do this weekend?

LOOK over here

God bless that Tameri Etherton. I just got home from a week's vacation in the Plumas National Forest. It's about a 10 hour drive if you want to come back in one day, which we did. We managed to make it home by 10:30, ripped through a drive-thru for instant food, then drove home and found we'd been locked completely out. Our lovely son broke in, but by the time we had brought the bags in, eaten, and checked the Facebook status, it was after midnight.

Today, I am completely wiped out, feeling the need to hop back into real life, and not knowing what to do first, or even second.

Enter Tameri, who was tagged in a little blogging game and tagged me. It's called LOOK and I'd post the little picture of the meme (or is that redundant?) but I'm exhausted and likely to post something that would crash computers worldwide. The rules are to go to your latest work-in-progress and search on the word "look". Once you find it, copy and paste the section to your blog. Then tag a bunch of people. They're supposed to do the same.

I'm so tired I barely know my name, so tagging is out, but thanks to Tameri, I'm at least kick-started in forward progress today. If you want to join the game, copy and paste your work to your blog, then leave me a link in the comments. I can probably still read.

This is from the second chapter of the third, untitled, unedited, mystery.

* * *

The smell had hit her first, followed by the smoke. A private investigator's job is to be curious, so she loped toward the source, and saw fire engines pulling out of Angelina Drive, onto Morse. Two police cars were at the corner, officers directing traffic away from both streets. Fortunately, it was already mid-June, meaning the elementary school was out for the summer and keeping the police from having to re-route frazzled parents.

Now she stood and looked at the devastation. She wanted to cry, and it wasn't even her house.

It belonged to Benny Needles.

Benny was a one-time client, part-time assistant, and full-time needy little man with a big obsession for Dean Martin. He had spent the last couple of years running through his inheritance, stuffing his house with Dino items that he bought on eBay. Peri was never sure whether he was actually a hoarder. While his house was so full it was difficult to move around, it was full of specific things. Tables, chairs, sofas from the sets of Dean Martin movies littered the living room. Posters, and photographs, all signed, were on the walls, And then there were the tchotchkes – ashtrays, barware, even an ice cube tray that had been the center of Peri's first murder case.

She wanted to get a closer look at the damage, but she wasn't certain if the police would let her past the barricade. She knew almost everyone in the Placentia Police Department. Peering at all the uniforms, she was hoping to see someone who didn't just view her as an over-snoopy private investigator.

All I can do is try, she thought. The worst they can do is say no.

The tall blonde adjusted her ball cap over her ponytail and approached the officers. She spotted Officer Chou on his phone. He was always very courteous. She caught his eye and he motioned her over.

"Hey, Peri," he said after he ended his call. "I was just calling Detective Carlton."

She smiled. If Chou couldn't let her pass, Skip Carlton might. For one thing, he was a reasonable man. For another, they had been dating for ten years. But why was he needed on the scene?

"For a house fire?"

"House fire's not the problem. The body inside is." Officer Chou looked worried. "I'm assuming it's Benny."

"No." She shook her head. "I happen to know he's out of town this week. It's Dean Martin's birthday, and he went with Phil and Nancy Nickels to some town in Ohio. Dino's birthplace and all that."

* * *

It's now your turn. I'm going to go have some coffee, start a load of laundry and take a nap.

A blog challenge: Lucky 7

Sometimes my friends like to play games with their Facebook statuses or blog posts. I do like to join in when I can, although I'm too busy to join them all the time. This of course makes me feel guilty. ("Oh, no, they won't love me anymore if I don't play with them. I'll fall off their A-list!")

But when Jenny Hilborne, author extraordinaire, named me as one of her seven writer buds to partake in the Lucky 7 Challenge, I had to try to respond. I don't think of myself as a lucky person, but the challenge appealed to me because being lucky reminds me of Las Vegas and Las Vegas reminds me of this guy:

Ah... Dino...

So here are the rules:

1. Go to page 7 or 77 in your current manuscript (fiction or non-fiction)
2. Go to line 7
3. Post on your blog the next 7 lines, or sentences, as they are – no cheating
4. Tag 7 other authors to do the same

So here are 7 lines from page 77 of my current manuscript (be gentle, it's in its first draft state):

At each statement, Skip watched Matt McHale's face turn a deeper shade of red as his shoulders slumped forward. Claudia wept harder with each fact.

"No," McHale said. "It's not true—"

His wife cut him off. "Stop lying, Matthew. It's true. All of it." She cried a little more, then spoke again. "Of course, my husband thinks Alex was a typical teenager. He was always at the office, while I was the one trying to get Alex to school, trying to get him to do homework, wondering where he was and when he'd be home."

Now then, my 7 authors to tag... hmm... stop hiding behind your coffee mugs. I see you.

1. Tameri Etherton

2. Rick Ochocki

3. Janelle Lee

4. Ali Trotta

5. Sheri Fink

6. Indy Quillen

7. Ara (The Writer) Grigorian

Tag, you're all it!

Where do I start?

I know you're supposed to keep blog posts short and sweet because, God knows, no one has seen their attention span since the 50s, but I've done so much in the past week, it's hard not to tell you all about it in EXCRUTIATING detail.

But I'll spare you and give you the highlights.

On Tuesday, I drove up to the Santa Barbara Writers Conference to be on a panel of entrepreneurial authors. Marla Miller asked me to join her, and of course, I was delighted. My other partners in crime were Sheri Fink, Madeline Sharples, and Jennifer Aderhold. I love panels because I learn as much as I share.

Sheri contacted me before the event to see if we could carpool to Santa Barbara. She lives in Mission Viejo (or as we like to call it, "Bitchin' Viejo"). Normally, I like driving long distances solo so I can sing along to my iPod, but I wanted to get to know Sheri better. Two-and-a-half hours, each way, seemed like a great way to either learn about each other, or start a cat fight.

As it turns out, Sheri is The Sweetest Woman in the World. When she arrived at my house, she had to run the Doggy Gauntlet in order to use the restroom. Duffy immediately jumped on her bare legs and scratched her, to the point of needing first aid.

I'm SO SORRY, Sheri!!! (Note: abject groveling and apologies are the only grammatically correct time to use more than one exclamation point.)

The panel was wonderful. The workshop attendees were interesting and savvy and asked great questions. All of the panelists had insights and information, and Marla facilitated effortlessly, so what was not to love? In addition, Sheri is insanely savvy as a businesswoman. I learned as much from her on our car ride as from the panel.

After the panel, we all scampered down to the bar and met up with good friends Michael Steven Gregory and Jeremy Lee James, who were giving a workshop on the following day. I wish I could've stayed for that workshop, but I had places to go...

Like Tameri Etherton's house on Thursday. I met her at her home in Carlsbad, where I went with her and her darling daughter, Alexzandra, to dinner and a play. The dinner, the play, and the whole experience was beyond fun, but started with a bang - I got a present!

Such a pretty box, what could be inside?

For me? Squee!

I didn't expect it. I may not deserve it. But I'll take it - now I can rule the world.

Thank you, Tameri! Thank you thank you thank you!

Gotcha!

Am I the only one who has categories of friends? You know, you really like A and you really like B, but you know if you ever get A and B together, fur will fly, heads will roll and the countdown to world destruction has started.

Tameri Etherton is not one of those friends. I could get her together with anyone else I know and not worry about the outcome. She's hysterically funny and smart as a whip and honestly true and will suck you into her funny-smart-cool-honest universe in the best possible way.

This is her birthday week, and this is her blog: A Cup of Tea and Sorcery. She's playing a game of Get-To-Know-Me and has tagged everyone who tunes into her blog. Here are the rules:

1. You must post the rules. (check)
2. Answer the questions and then create eleven new questions to ask the people you’ve tagged. (kind of check, I’m using the same questions)
3. Tag eleven people and link to them. (again, kind of check. I’m opening this to everyone. It’s Tameri's birthday week, so I'm following her lead.)
4. Let them know you’ve tagged them. (consider yourself tagged!)

Questions:

If you could live in a fictional world, where would that be?

Probably Alice's Wonderland. When I was a kid, I enjoyed thinking about what life would be like on the other side of the mirror, or if the house was upside-down. As much as I am organized and logical, I romanticize the topsy-turvy life.

Do you read in noisy or quiet places?

I can read anywhere, as long as people leave me alone to do it. Yes, that includes noisy places, and even while I'm watching TV. The worst place for me to read is actually in bed. I can't concentrate for some reason.

What was the first book you ever read?

I'm sure I don't remember - my mom used to buy me these weird books about children and young animals (puppies and colts) where the moral of the story was always about being happy that you're normal. Gah, who wants to be a happy normal? The first book I REMEMBER and took to heart was Call of the Wild by Jack London. Even though it ended sadly, the adventure was worth it.

If you could only read one book for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Waaaa! Don't make me choose! Can I have The Lord of the Rings trilogy?

Favorite author?

Difficult choice. I'm all over the map, stylistically, from Willa Cather to Dean Koontz to James Thurber. And then there's Ray Bradbury and Erma Bombeck and Raymond Chandler and... forget it. I don't play favorites with my children either - oh, wait, I only have one of those.

Do reviews influence your choice of reads?

Only if they are in-depth examinations of what worked and what didn't.

Fiction or Non fiction?

Fiction.

Have you ever met your favorite author?

I've met Ray Bradbury, which was a real treat. And, upon meeting Val McDermid, I blurted, "I love you!" Which is awkward, since she's gay and I didn't mean that kind of love.

Kindle or Paperbacks?

Either. I don't care about the delivery mode, just the words.

Classic or Modern Novels?

Classics - if you include pulp fiction as "classic."

Book Groups or Solitary Reading?

Believe it or not, I've never been in a book club. I'd like to try it someday. In the meantime, I'm a solitary gal.

 

OKAY, it's your turn, if you want. I'd love for everyone to play along, because I'm uber-curious about everyone. If you do this, leave me a comment with a pointer to your blog, so I can go find out what makes you tick.

 

In the meantime, I'll leave you with a Merrie Melody about books.