Writing

I love talking to people who have lived life deep and wide and have a breadth of knowledge and wisdom to share.  One of those people is the mother of my oldest friend, Stephen (we’ve been friends since we were toddlers) — Pat Dodson, or Mrs. D. as we called her.  I grew up in a rural-ish town in South Jersey and Stephen lived down the street with his mom, dad, and sister.  Growing up we had a healthy neighborhood posse of kids who played outside during the day when we weren’t in school and at night until it got dark.  We walked to our Catholic school about a mile away and swam in the above-ground pool in our back yard during the dog days of summer. All manner of things grew in my hometown in the surrounding farming community and in our yards. In retrospect, my childhood was pretty idyllic although as a child who chafed against the confines of kid-dom, I probably didn’t recognize it for what it was while in the midst of it.

What I did recognize was Mrs. D — graceful, sophisticated, and beautiful both inside and out — and as a kid, I was in awe of her.  (My own mother was equally as elegant, but she was my mom so that didn’t count.)  Mrs. D. used to call me Pam-Ella — her version of Pamela — something she still does today.  She’s had to pull herself up by herself again and again in this life, getting divorced when the kids were still young and retraining to work after being out of the workforce for awhile to make ends meet and she did it all with her usual aplomb.  And I’m still in awe of her as she continues, now in her 80th decade, to redefine herself, most recently as an author.

For Pat’s birthday last year, Stephen gave her a gift from StoryWorth — 52 writing prompts, once a week for her to respond to that would ultimately be turned into a book, Come Sit Next To Me. In addition to re-living many of her life’s events, it’s a keepsake for her family and a work of creativity for Pat, a lovely book that for me brought back many childhood memories of growing up in the ’60s and ’70s.  And in the process of answering writing prompts, Pat discovered an innate writing ability that she didn’t know she had.

We are so preoccupied with youth that we forget how valuable the experience of matriculating through life is with its hard knocks, high fives, and various life lessons.  Even if I didn’t know Pat, the little vignettes that make up this book would have resonated with me.  You can’t get Pat’s book in stores, but you can get a bit of her wisdom and firecracker personality below:

How was this experience of writing a book from writing prompts?  

I feel like an imposter.  I never set out to write a book. I just humored my son by committing to 52 weeks of innocuous questions to do him a favor. I laughed when he said it was his gift to me. Yeah, sure. Without the prompt of pre-selected questions, the book (it is a book, right?) never would have been. My memory went to places that surprised even me. I can’t imagine writing a real book. How does one create from nothing? The research, the sacrifice, the creative talent, must be slow and painful. When I see still another Jodi Picault book on the shelf, I am in disbelief. How does she grind them out? I consider her a good author, too. I would still be resting from last year’s effort. For me, the essay form was the most natural, but who knows. They say, ” write what you know”.  Grandma Moses didn’t paint until she was 78 years old, so stay tuned.

I’ve read your descriptions of your children several times now and, having known them for all these years — despite the physical separation and passing of time — I can still see the attributes you have prescribed to them.  You must feel extremely proud and lucky to be the mother of two such wonderful people.  Considering your ex-husband’s struggles, how did you manage to steer the ship and raise such amazing individuals? 

When my marriage ended, Beth was away at Nursing School. Steve was a high school senior. Beth was closer to her dad than to me ( my perception), so I think she wanted me to try a little harder to keep things together. We never discussed the problems because I couldn’t burden kids with big people’s stuff.  We never discussed it until years later, when her husband walked out on her and her two kids.   Steve was a senior. He didn’t get the big graduation party his sister got. He had to come with me to a sad little apartment on the wrong side of town, while she lived in a school dorm and could escape the day-to-day misery of staying afloat. I was called to school a few times to discuss behavior problems with a few teachers. After Steve’s first year at college, he was not invited back. In the meantime, I got a new job and moved to the shore. Raising teenagers was a tough job at best, but my circumstances made it worse. There were no answers, easy or otherwise. I just had to hang on until the storm subsided.

Okay — the portrait/painting of your kids as toddlers  — my mother had one of my sister and me.  Did everyone get them?  Was that the thing to do in the ’60s, have a photographer do a photo shoot, and then have someone add paint to it?

Photo courtesy Foschi Studio. Every family had one. Like the bronzed baby shoes, they are things that aren’t there anymore. The studio would lightly tint the portrait. JC Penney also had a photographer every month. The first few years of their babyhood were recorded a few times a year for future reference. I bet they are in a box somewhere in a dark closet.

In your essay about who inspires you, you talk about your granddaughter who survived cancer and your grandson who survived a deployment to Iraq.  What qualities have you watched these two young people develop that you would like to emulate?

I see Allison as one of those accomplished women that everyone will admire. She knows what she wants and is willing to work for it. I think cancer made her kinder, stronger, more confident. She knows disappointment and loss. I think she will love her life because she worked for it.  Collin has had his challenges too. He was a preemie and has had to deal with ADHD all of his life. He is sweet and kind. I hope people don’t mistake that for weakness. Collin once got a tattoo with a misspelled word. That pretty much sums up Collin’s luck. The girl he is engaged to calls him the love of her life. I pray this is true because he is a treasure.

I laughed at the essay on your “brief life of crime” where you nicked the profits by eating some of the Hershey’s candy you didn’t have the nickel to pay for it and later got dinged by the nuns.  What has happened in our country, do you think, between a kid who regrets that action and today’s world where adults have grown up to steal far more while needing far less.  I’m thinking say, of the politicians who sold off a bunch of stocks just before the pandemic hit or someone like Bernie Madoff and his massive Ponzi scheme.  Has it always been like that and we just see it more because of the internet?  Were we ever any better as a nation?

Don’t be fooled. For every law, there is an opportunity to break it. My frame of reference is WWll and the early 50s. I think we were more idealistic then. Our world was much smaller. With the internet, and inventions like jet planes and the telephone, the world became accessible to most of us. It also provided an opportunity to make money and accrue power, by fair means or foul. And we did! We took native land with lies and worthless treaties, busted unions, spied on our enemies, spied on our own country, sold bootleg booze, did business with the Mafia, and more. Insider trading is a lucrative business. Over the years, we have tweaked crime to a fine art. There will always be good and evil, side by side. The saving grace is a word called integrity. What do we do when nobody is looking? I think there is still reason for optimism.

I hope you’re right!  In one of the essays you say “God knows, REALLY knows, I have missed so many chances to be a better person.”  A lot of us feel that way about ourselves.  First, how do you manage to make peace with yourself about the past over your own perceived shortcomings (which others may not see as such), and second, how do you move on?

I don’t have the answers to life’s questions. I think the answers change. Life changes. We change. Let me describe this week as an example. Except for a trip to ShopRite, I have been home. To the untrained eye, it has been a boring few days. From where I sit, I am finishing a quilt I am making for myself. By the end of the week, it should be done! I have spent at least an hour a day on my porch, appreciating the lack of humidity and sunshine. I cleaned a closet. I made the decision to finally obey the doctor and wear those dreaded compression stockings. You should know how I hate the thought. My point is, without breaking a sweat, I have become a better person than I was last week. It isn’t much, but it is a step forward. My sister says quilting is boring and tedious. I say, “I’m going to tell on you”! Here is a bit of knowledge: sibling rivalry lasts forever.

Saddle shoes and bobby socks, penny loafers, cardigans buttoned down the back [how?!?], working women and women’s rights playing a large part in the fads and faux pas in the dressing of women.The joke was always that Ginger Rogers could do everything Fred Astaire could but in heels and backward.Can you talk about how women seem to need to work twice as hard to get half as much (or about 81% as of last accounting) more than men, and also how you think fashion trends have impacted a woman’s place in the working world?

Before women went to work for the war effort in WWll, they did not wear jeans. They were then called dungarees. It was practical and expedient in the factory jobs they held when the men went off to war. They tied their hair up in bandanas because the machinery was dangerous and time was better spent working than primping. Why primp? There was a man shortage. “What’s good is in the army, what’s left will never harm me.”  After the war, what to do with the women who were entering the corporate world? Crinolines were out of the question. Even then, women desired and deserved to be taken seriously. Christian Dior designed the a-line maxi skirt for the working woman. That morphed into the pantsuit, which still seems to be the costume of the day until someone comes up with another great idea. Gone are the slip, girdle, garter belt of the past. Now, if we could get women on the same pay scale as men, we would be golden.

In your essay on selflessness, you say “every night I relive my day to see where I have fallen short of my own expectations.” You go on to say that we probably all do, but I’d offer that is probably not the case because if we did, there would not be as much strife, greed, and flat out bad behavior in the world.  How has being kind instead of right worked out for you?

I often default to insisting on being right. After all, I am not Mother Theresa. There is a saying, “I’d rather be right than president”.  I don’t know who said it, but it could have been me. I suppose it is only human. I try to listen more and speak less. I am pleased with myself when I succeed, disappointed when I fail. I guess it is the human condition. What was the question?

The icebox story is one of my favorites where your friends all pooled their money to buy you this antique icebox that you had really wanted but couldn’t afford and then they threw a surprise party to give it to you. What instances of thoughtfulness have you encountered in this decade that give you pause the way the icebox has?

Last week, neighbors invited me to lunch at the Lobster House in Cape May. It was a beautiful day. Because of social distancing, we ate on the pier from paper plates. We had lobster. It was heaven. They then told me it was their 54th wedding anniversary. I was shocked that they chose me to celebrate with them. They have grown children several miles away. They could have arranged to meet them. I don’t know why they chose me to spend their special day with, but I was thrilled at the compliment. As I stated in one of my little essays, I try to be aware of when the glass is half full…sometimes a little more than half.

Beautiful! One of the essays talks about Freddie Mercury and your evolving family traditions, this one where you chose not to do a traditional Thanksgiving dinner and how liberating it was.  Do you think we place too much emphasis on tradition as a society such that we’ve lost the meaning in the accouterments?  Does tradition keep us from being present?

When I think of the rituals that accompany any holiday, I have to compare it with my Catholic upbringing. How many rosaries, how many Stations of the Cross did I mindlessly recite. Was it really meaningless, or is that what imprinted on my child’s heart all that was good and holy. So much was memorization, yet I can still cry when I hear a particular hymn or still strive to be good. I still pray to St. Anthony when I lose something. Does that prayer have value or is it the tradition that carries the weight? With the specter of COVID still hanging over us, how will our lives be forever changed? What will the five-year-old tell us of his school year of 2020/2021? How about the high school kids who have to figure out how to put out a yearbook, or do we really need a yearbook? How will they make friends? How will they learn to play? Interact with others? It will be interesting to look back on all of this to see how we adapt or not.  So, whether it is celebrating Seder or taking the family to a Chinese restaurant on Christmas, it is all about what floats your boat.

In the essay on inventions that have made an impact on your life, you say, “I don’t want a picture of what you are eating.  I don’t want your political opinion.  I don’t care who your friends are.  I want your company.  I want to talk to you.  I want your undivided attention.”  Amen to that.  The world would be a better place if people just really listened to each other.  Would you like to add to that?  Also, if we remove politics — which have taken over all of our lives — from our discussions, do we still have something to talk about.

Oh, will the election ever be over? Will I have any friends left? Luckily, most of my friends are approximately my age. They are not dependent on their cell phones. Some don’t know how to work them. That is why I call them friends. For the most part, we all know by now who we will vote for. Conversation is an art. Listening, being “present” is not always easy, especially when you are sure you are right and others just don’t appreciate your wisdom. I am comfortable with my friends, so it is easy to “show up”. I usually talk too much but have been told that I am interesting and fun to be with. It just doesn’t get any better than that.

Love that you picked NJ to get the Miss Congeniality Award.  You obviously love living there.  Where would you live if not there?

Where would I live if not New Jersey? We once had a log cabin on a lake in Bloomsburg, PA. The lake was right out our front door. We had a big porch and a fireplace. We took rides to Danville and other beautiful rural towns. Loved it. We sold it when the three-hour drive got to be too much. Would I love it there? Why not? For something more exotic, how about Scandinavia. I have always wanted to see Denmark and surrounding countries. I hear the food is fabulous. Socialism is alive and well, which is always a consideration at my advanced age. I don’t know if I could live with all those long days and equally long nights. Maybe I would try it for a year. How about Australia? The people seem so nice and the koala bears are adorable. France and Japan are right up there as fabulous places to live. Both entail learning another language, so that is discouraging. I know nothing about South America, so I can’t comment on that. Ireland sounds like a place I would love but it rains a lot. And I don’t like lamb. Thinking stateside, I think Seattle would be fun. It is a little hilly and rainy, but I could be happy on one of those little islands in Puget Sound. I would have a cottage and a gardener. I would take the ferry into town. I would go to Pike’s Market for flowers and fresh produce. The people are friendly. If it didn’t work out, I would get out the map and see what else would appeal to me.

You were voted Class Clown in your senior year of high school.  How has being a class clown helped you overcome some of the more difficult situations in your life and which of your traits would you love to pass on to your grandchildren?

Humor has been both a blessing and a curse for me. Psychology 101 will tell you that humor is used to assuage the pain. It covers discomfort, it deflects feelings of inadequacy.  I learned very early in life to use it for all of the above. It also takes lots of practice to be good at it. Bad humor is the opposite. It can be used by amateurs to embarrass or hurt others. Bad humor is not funny. I always used humor to get attention from adults when I was a child. It worked. When you are the middle kid in a big family, you will use desperate means to be noticed. I don’t want to brag, but I was good at it and it helped in social gatherings. I admit it is not appreciated by some people. I was recently dressed down by a family member who failed to see the humor in my wit. I was devastated. It took me a few days to pick myself up and dust myself off. After lots of soul searching, I had to admit that some people just will never appreciate my attempt to be funny, and I have to accept that I will henceforth tiptoe to the best of my ability when I am in this unfortunate person’s company. My intention is not to hurt or embarrass. However, lesson learned. I am not everyone’s cup of tea.

You talked about showing up in both your job and your life when life asked it of you.   How are you still showing up today? (hint — pretty bold to take on a writing project).

Sometimes I show up just by not having any regrets at the end of the day. Sometimes I am really on my game and I am just on automatic pilot. I am at my smiley best and loving the world. It’s like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates. I know I am repeating myself.

I love the last picture of you and your family holding hands and the other of you with a gun spitting out tickets of some kind at a family party.  What’s the single greatest moment of your life, one that you’ll never forget no matter what and that will bring you joy every time?

I remember when we picked up our dog at Philadelphia Airport. My husband was in love with all things German. When we decided to get a dog, he investigated and purchased a miniature wire-haired dachshund from a breeder in Berlin. He was 12 weeks old. His picture was adorable. They packed him in a dog crate marked “living animal”, and shipped him to Cargo City at Philadelphia Airport. We were waiting when the carrier arrived on the plane from Germany. We had to sign a million papers while this little being peeked out at us. He had been in that crate for at least 12 hours. When I lifted him out, all I saw was big brown eyes. His crate was immaculate inside. This baby had stayed clean all those long hours on his flight over the Atlantic. I took him outside to relieve himself, which he did the minute he touched American soil. The breeder had placed one of her socks in the crate to comfort him during the long flight. On the drive home, I sat with him in the back seat. He never took his eyes off of me. We named him Amos after my husband’s grandfather. Amos was our joy for 12 years. I smile just thinking of him.

What is your favorite genre of book to read?  Favorite author?

I am a painfully slow reader. Since I belong to a BookClub, I am exposed to many books that I  never would have read if left to my own devices. This is a good thing. I don’t think I have a favorite genre. I love the silly humor of Carl Hiaasen. I love the medical novels of Lisa Genova. I love Elizabeth Berg. I tried to love Toni Morrison, but her books are too sad and dark for my taste. James Mitchner is too wordy. Maeve Binchey is too easy.  I love it when I find a book that I can’t put down. Hanging Mary was one of those books. It is a historical novel, based on the assassination of Abe Lincoln. Devil in the White City is a must-read about the Chicago Worlds Fair. Love Anthony by Lisa Genova kept me up all night. I can’t get enough of her. One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCort, and Sacajawea by Anna Waldo all come to mind.

Do you think writing is a form of therapy and, if so, how has it helped you work through life stuff?  What has been your greatest writing or life lesson?

Writing is like eating a potato chip. One is never enough. I find myself full of stories to tell, but with no audience. Most of my stories are dated, just observations, whether valid or not. As I have stated, I am not for everybody. Like Aster’s Pet Horse, some folks have no idea or interest in my nuggets. But I love that little girl who stole the candy in school. She learned a life lesson. And nobody died. Confidence and self-love are not bad words. They are a destination.

 

Love that!  We all could use a bit more of each, I think.  If you could be a character in any novel, what character would you be and why?

I have no idea who I would love to be. Scarlett O’Hara? So beautiful. So spoiled, so selfish. So brave. Maybe Eleanor Roosevelt. She was ridiculed for being homely. Her husband had a lover. She was brilliant. She made her life meaningful when a “woman’s place was in the home. ” She marched to her own drum and made the world a better place. She raised her children in the White House during wartime. She traveled the world and wasn’t afraid to be an advocate for the United States. I think I’m going to read more about her. Yes, I think I would like to be like Eleanor Roosevelt. They are big shoes to fill.

Oh, you said a character in a novel.  Sorry…

I could ask a million more questions of Pat, but as they say, every good story must sooner or later come to an end.  Thanks for reading and thanks, Pat, for humoring me!

pam lazos 9.13.20

 

 

 

 

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Life in a Conversation

I’m on a once-a-month author interview series, having kicked off the New Year with the divine Ms. Shey and her Mr. (and just lovely they were).

Today, I’m talking to Geoff Le Pard — a man of many words — who started writing in 2006 and still hasn’t left his keyboard.  As Geoff says, “when he’s not churning out novels he writes some maudlin self-indulgent poetry.” He also writes short fiction and has his own blog.  The U.K. resident and former lawyer turned full-time writer has four novels, two anthologies and a memoir which he’s published independently. He describes himself as “married but always on probation.”  The dog, cat and tortoise owner also has a couple of kids and a serious addiction to baking, spinning, gardening, traveling, skiing, drinking coffee, visiting family and art galleries, exploring his home city of London, and volunteering at a homeless center and a youth club (how does this guy find time to write?!), but his fav thing is chatting up his wife over morning tea.

What else does Geoff do?  Well, he walks the dog — where his best ideas originate — and cooks, “if not with precision, than passion.”  Funny guy, right?

His new book, Life in a Conversation is currently available for pre-order on Amazon and will be released on February 28, 2019.

Meanwhile, it sounds like it’s time for Geoff to answer a few questions:

How long have you been writing and were you formally trained?  

Since July 2006 – I started at a summer school in Marlborough in middle England and haven’t looked back.  I took several courses culminating in a Creative Writing Masters at Sheffield Hallam University 2011-2013.

Do you have a writing routine?

I write best in the evening and often write from seven to ten and then maybe eleven to one. Otherwise I fit it in when I can.

Do you write on the computer, longhand, dictate, papyrus, or something else?  

Oh goodness, computer. I can’t read my own writing so long hand is impossible.

I can’t read my own writing either!  Do you work out while writing, take breaks, or simply gut it out?

When I started I still worked full-time as a commercial lawyer in the City of London. My hours were often crippling and I had to find time to squirrel in the writing. So I’ve always written in fragmented segments and I find it impossible to write for more than an hour without some kind of proper break. Anyway, writing, for me, is emotional and I’m drained after that hour. I soon refill but it sometimes feels like the ideas are a liquid and they are sploshing around my head. I need to let the liquid thoughts settle or they’ll pour out of my ears.

Wonderful metaphor.  I like the idea of your thoughts and words spilling onto the pages.  So what’s your favorite book? 

Difficult there are so many. Currently The Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch

Favorite author? 

Another sod of a question. Aaronovitch at the moment. Plus Chris Brookmyre, Stuart MacBride, Neil Gaiman, Samuel Trollope.

What is your favorite genre of book to write?  

Humour.  

To read?

Crime and thriller.

What’s your favorite writing prompt?

For flash fiction, pictures. Sue Vincent’s #writephoto probably. For novels, some life event.

 

 

Have you had any brushes with writing greatness, e.g., a writer that you’d love to meet and then suddenly, there they are, standing in front of you in the checkout line?

Nope. The writing world has steadfastly ignored me so far.

Do you think writing is a form of therapy and, if so, has it helped you work through anything in particular?  

Not in the sense of a personal issue that I needed to deal with. But I find it just so overwhelming, this need to write and, hopefully be read (though the writing bit is the bit that really grabs me). I have so many ideas and I love finding them and giving them form. I think a lot of it is ego. When I write: a blog post, a poem, any sort of fiction, it is all mine. My idea, my words, my twists, my humour. Up until I wrote fiction, all my work, any creativity had been a team effort. This is mine.

I agree.  Work, especially working as a lawyer in a large organization can be such a collaborative effort while writing is such a personal experience.  It provides a nice balance.  Sounds like a learning experience.  So what has been your greatest writing lesson?

So many. Do not give a bugger for what anyone else thinks but always listen to your critics. If their intentions are honorable and they want to help then they’ve probably found something that might be improved. However, if they suggest a solution be extremely wary of adopting it. You will have read your work countless times; they might have read it once. Who knows it best?

Good writing advice.  What’s your greatest life lesson?

Smile and the world smiles with you.

Have you reduced that lesson to writing?

Nope. I can be a curmudgeon on the page if the story requires it.

I know you are a lawyer so maybe you’d like to tell us something about that. 

It paid the bills; it allowed me to retire from the legal coal face at 60 and write. I enjoyed the intellectual challenge of working out the solution to a knotty legal problem. I made some good friends. I learnt the art of negotiation.  I have no interest whatsoever in being a lawyer ever again. People around me either don’t believe me or don’t think I should because they still ask my views on the law and legal issues. Every Jan 1^st I say I will not answer them. I fail miserably. One gift I realise being a commercial lawyer has given me as a writer and that is in connection with the plotter/pantser debate. I don’t plot, at least in the sense of storyboards and posits and chapter summaries. But I’ve had to be able to hold a myriad of ideas in my head in order to be able to negotiate complicated 200 plus page contract. Same with a novel; I hold the strands in my head and only when I’m 75% through might I write stuff down so as to reinforce it. It’s not all good news though. Legal writing is the epitome of boring; I had to break that habit quickly.

I know from reading your work that at one point you were working with the Olympic Committee. 

That was a brilliant end to my legal career (give or take). I loved it and there’s a book in there that is three-quarters written… but I have at least five novels written either part or complete that I still have to work on. Here’s something about me and the Olympics.

Does or did your work outside of your writing inform your writing in any way? 

Oh yes. A lot. All my novels stem from personal experience.  They say write about what you know, but the best fiction I think amalgamates some seeds, maybe grains, from one’s real life and mixes them with a lot of imagination.

That’s true for me as well, but when you had your high-powered law job, how did you find time to write?

Nowadays it should be easier but back in the day I wrote (1) after work at home between 9 and midnight (2) weekends when not with family or at work (3) on planes and trains and automobiles – my work, latterly took me aboard a fair bit – it is fair to say I didn’t always prepare for the meeting as maybe I should have!! (4) I’ve been known to write under the desk in meetings, on the toilet, in shop queues, sketching out ideas, noting down plot twists, characters, dialogue.

Lucky for you no one ever caught on!  From where do you pull inspiration and how do you keep that creative spark going?  

Everywhere, and no idea but I’m over full with ideas. Give me a setting, or a character or something and I’ll sketch out a novel.  I love subverting prompts.  A picture of a lake and I might imagine someone rolling it up and taking it away because it’s needed else where. Or a gun and I’ll imagine the life of the bullet and it’s tragic existence. I love dialogue so to allow my mind to roam far and wide, imagining some off the wall conversation between a decorator and his paste brush say, pleases me to no end.

Sounds like a fabulous view one the world.  So what’s your perfect writing day look like?

Early start. Porridge. Write for an hour. Walk dog; coffee; rattle off a piece of flash – 800 words – in the café for a prompt. Home and two hours writing. Chat to wife; One hour doing something really useful. Another hour. Cook, maybe listen to a podcast. Write until 7. Dinner. Write. Watch TV show on record with wife and chat. 10.30 write. Bed at 12.30.

How about just a perfect day?

Probably above but include seeing children and doing exercise.

Ah, a true writer.  If you could be a character in any novel, what character would you be and why?

My first novel was based on me, as a 19-year old. Mind you his adventures were made up. I’m nearly ready to publish the sequel and that, too, follows my career as a trainee lawyer. The third part has also been written but now needs the ferocious editing to knock it into shape. It’s a book of humour with a cleverly plotted twisting tone set in 1981 (book one was in 1976 and book three will be 1987). I’m already there.

What was your most exotic travel destination, and do you have a place you go back to again and again? 

Gosh. I’ve been lucky to travel a lot. Australia and, separately, New Zealand were brilliant. Various parts of the US – San Francisco. I’ve been to a lot and it’s amazing every time. Canada too. But actually I adore Scotland so probably the west coast. Peru, 1987 is the most exotic and Oban – or actually an island just off it where we go with the family and stay and decompress is the favorite. It is delightful. The Isle of Eriska.

How about a writing space; do you have a favorite?

My desk in my cubbyhole. This post has a picture of it.

What was the worst job you ever had?

Carnation picker

Sounds like there should be a story around that one.  I know you are a memoirist, so this may not be applicable — how much research do you do before you begin a writing project?

Little if I can avoid it. But when I’m underway however much I think I need. I’m not that concerned with factual accuracy, in truth – rebelling against the lawyer in me – but if I was ever famous that might have to change!!

And the final question, assuming you could have one, what’s your superpower?

Always make sure my cakes rise just the right amount.

Thanks so much, Geoff. Any last parting words of wisdom?

I’m a great believer in the Kipling couplet from his poem If.  ‘If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run,’ I intend to sprint and cram it to the brim while I’m able. I will consciously, and will steadfastly remain an optimist, a meliorist and smile at whatever and whoever I can for as long as I can.

Amen to that, and Godspeed. May your writing and your life flourish under your optimistic and energetic gaze and good humor. 

Geoff’s books are all available on Amazon.  Here is a listing with a short synopsis of each:

Want a few other ways to catch up with Geoff?  Well, have at it:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/geoff.lepard

Twitter: @geofflepard

Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Geoff-Le-Pard/e/B00OSI7XA0/

blog: https://geofflepard.com

The following is a listing of our prodigious and prolific hero’s work.  Go ahead and treat yourself.

My Father and Other Liars is a thriller set in the near future and takes its heroes, Maurice and Lori-Ann on a helter-skelter chase across continents.

Smashwords

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

Dead Flies and Sherry Trifle is a coming of age story. Set in 1976 the hero Harry Spittle is  home from university for the holidays. He has three goals: to keep away from his family, earn money and hopefully have sex. Inevitably his summer turns out to be very different to that anticipated.

Smashwords

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

Life in a Grain of Sand is a 30 story anthology covering many genres: fantasy, romance, humour, thriller, espionage, conspiracy theories, MG and indeed something for everyone. All the stories were written during Nano 2015.

Smashwords

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

Salisbury Square is a dark thriller set in present day London where a homeless woman and a Polish man, escaping the police at home, form an unlikely alliance to save themselves.

Smashwords

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

Buster & Moo is about about two couples and the dog whose ownership passes from one to the other. When the couples meet, via the dog, the previously hidden cracks in their relationships surface and events begin to spiral out of control. If the relationships are to survive there is room for only one hero but who will that be?

Smashwords

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

Life in a Flash is a set of super short fiction, flash and micro fiction that should keep you engaged and amused for ages.

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

Smashwords

Apprenticed To My Mother describes the period after my father died when I thought I was to play the role of dutiful son, while Mum wanted a new, improved version of her husband – a sort of Desmond 2.0. We both had a lot to learn in those five years, with a lot of laughs and a few tears as we went.

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

Geoff Le Pard’s Amazon Author Page

 

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Meet the Mr. and the Mrs.

Unless you’re in Hollywood, it’s not often that you come across a husband and wife who both make their living in the arts.  My dear friend Shehanne Moore, a/k/a Lady Shey because of her work in writing historical romance, and her husband John Quigly, a/k/a the Mr., which is how the Lady refers to him, both have a passion for creating.  For years, Shey labored under a publisher, putting out title after title, only to be told that several of her books had shelf-lives and were soon going to be out of print.  So what did this Scottish-born lassie do?  Not acquiesce, I can tell you that. 

Rather than tow the antagonistic and inhospitable line, she did what any self-respecting woman would do?  (Well, maybe not any woman, but as you will note from her writing and her blog, Lady Shey is not just “any” woman.)  She pulled all of her books and started her own publishing company, Black Wolf Books.  If that sounds drastic and out-on-a-limb crazy, or even the stuff of fiction, well, it’s something all of Shey’s heroines have in common, a sharp mind, more than a bit of the sass, and the ability to turn circumstances to their advantage at a moment’s notice.

Then there’s the Mister, a playwright and director who producers several plays a year.

I had a few questions for Shey and the Mr. which they were happy to answer.

First, Shehanne Moore — Lady Shey:

You’ve got control of your own line of books now that you’ve started your own publishing company.  Was that something you felt you had to do or did you just want a new challenge?   

It’s something I wanted to do for at least three years, but not only did we move house and that house required a lot of work, we gave a commitment to look after our very wee grandbaby two days a week after his mum got a hard-to-come-by position as a trainee lawyer, one it was vital she took, or she was looking at redoing the actual diploma bit of her degree to the tune of seven thousand pounds. So it went on hold until the moment I learned my books and those of all non-U.S authors had been pulled from our publishers without any warning.

How is being a publisher different from being an author with a publisher standing behind you?  Are there fewer or more headaches associated with running your own business?

It is actually far less pressured. Okay it was a steep learning curve in terms of formatting the books for eBook and print, of finding cover images and graphic artists at a reasonable rate. But I did have experience at formatting a magazine.  The rest is far preferable to being hit with first round edits Christmas week, or final proofing the day before a book is going live. One of my books sat for over a year after I signed the contract on it before I saw an edit. Another never came out on the day it was meant to because I hadn’t seen an edit, while yet another publisher offered lousy royalty rates and wanted a book as part of a trilogy, every three months. Not that that’s a problem. I’ve done that. But being my own boss means I can work at my pace and release the books at my pace, too. I can also give –well, I hope this is what I am doing – other authors a chance because, yes, I’ve signed some, and I hope our working arrangements aren’t too shoddy either, having sat on both sides of this desk.

You use your native homeland of Scotland as the backdrop in a lot of your stories and you’ve often said that Glencoe is one of your favorite places.  Tell us about it and how you use the natural beauty and inspiration of the Scottish Highlands to enhance your novels.  What other places have similarly inspired you?

Ooh, lots of places. I squirrel places away. Firstly I do so love Glencoe.  I set His Judas Bride there, under a different name. As an area of savage grandeur, moody mountains you can have entirely to yourself, plenty of adventure and the Clachaig Inn to stay in, it’s an area of outstanding, wild beauty. It was also the scene of a massacre in 1692, when Campbell soldiers fell upon their Macdonald hosts on government orders. The glen was pretty much a fortress then, so to come under banners of friendship was the smart way in. I liked the remote, fortress idea and two clans being thorns in each other’s sides. So I used that as well as several areas in Glencoe. But other places have cropped up in my books, too.  When we visited the monk’s cell at Mount Grace Priory in Yorkshire, I was so fascinated by it I started thinking where I could use it in a story, and I later did in Loving Lady Lazuli.  One bit of His Judas Bride that has nothing to do with Glencoe is the Black Wolf’s cave. That was based on the Cave of the Berkiris which is, in fact, on the Greek island of Spetses.

You’ve described your heroines as “Smexy” — a blend of smart and sexy.  Were you the first to coin the term?   If so, how did you come up with it?  Of all the heroines you’ve written about, who is the smexiest?

I came across it not long after I started out and I rather liked it. I felt it wasn’t outright in your face, this sex. After all sex has been around awhile. And I do like to think of my ladies as smart. Of course, sometimes they’re not so smart when they fall for their men. Yes they stick to certain guns, they’re not weak-kneed, but they can unravel a bit. So I’d say when it comes to the smexiest . . . sorry Fury . . . it’s a toss up between her, and the very unlikely in some ways, and for entirely different reasons, Malice.  Both have been at love’s mercy, shall we say, and boy, it’s not happening again.

Why historical romance?  What is it about the genre that captivates you?

I  have a passion for the past. I have always gravitated towards it in my reading, my viewing and my writing. Let’s face it, there’s plenty of epic events to set stories against. I truly never expected or wanted to write romance though—in fact I had to go take a good look at how to do it. But it was a way in so obviously, I chose historical as my genre.

I was on your blog the other day and I noticed that you’ve created YouTube trailers for your books.  First, kudos to you for doing that monumental task and second, how the heck did you do it?!  Along those lines, where do you find the models for the covers of your books?  Who takes the photos?  Is there some Romance Writers stock photo selection that you could go to if you don’t have the resources to create your own cover?

Some of the images in my trailers are my own photographs, otherwise I am looking at what I can find. But the book covers, since I’ve got my rights to my Etopia titles, I buy from a site. Period Images is good, Istock is worth checking. They have many of the  same images on Adobe Stock but a hell of a lot cheaper. There’s also Romance Novel Covers. For me, it’s far cheaper to buy the license and then find a graphic designer on Fiverr to mock up a book cover from the image you then download. If I thought the results weren’t okay, I wouldn’t. I’d look at book cover designers, but I did a lot of that initially.  When I look on stock image sites I am looking for an image that gives me the book at a glance. And that’s why my books have gone back out in the order they’ve gone back out in.

Can you give us a brief history of The Dudes and how they became a prominent feature on your blog? Do they whisper in your ear when you’re trying to sleep? Have they ever threatened mutiny?

Ah, the dudes. Well, blame then author Antonia Van Zandt. I had written this blog one day about how some aspiring authors, instead of thinking of the story drivers, goal, motivation and conflict, or how character is king, would hit it with everything they can think of, the druids of Stonehenge, the French Revolution, and I was going to put the emancipation of women and I put hamsters for a giggle.  Antonia asked me were we going to be seeing hamsters asking to be freed from cages. I said you never know, thinking no way, but hey … the rest was history. And yes, they mutiny every blog post. They make  what happened on board the HMS Bounty look tame.

How did you and the Mr. meet?  Does your own love story ever find its way into your work?

We met across a copy of a Midsummer Night’s Dream.  And no, this is one story that hasn’t found its way, YET.

Do you have any words of wisdom for struggling novelists?

Never give up. Sometimes the hardest thing is to keep believing. But be realistic. By that I mean we all have dreams of finding this and that, the big advance, the fabulous agent, the Hollywood screen deal. Welcome to the back of a very long queue.  You will break before you break down any wall that way. Take advice when it’s given, rewrite, rinse, repeat, study the craft, rinse, repeat. Study the market, rinse repeat. I see a lot of self-published books out there that are not for the supposedly targeted market. And if you are submitting, study the requirements, rinse repeat. If you want to hit the mark, any mark in this business, you have to know what it is and have it in your sights.

And now let’s hear from the Mr., John Quinn:

You have one book out, “The Eyes of Grace O’Malley,” which is part love story, part history lesson, set in 1972 in Scotland during the miners strike when the city of Edinburgh was plagued with riots and rolling blackouts. How much research went into that book?

Unbeknownst to me, I researched a lot of it many years ago when I was a student at the University of Edinburgh and lived in the city. I stored things away. But of course, while writing the book I went back many times to walk streets, visits bars, coffee shops, museums, the precincts of the University, etc. I wanted to get a feel for the city again and make it a character in the book almost. Some of the research was done in the National Library of Scotland which figures in the story and Edinburgh City Libraries across the road. I also checked a few minor legal points in terms of Scots Law with my daughter who is a lawyer.

One of the protagonists is Scottish, the other Irish which gives you a lot of leeway to talk about history, heritage and family secrets.  Did you draw on any of your own history for the book?

I did. I’m Scots but of (mainly) Irish descent. For example the real Farrell Golden was my great-great grandfather, an Irishman who came to Dundee in the wake of An Gorta Mor (The Famine or Great Hunger). The story is imbued with (albeit fictionalised) autobiographical elements. I was present as a student at a protest in Edinburgh about the shooting of Civil Rights’ marchers in Derry a few days earlier. And I was ‘smuggled’ into Craiglockhart Convent and Catholic Teachers’ Training College during the blackout by my then girlfriend. This was before I met Shehanne Moore of course!!

I knew there was be a story there, John!  You say in the foreword to your book that you may never write another book.  Most writers are planning their next book before they even finish the last one.  What gives?  Did you find the novel-writing process more constricting then writing plays? 

I was being slightly tongue-in-cheek! In fact I’ve got almost forty thousand words towards another novel set in the present day – like the 1970s turbulent times. It’s also a love story about a man’s former teenage sweetheart who was supposed to be dead, but who re-appears under another name having been very much alive for decades. This  time the backdrop is the anti-nuclear movement in Scotland.

I like to try different types of writing. As well as the ‘possible’ second novel I’ve been writing lyrics for songs – I was actually asked to do this by a musician I know. We’re putting together an album of 12 songs which is a charity fund-raiser. And Shehanne Moore wrote the music for 2 of the songs!

Is there nothing you two can’t do?  You put on several plays a year and it seems you are intimately involved in all aspects of production.  Do you have backers?  Where do you get the ideas for so much content? How do you have time for it all?  Are you always working on the next play even while you are producing the first one? Have you always been a playwright or was there an occupation precedent?

I’m a former teacher, but I’ve been involved in various types and aspects of theatre over many years. I don’t have backers – the group is informal and called Shoestring Theatre. It’s a bit like street theatre really. What I do have is a lot of brass neck (not sure of the equivalent expression over the pond). The play ‘O Halflins an Hecklers an Weavers an Weemin’ was based on research I’d done into the rich varied (and international) history of our home City Dundee and the Jute Industry which bestrode it for two centuries. Among the things the city is known for are the warmth, directness and mordant humour of the people, and the strength and character of its women. I find plenty of ideas around me in all of that.

How did you and the Lady meet?  Does your own love story ever find its way into your work?

I was playing Demetrius in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and the woman playing opposite me dropped out with three days to go.  In stepped this other woman.  We’ve now been together 38 years . . . .

Does your own love story ever find its way into your work?

John – I can’t speak for my wife but my own love story regularly finds its way into my writing.

Nice.  Do you have any words of wisdom for struggling playwrights?

I’d hate to be thought of as the fount of all knowledge on playwriting or anything else but it seems to me we learn to write by reading, watching and listening. And drama has to have conflict and pace and variety and passion and (where appropriate) humour.

For the Mr. and the Mrs.:

You both work together on stage to create John’s plays.  Do you do the writing together, too? 

Shey:  No. We don’t write the same things. I think writing is a solitary occupation. And we’d probably kill each other if we had to work together.  He’s way too bossy.

John:  Shey is the Director who has the vision and ideas about how scenes should be put across.

How is it working with a spouse?  Do you have creative differences that lead to a crisis or is one person in charge?  And when you do disagree, does that lead to a pervasive quiet at the dinner table or do you easily work through it? 

Shey:  I think we both agreed when I edited Grace O’Malley that it’s like teaching your spouse to drive. There were operatic moments, but I hope that any things pointed out as needing ‘fixed’ made for a stronger story and were things I had learned from working with publishers, editors and having done editing myself.

John:  The Eyes of Grace O’ Malley was licked into shape by Shey as editor. Working with a spouse can, of course, lead to what is euphemistically known as free and frank exchanges of views and opinions. Coming from where we come from – Dundee – we’re both pretty direct and don’t really do ‘pervasive quiet’. That said, my novel would have been nothing without her fine tuning my ideas. However I have, not that I’m aware of, contributed to her story lines.

What other ways do you support each other in your work?  Are there any hard feelings when one says to the other “It still needs work.”?

Shey:  I think the best way we support each other is by giving each other space. I’m very much the night owl. Mr is the early bird. We each have all our own ideas for whatever we’re doing.

John: We’ve known one another a long time and communicate easily. Having someone I know and trust to edit or direct my work or ask advice of is hugely reassuring to me.

The Eyes of Grace O’Malley by John Quinn 

State … Security … Secrets …

Scotland 1972. A turbulent place – miners’ strikes, blackouts, Clyde shipyard workers defying the British Government, oil discovered in the North Sea and the long and deadly arms of conflict in Ireland reaching across the Irish Sea.

Farrell Golden is a bright working class kid from Dundee with an Irish heritage. But he hasn’t always paid it much attention. Thanks to his family he’s made it to the University of Edinburgh against the odds. But does he want to stay there?

There’s beer and there’s women – in particular a beautiful ethereal English girl called Maggie. She’s out of the London stockbroker belt but she’s not all that she seems. Then there’s an Irish girl who is somehow familiar …

Roisin O’Malley’s not like any trainee teacher Farrell’s ever seen. What is she getting away from in Edinburgh? What are her family’s links to the Troubles? What of her ex-boyfriend?

At a Bloody Sunday protest march Farrell sees Roisin in trouble and goes to help. He’s knocked unconscious. When he wakens up he finds he’s stepped down a rabbit hole of Irish history, family ties and state security. Is there a way back? Should he have paid more attention to the family heritage? Who is Roisin O’Malley really?

The Eyes of Grace O’Malley is available Print and eBook- amazon.

Loving Lady Lazuli – (London Jewel Thieves )                  Shehanne Moore

A woman not even the ghost of Sapphire can haunt. A man who knows exactly who she is.

Only one man in England can identify her. Unfortunately he’s living next door.

Ten years ago sixteen year old Sapphire, the greatest jewel thief England has ever known, ruined Lord Devorlane Hawley’s life by planting a stolen necklace on him.  Now she’s dead and buried, all Cassidy Armstrong wants is the chance to prove she was never that girl.

But her new neighbor is hell-bent on revenge and his word can bring her down. So when he asks her to be his mistress, or leave the county with a price on her head, Sapphire, who hates being owned, must decide… 

What’s left for a woman with nowhere else to go, but to stay exactly where she is?

And hope, that when it comes to neighbors Devorlane Hawley won’t prove to be the one from hell.

Loving Lady Lazuli is available in Print and eBook- amazon.

SPLENDOR – London Jewel Thieves                                                              SHEHANNE MOORE

He hates to lose. Especially to a man who’s not.

One move to win ten thousand guineas in a chess competition.  One move to marry her fiancé.  Another to face the most merciless man in London across a pair of duelling pistols.  For Splendor, former skivvy to the London’s premiere jewel thieves, it’s all in a day’s work. But when one wrong move leads to another, can she win and keep her heart intact against the one man in London with the potential to bring her down?  Especially in a chess game where the new wager is ten thousand guineas against one night with her.

The Endgame to end all Endgames

One move to pay back his ex-mistress. One move to show the world he doesn’t give a damn he’s been beaten in every way.  The ton’s most ruthless heartbreaker, bitter, divorcee, Kendall Winterborne, Earl of Stillmores, pet hates are kitchen maids, marriage and losing.  Knowing Splendor has entered a male chess competition under false pretences, he’s in the perfect position to extort her help, regardless of the fact she’s engaged to someone else.  He just doesn’t bank on having to face up to his pet hates.  Certainly not over the kind of skivvy who ruined his father and set him on this course.

As one move leads to another, one thing’s for certain though. His next move better be fast if he wants to keep the Cinderella he’s fallen for. But the clock is ticking.  When it strikes twelve, which man will she choose?

Splendor is available Print and eBook- amazon.

 

His Judas Bride  – Shehanne Moore  

Desiring her could be murder.

If he knew how to stop this, he would

To love, honor, and betray…

To get back her son, she will stop at nothing…

Dire circumstances have forced Kara McGurkie to forget she’s a woman. Dire circumstances force her to swear to love and honor, to help destroy a clan, when it means getting back her son. But when dire circumstances force her to seduce her fiancé’s brother on the eve of the wedding, will the dark secrets she holds and her greatest desire be enough to save her from his powerful allure?

To save his people, neither will he…

Since his wife’s murder, Callm McDunnagh, the Black Wolf of Lochalpin, ruthlessly guards heart and glen from dangerous intruders. But from the moment he first sees Kara he knows he must possess her, even though surrendering to his passion may prove the most dangerous risk of all.

She has nothing left to fear except love itself…

Now only Kara can decide what passion can save or destroy, and who will finally learn the truth of the words… Till death do us part.

His Judas Bride is available print and eBook – amazon.

 

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A Prompt Prompt Prompted Me Promptly

I’ve been working on a novel for awhile now and I’m stuck, bored, out-to-lunch, spinning in tight circles, totally ’round the bend, all of the above.  It could be that my youngest child leaves for her first year of college in a little over a week and the prep to get her ready has been taking up a good bit of time, but really, I think, it’s the sea change that her leaving will cause in our lives, my husband and I soon to be empty nesters with just the felines and the dog to boss around, none of which listen to us anyway (kind of like the kids, I guess), that is wreaking havoc on my ability to do much of anything other than wait around to be summoned.  In order to distract myself from the emotional unmooring that is likely to occur before the month is over, I’ve decided to lose myself in the art of creative writing as a result of finding the following snippet in my files.  I don’t remember why I wrote this, but if I take my own advice I’m pretty sure that I can reinvigorate the lackluster.  On my way now, and you better get along, too, as it’s getting late.  Cheerio.

Prompt.

The word is fascinating and versatile.  It’s a noun, a verb, an adjective and an adverb. Holy guacamole, how often does that happen?  It’s like winning the EGOT — Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony, a laudable goal shared by only 12 lucky and hardworking people.  It makes you wonder, is there anything a word like that can’t do?  (I found a blog post that listed 56 similarly situated words and prompt was no. 39 on the list.)

I wish I would have thought of prompt during one of the timed writing exercises I used to do with a friend in the now defunct Borders cafeteria.  We’d sip fancy coffees and rip small strips of paper from our notebooks, then write one word down on each slip of paper, three nouns, three verbs and three adjectives, eighteen slips of paper total, separated into three different piles. (We left out adverbs. Call us prejudiced, but we just didn’t see the need.)  We’d pull a word from each of the piles and do timed writing exercises of five, ten, and fifteen minutes.

 

The rules were simple.  Write until your hand falls off.  Haha! No, actually, it was write using one word chosen from each of the three piles for the prescribed minutes without stopping: not to ponder a plot twist, not to reach for a word that was escaping your pen, not even to go to the bathroom.  It was invigorating and imaginative, and it shushed the internal editor more succinctly than any of the other writing exercises I’d tried.   Sometimes we’d tweak the rules, adjusting the time or using twice as many words, but the basic premise was the same.  This simple writing prompt fueled the basis for scene after scene of a novel that would eventually become Oil and Water, but it also taught me something about the craft of writing:  imagination is like every other muscle in the body; you need to flex it if you want to keep it in shape.  For me, writing prompts facilitated my workout.

So much of our day is spent elsewhere, unconsciously trolling the past or hypothesizing about the future.  Cutting through the madness of life is challenging, but the here and now is where you want to be.  If done with full awareness, the art of writing can facilitate a sacred communion with your Higher Self.  When you tune in to your Higher Self, the internal editor — the one that never really stops criticizing — is silenced, brushed aside to allow the light of clarity to shine through and the quiet little voice to finally get a few minutes of air time.  Don’t banish the internal editor because you’ll need him or her later in the rewrite stage — just tell them to shush up so the quiet little voice can speak.

 

 

You can also get that kind of unfettered access writing morning pages.    The minute you are out of bed, write down whatever comes to you, a dream, some leftover baggage from the day, any nervousness about the day to come, all of it, and when you’re done, start the day fresh.

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s another one.  Grab a tangerine, or an apple, the fruit doesn’t matter, or if you don’t like fruit, grab a wrench, then set a timer for fifteen minutes, more if you’re brave, and write down everything you can about the object, here the tangerine.    Notice the color, the texture, the feel of its skin against your own, the little indentation on the one side and the little nub of a branch on the other where it was plucked from its momma tree.  Notice the hexagonal star pattern surrounding the little nublet — not a word, but it describes the little wooden branch remnant on the top center of the tangerine perfectly, doesn’t it?  Describe the smell and whether this is what you thought the color orange would feel like.  Rub it against your cheek and lips and describe the almost plastic feeling of the skin and balance it on your head and talk about the weight or how easy or hard it is to balance it there and then write a sentence with a tangerine on your head (which does great things for your posture), and talk about how hard it was to keep it from falling, and on and on until your timer goes ding and THEN, eat the tangerine and describe that, so tart, so sweet, so delicate.  If you chose a wrench as your object, you’ll have to leave this last part out.  The exercise is freeing because there’s really no goal other than to train yourself to observe and describe.  Do it a hundred times and you’ll have mastered the art of observation and description which is all writing really is.

 

Got it?  Great!  I challenge you to choose your prompt and get to work.  Your readers are waiting.  You’re going to be amazing.

 

pjlazos 8.12.18

 

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Interview with the Professor — of Horror!

Today’s guest is Professor Charles F. French.  Professor French lives in northeastern, PA in the US of A.  Trained in English Literature, he writes speculative fiction for fun and as a break from grading all those papers.  He has two novels out now:  Maledicus: The Investigative Paranormal Society, Book 1, and Gallows Hill: The Investigative Paranormal Society, Book 2, through an Indie publisher.  He’s been a raconteur for so long he was probably born telling a story, and reading under a tree in the summer is one of his favorite childhood memories.  While each of  his novels has its own message and readers can draw their own conclusions, a consistent theme is predominant throughout Professor French’s writing:  that ordinary people must oppose evil, bullying, and oppression of all kinds.  A lofty goal!

 

Synopsis for Gallows Hill

Gallows Hill follows the adventures of The Investigative Paranormal Society
after their battle with the demon in French’s first book, Maledicus: The Investigative Paranormal Society, Book 1.

Sam Sadlowski, one of the founding members of the Society.  A retired homicide detective, Sam carries the guilt of never understanding why his teenaged son, Josh, a seemingly well-adjusted boy committed suicide. Sam had always been close to his son, yet never noticed any signs of grief or depression.  In Maledicus, an evil from ancient Rome finds its way to the small city of Bethberg, PA.  In Gallows Hill two intrusions from the past invade the present. One is a human criminal, a man Sam helped to put into prison and who now vows revenge, and the other, the ghost of a former preacher/hangman whose severe Puritanical views have driven him to “cleanse” the contemporary world of sin.  Sam now has to decide how to face these two threats—alone or with his friends. Both his life and his sanity depend on his choices.

 

 

And now, onto the interview with Charles French:

Gallows Hill sounds like a riveting story, one that is definitely going on my reading list.  Where do you get your ideas? What inspires you? 

This may sound odd, but I picture characters first, and then I try to learn their stories. Only on rare occasions have I first had an idea for a plot before seeing the characters.

 

How does a Professor of English literature come to write horror?

I have loved Gothic and horror novels for a very long time. I write horror both to tell engaging stories, but more than that because I believe that horror in a supernatural novel is a metaphor for the very real horror in the world. I always try to incorporate some element of society, whether political, social, or otherwise, into my novels.

 

Tell us about your writing background and process.

I have a Ph.D. in English Literature, which I earned from Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. In many ways, it is a natural extension of my lifelong love of books and reading. I have always been a reader and a storyteller, especially while teaching. Writing novels is now the next step in that process.

To answer about where I write, I am not someone who has a particular time and place to work. Because of my working schedule—I teach part-time at two different colleges/universities, and I teach more than full-timers—I work wherever I can. I always keep a tablet with me, and I always write my first drafts by hand. While I can never be certain where I will write, I still try to write one to two pages every day.

 

I also like writing longhand because your brain processes things differently.  Do you think writing is a form of therapy? Has it helped you work through anything in particular?

I think for some people writing is certainly a form of therapy, but it is not for me. I simply love the act of storytelling.

 

Pantser or perfectionist who meticulously plots out their stories?

I am definitely a pantser. I have a general idea of where the story will go, and I discover the tale as it unfolds. I am not claiming that writing this way is a better approach than planning carefully; I am simply saying that it is mine.

 

Favorite author?

My favorite author is Shakespeare. I have loved his work since I was a teenager, and his writings are the one indispensable book for me.

 

What has been your greatest writing lesson? How about life lesson?

My greatest writing lesson is realizing that the creation of any art is mainly discipline, work, and effort. If a writer waits for inspiration, then it is likely he or she will produce nothing. Making art of any kind requires consistency and work.

 

If you could be a character in any novel, what character would you be?

That is a very interesting question, and I will go with a character I have enjoyed since I was a boy: D’Artagnan from The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas.

 

If you had endless options, what would you choose to do with your writing?

It would certainly be nice to earn enough money with the writing that I could cut back to teaching only 2-3 courses a semester. I hope that, in ten years, I am still writing every day. I would like to be able to publish at least one book a year, if not more.  And to travel because I love it.  My favorite place so far is Ireland.

 

And the final question, do you think writing can save the world and if so, why?

I do not know if writing can save the world, but it certainly can have a positive impact. Certainly reading fiction is one of the best ways to develop empathy in children, and the world can use a great deal more empathy and kindness.

 

Thank you, Professor, and good luck with your writing!

pjlazos 4.2.18

 

***

Interview with Dave Levitan

This past Saturday, I had the privilege of moderating a Q&A session with author Dave Levitan at the 15th annual Collingswood Book Festival in Collingswood, New Jersey. Levitan’s book, Not a Scientist, How Politicians Mistake, Misrepresent, and Utterly Mangle Science was the topic of lively debate. One of the organizers told me she’d been involved since the Festival’s inception when it was just a few authors sitting around in the library discussing their books. Today, it’s grown to over five city blocks along Main Street, chock full of authors selling their works. Whether you’re a reader or a writer, the Collingswood Book Festival a great way to spend a Saturday in autumn.

The following is an email interview of Dave Levitan that we did as a warm up to the moderation session.  I, of course, didn’t ask him all these questions at the live event as the audience wanted their chance, too, but I wanted to share his answers to give you a feel for Dave’s wit and good humor. Enjoy!

PJL:  I read your essay entitled, “The Squid Will Not Be Happy,” which explains how you came to your career in journalism, starting out as a physics major and then switching to English but never losing your love of science. I happen to think that there’s a gap in this country when it comes to understanding science fundamentals and a real need for a translator who can bridge the gap of understanding between the nerdy science geeks and the rest of the world. You do that brilliantly in your book, “Not A Scientist.” Do you ever just wish you would have stayed with physics (or chemistry, or math) and became a scientist?

DL: In general, no, I feel like I made the right choice. Scientists generally have to focus in on some tiny bit of their field, and work for years or even decades on that little thing, and I just don’t think I have the attention span. I’m much more comfortable flitting around a bit from topic to topic, which makes science journalism a good match. I will say, though, that there have been exceptions—every time I watch SpaceX launch one of its rockets and then land it perfectly back on the landing pad, and they show the people who work in the control room cheering their heads off, I wonder if I ended up in the wrong field. It just looks so collaborative and joyful! But most of the time I feel okay about that decision.

PJL: Obviously, your idea for the book came out of your extensive science background. How did that first come about? Were either of your parents scientists? Did you have a great science teacher that sparked your curiosity? Or was it something else?

DL: Yup, my father is a neuroscientist, and I’m sure that helped to some degree. When I was growing up, we would spend summers in Woods Hole, on Cape Cod, which is a weird little summer town almost entirely populated by scientists and their families – the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is there (they’re the ones who found the wreck of the Titanic), the Marine Biological Laboratory, and like four other scientific institutions. In other words, it just sort of surrounded me as a kid, and while I didn’t feel any urge to take after my father or anything, I think the appreciation for science and scientific method and evidence just sort of seeped in over the years.

PJL:  This past Earth Day we had a March for Science in lots of cities around the country. What I got from that is that lots of people are simply out of touch with the role of science in their every day lives. What would you do to educate the layman on the importance of science, but also to the prevalence.

DL: That’s a great question, but a really far-reaching one. I think the long-term answer involves improvements to science education in the country – if we all grew up with a better appreciation for the scientific method, and for the ways science plays a role in our lives, then we probably wouldn’t need marches to remind us. But again, that’s a long-term solution. In the nearer term, I think the media needs to be more willing to drive the conversation rather than reacting to it, and science is the place to start. If network news (and local tv news) would talk about scientific issues from climate change to pesticide regulation, people would start to feel it surrounding them they way it actually does. But that’s a steep hill to climb.

PJL:  In the days of Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, Erwin Schroedinger, and Neils Bohr to name a few, science was cool. Crowds would wait for Marie Curie at the airport as if she was a celebrity. When did all that rock star behavior stop? What do you think happened,

DL: One answer that just occurred to me, as to when that stopped: when we got actual rock stars! Celebrities weren’t much of a thing back when Marie Curie was rockin’ the literal runway in front of her fans, so maybe it’s just that scientists, who are not in movies or on tv, got pushed toward the back by the handsome folks who ARE on our screens all the time. I’d say the last generation of real celebrity scientists were maybe the early astronauts, but they were also air force pilots and generally cool people themselves, so maybe it’s not the greatest comparison. But yeah, I think the main answer is that we have a lot of other things to entertain ourselves with, and scientists are often so specialized now that they may not have as wide-ranging an impact as Curie or Einstein, so breaking that rock star barrier might be a bit tough.

PJL:  How do you think future humans will relate to science. Does that disturb you or fire you up?

DL: To be honest, that’s not something I’ve given a ton of thought to, really. Again, if we can improve our science education, then maybe we’ll all treat it less as some unknowable far-off thing and more as just a regular part of existence. But it’s tough to say! Part of me feels like the coming catastrophes – climate change, antibiotic resistance, a few others – may force us into a deeper relationship with science, because we simply have to be thinking about it all the time. But that’s not exactly an inspiring thought.

PJL:  Why do you write and when did you officially become a writer.

DL: I don’t think I ever made it official! I got a job pretty much right out of college at a medical publishing company, and became a staff writer for them pretty quickly, writing about various medical research, so I guess that’s when I started. As for why… I guess I don’t claim to have some intrinsic, heartfelt need or anything, it’s just a meaningful way to describe and examine things happening in the world. I’m glad that I’ve figured out a way to write about things I find interesting, I suppose!

PJL:  What made you sit down and start writing, “Not A Scientist.”

DL: The idea arose when I was a staff science writer at FactCheck.org, and I started to notice some repeating patterns of how politicians were getting science wrong. I began collecting those tricks and techniques, and pretty quickly had a pile that seemed worth putting down in one place, and lucky for me, a publisher agreed. Toward the end of 2015 I left that full-time job to work on the book, so that’s when I really got started with it. It didn’t take long after that, only about a month and a half or so, since I had done a bunch of the research already.

PJL:  Do you have a spacial place to write?

DL: It’s not all that special, unfortunately – just my office at home. Nice enough, though, view to the backyard, and so on. I’ve never had much luck working elsewhere, like coffeeshops or anything – too much distraction.

PJL:  If you could ask Schrodinger’s cat one question, what would it be?

DL: Sorry! Been gone all day crawling around inside a giant cave system. In answer to your Schrodinger’s cat question, I would ask: “Heads or tails?” That is about as nerdy, cryptic, and dumb a physics joke I can muster. Hope it works!

Thanks, Dave!  Next post will be a review of Not A Scientist.

pjlazos 10.13.17

 

***

Look the Other Way

Time for another Indie Author Interview, this one with Kristina Stanley, a Canadian-born author, editor, blogger, favorite aunt to eight lovely nieces and nephews, and dog lover!  She’s been married for 29 years and she’s lived on a boat!  Here are a few more fun facts about Kristina:

She’s the best-selling author of the Stone Mountain Mystery Series, and the recently released stand-alone mystery, Look the Other Way.

Her short stories have been published in the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and The Voices From the Valleys anthology. She is also the author of The Author’s Guide to Selling Books to Non-Bookstores.

She is the co-founder and CEO of Fictionary.com, a company started to help writers rewrite better fiction. She loves the self-editing process and wants to help other writers learn how to do a structural edit on their own work.

Her latest book, Look the Other Way was just released on August 1, 2017 by Imajin Books.

 

Synopsis for Look the Other Way

SUBMERGED BENEATH THE DEPTHS IS A SEA OF SECRETS . . . .  

A year after her Uncle Bobby mysteriously disappears in the turquoise waters surrounding the Bahamas, Shannon Payne joins her grieving aunt to trace Bobby’s last voyage. Shannon hopes the serenity of the sea might help her recover from a devastating breakup with her fiancé.

Sailing the 38-foot catamaran, A Dog’s Cat, is Captain Jake Hunter, a disillusioned cop who has sworn off women. While Shannon tries to resist her growing attraction to the rugged captain, she uncovers dark truths about her uncle’s death that might send them all to the depths.

 

And now, how about a few questions for our mystery author?

What’s your writing background, where do you work at writing, and how did your journey begin?

I have a degree in Computer Mathematics. I’ve worked in telecommunications and a ski resort. I spent 3 years living in Japan and 4 years living in Germany. I’ve lived on a sailboat for 9 years. I now run a company that created Fictionary – an online tool for serious writers who want to turn a first draft into a great story.

I started writing when I was working at the ski resort – too many great stories to spark my imagination.  I write wherever I happen to be living. I do all my writing on a computer – no paper anywhere – as I’m usually traveling or living in a small space (my boat).

Why mysteries?

I love to read mysteries. Late one night in Unteruhldingen, Germany I was reading Moonlight Becomes You by Mary Higgins Clark. The opening—a woman trapped in a grave. Darkness and silence surround her, and she doesn’t know where she is. I can still see her fingers clawing at the edges of the coffin.

Tucked in my bed, I knew a driver would arrive at 4 a.m. to carry me to the Zurich airport for a flight to London, England. The sensible thing to do was sleep. But I couldn’t. I turned pages until the car arrived. I was exhausted, bleary eyed and excited. At that moment I knew I wanted to write something that forced a person to read and to forget about life for a while. And I knew it would be a mystery.

That’s an awesome story!  From where do your ideas come? What inspires you? How do you keep the creative spark going?

Where I live inspires me. My first three novels are based in a ski resort. I worked at a ski resort for six years as the head of security. My latest novel is a murder mystery that takes place in the Bahamas. I lived on a sailboat for 9 years.

What’s your routine? Do you work out while writing, take breaks, or simply gut it out?

I don’t have a routine. I love to write, so I always find time for it.

Do you think writing is a form of therapy and, if so, has it helped you work through anything in particular?

I guess you could call it therapy because it makes me happy.

Do you work outside of writing, i.e., do you have day job?

I’m the CEO of Fictionary.co. a company started to help writers rewrite better fiction. I love the self-editing process and want to help other writers learn how to do a structural edit on their own work.

Pantser or perfectionist who meticulously plots out their stories?

Oh, panster until I have a first draft. Then I use Fictionary to be very organized and perform a structural edit.  

Your perfect day – go.

Snowshoeing with my dog before breakfast. Downhill skiing with my husband for the day. Hot tub after skiing. Dinner in front of the fireplace.

Favorite author?

I love to read mysteries and don’t have a favorite author.

What has been your greatest writing lesson? How about life lesson?

That would be keep writing. Don’t give up in the early days when is seems so hard. My greatest life lesson – be kind.

If you could be a character in any novel, what character would you be?

I don’t know how to answer this one. I’ve read so many novels, and in a mystery it doesn’t always go well for the characters…

Haha — true!  So how many books do you have out and who is your publisher?

Five books out.  Publishers are Imajin Books and Luzifer-Verlag are my publishers.

And the final question, do you think writing can save the world and if so, why?

Yikes. That’s a big question. I think education can save the world, and writing is a part of that.

That’s a wrap.  Good luck to you, Kristina, in your future writing endeavors.

pjlazos 9.9.17

 

***

You Can Heal Your Life

On August 30, 2017 Louis Hay, New Age icon, entrepreneur, pioneer, and positive thinker transitioned to her light body. Hay had been living in an elightened body for years, embodying what our best lives could look like and banishing negativity from her surroundings with her wonderful all is well attitude.

Louise’s life was tumultuous and often fraught with difficulty:  sexually abused as a child and raped by a neighbor around the age of five, a high school drop out following a teen pregnancy — she gave the baby up for adoption — followed by a move to New York where she became a fashion model and later married Andrew Hay, an English businessman from whom she was divorced fourteen years later.  Following the divorce, Louise attended the First Church of Religious Sciences where she was introduced to the idea of taking control of your life through positive thinking. The concept was like breathing new life and Louise began to study that philosophy in earnest.

She developed cervical cancer in her early 50’s, and after determining that the disease was the result of lingering resentment related to her early sexual abuse, she refused cancer medications and instead thought her way to health through affirmations and positive thinking. Louise contemporaneously wrote a book called Heal Your Body which she later expanded, along with her backstory, to become You Can Heal Your Life. Released in 1984, has sold 50 million copies worldwide and spawned a much-beloved publishing empire, Hay House.

My first foray into New Age thinking was with You Can Heal Your Life. I credit that book, now a standard issue primer, with starting me on my spiritual journey. I remember being blown away by the simplicity of the concepts that were often so hard to put into practice, but Louise’s unassuming spirit and true desire to advance understanding in this realm by reducing things to their smallest components made it easy for everyone to grasp, even those of us long-indoctrinated in religious dogma. I remember her describing her move from the East to the West Coast. She sold everything but her juicer, determined to start anew, making the monumental shift as pleasant as going on vacation. Louise had a rule against the over accumulation of things which I try to live by (although I’m not always successfu): “if you haven’t used it in the last year, get rid of it.” The woman who thought she was stupid until she embraced the power of positive thought left behind a multimillion dollar publishing empire.

You Can Heal Your Life was published at the height of the Aids epidemic and those with HIV flocked to Louise and her teachings. She held the first workshops in her home, called Hayrides, without a clue as to what she was going to do — she just knew it would be positive — and in the process started a movement. She eventually moved Hayrides to an auditorium in West Hollywood as the number of participants continued to grow.

Louise died at the age of 90, clearly fulfilling her soul’s purpose on earth. Lucky for the rest of us, she wrote a few things down. “Every thought you think is creating your future,” Louise was fond of saying.  

Creating the world we want to live in with just our thoughts sounds like the superhighway to self-awareness. If you need directions, see Louise. She may have transitioned, but her spirit lives on in her own works and those of the people she has published and supported through Hay House.  Go check it out.  Louise has written it all down there.

 

pjlazos 9.4.17

 

 

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FYI An Unintended Consequence

Time for another indie author interview.  Today we’re talking with Patricia E. Gitt, four-time author with her newly released mystery novel, FYI – An Unintended Consequence.  So let’s start with the synopsis.

Synopsis for FYI – An Unintended Consequence:  Fake news terrorizes Taryn Cooper Walsh, managing partner of 4G investments. Each mysterious mailing contains increasingly viscous lies all suggesting that Taryn is running an unethical firm…a firm she founded with three women she has known since grade school, and a silent partner.  Supported by her husband, Taryn searches for the source of these fallacious clippings before they are leaked and destroy her reputation along with the trust of investors in her firm.  As the news clips continue to arrive and escalate in libelous claims, Taryn becomes physically ill, blaming it all on her increasing anxiety and inability to find even a clue to the person behind these attacks.  Melissa, a longtime business friend of Taryn’s, hires a dubious contact to shadow Taryn and make sure she remains safe.  Who would want to destroy Taryn, 4G Investments and its partners? Was it a disgruntled investor? An unethical associate? A competitor in the highly charged hedge fund world?  This is a tale of a seemingly innocent incident fueling one person’s plot for revenge

Bio for Patricia E. Gitt in her own words:  Having built a successful career in public relations, I met and worked with some of the legends of my profession. Fascinated by power, those who amass it and those who are exiled from it, I have used this writer’s resource in creating fictional worlds that will be familiar to business women and men alike.  With today’s fiction featuring women as detectives, physicians, attorneys, magazine editors, I missed the passion and excitement that women I knew brought to their business careers.  I wanted to read novels featuring the strength of the women I met and worked with…the qualities that made them successful in the corporate men’s club, and how women balanced their dynamic careers with their private lives.  I am now enjoying a second career as an author of novels of women, mystery/crime and success. Raised in Kings Point, New York, I earned a BS degree from the University of Vermont and an MBA from Fordham. During my career I served as Chapter President of American Women in Radio and Television and was listed in editions of “Who’s Who of American Women”, “Who’s Who in Finance and Industry”, and “Who’s Who in Professional and Executive Women.”  My novels of women, mystery/crime and success are CEO, ASAP, TBD and FYI.

And now, on to the interview with Ms. Gitt who has some pretty interesting things to say.

How long have you been writing?

I have been working at my fiction since 1976, finding the transition from business writing to the novel, a learning experience. Over the years I have benefited from writing workshops and assorted classes with authors connected to one of the New York City universities.

Currently, I have published four novels that may be found on Amazon, each a mystery involving a woman in threatening circumstances. As Agatha Christie did when she placed her characters on a train, or country house, I place mine in a business environment. Each business has its own culture, profile and provides a setting that may not be familiar to those not in the business world. My trademark titles…each an acronym: CEO, ASAP, TBD and FYI, are short-cuts to identifying the business setting for each of my crime novels.

What is your favorite genre of book, to write and to read?

I love a good mystery or thriller, with a plot, characters and settings that are unfamiliar. The early Tom Clancy books drew me to his fast paced plots including military details that I had been unfamiliar with. In my books, I try to keep the reader turning pages and finding bits of knowledge about a topic that may not be widely known.

What’s your favorite book? Who’s your favorite author?

The book that I read when in junior high school and keeps my attention to this day is W. Somerset Maugham’s “Of Human Bondage”…each time I read it I want to yell at Philip Carey to wake up and not to keep yearning after Mildred. Favorite authors would be Sir Conan Doyle, Ian Rankin, PD James, Barbara Wood and Nora Roberts.

From where do your ideas come?

So far my ideas come from my previous life as an executive in public relations. I had been blessed with a variety of interesting clients at the forefront of their individual fields. However, as I read the daily newspapers, some item will catch my imagination and I ask myself “what if…” and in answering that question, I begin to develop a tale.

Have you had any brushes with writing greatness?

LOL

Do you think writing is a form of therapy and, if so, has it helped you work through anything in particular? What has been your greatest writing lesson? Life lesson?

When I write something that makes me smile, laugh or say “Why didn’t I do that?” I turn off the computer knowing that I couldn’t do any better that day. My life is my toolbox. My friends my support and sounding board, each with different literary tastes. They keep me on track and prevent me from isolating myself from the world outside my imagination.  

Do you work outside of writing, i.e., do you have day job? What’s your best time of day to write?

Since I retired, writing novels is my day job. That includes research, travel for the details found in specific locations, and increasingly, understanding marketing in the online world. I also enjoy reading the work of other authors suggested by my book club, Books Go Social authors, and friends. I’m usually at my desk from 11-3, and sometimes hide out in a library, or another location to write and get away from distractions at home.

From where do you pull inspiration? How do you keep the creative spark going?

The great mystery…where do ideas come from? I don’t plot, I begin with a premise and with pen and spiral bound notebook and write chapter 1. I then close the book and the next day reread from the beginning, asking myself ‘what do I want to know next’…and continue. After about three chapters I transfer everything to the computer, however, each time I sit down to write, I read from the beginning.

What’s your perfect writing day look like?

I learned early in my career that there is no perfect! Sorry, but given no distracting obligations, a perfect writing day would be no phone calls, emails, or people needing my attention between 11am and 3pm.

If you could be a character in any novel, what character would you be and why?

There is a little of me in each of my characters…but Barbara Stanwyck and Ann Sheridan would be my role models…strong, sassy and accomplished women.

My novels and characters challenge the “feminist” point of view. I believe that I am a person who happens to be a woman, and therefore, entitled to anything my skills and hard work prepare me for. Life isn’t fair. Get over it. The main difference between my point-of-view and the feminist’s, is that by focusing on the inequities and limitations in life, you take time and effort away from moving forward with your own. I do not want to be marginalized as a part of society, rather I am a participant in its entirety.

What’s the best place you’ve ever traveled to?

I have always traveled. As a child of an airline captain, hopping on a plane, train or in a car for anywhere from a day to a week is normal. And luckily I traveled during my career to meet with business leaders around the country. Each trip has been an adventure during which I met and learned about people with other interests, their varying cultures, and of course the food and lifestyles of people near and far.

My favorite place, though, is where I’ve just returned from:  Antarctica.

What’s your favorite childhood memory?

At age 12, I pulled a paper covered book from my parent’s bookcase. It was The Book of a Thousand and One Nights. I think they were trying to hide it from me. It is one of the early and best translations of the Arabian Nights tales, and it still fascinates me.  It is probably why I have always found reading a highly rewarding enjoyable pastime and one where the unusual can be explored.  

And the final question, do you think writing can save the world?

I believe that by reading the thoughts, information and views of others, we can better examine our own. Where people who disagree with you talk back, books don’t, rather, they can open your eyes.

Thanks, Patricia, for a lovely interview.  Patricia’s contact information can be found here:

Facebook: patgitt@facebook.com
Twitter: #patgitt
Amazon author page: Patricia E. Gitt
blog: pegpublishing.com/blog
website: pegpublishing.com

pjlazos 8.6.17

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Split Seconds

Posted on June 27, 2017by pjlazos

Split Seconds

Welcome to another author interview, this time with mystery writer, Maggie Thom, an Indie writer from Canada who is soon releasing her third book in a 3-part Kindle series, Split Seconds.  Split Seconds will be Maggie’s fifth book overall and is due out on July 20, 2017 with pre-orders available here.

In addition to writing, kids, a dog, a husband, and walks in nature occupy Maggie’s time, but she took a break from her work and life to talk about her writing process, things like jumping in, allowing yourself to make mistakes, and opening up to where the story takes you.  So without further adieu, here’s Maggie:

What’s your writing routine?  Were you trained formally? What’s your routine? Do you work out while writing, take breaks, or simply gut it out?

I’ve written most of my life. I wrote my first novel at age 9. I didn’t share my writing for many years but in the 90’s I got serious about it. I started taking courses and then joined a writing group and then a critique group. I find that my routine for each novel is very different. With the latest novel that I’m working on, many things were getting in the way of getting it finished. So I committed to writing every day until it was done. I wrote 55,000 words in 21 days. I’d never done that before. I do make sure I take breaks and that I exercise daily. When I am done writing draft one of my novel, I walk away from it for a few weeks to a month before I come back and do the rewrites.

What is your favorite genre of book, to write? To read?

I love suspense/thrillers – reading and writing them. I enjoy creating the twists and turns that keep people guessing until the end.

From where do your ideas come?

My ideas come from things I read, see or hear. I love taking something and then playing ‘what if?”.  What if identical twins were separated as toddlers and raised apart unaware of each other? How would that affect their connection? What if these twins met as adults? Would they feel that instant connection? What if someone built their legitimate empire on dirty money? What if someone was kidnapped as a baby and then kidnapped a second time?  How would she unravel her life? Ideas for my novels can be triggered by anything. For me it’s about allowing my imagination to play with those ideas and see where they go.

Do you think writing is a form of therapy and, if so, has it helped you work through anything in particular? What has been your greatest writing lesson?

I think writing is extremely cathartic. I learn something new about myself all the time when I’m writing. I think one of the best things that writing has taught me has been that writing is a process – the more you do it, the more you open yourself up.  The more you remove yourself from it, the better you’re going to be at it. Sounds simple but when you want to be a writer yet don’t believe you’re good enough, it is a huge milestone. Writing has really helped me to get over my nerves about sharing my writing. It really taught me that without taking a leap and just jumping in, you will remain stuck. One thing is guaranteed, you will make mistakes. Things won’t go as planned, but if you keep opening yourself up to learning … the ride is amazing.

Do you have a day job or is writing your full time gig? 

I don’t work outside of writing, but I do offer a few services to authors – how to write a compelling fiction book blurb, writing workshops and helping women find their voice through writing.

What’s your best time of day to write?

I love to write early in the morning but I am at a point that I really can write pretty much at any time of the day.

From where do you pull inspiration? How do you keep the creative spark going?

I get inspiration for everything around me — from my experiences, from others… I give myself time just to play with ideas and see where they will go. If I feel there is a story to be developed, I will start asking a lot of questions:  What if…? Why would she do that? Would she do that? How could she…? Where would she…? Who or what is getting in her way? Who are some of the other characters? If ideas start to come to me and I like them, then I will jump in and write.

As for keeping the creative spark going, I am at a place that I love the process of writing. I enjoy creating stories and figuring out where I can go with them. I have fun with it.

Pantser or perfectionist who meticulously plots out their stories?

Panster until the story is written and then I’m the perfectionist. I do not plot out my stories, at least not fully. I start writing and let ideas come to me. I then play with those ideas to see where they might go. I write and plot and write and plot. When I am finished with my first draft, that’s when I go back through and really figure out what works and what doesn’t. I make sure that the plot is really intriguing, makes sense, that all the moving parts are there and everything is tied up by the end.

What’s your perfect writing day look like?

To get up at 5:00 a.m., have the birds singing, clear skies and just normal silence. And I write. I feel good, I feel energized and I get to do what I love. I usually write for about 2 – 3 hours and if it is flowing I can write between 2,000 – 5,000 words.

How about your favorite childhood memory?

Tobogganing for hours with my siblings

And the final question, do you think writing can save the world and if so, why?

Absolutely. I think writing is not only cathartic but a great way to learn. When people write stuff down and then read it, they get a very different perspective on it. It can give some simple realizations or some profound realizations. For some people if they wrote down and read what they were going to say, they might realize how it truly sounds. Hopefully it would wake people up to treating each other with more kindness, acceptance and love.

pjlazos 6.27.17

 

 

***

So remember Mystery Thriller Week? Well, Sojourner McConnell, a/k/a Vicki Goodwin, was the co-founder of that little party which is how I got to know here. She’s also the author of a WordPress blog, “The Page Turner” and has a slew of writing projects in the works. So sit back and I’ll let her tell you a bit about herself and her newest creation, a children’s chapter book called, Who’s That in the Cat Pajamas.

BIO for Sojourner McConnell:

Born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. Sojourner McConnell lives in Winchester, Kentucky with one of her daughters and three of her thirteen grandchildren. She has six grandchildren in Alabama and four that live in Michigan.

Sojourner’s new book is a children’s chapter book, Who’s That in the Cat Pajamas which will release June 2, 2017.

Her next book, Blip, is a sci-fi book with humor and intrigue and is due out by December 2017. The Path of the Child, The Power of Forgiveness, and 31 Days of October are available in paperback and in eBook format on Amazon and other retailers. Sojourner brings a taste of strong personalities with a healthy dose of southern charm to her characters.

As co-founder and part of the organizing team of Mystery Thriller Week, she has become fascinated with writing a mystery of her own. In fact, there might be a little mystery woven into one of the two books she is writing at present.

When not writing, she is busy entertaining her Australian Shepherd, Beau. Unfortunately, Beau tends to get jealous when she spends too much time working on the computer.

 

Synopsis for Who’s That in Cat Pajamas

When the wind brings the cries of children to her ears, Dolcey is spurred into action. Comforting and aiding children in need are her main focus. Welcome to Dolcey’s world. Welcome to a world of magic and endless possibilities. When Emily has a big problem, her family tries to help, but some problems need something special to make things right. In Emily’s case, the special treatment is a visitor named Dolcey.

Book one in the Dolcey series is, Who’s That in the Cat Pajamas? Follow along as Dolcey helps children all over the world as they struggle with real-life dilemmas.

 

And now for the interview:

What’s your writing background (schooling), backdrop (where you work at writing), and backstory (what you will tell the world when you become famous)?

I have only the basic conventional education. I was accepted into the Alabama School of Fine Arts, but was unable to attend due to family commitments. I have always been self taught and I continue to learn everything that interests me today. I believe there is an unending process of education in life. In other words, you are never too old to learn and excel in something new.

I write in the computer room where I can see the family and interact with them as I write. I enjoy being a part of the household even when I am writing. Doing this has allowed the grandchildren to see me in the writing process. Three of the thirteen aspire to be a writer like Grandma. That is huge to me.

When I become famous, I will tell the world, if you love something like writing, reading, art or music, push yourself to do it on a daily basis; it frees the mind and opens the heart. The more you do it, the more ideas come to you. You are never too old to try.

Why mysteries?

I believe I love mysteries so much because of Perry Mason books, Nancy Drew mysteries, and Agatha Christie classics. I wish I were able to solve them, but I am one of those people that are always shocked at the outcome. I was so thrilled to work with Mystery Thriller Week. I hoped to help authors, bloggers, and fans find each other.

From where do your ideas come? What inspires you? How do you keep the creative spark going?

Characters come to me and present their story. They tell me what they have to offer and promise to hold my hand as we write it together. So far, none have bailed on me and they have given me beautiful stories of hope and potential for happiness. I am inspired by the survival of people. Everyone has a moment in their life where it could have broken them, I want to share the moments after, when they move past and thrive. That is what inspires me to write.

That’s beautiful, Vicki. So what’s your routine? Do you work out while writing, take breaks, or simply gut it out?

I write from the time I wake up until I go to bed. I am constantly working on something. I blog on 3 blogs, write several books at a time and I research for historical articles that I have published in several locations. I make sure I write every day, so that there is always something on the back burner. Even with the release of Who’s That in the Cat Pajamas?, I have several other projects in various stages of completion on my desk.

Do you think writing is a form of therapy and, if so, has it helped you work through anything in particular?

Writing is very therapeutic for me. With all the characters wandering about in my brain writing allows them to work out their story and move on. It also helps me process hurts and happiness from my own past. Although I write fiction, bits and pieces of my own life have come to light and allowed me to give them a better and healthier outcome.

Do you work outside of writing, i.e., do you have day job?

At this time I am not working outside the home. I am focusing on my writing and working on getting healthy. One step at a time, I am making positive and healthy changes in my life. Writing is definitely one of those positive changes.

Pantser or perfectionist who meticulously plots out their stories?

I am by nature a pantser, I was compelled to outline a sequel to The Path of the Child and I found that very liberating and exciting. I have not outlined anything else thus far.

Your perfect day – go.

I wake up about 4 am when the house is quiet and even the dog is not ready to face the day. I go to the computer after putting on a pot of coffee and the images begin to flow, the characters begin to share, and the typos are few and far between. Everyone wakes up in a good mood a few hours later and the dog has breakfast. The rest of the day is relaxing with only the sound of clacking keys and the stirring of my coffee to break the silence. At the end of the day I can say both the word count and inspiration was strong today.

Favorite book? Author? Individual?

Charles Dickens is my absolute favorite author. He is my inspiration and he reminds me that to every life a little happiness should fall. As a writer, I have to find that happiness for my characters and bring them to life for others. With that first response in mind, my favorite book is Great Expectations. My favorite individual happens to be my immediate family. They are supportive, loving, and forgiving. They are my favorite 16 people on the planet. When I go outside the family, I have to say Helen Keller touched me with her desire to overcome, willingness to achieve beyond what was expected, and survive with grace and strength.

What has been your greatest writing lesson? How about life lesson?

Even a woman that did not expect to publish a book can publish a book and have people love her story as much as she did. With that lesson, I can go forward and do it again; even better the second time around. My greatest life lesson has been, no matter what stage you are in life, you can make it your greatest time. Keep opening doors and seeing what is behind them. Expand your horizons.

If you could be a character in any novel, what character would you be?

I would be Mary Lennox, from The Secret Garden. I would find a secret place and allow it to make me into a more loving and kind person. Then I would share that place with another, just as Mary did with Colin.

How many books do you have out?

As of June 2, 2017, I will have two published books and two published anthologies. The Path of the Child, and Who’s That in the Cat Pajamas?; are my two published novels. One is a coming of age book that shows the resilience and strength of one teenage girl and one is a children’s chapter book, which happens to be the first book in the Dolcey Series. The two anthologies are, 31 days of October and The Power of Forgiveness.

Indie or traditional publishing?

I am Indie published. I love the freedom it gives me.

Country of origin?

USA

Relationship status?

Single.

Kids?

Three grown children and 13 grandchildren.

Pets?

One Australian Shepherd, Beau. I also lay claim to the one family cat, Mufasa, that has decided to adopt me as his own.

Travel and if so, favorite place?

I love to travel, I love seeing new places, and old familiar ones as well. My Alaskan Cruise with my sister was a dream come true. I hope to see more of the world soon. I draw from the remoteness and beauty of the area when I need to find a quiet place inside my head.

Favorite childhood memory?

Going to the Smokie Mountains with my grandparents. Swimming and fishing in Deep Creek and having my Grandfather tell my siblings to hold me down so that the clouds did not whisk me away. I will never forget my little brother being chased by wasps as we crossed a mountain top swinging bridge. I have so many memories from when I was only five years old.

Wow, those are great memories.  And the final question, do you think writing can save the world and if so, why?

Writing can allow opinions to change. It can open the lines of communication and it can certainly change the world. Thank you for asking me such a powerful question.

pjlazos 5.17.17

Interview with Shehanne Moore

The Scottish-born native, Shehanne Moore, who, according to her Amazon Author page “writes gritty, witty, more risky than risqué, historical romance, set wherever takes her fancy — stories that detail the best and worst of human behaviour, as opposed to pouts and flounces,” embodies the writer’s spirit. She has a holistic view of the world, taking the good with the bad, and her wisdom comes through in her writing, especially in the blog space she shares with an unruly bunch of Hamster Dudes.  Here’s what Lady She had to say about the world at large and writing in general.

Writing first — how’d you get started?

I went to a tough primary in a tough area and I spent a lot of time as a child reading. Books were valued in our house. Little stories started to filter into my head and I wanted to write them down.

Why Romance?

Lol. I always smile when people say I don’t read romance. Cos I don’t write it exactly and I don’t read it much either. I had knocked on so many doors going as a writer. My first love is big historical epics with a cast of hundreds — okay twelve, but these things were a hard sell. I kept being told to write family sagas, have only two main characters. Eventually I decided it was crunch time and I considered romance because you can get in that door without an agent. So I went and studied the genre and had a go basically and no-one was more surprised than me to get some interest.

What a great start? How do you keep the creative spark going?

All my stories just start with a flash. One scene. It is usually the opening scene. So then I am fleshing that out in my head re what kind of people these are. Then I find myself thinking of places I have squirreled away, a house, an interior, something scenic. In Loving Lady Lazuli it was the monk’s cell at a place called Mount Grace Priory in Yorkshire. This was nothing like a cell. It was a cottage, the only one still standing. And as I was wondering around I so-oh wanted to use it in a story. So I guess it’s a bit like a jigsaw puzzle. Can this place be fitted to that story? Can a particular scenario be fitted to a flash? And really I just sit down and I hope I can write the next line, the next page, that another flash will happen. it is a bit like being on a tightrope.

We have a similar approach to writing then. What’s your routine? Do you work out while writing, take breaks, gut it out?

Oh, I try and write so many words each day unless I am busy editing, or proofing, or doing promo things. So I guess I gut it out till it’s done.

Do you think writing is a form of therapy and, if so, has it helped you work through anything in particular?

Yes I do think that. And yes, it has helped me through some difficult family things, some dark times that I knew were just a question of time and hope. If I had nothing to focus on, no other world to step into, I would probably have lost that hope. I would have found it far more difficult to believe there was any kind of light at the end of that tunnel.

Do you work outside of writing, i.e., do you have day job?

Lol, I have always worked, but, we moved a few years back and that meant I couldn’t continue running a business I had run locally—not to the extent I had run it anyway. I also didn’t fancy starting up again. So now I have the tail end of that business which is actually fine because we have been able to help with our grandbaby for two years there when his mum was working, and I am hoping to set up my own small publishing house. That has been on hold since we moved, with so much to do in the house, my writing and also our grandbaby.

A publisher, wow.  Good luck!  How about this:  pantser or perfectionist?

Complete and utter pantster. I fight with my characters all the time, going, ‘Why the hell are you doing that? Why did you say that? Now what the hell am I meant to do next?’

Your perfect day – go.

Oh gosh . . . family is very important to me. I guess it would be family one, good chat, good fun, good craic [news or gossip]. But like that I am also a huge fan of the outdoors. I love my away weekends that way, too. Can I have two perfect days please?

You may have as many perfect days as you’d like. Favorite book? Author? Individual?

Oh.. I am a big fan of the hard boiled school, the James M Cain school. I also love the classics, the modern classics and yep, I love many of today’s authors.

What has been your greatest writing lesson? How about life lesson?

Life lesson it to always have hope because things will turn round. In the meantime keep dancing in the rain. It’s not gonna stop. My greatest writing lesson was overhearing this writer shrieking at an editor about how she was an artist, after he asked her to change some stuff. It was when I was working for a girl’s comic and I was sitting outside the Ed’s office waiting for my turn to probably be shredded. When I went in, he just shrugged and said he would not be using her work again. It sure taught me not to be precious and to think on my feet. Thinking on my feet actually landed me the contract for my forthcoming release, after I talked my way out of a plot hole by introducing the idea of Time Mutants.

If you could be a character in any novel, what character would you be?

I do quite like Scarlet O’Hara. I must be honest, going about smacking folks can be quite
satisfying at times. ( My family will say but Shey…you do that anyway…)

What is the most rewarding thing about being an author?

The wonderful people I have met. People like your good self.

 

Thank you, and I feel the same.  Any hobbies outside of writing?

I play one or two musical instruments and well…I’ve spent the last few years doing up our house. It’s got me into making things with driftwood, little houses and cupboards and stuff. We live near a beach so it’s very handy.

You have four books out, right? Are they all traditionally published?

They are indeed and so will the next two which are due out. I am however considering self publishing as I feel it gives far greater control over release dates and a number of other things.

Your books are all historical fiction/romance, right? What kind of research do you do for your books?

I have always loved history and a lot of the books I read are historical but I don’t believe in
hitting a reader over the head with that. However, I do research the period details, say for an interior, or if a character is going to do a specific thing in a scene, how they might do this. In Lazuli, for example, the hero has a drug problem, which was acutally quite common in these days, so obviously I did some research on that. Writers always giggle with one another about the internet searches we sometimes do.

How about a few details about your newest book.  

My newest book, The Viking and The Courtesan is a time travel romance. That was one of
these stories that was going along quite nicely in Regency times and had even got to chapter three when suddenly the thought monster said, you know that Viking idea you have not quite got the heroine sorted on, how about you knock both ideas together? Anyway the basic concept, after I tried and failed to wrestle the thought monster to the ground, is a dynasty of time travelers. Imagine not knowing you have this ability? Having no real control over that? Imagine landing smack bang in another era when you are hell bent on whatever you are planning in your one? Imagine having to try and fit in there? Another book in the series, The Writer and The Rake is due for release March 27th. And I am planning more.

Do you like to travel and if so, favorite place?

I love to travel. Our trips have been more limited lately. I used to love visiting Tilos which is a small Greek island. Beautiful place with so much going for it. I like Rome. But mostly over the last few years it’s been Glencoe, which I adore and we also like popping down to York and the surrounding area.

Favorite childhood memory?

I am not going to talk about the time I chased after the boy next door at age 4 and yanked him off his bike cos he was being horrible and I thought, Yes, girls can do anything. No, no.  Probably being with my mum and dad on Christmas morning.  Any one will do.

How old are your kids? Do you have any pets other than the hamsters? Actually, you have have real hamsters?

My kids are 30 and 33. And actually big secret — I don’t have any pets. They once did have a hamster.

So how did the hamster thing come about?

Well… I was doing this blog post about writing and how folks thought plot was everythiing so they chucked EVERYTHING into their stories from the druids of Stonehenge to the emancipation of . . . I nearly said women but at the last I said hamsters. Then Cat Cavendish said in a comment (under another writer name actually ), “Will wel be seeing hamsters, then?” and I said. “Yeah, abso, drinking vino and begging to be freed from their cages.” I was joking but next blog I put a few out there with wee placards going free us from the cages as joke to her. It just went from there.

And the final question, do you think writing can save the world and if so, why?

The pen is always mightier than the sword so I do have hopes.

pjlazos 3.25.17

 

 

***

A Prompt Prompt Prompted Me Promptly

Prompt. The word is fascinating and versatile. It’s a noun, a verb, an adjective and an adverb. Holy guacamole, how often does that happen? It’s like winning the EGOT — Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony, a laudable goal shared by only 12 lucky and hardworking people. It makes you wonder, is there anything a word like that can’t do? (I found a blog post on the internet that listed 56 similarly situated words ; prompt hadn’t made the list.)

I wish I would have thought of prompt during one of the timed writing exercises I used to do with a friend in the now defunct Borders cafeteria. We’d sip fancy coffees and rip small strips of paper from our notebooks, then write one word down on each slip of paper, three nouns, three verbs and three adjectives, eighteen slips of paper total, separated into three different piles. (We left out adverbs. Call us prejudiced, but we just didn’t see the need.) We’d pull a word from each of the piles and do timed exercises of five, ten, and fifteen minutes.

The rules were simple. Write until your hand falls off. Haha! No, actually, it was write using one word chosen from each of the three piles for the prescribed minutes without stopping: not to ponder a plot twist, not to reach for a word that was escaping your pen, not even to go to the bathroom. It was invigorating and imaginative, and it shushed the internal editor more succinctly than any of the other writing exercises I’d tried. Sometimes we’d tweak the rules, adjusting the time or using twice as many words, but the basic premise was the same. This simple writing prompt fueled the basis for scene after scene of a novel that would eventually become “Oil and Water,” but it also taught me something about the craft of writing: imagination is like every other muscle in the body; you need to flex it if you want to keep it in shape. For me, writing prompts facilitated my workout.

So much of our day is spent elsewhere, unconsciously trolling the past or hypothesizing about the future. Cutting through the madness of life is challenging, but the here and now is where you want to be. If done with full awareness, the art of writing can facilitate a sacred communion with your Higher Self. When you tune in to your Higher Self, the internal editor — the one that never really stops criticizing — is silenced, brushed aside to allow the light of clarity to shine through and the quiet little voice to finally get a few minutes of air time. Don’t banish the internal editor because you’ll need him or her later in the rewrite stage — just tell them to shush up so the quiet little voice can speak.

You can also get that kind of unfettered access writing morning pages. The minute you are out of bed, write down whatever comes to you, a dream, some leftover baggage from the day, any nervousness about the day to come, all of it, and when you’re done, start the day fresh.

Here’s another one. Grab a tangerine, or an apple, the fruit doesn’t matter, or if you don’t like fruit, grab a wrench, then set a timer for fifteen minutes, more if you’re brave, and write down everything you can about the tangerine. Notice the color, the texture, the feel of its skin against your own, the little indentation on the one side and the little nub of a branch on the other where it was plucked from its momma tree. Notice the hexagonal star pattern surrounding the little nublet — not a word, but it describes the little wooden branch remnant on the top center of the tangerine perfectly, doesn’t it? Describe the smell and whether this is what you thought the color orange would feel like. Rub it against your cheek and lips and describe the almost plastic feeling of the skin and balance it on your head and talk about the weight or how easy or hard it is to balance it there and then write a sentence with a tangerine on your head (which does great things for your posture), and talk about how hard it was to keep it from falling, and on and on until your timer goes ding and THEN, eat the tangerine and describe that, so tart, so sweet, so delicate. If you chose a wrench as your object, you’ll have to leave this last part out. The exercise is freeing because there’s really no goal other than to train yourself to observe and describe. Do it a hundred times and you’ll have mastered the art of observation and description which is all writing really is.

Got it? Great! I challenge you to choose your prompt and get to work. Your readers are waiting. You’re going to be amazing.

pjlazos 3.21.17

 

 

 

 

 

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Creating Characters That POP!

Have you noticed just how many of the articles circling the blogosphere involve a list? Every day, dozens of headlines promise to turn your life around in minutes if you just know how to count. Ten amazing slow cooker recipes to ignite your appetite. Eight ab-busting exercises to give you a summer six-pack. Five special tricks to keep your man happy in bed. Seven sure-fire methods to assure your toddler’s good behavior. It’s exhausting, really, and to a certain extent, lacks vision. Can’t we accomplish anything without a list? Is there no way to impart information other than to count it out?

Perhaps, but why start now? Because right now you are only three steps away from creating characters that POP! Ready? Here goes.

1. Understand Why: Understanding is not as simple as recounting a story, and knowledge doesn’t qualify as understanding. Anyone can read a book about the U.S. Civil War being the bloodiest in American history and know, from a factual standpoint, that war is bad, people died, and brother was pitted against brother, but if you were an alien, how would you come to the realization that this period was also one of the saddest in American history. It wasn’t just about war, but the very definition of America was at stake and despite Her differences, America decided to stick together in a Union to define all unions.

How did that history come alive? By understanding the characters. One has only to go to the battlefield in Gettysburg to hear history echoing down through time. You can feel the shiver of fear and dread that ran through all who died there. At the museum, you are flooded with understanding: of the farmer who left his wife and children to go fight rather than bring his crops in; of the terrified 15-year old who goes off to war to make his family proud; of the women left behind who held their families together, protecting their children against marauders, and hunger, and generals looking to replenish their own starving soldier’s supplies. The stories have come alive with understanding — letters, artifacts, firsthand accounts — and motivations. The story is no longer just a fact on the page, but a living, breathing entity brought to life through the light of understanding. Everyone has a key that unlocks the secret of who they are, what makes them take step after step in any given situation. To find that key, you must first understand your character, not just know his or her vital statistics such as name, address and phone number, but the reason why they live where they do and think the way they think, why they like chocolate instead of vanilla ice cream or why they joined the Knights of Columbus instead of the American Freedom Party. Understand your characters and they will dance before you on the page like a hologram.

2. Be Fascinated: When we are fascinated with something we can’t get enough of it. Fascination doesn’t mean you have to like your character, but you do have to like spending time with them, two distinctly different things. If you aren’t fascinated enough to want to take a journey with your characters then your readers aren’t going to be either. Some of the most fascinating characters of all time were scoundrels — Ebenezer Scrooge, Dracula, Captain Hook, Sauron, Cruella DeVil, Voldemort. We are fascinated with their vileness and like the proverbial car wreck on the side of the road, can’t stop craning our necks to see what’s happened as we pass it by. Sadly, like the news, we are more interested in the negative than the positive so you may have a harder time writing a fascinating “positive” character, but there are plenty of them as well: Harry Potter, Dorothy, Frodo, Forest Gump. What is it about them that makes you want to snuggle in close and watch? Good or evil, it’s fascination.

If you haven’t yet read, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell, then start there. Campbell talks about the Hero’s journey vis-á-vis the archetypes running through psychology, mythology, and modern day stories. Archetypes are your friends. They are a part of us, the secret to human character. Want to understand your own character? Figure out your archetypes. The Hero, the Dreamer, the Priest, the Prostitute, the Princess, the Warrior, the Architect, the Magi, the list goes on. Know them. Love them. Marry them if you have to, but you need to transcend them in order to understand them and you need to understand them in order to unlock the fascination, that which drives the reader to hunker down and keep reading. We need to spend time with this character because in doing so, we understand ourselves more fully. We need to abide them in our midst because of their beauty or despite their villainy. They are us and we are them. Unlock the fascination and your readers will come back again and again.

3. Emotional Integrity: Okay. Ready for the big reveal? The thing that’s going to bring it on home? Emotional integrity is the linchpin of every story. A story without emotion is not much of a story, right? But drama for drama’s sake just doesn’t ring true either. A character’s emotion has to feel real in order for a reader to be sucked in. I have a friend who swears she could watch Anthony Hopkins reading a grocery list and still get all vaklempt. Why? Because the guy oozes emotional integrity. And that doesn’t mean crying or screaming or carrying on. Hannibal lecture didn’t do any of those things, yet he managed to make your skin crawl without even uttering a word.

Take the time Sally and her best friend, Stu were in summer day camp. Every morning they set off across the street and through the cemetery to get to the neighborhood park on the other side. Sally’s mom didn’t drive, but it was the 1960’s when kids actually got themselves to things without a parent hovering about. Sally’s mom tells her that Stu is sick and she has to go herself but there is No Way Sally’s going through that cemetery alone. She knows her mother will make her so you feigns a bad belly. Telling the story that way is fine, but when you let the reader see the emotion behind the story it really comes alive. Better still, when Sally feels the emotion, all kinds of crazy happens.

Sally’s mom calls down the hall for Sally to get moving,

“Sally, time to go.”

Sally doesn’t answer because she’s bunched up in a ball on her bed, clutching her belly. She’s thinking about the gravestones, silent, waiting, and how she’s going to be so alone. Sometimes even with Stu’s company Sally can feel the icy tendrils of the dead searching for her warm-blooded body, hoping to latch onto something they can suck a bit of warmth from and Sally will be right there, all alone, with no one to hear her scream.…

Sally starts to shiver and sweat and by the time her mom reaches her room to check on her, she’s drowning in a lather of fear.

“Sally, what’s wrong? Are you all right?” Sally’s mom sits down next to her on the bed, feels the clammy skin, notices the diluted pupils, the rapid pulse. Sally looks like hell. She’s got herself so worked up she couldn’t come down if she tried.

Sally’s mom puts her chin to Sally’s forehead. “You don’t have a fever, but I don’t think you should go today. You just don’t look right.” And with that, mom holds the covers up and Sally crawls back under.

That’s it. Mission accomplished. Sally pulled it off, not because she scammed her mom, but because she was so invested in the scary cemetery story that her body actually believed in the terror and reacted accordingly. Emotional integrity wins the day every time.

And so will you if you just follow these three simple steps. Why not start now, creating characters that will resonate with your readers long after the last page has been turned. Your characters, and your readers, are waiting.

pjlazos 3.17.17

 

 

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Hey there.  It’s the first Wednesday of the month and you know what that means.  Insecure Writers Support Group, the day for insecure writers of all genres to get out there and talk about, well, their insecurities.  Or not.  You could also talk about your securities, offer encouragement, connect with your writing kin and comment on like-minded other’s blogs.  It’s all about community and thank God for that, too, because lately it feels like the good ole’ US of A is sorely lacking in community.  In fact, to quote Jack Nicholson who played The Joker in the 1989 Tim Burton version of Batman, it feels like “this town needs an enema.”

The IWSG just happens to be a cure for that feeling.

Every month the cohosts announce a question that participants may or may not answer depending on whether they have something better to chew on.  Cohosts for the March 1 posting of the IWSG are Tamara Narayan, Patsy Collins, M.J. Fifield, and Nicohle Christopherson.  Thanks, guys.  You rock!

Want to join the #IWSG?  Check out the page.  Twitter handle is @TheIWSG.   So get on it and hope to see you at the virtual water cooler.  We can talk about our insecurities.

And now, on to The Question:

Have you ever pulled out a really old story and reworked it? Did it work out?

I did rework a short story I wrote about ten years ago called Stalker.  I entered it into a contest or two, but nothing every happened so I stashed it.  I pulled it out lately and cleaned up the language a bit.  I like this creepy little story about a stalker told from the stalkers POV.  It’s based on my real life experience of a creeper guy who rode my train for several months and did everything he could to get next to me short of sitting on my lap.  I hated riding the train those months because I felt really violated even though the guy never touched me.  After he left and the imminent fear was gone, I started thinking about the story from the creeper’s POV.

Here it is. Let me know if it captures the creepiness.

 

Stalker

It is not as you believe, my Angel. I am not a bad man.  You may think it odd that we have never spoken.  I stand within ten feet of you, my Love, and the words falter, trapped in my throat.  I wait for you on the platform this morning and when I don’t see you I begin my search. I spy you in the last car, walking to your seat.  You prefer the solitude of the quiet car. I get that.

I juggle my briefcase and my coffee, taking up more than my allotted half of the aisle, but I see that you are nimble, my Love Light.  I stop, and wait, and hope, but you have contorted yourself into a time-space continuum where anything is possible.  You glide past me without so much as our arm hairs touching.

Now the interminable ticking of my watch is all that separates us.  The train slows; the  doors open.  I walk from the platform to the street, jostled by the nameless, the faceless, carrying backpacks and briefcases.  Their eyes do not shine like my Love’s.
And then you are there, barely yards from me, my Aphrodite, your white dress resplendent in the morning sun, your lush hair tousled by the gentle wind, surrounding a face that would make Venus jealous.  Your long, sinewy legs stride with an athlete’s grace.  I must hurry!

You sense me, but do not turn as I close the gap and we cross the street in tandem.   What bliss!  The sidewalk is deserted; just you, my Madonna, and me, our destinies intertwined, inevitable.

My footstep behind you, adoration at a glance. Did you notice?  I run a hand through my thinning hair and smile.  But what is this?  What’s that look in your eye?  Are you upset this morning, my Goddess?  Perhaps tired?  I walk on, exactly one half-step behind you, but your pace quickens.  You are determined.  The heat rises to my cheeks; the odd bead of sweat now joined by half a dozen others.  I take several shallow breaths and plunge in; we walk side by side.

My ecstasy knows no bounds.  How many times have you looked away?  A hundred?  A thousand?  My Love, my Captive; now you cannot ignore me.  We walk, not an arm’s length apart.  I would encircle you with my own two, would you give me the slightest signal.

My eyes implore:  LOOK AT ME; but your eyes look only ahead, my Angel, as you float along on winged feet.  We cross the bridge in tandem. Your proximity is intoxicating. You smell like a breeze off the ocean. I open my mouth to speak, but you are looking away, to the river below at some distant prize on the horizon.  Your feet belie their wings, my Love.  Are you flying?  My heart pounds the narrow walls of my chest seeking an audience.  Another bead of sweat careens along my cheekbone before dive-bombing to the ground.  I think I hear it plop.  More stand ready.  I steal a glance, but you do not notice.
Another breath, this one more shallow.  Your pace is maddening, unwavering, and I struggle to keep up.  My lungs scream for a rest, a cigarette.  You pull away.  Please! Not now that we are so close.

I glance at your face, sculpted by Michelangelo himself.  Are you not tiring, my Love?  My arms and legs pump wildly, valiantly, trying to match your stride.  My love swells and my heart wrenches, threatening to burst its walls.  You show no signs of slowing.  Soon we will be at a cross street; the moment lost forever. I must do something.

“It’s a lot easier walking than I thought it would be this morning.  I thought it would be hotter.”  Was that my voice?  I do not recognize it.

You turn your head to face me, the Goddess in you saluting the God in me.  But what is in your eyes?  Hostility?  Rebuke?  Or maybe just the heat.  Eternity passes.  Did you hear me, my Queen?

“Just wait until midday.”

Your first words!  But…now?  Sarcasm?  Vowels and consonants hang, suspended like greenhouse gasses.  Your eyes lance my skin.  Beads of sweat form armies on my brow.  Some disband, trekking out on reconnaissance missions.  A millennium passes much too slowly.  You walk faster still, if that is at all possible. Our thirty year age difference wears on me.  I pray for rain that I might offer you my umbrella, but the cloudless sky laughs.  The light changes. We stop. I squeeze out the words, clawing their way to my throat.  I reel, all six acupuncture pulses echoing in my forehead.  I suck in ambient air like a vacuum; it pummels my lungs like shrapnel.

The light turns green and I charge ahead, taking the first step, knowing you will match my pace.  Half a block by I cast a cautious glance over my shoulder. Where are you?  I whirl around to see you buying fruit from a vendor.  I retreat into the shelter of a doorway and watch you, unnoticed.  Your pace has slowed.  Are you tired, my Beguiling One?
You arrive, finally, and I emerge from the shadows to stand before you.  You recoil, drop the fruit.  Fruit salad sprays the sidewalk.  Pineapple and orange and strawberry splatter your shoes. Your mouth goes slack.  The world tips on its axis.  I stand there, silently pleading.  Your stare melts the glaciers.

“What?”

I swallow, but my throat burns like wildfire.  I stoop, gather the fruit.   Remnants of melon and cantaloupe and mango trip through my fingers.  I offer them to you, my outstretched hands filled with the sweet refuse.  We could lie on the beach, my Sweet One, eat fruit until our bellies were full … .

What’s this, my Beauty?  Are you annoyed with me?

Juice slips through my fingers as a thousand needles pierce my arm.  My vision diffuses, my chest seizes. I want to press my heart, but it’s my balls I grab.  I leave a sweet, sticky hand print on my khaki trousers.

“I thought so,” you say, and turn to leave.

I open my mouth to speak, to cry, to confess, but the words splinter as my heart explodes. Oh, please, PLEASE, wait.  Not this way, my Delicious One.  I drop to one knee, then to the ground as my cheek buries itself in a slice of golden pineapple.  The sharp, sweet aroma drifts into my sinuses.  I watch your fruit-splattered shoes recede. I hear the distant wail of a siren.  They come for me, I know.  Will you ride with me, my Love?

p.j.lazos 2.28.17

 

 

***

Interview with JB Richards

I had asked JB Richards a few questions while I was preparing to review Miriamne the Magdala but her very thoughtful answers came back to me in a complete block of thought so rather than try to redirect her answers back into the questions, I’m just going to give it to you the way she sent it to me.  Thanks, JB Richards, for your thoughtful words on writing, religion and life.

And now, without further introduction, here is JB Richards:

I’ve always loved the study of history and how certain individuals – even though they came from backwater nations, were brought up in abject poverty, and/or had all the odds stacked against them – were able to affect vast social, political, and/or religious changes on a global level. I can think of no better example of someone who made a lasting impression on the world than Jesus – a young man who more than fit all of those qualifications!

I was brought up in a Catholic household, and during my early teens – which happened to coincide with the massive social and revolutionary movements of the 1960’s and 70’s – I began to question why women were so repressed by the establishment, particularly in my religion. It was not long before I began to question the authority of the Roman Catholic Church’s patriarchal hierarchy and why they still banished women from serving as equals in modern times. About the time I started college, I was well into my research of the Dead Sea Scrolls, but shifted gears when I learned of the discoveries of the Gnostic Gospels, the Nag Hamadi Library, and other writings which told alternative stories of Jesus’ life and ministry, but were, in the early formative years of the Church, banned from the Bible. Among these writings were two gospels that were of particular interest to me for the information they contained:  the Gospel of Mary Magdalene and the Gospel of Thomas. They told such a different story about Jesus’ and his life that I wondered what other writings could possibly be out there that would force a change in the current view of women in the Church. This question prompted me to initiate a search for the historical Jesus and alternate writings about him. Unfortunately, my research turned up no historical record of the man called Jesus, but through my studies of the synoptic gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John), along with the newly discovered gospels and the actual history of that time, I formed a picture of Jesus as a boy and what his life must have been like.    

Over the course of 25 years, my immersion into the study of Jesus and his followers caused me to view Mary Magdalene as his most important disciple. I realized that she was much more than a simple follower – she was known as his closest confidante and, quite likely, his one true love. Through the study of Jewish culture, religion, ethics, and laws, I found it highly improbable that Mary Magdalene would have been Jesus’ wife – for reasons I will not expand upon here – and I soon formed an image of their relationship in my mind. This gave birth to the two characters I portray in my novel series – Yeshua (Jesus’ real name in his native Aramaic tongue) and Miriamne (an Aramaic version of the name “Mary” which I chose in order to avoid confusion with all the other Mary’s in the gospels). Although the story of their kinship and their younger years are basically fictitious, many of the traits expressed in the gospels and their actual activities line up with the actual recorded history of that time. I pride myself on the historical accuracy of my novels, so the major historic events you read about in Miriamne the Magdala, such as The Crucifixion of the 2,000 and the Destruction of Sepphoris, the culture and traditions, the religious laws and practices, and the political factions and issues, are very, very real.

In order to give Miriamne the Magdala a sense of authenticity to the reader, I used common Hebrew phrases and terminology whenever the characters interacted with each other. Yeshua even speaks Greek to his aunt’s friend when he is in the Marketplace in order to lend an air of realism to the conversation as it would have been held between them in that time and situation. Though I don’t speak Hebrew myself, I learned basic Hebrew phrases from a young man I met on Facebook. In fact, I speak about his enormous contribution to Miriamne the Magdala in the Acknowlegements section of the book. He was also kind enough to translate much of the English to Hebrew phrases while making sure they adhered to 1st-century Hebraic language and to provide the alliterative translation in place of the classic Hebrew script to make the words legible for me and my readers. It’s certainly an understatement to say that, without his assistance, Miriamne the Magdala would not exist as it is today – a genuine representation of 1st-century Jewish-Galilean life.

As someone who has studied history and religion for a great many years, I’m fully aware of the controversy my novel series stirs up. Naturally, there are people in this world who refuse to see anything but what the authorities put before them, and the relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene is only one of several hotly contested topics bantered about these days. Even in religious scholarship circles, the subject of Jesus’ celibacy and divinity is oftentimes a point of great contention. Not surprisingly, I’ve been called heretical and blasphemous for not only my writing but my personal views on women’s equality and inclusion in the Church. I’ve also received my share of inflammatory comments on social media, as well as a number of death threats. Although I respect the rights of these individuals to express their views, I discount anyone who uses intimidation or hate in order to dissuade another from being able to express their own views. These individuals are cowards who use religion as a front to push their own agendas forward and I have little regard for their empty threats. In the end, one cannot ignore History, and when all the information about past events point to a certain conclusion, we must accept that conclusion as Truth. I consider Miriamne the Magdala to be the beginning of my own Journey toward Truth.

p.j.lazos 2.25.17

***

Skin of Tattoos

Welcome to the third installment of author interviews in anticipation of Mystery Thriller Week, 2/12/17 – 2/22/17. This week’s feature is Christina Hoag, writer and former journalist whose own life reads like a real-life crime novel. She’s “been threatened by a death-row murderer, had her laptop searched by Colombian guerrillas and her phone tapped in Venezuela, was suspected of drug trafficking in Guyana, hidden under a car to evade Guatemalan soldiers, posed as a nun to get inside a Caracas jail, interviewed gang members, bank robbers, gunmen, thieves and thugs in prisons, shantytowns and slums, not to forget billionaires and presidents, some of whom fall into the previous categories.”

Kirkus Reviews calls Christina a “talented writer,” and her debut novel, Skin of Tattoos (Martin Brown Publishing, 2016) “a well-crafted, engaging novel about an ex-con trying to break free.” Her YA thriller Girl on the Brink (Fire and Ice, 2016), was named to Suspense Magazine’s Best of 2016 YA list. Christina also writes nonfiction, and co-authored Peace in the Hood: Working with Gang Members to End the Violence (Turner Publishing, 2014), a groundbreaking book on violence intervention used in several universities.

Christina was born in New Zealand, but grew up as an expat, living in various parts of the world, and is fluent in Spanish and French. She boasts four different accents in English (!) and despite her extensive traveling would probably say England feels the most like home because that’s her mother’s home.

Christina currently makes her home in Los Angeles and on the web.

Synopsis for Skin of Tattoos

Los Angeles homeboy Magdaleno is paroled from prison after serving time on a gun possession frameup by a rival, Rico, who takes over as gang shotcaller in Mags’s absence. Mags promises himself and his Salvadoran immigrant family a fresh start, but he can’t find either the decent job or the respect he craves from his parents and his firefighter brother, who look at him as a disappointment. Moreover, Rico, under pressure to earn money to free the Cyco Lokos’ jailed top leader and eager to exert his authority over his rival-turned-underling, isn’t about to let Mags get out of his reach. Ultimately, Mags’s desire for revenge and respect pushes him to make a decision that ensnares him in a world seeded with deceit and betrayal, where the only escape from rules that carry a heavy price for transgression is sacrifice of everything – and everyone – he loves.

Think Christina sounds mysterious and exciting? Think Skin of Tattoos sounds like the must-read thriller for 2017? What until you read this!

What’s your writing background (schooling), backdrop (where you work at writing), and backstory (what you will tell the world when you become super famous)?

I won a prize for “writing interesting stories” when I was six years old so I think writing was something I was born with. I always wanted to write books. I discovered journalism in high school – a career that would pay me to write! I wrote short stories on and off until I really focused on my childhood goal of writing novels about a dozen years ago. I wrote an outline for Skin of Tattoos in 2006, started writing it in 2008, finished it in 2013.

What are your favorite books?

Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck; Beloved by Toni Morrison; The Goat’s Party by Mario Vargas Llosa; Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; Queen of the South by Arturo Perez Reverte; Even Silence Has an End: My Six Years of Captivity in the Colombian Jungle by Ingrid Betancourt; Robbery Under Arms by Rolf Boldrewood: A Good Man in Africa by William Boyd; For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway; and Vanity Fair by WillliamThackeray.

Why mysteries?

I love delving into the seamy side of life and what drives people in that world which is very different than mine! My characters do things that I never would so maybe that’s why I like writing them. I’m fascinated with the psychology behind the criminal mind and how people get to be that way, the risks they take. Other than that, crime makes great drama and conflict, the basis of any novel.

Do you see the need for all these sub-genres or do you think we’ve become over-specialized, as in, a story isn’t just a story any longer, but a specific type of story?

Genre can really help sell a book because readers know what they’re getting. Publishers love assigning genre. On the flip side, genre can also box in a book to those preconceptions. Thus I don’t think reliance on genre is great for authors who need free rein to write from their imaginations. I see it as a necessary evil of the publishing industry. Sigh.

Why writing and not ceramics, or gourmet cooking, or anything else really? If not writing, then what?

I have to be intellectually engaged. If an activity doesn’t engage my mind, I get bored easily. Secondly, I love to use my imagination, hence I love writing fiction. It completely absorbs me.

From where do your ideas come?

Really anywhere. Some have come from my own experience, some from people I’ve interviewed and things I’ve written about as a journalist, things I read about or that people just tell me about their own lives. It kind of all gets poured into a funnel in my brain and mashed up.

What’s your routine? Do you work out while writing, take breaks, or simply gut it out?

I’m a morning writer. I get up early, have my coffee, check the news and then sit down and write until I feel my brain turning squishy, usually early afternoon. Then I get some exercise and try to do some marketing and social media work. It’s amazing how much time that stuff consumes!

What is your favorite place to walk?

Anywhere in nature that doesn’t have hills! I really love wild, remote places, probably because I live in the city.

Do you think writing is a form of therapy and, if so, has it helped you work through anything in particular?

Definitely. My YA thriller Girl on the Brink was inspired by a bad relationship I had. I wrote this novel so teen girls could learn the red flags of an abusive relationship, particularly the insidious signs of emotional manipulation. Because it was so personal, writing this book was hard and it took a long time to get it right, but I feel so much better that sharing my experience will help others.

Do you work outside of writing, i.e., do you have day job?

My day job is writing! I do corporate communications/public relations writing: speeches, press releases, blog posts, that sort of thing. I also edit dissertations and do some journalism in the form of big reports for Congressional Quarterly Researcher. I work freelance so I can juggle my schedule to fit my novel writing into my schedule.

If you could quit your job and just write, would you, or do you pull inspiration from the other aspects of your life and find it necessary to keep the creative spark going?

Not really. I have set goals and ideas I pursue. Self-discipline, though, is the key to keeping going.

Pantser or perfectionist who meticulously plots out their stories?

A bit of both. I like to know where I’m going so I have a loose outline. I’ve found knowing your ending from the getgo really helps to avoid writing yourself into corners, or into a wall. That said, I change stuff as I go all the time. Some of it works, some of it doesn’t. Sometimes I do detailed mini-outlines covering just the next chapter or two. It also helps to get you started when you sit down at the computer every day so you avoid wasting time wondering what comes next.

Your perfect day – go.

Basically it’s what I have now, but maybe I’d have an assistant to handle all the social media/marketing stuff and emails, as well as those big royalty checks coming in!

Favorite book, author, individual?

Probably my favorite all time author is Graham Greene. Many of his books are about the concept of being a foreigner, an outsider/observer, which I relate to on a personal level since I’ve lived in many countries both as a child and as an adult. That influence comes through in Skin of Tattoos, where the protagonist Mags was born in El Salvador but left with his family fleeing the civil war when he was a child so he doesn’t really feel Salvadoran, doesn’t remember anything about the place, yet that is his identity. He’s an outsider to El Salvador, yet as an immigrant an outsider to mainstream American society, as well. He finds his home in a gang with others from similar backgrounds.

What has been your greatest writing lesson? How about life lesson?

Writing lesson: Persistence. Just keep at it no matter what anyone tells you, no matter how many rejections you get. The more you write, the better at it you’ll get, and you will succeed.

Life lesson: Believing in yourself is the greatest gift you can give yourself. If you believe you can accomplish something, you will.

If you could be a character in any novel, what character would you be?

James Bond would definitely be fun!

Favorite childhood memory?

Tough one, but probably my mother buying me a book — a Secret Seven mystery by Enid Blyton — on a shopping trip. I had finished it by the time we pulled into the driveway, and I remember feeling so sad I no longer had anything new to read!

And the final question, do you think writing can save the world and if so, why?

Yes. The foremost purpose of writing is the communication of ideas and messages, and ideas are the seed for saving, or alternatively destroying, pretty much anything.

Want More?  Here’s an excerpt from Skin of Tattoos:

“Ay yo, homes!” A familiar voice sliced through the bustle. “Mags!”
I twirled faster than a ballet dancer, my stomach clenching. Fuck. It was him. Rico. Slashing across the street aiming the shopping bag in his hand at me. His baggy shorts slung so low the waistband of his boxers showed. Socks, white as fluorescent light, pulled neatly to his knees. Ink flowing out of the arms and neck of his plaid shirt. Exactly how he looked the last time I saw him.
The memory of that day bore down on me. We were kicking it at a street corner, and Rico was bragging about how he shot a trey-eight into the ceiling of a liquor store he was jacking, and the storeowner pissed his pants. As he was talking, he took the .38 out of his waistband in a live re-enactment, and I just had to take the piece, feeling its cold weight in my hand for just a second or two before handing it back to Rico. That second or two cost me twenty-six months of my freedom.
Rico threw his arm around me. A thick gold chain shone around his neck. I had a cord with an orange arrow slung around mine.
“Ese.” My voice had as much life as a three-day-old soda.
I never knew if he dropped that thirty-eight by accident, as he said, or if he saw his chance to set me up. I kinda figured the latter. Someday, somehow, I’d get him to admit the truth to me.
“I thought that was you. But I said to myself, ‘Mags, in that fuckin pendejada? Couldn’t be.’ But I looked again and simón, it was. Whatup with this shit?” He flicked the red nose ball. I caught his wrist in midair and stared him down in his swamp eyes. “Easy, fool,” he said.
I dropped his wrist. “Just making a few bones.”
“I heard you was back. We been waiting for you at the garaje, but you ain’t showed up.” Rico drilled my eyes. “You avoiding your homies or what?”
The ball was itching my nose like an oversized mosquito bite. “I got parole and all that. I just wanted to get set up first.”
“I figured you needed a couple days to get readjusted, get some pussy.” He shook his head. “But damn, this shit?” He shook his head. “You ready to get crazy again?”
“Keeping it lo pro, Rico.”
Rico studied me. I suddenly glimpsed myself in his eyes—I had become a small brown man.
He brightened up. “Hey, I just had a kid. A boy. I’m buying some bottles and blankets and shit right now.”
“Felicidades.”
“With Maribel. But I got my side action, feel me?”
“You were always real slick with the jainas.” I knew a little flattery would soften the rough edges of the meet. He smiled big.
“Tell you what, loco, I’ll give you some lessons, make you real smooth.”
“Yeah, I’m out of practice now.” I tried to laugh.
“A lot of changes gone down in the barrio. We need to catch you up.” His arm hooked my neck in a chokehold. “You our firme homeboy, man, you’ll always be part of la familia. We need you, fool.” He squeezed a little too hard. “You come by the garaje. We got a jump in day after tomorrow. We’ll be waiting. We’ll hook you up again, then you can dump this shit.” He pointed his forefinger at me with a barbed wire smile. “Missed you, Mags.”
I watched him vanish into the crowd of shoppers, and spat on the ground to get rid of the bad taste that had flooded my mouth.

 

p.j. lazos 1.28.17

The Sign Behind The Crime Series

Welcome to my second interview in the series of author interviews leading up to Mystery Thriller Week, February 12 – 22, 2017. This week’s guest is Ronnie Allen, author of The Sign Behind the Crime Series. Before we went live, Ronnie shared some great news she just received:

I woke up to awesome and humbling news from my publisher, Black Opal Books. The Board of Directors voted on Aries to be one of their three submissions for the Mystery Writers of America Nero Awards! I told ya, in 2017 I’d be busting out! Aries is Book Two in The Sign Behind The Crime Series. This book will be featured in a couple of upcoming #MTW blogs.

Exciting news, Ronnie! We wish you the best of luck.

Let’s start with the book synopsis for Aries, The Sign Behind the Crime Series, as listed on Amazon:

Lying. Deception. Cover-ups. Anger. Revenge. Death. That’s what happens when an Aries-obsessed killer combines black magick rituals, knives … and murder. Samantha Wright, a rookie NYPD detective, gets her first case, a big one, by stumbling over the body while jogging in the park. Sam has a lot to prove, both to herself and to her new precinct, on this serial murder case involving fashion icons in NYC. Together with a rough around the edges BJJ fighter, forensic psychiatrist, Frank Khaos, Sam chases down leads through the five boroughs of NYC. As the bodies pile up, sparks fly and Sam and Frank, polar opposites, go from their dislike for each other to setting the sheets on fire. But their main suspect is hooked up to an IV in a hospital bed, so how has she pulled off five murders in seven days? And can Sam and Frank stop her before even more innocent lives are lost?

Ronnie Allen is a New York City native, born and bred in Brooklyn, New York, where she was a teacher and a School Psychologist in the New York City Department of Education for 33 years. Her work as a classroom teacher, staff developer, crisis intervention specialist, and mentor for teachers who were struggling prepared her for a career as a writer. Always an advocate for the child, Allen examines the horrors of child abuse through the eyes of three characters in her novel, Gemini, the first book in The Sign Behind the Crime Series.

In the early 1990s, Allen began a journey into holistic healing and alternative therapies. In 2001, she completed her PhD in Parapsychic Sciences. In addition, Allen is a Board Certified Holistic Health Practitioner as well as a crystal therapist, Reiki practitioner, metaphysician, dream analyst, and Tarot Master Instructor. She has taught workshops in New York City and in Central Florida where she now lives.

 

And now, on to the questions:

What’s your writing background (schooling), backdrop (where you work at writing), and backstory (what you will tell the world when you become super famous)?

I started teaching in 1970 and became bored with just that so I begin my writing journey in 1978 when I went to acting and writing school in Manhattan. I started writing screenplays and worked in screenwriting and film until the mid 90s. Even though not produced, I wrote feature films and teleplays for TV episodes. I had three agents during the time and when my third agent was getting my scripts into three different TV series, they shut down. I began a journey into holistic health in the mid 90s, and wrote and published in nonfiction. In 2011, I began my journey into novel writing. My first book was published in 2015, the second into 2016 and the third will be released in September of this year. Schooling? Lots and lots of workshops, conferences, online classes to learn the craft.

Why thrillers?

I’ve always loved the crime genre, to read as well as write. I think I must’ve been a detective or FBI agent in a past life. I love the action, the energy, and I can take out any personal revenge on a character or situation.

Do you see the need for all these sub-genres or do you think we’ve become over-specialized, as in, a story isn’t just a story any longer, but a specific type of story?

I think having the specific sub genres help readers decide whether your book is for them or not. It’s another category for publishers to market your books.

Why writing and not ceramics, or gourmet cooking, or anything else really? If not writing, then what?

I love to cook and bake. Recently I’ve gotten into gluten-free and lactose free baking. I’m very much into health and nutrition and I’m a holistic health practitioner so I practice alternative therapies in my daily life as well as use them in the context of my books.

From where do your ideas come?

A lot of my ideas come from dreams. Others, come from fantasies with me acting as the main character whether it’s the protagonist or antagonist.

What’s your routine? Do you work out while writing, take breaks, or simply gut it out?

Since I don’t have a 9-to-5 job or young children in the house, I write whenever I want which is at least 6 to 8 hours a day, whether I’m researching, blogging, or working on marketing. Very often I write at the pool, so in between chapters or scenes I’ll do water aerobics with my dumbbells. I also bake, and over the last six months I’ve gone as gluten-free as humanly possible so baking muffins has become a hobby.

Do you think writing is a form of therapy and, if so, has it helped you work through anything in particular?

I see writing as definitely a cathartic experience. It’s helped me work through a family issue we’ve had, and I also work through some anxiety and trauma about my childhood and lifetime asthma. The latter, is a major plot in my second book, Aries, which drives the antagonist, a female killer in her why.

Do you pull inspiration from the other aspects of your life? How do you keep the creative spark going?

I do take my content for my novels from my daily life and my experiences as a holistic health practitioner specializing in alternative therapies. The therapies my characters are involved in, I teach my clients.

Pantser or perfectionist who meticulously plots out their stories?

I’m definitely a plotter, but not so meticulously that I have to stick to a definitive plan. I allow my characters to go in their own direction, and very often my characters give themselves more of a role than I had intended. When that happens I know I am in very deep POV and it works best for the plot.

Your perfect day – go.

Since I’m pretty much a free woman, even with my husband, we both like to sleep late and by late I mean even past 11 AM. We pretty much do what we want when we want. So I usually start my day with some vitamins and a muscle milk protein shake while I’m watching one of the Home Shopping Network’s. Even before that, I check all of my social media, which is Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Then I might write, plot, plot for as long as I want to until late afternoon.

What has been your greatest writing lesson?

We are constantly learning the craft and no matter how many books you have out, there is still much you can learn. You really need to have an open mind in this business. I’ve learned to listen to people who have succeeded and to have what I want. In other words, listen to your critique partners, beta readers, and if you get feedback from agents really think about what they are saying instead of standing on your laurels and saying you are not changing anything. This will considerably cut down on the amount of rejections you get until you get that one yes.

If you could be a character in any novel, what character would you be?

I will choose Samantha Wright who is my heroine in Aries. She’s bright, sassy, and just becoming in tune with her psychic awareness. She’s on target with her analysis of on-scene forensics, and has a real gut instinct on how to deal with people. In addition, she has the hottest sex on the planet with forensic psychiatrist Dr. Frank Khaos. She’s one lucky woman.

And the final question, do you think writing can save the world and if so, why?

Actually, I think it’s reading that can save the world, and yes works have to be written in order to be read. I think when people open up their minds through a book, they get a different perspective on how other people live. Perhaps through a book they can learn an appreciation, for other cultures and or lifestyles. Reading is also a way to escape and a way to relieve stresses.

Thanks, Ronnie Allen, for stopping by. Best of luck with The Sign Behind the Crime Series.

Buy Links:

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Blog

Twitter and Instagram

Facebook

And if you readers want a bit more, enjoy a short excerpt from Aries:

Aries, The Sign Behind the Crime

The rain had tapered off by the time Nick arrived at the scene and got out of the car. He didn’t neglect to notice Sam’s perfect body through her clingy sweats and T, even though she was covered in mud and blood. Her ponytail hung loose. Straggling wisps of hair stuck to her face. He smiled for the first time. His wife was never going to meet this one. Blonde and blue eyed with the perfect nose and full lips, to boot. Nope, his wife was never going to meet her.
Sam approached the other suited man who also towered over her. “Hi, I’m Sam Wright.”
It was all Nick could do, not to laugh. He knew Dingo well enough to know what went through his mind.
“Dingo Withers, lead homicide expert from Homicide Investigative Unit. What have we got here?” Nick couldn’t mistake his curt attitude and, he assumed, neither could Sam.
“What are you doing here?”
“You lucked out, rookie. My unit is housed in your precinct. I’ll be busting your ass.”
“Okay, Withers. I see this as a test, right?”
He didn’t crack a smile. “I said I’d be busting your ass, but no. It’s the job of a first responder, and you, Detective Wright, happen to be that person.”
“I was the first on scene, yes. No one has gone into these woods since I’ve been here. No civilians to interview. The scene is safe. No assailant. On first look, I saw blood still oozing from wounds. So they’re somewhat fresh. The rain wasn’t pouring down so forcefully when I was under the shelter of the trees near the body. It’s a lot of cuts, more than ten at first glance. I got up after I fell. So you’ll have my DNA evidence that was transferred because my arms touched the branches, yeah Locard’s Exchange Principle, and there’ll be wet origin footprints. Didn’t notice any other footprints going to or away from body. Ooh, ooh ooh. There’s more!”
Oh, man. How old is she?
Nick bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.
“I knew I shouldn’t have taken the direct path to the body because that’s probably what the assailant did. But I had no choice. The bushes on either side are so dense. See them over there? So there was no other way to get through. I did, though, try not to tread in the water. Didn’t stick around to make exact count of cuts. Kept my arms straight down at my sides when I ran out and my eyes on the ground. Didn’t see any weapons or possible tools. Noticed the puddle water was red, right over there where I was standing when you pulled up. Splattered up on me as I jogged through it. I haven’t gone back to the body, but looked at it through this path.”
“While I was waiting for you, I took pics on my phone of my shoe prints, the soles of my shoes, which have mud embedded in them now, the splatter on my clothes, and I documented the time, and conditions with my ID. I also noted the exact time the rain started. Also made videos of the flow of the water from every angle, except directly from the body. As I said, I didn’t go in there again. In one of the videos when I replayed it, I found…” She set the video to pause on an object deep within a bush low to the ground and gave him the phone. “This oval white thing. Looks like a band of some kind. I didn’t touch the bush, or try to retrieve it. May have some blood residue, but I’m not sure. It’s down deep enough, so I can’t tell how much rain hit it. We actually shouldn’t even be standing here. It’s within three hundred feet of the scene. The body is less than twenty feet in. I’m thinking that the killer or killers wanted the body found. They could have taken it deeper into the woods. I did see some indentations in the ground that indicated a path. Took pics of that, too. Maybe they dragged the body. But they also raked up leaves and debris, and removed them, leaving a muddy path around the body. I fell butt down into that mud.” She twisted around to show them.
Nick couldn’t help but look at her perfectly rounded bottom. He had to turn away to conceal his burning cheeks. He saw Withers do the same.
“Maybe trying to outsmart us by removing what they considered to be evidence, so what we see on the surface may not be what really is. In removing stuff, they actually told us a lot. I’m getting the impression that because of this, the murder was premeditated, carefully planned, and not random. As I’m thinking, it could be a woman. Maybe she wasn’t strong enough to pull him farther, or it was more than one woman. Can’t tell if the wounds were post mortem and I definitely couldn’t see the COD. And it stinks. Had a full meal before he was offed, otherwise he wouldn’t have released fecal matter. I know it’s not dog poop, stepped in enough of that while jogging. Nope, this isn’t dog poop on my sneakers.”
She raised her foot to show Withers. He just stared at her with his eyes widened and his mouth slacked open.
“I stepped in it next to the body. Oh, and he was laid on his back, hands down at his sides, arms and legs intact, cuts on torso, eyes open, and—”
Withers cut her off. “Are you finished rambling? How in the hell are you going to remember what you just said? I don’t see your brown book. And I need your notes, Detective.”
“Oh.” Sam plucked her recording device from inside her bra. “Always have this with me. I turned it on when I came across the body. I also recorded my prelim before you got here.”
Withers blew out a breath. “You mean to tell me, rookie, you recorded what you saw and then proceeded to give me this long-winded ramble? So now I have to go through two fucking tapes? And your complaint form?”

pjlazos 1.22.17

***

Interview with American History Professor Louise Stevenson                                               Author of Lincoln in the Atlantic World

I sat down, virtually, with Professor Stevenson to get the skinny on how she came to be the expert on all things Lincoln and where she wants to go from here.  So come on and, virtually, listen in.

From our conversations it’s clear that you are a diehard historian. How did you first become interested in American History?

I was going to be a European historian and then switched to American Studies when I transferred to a new college. My credits worked better. I would have to blame my liking history on reading . . .  Sir Walter Scott, the Landmark books, and the orange biographies for children.

Was there a defining moment where you said, “Yes, this and nothing else.”

Cultural history or American Studies offered job latitude. I had a number of courses in political science and economics as well. I view historical study as a kind of tourism. When I write about a period, I try to understand the way that the minds of its people worked. I try to enter their worlds by looking at their reading, their homes, their work sites, etc. You shouldn’t impose yourself on the past; you should let its people talk to you in their language.

Give us a quick rundown of your CV. You’re an American History professor at F&M. Have you taught at other colleges?

I started off at University of New Hampshire. Turned down other job offers because of family and husband. Decided I wasn’t a careerist first.

Did you always want to teach or was that the only option available in order to study history?

My course of study in college and summer jobs could have taken me to banking, an MBA, law school, etc. But I got married at 20 and therefore started to teach at a k-12 school.

You also taught Women’s Studies at F&M and are active in women’s issues. How do you see this election — outside of the obvious — affecting women? I know some women who no matter what will not vote for Hillary despite a long list of derogatory remarks that her opponent has made against women in general.

People choose a candidate because of all sorts of factors. Some are admirable; some not so much. I would recommend that no one choose a candidate because of his or her sex. Without arguing for one candidate or the other, in this election I hope voters in the upcoming election will judge the candidates on their records and promised policies.

Do you think this election is polarizing the majority of American women or bringing them together? If you were a historian writing about this time 100 years in the future, how do you think this time will be viewed. A watershed moment for women? A turning point in our nation’s history? A reversion to prior days where women were kept in the kitchen?

If we are to remember this election, I hope that it will be only because the first woman candidate of a major party ran and perhaps was successful. I hope that it will not be a moment when our constitutional political system collapsed. Look at other countries, did Evita Peron’s, Margaret Thatcher’s,or Angela Merkel’s candidacies usher in new eras for women? In terms of achieving power, I see Clinton’s candidacy as quite traditional as she would be nowhere without Bill.  In terms of her leadership on the world stage, if she stands for what women members of her party want, she will continue to alienate the leadership of countries where women are kept in subservience. The same would be true for Republican women and Trump but to a lesser degree. Standing for human rights as they are construed in America is imperialistic, western domination if I speak as a Muslim leader.  

Do you think the violence and personal risk that the suffragists experienced to their persons and their families is the same sort of backlash that women may experience today?
I am unaware of any threats to American suffs’ families. Beyond crowd heckling, the majority of suffs endured no violence. Britain may have been more extreme because the Pankhursts and their followers practiced violence against property that the Americans never did. The Pankhursts taught their tactics to Alice Paul. Her followers, who picketed the White House and were thrown in jail for no cause, did experience severe treatment in jail. The hundred or so incarcerated were a tiny minority of the thousands of American women involved in the larger suffrage movement that worked for the cause peacefully and without violence.  

You’ve talked of retiring in the next decade. Having lived through more than a few phases of the shattering glass ceiling, and yourself being a woman in a man’s world, what is your advice to women just starting out their careers or even women just hitting their stride?

I don’t know what you mean by man’s world. I never saw the university world that way, although I was the first woman in my departments at UNH and F&M.

Advice. Set your priorities. Accept what life gives you. When men or women try to have it all, sometimes they end up with nothing.

Tell us about your two previous books.

Phew, too complex to explain. The first book, Scholarly Means to Evangelical Ends, explained how religion and scholarship worked together in the mid-nineteenth century. The second book, The Victorian Homefront, explained world of ideas that mid-nineteenth century people inhabited in their homes, their cities, and their reading matter.

Let me tell you instead about a project that I’ve done every summer. When I was in Grad school, I went to a state historical society to ask if it had any collections about women. The archivist told me that the answer was no and that women didn’t make history. Since then that archivist has discovered the Abigail Adams’s papers and I hope that archivist has changed his attitude. To make sure that women of the future can find their history in archives, I’ve dedicated many summers to collecting and preserving the papers of local women’s organizations.

I know you and your husband are avid skiers. If you had unlimited time and resources, what would you do with it? Skiing? Sunny beach? Write another book?

Skiing at all the great resorts would be terrific. I love to sit by beaches and swim in the surf, but i’m cautious about the sun. My ideal of a terrific weekend reading a good book with the sun pouring through the window and then taking a thinking walk, maybe with friends.

Book writing is work and definitely entered upon cautiously. The focus and dedication of time that it requires isolates writers, or at least me, from people.

Speaking of which, have you thought about what your next book is going to be about?

I have three more books in mind. The first will investigate how Lincoln’s ideals and policies affected foreign policy in the Pacific. It involved arguing for open immigration for the Chinese, an end to unfree coolie labor in Peru and Cuba, and an end to using military force to open markets and create investment opportunities.  The second book will show the pro-war stance of college students with regard to World War I and their campus activities in support of the war.  And for the third book, I’d like to write something that makes people laugh or at least smile.  

If Lincoln had failed, or perhaps if the earlier assassination attempt against him would have been successful, what do you think our country would look like today?

If you mean failed as in if the Union had not won the Civil War, or lost the election of 1864, or not passed the thirteenth amendment. Let’s take him losing the election in 1864.

The election itself threatened violence. Republicans feared that the Democratic Party in NYC would stir up violence as it had done with the draft riots of summer 1863. Military transports were stationed in the harbor with soldiers ready to intervene if violence happened. In the election year, Democratic journalists in NYC had published pamphlets and broadsides showing white Republicans dancing and cozying up to black women. Other journalists invented the word miscegenation to suggest that interracial sex would result from Republican victory. I should learn more about the Republicans’ electioneering. I’m sure that it wasn’t pretty either.

If McClellan, the Democrat had won, Lincoln would have done everything he could to make sure that the United States would remain united. He signed and filed away a memo to that effect about three months before the election. If the Confederate States had remained independent, England and France would have done their best to take advantage of a weakened North and a strategically important South.

Certainly, slavery would have persisted as a legal system of labor because the 13th amendment would not exist and the president would have repealed the Emancipation Proclamation, which was an order of the Commander in Chief. Also, the fourteenth amendment would not exist, and we must remember that its promise of equality under the law is crucial to much contemporary legislation with regard to civil rights for all minorities, including gender minorities.

Some people will try to scare us into thinking that this election could bring about an equally horrible future. I have to have faith that such is not the case.

p,j,lazos – 10.14.16

***

Reviewers Wanted!

Who do you turn to when you need a hand with your novel?  Well, readers and writers, of course.

Are you a book reviewer?  Are you interested in murder mysteries?  How about an environmental murder mystery?  If you’ve answered yes then perhaps you’d be interested in reading Oil and Water.  I will happily gift you a Kindle version of the novel in exchange for an honest review posted to your blog.  Sound good?  If so, leave a comment on the home page of this blog and I’ll PM you and get your deets! A synopsis follows so you can see what you’re getting into.

Are you a reader?  Share the love.  I’ve added some book discussion questions at the end in case you are so jazzed when you finish the book that you immediately want to text all the members of your book club.  Some day, after Steven Spielberg makes a movie out of Oil and Water, you can say you were there when it all started!

Cheers and thanking you in advance.

 

Oil and Water

When inventor Martin Tirabi builds a machine that converts trash into oil it sends shockwaves through the corporate halls of the oil cognoscenti. Weeks later, Marty and his wife, Ruth are killed in a mysterious car accident. Their son, Gil, a 10-year old physics prodigy is the only one capable of finishing the machine that could solve the world’s energy problems.  Plagued with epilepsy from birth, Gil is also psychic, and through dreams and the occasional missive from his dead father he gets the push he needs to finish the job.

Meanwhile, Bicky Coleman, head of Akanabi Oil is doing his best to smear the planet in it. From a slow leak in the Gulf of Mexico to the most devastating oil spill the Delaware River has ever seen, Akanabi’s corporate practices are leaving oily imprints in their wake. To divert the tide of bad press, Bicky dispatches his son-in-law and Chief Engineer, David Hartos to clean up his mess.  A disillusioned Hart, reeling from the recent death of his wife and unborn child, travels to Philadelphia to fulfill his father-in-law’s wishes.
There’s no such thing as coincidence when Hart meets Gil and agrees to help him finish Marty’s dream machine. But how will he bring such a revolutionary invention to market in a world reliant on fossil fuels and awash in corporate greed?  To do so, Hart must confront those who would quash the project, including his own father-in-law.  
You’ll find murder, mystery, and humor as black as fine Arabian crude filling the pages of Oil and Water. The characters are fictional, but the technology is real. What will we do when the oil runs out?   Open up and see.

Book Discussion Questions for Oil and Water

1)  Would the creation of a machine that produces oil be a blessing or a curse for the world in which we live?  How would such an invention be greeted at this point in time?

2)  How would you label Gil’s personality?   Do you see him as a genius, a misfit or a combination of both? Please comment on the fine line between genius and insanity.

3) The advent of green technology has been years in the making and while market share continues to grow, fossil fuels are still king. How long do you think the world will continue to rely on fossil fuels as the primary source of energy?  What will be needed to promote a change?

4) What do you think of Bicky?  Is he a villain, a good man, or simply a typical human being exhibiting the pros and cons that go along with that designation?

5) Who was your favorite character in the book?  Why?

6) Assuming its use didn’t put energy extraction companies out of business, how do you think those companies would react to an invention that allows for the spontaneous production of oil from waste? The novel offers possibilities for partnership. Do you see the oil companies acquiescing to such partnerships?

p.j.lazos 7.22.16

 

 

***

Thank You, Friend

Thanking people should be the easiest part of writing a book and yet, it’s not. Why? Well, in this instance, the first draft of Oil and Water was written about thirteen years ago, and in between then and now I edited the manuscript at least four times, beefed it up, cut it down, pasted it back together, started as close to the “inciting event” as I could without losing the integrity of the document, subjected it to scrutiny by various critique groups, let it languish for months, sometimes years at a time while I worked on other things, and then shredded it again before sending it out to publishers and agents where it garnered interest at times and fell into darkness at others. When I got tired of the search for the perfect representative, I decided to become her. Whether I have succeeded magnificently or failed miserably is a subjective matter, but I do know I have tried, sometimes with grace and sometimes with everything but, to bring this most heartfelt work out into the world, and maybe drag some environmental awareness along with it in a fun, non-threatening, non-judgmental manner. Okay, maybe the teeniest bit of judgment, but I am an environmentalist after all and old habits die hard.

I loved writing this book. It was my first novel and I finished the first draft in nine months, but like all infants, it needed time to grow and change and discover. Frankly, I think I’ve held onto it longer than I should have the way a mother is conflicted about seeing her children grow up and leave the nest. You want the best for them. You want to see them succeed, but it’s a scary world and there are so many potential pitfalls. Whatever. I’m setting it free so I can begin my next project. Closure only works in your favor when you actually finish something.

So thank you, friend, whether we have yet to meet or have known each other for lifetimes, for all the love, support and good intentions.  I send my own back to you for success in all your most heartfelt endeavors.  In this way, we lift each other up.

Synopsis for Oil and Water

When inventor Martin Tirabi builds a machine that converts trash into oil it sends shockwaves through the corporate halls of the oil cognoscenti. Weeks later, Marty and his wife, Ruth are killed in a mysterious car accident. Their son, Gil, a 10-year old physics prodigy is the only one capable of finishing the machine that could solve the world’s energy problems.  Plagued with epilepsy from birth, Gil is also psychic, and through dreams and the occasional missive from his dead father he gets the push he needs to finish the job.

      Meanwhile, Bicky Coleman, head of Akanabi Oil is doing his best to smear the planet in it. From a slow leak in the Gulf of Mexico to the most devastating oil spill the Delaware River has ever seen, Akanabi’s corporate practices are leaving oily imprints in their wake. To divert the tide of bad press, Bicky dispatches his son-in-law and Chief Engineer, David Hartos to clean up his mess.  A disillusioned Hart, reeling from the recent death of his wife and unborn child, travels to Philadelphia to fulfill his father-in-law’s wishes.
There’s no such thing as coincidence when Hart meets Gil and agrees to help him finish Marty’s dream machine. But how will he bring such a revolutionary invention to market in a world reliant on fossil fuels and awash in corporate greed?  To do so, Hart must confront those who would quash the project, including his own father-in-law.

       You’ll find murder, mystery, and humor as black as fine Arabian crude filling the pages of Oil and Water. The characters are fictional, but the technology is real. What will we do when the oil runs out?   Open up and see.

p.j.lazos 6.12.16

***

[photo by Scott Eberly]

Feeling Nosy?

So it’s Memorial Day weekend and the unofficial start of summer.  What better time to dive into a book?  May I recommend Six Sisters?  I’ve even got some questions for you to ponder after your done.  So grab your hammock and a cool one and get started!

Six Sisters, three stories, one theme: Know Thyself.

 

Book One:

Synopsis for A Gathering of One: Twins, Patrice and Danielle began battling in the womb. When hard-headed, 3-year old Danielle drinks Drano while Patrice watches in horror, unable to stop her, the battle becomes a war. Patrice triage’s the situation, making Danielle vomit to rid herself of the poison, but the damage is done and the blame squarely laid on Patrice’s shoulders, assuring the sisters remain on a lifelong collision course. Anger, jealousy, and indignation may have sparked their dysfunction, but duty and familial obligation keeps them tethered long after the bonds of childhood have morphed into the shackles of adult responsibilities. May the best sister win.

Book Discussion Questions for A Gathering of One:

1.  Early in the story, it’s apparent that Danielle is grappling with some mental health issues. As the story progresses, how does your opinion of this situation change with regard to Danielle? To Patrice?
2. If you were Patrice’s friend, how would you have counseled her with regard to caring for her mother? For her sister?
3. We don’t find out until a good deal of the way into the book that Patrice is pretty. Did you think this of her? Did it change your opinion of your protagonist or does beauty even matter?
4. Do you think Patrice is a strong individual doing the right thing or more of a doormat who lets everyone tell her what to do?
5. There were some critical turning turning points in Patrice’s life, times when she could have chosen differently and which would then have resulted in a lifestyle change such as the incident when girls were young or when their mother died. Up until the time she meets Bruce, Patrice never even considered herself in the equation. What do you think were the factors, other than the obvious attraction to Bruce, that led her to consider her own feelings rather than dismiss them in favor of everyone else’s?
6. Putting others first is a typical female trait, especially in women who have become mothers. Now that women are also the wage-earners in the family, do you think that tendency is waning or do you think that women are just having to find additional ways to cope with the added responsibility and if the latter, what can women do to change that?

 

Book Two:

Synopsis for List of 55: Following her mother’s death, Belinda manages to survive childhood despite her sister-turned-caretaker, Simone’s long list of no’s: no money, no car, no electricity, no food, and ultimately, no Simone. Belinda’s abysmal treatment at the hands of the reckless and psychologically abusive Simone left layers of scar tissue so deep she needs an excavator to remove them. Poised to make a life-altering change on her 25th birthday, Belinda accidentally runs into her future ex-husband, Ted, who, because of his own complicated past draws to her like a shyster to a Ponzi scheme. Canny judgment and diamond-like determination may have gotten Belinda to adulthood, but can she survive the onslaught of attention from Ted who is both charming and abusive in equal amounts or will she succumb to the pattern begun in childhood?

Book Discussion Questions for List of 55:

1.  What is Belinda’s initial reaction to Ted? Does it go beyond physical?
2. Do you think it’s true that like attracts like and that we are energetic beings, drawn to the energy most like us?
3. Bert’s leaving Simone to care for Belinda seems like irresponsible parenting, but the fact is that 20,000 kids age out of faster care each year with no where to go. How do we expect these kids, being possessed of a teenage brain (read, undeveloped), and lacking most practical life survival skills to make it in the world where even without a full time service-type job could not make enough money in year to rise above the poverty level.
4. Why does Simone have a change of heart?
5. Why does it take Belinda so long to leave Ted? Is this scenario replayed in home after home across the country or is Belinda an anomaly?
6. In one of the passages, Belinda thinks about her son Kyle, “she likes to listen in on the sound of him growing up.” Are children the only reason mothers stay in abusive relationships or is it something more?

 

Book Three:

Synopsis for The Quality of Light: Do the dead dream? Yes. They dream of living. Ellie finds this out too late and now her husband and daughter, her two best loves, are left to fight like the bitterest enemies. From her perch in the ethers and sometimes through the actual live body of her sister, Celia, Ellie watches their lives unfold, but Doc can’t see past his rage and the cruel fate that left him with Harley who even under the best of circumstances barely tolerated him. Before Ellie’s death, husband and daughter vied for her attention, dismantling each other with verbal fisticuffs. After her death, anyone could see that Doc was going to ditch and run, leaving Harley with Celia and Doc a free man, but fate, or perhaps Ellie intervenes through Twila Fuller, rancher, political activist, and self-taught expert on all things related to hydraulic fracturing. Everything about Twila is big: her ranch, her ideas, the level of contamination in her groundwater, even the cancer in her body. As Twila’s influence draws Doc into Ellie’s former world, he must make some tough moral decisions and perhaps even finish the work Ellie started. Will Doc’s newfound passion lead him back to Harley, to Celia, or to Ellie, the dead woman he loves more than life? The answer lies somewhere in the light.

Book Discussion questions for The Quality of Light:

1.  How does Celia’s influence change Doc over the course of the book? Do you think he becomes a believer or is he just going along to get along?
2. Why is Doc so resistant to participate in Ellie’s environmental habits such as recycling while she’s alive, but then quickly adopts them after her death?
3. Do you have similar tensions in your relationships that never seem to resolve or that only resolves when a crisis occurs?
4. While Doc loses a wife, the real loser is Harley who lost a mother and the stability she brought to Harley’s life. Can anyone, even a sister, fill the hole that’s left by losing a mother? Is is possible for those children not to have lasting emotional damage when your foremost navigational system, your mother, goes offline?
5. What about mother’s who abandon their children? Is the emotional damage inflicted by the abandonment the same?
6. As a shaman, Celia believes she can manipulate the weather simply with the power of intention. Doc, an engineer by training says that it’s all a bunch of hooey. Who is right and why?
7. Will there ever be a middle ground between science and spirituality where all men might exist, or is the divide too great, the parts of the brain used for such divergent thinking too dissimilar, the yin and yang of the question too necessary to hold the world up?

So that’s it!  Let me know if you have some fabulous answers to any of these questions or some additional questions of your own.  Thanks for reading Six Sisters!

p.j.lazos 5.27.16

***

All Done with the #AtoZChallenge = Freedom

So that happened.

Now that we’re done, I feel like I’ve graduated from pupa to butterfly or in this case, maybe moth, but who knows.  I really never understood the diff.

I realize after a month of blogging that there are only a few things I care enough about to consistently have something to say.  It’s probably a good thing, otherwise I would just go on and on.

Anyway, here’s one more that I didn’t get to, but fits the bill:

Silence

Silence stands at the window and watches the dusk give way to the night.

She loves the way the sky grows deeper buy degrees from blushing baby blue to cobalt to indigo to the inky black of a moonless night.

The salamanders have gone to bed while the sylphs chase the dragonflies back to their sleeping places and carry the light of the stars to earth on silent wings.

Silence loves to take slow deep breaths and let them out while her nose is pressed against the window.

Then she writes her name in the fog, watching until it disappears.

p.j.lazos 5.2.16

***

Day 26 of the #AtoZChallenge

Zero Point Field

Holy crap, we made it!  I wasn’t sure if it were possible, yet here I sit, a few hundred words away from crossing the finish line.  An excellent feeling.  I made some new friends and I found some really divine blogs in the process so, like labor, all the suffering was worth it.  Without any additional hesitation, here’s Z:

The dictionary definition of the zero point field is — heh, heh — well, it hasn’t made it into the dictionary yet, but Wikipedia has this to say:

The concept of the Zero Point Field also known as Zero Point Energy was first developed by physicist Max Planck in 1911.

Through my reading of books such as The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe, by Lynne McTaggert, Tachyon Energy – A New Paradigm in Holistic Healing, by David Wagner and Gabriel Cousins, and A Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking, I have a tentative grasp on the science, but not enough t enter into a robust discussion, just enough to make me wish I hadn’t dropped physics in college.  What I have not been able to do scientifically, I hope I make up for it below with my writing.  I’m fascinated by the zero point field and will continue to read up on it until I could explain it in a way that even a 5th grader could understand, a lofty goal and one that will outlive the #AtoZChallenge.

I do know this: the Zero Point Field is one of the first scientific explanations for the existence, presence, perseverance, phenomenon or whatever you want to call God. It runs through all of us, through every living thing, and it is the way in which we are all connected.  Sounds woo-woo, right? Well, it’s not.  It’s just physics.  Who knew that Max Planck and I would have so much in common?

And as a parting gift for all our time together this month, enjoy an excerpt from my soon-to-be-released novel, Oil and Water, an environmental murder mystery and a great beach read. The excerpt talks about the practical applications of the Zero Point Field.

***

     Avery stood at Marty’s drafting table, pouring over drawings of the TDU, matching up the drawings with the real thing. At ground level, the outside of the TDU’s receiving station looked like a gigantic child’s play chest. Sliding metal doors opened and disappeared within the grated metal exterior framework — the classic European pocket door — to reveal a cavernous opening that funneled trash to the giant cylindrical tank housed below ground. With this design, Marty had been able to back his tractor right into the barn and, utilizing the trailer’s hydraulic lift, pour the trash directly into the yawning mouth of the cylinder.

Marty’s TDU was a democratic machine, treating all trash equally as long as it was carbon based. Once inside, the trash was mixed with water to create a slurry, an insoluble, goopy mess. The slurry passed through a pipeline to a holding tank where it was heated under pressure until it reached a reaction temperature. Another pipeline, a third unit, also cylindrical — Marty Tirabi was fond of circles — ferried the slurry along to where it finished its initial reaction and was flashed again. Here the gaseous products were spun off, the pressure lowered, the liquids separated from the volatile chemicals. Marty built a series of interconnected pipelines placed one on top of the other, some at 90 degree angles to each other, a steel matrix to house the myriad and varied reactions. Step five was another series of thinner cylinders, three in a row, tall and demure, sitting side-by-side like young girls at their first dance, waiting to be asked. But size was no indication of their strength. In these cylinders Marty heated the mixture, separating water from gas from light oils which led to the final stage, two large, squat holding tanks where Marty intended to store the gas and light oils. Even staggering the six stages of equipment at forty-five degree angles to each other, the prototype was huge and encompassed the entire back wall of the barn.

Avery sighed and flopped down at the drafting table. Marty had said there was a problem with water. Was it too much or too little? Avery couldn’t remember. Gil knew, but damn it, he wouldn’t help. Avery was on his own. And with at least two-dozen blueprints, this was going to take a while. Maybe a little meditation was in order.

Avery practiced meditation in fits and starts. When he did, a wonderful clarity always ensued, infused with an acute awareness of being in the present. And the help always came with it, fecund and unbidden. From where it came, he really couldn’t say: probably the universal mind, the brain trust, as he referred to it. From ions, or static or electricity. From nowhere and everywhere. He knew at times he’d tapped into the morphogenic field where ideas were traded like stocks on the NASDAQ, the theory being that if a monkey in Costa Rica learned to drive a car, a monkey on the Rock of Gibraltar could do the same without even meeting the Costa Rican monkey. Or perhaps he’d tapped into the Zero Point Field, that eerie, brave new world where discoveries were deposited in the cosmic bank account, waiting to be withdrawn by anyone holding a debit card. He’d read plenty on comparative religion and had a few surreal experiences in his lifetime, enough to recognize the signs of a downloading from the One Mind when he felt it, which he rarely did. But Gil made regular withdrawals, engaged in constant conversation, slept with it under his pillow. For Gil, change and enlightenment were the same, immediate and visceral, played out physically each time he had a fit or an idea.

For the rest of the world struggling to catch up, the only acceptable change was a gradual climb up a low-grade mountain, the steps laborious and slow. And morphogenic field or not, it still took time for all the other monkeys to accept their new knowledge. Even if they could do it, did they want to do it? Even if he could fix this invention — something he didn’t have a whole lot of faith in at the present moment — Marty had said it would make the world stand on its head. Was the world ready for such a precarious position? Come to think of it, was he?
Avery needed Gil’s fertile mind where you could plant the seed and days or weeks later the answer sprung forth like Athena from Zeus’s head, in full warrior regalia, engaged and ready for battle. Gil’s epilepsy fueled his creativity; the disease forced him into the Zone where he was working out some serious past-life crap. Avery felt helpless at these times but appeased himself with the thought that you can’t work someone’s karma out for them, a fact that at the tender age of ten, Gil completely understood.

“Gil.” Avery walked to the living room and shouted for his brother. “Gil!”
A muffled, “he’s in his room” wafted up from Kori’s corner of the basement. Avery nodded a thanks that Kori couldn’t see and went upstairs to find Gil.

He rapped on the door and stepped into the room. Unless Gil was hiding under the bed, he wasn’t here. Avery checked the closet then under the bed. He sat down on the bed to wait. Minutes later, he was asleep.

➣➣➣

The wind whipped across barren fields where only rolled bales of hay remained. The oak trees swayed and heaved in fits of laughter as the wind rose up, intertwined with their naked branches and whispered secrets only the oaks could understand. Avery took inventory. All healthy, thank God. A couple dozen were in striking distance of both the barn and house. He’d hate to see the damage one rotten tree could cause in a windstorm like this.

He touched the bear totem pole rooted to the ground, facing the barn. It was six feet high, a hundred feet from the barn’s entrance; its eyes saw all who moved through those doors. Marty had carved it out of a tree gone rotten at the base after Gil had noticed it swaying in a windstorm much like this one.

Marty relayed the information to Ruth who, noticing the swing set was in the probable trajectory of the tree should it fall, called a tree service. The tree service couldn’t come for two days. Ruth told Marty to leave the tree alone, that if it hadn’t fallen by now, it wasn’t going to fall in the next two days, and left on an errand.
But Marty couldn’t leave anything alone, especially a rogue tree, threatening him through his barn window. Ruth’s tire tracks weren’t even cooled before Marty got out the ropes and chain saw. The whir of power tools called the kids to the backyard, but Marty banished them to the deck, more than a safe distance away, until he was done with the felling. After that, it was all fun and games. The kids played happily on the fallen log while Marty used his chain saw on the part of the tree still in the ground and routed out the finer stuff. When he’d finished, Marty had transformed his enemy into a vigilant friend, the coolest totem pole the kids had ever seen. One paw rested on the bear’s stomach as if he’d just eaten lunch. His mouth was open, exposing healthy, yet deadly incisors. His eyes were wide as if he’d just spotted something. Marty let Kori paint the eyes and claws and big scary teeth all white, and when it was dry, he let the kids crawl all over it, something they still did years later whenever they hung out in the backyard. Avery smiled and rubbed his hand inside the bear’s mouth. For luck.

Avery tapped lightly on the barn window. Gil threw the deadbolt and waved him in. Avery dropped the roll of Marty’s drawings on the table and removed his coat while Gil closed and locked the door behind him.

“Toasty in here,” Avery said. Gil had the space heater cranked up and it felt like a billion degrees in the barn. “Why don’t you wear a sweater like most people do in cold weather, and then you won’t need the heat to be so high?”

“Cause I wanted to wear my lizard shirt.” Gil looked down at his black t-shirt with the lizard face on it and smiled.

“What’cha got going on here?” Avery asked.

“Building something,” Gil said.

“I see that. But what is it?” To Avery, it looked like a souped-up go-cart. He walked over and surveyed the frame and held a tentative hand out to touch it. The frame proved incredibly durable. “May I?”

Gil nodded, and Avery stepped up on the floorboard, testing the weight load by jumping up and down on it.

“Come here. I’ll show you.” Gil pushed Avery’s own drawings aside and peered over a stack already open on the drafting table.

Avery sifted through them, his excitement growing. “It’s a hybrid engine? Are you using technology that’s out there or is this something … ?”

“New. Dad says you can’t talk about something until you finish or you lose the Muse. So I can’t talk about it.”

“You have a Muse? Who is it?”

“You know. A pretty lady. Sometimes she sings.”

“What’s her name?”

“She never said.”

“Is she real or you made her up?

“Real.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I just know. She comes at night. Sometimes she whispers ideas in my ear or if I’m stuck on something, she helps me solve it.” Gil looked down at his hands and turned them over, inspecting them. “Sometimes she just holds my hands. She says they’re soft.” Gil smiled sheepishly. Avery snickered, but turned away before Gil caught him.

“She helped me with that,” he said pointing to the ATV. “It’ll be more energy efficient than the others. Less fuel, less charging time and the batteries will be smaller.”

“Hmmph,” Avery said, pondering the blueprints. “How long until you think you’ll be done?” Gil shrugged and spun around on his stool. “Well, just let me know and I’ll get busy on the patent.” Avery flipped through the drawings. “Is there anything I can start on now?”

Gil unclamped the vice grips holding the drawings in place and rolled them up, a dismissal. Apparently, the conversation was, for the present, concluded. Gil unrolled Avery’s drawings flat and used the vice-grip to clip the topsides to the edge of the drafting table. He reviewed them carefully for several minutes, unclamped the vice grip, rolled the drawings back up and handed them to Avery. Then he walked over to the hammock where Max reclined.

“How’d you get him up there?” Avery asked. Gil shrugged like it was no big deal and lay down next to Max who, startled from sleep, emitted a small yelp.

“I need your help,” Avery said. Gil nestled in close, warming himself against Max’s monstrous shape. The hammock moved in a rhythmic, rocking motion. He shook his head and buried it in Max’s face.

“Why not?”

Gil buried his face deeper into Max’s fur.

“Gil. Why the hell not?”

“I just don’t want to do it alone.” Avery detected a tremor in Gil’s voice and mistook it for fear.

“You won’t have to do it alone. I’ll help you.” Gil shook his head vehemently and Avery dropped his voice, low and soothing.

“Are you afraid? Don’t be afraid. The barn’s alarmed. And I swear I’ll keep you safe.”

“I’m not afraid,” Gil spat out. “I just … I can’t do it without Dad. It was his. Not mine. I can only do it if he says I can.”

“But, Gil. Dad’s dead.”

“I know that, Avery!” Avery didn’t notice the tears gathering in Gil’s eyes and continued.

“Well, he’s not going to be saying anything again.”

“How do you know?” Gil shouted.

It was the first time Gil had shown such emotion and made Avery realize how unbearable was the angst Gil had been carrying since his father died. A sudden queasy feeling gripped Avery; it couldn’t have been worse if he’d been sucker punched.

“You don’t know anything.” Gil jumped off the hammock and ran for the door. Max tried to follow, but his foot got stuck in between the knots. He sat there whimpering, trying to disengage his paw. Gil unlocked the dead bolt and ran out, failing to deactivate the silent alarm. Avery watched Gil run across the yard, unaware that downtown at the police station, another alarm screamed out a warning.
Max yelped in frustration. Avery untangled his foot and lifted him out of the hammock. Max took off after Gil through the open door. Avery sat back on the hammock and rocked, listening to the howling of the wind.

“Now what?” Avery said to himself. He really didn’t expect an answer.

“Stuff envelopes,” a voice said. Avery landed on his hands and knees and scanned the space around him. The queasy feeling was back. He sucked at the ambient air.

“Mom?” He stood up and looked uneasily around the barn. As much as he would love to sit down and have a heart-to-heart conversation with his mother, the shock might be enough to kill him. He took several tentative steps, swiped the drawings off the drafting table and high-stepped it out of the barn, slamming the door behind him. He didn’t stop to lock it.

Two minutes later, he threw off his coat and sat down at the kitchen table. Stacks of paper and envelopes crowded the kitchen’s surface areas. He scanned the room. The project would take all day. Avery shivered and with a single glance back toward the barn, folded one of the sheets of paper in three and stuffed the first envelope. He looked again before stuffing another. Nothing was amiss. He began folding and stuffing in earnest and after several minutes, the repetitive motion of his task took the chill out of his spine.

 

And with that, I rest.  Thanks for reading.  See you in a week or so.  I’ve got laundry to do!

p.j.lazos 4.30.16

 

 

 

***

Day 25 of the #AtoZChallenge

Yoga

Say Yes to Yoga.  My #AtoZChallenge was accompanied by a personal fitness challenge to do yoga at least five times a week for the month of April and I must say that having met that goal, I feel great. Okay, still haven’t managed the “get more sleep” thing, but baby steps are progress and stretching and breathing really go a long way toward making you feel fab.

We humans spend a lot of time sitting these days, more than sleeping, walking or standing. You’re sitting, you’re sitting, you’re sitting, and your glutes (gluteus maximus, gluteus medius and gluteus minimus) and hamstrings are being stretched like a rubber band while your hip flexors are shortened. Think of how a rubber band looses elasticity if it’s under a constant stretch and how inflexible your muscles become when you don’t stretch them. Your breathing becomes shallow, and overall, your muscles become weaker, softer, lesser. Maybe you start to develop health problems because of it, problems like obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, loss of flexibility, heart disease, and more.  As a result, you begin a slow, at first unnoticeable creep toward the next pants size while in a show of solidarity, the rest of your body takes on a jello-like appearance.

Do you want to avoid your muscles’ slow death march into uselessness? If your answer is “heck, yeah,” then moving around is the key not only to a normal weight, but to a longer life.  Studies show that lean people move around more. They find and utilize walking opportunities. They stretch. They fidget. (Yes, fidgeting will keep your weight down!) Get up from your chair, the couch, your desk, your car, wherever, and move. Get your heart rate going, and the electrical conductivity that pulses through your body with it.  Stretch. Breathe.

p.j.lazos 4.29.16

 

 

***

Day 24 of the #AtoZChallenge

Xenophobia

But first — eXultation, as in, the feeling I am going to have when this freaking #AtoZChallenge is over!

Until that time, however, I still have an obligation to X so let me just say NO to Xenophobia.

The dictionary definition of Xenophobia is “intense or irrational dislike or fear of people from other countries.”  Weird, huh, considering all of us — unless you can trace your ancestry back to a Native American tribe —  came from other countries.

Time to get over it because:

a) as my daughter said when she was about four, “Mom, do you know that aliens think that we’re aliens, too; and

b) we don’t have x-ray vision.

You have no idea if the guy you are so desperately trying to keep out is the guy who may discover the cure for cancer or fix your plumbing.  So be eXquisitely gracious.

I have a quote on my door at work that says:  “Be not inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise.”  Where it originally came from, I’m not sure, maybe the Bible, but it hangs on a wall in Shakespeare and Company, an English bookstore in Paris owned by the American-born George Whitman for almost 60 years until his death in 2011.  George was partial to supporting writers, estimating that he’d lodged somewhere around 40,000 over the years.  They’d come to work, or to soak up the aura of a bookstore that so many of the greatest writers had lent their auras to.  So if we must err, let’s err on the side of over rather under-inclusiveness…

…because you never know.

p.j.lazos 4.28.16

 

 

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Day 23 of the #AtoZChallenge

WTF!

Wait, what? How is this happening?

Is it my imagination, or does this man have the vocabulary and mannerisms of a second-grader. Yet, he’s only a few steps away from being the Republican nominee and perhaps the next POTUS.

WTF!

How did we get here with a political system that’s going, going, gone so far down the line of broken that it can’t even be sold for parts.

Time to Wake Up from our collective somnambulism that’s become a way of life, and decide how bring the WOW! back to our lives — to our lives — not someone else’s, which also means that you have to live your dream, not someone else’s. To do that, we have to focus on what has passion and meaning, on what makes us happy, on what we’re here to do, on what the world would look like if we could create it from scratch. Look at all those things rather than the things that could go wrong, and the landscape will change for you.

Because what you think about all day long is what you’re gonna get. Maybe start with a bit of gratitude for the 8,000,002 little miracles that happen for you every day. Things like breathing, and walking, and the sun rising, and growing fruits and vegetables, and movies. Start today, because if that stuff up there at the top of this post happens, then it’s only a matter of time before we implode ourselves and this happens…

p.j.lazos 4.27.16

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Day 22 of the #AtoZChallenge

Volunteerism — “Vision Over Visibility”

What does volunteerism mean to you? To the women of the Jr. League of Lancaster (JLL) it means commitment to promoting voluntarism, developing the potential of women and improving the community through the effective action and leadership of trained volunteers. The purpose of the JLL is exclusively educational and charitable.

The women of the JLL are women who lunch, who have kids, who have jobs, husbands or boyfriends or girlfriends, or who are single, who write, act, play, who have cancer or eating disorders, whose husbands are sick and they carry the load, whose children get sick, sometimes so sick that they die but who keep going because they know no other way, who have hopes and dreams that they often put to the side to help others with there’s. They are women who show up and put a smile on their face with or without their makeup. Women who do their very best working for some group, some cause, for someone whose need is greater, someone other than themselves, and despite their own lives and schedules and maybe even pain, they keep showing up.

I am proud to call these wonderful women of the JLL my friends, colleagues and co-conspirators in trying to inch the world along in the hopes that we will leave it in a bit of a better condition than where we found it.

So find yourself a group — or maybe come join ours — and keep showing up. It’s amazing what a small group of committed people can do when we work together.

p.j.lazos 4.27.16

 

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Day 21 of the #AtoZChallenge

What About Us?

I’ve written quite a few things about the dog and the cats are feeling a bit miffed and giving me attitude as cats do. They threatened to pee in the dog’s water dish. Frankly, I don’t think Apollo would care since I have caught him eating out of their litter box on the rare occasion that they use it. Since they’re indoor/outdoor cats they take advantage of all the perks Mother Nature has to offer. Okay, this is a stretch for “U,” but technically it works so don’t be a hater.

Raul and Bella, my cats, about four years old. I’m convinced this is my second time around with these two. The first time they were Zing and Zoe, brother and sister, born in Philadelphia and adorable. It was my privilege to have them for fourteen years before they transitioned and in that time, they got me through law school, several boyfriend breakups, the death of my father, and a few relocations, including a big one from Philadelphia to Central Pennsylvania. They used to sleep with me, one at my feet and one at my head, as if keeping the anxiety hiding in the darkness just out of reach. When they died within nine days of each other — one from a bladder problem and the other from a broken heart — my heart also broke. It was years before I let another cat into my little world, but when he came, all battle-ready and full of himself, we let him in.

Chester was a beautiful orange tabby, maybe 7, maybe 10, we never know for sure, but we knew we had to take him. The original owners were moving to Arizona where the foxes made a meal of cats like Chester and besides, Chester would not have gone. He was tough, part of the Special Forces team, and I once saw him take down a rabbit bigger than he was and proceed to eat it on the back deck. He would often disappear for a day, sometimes more, doing cat things. One time when he was gone for three days and I was in a panic, thinking this time he’d picked the wrong sparring partner, I prayed to every saint and deity I thought would listen, and when we found him, he’d been under the deck all along, recuperating from what looked like one tough fight. He lived a long, full life and when he stopped eating and drinking we took him to the vet who gave him an injection. We knew Chester didn’t want to live unless he could live. The kids and I held him as he took his last breath and we cried and cried. Funny that such a warrior died that way, but he really had nothing left to prove.

Back to Raul and Bella. In his past reincarnation Raul was Zoe, the Cary Grant of cats. He would wait for me on top of the refrigerator in my tiny one bedroom apartment in Philadelphia where he could kiss me when I walked in the door. In her past reincarnation, Bella was Zing, aloof, gorgeous, and a bit of a snoot. They have retained their original personalities although they seemed to have switched bodies.

Last night, Raul woke me up around 3 a.m. He was banging around our bathroom, picking up pieces of jewelry and dropping them on the counter or floor, moving bottles, knocking over tooth brushes, making a ruckus. When I “chch’d” him to be quiet, he moved into the bedroom to the window blinds and pushed them back and forth so they clanged against each other. This generally ricochets me out of bed and he knows it which is why he does it. Cats are nothing if not single-minded. Single leaves no room for two. The minute my feet hit the floor he was out of the bedroom and into the living room waiting near the fireplace to see where I would go next. His partner in crime, Bella, was close on my heels. I walked to the front door and the second I opened it, he zipped out. This is not a cat that zips in and out of doors. Usually, I hold it open a year or two before he makes up his mind, yet there he went before I could even give him a scratch behind the ears and a “be careful out there.” (We get hoot owls, although not usually at this time of year, and a cat Raul’s size would be a tasty treat.) Bella was a few steps behind and out she rushed to where Raul was waiting for her on the top step. The moment her paws crossed the threshold they were off into the moonlight, running into the great unknown with a plan and purpose that only they understood. I watched until I ran out of moonlight and they were swallowed by the inky night. I knew they’d be back. They always find me.

p.j.lazos 4.25.16

Maybe I can redeem my lame “U” with an honest to goodness “U” song:

 

 

 

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Day 20 of the #AtoZChallenge

Giving Thanks

True confession: I am a reluctant dog owner. It’s not that I don’t want a dog. It’s just that they are so much more work than cats and I already have more things on my wish list than time to accomplish them, but here we are.

When we were kids, my mom had a no animals policy. Really it was no mammals. Fish, turtles, okay, cats and dogs, no way. I’m not sure why, really, since she had a cat growing up. Maybe it was the shedding or the litter box, but no amount of begging caused her to relent. It wasn’t until I went to college and rented a townhouse with four other girls that I got a cat. A friend who’s cat just had a litter needed a place for half a dozen kittens. I got Siah, a black, muscle-bound fur ball, and for the next two years my roommates doted on him. One, a gourmet cook, fed him all kinds of rich, tasty treats which likely contributed to the heart attack he had six years later.

After college, I moved back home for a stint and Siah moved with me. It was as if the no animals policy was never in effect. Siah became like another child and when I moved out to start a job in the city, Siah stayed. My parents had foster-cared me out of the picture and since my new townhouse didn’t allow pets it all worked out for the best. Fast forward five or six years and my sister and I along with my two cats, Zing and Zoe, and her dog, Tashi, a Siberian husky, rent a house together. I walked her every day after work because dogs are demanding even without saying a word. Plus they give you the sad eyes until you do whatever they are telepathically telling you to do. Tashi did the dog park circuit at least twice a day, once with me and once with my sister. My dad even built her a deck out back so she wouldn’t have to stay in the house all day. It was a rental property. That’s love.

Fast forward to the present. Two years ago, my son, Ian, begged me for a dog. We had two cats already, Raul and Bella, who I am convinced are Zing and Zoe reincarnated. Ian says he needed a dog “for my childhood.” I relented because we didn’t have a no animal policy and that kind of longing should be fulfilled even though I knew it meant that I would be resuming dog care duties. I extracted a thousand promises from him, including one to walk the Apollo before school and except for that one he’s been pretty good about dog care, but as I suspected, Apollo is stuck to me like Velcro when Ian is not around. And since no one can resist such enduring and unconditional love, bit by bit, I am being won over.

So because I don’t want Apollo chewing on those nasty rawhide bones that have been bleached with formaldehyde or worse, we buy marrow bones in the freezer section of the grocery store, simmer them in a bit of water, freeze the bones and store the liquid to put in his food. Apollo loves these bones. The other day, we picked up the meat we had ordered, a quarter of a steer, probably enough meat for a year for our family, all organic, grass fed, no antibiotics. My husband had asked the butcher for some bones for Apollo, but the only thing in the boxes was a couple packs of short ribs and since it was frozen, you couldn’t tell how much was meat and how much was bone. We decided to cook it up for Apollo who had gone along on the trip to the butcher and had been salivating ever since.

Well, the two ribs turned out to be loaded with meat and very little bone, so I cut them in half, roasted them a bit more and sent Apollo outside with one of them. His usual routine is to wag his tail furiously when the bag comes out of the freezer and race to the back door where he waited. Somehow he knew this bone was different. I gave him the rib on the back porch and he took it, gingerly. This is something he wasn’t used to, a small bone loaded with a ton of meat as opposed to a large bone loaded with marrow. He ran to his usual spot in the yard, set the bone down, took a couple licks, stopped, looked up, no lie, looked up, for like four or five seconds, then down at the bone, and took another few licks. At first I thought the bone was still hot from the oven, but it had cooled for 20 minutes so there was no way. He licked it again, looked up again for a few seconds, and I was overcome with the feeling that Apollo was saying grace before a meal. Then he proceeded to eat, slowly, reverently, as if he knew the worth of what he was eating and wanted to savor it.

Apollo has never savored a thing in the two years we’ve owned him. He gobbles everything down, usually without tasting it, and we laugh. He finds bones of fallen animals in the farm field behind us and brings them back to chew on no matter how many times we throw them away. He eats other animals poop. No, I’m not proud of the fact that my dog eats poop, but he does it so fast when we’re walking that it’s almost impossible to stop it. Yet, here, on a random Friday afternoon, given something he’d never had so much of before that it was clearly manna from heaven, he was giving thanks. I couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d gotten down on his knees. Perhaps we all need to a take a cue from our animals and thank the Creator, not just with the perfunctory, “bless us, oh Lord,” but with a heartfelt gratitude that permeates our being and reminds us of the joy of living. Amen.

 

 

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Day 19 of the #AtoZChallenge

Bernie Sanders

So my 15-year old calls during her study hall this morning and asks if she can go with a friend to Millersville to see Bernie who is appearing at the Millersville gym.

“Wait, what?” First of all, when did that plan happen and second, these kids are so tuned in they practically know about something before it even happens. But if Bernie’s coming, I’m going, too. I call our friends who we have plans with this evening to see if we should change them and all go to see Bernie. After a lot of commotion and hoopla and gnashing of teeth, we decide that we won’t go — because of the crowds, because the doors open at 4:30p and the event starts at 7:30p and it’s first-come-first-serve basis, and because we don’t have patience to stand around for three hours and wait. My friends did a lot of these rallies back in the day, but I’ve never attended a political rally. I feel like I’ll miss something if I don’t go, and then I remember how much I no longer can stand being in those kind of crowds. We’ll send the 15-year old and have her report back. And then the realization — Bernie Sanders has more energy and enthusiasm than I do!

Okay, first off, how does he do it? The man is 74 and he’s indefatigable. He was just in NYC the other day and after losing, headed home to Vermont (a wise choice — regroup, refuel, then redouble efforts) and today he’s traveling to Millersville, Pennsylvania — practically my back yard. I go to Philadelphia twice a week for work and it’s almost too much for me.

Second, why, at 74, would you want what is quite possibly one of the hardest jobs in the world? He’s not after the fame or fortune as we’ve seen again and again like the other candidates are. He simply wants to make our nation a better place. There’s no overblown verbiage like “Make America Great Again” because that in and of itself is the wrong message. It’s more like, “Make America Kind Again,” or “Give Americans a Living Wage Again,” or “Protect America’s Privacy Rights Again,” or even just make America a place where the dream is still alive again, not for a handful of people who stepped on the backs and necks of others to get there mega-share of the pie, but a place where everyone has a share, a path, a chance at the dream.

That’s what Sanders is all about and if that’s what democratic socialism is then I’m in. I don’t think Bernie will miss me tonight. He’s got too much rock star status these days and there are going to be a lot of screaming teens and twenty and thirty-somethings who can carry my load and then some. But I’ll be thinking about him and hoping that he keeps going the way he has, thinking about how his refusal to give up even in the face of unbeatable odds is why we are so enamored of him, thinking about how he has not taken a dime of Super PAC money and yet he’s front and center in the game, and how, at the end of the day, there’s nothing that can stop an idea whose time has come.

Whether he becomes the democratic nominee or a third-party nominee or he packs it in and goes back to Vermont after this and rests on his laurels, he’s changed the conversation, and he hasn’t been afraid to say the things that people have been afraid to say for a decade or more now. How very refreshing, idealistic, and brave. Just like America used to be.

p.j.lazos 4.22.16

 

 

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Day 18 of the #AtoZChallenge

Run Away, Run Away!

The day the dog ran away the SPCA got a cool $100 for a half hour stay in their lovely little pet resort. It started like this.  My husband was trying a new approach to dog walking. Apollo, our lovely Border Collie/Lab mix would walk/run beside him while Scott road the Segway he’d converted from standing to sitting to accommodate some health issues. The Seqway really zips around because the only feature that’s been changed is the way you ride it.

Scott and Apollo had gone out together a couple times before in the nascent stages of Scott’s Segway conversion when it was going through all kinds of modifications. First off, my husband is extremely mechanically inclined, gifted really, as are his father and brothers and my son. It’s so pervasive in his family it appears to be genetic. Half the time I don’t even understand the explanation of how something was built let alone be able to actually build it.

Scott had originally installed a tractor seat on the Segway that added about 60 lbs. to the total weight but later switched it out for a canoe-type seat made of fabric, allowing for more mobility and flexibility. Some additional modifications were made like a foot rest, and hydraulically powered feet that stabilized the machine, allowing you to get on and off safely and that you retracted with a push of a button. Suffice it to say that with all the modifications there were a few false starts, and Apollo happened to be around for a couple crashes.  Consequently, he was a bit battle worn.

On this particular day, they set out and Scott decided to keep Apollo off the leash. Maybe Apollo was done being around the Segway — it’s quiet, but it still makes a humming noise — or maybe he was chasing something and when he looked up he didn’t know where he was, but Scott called and called and when Apollo ran out of sight, Scott drove the Segway home to get the car and go look for him. While he was inside retrieving the car keys, the cops called. Apollo had been found on someone’s porch and the owners notified the cops who took him to the SPCA. A $100 later, Apollo was ours again.

We’ve been trying to help him forget the whole sordid affair and were taking him on walks together, me, Scott, and the Segway so he gets used to it. He sticks close by when the Segway is along, watching it out of the corner of his eye, not wanting to stray too far ahead or behind, maybe protecting me, maybe just curious, watching to see what that beast of a Segway is going to do next and whether he’ll have to run to safety because of it. Or maybe it’s just an excuse to run.

p.j.lazos 4.21.16

 

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Day 17 of the #AtoZChallenge

Question Authority

It’s getting a bit harder, this post everyday thing, but we passed the halfway point so I’m confident I can do it, although my posts are getting later and later.  By the end, I’ll be posting at 3 a.m.  So without further ado, today’s post:

Question Authority, especially if it doesn’t agree with your mindset. I’m not saying be disrespectful, or hide in the weeds, or tell lies, or sabotage someone’s vision to get what you want, but maybe ask questions and feel the veracity of the answers. If it doesn’t agree with your own energy then vote with your feet (i.e., walk away). The Buddha said “believe nothing no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and common sense.” It’s doubtful that’s a direct quote from the big B, but because I’m pretty sure the words “common sense” weren’t used in 6,000 B.C., let’s call it a paraphrase.

We’ve been so conditioned despite all our talk of individual rights to take what’s left at the table when we should be sitting down to the feast. America, democracy, these are experiments like the world has never seen, but that doesn’t mean the world is ready for them, and apparently, we aren’t either. After all, what did we do once we got a little taste of  the freedom making our own choices brings? Folded like an origami peace crane, that’s what. We got scared and stepped back into anonymity where we’re willing to settle for scraps. The last couple decades have been about transferring huge amounts of wealth between the already powerful and wealthy. Trickle down economics didn’t work when Reagan proposed it and it doesn’t work now. So what are we going to do to change it?

Start by believing in your worth and all the magic life has to offer. It’s for you, too, not just the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. While you’re figuring out your game plan, enjoy an excerpt from The Quality of Light, and a little song from Queen.

p.j.lazos 4.20.16

 

 

 

THE QUALITY OF LIGHT

☼☼☼

          They climbed, suspended between worlds. Ellie set the pace, her agile legs scampering over pebbles and boulders alike. Doc had no trouble keeping up; he was accustomed to his wife’s rhythm. He watched her, maneuvering around brush and rock, yielding nothing to the steep grade, meeting her formidable opponent at an erect, forty-five degree angle. Her posture spoke volumes, yet Doc knew it was just overcompensation for the pudgy girl who never really recognized the firm and sculpted woman she’d become.
When they reached the mesa, Doc pulled a bottle of water from his pack and handed it to Ellie. They shared long drafts until the bottle was empty then sat down on a boulder to catch their breaths. Doc tossed the bottle to the ground and fished around in his backpack.

“Recycling fourteen of those bottles can make one extra-large polyester t-shirt.”

“So you’ve said.”

“You’re not going to leave it there, are you?”

“Yes, Ellie, I hiked miles into the sky to look at this magnificent view and leave a plastic water bottle.”

They exchanged grins, his sardonic, hers sheepish. She held a hand out for the binoculars and Doc placed them there without taking his eyes from her face. She surveyed the valley like a general in enemy territory, squinting against the glare of the early morning sun inches above the horizon and already broadcasting the tenor of the day. Doc used a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his wife’s brow then applied it to his own forehead. She leaned back against him despite the heat.

“It’s got to be ninety already,” Doc said.

Ellie nodded. “Look. Right there . . . and there. Not more than a quarter mile between them, I’d say. That’s just too damn close.”

He agreed, but Doc was more interested in watching Ellie watch the miles of valley below, the slight breeze, ruffling her sun-kissed auburn hair; her unique and captivating eyes — one brown, one green; the sleek curve of her neck; and her long, delicate fingers as they held the binoculars. At forty-one, Ellie retained the athleticism of a thirty-year old. She was a handsome woman with a classic beauty that might not have been appealing to everyone in the age of supermodels and skinny jeans. To Doc, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, even with the fine lines that had begun to form around her eyes, lines that could etch into deep crevices and still not change his appraisal.

Ellie handed Doc the glasses; Doc swiveled his gaze. He could see them, minuscule specs against the expanse of land and sky, the sunlight glinting off their shiny little heads. Move even a decimeter in any direction and they disappeared. He could see the noxious fumes emanating, rising in a fine mist and dispersing particulate matter into the atmosphere. Of course, he was making the latter part up. It was only his knowledge of alchemical processes along with an engineering degree that now accessed a diagram from the computer-like recesses of his brain. Ellie would say instead that he was accessing the Zero Point Field, the web of life where all possibility resides, but Doc didn’t buy into such nonsense.

Still, he thought he could see something rising up, and not just the blazing heat of the morning that slowed and twisted the atmosphere until you could almost touch each molecule as it shimmied in the sun. No, it was something else. Maybe it would account for the headache that was gaining momentum at the base of his skull. Even looking at those wells felt toxic. Something should be done, he knew, but he wasn’t the man for the job.

***

Day 16 of the #AtoZChallenge

Peace

     With apologies to Warren Zevon, we’ve tried lawyers, guns and money and it hasn’t worked. It’s time for a pragmatic, system-fixing, allomothering contingent of Nanas, Bubbies and Yiayiás to head to Washington before the shit hits the fan.  Certainly, they will find a way to bring peace to our ailing nation.

Imagine your dear grandmother. She’s always led from behind as the kids ran in front and to the side and around her ankles. She kept a home, raised a family, may or may not have worked outside the home, but either way, she learned to stretch a dollar, put kids through school, and then sent them off to start their own families.  She brushed 5,000 heads of hair, planted 10,000 kisses, made 72 kajillion meals, and took the late night vigil with a sick child so her  husband could sleep before work the next morning, and she still got up the next day to do her work, her motherly duty, no matter how tired she was.

She held a million hands and gave just as many hugs, cried along with every broken heart and bruised ego, be it because of a lost friend or a lost love, buried the beloved animals, made a zillion batches of chicken soup and just as many chocolate chip cookies, and sang her kids to sleep after “just one more” bedtime story.

Even when she faltered, she picked herself up, dusted off her pride, and pretended it was no big deal because that’s what role models do, especially ones who want their children to succeed, and then despite years of hard work and sleep deprivation, she started all over with her kid’s kids. That’s the kind of leadership, resilience, intelligence, humor, and especially love that we need in Washington right now.  So screw the politicians. I say send a coalition of grandmas and let’s watch them shake things up. I bet they start by sweeping the front steps of the United States Capitol and putting a nice pot of flowers by the door, or maybe making us all lunch or a hot cup of tea.

And then, they’ll fix the world.

Peace.

p.j.lazos 4.19.16

 

 

 

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Day 15 of the #AtoZChallenge

OMG it’s OPD

Spare me the OPD — other people’s drama — I have enough of my own, yet OPD is running amuck in our society, taking over the airwaves and the newsfeed and the TV. Think Donald Trump or the whole American political system. Think the Kardashians. We’re sucked in, strung out, hung up, mired down, enabled and enabling. The energy on the planet is cray-cray, to use the modern lexicon for completely batshit crazy, and the more we put it on display, talk about it, and show case it to each other — “Did you hear? Did you hear?” — the more we mirror back the crazy and the more the crazy grows.

Take the Kardashians (please). When I was growing up, these girls would have been called something other than a brand and people would have stayed away from them rather than pay them money to do — I’m not sure what. Similarly, Donald Trump despite his wealth would have been considered a jerk by almost any standard, mean, arrogant, a narcissistic windbag, someone to avoid. Now he’s running for president.

So my question is, when did crazy take over the world? I think it’s when we became obsessed with OPD. Perhaps reality TV is to blame. Perhaps our ritual instincts have been dulled by the overabundance of goods and services we have in this country so there is nothing left to do but sit around and watch each other melt down, overspend, overeat, overbuy and overmedicate. Unfortunately, OPD fuels TPD — this person’s drama (meaning me, or you, if you are reading this) — and you know what happens when crazy meets crazy, right? It becomes combustible crazy which is why we are exploding all over the place, exporting and importing crazy, having lunch with it and taking it to the spa.

So do your part for the planet. The next time you’re tempted to meet crazy with crazy — like when the a$%hat driver cuts you off — take a deep breath, smile, rise above the fray for an instant and fill the space with light, let the breath out and maybe do it again if you have to and then watch and see what happens. The emotional landscape will miraculously change right before your eyes. It works although you may have to close your eyes for an instant which means you’ll have to stop watching OPD. I know you can do it. We all can. Nothing less than the fate of the world is at stake.

4.18.16 p,j.lazos

Day 14 of the #AtoZChallenge

Nix the Nics

The honey bees, our fuzzy four-winged friends responsible for pollination of about 70% of the foods we eat are dying at a rate of about 30% per year and getting harder to replace.  The conundrum of the disappearing bees is vexing.  We used to keep bees, but two years ago, our two remaining hives died, although that’s a misnomer since they didn’t die, but simply disappeared. Sadly, this is year two that we’ve had no bees.  My husband doesn’t want to start again without replacing all of our equipment. He thinks it’s contaminated with pesticides and that any hive that moves into those boxes is destined to meet the same fate as the previous occupants.

A study out of the Université d’ Orléans, France (March 3, 2014), reveals that low doses of neonicotinoids — a group of insecticides first applied to treat the seeds of plants and that control pests by targeting their neurosystems — are harmful to fruit flies. And while you may not care about the pesky fruit fly that’s after your pineapple and cantaloupe, scientists care very much as they use them to study the effects of chemicals and then extrapolate that information out to other insects, a little window into their reactive and behavioral world. The study found that fruit flies exposed to high doses of neonicotinoids had this frenzied mating period which rose by about 30%, and after which, they had nothing to show for it, but a significant decrease in offspring. What do these sublethal effects mean for honey bees? Decreased foraging ability, scientists hypothesize, but it’s only a theory because no one has come up with a control mechanism to test the theory.

Another study from Harvard (May 9, 2014) demonstrates that bees exposed to neonicotinoids in the summer abandoned their hives in the winter and subsequently died from exposure which is probably what happened to our little guys since they left without a trace. Wild honeybees, on the other hand, survived the winter. Historically, during winter, between 10 and 15% of bee colony populations died, but according to the Department of Agriculture, between 2007-2011 that number rose 30%. Why? Interestingly, neonicotinoids were first introduced as a method of controlling pests in 2006. Coincidence? I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions. Yet, it’s not just bees that are being affected. Humans are, too, since the residue is taken up by the plant and ends up in our food, especially high fructose corn syrup which is used in much of our processed foods and many breads, and which beekeepers have been using of late to feed their bees. The Harvard study concluded that these sublethal amounts of pesticides were the cause of the subsequent winter collapse. Some researchers panned the study for using too small a study group, and also because it did not account for other factors such as loss of habitat and disease, but the researchers stand by their findings.

Industry has countered that it isn’t the neonicotinoids, but the varroa mite that is killing the bee. Varroa mites are to bees what fleas are to dogs. Bayer Crop Science, who makes the neonicotinoid, clothianiden, intends to spend $2.4 million (a pittance for a company that size) on the bee problem, and to find new chemicals with which to treat (slather) the varroa mite and eradicate the problem.  While the treatment of varroa mites has historically “worked,” it’s made honeybees dependent on humans for survival since they are prone to varroa mite infestation, a result of a hybridization experiment gone awry. Without the treatment, the numbers of varroa mites increases significantly and the little buggers begin attacking the bee larvae, causing still births and extreme stress on the hives as the bees struggle to keep pace with the removal of dead carcasses. Not the best scenario for our bee friends. Interestingly, the wild honeybees seem to be unaffected by the varroa mite.

While pesticides and insecticides revolutionized farming, decreasing workloads overall, and making the system much more profitable, why kid ourselves? Pesticides are really biocides. They don’t just target one thing and leave everything else alone. They are more pervasive and longer lasting than anyone could have anticipated and they are ending up in our food and our blood stream and who knows? Maybe they are changing us genetically as well. No one picks the beetles off the plants by hand anymore — unless you’re growing organic — because the pesticide kills the interloper before it becomes a problem.  Yet as any child at an amusement park who ate the ice cream, and the cotton candy, and the popcorn, and topped it off with a giant slushy knows, too much of a good thing is too much, which is where we are with pesticides.

If trace amounts of the pesticides are in plant-based derivatives like corn syrup, isn’t it safe to assume they are in the hive as well, flying in with the bee on the pollen and the nectar, and staying to make itself at home. By the way, nectar is dehydrated by the bees and transformed into honey, the same honey we eat.

Problematically, EPA’s tracking system for pesticides, its “conditional registration” is from the dark ages. Conditional registration means a product can go to market before it’s been fully vetted as long as there is not “any unreasonable risk to the environment,” but with over 16,000 pesticides registered and no centralized system, information falls through the cracks. It’s confusing, not fully computerized, and the responsibility of about 20 managers nationwide to manage 16,000 pesticide registrations! What happens when someone retires? It’s easier to get a pesticide conditionally approved than it is to thoroughly vet it, and while Bayer is obligated to follow up with information on clothianidin, one of its neonicotinoid darlings, it’s continually late. Is it better for us as a society to pay a kajillion dollars in medical expenses to treat the myriad number of diseases that will develop 5, 10, 20 years down the road from eating pesticide-laden food, or to wait a few more years and find the safest way to bring a product to market? Remember that bees are the topside’s canary in the coal mine. If neonicotinoids are damaging their little bee nervous systems, what do you think it’s doing to yours?

So what can we do?  At the end of the day, we’re not powerless, but powerful, but we must do our individual and collective parts. Write your congressman, your local city council, anyone who will listen, and ask them to focus their resources on this neonicotinoid issue and Nix the Nics. When planting your garden, use bee-friendly vegetation. Plant native flowers, keep flowers blooming all spring and summer by planting a variety that work their way through the seasons, skip hybridized plants that don’t seed because they produce less pollen, and for God’s sakes, skip the pesticides. Your grandchildren will thank you, and so will your friends, the bees.

p.j.lazos 4.16.16

Lucky Day 13 of the #AtoZChallenge

The Mindful Writer

Noble Truths of the Writing Life

Taking its cue for Zen Buddhism, Dinty W. Moore examines the nature of writing in his lovely little book, The Mindful Writer, Noble Truths of the Writing Life. A former disillusioned Catholic, Dinty Moore became enamored of the Buddhist religion while conducting research for his book, The Accidental Buddhist. The beauty of The Accidental Buddhist, besides being a stellar work of non-fiction, is that it makes a case for Buddhism without even trying. For me, Buddhism goes something like this: “Come. Don’t come. Do only what make sense to you, but don’t grasp onto any of it too tightly because it will only give you brush burns. We’ll be here mindfully waiting until whenever you’re ready to begin.”

Sounds great, right?  The big enchilada of Buddhism is about being non-judgmental and full-time into mindfulness. Those things are really the cornerstone of all the world’s major religions, but I think the Buddhists do it best because they place a premium on it, and put it square in the center of everything. If you look at the world through the twin filters of non-judgment and non-attachment you can’t help but be more mindful and have a better understanding of life, or at least not get so upset about it.

Enter writing, or more specifically, Buddhism and writing. The Mindful Writer explores how Moore’s own creative pursuits opened his heart and his mind in ways he could not have hoped to comprehend at the time he set out on the path, and how his own struggles as a writer helped steer him toward a deeper understanding of Buddhism.

The Four Noble Truths for Writers as explained by Moore are:

— The writing life is difficult, full of disappointment and dissatisfaction.
— Much of this dissatisfaction comes from the ego, from our insistence on controlling both the process of writing and how the world reacts to what we have written.
— There is no way to lessen the disappointment and dissatisfaction and to live a more fruitful writing life.
— The way to accomplish this is to make both the practice of writing and the work itself less about ourselves. To thrive, we must be mindful of our motives and our attachment to desired outcomes.

The book is separated into four parts — the writers mind, the writers desk, the writer’s vision, and the writer’s life. It is full of wonder and insight and fabulous quotes, and Moore is uniquely qualified to write it.  It is the type of book that you’ll want in your permanent library even if you are not a writer, but simply someone interested in living a more authentic life. So take a breath, grab a coffee, and enjoy a few precious, non-attached, mindful moments and see what wisdom The Mindful Writer unleashes in you.

p.j.lazos 4.15.16

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Day 12 of the #AtoZChallenge

The Tyranny of the Label

It starts as soon as they begin a course of traditional schooling. They’re sifted and labeled and placed accordingly. If you are gifted you go to a special class. If you are challenged, you go to a special class. If you like math you to to a special class. If you like science you go to a special class. While not bad in and of itself, I think it results in an epidemic of expectation that our children may have trouble maintaining, or worse, they hit the glass ceiling because of that expectation.

While I’m all for supporting strengths and helping to overcome weaknesses, I can’t help but cringe when the 6th grade Middle School holds Career Day and expects that the kids are going to decide the rest of their lives right then and there.  I know it’s about exposing kids to a myriad of occupations and maybe that’s why they hold Career Day at all, but only the smallest number of kids grow up to be what they dreamed of being as a child, and when you start touting the list of good, safe, and always a market for jobs, or jobs that make a ton of money, you breed the dream right out of them.  Dream of being an astronaut?  Forget it.  Hardly anyone makes it.  How about a firefighter?  Low pay, high mortality rate.  How about choosing something safer?  But a 12-year old doesn’t know what his or her 30-year old self is going to want from life. Can we let them be kids for awhile and figure it all out later?

One of my kids is labeled gifted and one probably should have had an ADHD label but because the school didn’t want to do an IEP, they worked around it by giving him out of class support.  Sometimes the gifted one wants to live up to the label so much that it results in an overwhelmingly disruptive anxiety that causes a lack of focus. And the almost ADHD one has an amazing ability to concentrate on the things of interest to him — a state of hyper focus — of which I’m almost jealous. In fact, when studying for something important, he won’t talk about the fun thing to follow because he’ll start dreaming about it and he won’t be able to finish the task at hand.  He’s said this.  How wonderfully self-aware.

Is it possible that our labels are actually stunting growth, forcing our kids to mold themselves to fit the names we call them, and denying them the serendipitous avenues their lives might have taken if we hadn’t scripted every last second of it by insisting on calling it by name.

Want more focus? Want the job of your dreams? Find the thing that makes your soul sing and start Living on Purpose.  The light in that part of your world is astounding, and there’s no name for it.

p.j.lazos 4.14.16

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Day 11 of the #AtoZChallenge

Kill the K-Cup

Kill the K-cup!  Watch the video. It’s hilarious, and true from a too much plastic perspective, and scary, but only in the environmental sense, not the possible K-alien sense.

Also, Kiss someone today.

And always act with Kindness. Even when you’re mad as hell.

Need I say more?

p.j.lazos 4.13.16

 

 

And because I don’t like to end the day without listening to a little something, here’s Kwabs:

 

 

 

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JOY

Joy stands at the window and watches the hummingbirds at the feeder. They are the same, she and they, nature’s most tenacious forager. She knows they came many miles to see her and she is grateful.

Joy can’t remember the last time she was sad. She tries to make herself feel that way sometimes — just for kicks — but she ends up laughing and laughing. She really is the easiest person in the world to get along with.

Joy counts the number of times per minute the hummingbird flaps its wings just to see if she can keep up. Sometimes she stands next to them to feel the breeze on her face. She does such silly things, but the hummingbirds don’t seem to mind.

Joy snorts sometimes when she laughs which just makes her laugh more. Also she smiles in her sleep especially when she dreams. Joy would like to be your very best friend. She hopes you will take her up on her offer.

p.j.lazos 4.12.16

 

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Day 9 of the #AtoZchallenge

I Am Water

And so are you. At least about 72% of you is, along with the person you love, your kids, your friends, all your acquaintances, all mostly water. Several billion years ago, a few single-celled organism started focus groups, formed cohesive bonds with those similarly situated, discussed logistics, strategized, and eventually crawled their way out of the primordial soup. At one time oceans covered the planet. At one time dinosaurs roamed the earth. We’ve come a long way since then, but we’re still sipping the same water the dinosaurs drank.

When I was born, I shared the water on this planet with just over 3 billion people. Today, I’m sharing it with 7.2 billion. In 2040, we’ll have just over 9 billion people, but maybe not enough water for us all. By 2030, one-third of these billions of people will not have access to clean drinking water; by 2040, the constant struggle of energy needs vs. personal water use will create dire water shortages for the planet; and by 2050, it could be game over.

Rather than say “the problem is too big; there is nothing I can do,” say, “I am water.” By aligning yourself with the essence that is water, you change the game. Water is fluid. Water is cleansing. Water is buoyant, and intuitive, and multi-dimensional. Water knows how to heal itself and, intrinsically, you do, too.  Maybe start with that leaky faucet.

And while you’re imagining ways to become one with water, here’s John to help you along.

p.j.lazos 4.10.16

 

 

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Day 8 of the #AtoZChallenge

Hands that Help

Holy Crap, it’s only day 8 of the AtoZChallenge! Getting a bit tired, but I’m not giving up and neither should we, despite the hellish state of American politics. There are so many words that start with H that I could wax prophetically on for paragraphs: hell; happiness; hinderances; hyrdrofracking, but I want to talk briefly about the political landscape in the U.S. as a microcosm of the world in general where we, as a society, are standing on the precipice of so many challenges — economic, moral, spiritual, apocalyptic — and never have we had this many stressors on the planet at once.

It’s snowing here today in Central Pennsylvania where my daffodils and hyacinths were already in bloom, where it was 65 degrees last week, and 70 degrees and balmy last Christmas morning. That juxtaposition alone should lead to people everywhere saying, “holy crap,” and I think they are, but instead of facing the problems we’ve created, we’ve turned away from our collective problem-solving mindset and run hog wild in the other direction, screaming hysterically at rallies for our political aspirants who shall remain nameless — lest I provide them with more media coverage — about the needs of the individual (or country) outweighing the needs of society (or world).

That’s all well and good when there’s a billion people on the planet, but things are getting a bit crowded here on Planet Earth and with seven billion of us needing to eat, sleep, and poop, we don’t have the same luxuries of abundance (overuse) that are the dominant theme of our American culture. Think of water as a prime example because you know California is and soon your state may be, too.  We must learn to live sustainably if we are to survive and we can’t live sustainably without living collectively.  It’s just not possible.

We need our tribes, always have, and even if you don’t need all the able-bodied men in the village to take down the wooly mammoth, or the able-bodied woman to collect and gather and keep the fire going, you still need them to be good fathers and mothers, providers and role models, and plain old good citizens because every generation models itself on the one to come before them either through acceptance or rejection. Isn’t it better that our children emulate our actions rather than decry our abuses, overuses and destruction of what is soon-to-be their world?  Our current ideology of narcissism and greed over all else — of making us great again at the expense of our brothers and sisters who also live here on this planet — is an ill-fitting dress that the Earth does not care to wear. It doesn’t square with democracy, or the “moral code” espoused by so many God-fearing peoples on the planet, although many seem to be embracing it whole-heartedly, an anomaly in and of itself, and how it got this out of control is anyone’s guess.

I think it may have something to do with fear, and survival, and the feeling of being under attack, so let me just say that the way to combat fear is with love, and the way to feel a sense of community, of deep-seated trust and respect, is to reach across the aisle, or the pond, or the planet, with a wide-open heart and two open Hands and be part of a Community. Change can only come Through Your Hands. Now go wash them and get busy.

p.j.lazos 4.9.16

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Good Grief

Grief doesn’t rearrange the furniture anymore, she just throws everything away with no care for whether she’ll need it later.  Grief sits at the kitchen table with her head in her hands, a cup of black coffee, untouched, at her elbow. She understands the meaning of despondency because she goes there for micro visits 500 times a day. Grief used to have a lovely singing voice, but she can’t seem to get past the feeling of heavy cloth lying atop her larynx. She doesn’t even hum anymore. Grief adorns herself in black moonless nights and bottomless lakes. Sometimes she thinks about putting big stones in her pockets to see if she can find the bottom, but then she gets embarrassed and reaches for another thought.  When she can’t quite grasp it she gives up and goes to bed. Lots of times she cries. Watching her, my heart sinks into the fibers of the mattress along with her tears.

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Day Six of the #AtoZChallenge

Fear & Forgiveness

Fear is our greatest enemy, the one we never knew we had. Fear demands you alter your behavior and arm yourself to the teeth. Fear says you’re with us or against us and there is no room for anything in between. Fear says take this road, but not that one because who knows what evil may be lurking. Fear says keep your eyes on them, they don’t look at all like us. Fear stands between you and everything that is different and demands an accounting. Fear takes all the fun out of life. He really is a big fat downer.  Fear never lets you achieve your dreams.

Forgiveness stands at the front door and waits even while all the cold air snakes in because she knows there’s room for everyone and doesn’t want them to get the wrong impression, especially the one she was way too harsh with earlier. Forgiveness says, “Come. Have something to eat,” then sets an extra place for you even when you thought you couldn’t possibly belong. Forgiveness floats through the air on angel wings, fluttering by your face like a cool evening breeze, taking all your past inexcusables with it. Forgiveness is the embodiment of grace in motion. Forgiveness shares. Forgive someone today and watch your life shift and your inner light grow.

p.j.lazos 4.6.16

 

 

 

 

 

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Energy, Economics and Environmentalism

How can we care for the Earth if we can’t care four ourselves? The energy and enthusiasm we bring to environmentalism is a direct reflection of how we feel about ourselves. Our bodies become a toxic waste dump when we eat nothing but processed or pesticide-laden foods, when we over-medicate, when we choose inertia over exercise. Similarly, contamination isn’t limited to our bodies, but also our thoughts. Fear, jealousy, anger, etc., all have deleterious effects on the body.

In the U.S. our energy policy is predicated on the destruction of the earth — ditching, drilling, dredging, and the like — and the pillaging of Her natural resources, while the consumption of energy is simply a gluttonous affair, note as one example, the heating and cooling of the uber-sized McMansions that are rarely occupied for more than a few hours a day. In Europe, sustainability matters. In the U.S., it’s size. Perhaps it’s the incredible amount of wide open spaces we once had at our disposal, spaces, that are rapidly dwindling.

Here in Central Pennsylvania, my home turf for the last 22 years, I’ve watched farm after farm being gobbled up, sacrificed to the gods of urban sprawl so rows of cookie-cutter homes can stand where beets and cabbage and arugula used to grow. If our country’s economic prosperity is fueled by the housing boom and a consumerism mentality, how long will it be until the bottom really drops out. Eventually there will be nowhere left to put a new home even if there are still buyers, and really, how many blenders or new pairs of shoes does one need?

Maybe we could try free energy for a change of pace. Wind, water, our amazing sun which shines its beneficent face on us daily. There are jobs that can come of the means by which we harness these gifts from the Mother. Technologies yet to be discovered and invented. Ways to make a profit and a living wage. But the premise from which we begin to think about it must change from me to we. If what’s good for the collective becomes the imperative over what’s best for the individual watch how the paradigm shifts.

p.j.lazos 4.6.16

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

***

Day Four of the #AtoZChallenge – Dams, Dikes, and Diversions

Day Four and I’m still doing yoga everyday, even on Sunday, the day off from writing.  Already I feel more flexible than I have in years so there’s that.

Dams, dikes, and diversions means those things that distract you on the way reaching for your dreams.  It’s a direct outcropping of failing to live consciously as you fail to guard your thoughts and unfortunately, given the state of our world, it’s easy to think less than stellar thoughts at any given moment.

We’ve all heard the phrase, “you create your own reality,” but do you know how it works? When you wake up looking forward to a great day but your next three thoughts are about your commute, or a meeting you don’t want to attend, or a test you don’t want to take, you’ve been diverted, and your super highway to your day’s (or life’s) dream will be dammed up, left wading in shallow water with other similar dreams, so close, yet just out of reach on the other side of that dike.  It’s not your fault, you say, but it’s your thought, and that’s the thing that needs work.

More on thoughts, and energy, and the art of making dreams a reality later.  For now, enjoy an excerpt from my soon-to-be-released environmental murder mystery, my current dream, Oil and Water, with a bit on a famous D river, the Delaware.

Oil and Water

The Delaware River, the longest undammed and only remaining major free-flowing river east of the Mississippi, also lays claim to the largest freshwater port in the world. The river flows three hundred and thirty miles from Hancock, New York, and makes a pit stop in the Delaware Bay before spilling into the Atlantic Ocean. It serves as the dividing line between Pennsylvania and New Jersey and services twenty million residents of the New York, New Jersey and the Philadelphia area with drinking water. Washington’s famous Christmas Eve ping ponging across the river began and ended on the banks of the Delaware at Trenton, New Jersey. But the river’s abundance isn’t limited to battles, boundary lines and the provision of potable water. It’s a dichotomy in uses: heavy industry draws on her for its needs as do bald eagles and world-class trout fisheries. As evidence of the latter, about one hundred and fifty miles of this magnificent river has been included in the U.S. National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.
In the late 1800s, approximately one million Philadelphians lived within the boundaries of America’s third largest city, which boasted the second largest port in the country located in the Delaware Bay. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the entity charged with assuring the river’s safety, dipped its long, federally-funded fingers into a bevy of construction, flood control, and navigational projects designed to improve, among other things, the river’s navigability. In 1878, before Philadelphia had electricity or the telephone, sixteen hundred foreign trade vessels arrived each year, and six thousand coastal trade vessels docked in the river’s port. Trade vessels have given way to supertankers: seventy million tons of cargo arrive in the river’s waters each year. From sails, to steam, to the supertankers, the Delaware River and its Bay have lent their banks and waters to the growth of the interstate and international commerce of not only Philadelphia, but also the nation.
At its deepest point, the Delaware is only forty feet, which means the river can’t abide a thousand foot supertanker between her banks. Roughly the size of three and a half football fields and bearing three million gallons of oil or other cargo, a ship that size has forty foot drafts, and sits forty feet below the water line, as deep as the river’s most navigable channel. Low tide causes the water levels in the tidally influenced channel from the Delaware Bay to Philadelphia to drop as much as eight feet which would leave a thousand foot ship incapacitated, floundering like a beached whale.
When the Corps of Engineers began its first deepening project in 1855, the depth of the Delaware stood at eighteen feet. The Corps dredged down to the current depth of forty feet during World War II and maintained this depth by periodic dredging and removal of silt buildup in the channel to the tune of about 3.4 million cubic yards a year. Since 1983, the Corps has studied the feasibility of dredging the Delaware’s main shipping channel down to forty-five feet to better accommodate the world commodities market by making the hundred-and-two mile shipping route from the Delaware Bay to Camden, New Jersey, more accessible.
To do so, the Corps would need to remove about twenty-six million cubic yards of silt and sediment from the river bottom and continue removing another 862,000 cubic yards every year thereafter at a cost of approximately $311 million dollars. Cost notwithstanding, the Corps needs a place to put all that sand, clay, silt and bedrock. While federally owned sites have been identified, environmentalists contend that the detrimental effects to drinking water, aquatic and bird life, and the potential contamination from the disposal of dredged material outweigh the benefits.
That story — small town need vs. corporate greed; environmental stewardship vs. environmental recklessness; the rights of the few vs. the rights of society — has existed since the dawn of creation, and, because of constraints of space and time, is a story best saved for another day.

Enjoy also this musical interlude by the Fifth Dimension.  And with that, I rest.

p.j.lazos 4.5.16

Day Three – Live Consciously

Living Consciously means being present in the moment, not worrying about the past or superimposing you wishes on the future, rather, just experiencing the here and now in all its abundance. That is a choice we all make on a moment-to-moment basis. When you’re having coffee with a friend while checking your news feed on your cellphone, you are not living consciously. When your husband or kids are trying to tell you a story and you are reading your email rather than making eye contact, you are not living consciously. When your kids are saying, “mommy, can you go out and play with me,“ and you ignore them for some other task, you are not living consciously (also, don’t be surprised if they ignore you later).

Our brains are simply not wired to multitask despite what we all choose to think. You can’t read the paper, listen to music, have a phone conversation, and write a term paper all at once, not without some or all of those things suffering for it. Not only does the quality of the work product diminish, studies show this kind of multitasking is extremely hard on the human brain which likes to do one thing at at time and do it well. My 20-year old is fond of watching “Grey’s Anatomy” while she does her homework. She minimizes the box and places it in a corner of the screen, but that doesn’t eliminate the distraction, it just adds to the constant crush and buzz of noise in her head, AND it doesn’t make the dreaded task go any faster. In fact, it really just slows progress.  If I said that such constant stimulation without any chance for the brain to relax was not good, that perhaps it may lead to Alzheimer’s, do you think anyone would believe me? Probably not, because we often feel invincible, that is, until we aren’t, and then we are left with the consequences of all our bad choices.

Similarly, my 15-year old, and every one of her friends, can spend hours surfing through vines — 6 second videos — which are often funny, but don’t do much to improve IQ. Is it possible that all the incidences of ADD and ADHA are fueled, or at least contributed to, by the sheer number of distractions in our 21st century world? So what’s a parent to do? Begin by setting the example to live consciously, moment to moment, instead of languishing in a collective delirium. Consider this — in this over-loud, overbearing, overloaded world, it’s possible that the quietest person in the room, the one unaffected by the din, will be the one with many of the answers, the one that people gravitate toward. What a refreshing change. I tell my kids every morning when they leave for school to make good choices. And as far as I can tell, living consciously is not just a good choice, but the best choice. Our very existence as an evolving planet depends on it.

p.j.lazos 4.4.16

 

 

 

 

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A to Z Primer — A Study of the World Behind Your Eyes

Day Two — Breathe

Hey, I’m back again (so soon?) for Day Two of the A to Z Challenge. As background, after much wrangling with potential themes and possibilities for decent content on a month’s worth of blogs, I settled on the one thing in my universe that needs the most work — me.

The original idea came while attending my weekly yoga class. I take yoga once a week and while the benefits are amazing, they certainly don’t last an entire week.  By the time I go back the following week, it’s as if I never went in the first place. Time to shake things up, I see, so why not combine challenges?

For the entire month of April I will attempt transformation from the me who sits too much, thinks too much, eats too much stuff that’s not good for her, doesn’t sleep enough, and who is so totally invested in being a mom, wife, lawyer, and writer that she pretty much will let herself fall apart at the seams, to a glowing, nimble, peaceful person who happens to also do all those life things but respects her Self in the process. Maybe my little bit of self-improvement will add light to the sum of light out there and the angry planet we find ourselves spinning on will perhaps get a dose of much-needed equilibrium. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not on some save the world thing. I’m totally limiting my quest to my own darkness and my own light, but if the light somehow spreads, well, that would be cool, too.

So let’s talk about breathing.  A good breath increases the wellness quotient in your body like a long slow rain after a drought.  It’s a Benediction for you blood, tissues, organs and all your vital bodily processes.  Most of us are shallow breathers, moving/racing/lunging toward the next thing on our to-do list, the next shallow breath, not engaging our diaphragm, and not allowing air past the top third of our lungs.  This breathing method creates some unwanted conditions.  Since the lungs never expand sufficiently, their elasticity is compromised over time as the body is never treated to the abundance of favors that a series of deep breaths can bestow.  Shallow breathing can lead to problems such as anxiety, asthma and pulmonary edema, to name a few.  Shallow breathing can also lead to the build up of carbon dioxide in your system, making it uninhabitable for you.  I mean, how does a decent breath find its way into a body like that?

Deep breathing releases toxins and tensions, clears the mind and body, relieves pain — in yoga, you “breathe through” the pose — supports the immune system, the nervous system, the cardiovascular system, the skin, and eyes, and liver, and hair, heck it supports every one of your body’s systems, and it’s both free and easy, or easy-ish, because you have to be mindful to do it correctly.  I’ll go so far as to postulate that if we were all deep breathers, world peace would be a possible next step in our evolution.

So don’t forget to breathe, and breathe deeply.  Your simple act of breathing could make a utopian universe possible!

Now I’m off to yoga.

p.j.lazos 4.2.16

 

 

 

A to Z Primer — A Study of the World Behind Your Eyes

Day One — All In

Can writing improve your life? I’m going to attempt to write something every day for a month, and I’m hoping the daily blog doesn’t become the daily slog, but I want to see if I can do it, to commit to writing in a way I haven’t committed before. I may not be up to my personal best every single day, especially because my obsessive editing is going to be asked to sit this one out, but I’m going trust that whatever comes of this will be worth the effort.

In tandem with my little writing experiment, I’m going to add the practice of yoga every day, eat fewer processed foods, and as little sugar as possible. Note that I didn’t say I would give those things up, but I will commit to reducing consumption and being more mindful of what I do consume. At the end of 30 days, I should feel like a million bucks, right? So to the extent this exercise needs a theme, here it is: self-improvement through being nice to Self.

Also, sometimes, depending on the day and what is going on in the world, I may need to get the ranting over before I can get to the good stuff. In that way, greenlifebluewater may become the Forest Gump of blogs. You never know what you’re going to get with the exception that I will, however loosely, stick to the rules.

It’s an A day, so here are so random thoughts about As:

Adipose tissue, also known as fat, is the place where all those nasty chemicals we ingest through bad food, bad water, bad Air and bad processed foods take up residence in our bodies. They also can affect our organs which is where disease starts so perhaps a spring cleanse is in order. Give your liver a facelift with a nice liver cleanse. You’ll help your body take out the trash. While you’re at it, ditch the Anxiety you’ve been storing in your cells and start saying nice things to yourself. Try three nice things about yourself before you get out of bed in the morning and see if you can keep it going throughout the day.  It’s a total mood-changer.

So for today, at least, I am All In for this A to Z challenge. My hope is that I’ll get to the end adapted, admired and allegro (which basically means happy in Italian).

In the meantime, enjoy this example of the heights to which you can rise when you are All In.

p.j.lazos 4.1.16

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[photo by Arianna Rich]

Thirteen Ways of Looking at Words

by Arianna Rich

Words:

 

I
They’re sweet like
honeysuckle,
hiding in the bushes.

II
They’re the words
of mourning, when you get
a midnight phone call: “There was a crash … ”

III
Words can be soothing,
a gentle caress of your cheek
just when you need it the most.

IV
They’re lemon bitter, the hate words.
They jump down your throat and
Sit
like a lump,
no oxygen escaping and none slipping in,
threatening to bring tears to your eyes.

V
They’re Swift
like a shadow
in the night,
slipping through the darkness without a trace of light.

VI
They’re soft and swirly and light as a feather.
White cotton sheets,
rippling in the wind.

VII
They’re bright and bubbly,
popping, like drops of golden sunlight
into your sun-kissed hair.

VIII
They’re EVERGREEN.
Fresh and pure as young pine, hiding
behind the old ones in the mystical forest.

IX
Words are slick as a blade,
gliding across the ice.

X
tHey conjure and drEam and imagine
those siLly words.
They buiLd castles in the clOuds.

XI
There are words that rhyme,
but not all the time.

XII
Words are STIFF
hard
j-a-g-g-e-d
quick
sharp
Ridiculous. Illogical. Truthful.
Often impatient.

XIII
Words are the center of the Earth,
the glue that holds her inhabitants together.
Without words, there would be no poems to write
or stories to speak.

No Way To Communicate.

Yet sometimes — when words are needed most…
is the time no words are spoken at all.

p.j.lazos 3.28.16

***

Moon Talk

When I talk about the moon

I mean to talk about you

(Yes, you!).

I know how you like to hide

Behind the moon

Playing games with the night

And the stars.

Perhaps when I talk about you

I simply am trying to find

What is real and true about me.

How clever not to reveal your dark side

Until all the wounds have healed!

What do you suppose I mean

When I seek out the meaning of you?

In all the nights of the universe

Is there meaning to the moon?  Or does

The moon hide its meaning

Behind the meaning of you?  Concealed

Behind the moon, as there is

A mid-night, could there be a mid-moon?

Our destiny as a couple was doomed —

No mid-wife, no child —

Therefore no meaning of life as a wife.

You left me naked, alone in the darkness,

Talking to the moon.

      from Moon Talk by Wade Stevenson

p.j. lazos 3.20.16

The Chocolate Assassin

      The ghost of Dashiell Hammett floats between the pages of The Chocolate Assassin, by Peter Durantine, a crime noir novel á la Hammett, Raymond Chandler and the rest. Set between two time periods — present day and World War II Germany — The Chocolate Assassin presents as a hard-boiled crime noir novel, but where Hammett’s characters are surly and disillusioned with life (think Sam Spade), Durantine’s protagonist isn’t bitter, or smart-alecky, or even mad; he’s just a good detective. Similarly, the gritty nature of Hammett’s characters is not present in The Chocolate Assassin, and that’s a good thing because Durantine is his own writer, and Detective Grey is his own man, a detective with a conscience and no particular grudge against life. How refreshing!

The Chocolate Assassin starts with the murder of Eric Hoest, a fisherman, and friend to Oskar Franks, the neighbor who discover’s Hoest’s body. Franks is a German ex-pat like Hoest. They both had come to America for a fresh start but apparently, Hoest’s past followed him here. Found at the scene near Hoest’s body are shell casings later determined to be from a Luger, circa late 1930’s, and a recent newspaper article naming Hoest as a former U-Boat Captain.

Detective Sam Grey is a half African-American and half Hispanic grad student working on a Masters in history degree. For the most part, Grey manages to avoid, if not ignore overt racism despite that it’s at the very heart of the book’s subject matter. It helps that Grey’s not all gnarled and bitter on life like your usual crime detective, and that he has a real penchant and talent for his work. Grey follows up on the newspaper clipping found on Hoest’s desk with a trip to the library to search through WWII newspapers. Diligence combined with intuition leads him to uncover several leads and soon he’s off to Germany to track them down, meeting one bizarre character after another, each more mysterious than the last.

Martin Hahn was trained as an elite member of the Hitler Youth and given an assignment of the utmost secrecy as the war was drawing to a close. Hahn and Hoest have a linked past, and it’s possible that Martin is still working undercover for the Nazis more than half a century later, but it will take more than Grey’s interest in history to unravel all the many twists that ultimately lead him to the truth.

It’s no coincidence that Durantine is a journalist by trade and used to digging for a story. The Chocolate Assassin has a no-nonsense style and a flavor for the history of the times without getting lost in it. A nice read for lovers of the crime or historic fiction novel, or for those who just want a well-told, fast-paced and enjoyable Whodunnit.

p.j.lazos 3.5.16

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The Emperor’s Cool Clothes

       The Emperor’s Cool Clothes by Lee Harper is a new take of the beloved tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes, by Hans Christian Andersen. We’ve all read the original. A very vain, very rich man, the Emperor, orders some fancy new clothes.  His greedy tailors comply, but in the process, decide to stick it to the Emperor.  They spend hours and hours creating the new wardrobe and when when finished, present it to the Emperor with the caveat that only those worthy will be able to see them. Of course, there are no clothes, but the Emperor doesn’t know that, and when he can’t see what he’s supposed to be wearing he thinks he himself is not worthy. The Emperor’s Cool Clothes is the same story, yes, but the real joy of this version is Harper’s amazing illustrations and cleverly reimagined characters, modernized to resonate with today’s kids. The book is beautiful, a paean to illustration.  So what are you waiting for?  Go buy it for your kids.

  

Harper has illustrated a variety of books, including the award winning, Woolbur, a story    about a sheep who dared to be different, Turkey Claus, Turkey Trick or Treat, and Turkey Trouble, obviously about turkeys, with author Wendi Silvano, and in addition to The Emperor’s Cool Clothes, he’s written and illustrated Coyote, and Snow, Snow, Snow.

I’m sure I’ve missed some, and there are definitely more coming.  Not only is the man something with a set of paint brushes, he loves the art and craft of writing and illustrating for kids.  So without further adieu, I give you Lee Harper.

First off, you are a top-notch illustrator.  Have you always done illustrations or did you start off with something else and then move into illustration? 

Thank you!

Looking back it’s easy to see I was always an illustrator. In elementary school I could never hand in a book report without illustrations. I majored in fine art in college but never quite figured out how to use what I learned in the real world. It wasn’t until after I had four children and was in my forties that I thought seriously about illustrating picture books.

Did you doodle, draw, paint, or throw paint at a canvas as a kid?

In elementary school I fell into the habit of doodling on all of my math tests. I think it was my way of entertaining myself when I was bored. I found math incredibly boring.

How do you come up with your illustrations?  Do you see a picture in your head and go from there or does something catch your attention and you decide you want to draw it to express what you’ve seen?

Whether it’s an illustration for one of my own stories or an illustration for another author’s story, it all starts with the words. In the beginning stages I’ll read the words, then search the world for inspiration. Sometimes, like in the case of Woolbur, that meant visiting sheep farms. Sometimes it’s just gathering info on the Internet. When I’ve absorbed all the information on the subject that I can, I lie down and try to imagine a scene. Once I have a picture in my head that I’m happy with I begin drawing. After I have a rough sketch, I’ll go back and look at photo or reference materials to fill in the details.

Do you prefer collaboration where you simply illustrate, or do you like to do both the writing and the drawing more?

Once I’m given another author’s story to illustrate I superimpose my own interpretation on top, creating a new layer of meaning, while at the same time keeping within the framework of the author’s story and true to their vision. It’s a delicate and complicated process with a lot of going back and forth but somehow in the end we create an entire picture book world previously unimagined. It’s such a huge undertaking that it’s nice to have a collaborator, or collaborators. I love it. But on the other hand, it’s nice to tell your own story in your own personal style. Sometimes — like in Coyote [a story written by Harper to honor his brother, Chase, who had died] — it could be no other way. So, to answer your question, I love doing both.

What did you do in your previous incarnation before you became a children’s book author/illustrator?

After college, unable to make a living selling my paintings, I found work as a picture framer and eventually opened my own picture framing business, which I ran for about fifteen years. I learned a lot from the experience. Even though I wasn’t making a lot of art in those days, every day I LOOKED at art. All kinds of art. Good and bad. I think it helped me learn what kind of art I liked and what kind of art I didn’t like. It also gave me a great appreciation for now being able to do something I really love!

What do your own kids think of your books?  Did you initially start writing for them?

Before I was published, my kids thought I’d lost my marbles when I began spending all my free time painting beavers playing baseball and other goofy scenes. The turning point was when a few years ago, after I’d had some success in picture books, I was honored in a special event at my kid’s school. Afterwards, the principal asked my wife Krista and I to a luncheon in the teacher’s lounge. My kids were also invited. They had never before eaten in the teachers lounge and —compared to the cafeteria — it was a revelation. Also, eating in the teacher’s lounge earned them a degree of celebrity status amongst their classmates, as no other child before or after was known to have eaten in the teacher’s lounge. Now they think what I do is pretty cool.

My kids have always been a great inspiration for my writing and art but I can’t say it was for them that I started. In fact, when I was making my career change from picture framing to children’s literature it felt like an extremely irresponsible parenting decision.

Well, it was one that paid off, at least for the children’s book world.  What’s a typical day look like?  Up at five, doing yoga, then some drawing? 

That would be my dream typical day but the reality is that most days start out with something much more mundane… like doing the dishes I was too tired to do the night before. Once I’m an empty nester and the puppy is house-trained, I’m hoping that my typical day will be up at five, yoga and drawing!

I note that you teach painting workshops.  Do you teach both kids and adults?

I’ve taught some painting workshops for kids but never adults.

How often do you visit kids’ schools and how did you get started?

When my first book came out, my editor at HarperCollins encouraged me to visit schools. I visited a few my first year of being published but I wasn’t very good at it. It didn’t come naturally for me to talk in front of large groups of people. The first time I ever spoke in public, during question and answer time, the first question was: “Are you really scared?” I guess I was shaking a bit. As I published more books, each year I was asked to visit more and more schools. Gradually I got better at it and began to really enjoy it. Now I visit about twenty schools a year and get a lot of inspiration from my interaction with all the children, teachers, and librarians I meet. It also helps pay the piper.

You are very active on social media.  How much marketing do you do from a time standpoint and do you like it?

As soon as my daughter Naomi introduced me to Facebook I was hooked. As someone who expresses himself best with words and pictures — and who has an insatiable hunger for external validation, — it’s the perfect storm. I check to see how many people like my latest post once every hour, but I’m trying to cut back. From a marketing standpoint I don’t think it’s very effective, in fact, it’s probably counter-productive. During the Romney campaign my friend list shrank by 40%. Now I try not to post a single comment about politics even when one party’s front-runner is a bullying, xenophobic, racist with a weird orange comb-over. [ed. note:  hilarious and so true!]  I try, but sometimes I still slip up with a caricature or two.

Do you have any advice for would-be children’s authors?

If you must post on Facebook, stick with puppies. Try to eliminate as many trivial distractions as possible. Don’t get caught up in comparing yourself to other seemingly more successful authors. Whether you are just starting out or you have numerous books under your belt, it always comes back to the work. Put blinders on and stay focused on the work. Enjoy the work. Everything else is just noise.

That’s great advice, Lee.  I’ve got one more question. If you could give the world’s kids one gift, what would it be?

I would give them my books. Although most of my books are of a silly nature, I sincerely believe that if the books I give the children of the world help foster a lifetime love of reading — even if it’s only in a miniscule way — I’ll have given something worthwhile. The more children read, the more likely it is that they will become adults capable of dealing rationally with the complexities of the world and understanding different kinds of people.

That’s great.  Thanks so much for taking the time to chat and good luck with your future works!

p.j.lazos 2.29.16

***

 

 

Alex Moves to a New House

Justine Bugaj, co-owner of bookscover2cover with a newly launched PR and marketing business has recently published her first children’s book, Alex Moves to a New House, a delightful tale of overcoming fear and embracing change.

Psychologists tell us that moving to a new house is one of the top ranking stressors, right up the with death and divorce, so if it’s tough for an adult, imagine what it’s like for a kid? How do children deal with the emotional fallout of moving? Justine’s protagonist does just fine, not only acclimating, but excelling by making new friend the day after they arrive with the garden-growing neighbor next door. This leads to a new life skill as Alex learns all about growing vegetables and plants. The book ends with an entire page dedicated to pictures of plants and vegetables, lending support for kids to identify real world foods. Alex Moves to a New House is endearing and heartfelt, great for young readers and curious thinkers, and a lovely addition to any children’s book collection.

 

 

And now, an interview with Justine Bugaj:

How long have you been writing?

Not long, although it has been something I have always dreamed of doing. This children’s story was somewhat of an anomaly in that it came from a thought and took on a life of its own, but I would not have considered my being a “writer” until the last 6 months or so when I began a daily writing practice. Sit and write, even if just for 10 minutes or 45 minutes.

Is Alex Moves to a New House your first published piece?

Yes

What was your inspiration?

My nephews, and my own difficult experience of moving to a new house when I was about seven.

Why did you choose children’s books over other genres?

Perhaps because I have an inclination for this genre given that some of my favorite memories are from some of the earliest books I read (Ferdinand the Bull, Peter’s Chair, Where the Wild Things Are) and, to be honest, the story found me so I decided to write it.
Personal experience tells me that children’s books are much harder than writing for adults. Do you agree? Do you prefer children’s books or is this a one-time project?

Because I have not yet attempted to write a longer piece for adults (except for a couple short stories and poems), I am not sure. I imagine it depends upon our personal experiences, both past and present, and what motivates us to write the story. Children’s books are fundamental to encouraging a child to read and engage and if I can contribute even in a very small way…. I don’t think it will be a one-time project as I have already started another story.

You are the co-owner of bookscover2cover.com which publishes writer’s works daily and where you are responsible for website design and content. First, which side of the fence do you prefer being on, writing or publishing, and second, are some things interchangeable between writing and publishing, or is it a wholly different skill set?

Great question! The whole endeavor has afforded me an opportunity to learn and develop new skills, which I enjoy in itself. Thus, I like being on both sides of that fence, although the writing requires more of me (quiet time, energy, reflection) because I am so new to it as a practice. Or perhaps that is the way it is regardless of how long you have been doing it?

Your brother, Jason Squire Fluck is also a writer, and your mom, Sandra Fluck is a poet and your partner in bookscover2cover. So what’s the deal? Was there something in the water growing up or was it intentional that you all became writers? And what about your dad? Odd man out, or does he write as well?

To be honest, I don’t consider myself a writer in the same regard as both Jason and Sandy — they have been writing for decades and their work reflects the art and skill of such a sustained practice and creativity. However, having been raised with writers in the midst, some of the intention most likely passed on.

What’s your next project?

My next writing project will be another story in what I would like to see become an “Alex” series of books.

Given unlimited resources what major world problem would you try to solve and how would you go about doing it?

Violence. We perpetrate violence against each other and it is a most insidious form of power. We perpetrate violence against our planet by consuming resources without regard to future generations. To me, tackling the violence towards children — poverty, abuse, lack of education, unsafe home environment, continual media exposure to violence… you get the picture — is imperative as a way to secure a future for both them and the planet.

I wholeheartedly agree. Thanks, Justine, for your time and your creativity.

p.j.lazos 2.25.16

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Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy

“Memory is like rope, knotted every three or four feet, and hanging down a deep well. When you pull it up, just about anything might be attached to those knots. But you’ll never know what’s there if you don’t pull. And the more you pull at that rope, the more you find.”
Dinty W. Moore, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy

Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy

Dinty W. Moore’s new book, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy, Advice and Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals, is a droll, delicious exposé of the inner workings of Moore’s mind. Oh, and it’s a writing tutorial as well, although not in the instructional sense —- commas here, apostrophes there, watch those dangling participles —- but in the classic show don’t tell sense. Moore shows you how to write the most sublime essays in answer to questions posed by contemporary essay writers —- questions generated in response to a query from Moore on their thoughts regarding the art of essay writing. As a bonus, he throws in more than a few tidbits of enlightened instruction along the way such as his rumination on the em dash. I, like the questioner, Cheryl Strayed (think “Wild”), am enamored of em dashes —- so much so that perhaps it’s become an unhealthy relationship —- but that’s my problem —- and I’ll deal with it —- someday —- maybe. Then there’s Moore’s history lesson.

Did you know that the sixteenth-century French nobleman Michel de Montaigne was the father of the modern essay? (I know. I never heard of him either, but I googled him and all I can say is that I must have been sleeping during my Humanities class.) Also that “Montaigne was a bum, of sorts,” and that he was afraid of something, but I forget now what that was. In addition to those tantalizing tidbits, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy reminds us of the importance of self-effacing humor in memoir writing. The book exudes waggishness and charm, and will be a wonderful asset to every writer’s library. The essays are insightful, humorous, and instructional, the best kind of tutorial. One of my favs was,”Mr. Plimpton’s Revenge,” which gave me hope for rising above some of my own more serious gaffes; obviously, Moore has flourished despite his, and from reading Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy, they were pretty — well, let’s just say you have to read the book.

My friend who taught me how to ski at the very late age of 25 always said, “those who can’t, teach.” I never really understood that line. My friend was and is a wonderful skier, and also a great teacher. Similarly, Moore has spent most of his adult life teaching at various institutions of higher learning around the country and abroad, yet he can write with the best of them.
I’ve been a fan of Moore’s since I read, “The Accidental Buddhist” (1997), and wrote a profile piece on him for the literary journal, Rapportage.  Since then, Moore’s prose has evolved to the point of perfection, gleaming with the spit and polish that years of practicing a craft bestows. If you want a good belly laugh and to learn something about the writing process in the interim then Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy should be on your to-read list.

p.j.lazos 1.29.16

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[Photo courtesy of the author]

An Interview with Wade Stevenson

First off, congrats on the success of Flutes and Tomatoes, one of Kirkus Review’s Best Indie Books of 2015. What an honor.

I read Dear You and Flutes and Tomatoes in relatively short order. There is such a full blown range of longing, despair, grief, and, dare I say, an exhilaration in the expression of it all, maybe more emotion packed into two slim volumes than many would experience in a lifetime. So — are you reconciled with the events that took you to such a dark place, maybe at peace, and if so, how did the writing help you to get there?

Writing for me has always been an act of catharsis, of purification, of healing. The stories described in Flutes and Tomatoes and Dear You did indeed take me to dark, difficult places. No one would want to stay for a long time in that kind of emotional cell, and the only path I could find to free myself went through words. The words that make up the fabric of those poems became me. I lived them as if they were real. The events that caused the original pain happened again, in real time. Holding those two books in my hand, I can say, “You are the proof of that love that was lived and lost.” That feeling is one of wonderful release, it creates peace.

Both books were published in 2015. How much time passed between the events and the writing of the books? Did you find yourself agonizing anew as you wrote them?

Both books were published in 2015 because they’re related in terms of their emotional context and impact. Flutes and Tomatoes grew out of an experience I had in Paris when I was in my early twenties. That was in the late 1960s. I still have the notebooks that formed the basis of the book. The story narrated in Dear You took place in 1992. I started writing about it then but I couldn’t finish it. It hurt me to finish it, and in one way I didn’t want to finish it because that meant putting closure to it. And I felt I needed to keep the wound open. It’s strange how that happens, no? You don’t want to stop reliving in your memory something that hurt you very much.

Dear You is a very intimate exposé of your feelings at a specific time in your life, but also an intimate portrait of the mother of one your children. You share a daughter and shared a life, the details of which now are very public. I think it would be hard to be written about in such an intimate fashion. How does the Mlle. X. feel about your characterization of your relationship and particularly of her part in it?

I like to think that my poems are written from the center of my stomach, what the Japanese call “Hara”. You could also say: from the gut. You’re absolutely right: “Dear You” is a very intimate portrait. Extreme intimacy. I was afraid of showing it to Mlle. X, the mother of my child. But I also felt it would be wrong to publish it without first letting her read it. So I sent it to her and said, “If you don’t like it, or don’t approve, I’ll just keep it in my desk drawer.” She called me up a few days later and said, “It’s a beautiful book. I’m so sorry, I never realized I caused you so much pain.”

Do you think there are patterns in life and that people succumb to certain ones or that there’s much more of a randomness to the universe? For example, Greg Braden talks about something called Fractal Time and how, like the inside of a nautilus shell or the repeating patterns of a pine cone, life spirals out in ever-widening circles, but the pattern remains the same. Braden posits that there’s a precise mathematical formula to prove his theory and with certain bits of information such as the date of the inciting event, among other things, he can predict when the next event will occur, allowing you to prepare yourself for a disaster or maybe keep it from happening, or conversely, accept a blessing. I’m fascinated by this concept and wonder if you’ve heard of it and what your opinion of it may be. 


Greg Braden’s idea is intriguing, but I deal in my texts with emotional time, not mathematical time. My own books, such as the memoir One Time in Paris, or the novel The Electric Affinities, or my prose poem, The Little Book of He and She, draw on such different experiences of life and love that it would be impossible to say they conform to any preset pattern. In your own book, Six Sisters, you write a passage about how nothing happens by chance. I agree, but I don’t think that’s the same thing as saying that people succumb to certain patterns that keep replicating themselves.

I’m sure your familiar with the work of Joseph Campbell and the power of myth and archetype throughout the ages. You have two stories of lost love, both of which might have shattered you, but you proved resilient. Do you think that we are all living our lives under the umbrella of a few archetypes developed early on in our childhoods, and if so, what archetypes resonate with you?

Joseph Campbell’s book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, is one of my favorites, and I strongly believe in his mythological narratives. The archetype that resonates with me is that of the hero, the man who, assuming his own destiny, ventures out on a dangerous quest, meets several obstacles, overcomes them, and is victorious. There are many types of “quests” and the victory is always a spiritual one, symbolic, but it must be fought for and achieved. My books are all about a quest for love, or what happens in the aftermath of a broken love.

What’s your next project? Another hybrid book of memoir/poem or something completely different?

My next book is actually about the moon. It’s called Moon Talk. It will be published by BlazeVOX next month. It’s divided into three parts, a long poem, an essay, and some quotations. It’s a poetic, spiritual, and philosophical journey through all the phases of the lunar cycle. It’s a lyrical riff on the moon as myth and symbol. Joseph Campbell would have liked it.

Sounds wonderful.  So what’s a regular writing day look like for you? Part time? Full time? Some time? Every day or only when the muse strikes?

I’m a nocturnal poet, I need the night to write. A certain solitude is essential. I don’t believe in the Muse. Writing comes from patience and discipline. For me, it’s almost like a Zen meditation. When I’m in it, I’m ready to kill any distraction.

I gather you are not a religious man, yet you write as though there is a real spirit of the divine in your work. Reconcile this for me.

I’m not religious in the sense of going to church or following any established ritual. But I went to a religious school (St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire), and at one time I even converted to Judaism. My forthcoming Moon Talk book is quite mystical. It talks about that “Name who, moving among darkness, sheds light”.

What is your greatest hope for the future of mankind?

If mankind as a whole read more poetry, the world would certainly be a greener, more peaceful place.

I know a few poets who would agree.  Good luck with your next book. I look forward to reading and reviewing it.

p.j.lazos 1.20.16

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Dear You

      Dear You, a combination of poetry and memoir, by Wade Stevenson is one of the most exposed, unrelenting, and heart-breaking pieces on longing that I’ve read. Like Flutes and Tomatoes (reviewed below), named one of the best Indie books of 2015 by Kirkus Reviews,  Dear You is a genre Stevenson seems to have created, and if he didn’t create it, he knows his way around the terrain with the temerity of a conqueror. I love the mix of self-reflective recollection and metaphorical lyricism. It rounds out the narrative and answers the nagging questions that straight poetry leaves to the imagination.

The story starts with a breakup (Stevenson’s marriage); a rat (in the apartment of his soon-to-be beloved, Mlle X.); a rescue (by Stevenson of Mlle X. from the rat); a pregnancy (Mlle X.’s by Stevenson); a marriage (being rescued from a rat does not always end in marriage, but in this instance it did); and a birth. In reading the list above you would not guess that the birth would be the most tragic and life altering of the events that transpired, but it was both stunning and life-derailing for the author. Even more uncanny, Stevenson knew at the exact moment he watched his daughter’s head emerging into the world through his wife’s legs that their affair was over.

WHY?

I want to know the splitting event
The decisive moment that drove us apart.

Was it in that white hospital room
When her darling head crowned

Between your bloodied groaning thighs?
Standing proudly at your head, I thought:

You will never see her again in this profoundly
Open way. I had such strong sexual energy

Devoted to an act that is God’s
Cosmic joke, and then you laughed,

Asked why I keep returning to you,
I had only one answer, “It’s instant and love.”

I want to write you a poem
So full of magic and power
That you’ll read it and never leave me.

Stevenson had no empirical evidence to support the conclusion that at the precise moment a new life was beginning a prior life would come to an end, but his inner voice advises him as such, and so, there it is. Life in all it’s conundrums.

Dear You is simply, achingly, this: a story of a man who loses his wife. The loss is not in the classic sense through death or divorce although given how abruptly the relationship failed it may as well have been. A traumatic change of heart? Possibly. A near death experience in childbirth? Perhaps. Too much pressure to return to the conjugal bed? Could be. Or was the fruit of the union — the child — more than enough emotion for the mother to hold. After all, the process and pain of childbirth is tumultuous, scary, and maybe closer to God than any of us will ever get while still walking around in our human suits. Before modern medicine, women regularly died in childbirth. Even with modern medicine, some women experience a postpartum depression so severe that it may take months, even years before they return to their own selves while the helpless father sits attentive, ready to assist, but unable to cross the great divide between those two disparate selves that are now joined in the body of that tiny beautiful little baby. How can a father compete against such helplessness? How can he suppress such unbridled longing? The answer is, he can’t.

Stevenson tries valiantly, and sadly, fails, but he leaves behind a collection of poems depicting the war he wages against his new found isolation, punctuated by one of the most despicable, definitive words to pass between lovers: no. For anyone who’s loved and lost, Dear You is your comrade in arms.

Next up:  an interview with Wade Stevenson.

p.j.lazos 1.17.16

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Flutes and Tomatoes – A Memoir With Poems

“I became sensitive to every vibration in the air, to every nuance of the changing light. It would be late afternoon. It was then that the snake of emptiness would tighten around my throat. It was hard to breathe. I didn’t know if I could make it to the next day. There was a bottle of red wine on the chair. I grabbed and gulped it and enjoyed the warm swish of the liquid down my throat.” Wade Stevenson, Flutes and Tomatoes, A Memoir With Poems

Flutes and Tomatoes, A Memoir With Poems by Wade Stevenson is not at all what I imagined it would be. Let me start with a confession: poetry confounds me. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the cadence, the sentiment, the succinct nature of the writing; it’s just that I don’t always understand it. Without a context, it could be a metaphor for anything which is exactly the commonality of human emotion the poet intentionally taps into, but for a reader like me who wants certainty, assuredness, a good clean ending, the myriad possibilities that poetry presents can be downright frightening. That’s why I love this hybrid memoir/poem combo platter by Wade Stevenson. There was no guessing as to what had happened to make the poet lock himself in a basement studio in Paris with a bunch of tomatoes and a flute because he tells us, straight off, that he’s in mourning, that his lover has quite unexpectedly died, that he’s not coming out of the basement until he discovers the meaning of it all, or alternatively, learns to live with it. Having been apprised of the situation from the offset, I could relax, free to roam the pages of Stevenson’s poems, spending as much or more time on each as I felt necessary to understand because I’d been released from the chore of deciphering the code. I already had the rudimentary understanding; the rest was pure — wait for it — poetry, and it was illuminating and lovely.

I think poets, more than novelists, are the epitome of private people. Full disclosure is near impossible which is why they cloak everything in layers of metaphor. As with all good poetry, Flutes and Tomatoes is no exception. Stevenson keeps the details, crushing as they were, in the safety of his private zone. We have no idea, despite the broad brush of events, as to what actually happened in the atelier in Paris: how the lovers met, whether they were young or old, how long they were together, whether they spoke the same language or were perhaps the same sex, whether the trip to the countryside would have been the first or the last. All we know is that the flute and more than a dozen tomatoes remained, the flute maybe because Stevenson and his lover shared a flat. The tomatoes because, as he discloses, they were gathered/stolen from a farmer’s field on a trip that should have been but was/not.

Judge for yourself what could possibly happen to you that would cause you to spend a day, a week, a month, perhaps an entire summer living a solitary existence, just you and an external object(s) of your choice. How devastating the shock? How debilitating the news? It’s unclear from the text how long Stevenson remained underground. Long enough for the tomatoes to rot, for grief to move in with its own baggage and take up excess floor space in his sparsely furnished apartment, for questions of the existential nature of reality — living as he was, at the time, in Europe, the birthplace of existentialism — to be answered, or go unanswered, for him to turn on a tomato or two, to watch them rot and fester and disintegrate into nothingness, to violently throw one against a wall, to embrace his own darkness and ultimately his own light. It’s not an existence for a cowardly heart, perhaps not even a tomato heart. In the end, only the experience remained, and the words, resonating with an emotion the color of tomato.

Tomato Heart

If you choose not to eat it
A tomato quickly becomes useless
Unless by chance you learned to love it
Knowing buried deep inside
Are seeds of water and sunlight
To you it is transformed, a crimson flower
You watch its pink petals fall
Think of everything that might have been
Desires, sorrows and regrets
How to reconcile the shadow of your soul
With your real self? Tenderly, with blind
Fingers you touch the precious skin
As it swells and dilates
Like some enormous empty heart

p.j.lazos 12.9.15

An Interview with Jan Groft, author of Artichokes and City Chicken

I first met Jan Groft about ten years ago at the Lancaster Literary Guild. I was on the Board at the time and had just concluded a meeting with the Guild’s Director, Betsy Hurley. Jan was coming in as I was getting ready to leave and Betsy asked her if she’d like to write a profile on the author Dinty W. Moore for the Guild’s magazine, Rapportage. Jan was hesitant, worried that her friendship with Dinty Moore would somehow make the piece less honest. I got the job by default because I happened to be standing there. It was my first profile and I’ve loved writing them ever since. All because of Jan.

Jan’s first book, Riding the Dog: My Father’s Journey Home — A Memoir, chronicled her decision to care for her dying father. In As We Grieve — which I think I have personally purchased at least a dozen times for friends because of its therapeutic value — Jan discusses the grieving process we all go through following the death of a loved one. And now we have Artichokes and City Chicken, a story that in part explores the difficult relationship Groft had with her mother. Three different books that all share common elements of memoir, philosophy and scripture. I had an opportunity to do an email interview with Jan in advance of the release of Artichokes and City Chicken. Here’s what she had to say:

Taken as a whole these books seem to form a kind of trilogy of how you got to where you are today. Do you agree and if so, do you want to elaborate? Are you evolving, do you think, to more of a faith-based form of writing, or is this just what fits the particular story you are trying to tell?

The three books together do shed light on how I got to the moment of now, though the light doesn’t penetrate every crack and crevice. I hope someday they’ll serve as a legacy, a way to connect with members of a future generation who may want a window into the past. Part of the view, as you suggest, would reveal an evolving faith, for in exploring the landscape between loss and hope, which my work tends to do, I am continually struck by the wonder of it all—the fact that the Spirit (or whatever name you choose for a higher power) brings forth in us the capacity to rise above our deepest sorrows.

Don’t take this the wrong way, okay? We have three books and the central theme for all three revolves around death. Are you obsessed with death, do you think?

Great question: Why do I write what I write? Having come from a large Italian family with dying relatives aplenty, I was exposed at a very young age to death and funerals. I can still see the women shrouded in black, wailing and throwing themselves on the casket, waving crocheted hankies, their flags of death, while the men gathered out front, smoking and telling jokes. This dichotomy always intrigued me. Later, as I experienced my own deep losses, I was surprised to again discover a study in contrasts—an uplifting presence of hope at the bottom of profound sadness. I think it is actually this gift of hope with which I am obsessed.

Hope is a great obsession and a wonderful twist for a difficult topic. For me, writing is easily a form of therapy, a way to exercise my demons whether the topic is relevant to my life or just something I heard of and upon which I chose to focus. What role does writing fulfill for you in your life?

Writing, for me, provides an opportunity to explore and discover—learning at its finest. I never know what I’ll find, but when I come upon it, wow! It feels like discovering a nugget of truth, all shiny and real. So yes, I’d agree that writing has a therapeutic value and then, as a writer, my job (my passion, really) is to sort through the discoveries and share those that might also be of value to others. When I started writing Artichokes & City Chicken, I had no clue that I was harboring unresolved grief over my mother, who had died years earlier. But the writing led me to that realization and guided me through a somewhat mosaic process of healing. And healing, I think, is a need that extends far beyond my tiny corner of Earth. For readers seeking ways to transcend their own brand of hurt, I hope they’ll find in its pages a kindred spirit and paths worth exploring. Just as cooking is to those who love to cook (as my late mother did), writing is a process of giving and receiving. That’s why, I think, it’s so fulfilling.

You started in advertising where you ran a very successful business for many years, and then gave up that business to write. First, what do you miss about the advertising business and would you ever go back? Second, assuming it is, why is creative writing your best job ever?

My advertising career was very good to me, and I’m grateful for having experienced it. It taught me about what matters to others and why. It also helped me develop my own quality-of-life barometer. After twenty-five years in the advertising business, creative writing was like a comfy pair of slippers that had been waiting for me to return home. The solitude, the entrepreneurialism, the opportunity to connect deeply with an inner voice are a few of the qualities that call my name. Of course, at any given moment, these things can be elusive, but you just feel in your heart and soul that you are in the right place.

I know you as a very private person, yet as part of your writing process, you easily share very personal experiences. What is it about writing that allows you to reveal your emotions and your secrets?

I honestly do not know the answer to this and have often wondered about it myself. All I can say is that, to me, writing is like getting lost in a dance with the Spirit. All self- consciousness goes out the door, and there I am, holding on, trying out new steps, celebrating the few that are mastered, and just feeling liberated and safe because the Holy Spirit has my back.

That’s beautiful. So tell me, who is your greatest influence both from a creative writing standpoint and in life in general?

My greatest influence—both in my writing and in my life—ebbs and flows, changing constantly. One day, it’s a 100-year-old hospice patient who, even alone as her health fails, is the most grateful person I have ever met. Another time, it’s the voice of Elizabeth Gilbert (you have to check out her new book on creative living) or other writers like Barbara Brown Taylor, Frederick Buechner, and Anne Lamott. Or, it’s a reader who jots me a note about connecting with my words. And, as reflected in my work, it was and is my late father for many different reasons. I hope this doesn’t sound evasive, but ask me again tomorrow. The Holy Spirit is full of surprises, keeping the influence fresh and diverse through an ever-evolving cast of messengers.

So what’s next for you? Will you continue in this vein of writing or do you have an idea regarding the next genre you’d like to pursue. Do you see any fiction in your future?

Even though my graduate education focused on fiction writing, I wandered into the realm of personal essay/memoir years ago while working on a short story. The piece was based on a visit with my best friend who was dying. I struggled with the story until I realized that what happened in real life was more compelling than my fictionalized version, so I switched to nonfiction. Haven’t turned back yet, but you never know.

I do have a seedling of an idea, thanks to the hospice patients I visit who inspire me to consider what my own life might look like at age eighty or ninety. So my next effort may involve creativity and fun, focused on looking ahead. If the concept takes root, I’ll let you know!

Thank you, Jan Groft! Artichokes and City Chicken is now available on Amazon.

p.j.lazos 10.22.15

Artichokes and City Chicken

Jan Groft’s new book, Artichokes and City Chicken, reads like a mid-life “coming of age” story except instead of recounting the fading of adolescent angst as girl becomes woman, Groft writes of shedding her self-protective armor to embrace life the way it should be lived, with a wide-open heart and her internal chatter stilled to the point that she can almost hear God breathing. Through scripture, life review, and self-analysis, Groft reaches that still small space that often leads to revelations. A beautifully written homage to her mother, now deceased, Artichokes and City Chicken is part memoir, part cookbook, and part primer on how to let go and let God. The story is loosely centered around Groft’s relationship with her mother who for years struggled to understand a daughter she could not hear. By the time Groft’s mother died, she was so hard of hearing, and had been for years, that it was difficult for Groft to have even a small conversation with her. This fact permeated many aspects of their troubled relationship which had the effect of pushing Groft toward a stronger relationship with her father, perhaps as compensation, but more likely because they saw the world the same way.

Groft’s previous book, Riding the Dog, showcased the steadfast loyalty and easy camaraderie she shared with her father, but no such emotions were in play when it came to her mom. Her mother had her own soul-crushing demons to contend with as Groft describes early in the book, yet all one had to do was look at the energy she spent cooking consistently amazing and abundant meals for her family to know that Groft’s mother had no shortage of love for her child, just an inability to communicate that love in ways other than through food.

Making peace with those we struggle with is never easy, and Groft’s was particularly difficult. In fact, it never really happened. Groft’s mother passed and all the unspoken hopes and frustrations were left to simmer on the back burner, never cooling and never coming to a full boil. How does one explain or ask for forgiveness and give it in return when the object of your malaise has already crossed over? Groft’s deft hand touches every page, finding connections where before existed only confusion and doubt, especially as it relates to her mother. In a case of art imitating life, Groft experienced some severe cases of writer’s block while writing this book, that is, until she put her preconceived notions down and listened. And what she heard was the 3-D equivalent of angels singing. One of the things that came to her then — in addition to most of the book — was a memory of herself as child, sitting on the ottoman in front of her mother’s chair while they watched TV together and her mom stroked Groft’s hair, a small, elegant, impactful symbol of a love that was always there; Groft just had to listen to remember. Is it a perfect Hollywood ending where everything is resolved and everyone gets what they want? You’ll have to read Artichokes and City Chicken to find out.

Artichokes and City Chicken, as well as the divine recipes in the book is now available on Amazon.

p.j.lazos 10.20.15

AS WE GRIEVE

Our society is obsessed with the search for youth, and so unhinged by the notion of death that we take Herculean steps to keep people alive, sometimes using methods that defy logic. Not so many generations ago, people died at home, surrounded by their loved ones who nursed and fed and cared for them during their last days. Today people die in the hospital, surrounded by the whirl and hum of high tech gadgetry and if they’re lucky, the occasional relative. Death is no longer the spiritual experience it once was.

Lucky for us there are people like Jan Groft who, through her writing and example, help us to bridge the ever-widening gap between life and death. Prior to writing As We Grieve, Discoveries of Grace in Sorrow, Groft conducted half a year of research, reaching out to friends and loved ones with a single question: what is your most poignant memory of the death of a loved one? In doing so, she created a sacred space for dozens and dozens of people to chronicle one of the most significant events of their lives. Even now that the book is published, Groft is still collecting anecdotes, listening with an almost preternatural ability to people describe the pain and the process.

While the research took six months, the real work for As We Grieve began earlier and was rooted in Groft’s own pain. She cared for her father, or as she says, “it felt more like accompanying him on a journey, a very bumpy one” as he lay dying. “He found ways to make everything — even struggles, even dying — worthwhile and rewarding, as weird as that may sound.” He was gone in a season, and as part of her grieving process, she wrote her first book, Riding the Dog, My Father’s Journey Home — a Memoir. The seeds of As We Grieve were sprouting. They had been planted years before with one of her sister’s deaths, and continued to grow each time a friend or family member died. Groft began to think about the moments of grace she had experienced with the death of two of her sisters, her parents, her best friend. The bones of the book took shape. So Groft collected stories, as all good writers do, and noticed how others’ experiences aligned with her own. She asked friends and relatives, people at her church, and anyone with an interest to share their own stories. The heart of the book began to beat and she was rewarded with grace. Groft was the farmer, planting the seed, tilling the soil, watering with great care, pruning where necessary. People intrinsically knew they could trust their most intimate stories with her, knew that she would handle them with respect. Groft took their raw, unfettered emotions, wrapped her inherent and hard-earned wisdom and compassion around them, and produced a jewel of a book. As We Grieve, reveals Groft to be part counselor, part confidant, part best friend. “I hope it feels like a companion to them, like an embrace at a time when all of us need it most.”

I cried intermittently throughout my own reading of As We Grieve, cried for each of the contributors and what their pain reflected back to me of my own heart. Some I knew personally, most not, yet all of their stories resonated with a poignancy, a universality that gave me a safe place from which to review my own emotions. For anyone who has lost a loved one or is currently experiencing that most profound emotion we call grief, As We Grieve will provide, if not complete relief — because only time and grace can do that — at least a bandaid with a big old squirt of the stuff that takes the sting away.

p.j.lazos 10.18.15

 

“Change was the uninvited dinner guest at a swanky restaurant who drank and talked excessively and then bailed on the check, a nefarious six-letter word that entered like a hurricane scattering roof and dreams, downing all electrical connections, and leaving ruin in its wake. She waited for Change now, hoping for a good one, dreading a drastic one, praying for a just one, knowing that she’d be forced to surrender to whatever came because in the end, that’s all anyone can do.”

from A Gathering of One, by P.J. Lazos, available as a download on Kindle at amazon.com.

p.j.lazos 9.7.15

 

 

The Mennonite in the Little Black Dress

Robert Frost famously said that “home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” Rhoda Janzen’s, The Mennonite in the Little Black Dress proves Frost’s wisdom not only to be true, but in this case at least, beneficially healing. My friend recommended The Mennonite in the Little Black Dress and I ran and bought it right away because: 1) I love the kind of book that, at its core, dishes about a particular religion — kind of feels like insider trading to me; and 2) I’m married to a Mennonite. He’s non-practicing, okay, let’s call him lapsed, but like the Catholics (me), you can run, but the tribe is never far behind as Janzen points out so hysterically in The Mennonite in the Little Black Dress.

At the start of the book, Janzen, a 40-ish academic with no kids, but a husband whose bipolar nature may at times make her feel as though she has them, manifests a dis-ease necessitating surgery. Afterwards, her husband oh so lovingly nurses her back to health, but before the bedpans are even dry, he announces that he’s leaving her for Bob on Gay.com. Soon after, she gets crushed, literally, in an accident, hit hard and head on by a teenage driver. Not her fault, but there are those who say emotions are like magnets, drawing similar stuff to you, so if you’re feeling downtrodden, chances are the universe will hammer that point home again and again in the nicest of ways. But I digress.

When Janzen realizes that she’s teetering on the brink of financial ruin and simultaneously barely able to make the length of the living room without scooting across on her butt, she does what most people whose lives have been upended by fate and circumstance do when those lives seem impossible to piece back together. She goes home. To her parents house, the house of her childhood. Here’s the hilarious part: she writes about the whole sloppy mess in The Mennonite in the Little Black Dress, weaving in some homegrown mother wisdom and a few family recipes. Borscht, anyone? How about Warmer Kartoffelsalat? Janzen’s breezy style and never-ending ability to laugh at herself and her roots made me laugh out loud more than a few times (which is somewhat embarrassing if you read, as I do, on the elliptical machine at the gym). No matter where you read, pick up a copy of The Mennonite in the Little Black Dress, a brilliant, satirical, sometimes whimsical book, hilarious proof that there’s no place like home.

p.j.lazos 7.21.15

 

 

 

 

[Photo of Duncan Alderson at the launch party for Magnolia City.]

Magnolia City
An Interview with Duncan Alderson

I first met Duncan Alderson when I signed up for a fiction writing course at the Rabbit Hill Writer’s Studio. Duncan started my writing career by giving me a place to learn the art, and explore the craft. He also jump-started my social life as a newly-minted Lancastrian where I attended parties at the house Duncan shared with his wife, Isabelle, mixing it up with other writers, and their eclectic friends, and drinking Isabelle’s famous Sangria (hands down best ever!). We’d sit under the trees on the patio adjacent to a pasture where sheep grazed on the Amish farm next to their house, a little slice of paradise right there in Central Pennsylvania, talking about writing and life. Duncan sometimes brought in outside writers to teach at the studio and I learned the art of screenwriting at Rabbit Hill. Over the years, he influenced an entire group of writers, me among them, giving us a “safe house” and I know I am not the only writer to be grateful for his stewardship and tutelage. A former Waldorf school teacher, Duncan cannot resist the pull of teaching, and many of us write today because of Duncan’s wisdom and generosity of spirit. So it’s exceptionally gratifying that he’s finally given himself permission to set his teaching persona aside and pursue his own writing interests. Alderson realized one of his life-long dreams with the publication of Magnolia City, and as a former student, I am ecstatic for him. Please enjoy this interview with my friend and mentor, Duncan Alderson.

I know the original draft of Magnolia City went through several iterations and even had a different name.  How long did it take you to write MC?  What happened from the time you finished the first draft until it went to print?

I spent ten years researching and writing Magnolia City. This historical novel has quite a history of its own! It started as a flashback in another novel way back in the 1970s, where the mother of the protagonist was remembering her youth in the 1920s. One of my writing coaches in the 1990s really liked the voice of the mother and said, “Why don’t you let her tell her story.” I decided to follow that advice and Bam! I discovered that I had this female voice inside of me that wanted to express itself. That one flashback exploded into a whole novel set in 1920s Houston. The working title was The First Word Spoken from the Moon (another description of Houston) which I developed in the workshops at Rabbit Hill Writers’ Studio. My editor thought that was too long and wanted to call the book Houston, the Novel. I suggested another title which I had discovered in my research: Houston was historically called The Magnolia City because of Magnolia Park, a legendary but lost paradise planted with 3750 Southern Magnolia trees.

I finished the final draft in 2005 and sent out lots of snail mail queries but failed to find an agent or publisher. The manuscript languished on my bookshelf for years until I found an ad for a “sensitive editor” in the classifieds of the The New York Times Book Review. She helped me take it to the next level. This time I sent out email queries using the automated power of a new website called Bookblaster and within months had found my agent. As the local paper described it in a headline, “Persistence leads to publication.” Amen.

        You’ve said that the original idea for the novel came from a photo of your mother in a flapper dress.  From there you created a story around that photo.  Tell me about that process. 

I grew up seeing photographs of my mother, Dottie May, as a flapper from a remote, more romantic time in Texas history. The exotic woman in the pictures wore furs and long strands of pearls, staring into the camera with a kind of flaming defiance missing in the practical housewife who was raising me. I had to write a book to explain who that other woman was. She sparked my imagination in so many ways as I tried to picture her on a honeymoon in Galveston, sneaking into the Balinese Room for one of the fashionable new bootleg cocktails. “Dottie” shape-shifted into “Hetty” and sprang to vivid life in my mind.  Henry James said that every writer must find his donnée (what’s given to him by life). I found the thread of my donnée in those old faded photographs of my mother. When I yanked on it, a whole book unspooled.

        I had the privileged of reading an earlier version of Magnolia City and it was a much longer novel.  As someone who devours historical fiction and isn’t afraid to read a thousand-page novel, I loved the original length of the book and all the rich, descriptive illustrative history of the city and the characters. Why did you pare it down and do you feel it made the story better or would you have rather kept the original length?

I originally envisioned Magnolia City as an epic historical novel and fleshed it out to a whopping 700 pages. It felt like it needed to be as vast and varied as the state of Texas itself. I like novels that bring a place to life, so I tried doing that with Houston, Texas — all the sights, sounds and smells of the semi-tropical Gulf prairies. But when I finally found an agent, she complained that she couldn’t get editors to read 700 pages. She said I had to pare it down to 500 — 200 whole pages! I had one summer to do so before the fall selling season. I had no idea how I was going to accomplish this daunting task. It’s very hard for a writer to cut his own work. She suggested I begin by cutting 2 lines per page. I started that way and soon learned that I could compress the valleys between the peaks of the plot. I tend to try and dramatize everything, but some material just needs to be summarized. The cuts tightened the book up, but I’m still attached to the original version. The funny thing is that after we found an editor, he wanted me to fill in some of the back story. “Expand all you want,” he said. I added back in some of the scenes I’d cut, haha!
       Before you published Magnolia City, you ran a successful writing studio, Rabbit Hill.  Was it hard to walk away from that after shepherding so many writers over the years?  Will you ever open another writing studio?

I ran the Rabbit Hill Writers’ Studio for 10 years. My students helped me develop Magnolia City by giving me feedback in critique sessions. Some of the more astute readers had a large influence on the shape of the story. It was the perfect gig for a writer like me. I had the days free to work on my novel, and taught workshops at night. We had lots of fun. Several of the Rabbit Hill writers have gone on to become published authors, one of them a New York Times bestseller. After ten years, I felt a little burned out and decided to close the doors of the studio. I had mixed feelings about walking away from it, and still miss the stimulation of being around other writers, but wanted to focus on getting my novel published. Now that the Rabbit and the Dragonfly Book Shop has opened in downtown Lancaster next door to my new condo, I am tempted to open another branch of Rabbit Hill! Who knows . . . ?

What’s the most interesting thing that’s happened to you as a result of publishing Magnolia City?

The most interesting thing that happened to me after publishing Magnolia City was being chosen as a Must-Read by Harper’s Bazaar. I used to leaf through both Vogue and Harper’s back in my twenties when I dreamed of becoming a published novelist, and now to think that I have a novel spotlighted in the magazine is a mind-blowing experience. It makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something by all my hard work.

        How’s work going on the sequel to Magnolia City?  Can we expect it soon?

I am working on the sequel to Magnolia City now. The working title is The Tibetan Magic Show and the novel follows the adventures of Hetty’s children in the 1960s. It’s hard to find a fresh way to write about the ‘60s, so that’s my challenge. I have no idea when it will be finished, but I’m hoping it won’t take ten years this time.

[Magnolia City is available on Amazon and wherever awesome books are sold!]

p.j.lazos 6.14.15

***

 

Please enjoy this excerpt from Book 3, “The Quality of Light,” from the “Six Sisters” collection of novellas.

Doc rose from his bed where he’d spent the last few hours. Ready or not, he had to speak with her. Celia lived only a mile away. Harley could stay with her, go to the same school, keep the same friends, live the same life. Plus there was the added benefit of Celia being Ellie’s twin. Harley might find herself in a parallel universe of sorts, Ellie gone, but not really. Meanwhile, he could get his strength back, plot next steps. With his wife gone, he may not even stay in Central Pennsylvania. California might be nice, but he couldn’t take Harley. It would be too disruptive for her and Celia. What rights did he have anyway? Non-binding, non-legal, stepfather rights. In other words, none.
He found Harley out back, talking to the stones. At least that’s what it looked like. She hunkered over a palm-sized rock extracted from its cozy spot in the flowerbed edging where it had been keeping watch, making sure the pansies and bachelor buttons didn’t escape.

Doc hobbled outside, shillelagh in hand. “Hey,” he said, peering over her shoulder and blocking her sun, a partial eclipse.

“Hey,” she said holding tight to the stone as if to conceal its secrets between her haunches.

Doc rested his weight on the shillelagh. He felt ludicrous using it, but circumstances controlled. Ellie’s great-grandfather, a bow and arrow maker in the Lakota-Sioux tradition had carved it for Ellie. The old man had long since died, yet the stick lived on. Doc and Ellie had taken it with them a few times on their hikes though mostly it stood in a corner by Ellie’s side of the bed. She put it there, “in case the bad guys got in,” but given that Doc slept closest to the door, the place his wife had assigned to him, he suspected she just wanted to be near the spirit of her grandfather. The stick had stood there until this week when Doc found he was greatly in need of its assistance.  The doctors had checked and rechecked Doc’s musculoskeletal system, alignment, ligaments, tendons, even the tiny bones in his feet and found nothing, yet his inability to move forward unassisted continued. He could move right, left, and back, no problem, but ask him to take a step into the future and his feet put on the brakes. It was not until he started using that stick – his third leg, or more appropriately, the probe, sent out like a scout to test the terrain – that the forward motion had begun. At least he didn’t end up in a heap on the floor.

“Give it some time. You’ll heal and move on,” Celia had said.  A quaint concept, but how does one move on? He was right smack in the center of middle age, holding fast to a dead wife and hiding from a thirteen-year old kid who expected answers from a man who couldn’t get out of bed in the morning without the help of a piece of oak, cut, sanded and polished by a thirty-year-dead Lakota-Sioux.

“I just thought of how moths can die.”

Unlike most 13-year olds, Harley hadn’t lost the quirky inquisitiveness of childhood. Doc bumped his chin up a notch, the universal symbol for “go on.”

“You know how they have to get to the light? Well, maybe they fly too close and burn up.”

“Maybe,” Doc said. “It’s a theory.”

“You can see the planets in the daytime, right?”

“No.”

“If you took a spaceship, you could?”

“Yea, the planets are always visible. Just depends on where you are, I guess.”

“I’d like to see aliens, but I think I’d have to leave the atmosphere to do it and I don’t want to burn up, you know, because I got too close to the sun or something.”  Doc nodded as if he were listening, but processed nothing.

“Do you think it might be the same for Mom? Like if we just took a spaceship maybe we could see her somewhere?”

A small pool formed in the corner of Doc’s eye while he studied his fingernails.

“Hmph,” Harley, “Mr. Pathetic,” Harley mumbled.

“What did you say?”

“I said . . . ” Harley’s voice reached Doc from far away, swimming, as it were, in oceans of grief. . . “I lost somebody more important than anybody” Harley continued. “I won’t see her again. Ever. And all you can do is feel sorry for yourself. So I said — Mr. Pathetic.”

Had Harley chosen this moment to beat on Doc’s chest, he would have stood there like a giant stuffed bear and accepted her gift. Instead, Harley rubbed her chin with her shoulder while Doc tried to compose his heart.

“I’m sorry, Lee, I really . . . I packed you a little bag.”

“Don’t you be leaving your sorry’s all over the place. I’m not picking them up. Aunt Celia said you’re always leaving parts of yourself behind. Like your energy. Little bits of your light scattered everywhere. Now you’re leaving me. Just one more piece of something left behind.”

“I don’t . . . Lee . . . It’s only for a few months.” Harley blinked, turned away.  “Once I get my act together, maybe lose this ridiculous stick, then you can come back. Meanwhile, Aunt Celia will take you to school. Pack your lunch and stuff.” He knew she knew. He could tell by the way she hunched her shoulders and held her breath, poised to run. He waited for the levy to break, but Harley held her ground. When she did give, it was with a long hissing sound. Doc doubted the strength of her poison, but wished she would strike and assuage his guilt. She grazed him with a look, turned back to her stones.

“Aunt Celia said the stones told the first stories.”

“Oh, yeah, I can see that,” Doc replied with more sarcasm than he’d intended.
Harley rocked on her haunches. “I thought if I hung out long enough, they’d tell me a story about mom. Why she went away.”

“Lee, you gotta stop listening to your aunt. Her view of things is a bit skewed, don’t you think? A little too alternative, maybe?” Harley flinched as if struck.

“You’re never going to lose that crutch. You’re going to hang on to it for the rest of your life.”

“What?” Doc said.

“Nothing.” She started to hum, but it wasn’t joyful, more of a dirge.

“Who taught you that song?”

“Aunt Celia.”

“It’s sad . . . kind of pretty.”

Harley moved a few rocks, strategically laid them down. “Mom’s here.”

“No, Lee, she’s dead.”

“She’s here — in the rocks and stones and trees. She’s not at Aunt Celia’s. I want to stay here, with Mommy.” She turned to look at him, her head bent unnaturally from her crouched position. Her welling eyes threatened to unravel him, to burn a hole in his resolve like acid. Had Harley kept her eyes trained on him he would have cracked; instead she turned back to her stones, and severed the connection.

“We gotta go,” Doc said. He leaned over for a glimpse of what was so fascinating.

“Okay,” Harley said, hunkered down further.

“Harley, honey, the rocks aren’t going to talk to you.”

“I know.”

“Well, what are you doing?”

She raised her palm without turning back to look. Doc’s visual inspection revealed a tiny orange and brown salamander, resting on the rock. He placed the stone on his palm and watched it a bit before growing impatient. Harley stared at the space where a sliver of sunlight held its ground next to Doc’s enormous shadow.

“Why isn’t it moving?” Doc asked.

“Because it’s dead. I’m just keeping it company.”

“Well . . .” he said, trailing off, but Harley’s words had sucker punched him, stealing the breath he’d intended to use to finish his sentence. She held out her hand and he placed the rock on her palm. She squeezed her delicate fingers around it, laid it back on the earth.

“I’ll be inside when you’re ready,” he said, and limped toward the backdoor.  Doc turned to look just before going inside. He knew it was the time of the ending for them, but as he watched Harley crouched over her dead salamander and her living rocks, watched the space, the very air around her dancing and swirling, shining as if charged with the light of creation itself, he knew that for her – without him – it would be the time of the beginning.

“Six Sisters” is available in print on Amazon.  “The Quality of Light“, Book 3 of the “Six Sisters” series and where this excerpt is drawn from is also available on Kindle.

p.j.lazos 6.7.15

 

 

 

Interview with Rosina Rucci, author or 6000 Days of Us

To see my totally biased, deeply personal review of a totally biased, deeply personal book, go here.

Or stay here and read this really cool interview with Rosina Rucci:

You say in the forward that your son inspired you to write this book, that you wanted him to know your history. Has he read it and if so, what did he say about it?

He has not yet read it and tells me that it make take him a long time to be ready to do so. That’s fine. My need was to reveal my inner-most thoughts, loves and feelings to my one child with whom I share a deep and visceral bond and constant, open communication.

How did you manage to get through the writing process? Were your emotions as raw as they come across in the book, and now that it’s done, are you relieved?

Writing 6000 Days was madly gut-wrenching but the more I wrote, the more I realized I had to write and, many times I felt as though [Salvie] were sitting right there with me, reminding me of events, stories and conversations. It was an effort undertaken by both of us, of that I am sure. Relieved? Highly, yes. I never intended it to be a book. Writing it all down, allowing myself to finally see fully the very big picture of my life’s most important story and what we lived as kids made me realize something I never had before – that it is incredibly and breathtakingly beautiful and that despite all the heartache, trauma and horrors, it is a very unique and special love story that will always remain timeless.

You walk through the sometimes light, sometimes terrifying moments of your relationship with honesty and you make it a point to say you are no longer afraid of anything. Is that true? Are you really not afraid that someone from this distant past might take issue with this book?

I cannot legislate others’ views — I’ve no control over how others will choose to analyze and form opinions about my story. All I can say is that releasing these writings as a book, I knew I’d be subjecting myself to all sorts of reactions both positive and otherwise and even accusations that what I wrote wasn’t true. But the truth is the truth no matter what anyone wishes to call it and I feel deeply sorry for any person who could read my book and not see, not feel, the love embedded into each and every word. It is a love story – how anyone could take issue with that is beyond me. As for feeling fear, what I mean is that since suffering the loss of Salvatore, my life’s truly greatest loss, and experiencing the constancy of his presence all of these long 30 plus years, I know how protected I am; I know how accompanied I am through my life; and, I know the power of my Angel. This knowledge totally vanquishes any fears I may have heretofore housed in my heart and soul. This experience has taught me that not only do I, but all of us, actually, have nothing to fear ever.

You said that on the night of the bombing, your mother had a heart attack. How did your parents get through that awful time? Was it a process you were involved in together or did you deal with it singularly?

Together, yes. We were all grieving deeply. When Sal’s Dad died, we were all still in mourning for the loss of his Mom. My family and his were very intertwined – our mothers were very close, best friends; my brother and Sal’s sister were best friends – so there were no boundaries in the grief we shared. I think one important thing to know about grief is that when it can be shared fully, it should be; but, if it cannot be shared with others who are able to offer their full understanding and empathy, it is better to keep it to ourselves. I shared my grief after his Dad’s passing – naturally, with him but also with everyone in my own family — but kept it all so very much to myself after he died because the magnitude of my sorrow and sadness and pain were things I simply was not able to share with anyone.

What did your parents think of your relationship with Salvatore and of the Testa family in general?

I believe my parents were very frightened for me considering the depth of my love for Salvatore and the fears they had for the life he would probably choose to live. I know, as I knew then, that that life was not ever something they’d want for me. Every member of my immediate and even extended family loved every member of Sal’s immediate and extended family. My parents loved him very deeply as well as his parents and his sister and all of the other family members they knew well on both sides. There was nothing but a deep love and respect between our two families. Absolutely nothing else ever.

Do you remain in contact with Salvatore’s sister? Do you ever see anyone from that time period and if you did, would you cross the street or stop to talk?

I am no longer in contact with Salvatore’s sister. There are very few people whom I knew from ‘that time’ who I would actively avoid if seen anywhere, at any time. I actually have sought out encounters with several people from that time so as to purposely have a conversation and the chance to tie-up a loose end.

You went from South Philadelphia, to Rome, the city you adore, to New York City to work with your brother, Ralph Rucci who is an internationally accomplished fashion designer, and then back to South Philadelphia, to the very place it all happened, living what many would call a very full life in the process. Is there closure now? Can you get on with your life and if the answer is yes, what does closure even look like?

There has never been, is not now, and will never be “closure”. I lost my life’s greatest love at 28 years old and now, at 59, I look at these long years and see that he has never been and can never be replaced. What we had was unique for people that young, what we had was a depth of love that spans many lifetimes and thousands of experiences. After years spent in a mourning so profound I thought I’d die, I slowly began to feel the desire to live again, and asked him to remain with me while I pushed myself forward. He has and I have. With all the force I could muster inside me, I chose to live again and I chose to live BIG, as he did, and as I knew he would wish for me to. So, I guess in answer to your question, the great dichotomy of ‘living big’ and ‘living again’ is that I did it without ever having had closure of any kind. As for what ‘closure’ looks like, all I can say is that I have no idea because I will need his presence, and miss and love him until the day I die.

What about the future? I won’t ask if you think you’ll ever have such an intense relationship again, but what about a relationship that makes you happy?

My future is rich and beautiful and joyful and full of love, and going home to Italy. This is how I choose to live and experience my time with the people I love the most. As for a great romantic love, I’d like to think that the Universe will send me something wonderfully beautiful, sexy and passionate, a gorgeous, honest and brave man who is not intimidated by where I’ve been, but who knows? I love constantly and deeply, in most every moment of my life, and that, to me, is what counts.

That is what counts, and I hope the universe honors your request. Finally, what is it with the double-parking thing in South Philadelphia anyway?

It’s an Italian-American genetic illness.

p.j.lazos 6.4.15

 

 

 

Orphan Train

“[T]he people who matter in our lives stay with us, haunting our most  ordinary moments. They’re with us in the grocery store, as we turn a corner, chat with a friend. They rise up through the pavement; we absorb them through our soles.” Christina Baker Kline, Orphan Train

Some books speak to your love of history. Some books’ characters float up and off the page. Some books give you justice or take it, while others embrace your imagination and do a little dance with it. Christina Baker Kline’s, Orphan Train manages to do all of these at once, alternating effortlessly between present day in Spruce Harbor, Maine, where protagonists, Vivian and Molly now live, and New York City to Minnesota, circa 1929 – 1939, where a very young Vivian traveled by rail across the country to meet her destiny. While I wanted the story to continue, as I always do when I fall in love with characters this rich, I got everything I needed from Kline’s subtle, heartfelt prose which left me feeling sated, like sipping port after a fine meal.

Vivian’s parents came to America as all immigrants do, to find work and a better life. Instead they found crushing poverty, discrimination and isolation. The problems they had in Ireland — Vivian’s father drank and her mom didn’t have the strength of character needed to counteract that behavior — accompanied the family to NYC. After a fire in their tenement apartment killed most of Vivian’s family, the authorities shipped Vivian out west on an orphan train with dozens of other children. The idea was to find suitable, God-fearing homes to raise these unfortunate children, some of them homeless, all without a responsible adult to care for them. The exercise was one of NYC’s first tries at a foster care service. Ostensibly an act of charity, practically, it was a way to get kids off the streets and out of New York. Yet, suitable did not characterize many of the homes where the children ended up, sometimes living lives a few degrees shy of slave labor. Vivian sewed for hours, some did back-breaking farm work, others child-rearing, whatever the host family demanded. Much like today’s foster care system, there was no guarantee the host family would keep you. Vivian herself lived several places before finding her ultimate adoptive home.

Molly, a goth-dressing, present-day foster kid with a knack for getting kicked out of her many foster homes has created a tough guy persona to both hide and shield herself from the world. She loved books, but had no money to buy her own, and got herself into trouble when she stole her favorite one from the library. As a result, Molly had to choose between 50 hours of community service or juvenile detention. Through a brilliant stroke of luck that looks a lot like divine intervention, Molly ended up at Vivian’s, helping the now old woman go through her attic of memories which included boxes and boxes of Vivian’s past. Vivian couldn’t seem to let go of anything with the exception of the stories behind these things and soon Molly was immersed in Vivian’s colorful, and at times, gut-wrenching past. These women had more in common than anyone might have ever guessed.

Orphan Train will change you on the inside and make you ask the harder questions about those less fortunate children who have no one walking them through this world, at least not with any consistency. If you want sappy and sentimental, you won’t find it here. If you want clear and concise prose accompanying a deliberate, well-timed, bittersweet tale of a piece of American history that we’d do well not to forget, then Orphan Train is your ride.

p. j. lazos – 5.3.15

Christina Baker Kline will be appearing at the Jr. League of Lancaster’s Author’s Luncheon on December 4, 2015 at the Lancaster Marriott at Penn Square.  For more information go to http://www.jllancaster.org

 

 

The Fun Foodie Friends Interviews!

I don’t know what’s more exciting.  Putting your own creative works out into the universe, or promoting another’s work because you love it and you can. The promotion part is at the heart of every grass roots movement. “I just read this great book and I’m excited to share it,” takes on more meaning when a friend recommends it rather than an advertisement.  The concept of, “and they tell two friends, and they tell two friends,” is exactly how movements grow and also how the world changes.

I previously reviewed Fun Foodie Friends, and now I’d like to introduce you to the women who created it.  While I’ve known Elaine for over 30 years, we’d lost touch and only recently rekindled our friendship. Coincidentally, we were both publishing books at the time and were able to help each other along on our new and exciting journeys.  Who says the universe doesn’t always know exactly what it’s doing?

So without further delay — meet Elaine and Joyce, creators of Fun Foodie Friends!

[photo – Elaine Callahan, co-author of Fun Foodie Friends]

Where did you get the idea for Fun Foodie Friends and how long have you been working on the drawings for this project?

Fun Foodie Friends naturally evolved by paying attention to the nudges from the Universe. I was initially looking for a way to use my art to make a positive difference in the world. Almost 1 1/2 years before I started actually working on the cookbook, I began to paint food faces made out of food because they were fun and made me laugh. It turns out they made others laugh too, especially kids. That led us to eventually create a cookbook for Kid Chefs, with fun as the first ingredient to help encourage kids and adults to make friends with their fruits and vegetables. The cookbook took us 1 1/2 years to produce. The art plus the cookbook was a three-year journey for me.

Your illustrations are top notch. Tell us about the design strategy. Where did you get your inspiration for the characters?

The inspiration for the characters came from my quirky sense of humor and wanting to make the everyday ordinary into something fun and approachable. Once we had the recipe and character agreed upon, I would do rough sketches to figure out how to incorporate most, if not all, of the fruit or vegetable ingredients into the art. Then I would take a visit to the farmers market to get the produce and come home and play with the food until I got it just right. I took photos to use as reference, often having pieces of food all over my art table while I was painting the food friends. There was creative license in creating them as well. My intention was to have the art simple enough that anyone could create their own version if they wanted to. What was amazing to me was that each food friend has their own unique personality that just came alive as I painted them. It was a fascinating experience for me.

The term, “playing with your food” just took on a whole new meaning for me.  I know you worked with Joyce, who is a chef, in creating this book.  Did you participate in the creation any of the recipes or did you stick to writing and graphic design?

When we first started the cookbook, we were both creating the recipes. I was also doing the design, creating the art and co-writing the cookbook. It was too much for me. Joyce graciously took over the recipes and became the Chief Food Officer. Since I was creating the art and design I became the Chief Fun Officer, which is much more fun to say than illustrator, designer and coauthor.

Tell me about your experience with self-publishing. How did you go about choosing a publisher? Were you satisfied with the experience? Would you do it again? Most important, was it fun?

Self-publishing is an ongoing learning experience. With the way publishing is changing, there are more opportunities than there used to be to get your work out in the world. You can research all you want, but like anything, until you actually do it you have nothing to base your experience on. We interviewed other authors who had used the same publisher before going with them and liked that they were local. There were definitely moments when it was more frustrating than fun because we were in the midst of all the nitty-gritty details of editing the cookbook. Overall, creating the cookbook was a labor of love and when things got really tough, we would remind each other that fun was the first ingredient.

Will there be a Fun Foodie Friends II?

Currently we are working on a product line beginning with aprons and pot holders to make the whole cooking experience fun. I think it would be terrific to have a Fun Foodie Friends II.

If you could be one of the characters in Fun Foodie Friends, which one would it be and why?

I’ve always naturally gravitated towards butterflies and have many photos of butterflies in my office from a trip to Argentina and Brazil, so I would be Wonderful Wendy the butterfly.

[photo – Joyce Kesler, co-author of Fun Foodie Friends]

What was the inspiration for the recipes in Fun Foodie Friends?

The initial inspiration was Elaine’s art, particularly Senor Gauc and Sammy Salsa. From there we discussed family recipe favorites, and what childhood recipes we enjoyed creating. A few of those actually made it into the book, Leo the Lion Celery Sliders, and the Berry Blue Blueberry Pie. In addition we tested an initial concept of the book with a few key advisors, and asked those with kids to try out the recipes. What amazed us was not only the positive reactions, but the images of kids making the recipes, and their expressions of pure joy. One mother even commented that her kids had not willingly ate that much celery before. It was reactions like that that inspired us, or really motivated us to keep going.

How long have you been a chef? Did you have much experience cooking for kids or is this a new area for you?

I have to set the record straight, first I am definitely not a chef, and I do not have any children. The entire experience is new for me, it was a challenge, but one that I have found I enjoyed. It really is true that I love food and food loves me, I guess you could say that I am passionate about food. My parents who for a time owned a fishing lodge in Northern Minnesota, were always creating lunch and dinner meals that would be crowd pleasers. I have my mother’s recipe box filled with their recipes. Taking those original recipes and creating what I call the Betty/Doug remix to create recipes that are healthier, and with more fresh ingredients has really been one of the best parts of this experience. Princess Vivien’s Very Vegetable soup is an adaptation of their fish chowder that originally was for 60 to 120 servings. Obviously it had to be cut down, and making a fish broth for the base is not something I thought kids or adults would enjoy. Plus the original recipe was with fresh caught fish right out of the lake! Most people do not have access to that kind of fresh fish from clear blue waters.

Looks like you inherited your parents ability to please a crowd! How did you choose the recipes? Overall, there’s a balance to the book, some appetizers, some side dishes, some desserts, although I note you stayed away from main courses. Was that purposeful, or are you saving something for Fun Foodie Friends II?

Once we had a couple of the recipes and the art completed, Elaine and I would discuss what’s next; to fill in the gaps we did put the recipes into categories to make sure that we had variety. Not only for taste, and type of food, but participation level; and how many Big Hands Helping were needed. We wanted to make sure that it really was a cookbook for kids to cook from, not that every recipe had to have an adult supervisor at every step. Our intention was to keep it simple, and not intense for the kids, and always remember that fun is the first ingredient.

We have tentatively discussed FFF II, but Fun Foodie Friends was just published in December of 2014, and we are still in the amazement and enjoyment phase. Before we begin on II we need to see who gravitates to Fun Foodie Friends to establish what tweaks, changes and additions need to be made, and the direction that we will go. On that I say “stayed tuned”.

What we are doing now is creating companion items; adult and kids aprons and a pot holder with a couple of our favorite Fun Foodie Friends featured. We thought this would make the book more marketable as a gift item if there were complimentary items to go with the book.

Is there a recipe that you would have really wanted to put in there if it wasn’t so hard to break down into steps?

The challenge with each recipe was to make sure that all the pieces of preparing a recipe could fit on one page. The ingredient list, the steps, the list of tools, and the Fun Food Facts with Food Head Fred, and Fruit Head Fruita. That does limit some choices for recipes, then there was the added element of making sure they were gluten free, low in sugar, and that there were substitutes available for the common allergens that might be in the recipe. It did keep me up at night a couple of times. Peary Penguin’s Pear and Cranberry Crisp was one of those. I was taking my mother’s apple crisp, and taking out a majority of the sugar, adding coconut flour, and other major changes, but the end product is really very tasty.

Did you target a specific age group with Fun Foodie Friends or is this for kids of all ages.

Our target age for Kid Chef’s is from five to eleven. But in some ways it’s ageless, because we wanted the adults to be the deciders in what was task appropriate for their Kid Chef. We have found that adults are engaged with Fun Foodie Friends as well. I have had many adults comment on the Fun Food facts; “I didn’t know that”, or “I can’t wait to try that recipe”. I have stated that I don’t have kids, but my most common response to that is that I have two, one is 6 and the other is 60, they just happen to also reside in my same body. My husband enjoys cooking as well, and one of his go-to recipes is in the book:  Splish-Splash Vegetable Stir Fry. So it’s fair to say that we wanted to keep Kid Chefs engaged, no matter what age.

If you could be one of the characters in Fun Foodie Friends, which one would it be and why?

My first pick is Hoot-Hoot because it was one of the first recipes of mine that was completed; I had in earlier years collected owls, but Peary Penguin is really my other favorite. Then I realized that both of them had tummy’s that could be rubbed like MMMM, MMM Good!

pjl. 4.11.15

 

 

Six Sisters, three stories, one theme: Know Thyself.

A Gathering of One: Twins, Patrice and Danielle began battling in the womb. When hard-headed, 3-year old Danielle drinks Drano while Patrice watches in horror, unable to stop her, the battle becomes a war. Patrice triage’s the situation, making Danielle vomit to rid herself of the poison, but the damage is done and the blame squarely laid on Patrice’s shoulders, assuring the sisters remain on a lifelong collision course. Anger, jealousy, and indignation may have sparked their dysfunction, but duty and familial obligation keeps them tethered long after the bonds of childhood have morphed into the shackles of adult responsibilities. May the best sister win.

List of 55: Following her mother’s death, Belinda manages to survive childhood despite her sister-turned-caretaker, Simone’s long list of no’s: no money, no car, no electricity, no food, and ultimately, no Simone. Belinda’s abysmal treatment at the hands of the reckless and psychologically abusive Simone left layers of scar tissue so deep she needs an excavator to remove them. Poised to make a life-altering change on her 25th birthday, Belinda accidentally runs into her future ex-husband, Ted, who, because of his own complicated past draws to her like a shyster to a Ponzi scheme. Canny judgment and diamond-like determination may have gotten Belinda to adulthood, but can she survive the onslaught of attention from Ted who is both charming and abusive in equal amounts or will she succumb to the pattern begun in childhood?

The Quality of Light: Do the dead dream? Yes. They dream of living. Ellie finds this out too late and now her husband and daughter, her two best loves, are left to fight like the bitterest enemies. From her perch in the ethers and sometimes through the actual live body of her sister, Celia, Ellie watches their lives unfold, but Doc can’t see past his rage and the cruel fate that left him with Harley who even under the best of circumstances barely tolerated him. Before Ellie’s death, husband and daughter vied for her attention, dismantling each other with verbal fisticuffs. After her death, anyone could see that Doc was going to ditch and run, leaving Harley with Celia and Doc a free man, but fate, or perhaps Ellie intervenes through Twila Fuller, rancher, political activist, and self-taught expert on all things related to hydraulic fracturing. Everything about Twila is big: her ranch, her ideas, the level of contamination in her groundwater, even the cancer in her body. As Twila’s influence draws Doc into Ellie’s former world, he must make some tough moral decisions and perhaps even finish the work Ellie started. Will Doc’s newfound passion lead him back to Harley, to Celia, or to Ellie, the dead woman he loves more than life? The answer lies somewhere in the light.

Six Sisters reverberates with healing truths, reawakening us to our resilience, our reliance on each other, and the ancient wisdom rooted within our hearts.

pjl 2.26.15

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