The Next Big Thing: Questions in Answers
Thanks to my generous and well-intentioned author/friend Kimberly Troutte I am touting my WIP (Work In Progress) in this Next Big Thing game. There are multiple benefits to taking part in the “chain game”. I will be forced to finish my book, and do it in a timely manner; I’ve been given a peek into the forthcoming works of other authors; all games are fun, right? Well, it turns out I’m gummed up on the last stage of the game, drafting five other authors to hand the ball to. I soldier on . . .

See friend Kimberley's WIP info at: http://kimberleytroutte.blogspot.com/

A. The working title of my book is Dear Departed Family Reunion.
B. This book is a sequel to my first book, Dear Departed.
C. The genre of this book is paranormal-cozy-mystery.
D. If I was allowed to cast the movie made from this book the lead male actor would be Tom Selleck. I mean after all, who could look any more like him than the man himself. For Caroline, Diane Lane when alive and older just because I think she’s beautiful. Julia Stiles, when dead and younger because she looks like a younger Diane Lane to me.
E. A detective and his ghost/lover return to his childhood home to solve the 38 year old cold case mystery of his parents’ massacre.
F. I will self-publish this book on Amazon Kindle books first.
G. The first draft of this book will be out after 1 years work.
H. The tone of my mysteries is close to those of Sue Grafton, or Janet Evanovich with a strong, off-beat female protagonist. The difference that makes mine unique is my protagonist is dead.
I. The inspiration for me to write this book came from my metaphysical upbringing and wanting to share a lighter view of death and the hereafter.
J. My characters learn that love can overcome all obstacles in life when coupled with belief. We are not bodies that have spiritual experiences; we are spirits having physical experiences.


Message for the tagged authors and interested others:
Rules of the Next Big Thing
***Use this format for your post
***Answer the ten questions about your current WIP (work in progress)
***Tag five other writers/bloggers and add their links so we can hop over and meet them.
Ten Interview Questions for the Next Big Thing:
What is your working title of your book?
Where did the idea come from for the book?
What genre does your book fall under?
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Include the link of who tagged you and this explanation for the people you have tagged.

Printer Hell

I don’t know exactly where Printer Hell would be located in Dante’s Inferno, but I imagine it’s in a little side room off of Computer Hell, which is located in a cubicle in Office Machine Hell, a large department in the level of Business Hell, a corporate entity inside of Work Hell. Work Hell has to belong in the Fourth Circle with greed, or as it’s known in the classics—Avarice. That is, of course, if logic holds up in Hell.

Even though I’m not sure exactly how I got here, I am currently residing in Printer Hell. Printers have much more power than we give them credit for. A printer on the fritz can radically upset a person’s life. My printer has had me on the floor, my arms outstretched to the current bane of my existence, doing my impression of Nancy Kerrigan. “Why...Why...,” I wail, knowing all the while this hunk of technology is not moved at all by my obvious distress. You’d think they could sprinkle in a little Artificial Compassion to go with the Artificial Intelligence. Would a little “I’m sorry,” sound effect when the error light goes on be too much to ask for?

I find it interesting how the non-operation of a mechanical device I never even imagined owning in my youth could so completely bring my life to a standstill now. I come from the age of the mimeograph machine in grammar school. I used to love the smell of a freshly mimeographed handout, and wondered why they always felt cold for no apparent reason. Kids nowadays don’t even know the wonderful sense memories associated with printing and copying they are missing out on. High school had the gunshot report of the Selectric Typewriter and if you needed a copy, the slick feel of the carbon paper and the purple smudges it left on your fingers. Ah, memories.
My printer now fulfills my print and copy needs, plus more, quietly and odorlessly. I’ve using an HP three-in-one that also acts as a Fax machine. So far I’m thinking the more conveniences they can build into one machine, the further it leaves you up $%#& Creek when it malfunctions. I have tried all the simple fixes recommended by my computer guy. I’ve unplugged the USB cable and left it for between 2 minutes and overnight before re-plugging. No joy. I disconnected the power cord for like intervals and the printer ignored it. I’ve even tried holding a screw driver in full view and making threatening statements: I’m going to wrinkle every sheet of paper you ever see again, you’ll never get a new, full ink cartridge when you ask for it, and printers have been gutted for less. Not even a bead of sweat.

I tried bribing my computer guy to come deal with the demon component. He flatly refused. I tried every fix I found on the HP website and elsewhere on the Internet. The only development was an intermittent freezing of the fix-it programs I downloaded. Insult on top of the injury technology had already dealt me.

I have never been anything, but kindness itself to that dratted machine. I feed it a diet of uninterrupted electricity. I give it only brand-name professionally-loaded ink cartridges to use in its work. I unplug it on days when weather threatens its health with lightening strikes, blackouts and the like. It is as spoiled and pampered as an inanimate object can be. Does it make sense that it wants to hurt me?

You know, the weather conditions in Hell aren’t ideal: there’s the heat, the humidity from the boiling water and oil, the dust kicked up by the various dirt tortures, etc., etc.—not at all conducive to the operation of delicate, mechanical devices. The paperwork has to be overwhelming, making sure all those sinners are getting their just desserts. They can’t afford breakdowns. I doubt the devil suffers excuses.

I wonder how I can find out what kind of printer Beelzebub is using.

Gay Marriage

When I first heard there was a big uproar about “Gay Marriages” I asked myself “Why”? In such an idyllic setting as this valley we should have a plethora of gay marriages. Doesn’t it just create the picture in your mind of a happy couple romping through meadows of daisies and mustard with butterflies flitting about their heads and chirping bluebirds seated on their shoulders. A cross word never issues from their lips because you could never be cross with perfection. They are absolutely giddy with love for each other as they exchange moony looks (emphasis on the moo).

Think of the married people you know. Could the phrase “gay marriage” describe the joining of any of them? This stage usually lasts for the first three weeks of a relationship, unless we are dealing with saints, people with impaired judgment systems, or individuals that are just plain slow. I mean anyone who has ever been married can see this is an oxymoron when we talk about marriages these days. I’ve heard there is a failure rate of 63% for first time marriages today, and the failure rate is even higher if it is the second time around.

The word “gay” is so 1890’s as an adjective anyway. Wouldn’t it be more current to call them “happy marriages”, or “successful marriages of light temperament”? There are so many serious issues to get excited about now-a-days, why get bothered about such trivialities? We should be pleased to see couples coexisting in wedded bliss. Why would anyone be foolish enough to want to prevent such unions……

What? What are you saying? Use the modern, revamped definition? Oops—well, that is different. Let me readjust here. It does bring a different picture to mind, but I must admit—I still don’t get it. I mean-spare the law, and spoil the gay person, People! Why should there be a whole segment of the population that is denied a painful societal rite of passage that seems to naturally follow marriage—the divorce?

It gives life a sense of stability to have your relationships sanctified by a ceremony endorsed by the religion of your choice. Just as a real sense of closure is provided to have that same union dissolved (read trashed) by the popularly elected government. Thus the separation of Church and State, one gets you hitched-one gets you split.

Think about it-do you want them to miss the traditional ‘dividing of the assets’? “It was an engagement ring, not a retirement investment, Dog-breath.” “What are you going to do with extra-long golf clubs? Wear heels?” Ah, that’s an experience we all deserve, I’m sure.

If you would forbid gay persons that encounter, how about the ritual ‘splitting of debts held in common’? Imagine the thrill of reliving your married life one charge card debit at a time. Those are good times, friend. No increase of enmity there. What special dispensation was given to any segment of society that they should forego the dubious privileges of alimony wrangling, extravagant lawyer fees, prejudiced judges, and learning the ins and outs of an overburdened legal system?

Divorce is when you learn the true mettle of the person to whom you were married. Any delusions you may still be holding of benevolent traits that your ex-spouse possessed are ruthlessly ripped away like removing the wrapper from a chocolate bar at the end of a bad day (the faster-the better). She drops that extra twenty pounds she’d put on since the wedding miraculously fast. He starts the proceedings to get the alimony cut off before the ink is dry on the divorce papers. It is a good and healthy thing to have full clarity restored to your life. It can keep you from making stupid, life-altering mistakes in the future.

Perhaps to restore marriage to the hallowed place it once occupied in America we should follow the example set for us by some leading citizens-- like politicians. Lets see, Rudy Guliani-no, Newt Gingrich-no, Bill Clinton-no. Okay, how about religious leaders, Jim Baker-no, Jimmy Swaggert-no, the Pope-lack of experience. We won’t even waste our time to go entertainment icons. The success stories are to few and far between.

I guess until marriage is once again treated like a big-deal, important, binding ceremony in our society it shouldn’t be such a worrisome thing who does it. I say good luck to you who want to try it. You’ll need it.

Eating Crow

I sit here, a large letter “L” emblazoned on my forehead, fork in one hand, knife in the other, eagerly awaiting a certain meal. My choice of cuisine may not be considered delectable by many, but it will be a feast to celebrate to me. It is the meal I wish for with all my heart after the 2008 Presidential Election—a steaming, heaping plate of crow.

All of my friends know my political leanings; I am a hard core, diehard, unrepentant, middle-of-the-road Conservative. I espouse the tenets of common sense, compromise, and affiliation with the person, not the party. I have tried to remain open-minded and reasonable my whole voting life. I never have quite been able to fathom why I have ended up carrying this “L” after every election, but I have come to realize it’s not all bad.

I know the “L” shows up because very few of the people I voted for won, or proposition’s outcomes turned out the way I wanted them to. My confusion results because I can’t see how so many so-called rational adults can disagree with me.

Yes, I’m disappointed listening to the elections results, but in the long run I’ve always had the last laugh. It’s not my candidate facing indictment. My choice never got caught receiving too much in gifts or kickbacks from lobbyists, breaking laws faster than he could enact them, trying to squeeze excessive pork from the barrel. This is not to say he wouldn’t be as crooked as the next politician if he’d won, but since I’ve been on the losing side seven times out of ten, we’ll never know for sure, so I can bask in the illusion of the unknowable, and hope and pretend my choices were the most rare characters of the type—the honest politician.

Even after all the practice I’ve had, I can’t say I’m a particularly good loser, but I’m trying extra hard this time. The reason I’m cutting our new President more slack than usual is I think at this juncture he has been elected to the worst job in the country. The economic situation currently sucks big time, and as the United States goes, so goes the world. Just a few of the related problems: unemployment is skyrocketing, crime is on the increase, the quality of public education is plummeting, you name it and the situation looks bleak. Does anybody think our Mr. President is going to look especially used and abused in four years?

I must admit I’m not yet impressed by his first few days in office. I am more than a little disturbed by his choices of people to surround himself with, but I knew that before he took the oath. Didn’t anybody else recognize more than a few of those faces from CNN and 60 Minutes as persons being given credit for engineering our current economic woes? Sometimes I think most Americans are afflicted by a couple of syndromes I like to call MA & PA.

MA stands for Monetary Alzheimer’s and PA is the acronym for Political Alzheimer’s. Everybody knows those two are often in bed together, so I guess the public’s convenient memories shouldn’t surprise me.

I didn’t expect his first policy announcement to be one that I think makes the U.S. more vulnerable to terrorist attack, the closing of Guantanamo Bay Prison, but that’s just supposition on my part at this point. I’m not going to set my opinion in mental cement for the first year, or the first big event, be it pro or con.

So, until that point I’ll just make this plea. Please, President Obama, do great things for this country that will force me to admit I’ve judged you incorrectly. I know the Dove is the bird usually associated with an olive branch, but in this case I think I’ll use the olive branch as garnish on my dish of Crow. I’ll season it with my spicy anti-you words, and cover with a conciliatory sauce of apologetic rhetoric.

I hope crow tastes like chicken. I wonder if I’ll find out in the next, say, 4 to 8 years.

The Telltale Signs of Christmas

Everybody knows the unambiguous signs of Christmas; the stores decked out in full tinsel-type decorations, carols piped over the sound system to get buyers in the mood, and the recipe pages in women’s magazines loaded with festive, calorie-laden dishes meant to impress. There are the even less subtle (if possible) advertisements on television of the dreamy-eyed, incredibly beautiful housewife of fifteen years receiving a ten-thousand-dollar-three-carat sparkler that she will be appropriately thankful for and rock her hubby’s world nightly for the next three years (one year per carat) to demonstrate that gratitude. Or maybe that same husband is the one in the Mercedes commercial who unwraps the keys to the luxury SUV that Santa has left in his driveway adorned with a huge red bow Christmas morning. No, understatement has never been big on Madison Avenue.

But, everybody has their own telltale signs that signal to them and them alone, that the holiday season is truly here. To illustrate this principal I will share a few cues that indicate the imminent Christmas season for me.

The first sign for me is the Christmas dreams. There is the obligatory nude Christmas shopping. Don’t try and tell me you haven’t strolled down highly decorated aisles in your all-together. You there, Fella, I saw you the other night in the hardware store, and you, Missy, you were at the supermarket shopping for Christmas dinner, freaking out because the whole family on both sides was going to show up this year. Wouldn’t Christmas be alot more fun if as much nude shopping went on in the daylight as there is during our Morpheustic meanderings? Maybe next year. How about the everybody is seated around the Christmas tree opening gifts and you realize you forgot to buy anything for anyone nightmare. My blood runs cold just thinking about that one.

The next sure sign Christmas is imminent is the red and green foil wrappers on the Hershey Kisses. Good ol’ Hershey and their color coded holiday chocolate treats. They make sure I don’t forget the season, and force me to eat all those little calorie bombs so they don’t lap over into each others’ festive era and rat me out for not keeping my candy dish current with fresh fodder. Pastels for Easter, red for Valentine’s Day, orange and black for Halloween, and the aforementioned Christmas colors; I tried switching to M&M’s to escape the rat race, but I can’t bring myself to accept unwrapped candy in a social situation. It’s that germaphobe thing.
There is one sign that I think of as particularly telltail of the Christmas season and no, that is not a typo. It has to do with the tootsie roll box. You know, that feline equivalent of the powder room that is a necessity for every owner of a housebound cat. I must give credit for the imaginative and most descriptive label for the cat box to my ex. He did make me laugh occasionally. But, I digress; back to the sign.

In the morning I don my pith helmet and grab my sifting tool for excavation of the shifting sands for those tootsie roll-shaped-artifacts of a happy kitty. After I have done my decorating and package wrapping during this most festive time of year the tootsie rolls take on a colorful look peculiar to Christmas. There are sprigs of green and ribbons of red indicative of Rock’s (my half goat/half cat) penchant for eating long skinny things.

I spent many a long, sleepless night when I first encountered these proofs of decoration consumption. Is kitty facing an emergency surgery for bowel blockage? Could I have done more to keep temptation away from his gastronomical eccentricities? Am I going to have to invest in a new batch of ornamentation because my feline companion has gobbled up all the old ones? All the standard worries.

Well, it’s been six years, I gave up any decorating for two years, stashed all my wrapped presents behind closed closet doors that should be have been impossible for a cat to open and the bedecked relics still appeared buried in the kitty-litter. Where he was getting his fix I’ll never know, so I now adorn my house for Christmas again.

But, I am happy to report, from experience, that the digestive track of the adult male Maine Coon cat seems able to pass dang near anything. Happy Holidays! (Meow!)

Whine Country

I live in whine country. In fact I like to think of myself as a whine connoisseur. Believe it or not, it takes alot of practice and thought to develop good whine skill and technique. For those of you who have not put the time into learning what constitutes a superlative whine let me give you some simple tips.

The chime of good crystal-Be aware of your voice modulation. You do not want to be so annoying you lose your audience before you get your message across. Avoid the high pitch of the historically traditional whine. Remember any whine is more palatable when presented in a classy container.

Color-Do not color, or embellish on the cause of a good whine. If a thing is worth complaining about it should strike a sympathetic chord in your audience. You can demonstrate sincere outrage if you feel it, but temper it with a show of tolerance. People will be more likely to identify with a martyr than a tyrant. Martyrdom has a touch of nobility.

Age-Make sure you do not carry on too long when you are into a good whine. You can turn a valid observation into vinegar if you harp on it too long. Your audience’s ears will curdle like the tongue of a taster faced with a bottle of red well past its prime.

Nose-Whatever you are complaining about had better be true. There are people who can sniff out truth and you don’t want to ruin any chance you have of future credibility. Heaven knows, there is enough reality to kvetch about. If you run out of ideas, call me. We’ll do lunch.

Body-All complaints are about a matter of good taste. The only definition of good taste that counts in every instance is your own. If a thing doesn’t fit my definition of good taste, I will tell you about it. I am not shy about voicing my opinion which I know is always correct. Just ask me.

Temperature-Stay cool. Your listener will shy away if your whine begins to sound like an anger-rant. Besides if you get over-excited and too emotionally involved, your thinking is not clear enough to come up with the really killer adjectives for the object of your dissatisfaction. Nothing is worse than having a brain cramp in the middle of a scathing review. It could damage your street cred.

Vintage-Make sure the topic of your whine is current. There is nothing worse than harping about an issue that is so past tense no one could do anything to affect the outcome it reached. Let sleeping dogs lie, stop beating a dead horse, that thing about open barn doors, and other barnyard metaphors all apply here. Although there have been some classic scenarios that beg to be constantly rehashed, we owe it to ourselves and others to explore new territory.

Legs-An exceptional whine has a substantial texture. In other words, it could almost stand alone as a story. With a complaint you already have a villain built in and we know who the hero is.

Finish and Length-Finish is the feeling the whine leaves, and length is the amount of time that feeling stays with you. Choose your words carefully. If a whine has a long length and the finish was like “It’s a Wonderful Life”, that’s great, but if we are talking finish and length like “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, forget about it. Few will have the stomach for it and chances are those that do will not be the kind of people you will find particularly beneficial.

I hope you find this to be a helpful whine guide. Keep it in mind at your next whine tasting. One must always be prepared.

Getting Published

I always thought the hardest part of getting a book published would be writing the book. Silly me. How naïve could I be? That’s the easy part. Any wannabe author can put a pen to paper and write a book. All it takes is an over-active imagination, a healthy ego, and a super-sized streak of stubbornness. The problem is the world of publishers and agents can wear down even the most pigheaded, self-centered, daydreamer among us.

We can get an instant feeling of where a phrase ranks on the scale of 1 to 10 in do-ability. Take out the garbage—easily doable, I’ll give it a ten. Climb Mount Everest—not easily doable for most, I will rank it at a two. Walking on the moon—don’t hold your breath, this is not something you will be doing anytime soon. I’ll give it a generous .000000001. Getting your book published ranks somewhere between Everest and the moon; I’d give it a 1.3. Not impossible as evidenced by the contents of the neighborhood bookstore and the library, but not as easy as it sounds.

Before we continue let me clarify a couple of points. First-if you have written a non-fiction book and had it published, stop risking permanent injury to your arm patting yourself feverishly on the back, because it is much easier to get a non-fiction book published. Why? It’s beyond me. I avoid reading non-fiction whenever possible. It reminds me too much of all those years in school when I was forced to read books because of their content and not their entertainment value. Books that are valued for their content are usually about “real life”. If I want “real life”, I’ll watch the news. “Real life” is not as much fun as “unreal life”. “Unreal life” is the realm of imagination, improbability, and wishful thinking. “Unreal life” is why I’m a Trekkie at heart. It’s a lifestyle.

Second-if you self-published you opted out of the publishing struggle. You just proved you had enough money to thumb your nose at the establishment. I say—Bully for you! I should be so lucky. I thumb my nose at the powerful publishers, but I have yet to have anybody notice. All I achieved until now is a dent in my proboscis my thumb fits into, and a jammed finger when I stood too close to the wall while griping.

I have many, many rejection letters. I have learned a valuable lesson from these missives. I can say no to anyone in the most polite language around. Whoever writes these letters is a master of the feather-light let-down. I wish I had known this technique when I was dating. “Dear (insert name here), This date was wonderful and very promising; however it did not strike the proper chord to fulfill what I am looking for at the moment. Please, feel free to call me in the future if you change yourself completely. Thank you for attempting to entertain me and good luck in your future dating efforts.”

I comfort myself, whenever a new rejection letter shows up, with the knowledge that the likes of Margaret Mitchell (Gone With the Wind) who submitted that book getting rejection after rejection for eighteen years, and most notably lately J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter), whose books have made her richer than the Queen of England were rejected numerous times. I spend time picturing the editors that rejected them explaining the logic behind the refusals to their (soon-to-be-former) higher ups. I sincerely hope I am the subject of just such a job-justification some day.

It seems the shortest way to success in the literary field these days is to get read and then endorsed by our neighbor-over-the-hill, Oprah Winfrey. I have even investigated this road to princess-of-pulp and found a catch-22 that stopped me as effectively as the proverbial brick wall. Oprah cannot help writers get published because the book must be published before she will read it. Bummer. Completely understandable, but bummer nonetheless.

I know, through membership in the valley’s premier writing group (if I do say so myself), that there are numerous wannabe-authors in this valley. I want to encourage all of you in your writing endeavors, unless my book is rejected because the publishing company fulfilled its quota of unsolicited-manuscript-development with your book. In such case, I suggest you take up gardening and leave the writing to those of us delusional, ego-centric, obsessive-compulsives that truly need the validation.

I promise to continue my support in your new vocation. My, what beautiful Petunias!