April is Camp NaNoWriMo Month

On April Fool’s Day, a year ago today, I embarked on the Script Frenzy challenge, an offshoot of National Novel Writing Month, otherwise known as NaNoWriMo. I succeeded in turning out the requisite 100 pages during the month of April, then began turning the story into a novel I hoped would be finished and on the market by now.

Picasso 1934

No such luck, although strictly speaking, I’ve got to ‘fess up: luck has nothing to do with it. The past year has been wonderful in many respects. I crawled back up out of the black hole of depression I’d been trapped in for far too long, savored time with my husband and family, rediscovered the joys of gardening and downhill skiing, even adopted a dog. I’ve got an enormous amount to be grateful for, and maybe that should be enough. But I’m beating myself up over indulging in present-time pleasures instead of slaving away at my novel.

I’m hereby making a solemn vow: I will finish my novel this month! I’ve got some excellent incentives. In late May, I’ll be attending the fiftieth reunion of my Harvard-Radcliffe class, a golden networking opportunity I plan to take full advantage of. Then in September, Bouchercon, the world’s biggest and best mystery writers’ conference, will take place in Albany, just 20 minutes from my house. Talk about networking! I want to have all my books up on Kindle as well as in print in plenty of time to concentrate on schmoozing.*

I registered for Bouchercon this morning, and the online form included a section where I could express my interest in presenting. The form is simple, with three sections where I could describe my qualifications in 50 words or less. Lots of my favorite authors are already listed as attendees, with links to their websites, and I’m looking forward to seeing my own link up there one of these days. I’ve already connected with some members of the mystery site Dorothy L, who are planning a Friday night dinner, and they’ll probably take me up on my recommendation of the Pump Station.

A couple of New Jersey conferences are on my list of possibilities as well: Deadly Ink and the International Women Writers Guild. Both sound promising, but they may be beyond my budget, especially since I need to save up for a few concerts. I promised to take my granddaughter to Les Miserables when the road show hits Schenectady, and I’ve already got my ticket for Country Fest on July 13 – Darius Rucker and Sheryl Crow are headlining.

Right after I paid my $175 Bouchercon registration online, I wandered over to the Live Nation web site and scored a lawn ticket for Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. I was actually looking for Rascal Flatts tickets, but they don’t go on sale till Friday. It’s a good thing I’m not in full manic mode – maybe a bit hypomanic, but I’ve still got a modicum of control over my online shopping.

Eduard Manet

Anyway, back to NaNoWriMo and Script Frenzy: they’re not doing Script Frenzy this month, but they’ve launched a new venture called Camp NaNoWriMo. Unlike the original November NaNo, where you have to churn out 50,000 words, they let you set your own word count goal. I picked 30,000 – a thousand words a day should be doable, and if I keep up the pace, I may actually finish the vampire soap opera novel I’ve been blogging about so much. My user name for Camp is soapvamp.In this new challenge, you can sign up to be in virtual cabins with writers of your choice, organized by genre or other factors, and if you want to be cliquish, you can even sign up with your friends.

Writing should be easier this month because Michael Easton is away from General Hospital for the time being, while they indulge in their 50^th Anniversary celebrations. But that’s a topic for another day. Meanwhile I’m going public with this goal in hopes my readers will encourage me to keep on track, so please leave comments, and subscribe if you haven’t yet done so.

Happy April Fool’s Day, and here’s hoping April isn’t the cruelest month for any of you. Talk to you soon!

*The weird formatting above, with some sections in a larger font, is something WordPress is doing that I can’t get rid of. I may tinker with it later. I used to love WordPress, but every time I try posting something new, it gets worse in many respects. Is it just that they want me to pay for an upgraded version? Anyone else having problems?  I’ll add some links later, but I can’t cope with the program another second without freaking out!

In Memoriam: Barbara Little Horse (1934-2012)

It’s deeply distressing when a close friend and contemporary dies, and perhaps even more distressing when you learn of the death online and never get the chance to say goodbye.

I’ve been  mourning a death that hits me particularly hard. Barbara Little Horse, one of my closest friends from New York City, died last summer, but I only learned of her death last week. On March 12, Facebook said it was her birthday, so I sent her a message, then decided to check out her page, since we’d been out of touch for a while. There I found a birthday message from her sister saying how much she missed her, reading ominously like one of those In Memoriam messages that follow the obituaries.  

I sent the sister, Judith Baller-Fabian, a query and while I waited for an answer, I Googled Barbara’s name. I found professional contact information related to her career as a psychotherapist, and even the abstract of a research study – probably the dissertation for the Ph.D. she earned when she was well into middle-age – titled “Psychoanalytic Aspects of Charismatic Charm.” But only when I did a search for “Barbara Little Horse death” did I come across a paid death notice from the New York Times stating she had died on July 22, 2013, “after a brief illness.” Judi later wrote back, telling me Barbara died of a “very aggressive lung cancer that her doctor believed was caused by her working so close to Ground Zero.”

I’d love to read Barbara’s study on “Charismatic Charm.” The phrase perfectly describes my friend, who embraced life with enthusiasm and verve. She was born in 1934, and according to her obituary, “Until her death she was a strong swimmer and avid wind surfer as well as a frequent participant at Cajun and Zydeco dance festivals.”

I vividly remember the night we met, because I’d come dangerously close to suicide. The year was 1970, and I got unusually high on marijuana, something that rarely happened because I’m a nonsmoker and have never liked to inhale. I’d been smoking with a studly young artist/carpenter in my fifth-floor SoHo loft, and after he left, I felt strangely drawn to the rear windows and barely fought off a sudden impulse to hurl myself down to the courtyard below.

Fortunately I came down safely, in body and in mind. I descended the stairs to street level, began walking, and the impulse passed. By purest serendipity, I had a destination: the very first meeting of my new Redstockings consciousness raising group, in a Greenwich Village apartment. These were the early days of the feminist resurgence, and after the excesses of the Sixties, the group was a true lifesaver. But perhaps meeting Barbara Little Horse was the best, most enduring thing about it.

The Redstockings were radical feminists, and our group spent many hours dissecting our relationships with the male chauvinist pigs in our lives, past and present. Barbara and I were both between relationships, both previously married. (She had three children with her first husband; her second, a Native American biker, gave her the exotic last name she continued to use thereafter.) Though we may have dissed men in our meetings, we by no means gave up on them, but feminism encouraged us to build strong relationships with women rather than viewing them primarily as rivals in the hunt for the masculine other. 

Together we crashed countless parties. I dragged her to rock concerts and jazz clubs; she turned me on to Waylon Jennings, whose macho outlaw image reminded her of her Indian ex, and whom we heard at The Bottom Line. I swam with her at the YMCA and we shared countless dinners in the Italian restaurants near her walk-up apartment just south of Washington Square. One of those nights, she introduced me to a new and unfamiliar dessert called tiramisu. All those times we spent together were brightened by Barbara’s enthusiasm and laughter.

In 1975, I married and gave birth to a daughter, but Barbara and I stayed close. We both moved on in our professional lives, acquired graduate degrees in human services. When my husband and I traded our Prince Street loft for a house in the woods near New Paltz, she came to visit, and she loved cross-country skiing at the Mohonk Preserve with its glorious panoramic views.  

As time went on, she traveled the world. She was especially excited about her trips to Maui – or was it Fiji? – to study with Tony Robbins. But to the end, she kept her Manhattan pied-a-terre, the little rent-controlled walk-up on Thompson Street in the Village. When I visited the city, I sometimes camped out on the sofa bed in her living room, with her Abyssinian cat watching over me. Gradually, those visits tapered off. Occasionally we touched base on line, but I never knew she was ill – not until I read her sister’s message on Facebook.

I’ll be 72 in July, and Barbara was seven years my senior, but I think of her as my contemporary, and I wonder how many other old friends have passed on without my knowledge. Now and then I’ve Googled some of their names, but many leave only the faintest of footprints online. Should I type the word “death” into my searches? No, not yet – the death of Barbara Little Horse is more than enough to cope with. But writing about her has brought her vividly back, and she’ll always remain forever young in my memories.     

 

 

 

First Editions, Final Sale: Eldercide and Mood Swing: The Bipolar Murders

Want an autographed first edition of Eldercide or Mood Swing: The Bipolar Murders? I can get it for you wholesale! I have only a few dozen copies of each novel left, and I’m offering them for $12.00 apiece, or $20.00 for both. If you want more than two, each additional copy will also go for $10.00. Shipping and handling is additional.

I self-published both books with the print-on-demand company Virtualbookworm, and for now, they’re both available from Amazon at $14.95 each. You’re welcome to order them there, but I’m suspicious: many people have told me they ordered them, but my royalty checks have been pitifully few and far between. Soon I’ll be withdrawing these editions from Amazon and replacing them with new editions on Kindle and CreateSpace, to coincide with the launch of the new paranormal novel I’ve been blogging about.

Thanks to my fellow Michael Easton fan, Alison Armstrong, for inspiring this idea. Her vampire novel Revenance looks intriguing, and we agreed to trade books via good old-fashioned U.S. mail. She said she’d prefer I send the one with the character based on Michael. Sorry, I thought, I haven’t finished that one yet, but then I remembered: his Caleb Morley character was a major inspiration for Gabriel in Eldercide – a charismatic and charming serial killer with dark hair and piercing blue eyes. Below, I’m reprinting the segment of Chapter One that introduces Gabriel. He’s killed an elderly woman a few hours earlier, and Claire, the nursing supervisor for the home care agency providing live-in care for the woman, has just learned of the death.  I hope this excerpt intrigues you enough to buy a copy and read more about him!

 From Eldercide, Chapter One

Copyright 2008 Julie Lomoe

Across the lake, Gabriel squinted through the telescope. Claire Lindstrom sprawled motionless on the chaise, her head turned toward the morning sun. Her wavy blond hair curtained her face from view. Too bad – he’d have liked to see her expression. When she’d made the call, her back had been turned. He felt a flash of anger. Watching was part of what made his work worthwhile, and she was depriving him of the pleasure.

The scene was deceptively idyllic, like a watercolor on the cover of an L.L. Bean catalog. The slender blonde in a turquoise tee and khaki shorts stretched on the forest green, Adirondack-style chaise, her skin still summer tanned. The big dog, its hair a shade lighter than Claire’s, lying nearby on the lawn that swept down to the water. The kayak, a nifty accent in fire engine red, pulled up on the beach, the lake sparkling in the morning sun, encircled by deep green hills.

Maybe he should start painting again. He’d taken a couple of courses in college, and the instructor had told him he had talent worth pursuing. The network kept him fairly busy, but although the number of assignments was increasing, there were still stretches of inactivity. And painting might bleed off some of the nervous energy he felt when he’d successfully completed a mission. 

Last night, for example. The old lady’s death had progressed perfectly, exactly as planned. He had shone the flashlight full into her face, watched the confusion, the slow dawning of comprehension segueing into terror, the creeping paralysis as the drug took hold. Even after the breathing stopped, the eyes clung desperately to life. It was hard to pinpoint the exact moment she crossed over, but he kept the light focused on her face for a full five minutes as he watched the life glow fade from her eyes. Then, still wearing the latex gloves, he closed her lids.

Death by paralysis had to be ghastly, but at least the suffering was short-lived, infinitely superior to the endlessly prolonged agony and degradation that modern medicine inflicted on the chronically and terminally ill. He’d had his fill of that in the nursing career he’d abandoned.  

The new affiliation had come as a godsend, and the money wasn’t half bad. But the role they’d cast him in was too limited, too predictable. The powers that be had cautioned him to follow their protocol precisely. No room for creativity or improvisation. He was just a cog in a much larger machine. But that could change with time. If he played by their rules, they promised, the potential for advancement was virtually limitless.

He watched through the scope as Claire climbed off the chaise. She raked her fingers through her hair, daubed at her eyes. He caught a glimpse of her elegant features before she turned and headed for the house. Before long she would probably be at Harriet Gardener’s place. He wished he could join her there, savor her reaction. But that was out of the question. 

He’d called in his report hours ago, and a day of enforced idleness yawned in front of him. All at once he knew how to spend it: he would drive to New York City, pick up some supplies at that discount art supply store in SoHo. Pearl Paint, on Canal Street, near Chinatown. He’d be down and back before nightfall, and if they had a new assignment for him, they could always reach him on his cell.

He decided to buy oil paints. They had a squishy, sensuous feel that was more satisfying than acrylics. Cadmium red light would be perfect for the kayak, and it was good for mixing flesh tones, too. He wanted to do justice to Claire.

 

 If you’d like to read more, e-mail me at julielomoe@nycap.rr.com and we can work out the details. I’ll be delighted to inscribe the books to you personally, and who knows – they may be worth more than ten or twelve dollars some day!

Anger Management Part I

My cat Lunesta, named for my favorite sleeping pill. She really knows how to chill out.

Is it just me, or does anger management get easier with age? It’s taken me decades, but everyday aggravations don’t get me nearly as riled up as they used to. Is it simply that my psychotropic meds are working the way they should? Is it because of hormonal and biochemical changes as I creep toward genuine old age? Or is it the cumulative effect of all the years of life experience I’ve racked up?

Maybe it’s all three, but in any case I’m grateful that I’m usually able to follow Bobby McFerrin’s advice – “Don’t worry, be happy.” (That’s when I’m not in a clinical depression, of course. But deep depression is so enervating, it doesn’t leave enough energy for anger.)

Over the past couple of days, though, something’s been making me intensely angry. No need to go public with the details – suffice it to say that it involves a creative group project I’ve been a part of for several years on an annual basis. Over time, the group’s chairperson has become increasingly dictatorial and resistant to anyone else’s ideas, to the point where I decided I could no longer associate myself with this venture, even though it’s something that’s brought me great pleasure over the years. 

In years gone by, I would have fumed and fretted over whether or not to quit. I probably would have done some yelling and screaming, slugged down a couple of glasses of wine, lain awake nights obsessing over the injustice of it all. Today, there was none of that dramatizing. I simply sent the person an e-mail saying I was dropping out. I’ll admit I copied in a couple of relevant people, and there may be some further fallout, but I’m sticking with my decision to distance myself from a situation that’s clearly bringing me uptight and is thus potentially damaging to my mental health.

I’m proud of how I handled this. I did what I had to do, said what I had to say, but now it’s over and done, and I’ve already moved on. I’m feeling calm, and my pulse rate and blood pressure are back down where they should be. Writing this blog post is cathartic as well – how wonderful to be able to channel all that angry energy into writing that all the world can read! 

Katie Couric show on January 14th, the day I visited

Since my recent visit to Katie Couric’s show, I’ve been watching her more than ever, though I clicked off today because she’s interviewing families with lots of kids, and frankly, I couldn’t care less. But a few programs ago, the show featured a cardiologist who hooked her up to a heart rate monitor, thereby demonstrating that her pulse went up alarmingly when she was caught in midtown Manhattan traffic (even with her own private car and driver!) or before the show when she encountered some fans and wasn’t yet wearing her makeup. Over time, that kind of physiological reaction can do serious damage to a body. Though I’m not a Type A adrenaline junkie, my blood pressure is borderline high, and I believe the ability to chill out at will is a valuable talent worth cultivating.

Buddhist meditation

Author’s note, two days later:

Just as I typed the words “Buddhist meditation,” a friend phoned me. Maybe not coincidentally, she’s extremely involved in Buddhist meditation. Jungian synchronicity, maybe? After that, I had to go to my UU church for choir practice. Then yesterday, we visited my brother in the Bronx, so I haven’t had time to get back to this post until now.

Visiting with my brother Pete Lomoe in his Bronx apartment yesterday. He looks rather like Buddha, doesn’t he?

There’s lots more to say, but I think I’ll save it for my next post. I’ll close with a brief progress note about the situation I described above: writing that e-mail saying Sayonara wrapped up that issue nicely, and though it still comes to mind off and on, I’m still calm and collected about it. Besides, it’s one more responsibility off my plate, giving me that much more time to zero in on my novel.

Does anger play a major role in your life? Any coping strategies you’d care to share? I’d love to hear from you.

A real-life afternoon cliff hanger

Michael Easton as Lt. John McBain

The daytime drama surrounding ABC’s General Hospital has escalated since my last post, and I’m not talking about fictional plot lines. Instead some of my favorite actors are caught up in a real-life melodrama, replete with multiple rumors and cliff hangers, and no one seems to know how things will play out.

When ABC cancelled One Life to Live and its sister soap All My Children in 2011, an upstart company by the name of Prospect Park bought the rights to the soaps and their characters, intending to continue the programs in a new format that would be available only online. Some of the newly unemployed actors committed to the Prospect Park venture, but it ultimately fizzled. 

End of story, right? Not quite. Amazingly, like many a seemingly deceased character on daytime drama, Prospect Park came back to life –  with a vengeance and presumably a healthy transfusion of cash – and resurrected their plans to go ahead with OLTL and AMC. Meanwhile, ABC had transplanted some of the OLTL characters from the fictional town of Llanview, PA, to the fictional GH town of Port Charles, NY – the very town that spawned the vampires and vampire hunters of Port Charles, the General Hospital spin-off that folded a decade ago. But now PP is telling ABC that as of this month, GH can no longer use these characters – including John McBain, the Michael Easton character who inspired my novel.

Are you confused yet? I’m barely scratching the surface of the messy dispute between ABC and Prospect Park. In a futile effort to understand what’s going on, I’ve been slogging my way through a myriad of online sites, from fan groups to soap magazines, whiling away hours I should be devoting to finishing my novel. The plot came to a roiling boil last Friday when Michael Easton posted a message on his Facebook page advising fans not to bring birthday presents to the GH studio in California, since after February 8^th, he will no longer be there. Instead of the Irish whiskey and other goodies they’ve been accustomed to bringing, he suggested they donate to the American Cancer Society.

Here’s Friday’s follow-up from Soap Opera Network:

 

Roger Howarth aka Todd Manning

“Despite Michael Easton‘s announcement early this morning, where he stated that after February 8th he would be exiting “General Hospital,” along with Roger Howarth and Kristen Alderson, due to “some ongoing legal this and that,” an ABC spokesperson tells Soap Opera Network that all three will remain an essential part of the “GH” canvas for the foreseeable future as the three are under contract with the network and not Prospect Park.

“‘General Hospital’ is excited about Michael Easton, Kristen Alderson

Kristin Alderson aka Starr Manning

and Roger Howarth staying on the show and we are exploring ways to allow that to happen,” read a statement from ABC, which did not provide further input on how the series would accomplish just that. Previously, the network stated, “There are on-going collaborative conversations,” in response to word that Prospect Park wanted to return the characters of Starr Manning (Alderson), Todd Manning (Howarth) and John McBain (Easton) to Llanview after formerly announcing its decision to re-launch “One Life to Live” later this spring. The production company licensed the rights to “OLTL’s” characters in July 2011 in a long-term distribution agreement between it and Disney/ABC Domestic Television, part of the Disney/ABC Television Group.”

So how will ABC keep these actors on the show? There are lots of tried and true soap solutions. An actor can return as his own heretofore unknown identical twin, albeit with a different surname. He can turn out to be someone else entirely, someone who suffered from amnesia and created a new identity, only to learn that identity is totally phony, and who recovers and reclaims his original self. Or he can have dissociative identity disorder and be banished by one of his alter egos.

I’m betting John McBain will morph into the vampire Caleb Morley. Several newcomers to Port Charles are already convinced that’s who he is, including a teenage boy who’s accused him of murder and who may turn out to actually be his son.

I promise I’ll blog about something else one of these days, but for now I’m begging your indulgence as I pursue this obsession, the better to fuel my inspiration. When I’m in the throes of creativity, I tend to develop a one-track mind.  And now, back to my novel.

   

Out of the closet at last: my vampire soap novel!

Michael Easton as Caleb Morley

True confessions time: my novel-in-progress is paranormal fan fiction, inspired by the ABC soap operas General Hospital, Port Charles and One Life to Live. Since I began it last spring, I’ve been keeping the subject a deep dark secret, because I was convinced it was so brilliant someone would steal it. Well now, somebody has – and the culprit is ABC. 

 Unbeknownst to me, the creators of General Hospital were thinking along similar lines. Michael Easton, who plays Lieutenant John McBain on GH, played the vampire Caleb Morley on Port Charles, a GH spinoff that was cancelled a decade ago. Kelly Monaco, the Dancing with the Stars finalist who plays Sam Morgan on GH, was Livvie, Caleb’s love and eventually his wife on Port Charles, which happens to be the name of the fictional New York town on General Hospital. What if Caleb Morley were somehow to return and take over the character of John McBain? And what if John and Sam, who already have great chemistry together, were to have a strong feeling of deja-vu? How would things play out?

General Hospital hasn’t taken things quite that far yet, but they’ve been talking about vampires for

Caleb and Livvie

the past couple of weeks, ever since Lucy Coe, a Port Charles alumna played by Lynn Herring, came back to town, took one look at John McBain and swore he was Caleb Morley. She tried driving a wooden stake through his heart but only managed to wound him in the shoulder, and he’s making a good recovery. Meanwhile, everyone thinks Lucy’s gone crazy, and they’re playing the story for laughs.

 

How will the new vampire plot line evolve? If head writer Ron Carlivati knows, he’s not telling, but the online fan sites are abuzz with gossip, and the Caleb/John- Livvie/Sam connection was even featured in TV Guide. Probably the fate of these characters depends to a great extent on fan feedback, which as of this writing seems to be running against the vampire theme.

TV Guide

I was devastated when I first learned of this new plot line. How dare ABC steal my paranormal thunder?  Was my novel dead in the water? Should I give up and scrap it entirely? I succumbed to gloom and doom for a day or so, then realized this turn of events could actually work to my advantage. The show’s ratings would probably go up, and the thousands of people who wouldn’t have cared about a long-defunct soap opera could well become my future readers.

No matter how the paranormal story line plays out on General Hospital, mine will be totally different – and, I hope, funnier and more outrageous. I’m still not giving away any details, but I’d damn well better finish the thing and get it up on Kindle before the end of February Sweeps.

Stay tuned for future episodes in my race against time. I welcome your comments, and I hope you’ll subscribe if you haven’t already. A special shout-out to the PC and GH fans I’ve been connecting with lately – your enthusiasm helps keep me going!

Michael Easton on General Hospital today. Yes, my tree is still up, but I’ve promised my husband I’ll take it down tomorrow.

 

My afternoon at the Katie show

I did it! I made my first appearance on national TV, although I could identify myself only as a miniature blur of orange at the far right of the screen on Katie Couric’s show Tuesday afternoon. The taping took place Monday afternoon, and the show featured Captain Sully Sullenberger, who flawlessly landed a jet on the Hudson River on January 15^th four years ago.

Katie during the Q&A after the taping

Since my novel-in-progress is set in the world of daytime television, I wanted to get inside the studio of a major TV network, and I achieved my goal, soaking up atmosphere as best I could while being herded around with several dozen women. The ABC studio, on a primarily residential side street on the upper west side, was unprepossessing both outside and in until we were ushered onto Katie’s elegantly spacious set and slotted into our seats.

The lengthy email guidelines advised us to show up at 1:30pm for a 3pm taping, saying we’d be admitted on a first-come-first-serve basis. To be on the safe side, I showed up at 12:15. A dozen women were already ahead of me, but when I was checked in and given a ticket emblazoned with the lucky number 13, I was sure I had it made. Once inside, we waited in a grubby beige visitors’ area for over an hour till they began ushering us to the set.  

What I wore at the Katie show (though with black shoes, not my Saucony sneakers. Photo by Thom Francis at the Nitty Gritty Slam the following night

But to my dismay, they called only the first ten people, then called those with tickets highlighted in pink, followed by those with blue and yellow swashes. Finally only a couple of dozen of us were left, and I began feeling paranoid, fearing I’d be blackballed. Why was I one of the few without a colored swash? Was I too old? Not attractive enough? I knew I was “dressed to impress,” as they’d requested, in two shades of brilliant orange, while many women had flouted the dress code by wearing black or, heaven forbid, prints.

I never did find out what those color codes signified, but I expect they identified specific “interest groups,” like friends and family of the survivors of Sully’s miraculous flight. At last I was admitted, and I was glad I’d had the foresight to show up early. By then nearly all the seats were filled, and since I was a single, they found me a seat in the third row, far right, where I was unlikely to be picked up in most of the crowd shots.

A young comedian coached the audience on how to applaud (loudly and enthusiastically) and when we could take pictures (before and after). He told us to look alert and interested, to laugh and emote as appropriate, and not to space out and start counting the lights in the ceiling or picking our noses. Then Katie made her entrance, and we were on. Each segment was shot in real time, with no retakes. During breaks, the crew rearranged the set with crisp efficiency, and then an assistant gave us the countdown to applaud as she launched into the next segment.

Katie was warm and engaging, Sully was the quintessentially modest hero, and the show whizzed by. Back on the street a bit after five, I strolled downtown, past Lincoln Center to Columbus Circle, where I happened upon a snazzy new mall, several stories high, adjacent to Donald Trump’s towering International Hotel. On the third floor I found a restaurant with a wonderfully glittering cityscape beyond its wall of windows, and treated myself to a glorified version of pork and beans and a glass of Pinot Grigio. 

View from my table, Bouchon Bakery, Columbus Circle

Like my other day trips to the city where I spent the better part of my youth, this one was pricier than expected, but I figure it’s tax deductible as research for my writing. Was it worth it? Well, I soaked in some atmosphere, picked up some details I can use in my novel. I grew more comfortable with the camera in my new Samsung Galaxy, and for the first time ever, I’m illustrating this blog post with my very own photos. But most of all, I reveled in the intoxicating feeling of being at one with the most exciting city on earth.   

                                                                                                                                  

Help! I’m on Katie Couric’s show next week and I don’t have a thing to wear!

 

Katie in a dress that would never pass her show’s dress code!

This coming Monday I’ll be in the audience at the Katie Couric show, soaking up the atmosphere for my novel-in-progress, which is set in the land of daytime television. But I don’t have a thing to wear! After the phone call inviting me to attend, they sent me a lengthy e-mail explaining what I should expect and what they’ll expect from me. “Katie loves bright colors!” they said. I should “dress to impress,” with absolutely no black, brown, beige or gray, nothing dark or muted, and no prints.

Though I love Duke Ellington’s classic “Black, Brown and Beige,” I don’t cotton to those colors when it comes to my wardrobe unless they’re combined with something brighter. Nor do I usually wear straightforward primary and secondary colors. As an artist, I prefer subtler shades – and lots and lots of prints. But it’s Katie’s show, and she has the right to determine her own esthetic, so I’ll be hitting the January sales this week.

I thought I was well past the age of slavishly following someone else’s dress code, so why am I caving for Katie? Because except for a visit to the Conan O’Brien show many years ago, I’ve never set foot in the TV studio of a major network. Even though my novel is pure fantasy, I’m a stickler for accuracy, so I need to do some heavy-duty research. That’s more or less what I wrote in the online application in the section asking why I wanted to attend the show, and maybe it piqued the interest of some lowly intern processing the applications. I didn’t elaborate further, nor will I do so here.

I’m so excited about this story, so convinced it’s a high-concept project, as they say in Hollywood, that I’m not about to give away any specifics until it’s up on Kindle. Suffice it to say that it’s my first excursion into the paranormal, and it’s a lot more light-hearted and humorous than Eldercide or Mood Swing: The Bipolar Murders.

When inspiration struck last spring, I was slogging away at the sequel to Eldercide, but I was bogged down and blocked. My husband was planning to enter Script Frenzy, an offshoot of National Novel Writing Month, and he suggested I join him. The challenge: to write a 100-page film or TV script during the month of April.

JULIE

(Frowns as she sips coffee)

            But I’ve got no desire whatsoever to write a script. 

SPOUSE

            Why not give it a try? What have you got to lose? 

JULIE

            That whole show-business world is so competitive, I’d never have a chance. 

SPOUSE

            Just do it for fun, as a creative exercise (pause as he gazes skyward) I know. What if you write about that show you always watch, and that actor you’re so crazy about? 

JULIE

(brightens and grins)

            Hmm . . . Maybe that could work.

FADE OUT

And so I took a flying leap into the unknown – a totally new format, a new genre – and before long I was having a ball. I made my quota of 100 pages in the 30 days of April, submitted my script for verification and printed out my winner’s certificate, but that only took me a third of the way into the story. Then began the challenge of turning it into a novel.

I’d hoped my new opus would be finished already, but now I’m aiming for the spring equinox on March 20^th. I’m asking you, my readers, to help hold me to that deadline. I’ll post progress reports every week or two, and I hope you’ll leave comments to cheer me on. If I really buckle down, maybe I’ll be free to write another script in April. Well before then, I’ll blog about Script Frenzy in hopes of enticing you to join. In the meantime I plan to reconnect with the wonderful online community of writers, and beginning this Valentine’s Day, I’ll be hosting guest bloggers once again.

As I wrap up this post, I’m watching the Katie show. Though she doesn’t look it, she’s celebrating her 56^th birthday today. And those women in the audience are all decked out in cheerfully brilliant colors. Time to head for the mall – since orange is my favorite color, I’m envisioning something in orange sherbet or tangerine.

What colors do you favor for your wardrobe?  And how much are you willing to tweak your image for special occasions?

New Year’s Resolutions? Bah humbug!

Leon Comerre (1850-1917)

Have you made your New Year’s Resolutions yet? I haven’t, but at least I managed to write a new poem about all the lazy things I did instead:

TARDY RESOLUTIONS 2013

January second, and I haven’t made my resolutions yet.

Maybe it’s too late to bother. Too late to make it to the Y

in time for Nia, but for exercise I walked my dog

beside the lake, where he adorned the roadside

with an humongous turd too mushy for doggy bags.

I buried it with frozen clumps of grungy snow

left by the plow. So much for “Love thy neighbor.”

 

Back home I weighed myself, discovered I’d been ambushed

by four new pounds in just four days, crawled back in bed

and ate the raspberry strudel left from New Year’s brunch.

The sugar knocked me out. I fell asleep,

cuddling with my cat Lunesta, named for my favorite sleeping pills.

Waking at last, I slugged down coffee, gorged on leftover lox and bagels,

read the morning paper with its daily dose of mayhem – a murdered nun,

a stampede killing dozens after New Year’s fireworks in Africa –

then stole an hour blotting out the news with Spider solitaire.

 

Now it’s high noon. I’ve blown the best of day,

but no one will know, since my husband’s away,

unless I confess to this surfeit of sloth                                                                            

by posting this poem as my latest blog,

owning up to the deadly sin of wallowing

in total torpor. Shaming myself in public, flaunting  

a scarlet L for laziness, for lassitude,  an F for everything

I failed to do last year.

 

I know – I’ll take it from the top,

watch the midnight ball drop one more time in rerun,

erase this lackadaisical beginning

and make those resolutions bright and early,

trusting in tomorrow, praying for time.

I’ve only wasted one more day of life.

Last night the famed Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs (where Bob Dylan, Arlo Guthrie and countless others played on their way up) had its first poetry open mic of the New Year, and having the chance to read this poem there was a major motivator. People seemed to love it – at least they laughed a lot. The Capital Region’s poetry community is a wonderfully welcoming bunch of folks who are always generous with their applause. It’s great to be able to write something, then try it out on stage the same night.

How do you feel about New Year’s resolutions? Do you make them, and if so, do they help you work toward your goals? Or do they just make you feel guilty?

This cat looks a lot like my beloved Lunesta.

 

                                                                                     

 

 

 

Were the Mayans right? Will we be here tomorrow?

Only eight hours till midnight, and I’m optimistic about surviving December 21^st, despite what the Mayan calendar allegedly said. I already celebrated by nuking and devouring a Kashi Mayan Harvest Bake for lunch – my second-favorite frozen entrée, a vegan mélange of healthy stuff like plantains, beans and amaranth that weighs in at just 340 calories.*

But walking my dog Sirius this morning, I thought maybe the Mayans were right. Mother Gaia was whipping up gale-force winds that sounded like jet planes or freight trains.** Perfect weather for falling trees, and my neighborhood has dozens of enormous pines, oaks and maples. Normally I’d have been sensibly hunkered down indoors, but Sirius wasn’t about to be denied his morning peeing and pooping.

In the course of our walk, I realized two things: I could quite easily be killed by a falling tree limb, and I wasn’t yet ready to die. Sirius, my chow-Aussie mix, had no such concerns. At first he was a little unnerved by the force of the wind, which was blowing his ears and his long black hair straight back, but he soon adapted, and he would have been content to putter around indefinitely, marking his territory and looking for the perfect spot to poop. He couldn’t understand why I cut our walk so short.

It’s often said that humans are the only animals with the foresight to fear death. I don’t entirely believe it, but the way Mother Nature was showing her fury on the very morning of what was predicted to be the End of Times got me thinking about death and how we deny or come to terms with it. The subject is far too vast for a single blog post, but here are a few of my personal observations.

I can’t remember exactly when I first understood the reality of death, but two childhood memories come to mind. I recall lapsing into hysterical giggles when I attended my grandfather’s funeral and saw him laid out in his coffin. That was the first time I’d seen a dead body, and my laughter was undoubtedly a nervous reaction. And I recall the many civil defense drills of my elementary school years, when we were led to believe that crouching under our desks would somehow protect us from a nuclear holocaust.

Like millions who grew up during the dawn of the nuclear age, I never expected to reach the age of 30. As a student at Barnard in the early 1960’s, I was amazed when I read of plans for a World’s Fair in New York City in 1964. How could people possibly plan that far ahead, when it was a virtual certainty the human race would have annihilated itself by then? And I vividly recall the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when the United States and Russia came perilously close to launching the nuclear missiles that would destroy us all. As the days dragged on, I begged the boyfriend who would later become my first husband to marry me before it was too late. I was far from virginal, but the sanctity of marriage seemed somehow significant in the face of annihilation.

Gradually as the years went by and the apocalyptic big bang didn’t happen, the fear lost its intensity, and it became possible to imagine a longer lifespan, and even the possibility of bringing children into the world. But I wonder how much of the hedonism of the Sixties – in which I reveled to the fullest – had to do with the sheer relief of having survived well into the atomic age, and the determination to make the most of whatever time remained?

There’s so much more to say, but it’s almost 5:30, and I need to get ready for an end-of-the-world party. These same friends, Tom and Meredith Mercer, gave a Millennium party on New Year’s Eve in 1999, another night when many believed something dire would occur, and here we are an amazing thirteen years later. That night I created a decorative platter with an intricate mandala design of meats, cheese and veggies.

This year I wanted to make something comparable, but it’s going to be a little simpler and a lot sweeter. This afternoon I bought a big plain New York-style cheese cake, and I’m going to spread ready-made Betty Crocker chocolate frosting on top, then draw a Mayan calendar-style design with pink and green decorative frosting. Hey, don’t knock it – that’s all they had at Walmart.

And now I’m off to look up some designs and practice a bit before I decorate the cake. I’ll try out the different frosting tips on bread, and I’ll get to eat the rejects – yum! First, though, I’ll fortify myself with eggnog, heavy on the brandy. Here’s to the dawning of a wonderful New Age!

*By far my favorite frozen entrée is Palermo’s Thin Crust Supreme Pizza. It comes from Milwaukee, my home town, and I lower the calorie count by feeding lots of the crust to my dog Sirius.

**Later, driving to my Nia class at the Y, I did in fact encounter roads closed by fallen trees, and I learned on the afternoon news that our little Rensselaer County town had the highest wind gusts in the area, upwards of 75 mph.

orrow.