Tuesday, Day 26

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I’m sad. My sister had to have her long time companion feline Murphy put to sleep tonight.  Murphy was a special girl and had a wonderful, love-filled life with Lisa and she was a sweetie bug whenever we visited. She (according to her mother) liked watching football and listening to music.  And while I never watched football with her (I’m the changeling of my family and don’t enjoy sports), I can vouch for Murphy’s interest in music. It’s like Mouche and Bug Bear’s fascination with the television; wide eyed, erect-eared attention (although I never saw Murphy attack the CD player the way my kids go after the images on the television).

It’s never easy, losing a companion animal. Dave and I lost Haggis, our eight month old cat, and Boska, my 16 year old dog.  I shared custody of her with Brian and she was with him when it was her time to go.  Whether they’re too young to go or have reached the full span of their life cycle, it hurts those of us they leave behind, especially the first time you forget they’re gone and turn to greet them in their favorite spot…and they’re not there.  And never will be again.

It sucks.

But…no matter how painful it is to deal with the loss, it still can’t stand up against the sheer joy animals add to our lives.  I would not have missed a second of Haggis’s loving personality o matter how devastated I was when he died.

But it still hurts. I will miss Murphy almost as much as my own babies.  She was a very special girl and I’m proud to have been her aunt.

Email from a Friend

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Hee hee…the other day I received the following email from a friend of mine whom I met via Homepage of the Dead. We email occasionally, usually with advice and/or observations on how to survive the coming zombie apocalypse.

Oh, there WILL be one. Oh yes. And all of you scoffers will be sorry you didn’t figure out how to fortify your house when the time comes…

Ahem.

Anyway, I got this email and it cracked me up.

Hi, Dana!

I wouldn’t bother you so soon but just saw your performance in Princess Warrior. I have to admit it was loads of fun. My only complaint is that the merciless one is still alive and in fairly good condition at film’s end. I doubt the guys who arrested her kept her long. I doubt if they are even alive. (Hell she’s probably in charge of the Republican Party these days. Either that of she’s the one behind the disorder in the ranks of the D.P. Fifth columnist for the GOP maybe. Or maybe she’s just head of organized crime now that the “old Mustache Pete’s” are out of the way.) Whatever she is she’ll make the most of it.

Or maybe she’s the one who ordered the zombie virus spread by the two doofuses during your airport adventure. It would be just like her, right down to hiring the iriots who coulld have easily bungled the job. Or perhaps she intended to get rid of them as well. Her associates did seem to be on the expendible side.

I’d better stop before I become paranoid in my (relative) old age.

It was fun watching you chew the scenery especially knowing you a bit better through the Den. Just hope I never get on your bad side. Curette scares the hell out of me.

Enjoy yourself as much as you can. And if Whacky Professor Guy gives you any more trouble just let Curette out of the closet. He’ll probably leave you alone after that.

You will have noted the zombie references, I hope. Now Curette is the name of the character I played in this truly horrific movie, Princess Warrior. To find out more about it (and get more insight on why Jack’s email cracked me up, allow me to share a bit of my shameful past as a C movie actress. Click on the link, go to the bottom of the page and look for the words: ‘Dana’s jaded past as an actress.’

Back to the novel…

Sunday is a Day of Rest

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Boy, this blog challenge is a pest!

Sorry…I’ve got Marvin-itis and felt this uncontrollable urge to rhyme…

Definitely off to a slow start today. Dave and I went to a wine tasting and sushi dinner with the Julie half of Hailey Lind (the two sister writing team of the Art Lover mysteries) last night and we had a very fun evening. It wasn’t a lot of wine or a lot of sake, but it took a while for me to consider getting out of bed to be a good idea.

Julie is also the President of Sisters in Crime Nor Cal and one of those people who will always have ageless beauty. Her eyes and her smile are the first thing one notices about her; she has the kind of smile that lights up a room. I think I’ve mentioned in a past post about Left Coast Crime how I was wandering around my first day feeling out of place and uncharacteristically shy until Julie greeted me, took me under her wing and invited me out for drinks with a small group of people. That gesture and getting to know just a few people over drinks broke the social ice for me at Left Coast Crime and I ended up having a blast. Julie is the perfect person to be president of an organization (except maybe the Mafia, although she’d probably be a very beloved Don…er…Donna?) and is also one hell of a good writer (as is her sister, who I have not met).

I’ve read all three of the Art Lovers mysteries, although I managed to read them in backwards chronological order. I was amazed at how few (if any) spoilers occurred by reading them that way; there were no major plot recaps of the previous books, no ‘I wish I’d known two months ago that so and so was actually a murderer. This is a problem I’ve been wrestling with while writing my sequel – how to bring back characters who were prime suspects in MFH #1 without spoiling it for someone who, like myself, reads things out of sequence? So hats off to Hailey (both of ’em).

These books are all funny, fast-paced and full of interesting details about art – the heroine, Annie is an artist and has a business (like Julie herself) doing art restoration, faux finishing, painting murals and whatever else comes along. The writing style is very reminiscent of Elizabeth Peters in her heyday, namely the Vicky Bliss/John Smythe series, which happens to be my favorite. It was a pleasure to discover this series and I am now royally pissed that Hailey’s publisher has decided not to release any more of them. Way too many unfinished character developments, publisher person! It takes a few books in any series before they pick up a huge following, but it’s worth the investment and these books do have an ever expanding audience. Hailey Lind does have a new series coming out, which sounds equally intriguing, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to find out what happens with Annie’s two love interests.

I have stolen these three synopses from Hailey’s home page (link provided above). If you haven’t read these, give them a try. If you have, write a letter to Hailey’s publisher and tell them to keep the series going!

Book Three—Brush with Death: Working nights to restore murals in a building full of cremated remains is strange enough, but chasing a crypt-robbing ghoul through a graveyard is downright creepy. In Brush with Death, San Francisco artist Annie Kincaid finds herself drawn into a decades-old mystery involving some illustrious graveyard residents and Raphael’s most intimate portrait, dubbed La Fornarina, or “the little baker girl”. Could the Raphael “copy” hanging amidst funerary urns actually be the priceless original? Is the masked crypt-robber somehow connected to the Raphael? Or is the painting part of a larger puzzle involving Annie’s unrepentant grandfather, master art forger Georges LeFleur, and an Italian “fakebuster” out to ruin him? Annie’s under pressure to figure things out…before she finds her permanent home amongst the ashes.

Book Two—Shooting Gallery: Modernism isn’t Annie’s thing, but even she is surprised to discover that the “sculpture” in a prestigious gallery’s grisly new exhibition is an all-too-real corpse—the artist’s. Meanwhile, a Chagall painting is stolen from the Brock Museum, and Annie’s old friend Bryan is accused of being in on the fix. To track down the missing Chagall, she’ll need the dubious assistance of a certain sexy art thief. And if Michael—or whatever his real name may be—isn’t distraction enough, Annie’s mother shows up in town, acting strangely. Annie’s got to solve these mysteries, and fast—because art is long, but life can be very, very short.

Book One—Feint of Art: Annie’s got bad news for her ex-boyfriend, curator Ernst Pettigrew; The snooty Brock Museum’s new fifteen-million-dollar Caravaggio painting is as fake as a three-dollar bill. Then, the same night Annie makes her shattering appraisal, the janitor on duty in the museum is killed—and Ernst disappears. To top it all off, a well-known art dealer has absconded with multiple Old Master drawings, leaving forgeries in their places. Finding the originals and pocketing the reward money will help Annie get her landlord off her back. But a close encounter with a fickle yet charming art thief could draw her into the underworld of fakes and forgers she swore she’d left behind…

Whew!

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Wednesday night I sent off three more ideas (short paragraphs on each) to an online publishing company I’ve currently got a four book contract with. And yes, I know that’s a badly constructed sentence. It’s Friday, it’s been a long week. I’m only human, people! This was the same night I took a break from doing anything I didn’t want to do and wallowed in old Dark Shadows movies. I didn’t feel like working on my book, but it was easy enough to scribble (is there a comparable word for ‘scribble’ when one is typing?) down some ideas, two of them based of off stuff I’d started writing years ago to stave off boredom at work (and oh, do I miss having a job that left enough down time for boredom to set in…), the other something that started percolating when I drove past the Madonna Inn on the drive back from Los Angeles.

For all my caterwauling about outlines and synopsises, I’m finding it easier to toss ideas down on paper (or computer screen). It took me a half hour tops to do these three paragraphs and about a minute to dash off an email to the two editors at Ravenous (two lovely women who I had the pleasure of meeting when they were out for the RWA Cence a couple weeks ago). I went to bed feeling pleased with myself – I’d catered to my inner child (I WON’T work tonight! I want an Oompa Loompa NOW, Daddy!) and satisfied my inner task master (I wanna see RESULTS, people!). Yay, me!

So today I checked my email when I got to work and there it was: an email from the editors saying they loved all three ideas and when could I deliver the finished books?

GAH!!!!

In that moment I realized I now had six 200 page novels to write, not to mention my co-writing project (What Women Really Want in Bed) with the lovely Cynthia Gentry (more on my history with Cynthia another post!) due February 1st (and if any ladies out there would like to take our survey, please let me know!). I had a mild freakout, but then realized once February 1st is past, I have a very reasonable writing schedule. Well, not VERY reasonable (three months per book), but definitely workable. Champagne is the most difficult to write for me because it’s in a genre I’ve never attempted beyond the original short story and that was written as a gift. So my initial GAH!!!! subsided to a workable *gulp!*

I’m actually really excited about this. I still have two other projects (including the sequel to Murder for Hire: The Peruvian Pigeon) I want to work on and a full time job. But I also have a creative fire lit inside me that I haven’t had in years. I think about writing all the time (when I’m not thinking about food, sex or exercise). Little sparks of ideas keep igniting…and I keep saying to myself ‘wow, that would make a GREAT book..’ And then I remind myself I have to finish the ones I’ve contracted for already. And THEN I scribble the ideas down anyway.

Yes, there will be lots of sex in the short novels. But no more than you’d find in a Laurel Hamilton Anita Blake Vampire Hunter novel..actually, probably less since she’s been writing sex scenes that go on for THREE CHAPTERS, leaving those of us who love the first half dozen books in the series to ask ‘where’s the action, Laurel? More butt kicking, less butt…er…never mind.’ I probably won’t have my mom read most of these. But she knows I’m writing them and I like to think she’s proud of me for getting the work and has enough faith in my writing ability to know the finished products will be well written. Right, Mom?

Er…Mom?

I’ll get back to you on that.

Dana in Muni-Land

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So for those who followed my adventures yesterday with the bag lady shopping cart, the skanky pseudo professor who reeked of alcohol and injured my shin, and my general bad attitude, I am happy to write I had a better day today. It started out much like yesterday at work (as in, I must KILL someone or explode…), but slowly improved through a combination of yoga breathing exercises and my sense of humor. I think my night of relaxation and Dark Shadows movie helped too. Reading all the comments on the post certainly brightened up my day, as did reading everyone else’s (I’ve decided Marvin is quite happily one of the zaniest fellows I’ve ever ‘met’ and am delighted to have made his acquaintance via this blog challenge). So many good tips, interesting articles, great links and overall fun reading material!

By the time I left work, I was in good humor and looking forward to a game of Muni Roulette. Muni Roulette has very simple rules: whatever train comes along first is the one I take and I have to figure out a way to walk home from one of the stops along the route. Today my destination was actually West Portal where I was meeting Dave at 6pm for our Thursday wine tasting at Wine Styles. I wanted as hilly a route as possible (I’m feeling as plump as a force fed piglet these days). I didn’t have my bag lady shopping cart and I DID have my walking shoes (yes, I am one of THOSE women who will put on tennis shoes and socks with my work clothes. Today’s socks were black with the skeletal structure of the feet and shins on ’em) and a new paperback book to read as I walked. I had two hours to get to West Portal. The possibilities were, if not infinite, certainly varied.

The first train was a J. This was doable. I could take it to Noe Valley, wander up into the hills and do the hike up Clipper (at the foot of the hill is a sign warning trucks to use a low grade – steep hill ahead!) and down Portola. It was only a one car train, but without the cart and the crowds of yesterday, it shouldn’t be a problem. As I started to board the train, someone brushed me and boarded ahead of me.

Yes, folks, it was Skanky Professor Man, wearing the same clothes as he’d had on yesterday and still clutching a plastic bottle full of unidentified liquid. Gah!! I jumped back from the door and decided the gods of Muni Roulette would forgive me if I waited for the next train. I had no desire to have my good mood shattered by the sight, smell or sounds of another crazy Muni rat. Especially not one who’d already pissed me off enough to inspire violent daydreams. Not a good thing.

So I took an L train and jumped off at the Castro Street station on Market. I walked up 17th to Stanyan, down Stanyan to Parnassus, from there to 8th Street and then up into this amazing little hilly neighborhood with winding streets and houses that inspire the imagination. Very little of this route is flat and it took me an hour and a half to reach West Portal. During the walk I made friends with an Irish Setter named Maggie (a fine name for an Irish dog) who thought I was more interesting than her owner. I ended up going on a little detour up a hill to keep Maggie from running down into a trafficky area. I was glad I did; I stumbled on this little side street with a series of old stone staircases. One led down onto another curving street and another led up, lined by trees. If you stood at the bottom of this staircase, you could see an old weathered stone house covered with moss through the trees, like something out of a gothic novel. Shades of Dark Shadows and Collinswood! I plan on going back with a camera. I will be using the location in one of my books.  It’s the sort of place you just KNOW holds the magic wardrobe or portal to another time and place.

I love walking in this town. You see things you don’t see when you drive and discover little pockets of the past side by side with the present. I get ideas for my writing all the time…and have started using them instead of going ‘oh, yeah, that’s cool’ and forgetting about it.

Come visit me one of these days. I’d love to give you a walking tour of my favorite parts of San Francisco!

One of those days…

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I had such plans for this evening. First I was going to do a vigorous hour of Tae-bo (the classic advanced tape for those of you who are familiar with Billy Blank and his Tae-bo-ing ways), followed by a light and healthful dinner. And then, invigorated, I would come up with some upbeat and witty post to do with writing and then work on my book. The TV would be ignored; I’d find appropriate music instead. Y’know, something upbeat and wit inspiring.

So far I’ve had a light and healthful dinner (chicken apple sausage and tomato sauteed in a little olive oil and herbs and one vegan chocolate chip cookie for dessert), but the rest of it went out the window after what had to be the worst ride on the Muni I’ve had in my three plus years as a San Franciscan. I’d already had a crappy day at work. No real reason, nothing major. Just a lot of little irritations coupled with low energy that made for an exceptionally cranky Dana. I tried the gratitude game (when you actively list what you’re grateful for, which, in my case, includes having a decent job that pays well, with co-workers who I don’t normally want to kill), but couldn’t get past ‘I’m grateful I haven’t killed anyone today.’

Fine. The work day is over and I know Dave will have moved the living room furniture to accommodate Tae-bo, the cat boxes will be cleaned and all I have to do is get home to unwind by punching the crap out of the air and kicking a few imaginary enemies while Billy calls out his enthusiastic encouragement. Even better, the copies of Murder for Hire have arrived from my publisher in time for next week’s library panel, so I’ve packed them into a handy dandy little ‘bag lady’ shopping cart for the Muni ride home. It seems like it should be so easy… just a 45 minute train ride between me and my evening.

Sigh.

When I got to the train platform, it was unusually crowded for 4:00. Not a good sign. When the L train showed, it was a single instead of a double train. Another very bad sign. By the time I manuevered my heavy shopping cart through the crowd and into the train, the seats were all taken, except for one next to the window. This seat was a: blocked by a skanky fellow who reeked of booze and looked like an eccentric college professor down on his luck and b: not one I could take anyway because of my cart.  I’d seen the guy before; he lived in our neighborhood. One of those not quite homeless, but not quite sane people who seem to populate the Muni. He saw me trying to keep my cart from rolling into fellow passengers while I held onto a seat with my other hand to avoid tumbling headlong into the aisle, but the thought of moving didn’t occur to him. Or rather, it did, but he didn’t care. My cart rolled into his foot and nudged it; he gave it and me a nasty look and took another swig from an unlabeled plastic bottle. Normally I’d have apologized, but as it was I had to restrain myself from rolling the cart into him on purpose. I was having serious Muni rage issues.

Now I don’t like getting this angry. I have a definite streak of temper that has been known to go into berserker rage with the right (or wrong) provocation. Getting jostled by the increasing crowds at each stop didn’t help the irrational anger. Neither did the stink of bologna wafting over from a man next to me. The muscles in my legs, back and arms were trembling with the effort of keeping the cart from going on a rampage and myself in one spot. My head started aching and all the irritations of the day coalesced into a hard little knot in the center of my chest. I wanted to kill.

The train finally cleared out enough for me to sit for the last five minutes of my ride. Skanky Professor Booze Man got out two exits before me and gave my cart a hard, deliberate kick when he stood up, driving it into my shin. I have never had to stomp down on a urge to maim someone as hard as I did today, folks. The red is still slowly eking out of my vision and this is after a foot rub, dinner and four cats purring on or around my lap.

By the time I dragged myself and my book laden cart up the slight hill to the house, I was wiped out. Tae-bo? Hah. My legs weren’t having it. Dave greeted me and all I could do was whimper, ‘I had a bad day. I don’t feel good!’ and start bawling like a five year old. The foot rub followed shortly after that; the man has finely honed survival instincts along with a generous nature.

Now I’m sprawled out on the couch, sipping a glass of Chilean carmenere, enjoying another cheesy movie (Night of Dark Shadows starring a VERY young Kate Jackson).

I’ve given myself permission to take the night off of everything but the blog challenge. I’m hoping my mood, attitude and temper improve for tomorrow…although if I see the Nutty Professor on the Muni, I’m not making any promises.

Dark Shadows

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Okay, I’m gonna carbon date myself here…  I am watching HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS on Chill and remembering how addicted I was to Dan Curtis’s supernatural gothic soap opera, DARK SHADOWS.  It used to scare me – one episode gave me such nightmares my mom wouldn’t let me watch it for a week (thus making me a miss an integral plot and character shift; when Cassandra comes back as Angelique – thanks a lot, Mom!).

In the course of its run, DARK SHADOWS jumped the shark over and over again, but the basic premise is the stuff that most modern day paranormal romances are made of: sexy vampire finds reincarnation of his lost love and vampiric hijinks ensue. There were witches (Lara Parker, who no doubt gave many a young boy ideas), werewolves (and didn’t Quentin have the beefiest sideburns you’ve ever seen?), troubled children (de rigour for a gothic), innocent governesses (did I mention reincarnation of lost love?) lovelorn doctors (“show me your neck, Julia!), scientists with questionable motives (Professor Stokes, played by the same actor who was Count Sacknussem in JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH)., time travel, parallel universes and a dream curse.

And of course, there was Barnabas Collins, centerpiece of the show.  Played by Jonathan Frid sporting a black double cape and silver wolf-headed cane, Barnabas Collins was an icon in those days.  I didn’t find him sexy (I was 4 years old when the show started so perhaps this is no great shock), but the whole concept of undying love certainly made an impact.  And, as mentioned above, the show scared me.  I liked being scared, so this was not a huge problem (unless I kept Mom up with my nightmares).

I watched an episode a few years back and was amazed at the glacial pace.  Sample dialogue between two characters:

“Is that the key?”

“The key?”

“Yes.  The key.  The key to the room.”

“The key to the room?”

“Yes, the key to the room.”

” The key to the room that hasn’t been open in a hundred years?”

“Yes.”

And so on.  The scene ends after a close-up on someone’s feet walking on tiled floor, ominous music building with each step until the feet stop and the music gives a resounding ‘Da DAH DAAAAHHHHH…’

Ah well.  What scares a four year old cannot be held up to the critique of a grownup.  And even with the silliness, stilted dialogue and on-screen boo boos caused by single takes per scene), DARK SHADOWS  definitely helped shape my imagination into the rather scary place it is today.

Taking a Brief Break

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One of my fellow August Blog Challengers (ABC) wrote a post about the need for taking a break, no matter how hectic the writing schedule might be or how scary the deadlines looming over us. I wish I could remember offhand which of these talented writers wrote that post, but I can’t. And as is the way of things, skimming back through their blogs is NOT turning up the post in question. Trust me, it was a good post. And if the author of it reads this post, I trust they’ll give me a cyber whack upside the head and leave a comment so I can do an after the fact link. A POST post, as it where.

But on with the point here.

I took my usual morning walk on the beach (is there ever a point where one can collect too many shells and pieces of beach glass? Is there a socially acceptable limit, as there is with, say, cats? Can I be a crazy shell lady?) and have spent the rest of the day so far expanding the world of my short story, Champagne, with a brief diversion to write my weekly post for Fatal Foodies. Then back to Champagne (and wishing I had a glass of it). I hit a wall about 20 minutes ago and took a meal break (whatever you call lunch and dinner when they’re combined). I turned the TV on to see if some wonderfully crapituous (it’s my word and I like it!) Sci Fi original movie was on, but it was FINAL DESTINATION II, which is only bad enough to be annoying rather than gleefully horrendous. It’s gotta be at least an 8 on the Crap-o-meter to make it in our Bad Move Night lineup. Disappointed, I did a brief channel surf to see if anything else was on. ROAD HOUSE was on AMC, Patrick Swayze and his mullet were kicking the shit out of testosterone overdosed men with inferior mullets.

This is the second time I’ve walked in on ROAD HOUSE mid-movie and considering that both times it took only five minutes to fill me with an overwhelming desire to gather a group of friends and several bottles of tequila, I decided to save it for later and did another brief channel scan. This time I found the last 10 minutes of SUMMER STOCK, an MGM musical starring Judy Garland and Gene Kelly. I was just in time to see Judy sing ‘Get Happy’ (as in ‘Forget your troubles, come on, get happy…we’re gonna chase all your cares away…forget your troubles, come on, get happy…we’re heading for the judgment day’). Both song and movie were part of my upbringing; Mom raised us on musicals (I found the Hammer horror films all on my own), watched the movies and played the records. She used to waltz me around the pool when I was too young to swim, and sing the songs.

Not all musicals were created equal, of course – if they didn’t have Gene Kelly they weren’t quite as good. I grew up with a very definite opinion on what the ideal male legs looked like and they were Gene Kelly’s. If you’ve ever seen THE PIRATE and watched the Pirate Ballet number where he’s wearing what might be the sexiest pirate costume ever created, you will understand why my opinion remains unchanged to this day.

What does this have to do with taking a break? Easy. Because some of my best childhood memories are based around watching these movies with Mom and Lisa after our dad moved out, hearing a snippet of one of the songs or, better yet, seeing even a few minutes of movies like SUMMER STOCK, AMERICAN IN PARIS and THE BANDWAGON (the latter doesn’t have Gene Kelly, but it has the Manhunt Ballet, which was a huge influence on Murder for Hire) is an instant mood booster. Admittedly I sometimes watch a few minutes of DAWN OF THE DEAD (my first date movie) when I need a break, but I’ve yet to see a zombie with legs as good as Gene Kelly’s.

P.S.  Go here to check out my latest post on Fatal Foodies! 

When Life Imitates Art…or Vice Versa

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I received an email out of the blue yesterday titled quite simply ‘Thank you.’  The return email address didn’t appear to be from a Nigerian asking me to transfer vast sums of money into my bank account or an  advert for Viagra, Nude Live Girl photos, or ‘great replica watches,’ so I opened it instead of consigning it to Spam or the trash bucket.  I am so glad I did because the ensuing correspondence made my day.

“Dear Dana.  Thank you for making me famous in your new novel.”

Cheers,

Grant”

I scanned down and read his email signature, which included his last name.  I am withholding the last name here for the time being, but if you’ve read Murder for Hire and remember the character of Grant, Connie’s boyfriend, you’ll know what it is.  Or you can refer to the book quickly and do your own Google search.

I can’t tell you precisely what else was said in the correspondence for fear of giving away some relatively important plot and character points if you haven’t read the book, but the gist of it is that my character’s inadvertent namesake is a college professor and one of his ex-students read my book, noted the character name and contacted Grant, telling him about my book and that my character reminded her of him (her professor). I did a Google search and found out that this real life Grant rates very high on his students’ ‘hot’ scale.  Five out of five, in fact.  My Grant would be pleased.

I am sending Prof.  Grant a copy of MFH so he can see for himself whether or not her comparison is flattering.  His sense of humor appears to be up for it, at least if his emails are any indication.  We shall see.

My only regret is his ex-student contacted him anonymously because I really would love to talk to her about both her reaction to this specific character and to find out what, exactly, about her ex-professor is reminiscent of him.  The character in my book is based on several ex-boyfriends and an annoying actor I worked with.  Enquiring minds really want to know here!  And I’d also just to love to know who all is reading my book out there.  I’m still a geek about the whole ‘people reading my book’ thing, y’know.