When the Muse Strikes . . .

The Florida Writers Association names me as its 2012 Person of Renown

2011-10-28T12:02:00.007-04:00

I'm happy to announce that the Florida Writers Association has named me its Person of Renown for the 2012 FWA Collection #4!

The FWA Collection is an anthology of short stories, essays and poems put out every year by the Florida Writers Association. The theme for the 2012 FWA Collection is "My Wheels." (It's pretty easy to figure out why they asked me to do this! See Exhibit 1 - Rescuing Olivia book cover.) Members of FWA are invited to submit work that relates to this theme. I get to pick my ten favorites and I'll also be submitting a story of my own.

The "My Wheels" collection will be unveiled at next year's FWA annual conference, October 19 - 21, 2012. Visit the Florida Writers Association website to learn more about the organization and the upcoming collection.

The FWA motto is Writers Helping Writers. And they certainly do! I'm honored to be asked to participate in such a special way.

North Carolina Events!

2011-10-11T13:20:00.006-04:00

I'm North Carolina-bound later this week. I'm heading up to the Raleigh-Durham area for a "Dangerous Dames" tour with fellow authors Deb Sharp and Joanna Campbell Slan, two of the funniest (and fun-loving) women I've ever known.

Molly Weston, of Meritorious Mysteries Blog fame and author escort extraordinaire, has done the heavy-lifting for us and scheduled the following events:

October 14, 2011 (Friday)
Noon
Flyleaf Books
Chapel Hill, NC

October 14, 2011 (Friday)
7:00 p.m.
Page-Walker Cultural Arts Center
Cary, NC

October 15, 2011 (Saturday)
2:00 p.m.
McIntyre's Fine Books
Pittsboro, NC

October 16, 2011 (Sunday)
2:00 p.m.
Halle Cultural Arts Center
Apex, NC

October 17, 2011 (Monday)
Noon
Holly Springs Library
Holly Springs, NC

October 17, 2011 (Monday)
3:00 p.m.
West Regional Library
Cary, NC

Should be a lot of fun! If you're in the area, stop on by!

Memory Blocking Drugs? Not So Far-Fetched

2011-06-07T17:29:00.008-04:00

For those who read RESCUING OLIVIA and wondered about the science, you may find this post about "memory-blocking" drugs, from MSNBC's "The Body Odd" blog, interesting . . . Thanks to one of my newest readers, Kristy Collins, for sending me the link.

A "Must Read" for Writers

2011-05-24T23:25:00.004-04:00

'Nuf said . . .

The Business Rusch: Writing Like It's 1999.

*Thanks to the writers over at Novelists, Inc. for pointing me to Kristine's blog.

Torn Between Two Lovers

2011-03-30T11:53:00.003-04:00

Joseph Arellano of the San Francisco Book Review asked me to write an essay about the trials and tribulations of being an author. For me, it's the constant pull between my two professional loves -- law and writing. Here's the full essay, in The Back Page section of the San Francisco Book Review. Hope you enjoy!

"Sunny" Days Are Here Again

2010-12-28T12:14:00.019-05:00

To finish out the year, I give you my Nov/Dec '10 Slice of Life column from Lake Mary Life Magazine, about holiday visitors . . . mothers-in-law.

Happy New Year!

Julie's Slice of Life: "Sunny" Days are Here Again*

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, the day most people view as the official start of the holiday season (all except retailers, who, let’s face it, would start putting up Christmas decorations on Independence Day if they thought it would increase sales). And with the holiday season come visits from out-of-town relatives – those who lavishly shower us with the glad tidings and good cheer we look forward to, and those who, like the love bugs that visit our state every May and September, express their love by descending upon their helpless hosts and refusing to leave until they’ve sullied every surface in sight. If you’re lucky, your relatives bear a closer resemblance to the characters in a Christmas carol than a scary movie, but like the saying goes, even the best guests, like fish, can start to smell after a few days.

Unless, of course, the guest is my mother-in-law, Sunny.

When she and my father-in-law pull into our driveway after a sixteen hour car ride from St. Louis, they bring with them a hurricane-force wind of good will and upbeat attitude. You’ve heard of Norman Vincent Peale, the author of The Power of Positive Thinking? Well, I’m convinced that man learned everything he knows from my mother-in-law. When she leaves a few days later, the only reason I could possibly give for wanting to see her go is that, as the perfect guest, her exemplary behavior highlights the fact that I am far from the perfect hostess.

It begins when we open the door to greet them. Where other relatives might whine about the long drive, lament that they didn’t take a plane, or moan about how “beat” they are, my energetic, seventy-something mother-in-law says, “So what should we do first?” And she doesn’t mean take a nap. During her last visit, we went zip-lining at the Central Florida Zoo.

Her conduct as a guest is beyond reproach. When I make a meal, she asks how she can help, and when time comes to clean up, I have to throw her out of the kitchen or she’ll do the job herself while my back is turned. If I forget and leave wash in the machine, I later discover it dried and folded on my bed. If I accidentally sleep in one morning, I wake to find the coffee made and fresh, cut-up fruit on the kitchen table. Where many women I know grow weary from the subtle insults they endure from their mother-in-laws, mine repeatedly tells me I’m just like a daughter to her and thanks me for loving and taking care of her son.

Her presence causes a miraculous change in our children. Suddenly, they don’t fight. They give hugs and kisses without reserve. My fifteen year old daughter, who sees nothing wrong with calling me to bring the car and pick her up from the bus stop at the front of our neighborhood, magically becomes willing to take long walks on the Seminole-Wekiva trail. My eighteen year old agrees to watch The Man from Snowy River, where normally she views any film made prior to 2005 old-fashioned and boring (not to mention, she adds, the special effects are downright laughable).

It’s true. I am that rare breed of daughter-in-law who actually likes my mother-in-law and looks forward to her visits. I love her, too, of course. After all, she’s family. But to like someone can often be a greater compliment because it comes not from obligation, but from genuine respect and admiration for the beneficiary.

Because my mother-in-law resembles Julie Andrews, my husband and I used to watch The Sound of Music with our girls and tell them their grandma was once an actress, and that she played the character of Maria in the movie. Ditto for Mary Poppins. They believed us, and looking back at the nature of both those lead characters, I realize it was as much their grandmother’s cheerful personality as her similar appearance that caused them to fall for our white lie.

No wonder her father nicknamed her Sunny.

_________________________

*(Originally published in the Nov/Dec 2010 issue of Lake Mary Life Magazine.)

RESCUING OLIVIA a Top Ten Pick!

2010-12-20T11:12:00.002-05:00

Bookreporter.com reviewer L. Dean Murphy named RESCUING OLIVIA one of his Top Ten Reads for 2010!

Here's the link to his (and other Bookreporter.com reviewers') Top Ten picks.

From Kindergarten Cop to College Mom

2010-12-04T14:37:00.012-05:00

A few months ago I started writing a new column called "Julie's Slice of Life" in Lake Mary Life Magazine, the community magazine I've been writing for since 2006. We're fortunate to have wide circulation: the magazine is delivered to over 20,000 homes throughout our county and is also available in numerous businesses. I've decided to post the columns here, too, so others outside our area could have the chance to read them. This first one ran in the September/October 2010 issue (hence the references to summer).

Julie's Slice of Life: From Kindergarten Cop to College Mom*

"How much longer?" my agent asks, referring to my next book.

She's anxious to start making the rounds to publishers, to start shopping it. The publishing world pays lip service to quality, but the greenbacks flow most freely to those who can produce a novel a year. Two a year? You're golden.

I'd call myself bronze, at best. I'm lucky if I write a first draft in fifteen months. Two years is more realistic.

"It's summer," I say. "Hard to get any writing done when the kids are home."

And that's true. But here's the thing: I don't want to get any writing done. I want to spend every waking moment with my children, because for the first time since the oldest started kindergarten, I am acutely aware of how few days I have left to watch them while they sleep, or to cook enough decent meals so that they remember me as the mom who fed them well instead of plopping another pizza on the dinner table.

Why this realization?

My oldest daughter is about to leave for college. The younger one, who just entered tenth grade, is not far behind.

I should feel lucky. The parents I know who have college bound kids have already bid their goodbyes. But my daughter's school of choice doesn't start until mid-September; we'll drive her up for move-in and orientation a few days before. So I have a few extra days to hug her and make sure she knows she'll always be my baby. Yeah, just want she wants to hear.

I can still remember vividly the day she climbed the tall steps of the school bus for the first time. We lived in the suburbs of Boston, and if autumn is synonymous with going back to school, autumn in New England, with its brilliant colors and scent of burning leaves in the air, is the quintessence of the season, at once inspiring and heartbreaking. I cried my eyes out when that bus pulled away.

My husband and I followed the bus. Yep, you didn't misread that. We followed the bus. Once we were no longer in our daughter's line of sight, we jumped in our car and quickly started the engine. Turn for turn, stop for stop, we trailed it like two spies in a James Bond movie. When the bus pulled up to the school and lined up behind the other buses to unload the children, we made a small detour, abandoned our car in the parking lot, and took our hiding places behind a bush to watch our daughter disembark. Would she be crying? Would the fear and bewilderment I was sure I'd see on her face cause me to start bawling all over again? Would the school keep the implicit promise it made to all parents and make sure she made it safely from bus to building, building to bus, bus back home again? My husband held our video camera to film this momentous occasion; I lay in wait, ready to spring forward and save the day if our little girl needed our assistance.

When she stepped down, ballet slipper bookbag on her back and posture straight with pride, I smiled. I cried, too, but they were tears of joy. Our Jessie was going to be just fine.

They say you have to cut the cord. It's painful, but all parents do it, sooner or later. I asked both of my girls recently, "Am I a helicopter parent?" The answer was a quick and resounding, "No! Not at all!" I had the sense they knew a few, and I was happy not to be among them. Yet at the same time, I wondered whether I'd been there enough, whether I'd spent too much time with my novels and not enough with my children.

When the last box is set on her dorm room floor, when we've met the roommates and deemed them acceptable, when we've said our final goodbyes and left her behind to start her new life, I only hope my scissors are sharp enough.

My husband, meanwhile, will probably be following her to her first class, video camera in hand.

*(originally published in the Sept/Oct 2010 issue of Lake Mary Life Magazine)

Never Underestimate the Power of a Female Biker

2010-11-01T15:59:00.006-04:00

So I didn't get a chance to ride my bike for a few weeks, and then when I went out to the garage a few days before Daytona Biketoberfest to start the bike and make sure it was road ready (because I'd planned to ride down with my Chrome Divas), it wouldn't start. After looking for all the obvious problems, I described the issue to the Divas and several of them suggested I probably needed to charge the battery. I went to the shop near my house (not the Harley dealership, whose employees always treat me with respect and try to earn my business -- someday I plan to move up to a Harley and give it to them . . . ) and bought a battery tender. At this visit, like so many others to this particular shop, everyone ignored me when I walked in (despite the fact that there are always more employees than customers). I approached one of the employees and asked him about battery tenders. After several interruptions where he talked to another employee about this and that, he showed me two and recommended the larger (and more expensive) one. When I asked why, he had no good answer other than the smaller one can get hot. Hmm. I bought the smaller one. It worked fine. My battery did need charging, but I realized, once I charged it, it needed charging because I had run it down trying to start the dang bike so many times.

So, battery problem solved, but the bike still wouldn't start. It's a relatively new bike (I bought it new in Fall '08) and it doesn't have many miles on it. I ride it often, but to Daytona and back is the farthest I've ridden in one trip. So I really didn't think my problem could be anything major, something I couldn't solve on my own with a little research.

I did some searching on the internet for others who owned the same bike and had similar problems. Turns out, my problem was probably the fuel. It had sat too long, and with the new, high percent ethanol fuel, the fuel will go bad faster and can clog the system and the carbs. The solution, based on everything I read, seemed to be something called Seafoam, a type of fuel stabilizer/cleaner. I decided to give it a try.

I went back to the same shop this past weekend (despite my dislike of this place, it's where I bought the bike before I knew better, and it's the closest place around) and asked about Seafoam. They showed me a comparable product which they said worked better. I explained my problem to them, and at least three of the guys standing behind the counter insisted that I would have to bring the bike in to have the carbs cleaned, that the Seafoam-like product only works as a preventative. I asked how long this would take and how much it would cost. Three hours to clean, and another to put the bike back together. Hmm. I'd have to check with the service department to get a cost quote, they said. I didn't need to. I could guess what four hours labor would cost me, plus the cost of towing my bike in, since I don't have a trailer yet.

So I took my Seafoam-like product home and decided to try it anyway. Based on everything I'd read, it was worth a shot.

I added the appropriate amount to my fuel, gave it about an hour, and then tried to start my bike.

Guess what?

Yep, the bike started, and it's been running fine ever since.

Guess what else?

My visit to that particular shop was my last.

Barnes & Noble General Fiction Online Book Club

2010-10-27T15:57:00.006-04:00

During the month of November, the Barnes & Noble General Fiction Online Book Club will read and discuss RESCUING OLIVIA. I'll be joining the discussion to hear what readers have to say and answer questions. Hope you'll join in!

Click here for the reading schedule, and for links to sign up with BN's online book clubs (if you don't have an account already).

"So Damn Lucky" (or How I Met Dave Matthews)

2010-07-30T12:05:00.028-04:00

I'd been waiting all year for this past Wednesday night. It had been too long (last summer) since I'd been to a Dave Matthews Band concert and I'd been having DMB withdrawal. Plus, they recently announced they wouldn't be touring next year (the first year they've skipped in 20 years), so this summer's shows would have to last me a while. When I found out my Tampa tickets were in the orchestra pit, I was ecstatic. Can't get much better than that, right?

Wrong. It got much, much better than that.

Late afternoon on Tuesday, my DMB concert buddy Robin called me with the news that we were going to meet Dave before the Wednesday night concert. I didn't believe her. I thought she was playing a cruel, cruel joke on me. Robin and I have attended the Tampa shows together since I moved to Florida back in 2003. We even both went on the Dave & Friends cruise back in 2006. Personally, I have lost count of how many DMB shows I've been to all over the United States in the last decade or more, but it's approaching 50, I'm sure. So for someone to tell me I was going to meet Dave Matthews and not mean it? Yeah, that would be a cruel, cruel joke.

Robin's a fanatic like me; I found it hard to believe she would trick me that way, but I found it harder to believe we were going to meet Dave Matthews. I screamed, she screamed, I screamed, she screamed, my daughter who was in the car with me screamed "Mom, stop it! You're hurting my ears!" For about 40 minutes, Robin and I screamed some more.

Turns out, just minutes before, Robin got a call from The Warehouse, the official DMB fan club, of which we both are proud members. (If you're a fan, you'd be stupid not to join the fan club – as a member, you can request concert tickets and know whether you received them in advance of the public on-sale dates.) Each year, Robin and I both request two tickets to the Tampa show, and then we use the two best seats. (This year, because mine were in the orchestra pit, we were using mine.) When Robin picked up the phone, a woman introduced herself and asked Robin how she'd like to meet Dave Matthews. I don't need to tell you: Robin screamed.

We're not sure exactly how they choose whom to call. We don't think it's based upon seniority, because I've been in the fan club a few more years than Robin, and I've never received such a call. The woman gave her a quick briefing – telling her she could bring one guest (moi!), explaining what to do when she arrived at the amphitheatre, informing her that there would be four other fans there, too, with their guests, explaining how each person could bring one thing to be signed and we would all be able to take pictures.

Hmm, what to have signed?? Ever since my first book, Tell No Lies, was published, I've thought about how I might get a copy to the band. I thanked DMB in the acknowledgements section because it was their music most often playing in the background when I was writing the book. (I often joke that I'm not sure I could ever sell movie rights, because then I'd lose control over picking the soundtrack . . .) As corny as it sounds, I wanted them to know how much their music means to me.

So now, not only would I have the chance to give Dave the book in person, I could have him sign one, too. But it's a bit hard to frame a signed book and hang it on the wall in the billiards room (where much of our family's memorabilia hangs). I thought, maybe I should have him sign my concert ticket. Maybe I should have him sign an 8 x 10 glossy of one of the great pictures I took during the cruise show. Maybe I should have him sign a CD cover. Or maybe a band T-shirt? Decisions, decisions.

Nope, it had to be a book. Nothing else seemed as personal, as special, as one of my own books. Rick, Jess, and Sally all agreed: it had to be a book.

So Robin shows up the next day at my house around 2:00 p.m. She comes from Jacksonville, and then we leave together from my house near Orlando. No sooner do we pull onto Interstate 4, it starts raining. We're not surprised. It has rained every year we've been attending the Tampa shows together. Usually the rain and lightning like to have a little fun with us and wait until we're in Tampa, until we're tailgating in the parking lot of the amphitheatre or trying to find our way to our seats. So this seems a good sign. Let's get the rain out of the way.

We giggle like two school girls the whole way. The rain stops almost as soon as it starts, and we turn up the DMB music and sing our way across the state. At the fairgrounds, we set up camp in the heat and spend the next hour and a half wondering what we'll say to Dave and how we'll keep from acting like blubbering idiots. It's all we can do not to tell all the other fans around us that we're about to meet Dave, but we're afraid we'll somehow jinx ourselves. We're sweating profusely because it's SO hot, so every once in a while we get in the car and start the engine to cool ourselves off. Before we know it, it's time to head over to Will Call and wait for our escort. Once there, we immediately see others with the same, amazed "Cinderella at the ball" look on their faces, and we know they're there for the same reason. We keep pinching ourselves, convinced it must all be a dream.

Our serious-faced escort shows up, and Robin, always ballsy, says to him, "Where's your lanyard?" (The woman on the phone told Robin the escort would have a lanyard.) Leave it to Robin to check the guy's credentials . . . Without cracking a smile (you can tell he wants to, though), his hand goes to his waist, where the lanyard is clipped to his pants.

After he checks everyone's names off a list, we're given special stick-on passes that will indicate we're allowed backstage. He then walks us to the back lot, which we enter through a small opening in the fence. About twenty or thirty hopeful fans are loitering around the opening, hoping for a glimpse of Dave or one of the other members of the band (been there, done that), and we feel a bit guilty, because this time we're the lucky ones who get to go in. (This is where my husband would say, "Guilty? Do you know how much money you've contributed to this guy's career? Tickets, airfares, hotels??? You deserve to meet him!")

Inside the fence, we're greeted by the numerous tour buses, lined up, one after another. As we continue to follow our escort, I spot Tim Reynolds walking by in the opposite direction. I nudge Robin and whisper, "Look! It's Tim Reynolds!" One of the guys in our group reaches out his hand and Tim shakes it.

We're led to a small Tiki hut area behind the amphitheatre. There's a bar, stools, and several patio tables, and even though I think I'm about to melt from the heat, the last thing I want to do is sit. The escort gives us a short briefing, which is pretty funny, because after he tells us how Dave will come around and spend a few minutes with each of us, take pictures, sign whatever item we brought to be signed, etc., he says, "But once he's finished and goes on to the next fan, DON'T follow him." In other words, don't be obnoxious.

All of a sudden, here comes Dave. He just walks into the Tiki hut and strolls through the middle of us, heading in the direction we all came in from. He mumbles something, like he so often does (if you know anything about Dave, you'll know what I mean), and then he says, "I'll be right back." So we all stand there looking at each other with our mouths open and our eyes wide.

As promised, he comes back after just a few minutes. The next half hour or so passes in about 20 seconds. He goes from couple to couple, chatting a bit, posing for pictures, signing whatever . . . We're standing near the end of the whole group, which is great because it gives me time to snap some pictures at leisure. He likes to be quite a goof when he poses for pictures, giving the same devilish or silly faces he sometimes gives the crowd when he's onstage. Robin whispers to me, "I hope he doesn't do that for the picture with me." I think it's charming, though, so I don't care what look he gives. He could blow spit bubbles for the picture and I'd be okay with it.

All of us are lined up in a rough half circle, and since we're at the end, I assume we'll be the last ones he greets. Nope. About halfway around, he suddenly crosses the Tiki hut to our side. The next few minutes or so passes in a millisecond. Robin gets her picture taken with him (below), then I get my picture taken with him (first pic at top). In the same way he posed with everyone else, he puts his arm around my back and I put my arm around his back, but I'm so excited that I spontaneously fling my other arm across the front of his belly. It suddenly occurs to me that, oops, maybe I shouldn't do that. Maybe I'm being a bit too chummy. I quickly remove my arm. I think I might have even said, "Oops, sorry." But if he minds or thinks I'm being a bit presumptuous, he doesn't reveal it. Heck, maybe he doesn't even notice. He's probably thinking about his upcoming set list.

But the best part is still to come. I grab my book off the table behind me, and I open to the page near the front containing my acknowledgement to the band and hand it to him. I tell him this is my book, that I'm the author, and I point out the acknowledgement and explain why it's there. Now, mind you, I'm speaking ninety miles a minute because I'm so afraid my time is about to run out, and at first I don't even think he's registering what I'm saying. He's probably thinking, yeah, yeah, let's get on with this. He begins to sign the book, but then all of a sudden he stops and flips the cover over to look at the front jacket. Time seems to stand still (for me, at least). It feels very intentional, the way he stares at that front cover. I'm wondering, what is he doing? He opens the book up again, then, and as he resumes writing, I see him begin to personalize his message, and I get it. He looked on the front cover for my name.

When I recounted this to Rick later, Rick said, "He realized this was personal for you, that you weren't simply going to turn around and sell his autograph on the internet." I don't know if that's true, if Dave ever gave it that much thought, but I like to think so. I like to think he understood how special all of it was for me.

I thank him (at least I hope I did!), and I reach back around to the table for bag of books I brought for him – one of each, Tell No Lies and Rescuing Olivia – signed to him and the band with my own personal note of thanks. Reading material for the long bus rides, I tell him. His assistant, who'd been trailing him the whole time, says "I'll take that for him" and grabs it from me.

Dave is about to move on to the next couple when Robin and I realize he hasn't signed the shirt she brought. It all happens so fast, but I grab a camera and manage to get one more picture – Dave signing Robin's shirt. The escort then tells us to follow him, he'll lead us out. I lean over and tap the assistant on the shoulder, and when he turns to me, I motion to the bag of books and say, "You're sure he'll get these?" He says, "Yeah, I'm on his bus. Don't worry." Who knows if he's telling me the truth? But nevertheless, I choose to believe him.

Once we're out of the Tiki hut and have been set free by the escort, I think we scream again.

The rest of the night is like most Tampa DMB concerts – incredibly hot and sticky – but we barely notice because for the entire evening, we're both floating on this little cloud of pure delight. Our smiles are glued to our faces, and when the band comes onstage, those smiles get even bigger. Our seats (or rather, our standing room spots) in the orchestra pit place us just in front of the stage on the left side, where we feel Carter's every drum beat from the humongous speakers that are so close we can almost touch them. (I'm certain we lost a bit of our hearing Wednesday night.) The fans around us give us high fives when we tell them we met Dave, and like every DMB show, there's a camaraderie I've never felt at anyone else's concerts.
And then, toward the end of the concert, as if the night couldn't get any better, the band plays "Crash Into Me." It's not my all-time favorite DMB song (that would be #41), but if you've read Tell No Lies, you'll know it makes a cameo appearance in the first chapter, so hearing it on this night is extra special.

After the show, still on our dreamy cloud as we walk back to the car, Robin and I realize something: it never rained. A Tampa DMB show without rain. It reminds us of another song they played that night.

"So Damn Lucky."

A Little Shout-Out to the Readers Who Make This All Possible

2010-04-19T18:10:00.006-04:00

I get many emails from readers who write to tell me they enjoyed one or both of my books, or sometimes to ask a question about something, the most popular being "Did __ actually do it?" (I won't fill in the blank because I don't want to spoil things if you haven't yet read Tell No Lies.) Next to the actual writing, those emails are the best part of being an author. They are like food for my soul, and I save every one of them. Every single one. I'm still amazed that someone chooses to read my book over the many others available at any point in time, so when a reader goes the extra mile to let me know he/she loved my work, I'm incredibly thrilled.

Every once in a while, though, I receive an email from a reader that truly blows me away. An email that makes me sit back and think, "Wow, someone took the time to do all this to help me succeed as an author, simply because she loved my book."

Today I sat down at my computer to find just that sort of note from Debbie Haupt, a reader who lives near my hometown of St. Louis. Debbie had recently won a signed copy of Rescuing Olivia from an online contest. Not only did Debbie tell me how much she loved the book and that it would receive a "place of honor" in her library, she also told me she planned to pick up my first novel, Tell No Lies, on her way home from work that day, and that she would spread the word about me "to who ever will listen." And she wasn't kidding! She posted a review on her blog, The Reading Frenzy, on the Barnes & Noble site, and on Facebook and Twitter.

An author can't ask for more than that from a fan. :-)

Thank you, Debbie – you really made my day!

Ellie Grossman and the "Mishegas of Motherhood"

2010-03-18T15:43:00.017-04:00

I've been meaning to write about my Rescuing Olivia book tour, but the demands of the tour itself have kept me from doing so. I'm such a limp rag at the end of each day, I can barely eek out a meal for my family (when I'm home), so trying to eek out words that make sense would be futile. The few times I've tried, the words fell flat on the page. So I resigned myself to waiting. Instead, I've tried to keep folks updated by comments and pictures on Facebook (some are on my regular page, some are on the Fan page . . . still figuring that out . . . Eventually, I'll post some of my favorite pictures here, too.

In the meantime, I'd like to keep a promise I made long ago and introduce my readers to Ellie Grossman (at left, with dog Luci), someone I first "met" when I was promoting Tell No Lies. We have many things in common: she's from St. Louis, too (but unlike me, she still lives there), she's a mom, a writer, a Parkway North alum, and interestingly enough, we share the same name (my maiden name is Grossman), though as best as we can tell, we're not related. I remember her in high school, but she was a grade below me and we never met back then. She wrote to me after hearing about Tell No Lies, and I discovered she wrote a fantastic blog, "Mishegas of Motherhood," which also runs as a column in the St. Louis Jewish Light newspaper. It's been almost two years since I first asked to interview her – she truly is a pillar of patience – and finally, I have. I'll let her do the heavy lifting, but I must say this – she's a funny, funny gal. After you read the interview, check out her website at "Mishegas of Motherhood." You'll be glad you did.

Julie: Tell us a little bit about Ellie Grossman.

Ellie: I knew I was hooked on writing when I was a student at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in the mid 1980s and saw my first full-length feature story published on the cover of the Columbia Missourian. My in-depth investigation on the latest trends in salad bars, which included quotes about garbanzo beans from the produce manager, impressed the editor so much that she let me skip class to hang out at a local bar and research the college craze of drinking flavored schnapps shooters with weird names like “Fuzzy Navel,” (made with orange juice), “Buttery Nipple,” (mixed with butterscotch), and “Sex on the Beach,” (blended with cranberry juice). To this day, a fruity cocktail reminds me of my college days and brings a smile to my face.

After I graduated in 1986 with a Bachelor of Journalism degree in “ego,” I visited the Big Apple to brainstorm ideas with editors at Conde Nast, Meredith , Fairchild, and other major publishers to find out how a Midwest girl like me could break into the freelance writing business. The most important life lesson that I learned on that trip is to never wear high heeled pumps (especially fuchsia colored) when walking up and down the sidewalks of Madison Avenue and Broadway, even though tearing up my shoes and twisting my ankles led to my first paid writing assignment at Woman Magazine.

Right after I landed my first national byline, I got a letter from another magazine writer with my same name, Ellie Grossman the “Grammar Guru”, who told me to change my name because she was in the business longer and it would only confuse editors, so that’s when I started using my initial as Ellie S. Grossman. I’ve had other aliases throughout my career, including L.E. Brighton, that came in handy whenever I wrote restaurant reviews and had to disguise my identity.

Over the last two decades, I’ve written just about everything for a buck, including obituaries, city council meetings, book reviews, advertising copywriting, newsletters, fashion trends, real estate, health care, you name it, but my niche has always been newspaper and magazine features. Right before I got married in 1993 to a fellow native St Louisan, Scott Cohen, I actually had a “real” fulltime job writing direct mail pieces for a medical publishing company—ho hum—but that changed soon after my first child Jack was born in 1995, and motherhood became my new beat. I also have a daughter, Sari, who is now 11 years old.

As a new “stay-at-home mom who never stays home” (that’s my official title on my business card), I started to write about what I know best—fun things to do with kids so parents don’t lose their minds. In those days, I wrote for an entertainment supplement called “Get Out!” in the St. Louis Post Dispatch and toted a stroller and café latte all over town, reporting on everything from the best shaded playgrounds to storytelling events at bookstores. I’ve been told by readers that many of my clips ended up on their refrigerator magnets.

Julie: Your blog/column is called "Mishegas of Motherhood." Can you explain the meaning of the Yiddish word "mishegas" for readers who might not know? How did you come to write this column? And how does your family feel about being the subject of some of your columns? Ellie: My proudest journalistic accomplishment, so far, is creating my weekly parenting humor column “Mishegas of Motherhood,” which is published in the St. Louis Jewish Light and picked up by other Jewish media as well. I gave birth to “Mishegas of Motherhood” four years ago, and I must say writing a first-person column has been a great gig and has opened a lot of doors for me, including guest speaking for various organizations and mostly building a loyal readership.

According to The Joys of Yiddish, the word mishegas (pronounced mish-eh-goss) literally means insanity or madness, but I refer to it in my website in a more lighthearted kind of way, such as how kids drive their parents crazy.

Basically, I wanted to find a niche in my writing and do something that hadn’t been done before. There are countless, boring mommy blogs out there, and I wanted to be different, provide something funny and entertaining, but also with value and not just fluff. My writing has always been a little tongue and cheek, but this time I gave it a Jewish twist. My columns are based on my own family and real life experiences, and while I sometimes poke fun at my husband and kids, I never invade their privacy or hurt their feelings, at least not intentionally. Besides, they don’t seem to care or even notice when I write about them because they rarely read my stuff anyway.

Julie: Is it difficult to come up with new topics to write about each week, or do you find they almost write themselves?

Ellie: I’m never at a loss for story ideas for very long. When it comes to writer’s block, my best advice came from the late, great humorist writer Erma Bombeck, who told me personally at a journalism school seminar years ago, “Writer’s block is like North Dakota. It doesn’t exist. Well, has anyone ever seen North Dakota?”

Julie: You have a section on your website called Readers Favorites. Have you noticed that certain topics tend to become favorites?

Ellie: Interestingly, I’m surprised at how widespread my readership has grown. According to my weekly website traffic reports, I get hits from all over the world, including Canada, Israel, United Kingdom, Australia, China, and even the small Carribbean island of Tobago, which is actually the birthplace of the limbo, go figure.

While I write about Jewish holidays and traditions and learn a lot about my own religion in the process, some of my favorite columns have nothing to do with being a Jew. For example, I got a lot of feedback on the piece about my preschool daughter’s horrific experience with lice, the philosophical narrative on what dogs teach us about life, and the column on my obsession with the food network (even Paula Deen’s people liked it and sent me a subscription to her magazine). My all time favorite column, “Why Jews Don’t Camp,” won a national writing contest and led me to Hollywood.

Julie: Yes, you've had a brush with Hollywood because of your column! Would you like to share what that was and how it came about?

Ellie: Back in February 2008, I submitted a version of my column on my family’s camping disaster to an Internet-based sitcom called “In The Motherhood,” and when I got the email that my story was selected to be used as a screenplay for a webisode starring comic actress Leah Remini, I thought it was a hoax. I’ve never won anything in my life, except a lottery ticket that paid me another losing lottery ticket. When I realized that I won a trip for two to Hollywood to meet the cast and producers and watch the filming of the webisode, not to mention a four night’s stay at a hotel on the Sunset Strip and a makeover at a Beverly Hills salon, I started screaming in excitement and went shopping for a new outfit. I wrote about my adventures in Hollywood, of course, and the experience remains a highlight in my career.

Julie: In addition to your column, what other types of writing do you do?

Ellie: My latest journalistic endeavor is to get into children’s book writing. In fact, I’m working on a proposal right now about my favorite subject of all, my toy poodle named Luci. So if anyone out there knows a good agent . . .

I’ve also heard positive things about self publishing, so I’m still trying to figure it all out. I have great admiration for writers like you, Julie, who are disciplined enough to get their books published and are rewarded for their hard work and talents. For me, the process of writing a book is daunting enough, plus pounding the pavement and marketing myself through blogs and social networks seems overwhelming. I’ve been writing professionally for more than two decades now, and my dream to publish a children’s book. With a lot of hard work and good luck and chutzpah (perseverance), it will happen.

Thanks so much, Ellie! In my humble opinion, though talent is required (and you clearly have that), it's often perseverance that is the key to open doors. I suspect, given what you've accomplished so far, you have a lot of that, too. Best of luck with the column and your children's book in progress!

Don't forget to check out Ellie's website at www.mishegasofmotherhood.com.

RESCUING OLIVIA hits US bookstores today!

2010-02-02T07:52:00.011-05:00

Rescuing Olivia officially hits bookstores today! I'd love it if you'd help me spread the word. Wondering how you can help? Here are some ideas:

1. Look for Rescuing Olivia in your local bookstore. If they don't have it, ask them to order it. (If it's there, and your phone has a camera, take a picture with you holding it and I'll post it online!)

2. If you like to shop online, online buyers can find Rescuing Olivia at numerous places online: Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, Indiebound, and Powells, to name a few.

3. If you like to get your books at the library, ask for Rescuing Olivia at your local branch, and if they don't have it, ask them to order it.

4. Rate the book on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads, Shelfari or any other online service, and give a one or two sentence review. It doesn't matter if you bought the book or read it through your library. You don't have to purchase a book to review it.

5. Tell your friends and family about the book. Repeatedly. Make them so sick of hearing about it that they'll go out and buy it just to shut you up. :-)

6. Mention Rescuing Olivia on your blog, Facebook or Twitter.

7. If you belong to a book club, consider choosing Rescuing Olivia as an upcoming selection. I've got book club questions on my website, and there's a form for clubs to contact me to arrange a visit, either live or by phone.

8. If you are part of a group or organization that is planning a conference and looking for a speaker, or workshop leader, suggest my name.

Many readers unfamiliar with how the book industry works don't understand the importance of those first few months after a novel's release. The shelf life of most books – unless you're a well-known bestseller – is pretty short. So every bit of buzz helps.

Thank you to everyone who has cheered me on! You're the best!

Nice profile in The Big Thrill, ITW's newsletter

2010-02-01T10:07:00.004-05:00

Lj Sellers did a really nice profile piece of me and RESCUING OLIVIA in the February issue of The Big Thrill, the online newsletter of International Thriller Writers, that just came out today. Thanks Lj!

Here's the link: The Big Thrill

Thank you Naples Florida Weekly for a great review of RESCUING OLIVIA!

2010-01-31T23:20:00.005-05:00

Naples Florida Weekly had a really nice write-up of Rescuing Olivia in this week's print edition. The online link won't be available until February 11, but here's a taste:

"Ms. Compton paces the story majestically, giving just enough new information in each scene to raise new questions that pull the reader forward. A fascinating cast of characters deepens the story. And as she does with the people in her story, Ms. Compton also makes each of her major settings – Florida, New England and Africa – contribute mightily to the imagistic and emotional power of the novel. By making a seemingly ordinary guy like Anders Erickson her central character, Ms. Compton goes against the grain of much contemporary suspense fiction written by woman. Most of her peers select a female protagonist, but Ms. Compton does a remarkable job of portraying a flawed yet sympathetic male hero." Naples Florida Weekly

RESCUING OLIVIA is in Stores! (A bit early . . .)

2010-01-30T10:02:00.005-05:00

Stopped by the Barnes & Nobles on Colonial here in Orlando to see my book on the shelf. (When I was talking to the manager the day before, he mentioned he already had the book out.) I'm so pleased to see that it's not only out, it has its OWN TABLE! And a wonderful window display, too. Barnes & Noble really does advertising well. Thank you, Geoffrey at BN!

Should a seven year old child be in a tanning booth?

2010-01-26T07:22:00.008-05:00

A seven year old girl spending time in a tanning booth? And everyone from her mother who called to make the appointment (who I have to believe is the instigator of this activity) to the employee at the salon taking the call, thinks it's okay? When Rick came home from getting his haircut to share this story with me, I simply couldn't believe it. But then, I live in an area where boob jobs and Botox injections are more common than palmetto bug sightings. A seven year old in a tanning booth really shouldn't surprise me.

I'm the first to admit I've been guilty of sun-worship. I have darker, olive skin to start with, and it tans easily. I'm from the generation of women who, as teens, used to slather baby oil on every inch of our bodies and lie in the sun holding album covers wrapped in foil near our faces to speed the process. We didn't know any better then.

Even now, some of my favorite days are the ones spend in a beach chair next to the ocean, reading a good book and soaking up the rays. Rick sits under a large beach umbrella, but I place my chair outside its shadow. I'm a little bit smarter than when I was sixteen, though; I wear suncreen with a much higher SPF, and I reapply it often. And now that I live in Florida, I no longer sit in the sun six days in a row to get as much color as possible before I return north from vacation. My long days in the sun are few and far between, and they're no longer the goal, but merely the byproduct of a day at the beach. I know there's no such thing as a safe tan, but like the smoker who continues to smoke even as he's hacking away, I accept it as my one vice that has the potential to kill me and so I make an effort to do it less and less.

Yet I'd be lying if I said the only reason I'm more careful in the sun is to protect myself. No, what finally compelled me to limit my time in the sun and wear stronger suncreen was the need to protect my daughters, and to teach them good habits. My oldest daughter, Jessie, has my husband's skin -- fair, and quick to burn. It's never been too difficult to convince her to wear sunscreen. She has seen how fast she'll turn lobster red if she doesn't. She often wears a shirt over her bathing suit, and she always sits under the umbrella if she's not in the ocean on a boogie board. But Sally has my skin, and she believes she's invincible. She gets dark fast, and she thinks that means the sun won't hurt her. I try to explain that a tan is evidence of the sun's damage, but my explanations fall on deaf ears. Instead, I simply become the mean mom and insist she wear sunscreen and reapply it often. Even coated with 30 SPF suncreen, she still gets dark, and when I take her to the pediatrician, I always get a lecture about skin cancer. Her doctor takes one look at Sally's skin and disbelieves my assurances that I make my children wear suncreen.

So when Rick came home from getting a haircut to tell me about the mother making a tanning bed appointment for her seven year old daughter, I was appalled. Huh? He expressed the same disbelief to the salon employee, and she defended the decision. "The tanning bed is safer than the sun." Really? People really still believe that?? And how about the fact that no one has considered why a seven year old needs a tan in the first place?

Someone please tell me this type of thinking is the exception and not the norm.

Please meet . . . Margaret Reyes Dempsey, author of THE BENEFACTOR!

2010-01-14T16:56:00.013-05:00

Today I'm delighted to introduce Margaret Reyes Dempsey, the author of The Benefactor. My friendship with Margaret is another one of those "would have never met her but for my book" type of stories. Interestingly enough, Margaret and I attended the same university, Washington University in St. Louis, and we graduated only one year apart. (I confess. I'm the older one.) We probably walked the same halls at the same time, because she majored in Spanish and I majored in English but also took plenty of French classes, and all of the Romance languages were in the same building. But we never met. Until, years later, when Margaret saw a blurb about my first novel, Tell No Lies, in our alumni magazine and wrote to congratulate me. At the time, I was renting a little house for a week up near the coast in Georgia, a little retreat in the middle of the swamps where I go sometimes to write. I take my dog Wolfie and we have a nice, quite week away. Her email came as a surprise, and feeling as isolated as I did out in the boondocks, I was happy to have someone to correspond with. Turns out Margaret was a novelist, also, still trying to get published, and we've been writing to each other ever since! (We've even travelled with each other – see my July 06, 2009 post.)

Well, Margaret is no longer trying to get published. She is published. The Benefactor is romantic suspense novel featuring Kate Barrett, a girl who begins receiving anonymous gifts from someone called Secret Friend after the tragic deaths of her parents when she is eight years old. Years later, after landing a challenging job and the apartment of her dreams, she is caught off guard when another package shows up at her now unlisted address. Troubled that someone is watching her every move, she sets out to discover the stranger's identity.

Margaret took the time to answer a few questions about herself and her writing. (She has a great personality, as I think you'll see from her answers.)

How did you come to write The Benefactor? What initially sparked the idea for the story? Is the story that made it into the published novel the same one you began with?

Exactly four years ago, I was reading the newspaper and saw a brief article about money stolen from a church's poor box. In my typical fashion, I started asking "why" and "what if," jotted down a few notes, and filed it all away since I was already in the middle of writing a novel. A year later, I had finished that novel and was submitting it and wanted to start a new project. I peeked into my Ideas folder and found the notes I had written a year before. I decided that was the next story I wanted to write.

The story in the published novel is somewhat different than my first drafts. I ended up doing a rewrite of the story after my "first readers" reviewed it. I just felt it was missing something. I think what I ended up with is better.

What did you do upon first learning that your novel had been accepted for publication?

That was an odd day. I had just visited my son's fourth grade class for an authors' party--the kids had written books about endangered animals. We walked around the classroom, read their stories, and signed their fan pages. On my son's page, I wrote that I was proud of him and that he could now say he was published before his mom. A half hour later I arrived home to find the email indicating my novel had been accepted. I jumped, screamed, ran around a bit, and hyperventilated. Later that night, a friend and I went to a book signing for Mary and Carol Higgins Clark. I told them the news and they were so excited for me. It was nice to see that they hadn't forgotten the thrill of that first acceptance.

Tell us a bit about your writing history and your journey to publication. Is The Benefactor the first novel you wrote, or do you have others tucked away in a drawer somewhere?

No, no, no and yes, yes, yes. My very first novel was called Survival of the Fittest. I started it in 1987 and rewrote it dozens of times over the past 20 years. It in no way resembles the original story. In fact, it's so different, I could finish the last version and the first version and no one would realize they were the same book. That one is kind of like the child who never grows up and moves out.

After that, there were about a dozen half-finished novels, which are bulging out of my file cabinets. In 2005, I was finally sufficiently disgusted with myself to actually finish a novel. I'll never forget the day I printed out the entire Self-fulfilling Prophecy manuscript. It was like giving birth. The very first one I ever finished. Though that one was never accepted for publication, it will always be special to me.

What writers or other people have influenced you? In what way?

The biggest influence in my life was my grandmother, Nana Mickey, a creative person who was not aware of her own giftedness. She used to babysit for us every Saturday night and thrill us with her made-up stories of smugglers and kidnappers at the South Street Seaport. Each week she'd leave off at a cliffhanger to be continued the following week. When I was a bit older, I would raid her bookshelves for romance novels. I think that's why I've always been drawn to write stories that were suspenseful and romantic.

I know she's smiling down on me, no doubt proud that I've been published. She was always my biggest fan. What a blessing it was to have a whole squad of cheerleaders wrapped up in one cuddly grandmother!

Tell us about Margaret Reyes Dempsey.

I am nothing if not enthusiastic and intensely curious. I love new experiences--visiting new places, meeting interesting people, trying new foods. I'm always thinking. I have a team of hamsters in my head and they are always on their wheels, spinning, spinning, spinning. I'm less interested in the "who" and "what" as I am in the "why." I love "what if" scenarios. It's how I create stories. I start with a nugget and then ask what if this happened or what if that happened; before you know it I'm onto something.

My biggest thrill in life is helping people see their own gifts. It's a shame that so many people aren't aware of just how creative they are. Have you ever been in a conversation with someone who just cooked a magnificent dinner for a big party and they're lamenting the fact that they have no talents? Or the person who whips up dozens of beautiful, hand- knit scarves for the holidays and wishes they were creative when they hear you've published a novel? My jaw drops and I want to shake them by the shoulders until they realize just how gifted they are. :-)

Besides my fiction writing side, I also happen to be an entrepreneur. I own a consulting company specializing in technical writing. The experience I've acquired in promoting my business is a huge asset in promoting The Benefactor. Unpublished writers may not be aware that, these days, once you're published, the marketing of your book is mostly up to you. Fun, fun, fun.

And speaking of fun, I believe writing should be fun. Not to say it isn't hard work, but hard work can be fun when you're passionate about what you're doing. I think a lot of needless, personal suffering in life is due to people not following their passions. But this is just my opinion. There's room for others. In fact, I was recently talking to a writing pal and mentioned that I'd jumped ahead in one of my writing projects because I got bored in the current scene and wanted to keep it fun. He was a bit horrified and told me we were supposed to suffer as writers. I laughed hysterically at this and we bantered back and forth until he finally acknowledged we were approaching it from two different directions. I agreed and told him he was "approaching it from pain and suffering and I was approaching it from pleasure and joy. Whatever works for you. Jumping ahead has reinvigorated my writing, it's energized me, it's given me insight into my writing process, and now it's provided something to discuss in Julie Compton's interview. So thank you for disagreeing with me."

What's the one thing you think readers would be surprised to know about you?

When I was eight years old, my lifelong dream was to be a cashier. Alas, I never had the pleasure of fulfilling that dream. However, as a technical writer, I have written several training manuals on how to use sophisticated cash registers. :-)

Okay, I'll admit it...when my son was just a toddler, I played with his toy cash register after he'd gone to sleep.

All right. I'll give you one more. I'm a pretty quirky person. I can't eat the end slices from a loaf of packaged bread. Yuk!

Which authors do you like to read? What books are currently stacked in your "To Be Read" pile right now?

I have eclectic tastes when it comes to reading--anything from beach-read novels to medical textbooks. The following books have been sitting patiently on my bookshelf, waiting to be opened. I purchased many of them just before I found out The Benefactor was accepted for publication, and it's been a whirlwind ever since.

The Anatomy of Story - John Truby
Her Fearful Symmetry - Audrey Niffenegger
The Scottish Novels - Robert Louis Stevenson
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke
The Art of War - Sun Tzu
The Devil in the White City - Erik Larson
Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Inheritance - Natalie Danford
Nineteen Minutes - Jodi Picoult
A Great Deliverance - Elizabeth George
Gaslit Nightmares - Edited by Hugh Lamb
Daniel Deronda - George Eliot
The Princess Bride - William Goldman
Republic - Plato
1001 Ways to Market Your Books - John Kremer (Guess I should move this one to the top of the list, eh? :-))

What's next for you? Is there a work-in-progress readers can look forward to?

I actually have three works in progress. The latest one was a crazy idea. In the busiest month of my life, with book promotion tasks piling up, I decided to join the NanoWrimo contest and attempt to write a 50,000-word novel in the thirty days of November. The idea comes from a real life experience--I was having odd dreams after which I'd wake up feeling there was something very important I had forgotten. I know it was just my mind's way of dealing with the anxiety of being a newly published author, but the idea appealed to me as a story. I started asking my "what if" questions and ended up with a psychological/scientific thriller. I didn't complete 50,000 words by November 30th, but I'm happy with the 25,000 or so I've written so far.

Another work in progress is a romantic comedy novel I'm writing in collaboration with Richard Lamb, a screenwriter from the UK. We met online, have been writing our novel online, and the online theme carries over into the novel. It's the kind of thing that makes you pause and consider what a miracle it is that we can make friends with people in other countries and conduct business all with the click of a mouse. The best part is I don't have to get out of my pajamas for meetings. :-)

The third work in progress is a suspense novel I started last year just before I got the good news about The Benefactor. It starts off as a deceptively simple murder mystery, but it doesn't end up that way. In fact, I'm not sure how it will end. I have two possible paths to explore.

How can readers contact you and learn more about you and your books?

My website http://www.margaretreyesdempsey.com/ provides one-stop shopping. You can read about The Benefactor, hear the latest news about my journey as an author, find upcoming events, access my personal blog, print photos of me to hang on your refrigerator (kidding), access links to buy the book, and send me an email. I love to hear from readers and respond to all emails I receive.

Thanks so much, Julie. This has been lots of fun. Happy New Year to you and your readers.

_________________________

You're very welcome, Margaret. Thanks for stopping by!

For those in the New York, Long Island area, Margaret will be signing her books this Saturday, January 16, from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at the Broadway Mall in Hicksville, NY. Proceeds will be donated to the LIV LIFE MS Walk Team (LI Chapter of the National MS Society).

New Year's Predictions, How Eerily Accurate They Were

2010-01-09T08:25:00.028-05:00

Happy Birthday Dave Matthews! (43 today)(picture taken by yours truly!)

Sometimes I mention things I love about being a writer (other than the actual writing, which is a given). For example, hearing from old friends. Another is meeting new ones. Another is meeting other authors. Writers tend to be a friendly bunch, and mystery and thriller writers, in particular, are some of the nicest people I've met. I mention this today because yesterday I was interviewed for an upcoming feature in The Big Thrill (International Thriller Writers' online newsletter) by Lj Sellers. I'd never met nor spoken to Lj before, but I immediately felt at ease with her and wished we lived in same town to meet for coffee. Alas, she lives on the Northwest coast, and here I am in the East. But hopefully, we'll see each other soon at a writer's conference. Check out Lj's website.

Now, on to the topic of the day: New Year's predictions.

On Thursday, one of the most interesting and unexpected pieces of mail showed up in my mailbox. It was an envelope from my good friend Karen in Boston. (I realize as I write this that Karen gets mentioned a lot in my blog. See my Feb. 28, 2008 post and my July 21, 2009 post. I wonder how she feels how about that?) It was a regular size envelope, but it felt slightly thicker than a regular piece of mail and, even more unusual, it was addressed to both me and Rick. It was also unusual because Thursday was her birthday; I remember thinking, why is she sending me something on her birthday? I'd sent her a present, and had left a voicemail message earlier for her, but we hadn't talked yet.

Still, I didn't open the envelope right away because I was running out to drop off my youngest daughter Sally at volleyball practice. When I returned home, I jumped in the shower before Rick got home; we planned to have dinner out together and then pick up Sally from volleyball. (In case you haven't noticed, we spend a lot – I mean a lot – of time driving Sally to and from volleyball.)

Well, Rick apparently opened the envelope while I was in the shower; later, at dinner, he told me what it contained: a cover letter from Karen asking, "Do you remember where you were ten years ago?" – referring to New Year's Eve 1999 – and then proceeded to remind us. We had been at a New Year's Eve party at Karen's house. We had already moved to Philly at the time, but we drove up to Boston the day before, stopping in New York City to see the Times Square preparations for the big turn-of-the-century party the next night.

Karen's cover letter reminded us who was there, what we ate, what we did, etc. But here's the most interesting part: underneath the cover letter were two pieces of confetti-decorated paper, one in my handwriting, one in Rick's handwriting. At the top was typewritten, "Happy New Year!" and the question, "What do you expect your life to be like in 10 years?" Following that question were our handwritten (quite sloppily – I think we were a little tipsy) predictions. Reading mine gave me the chills:

Will have:
(1) published something, anything
(2) jumped out of an airplane (with a parachute, of course)
(3) travelled to various parts of the world – Africa, Europe, Russia, etc.
(4) obtained my instrument rating
Will:
(1) be a mom my kids still talk to and want to spend time with
(2) live anywhere but PA – preferably near a beach
(3) spend at least one New Year's Eve in Times Square – perhaps the real millennium
(4) be healthy

Wow. I wrote these things ten years ago. I think my batting average is pretty darned good.

I'm published.

I haven't jumped out of the airplane yet, but my daughter Sally (yeah, the volleyball fanatic) intends to do it for her 18th birthday (a few years off) and I have told her I will do it with her.

We travelled to Europe (Belgium, to be specific, to attend the wedding of our friends Jolanta and Ronny) and the UK, and even Africa, which plays a large part in Rescuing Olivia. Russia is still on the list.

I haven't obtained my instrument rating yet, but it's still on the list, too.

I think my kids still like to talk to and spend time with me. You'd have to ask them, I guess. :-)

We live in Florida, which most certainly is not Pennsylvania and is near the beach. To be fair to PA, I wrote my list not long after moving away from Boston. I loved Boston and didn't want to leave. But I grew to love PA pretty quickly, and I cried my eyes out when we left for Florida in 2003.

We haven't spent New Year's Eve in Times Square, but we did go to the Macy's Day Parade one Thanksgiving and, as fun as that was, I think I no longer have the need to be in a NYC crowd during a major event. I guess that means I'm getting old!

And lastly, I consider myself healthy. I don't run as much as I used to, but I eat well, don't smoke, and my only real vice is the sun, and even that I don't abuse too much any more because I simply don't have the time.

All in all, not bad. What I found most interesting about my list from ten years ago is how well I knew myself. I've always been a goal-oriented person - probably too much so. Darn it, if I want to do something, I want to do something. LOL! This attitude comes in handy in the publishing business, where roadblocks exist at every turn. If nothing else, I know how to persist.

So what are your predictions for yourself? Where will you be ten years from now? Make a list, tuck it away in a safe place, and you've given yourself a neat little present for 2020. Just remember, no peeking!

Next up: an interview with Margaret Reyes Dempsey, the author of The Benefactor.

Publishers Weekly review of Rescuing Olivia!

2009-12-14T21:09:00.003-05:00

Thanks for the tip from my fellow writer and FWA friend Chris Hamilton, who writes the FWA blog. Chris posted on my Facebook wall earlier to say nice things about my Publishers Weekly review; only thing is, I didn't even know I had a PW review yet!

In the words of Sally Field: "They like me, they really like me!" (PW was my only real negative review of Tell No Lies, so this review is extra special.)

Here it is:

"Rescuing Olivia Julie Compton. Minotaur, $25.99 (352p) ISBN 978-0-312-37876-9

Compton’s intense, entertaining second novel involves a horrifying coverup and a powerful new drug. A hit-and-run motorcycle accident in a Florida forest leaves Olivia Mayfield in a coma in intensive care and her live-in boyfriend, 29-year-old Anders Erickson, feeling guilty. “I was going to ask her to marry me,” Anders confesses to Olivia’s sympathetic nurse. Was the theft of the couple’s helmets from their parked bikes shortly before the crash just a coincidence? Had a car really been following them, as Olivia suspected? Olivia’s father, Lawrence, a pharmaceutical magnate who blames Anders for the accident, informs Anders at one point that his daughter has died. When Lawrence turns out to have a hidden agenda, Anders travels to Clifton, Conn., where Olivia grew up, and later to Kenya in search of answers. While sometimes stretching the bounds of credibility, Compton (Tell No Lies) pulls off a super-satisfying resolution to this romantic thriller. (Feb.)"

My First Review of RESCUING OLIVIA!

2009-12-03T14:53:00.005-05:00

And I couldn't be more pleased! The reviewer "got" it! :-D

"Modern-day fairy tale about a princely Florida lawn guy who must rescue his princess from a clutch of monsters.

"In the five months Anders Erickson has lived with Olivia Mayfield, he’s fallen ever more deeply in love with her and determined to propose marriage. But his plans are put on hold by a motorcycle trip to a special swimming hole at the edge of the Ocala National Forest that turns disastrous when someone steals his two helmets, someone runs his Harley off the road and sends its passengers to two different hospitals, and someone spirits off the comatose Olivia, tells Anders she’s died and expunges every record of her stay. The fact that these malefactors are three different people removes the tale from the realm of documentary reality and nudges it closer to fable. Yet once Olivia’s pharmaceutical-king father Lawrence and her ex-fiancé, Iraq war veteran Brent Campbell, are established as the lead dragons, Compton (Tell No Lies, 2008) burrows so deeply into Olivia’s and Anders’ troubled back stories and dramatizes in such psychologically compelling terms the swain’s attempt to rescue his princess—aided by his friends Lenny and Shel, complicated by Lenny’s ex-wife Crystal, a born siren—that the result is a pleasing hybrid of fairy tale and contemporary thriller.

"Anders’ road is a long one, and the twists along the way won’t keep you on the edge of your seat. But Compton’s increasingly pointed questions about what exactly it would mean to rescue Olivia make the journey worthwhile." Kirkus Reviews

RESCUING OLIVIA reading at Blog Talk Radio

2009-12-03T12:36:00.005-05:00

Today (if my voice holds out) I'll be on Blog Talk Radio reading a scene from my upcoming novel, RESCUING OLIVIA. My slot is between 1:00 to 1:15 p.m. Central, 2:00 to 2:15 p.m. Eastern. Check it out!

Link to show.

Thanks to April Robins for hosting this!

(If you don't get a chance to listen today, the archives can be accessed through the link.)

Old friends, car washes, and lazy summer days . . . this one's for Hob

2009-11-21T09:44:00.006-05:00

One of the best things to happen since being published is being able to reconnect with people I had lost touch with. So many old friends have contacted me after learning about my book through an alumni mag, or word of mouth, etc. (St. Louis is still a fairly small town.)

One of these friends is a guy I knew back when I was a kid. His house was the meeting place for all the kids in the neighborhood because he had a HUGE sandbox in his backyard with an elevated fort in the middle of it. (I had my first real kiss in that fort, though not from this guy!) I was a tomboy when I was little (still am, I guess), and I preferred to hang out with the guys instead of the girls (still do, I guess). The guys simply had more fun, IMO. They didn't gossip, they didn't hold grudges (if they got mad at each other, they tussled and then it was over), they didn't mind getting dirty, they played games that required running, and climbing -- physical things.

Anyway, my friend and I have been exchanging an email correspondence for some time now. He's an incredibly interesting person, and his emails are so entertaining. Sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, but always interesting.

His parents visited him recently, and I guess he must have mentioned that we were in touch, because his mom brought him some old pictures. He sent me a few, and this one in particular brought back so many memories.

Can you guess which one is me? LOL! The friend I've been corresponding with is the boy standing on the fender; the one who gave me my first real kiss is the boy right in front of the car. The little boy on the left is a younger brother of my friend.

Ah, memories. . .

US Cover for RESCUING OLIVIA

2009-10-30T17:01:00.004-04:00

You know, it dawned on me that I never posted my US cover for Rescuing Olivia here. I remembered to do it on my Facebook page, and hopefully my website will be updated soon to give readers much more information about the book (coming on February 2 in the US, May 7 in the UK), but for some reason I neglected my blog . . .

It's a very different type of image than the UK cover, but I think the two complement each other perfectly. This cover does a wonderful job of symbolizing the plot, while the UK cover captures the theme of the novel so well.

What I especially love about this particular image is how the road almost looks like sand, and the mirage suggests the ocean. And seeing as a large part of the story is set in Florida, well . . . you get the idea.

Sorry Justice Roberts, but you're wrong

2009-10-21T11:20:00.010-04:00

What am I talking about?

As reported by the Washington Post, the US Supreme Court in Virginia v. Harris recently decided not to take the appeal in a case where the Virginia Supreme Court overturned a drunk driving conviction because the arresting officer didn't actually see the driver breaking any laws, but instead pulled him over because of an anonymous tip that he was driving while intoxicated. Although many states have ruled the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure is not violated by allowing an officer to pull a driver over based solely on an anonymous tip, there are several states that have ruled such action is unconstitutional. Virginia is one of them. It ruled that without the officer seeing some erratic behavior on the part of the driver, he lacked a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity to warrant the stop. Without that reasonable suspicion, the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure is violated.

In a dissent to the Court's decision not to take the appeal (the majority did not give a reason for its decision, which is common), Justice Roberts said: "The decision below commands that police officers following a driver reported to be drunk do nothing until they see the driver actually do something unsafe on the road — by which time it may be too late."

It's a tempting argument, one that appeals to the emotions and seems, on its face, logical. But in my humble opinion, it's wrong.

Of course we'd all like to see drunken drivers removed from the road, especially before anyone gets hurt, or worse, killed. Anyone who has been a victim, or knows someone who has been a victim, of a drunk driver understands the life-changing -- often life-ending -- damage so easily done by a drunk behind the wheel of a car.

But there are many wrongs we'd like to stop before they happen; there are many crimes being committed behind closed doors that we may never know of because, in this country, at least, the cops aren't allowed to enter someone's home or other "private" space solely because some anonymous person told them a crime was being committed. It's a slippery slope. If a police officer can pull someone over solely based on an anonymous tip, what's to stop authorities from arguing that they should be able to enter someone's home based on a similar sort of tip? Justice Roberts says drunk driving is different, but why? How is it any different? And if you think this is okay, you'd better beware your neighbor who's mad at you because your dog got loose on his lawn, or that co-worker who doesn't like that you got the promotion before he did. Or what about your wife's ex-husband? Maybe he still hasn't gotten over the split, and he wants revenge. Are you worried about your children being on the internet, and how the kids "flame" each other over the smallest slight? Imagine a teen who realizes she can create havoc simply with a brief, anonymous call to the cops.

There are those who subscribe to the argument that as long as you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about. I beg to differ. If this were the case, we could toss out the Fourth Amendment altogether. Spend some time talking to folks who come from other countries that lack the protections we have, who never know when authorities might be banging on their door, barging in to take a look around for no other reason than they "received an anonymous tip," and I think you'll come to understand the importance of this particular constitutional protection.

RESCUING OLIVIA news, Rose & Thorn Journal, it's a busy day!

2009-10-15T11:39:00.011-04:00

So much to share today! I should split it up into several posts, I suppose, but knowing me, I wouldn't get back to the blog for a week and then it would all be old news . . .

Rick's at Frankfurt Book Fair again. He attends every year, and some of you might remember when he went in Fall 2007, just before TELL NO LIES came out in the UK, he sent back pictures of the wonderful display Macmillan had of my UK book cover.

Well, in my opinion, Macmillan has topped the TELL NO LIES display (there are even lights this time)! These pictures of the RESCUING OLIVIA display, just in yesterday and today, are from Rick's Blackberry:

The one above is self-explanatory, but on the right, if you look close, in the background to the right, you can see the display of RESCUING OLIVIA in the context of the entire Macmillan booth. I'm lucky I have a husband who attends this fair for his job or I'd never even know these displays existed.

The other item to share is not only news, but it's also a recommendation. If you've never heard of The Rose & Thorn, you need to check it out. I've subscribed to the newsletter for this online journal for some years now, and it's always been a first class e-zine with some excellent writing, but the journal recently underwent a "renovation" and it's now better than ever. My new online friend and author of the Gumbo Writer blog, Angie Ledbetter, is one of the co-editors. I've been reading The Rose & Thorn for years, but I recently stumbled across Angie's blog and only learned she was associated with this journal after we'd exchanged a few emails. (These types of connections happen all the time to me. The writing community is smaller than most people think.)

Anyway, I hope you'll check out The Rose & Thorn Journal. You won't be disappointed!

UK cover for RESCUING OLIVIA

2009-10-12T11:51:00.005-04:00

I'm so pleased to be able to share the cover art for the UK edition of my second novel, RESCUING OLIVIA. My editor at Pan Macmillan sent it to me late last week, and I haven't been able to stop smiling. I'm thrilled with it! The designer did such a fabulous job of capturing the essence of the story with just this one image. (Of course, you'll have to read it to know why I say this . . .)

Though the US edition comes out on February 2, the scheduled release date for the UK edition (with this cover) is later -- May 7. I'll be sure to post if that changes.

Why Writers Aren't Always the Best Speakers

2009-09-26T08:28:00.004-04:00

Finally, an explanation for why I have no problem putting words to paper (or screen) that make sense, but I become tongue-tied when I try to talk about those same ideas.

Why Writers Aren't Always the Best Speakers

Susan Brown, up-and-coming writer to watch

2009-09-18T07:35:00.006-04:00

I first met Susan Brown several years back when the leader of my writing workshops, Jamie Morris of Woodstream Writers, suggested Susan and I connect. Like me, Susan is an attorney, but also like me, she wasn't practicing law at the time. Instead, she was writing a humorous memoir about her online dating experiences.

Fast forward a few years. Susan is now married to one of the men she met through an online dating site -- a fabulous watercolor artist named Ed Brown (I'm the proud owner of one of his paintings) -- and living in southwest Florida. She's back to practicing law, but still writing. We keep in touch by email, periodically updating each other on what's happening in our lives. Recently, she shared the news that one of her short stories, "Full Moon Fish House," was a runner up in a local writing contest. The story was inspired by an actual fish house near their home that Ed had painted many times. The radio station that sponsored the contest, WRLN 91.3 FM, recorded Susan reading the story. You can listen to it at Under the Sun. It's an evocative, dreamy piece, so well-written, and Susan's voice is perfect for it. (There's also a picture of her in front of the fish house.) While you're there, you can also hear her read from her dating memoir, still a work-in-progress. The passage she reads from is a hoot; talk about truth being stranger than fiction.

Congratulations, Susan! Don't keep us waiting too long for more.

Interview at Angie Ledbetter's "Gumbo Writer" blog

2009-09-02T10:58:00.004-04:00

I'm not even sure now how I first stumbled across Angie Ledbetter's wonderful "Gumbo Writer" blog, but it's one of the most entertaining blogs I've seen. Her topics are wide-ranging but always interesting, and her recipes will leave your mouth watering. (Check out the picture of the Lemon Chicken Breasts for a good laugh, too. Not only does this Louisiana lady have a great sense of humor, she claims it's the best chicken recipe ever. I plan to make it very soon and find out!)

Angie kindly asked to interview me, and she's posted the interview today. Click over and take a look -- her questions were some of the most unique I've been asked, especially the one asking me to tell a "juicy or funny story" about my writing journey. ;-)

If I Were the Casting Director for TELL NO LIES

2009-07-23T09:47:00.005-04:00

One of the most frequent questions I get about my novel Tell No Lies is: Who would I want to play the characters if a movie were made?

Well, thanks to Marshal Zeringue, I finally sat down and gave it some thought. Marshal has several different blogs devoted to books and reading (in the past I'd taken his Page 69 Test about Tell No Lies), and he recently contacted me and asked if I'd like to do a post for another of his blogs, My Book, The Movie. The premise of the post was simple. I simply needed to answer the casting question posed above. Answering this question, I found out, was not so easy.

So for all those who've asked me the same question, check out My Book, The Movie: Tell No Lies, to see which actors and actresses I chose and why I chose them.

Why I'll Never Forget Frank McCourt

2009-07-21T18:02:00.004-04:00

I've told this story to many friends and have always wanted to write about it, but never did. With Mr. McCourt's passing on Sunday, July 19, 2009, I've decided it is time, if not overdue.

In the mid to late '90's, I was a young mother and an aspiring writer living in the Boston suburbs. I was new to the area and had become close friends with another woman, close enough that when I told her I was anxious to read Angela's Ashes, she agreed to lend me the copy she'd been reading. This was quite an act of faith because it belonged to her mother and had been signed by Mr. McCourt. She gave it to me with the admonition, "Whatever you do, DON'T let anything happen to this book! My mother treasures it and would kill me!" I assured her that books were precious to me and that I always treated them with care. Her mother's signed copy would be safe in my possession.

I immediately began to read the book and became enthralled with it. I couldn't put it down, and I mean that literally. At the time, my older daughter was in kindergarten, but the younger one, a three year old, stayed home with me. If she needed me, I went to her with the book still in one hand, sneaking in sentences and paragraphs at every opportunity. At some point, though, I set the book on the kitchen table, opened to the page I was reading, to do a chore at the sink. I don't remember what pulled me away, exactly. Perhaps I was preparing my daughter's lunch, or maybe I was doing dishes. All I remember is my daughter's voice saying, "Mommy, look! I'm writing a book!" or some such exclamation of pride. I looked over and, to my horror, my little girl sat at the table in front of the signed copy of Angela's Ashes, black Sharpie in hand, drawing with abandon on page after page of the book. I'm pretty sure I screamed.

I agonized over what to do. How could I tell my friend what had happened? An idea started to form in my head: what if somehow I could manage to get another signed copy? The first one had not been personalized, so I figured when time came to return the book, I could give my friend the new one, and no one would ever know the difference. But Frank McCourt had become the literary equivalent of a Hollywood celebrity. How, I wondered, would I ever get my hands on another signed copy?

Being a writer, I did the only thing I could think to do: I wrote a letter. A long, honest letter in which I explained the story I've just explained above. Then I bought a new copy of Angela's Ashes and mailed it, along with my letter and a self-addressed stamped mailer large enough to hold the book, to Mr. McCourt's publisher. I asked the publisher to please forward my letter, the book and the mailer to Mr. McCourt. And then I crossed my fingers.

To be honest, I thought I'd never see that new book again. I thought I'd finally have to go to my friend, groveling, and ask for her and her mother's forgiveness. But Mr. McCourt proved me wrong.

One day not long after, a package showed up in my mailbox. At first I didn't register what it was, but one look at the return address and I knew. The return address wasn't the publisher's. No, right there on the package was Frank McCourt's name and the address for his apartment in New York City. I was stunned.

Inside I found another surprise. Yes, he signed the new book and returned it to me as requested, but even better, he sent back my original letter with a small Post-It stuck to the front. On the Post-It I found a personal note from Mr. McCourt – the man who had written one of the saddest books I'd ever read – and to this day, I still cherish the note and the irony behind it. He wrote, simply, "Who could resist such a sad tale?"

Now a published author myself, I have since had the privilege of meeting some big names in the business, but none will ever thrill me the way Frank McCourt thrilled me when he took the time to write that one, clever sentence. Thank you, Mr. McCourt, and may you rest in peace.

The Magic of the Internet

2009-07-06T12:26:00.009-04:00

I received an email yesterday from a friend of mine, Margaret Reyes Dempsey, thanking me for my friendship and the support I'd offered her over the past year and sending me a link to a recent post she'd made on her own blog. I will admit to getting a little choked up when I read the email and the blog post. What a nice and unexpected thing she did! (To see why I had this reaction, read her blog post at Conjuring My Muse.)

The thing is, but for her generosity and taking the time to reach out to me, I would have never met her. She first contacted me after seeing a blurb in our alumni magazine about my first novel, Tell No Lies. (We both attended Washington University in St. Louis at about the same time, though we never met). She wrote me, a complete stranger but for our Wash. U. connection, to offer her congratulations. She went on to buy my book, read it, and then tell all her friends about it. As she explains in more detail in her blog, we stayed in contact by email, and then also through Inked-In, an online social network for writers, artists and musicians started and run by Joseph Hayes and Jennifer Greenhill-Taylor. I won't go into much more detail, because Margaret has explained it all in her post, but suffice it to say, you never know when one small email to another will lead to a much deeper friendship. By the way, Margaret's first novel, The Benefactor, is being released this November.

Another example of this is the email I received from a reader in Scotland, shortly after Tell No Lies was released in the UK in February 2008. Nick Klepper wrote to me and told me how much he liked my novel. Nick is the author of two nonfiction books about Romania, and at the time, he was working on his first novel, Serendipity, a psychological thriller. We continued to correspond by email. This August, after my husband and I had made plans to vacation in Edinburgh with a group of friends (again, see Margaret's post above!), it dawned on me -- hey, Nick lives in Edinburgh. So I contacted him and invited him and his wife to join all of us for dinner one night. He, in turn, invited me to be his guest at a Society of Authors luncheon during the Edinburgh Book Festival. All this because he happened to write to me after reading my book . . .

CBS Interview with Dave Matthews Band

2009-06-02T12:58:00.003-04:00

In honor of today's release of the new album, Big Whiskey and the Groo Grux King . . .

CBS interview with DMB

ThrillerFest blog

2009-05-04T12:52:00.002-04:00

When I attended ThrillerFest 2008 last July, I had the pleasure of meeting Carla Buckley, whose debut novel OUT OF THIN AIR will be released next year. If you're following the swine flu story closely, you'll definitely want to check out Carla's book. (Just a teaser there . . .)

Carla and I had a conversation over at the ThrillerFest blog today. We get silly as we talk about why we weren't too sure at first that we belonged at ThrillerFest. (ThrillerFest is a conference held in NYC each July for writers and fans of thrillers. If you love thrillers and mysteries, you'd love ThrillerFest.)

Here's the link. Check it out and join in our crazy discussion. ;-)

Eliot Spitzer and the Science of Forgetting

2009-04-28T09:48:00.009-04:00

I'm at the beach writing this week, but I'm due for a post and a blog post is writing, too, right?

The April 27, 2009 issue of Newsweek had a cover story on Eliot Spitzer called "The Confessions of Eliot Spitzer" and right above his picture on the cover, it says "How Could I?" The story is basically "A Year Later" type of piece.

I'm always interested in the stories about Spitzer and others like him, because they highlight the same question I tried to explore in my novel, TELL NO LIES: Why does a guy who "has everything" do something to screw it all up? What motivates him? The answers are different for everyone, of course, including for Jack, my main character, but I think there are certain traits they share in addition to the specific motivations they might have. There's a great sentence in Jon Meacham's "The Editor's Desk" piece at the front of the issue: "The route between political ambition and sexual hunger is among the shortest in human experience." It's also one of the most fascinating, I think, which is why authors write books about it and news magazines print cover stories about it, over and over again.

Interestingly enough, that same issue of Newsweek had a health article about "the science of forgetting." Why do I say "interestingly enough"? My second novel (tentatively titled HOW TO SAVE A LIFE), which will be out early next year, has a major plot line that relates to deleting traumatic memories from the brain. I don't want to say more lest I give too much away, but I'm starting to feel like someone at Newsweek is looking over my shoulder as I write . . .

ITW and Author Interviews

2009-03-06T17:22:00.009-05:00

I'm a member of ITW (International Thriller Writers), and each month for ITW's online newsletter, The Big Thrill, I interview a fellow author who has a new book coming out. I've met some neat people doing this and have been exposed to books that I might not have otherwise known about. Funny thing, it never occurred to me that I should post links here to the interviews over there. (I have to thank fellow Floridian writer Blaize Clement for the idea.) I guess this explains why I didn't choose marketing as a career . . .

So today I'm going to play catch-up. Here's a list of the authors I've had the pleasure of interviewing for ITW so far (starting with the most recent) and the title of his/her most recent book, and from now on, I will try to remember to link to them as soon as they're available on The Big Thrill.

Sandi Ault, WILD SORROW (if you love the West, wildlife, the mountains, etc., you'll love her stuff. Critics do, too; she's the recipient of many awards and starred reviews.)

Blaize Clement, CAT SITTER ON A HOT TIN ROOF (Blaize was once a psychotherapist; in other words, her mysteries featuring Florida pet sitter Dixie Hemingway are more than cute cat capers)

Carole Nelson Douglas, BRIMSTONE KISS (for fans of paranormal fiction; PW gave it a starred review!)

Eric Wilson, FIELD OF BLOOD (the first in a vampire-themed series called Jerusalem's Undead Trilogy which explores "the extremes of religious thought and the emotional damage that comes from it")

Cheryl Norman, RUNNING SCARED (a page-turning thriller featuring a marathoner who not only runs for the finish line, but for her life).

Matt Rothschild, DUMBFOUNDED No More

2009-02-17T12:04:00.014-05:00

The Washington Post called it "A family dysfunction story at its best. . . The former trustifarian's portrayal of his bold and brash, potty-mouth grandma is a hoot . . ." The Los Angeles Times said, "Funny and defiant." USA Today: "With genuine affection and brutal honesty, [Matt Rothschild] paints vivid, delightful portraits of the colorful characters who crossed his path."

The book that generated so much praise? Dumbfounded, by Orlando writer Matt Rothschild. Both heartbreaking and hilarious at the same time, Dumbfounded is Rothchild's memoir about growing up with his Jewish grandparents in a luxury Fifth Avenue building of WASPs after his mother left him for Italy and a fourth husband.

I first met Matt at a Florida Writers Association meeting. I was immediately struck by his self-deprecating sense of humor, and since then, every time I've seen him, he keeps me in stitches without even trying.

Matt was gracious enough to take the time to answer the some questions about his life and his memoir.

Julie: When did you decide you wanted to be a writer, and what made you decide to write a memoir about your childhood?

Matt: I’m trying to think if my Jackie Collins fantasy was when I decided to be a writer. As a kid there was something so terribly glamorous about her and all of those made-for-TV movies that were created from her books. Sydney Sheldon, too, and he really interested me because of all his work on "The Patty Duke Show" and "I Dream of Jeannie," because when I was younger I thought it might be fun to star in my own television series. It never happened obviously, and so I spent the better part of my childhood pretending I was on television, often posing for imaginary camera shots and memorizing imaginary lines.

I do have a brief memory of responding to a contest in Jack and Jill Magazine. I think you had to write some kind of children’s book, or maybe you just had to write a book, period. I was maybe six at the time. I did it on notebook paper and bound it in a three ring binder. So that was probably my earliest creation. Sadly, I don’t remember what the book would have been about.

It wasn’t until I was in college that I saw writing as really viable. At the time I was something of a lazy reader, really just reading anything that crossed my path. A friend had come out to visit me in San Francisco, where I was working the summer between my sophomore and junior years, and he left a book in my car, David Sedaris’ Me Talk Pretty One Day. Well, it took about a hot minute for me to fall in love with the book. It was after reading it that I knew what I wanted to do with my life; I wanted to write something that would affect people the way Sedaris’ book affected me. The problem, of course, was that I had no real idea how to write. So I found some materials about writing and saw that old truism: Write what you know! So what did I know? Not much, unfortunately. So I wrote a book about a isolated upper class delinquent who pretended to star in his own television series: Me.

Julie: There's so much detail about conversations with your grandparents, your mother, your teachers and friends (some hilarious, some tragic, some both). Do you have vivid memories of these events, or were you forced to recreate how you thought particular events or conversations might have happened? In other words, what process did you have to go through to write a memoir and feel that you'd told the story accurately? After the debacle with James Frey (A Million Little Pieces), were you nervous about it?

Matt: Annie Dillard has this great line in an essay about writing memoir that basically says every memoirist has two major dilemmas while writing: What to put in and what to leave out. I felt that acutely while writing Dumbfounded. I guess I had to decide what the real story was. The temptation with any story is to always start at the beginning, but that’s so rarely a good idea. The writer of any book (fiction or nonfiction) has to figure out the best way to tell their story, and sometimes you have to improvise. That said, I think most of us can probably remember twenty or so anecdotes that define our families. That’s what I did while writing Dumbfounded. I thought, Why am I like this? And the events within the chapters answered that question. Now, is everything 100% factual? The easy answer is no. How could it be? I mean, you and I could be sitting in the same room and experiencing the same events and remember the experience in two very different ways. Not only that, but over time, as we gather more experiences, our perspective shifts. That became difficult, too, while writing. Who was the narrator? Was he the boy going through the events, or was he the adult me looking back? So I had to take liberties. I chose which stories to include, and I chose which to leave out. Sometimes I could remember things vividly, other times I had to ask myself, What would he/she have said? It’s really not a far stretch to answer those questions for people you’ve known your whole life and think about every day.

I didn’t think too much about James Frey, because from the beginning I was always very up front about what I changed and what I left alone. I knew that certain things had to be changed, and that it was my responsibility to do that. It wouldn’t have been fair to keep some real names, etc. I think we have all done our fair share of tomfoolery that we are all sorry for, and who needs to be beaten over the head with a club twenty years later for it? Then there were the writerly things that had to be changed to streamline the narrative. That goes under the category of fashioning the text and taking liberties. Admittedly, some readers take a dim view of that sort of thing, and so I put it all in the Author’s Note. I figured the reader could decide for himself/herself if the book was worthwhile. So while I did change things, I’m not afraid to admit to it; nothing I changed altered the fundamental truth of the stories.

Julie: Were your grandparents aware that you were writing a memoir? Or had they already passed away when you started it? How about your mother? Has she read it? How did she react?

Matt: No, my grandparents had already passed away. In many ways it was their death that provided the climax for the book. I’ve often thought that if they were still alive, and I chose to write a memoir, the ending would be drastically different. As for my mother, I haven’t spoken to her in about ten years. I don’t believe she’s read it.

Julie: Did your experiences as a child bouncing around to different schools influence your decision to become a teacher?

Matt: I’m sure in many ways it did. In the classroom, I used my experiences as a troubled kid to relate with my students. We came from very different worlds, my students and I, but teenage angst is teenage angst. Most of the time, kids just want someone to listen to them and tell them they’re not crazy and to treat them with respect. That wasn’t the case when I was in school, and maybe if someone had done that for me, I would have been much less obnoxious.

Julie: Every writer has a "how I got published" story. Tell us yours.

Matt: I’ve known my agent Dan Lazar for the last six years. He’s been my agent nearly three years now. We first met through friends and when he found out I wrote, he asked to see something. I sent him a story I had written, and he asked if I had a book. At the time he was an agent’s assistant, and in his business an assistant gets promoted up to an agent if they can demonstrate that they have a good eye for talent. I was flattered, but didn’t have a book. Fast forward four years and I did. So I emailed him one day and asked how he would feel about having another client. By this point, he’d risen substantially at his firm. He was already a full agent and selling all sorts of titles for enormous sums of money. In response to my question, he told me he wasn’t representing friends because often friends would send him things he didn’t think was right for him and when he’d tell these friends that he couldn’t represent them the friendship would usually evaporate. I understood this and asked if he’d be willing to give me a referral, which he agreed to. He even said he’d critique my query letter. So I sent him my query letter and he emailed me back and said, “I changed my mind. Send me that book!”

After I sent him the book and he’d had a week to think about it, we spoke on the phone. He shared his editorial suggestions and they made sense to me. Essentially, I had to rewrite the whole thing, but he validated that the concept was good. So I rewrote a portion of the book to send to publishers, and then wrote the outline. (Memoirs are usually sold based on the strength of the first few chapters and the outline for the rest). I’d send Dan what I had and he’d comment/critique and then I’d go back to work. It probably took a couple of months. When the proposal was done, we tried to place some of the chapters as stand-alone pieces. Because I didn’t have any publishing credentials, Dan thought that placing the stories in magazines or newspapers would increase my chances of getting picked up by a publisher. We tried to place some stories for a few months and nobody was biting. Eventually Dan decided to send out the proposal anyway to see what people would say.

I have to admit that I wasn’t too optimistic. I had no idea what to expect, but getting a book published is such a long shot. But he sent out the proposal anyway, on a Wednesday I think. By Friday there was already initial interest from Harcourt. The following Monday there was interest from Harper Collins, Penguin, Algonquin and Random House. I spoke with each of the editors, and they were all so terribly nice. I remember being nervous, because I thought they’d be mean and be like, “Why should I publish your book, you nothing?!” But that’s not what happened at all. Two weeks later the book was sold to Random House, and two years later I still don’t think I’ve gotten over the shock.

Julie: What's next for Matt Rothschild? Are you working on another book? Can you tell us a little bit about it?

Matt: As a matter of fact I am! It’s taken me a while to figure out what I wanted to write about next, but I think I’ve nailed down a story that I’m still firming up in my mind. It’s basically what happens after Dumbfounded ends, when I, through a series of random coincidences, end up being taken in by a family that appears to be the opposite of my own dysfunctional Rothschild clan, but who end up being more messed up than we ever were. It just took me being in their lives to bring out their dysfunction! It’s supposed to be funny, though. I realize that might read far less hilariously than it should. Shrug.

You can learn more about Matt and Dumbfounded at http://www.mattrothschild.com/

Close Call on the Motorcycle . . .Yikes!

2009-01-13T10:29:00.005-05:00

Well, I had my first "close call" on the motorcycle. What a way to start the new year! It scared the heck out of me, but I think it's a good thing it happened because it's given me some confidence in my skills. It's one thing to react properly on the test course, when you know what "emergency" you're being tested for; it's another thing altogether to react on the real road, when the emergency comes when you least expect it.

Ever since I started riding, I've had this underlying fear of "What if I don't do what I need to do and was taught to do in an emergency situation?" One of my biggest fears, in fact, was that in a situation where I needed to stop quickly, I would use too much front brake and not enough rear brake and I'd end up flying over the handlebar. I knew what I was supposed to do, but I worried that in the heat of the moment I'd just react, and my reaction would be the wrong one. Well, this past weekend, my education was put to the test and I'm happy to report, I did what I needed to do. I avoided what could have been a bad accident and lived to tell about it . . .

Rick and I decided to ride the bike to breakfast. Usually, whenever the two of us ride together, he drives and I ride on the back, mainly because the ride feels so different with him on the back. Everything feels balanced so differently. I've ridden with both of my daughters on the back (not at the same time, of course), and that didn't affect the ride too much. But they're light. But having Rick as a passenger is a different story. We'd done a test ride around the neighborhood, and it just felt weird. But on Saturday, he encouraged me to be the driver. He told me he thought I'd done a good job on our neighborhood ride, and he had no qualms about letting me take the lead. And after all, it's my bike. Didn't I want to be the one driving?

So off we went. As soon as we turned right out of our neighborhood onto a two lane road, my emergency skills were put to the test. We'd been on the road for about a half a mile when, from another neighborhood exit on the opposite side of the road, a car pulled out into our lane without stopping to check for traffic. It wasn't even as if this car pulled out in front of us. No, it pulled out right at us. Stopping in time wasn't even an option. Somehow my brain recognized this and I knew that the only way we were going to come out of this in one piece was to avoid the car. But the only way to avoid the car was to leave the road. I remember thinking "well, I can ride across grass on my bicycle so I should be able to do it on the motorcycle" and so I just did it. I drove right into the grass and up onto the sidewalk. I brought the bike to a relatively smooth stop then, and unbelievably, not only did the car take off, it did so very quickly -- as if the driver knew what she had done (yes, I saw the driver, she looked to be about 25 years old, and no, she wasn't even on a cell phone) and didn't want to own up to it. Cars behind us stopped to check on us, and people on a walking/jogging trail on the opposite side of the road called over to us, too, to make sure we were okay. All shook their heads in disbelief at what they'd just seen. But the driver of the offending car just drove off . . . a top-notch human being, huh?

I'd always been afraid that if I ever had a close call like this, it would spook me and I'd have trouble getting "back on the horse," as they say. But surprisingly, I had no difficulty pulling back onto the road and continuing on our way. The incident was good for me, because it taught me that I could react as needed in an emergency. And it's made me even more careful about keeping an eye out for everything around me. I do this anyway -- they told us in our lessons that riding a motorcycle would make us better drivers all around, and that's definitely true -- but having something like this happen in real life is so much better than the hypothetical situations you learn about in class. Well, maybe better isn't the right word . . . how about "a more valuable teaching opportunity?"

By the way, Rick was wonderful. He told me I did a great job, and to my surprise, when we prepared to take off again, he didn't even ask to drive!

Changed my mind after seeing The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

2008-12-09T11:24:00.002-05:00

Saw "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" on Saturday night with my husband and younger daughter and I'm not so cynical about endings anymore (see post below)(though I almost wish I still could be; you'll understand if you keep reading). My daughter had read the book, so she knew how it would end.

SPOILER ALERT: stop reading now if you don't want to know anything about how this movie/book ends!

Yes, it's a Holocaust movie, so of course much of the "ending" is already known. But I kept thinking -- hoping -- that at least the little boys would be okay. That someone at the last minute would get there just in time to save them. I envisioned an ending like "A Beautiful Life" (which, if you haven't seen, you MUST see. The ending is fabulous.) Alas, the "Hollywood" ending I wanted didn't come to pass (and it's so unusual for me to want a Hollywood ending). But, it's a more powerful movie because of it. Go see it, but take some tissues. Or read the book!

Thoughts while watching To Kill a Mockingbird

2008-12-01T21:21:00.002-05:00

On Thanksgiving night, after stuffing ourselves with turkey and other goodies, my family and I sat down to watch To Kill a Mockingbird. The novel by Harper Lee (on which the movie is based) is one of my favorites, but for some reason I never saw the movie. Even my 16 year old daughter had seen it in school.

First I'll say this: it's good I knew the story so well, because at times the kids' accents were so thick, I had trouble catching some of what they said. Part of this could have also been the difference in film/sound quality from what we're used to now.

Second: Gregory Peck was perfect in the role of Atticus Finch.

Third, and the reason for this blog post: It occurred to me while watching that if Harper Lee had written her novel today, she probably would have been pressured to change at least a few of the scenes so as not to disappoint the audience. For example, there's the long courtroom scene where Atticus proves that Tom Robinson, because of his lame left arm, couldn't have assaulted Mayella Ewell the way she (and her father and the sheriff) testified. Atticus gives an incredibly eloquent closing argument, but the jury still comes back with a guilty verdict. It's painful to read (and watch). Nowadays, I'm just not sure a writer could get away with this. Readers have certain expectations (in this case, that justice will prevail). Even if the guilty verdict were allowed to stand at the book stage, the film version would surely nip the "problem" in the bud. Hollywood nowadays would never allow such a verdict. Can't have the audience leaving the theatre without a smile on its face.

Then there's the scene near the end, when Atticus goes with Jem to the Robinson house to break the news to the family that Tom Robinson is dead. Bob Ewell shows up, and Atticus comes out of the Robinson house and stands before him. Ewell spits in Atticus' face, and there's a moment when the audience is just waiting for Atticus to haul off and hit him. To say Ewell deserves it is an understatement. Of course the audience wants Atticus to hit him. Even Atticus wants to hit him. In the film, you can just see his mind considering the possibility, you can see the desire. But no matter how much the audience wants it, Harper Lee knew Atticus was a better man than that. His response is hard to watch, just like the guilty verdict, but it's the only response befitting him: he walks away.

I wonder if, in today's version, he still would . . .

My New Website is Live!

2008-11-24T14:58:00.003-05:00

To check it out, you can click on the first link to the left under Websites I Like, or click here.

There's a link for signing up for my mailing list (which will be used only for updates about my books or events, I promise!) and information for book clubs, too.

Let me know how you like it!

Thanks to Authorbytes for doing such a nice job. :-)

Lessons Learned, from a Debut Novelist

2008-11-13T13:28:00.012-05:00

I've written about Laura Benedict before, and if you look to the left, you'll see her first novel, Isabella Moon, is on my list of books recently read. Her second novel, Calling Mr. Lonely Hearts, above, goes on sale this January, and I can't wait to read it. I instantly liked Laura the first time I read her blog, Notes From the Handbasket, and my initial instincts about her were confirmed when I met her in person at Thrillerfest. She's down to earth and a warm, generous person. She has a wonderful way of expressing certain thoughts about writing and publishing -- very honest and open about the process and the business -- and I find myself screaming "Yes! Yes!" at my computer screen when I read some of her blog posts.

Laura recently guest-blogged at the Fantasy Debut blog about her first year as a published author, and I encourage all writers -- especially those who are unpublished or those who have a contract but whose release date is sometime in the future -- to read what she has to say. These are things to keep in the "Things I wish I'd known" file. It's also a great article for readers and fans who wonder what it's really like to be a first time author . . . :-)

Scenes from the Road -- October TELL NO LIES Travel

2008-11-05T16:36:00.026-05:00

"Cousin Su's Book Club" Wilmington, DE -- These ladies were an inquisitive bunch. They asked some great, thoughtful questions about characters, theme, plot. Careful readers: an author's dream.

Westtown Friends School "Parent Book Club", Westtown, PA -- Another great group. They had a lot of questions about the publishing business and writing in general. (And they all wanted my St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake recipe!) ;-) Thanks to my friend Kathy of idesign (in the brown V-neck on the couch) for suggesting me as a guest author . . .

At The Big Read, in St. Louis. This day was a blast. I participated in a panel discussion (above) with fellow authors Tess Gerritsen, Emilie Richards, and Joanna Campbell Slan. Below: Afterwards, at the book-signing table.

Later, I sat in on an excellent workshop (about marketing your book) presented by Joanna and another St. Louis author, Angie Fox. But the highlight of the day? Dinner on the Hill with Joanna and Emilie at Trattoria Marcella, and then dessert at Ted Drewes. Here we are (below) at Ted Drewes with St. Louis sculptor extraordinaire, Tyrone De la Venta -- who looked like a friendly guy and so we asked him to take our picture. Little did we know we'd meet an artist with sculptures displayed throughout the city.

Above: New fans Candice McBain and Barb Cassens of Ballwin, MO came to hear me speak at the Kirkwood Public Library. (Thanks for taking a chance on me, Candice and Barb!) Below: Snacks and drinks with family and friends after the event. I think the Florida weather had followed me to Missouri.

Below: Here I am with Vicki Erwin (owner of Main Street Books in St. Charles, MO)(who treated me to a lovely dinner at the Mother-in-Law House Restaurant in St. Charles a few nights later) and Sarah Erwin (of the Kirkwood Public Library) (yes, they are related!)

On my last night in St. Louis, I spoke at the St. Charles Library. Below is the amazing sign that greeted me (Thanks Sara Nielsen and everyone there!):

If you look close on the left, you can see me next to the sign. ;-)

As if all this wasn't enough, I also did a few booksignings (but forgot to take pics): one during Educator Appreciation Weekend at the Borders in Sunset Hills, MO (thanks to Margaret Holden at Borders for inviting me), and another at the the Barnes & Noble in Exton, PA. I also spent a few days in Baltimore at Bouchercon (a huge mystery fan conference), where I met up with some of the fellow International Thriller Writers I'd met at Thrillerfest in July, like Julie Kramer (my roomie), Kelli Stanley, Andy Harp (thanks for a great lunch on the Harbor, Andy!), Hank Phillippi Ryan, and Sibylle Barrasso . I was also fortunate to meet Martin Edwards, a UK author who'd interviewed me long distance for Shots Magazine during the UK release of TELL NO LIES. Weaving through the crowds one day, I ran into fellow Central Florida (and St. Martin's) authors Bob Morris (whose latest book, A Deadly Silver Sea, is out later this month) and Tom Cavanagh. And I even got up the nerve to introduce myself to Harlan Coben . . . I hadn't needed to be nervous, though; he was an incredibly nice guy. All in all, it was quite a conference, and I didn't even experience the whole four days.

On second thought, it was quite a month. :-)

Aspiring Writers, NanoWrimo Starts November 1st!

2008-10-23T13:01:00.005-04:00

What's NanoWrimo, you ask?

It stands for National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write a 175 page (50,000 word) novel between November 1 and November 30.

Learn all about it at http://www.nanowrimo.org/.

I participated in 2005 and 2006, and though I didn't finish by the deadline during either year -- it sure kick-started my writing! I've decided to do it this year as a way to start working regularly on my third novel.

Give it a try, and good luck!

Joanna Slan: Scrapbooking + Passion = Paper, Scissors, Death, A Murder Mystery

2008-09-26T09:35:00.008-04:00

On October 11, I'll be at the Big Read Festival in St. Louis. I'll be on a panel with mystery authors Tess Gerritsen and Emilie Richards. (Okay, I'm nervous just saying that! I mean, those are some big names in the book world!) But I think my nerves will be calmed somewhat because Joanna Slan, the President of the local Sisters in Crime chapter, will be moderating.

In our discussions about the upcoming panel, Joanna and I got a chance to know each other a little bit, and it's apparent to me that Joanna has one of those plucky personalities that can make even the gruffest person smile. She's full of energy and positive attitude, and it rubs off on anyone who crosses her path.

Joanna's celebrating the recent release (September 1, 2008) of her first novel, Paper, Scissors, Death, the first in The Kiki Lowenstein Scrap-N-Craft Mystery Series. She took a few minutes out of her busy schedule to answer some questions. I hope you'll take a few moments to learn a bit about Joanna and her novel, and if you're in the St. Louis area on October 11, come out and see all of us!

Julie: I must admit, this is the first time I've ever seen a novel in which scrapbooking played a major role. Why scrapbooking?

Joanna: Scrapbookers are very passionate people. We create pages—which are very artistic and time-consuming—about our families, our friends and our lives. Seemed to me that with all that emotional investment (plus sharp tools like craft knives and chemicals like glue), murder was bound to happen. Besides, one in every three homes in the US has a scrapbooker in it. There’s bound to be a few who either have or have wanted to strangle someone!

Julie: Tell us about your heroine, Kiki Lowenstein, and how you came up with her story.

Joanna: She’s a lot like me. She looks a lot dumber than she is. She ticks people off, although she doesn’t mean to. She apologizes to grocery carts when she bumps them. She worries a lot, but probably about all the wrong things. She loves animals, hates bullies, adores scrapbooking and she’s very hard on herself.

Ironically, now that other scrapbookers are reading Paper, Scissors, Death, they tell me they see themselves in Kiki!

Julie: Ironically, you were born in Florida and now live in St. Louis, and I was born in St. Louis and now live in Florida. But we both made the choice to set our novels in St. Louis! What made you choose that city as your setting?

Joanna: I felt that St. Louis was underused as a setting. This is such a quirky place. You’ve got mystery and history. Where else can you visit the zoo and not get a straw in your drink because it could hurt the animals, but you CAN buy yourself a beer? We finally slipped to #2 in murders in the country, so I figured I better hurry up and write this before we became all boring.

Julie: Since everyone asks me this question, I'll ask you: Are any of the characters in your novel based upon real people?

Joanna: Yep. Me. And there are aspects of people I’ve known in a lot of my characters. Mert, Kiki’s best friend, is also her former cleaning lady. She carries around business cards that read, “Got dirt? Get Mert.” And she’s patterned after a cleaning lady we once had who bragged to me, “I got me a vacuum cleaner that can suck up a bowling ball.” Luckily, we don’t bowl. I did make sure the dogs were in their crate before she came.

Julie: You've been a writer for some time, but this is your first novel. What made you want to write a mystery (a series, in fact)? How did the process differ for you, if at all, from writing non-fiction? And tell us a little about the road to getting your novel published.

Joanna: Oh, I think lying is fun. And even though I wrote fiction, I was always interested in stories. In fact one of my books is a college textbook on using stories when you are public speaking. It’s called Using Stories and Humor: Grab Your Audience. Sounds faintly violent, doesn’t it?

The process is different in that you have so much bigger of a canvas, of a universe when you write fiction and it’s a challenge to narrow that down so your plot is zingy.

I started working on the book and then went to SleuthFest. There I pitched a young man from New York who thought I was nuts. “Who cares about scrapbooking?” he said. Yeah, well, hell-oo. The entire world does NOT revolve around Times Square, bud.

The second agent I pitched loved the idea, and thought I was a hoot.

Julie: Any advice for aspiring writers?

Joanna: Enter at your own risk. Woooo-ha-ha-ha. This is a weird world, and if you aren’t absolutely compelled to write, it might be tough going. Find some good friends in the business. Learn as much as you can. Smile and be professional. And write a darn good book!

Julie: Thank you, Joanna! Good luck with Paper, Scissors, Death!

Motorcycles and Novel Revisions

2008-08-28T12:00:00.003-04:00

Really, there is a connection here between the two . . . I promise.

Finally got the bike -- it'll be two weeks this Saturday but last week with Tropical Storm Fay, I didn't get a chance to ride it much. Today I rode with my youngest on the back to her busstop. This is my risk-taker child, and she freaked out about the helmet, of all things! "I can't breathe! It's making me feel claustrophobic!" The possibility that she could break her head open or scrape across the pavement as her skin peels off didn't seem to faze her. She was bothered by that hard bubble on her head! I reminded her that if she wants to skydive (which she claims to want to do, and I believe her; we are alike in our risk-taking propensities), she'll have to wear a helmet for that, too.

So the motorcycle desire was always there, dormant in the recesses of my brain from when I used to ride on the back of my brother's bike, but when we moved to Florida -- where motorcycles are everywhere -- it began to push its way to the front. Somewhere along the way I decided to make the protagonist of my second novel a biker. Nothing hardcore. He's just a guy who likes to ride and his mode of transportation is a bike. He's a Floridian, and it just seemed to fit him. But the more I wrote, the more I wanted to be riding a bike myself. And I figured, hey, it can only improve the writing, right? ;-) So last May I took the rider safety course and got my motorcycle endorsement. And for my birthday in June, my wonderful hubby totally surprised me by giving me a gift certificate with the picture of a Harley on it; it was his way of giving me his blessing to get a bike. When we finally stopped traveling this summer, and I had time to do my research, I found the one I wanted and it was delivered just as Fay was making her way through the Caribbean . . .

It's a Kawasaki Vulcan 500. (I checked out Harleys and just decided they were too big for me, for now.) I love it! I'm thinking of naming it . . . (sick, sick, I know. My kids laughed at me.)

Meanwhile, I'm back to working on revisions to the novel. (Or that's what I'm supposed to be doing, instead of writing blog posts). But I'm having trouble with my ending. I made a big change to the story after the fact, and the change really affects my end, so it's the one thing I still need to revise, but I haven't been able to yet. (In fact, I don't think I should even use the word "revise" -- I think I'll be writing what will essentially be a whole new last chapter . . . ) I've been spending a lot of time thinking about it, but when I'm on Inked-In or doing other things, I always have the sense that I should be writing the ending, not thinking about it. But I know that if I'm not careful, it can easily slip into the "cheesy" category and I do not want that to happen. So am I avoiding? Or is all this "thinking" I'm doing just something I have to do before I can get down to business? In the past, whenever I've been stumped about a plot point or how to do a scene, it does eventually come to me, often at the most unlikely times . . . So maybe all this fretting is for naught . . .

Oh, and yes, I think riding the bike has helped with the authenticity in the writing! ;-)

RIP LeRoi Moore (1961-2008)

2008-08-20T07:39:00.009-04:00

Anyone who really knows me knows of my love for all things Dave Matthews Band. I'd intended to sit down at the keyboard this morning and blog about motorcycles, hurricane days, etc., but I turned on my computer to find the news of LeRoi Moore's passing last night. I'm still a little bit in shock. He'd been seriously injured in an ATV accident in June but there seemed to be no reason to think he wouldn't recover. Obviously, I didn't personally know him, but I've attended so many DMB concerts over the years that when I read the news, it truly felt like a friend had died. For those who have formed their opinions about DMB merely from what they've heard on the radio, it's with a heavy heart that I offer a few clips to show the uninitiated what the fans already know . . . RIP, LeRoi. The shows will never be the same.

"#41" has always been one of my favorite songs, if not the favorite. The version that gives me chills is on a CD that only fan club members receive, and I couldn't figure out how to post a link so it could be heard, so this video will have to do. The video quality isn't great, but it will give you a taste. LeRoi's sax can be heard throughout, and he's got a solo starting at about 4:45 minutes in, but it doesn't even compare to his playing on the 20 minute version I can't seem to post . . .

"Seek Up" is another favorite. This is only a clip -- not the whole song -- but again, it will show you what you'll never hear on the radio.

Writing at the Beach

2008-08-06T18:36:00.007-04:00

Yeah, yeah, I know I promised a Thrillerfest post, but the draft post has become long and unwieldy and I want to make sure I mention everyone and everything, so it just hasn't gotten finished . . . Now I'm at the beach (Daytona Beach Shores) with my laptop and my draft is at home on a Word document on my PC . . . Hopefully, next week.

I had a note from Jennifer Greenhill-Taylor (a wonderful lady and the co-founder, along with Joseph Hayes, of one of my favorite sites, Inked-In), asking me how my week at the beach is going. I quickly rattled off a response because I was so excited by everything I'm getting done on Book 2, and then it dawned on me: Hey, I could blog about this.

Some of you know that I've just begun working on my revisions to my second novel. I'd turned in the manuscript in May, and a few weeks back I received comments from my editors. I spent some time thinking about the comments and then, talking them over with both editors (UK and US). Though I'd already fiddled a bit with a few edits, this week is the first time in a while I've been able to spend long days doing nothing but writing and revising. I love it. THIS is the reason I write.

My girls are here with me around the clock, and Rick drives out each evening after work and then leaves early the next morning to head back to his office. I get up when he leaves, make my coffee, and get to work. I love the silence of the mornings, and the temperature is still nice enough to sit outside for a while. Eventually I wake my younger daughter and get her to surf camp. The older one and her friend (who is here with us, too) sleep in. On Tuesday, I set myself up on the beach near the surfers and made revisions to my manuscript by hand. Except for the campers, the beach is still pretty empty at that time of the morning. Because a large part of my story takes place in Florida, I find the writing just pours out of me when I'm immersed in the setting.

On Wednesday, I did it a bit differently. My skin needed a break from the sun and my writing needed the laptop, so I came back to the house after dropping off my surfer. Spent most of the day writing at the kitchen table.

Thursday was our anniversary -- 21 years married and a few months shy of 26 years together -- so Rick took off work and we played at the beach. Later, when surf camp was done for the day, the whole family went jet-skiing on the river. The jet-skiing was fun, but the best part was the dolphins! We must have seen about 10 of them, swimming right next to our jet-skis and showing off for us. Later, Rick and I drove down to New Smyrna for dinner at a place recommended by my friend and book club buddy Diane, The Garlic. Beautiful setting and the food and service both were excellent.

I also did some reading this week. Loving Frank, by Nancy Horan was first. It was this month's book for my book club. Hard to believe this was the author's first novel. It's beautifully written and even if you've never been interested in Frank Lloyd Wright in the past, this book will get you interested. It's a great love story, and an even better book club pick; LOTS of stuff to talk about.

Next was a completely different type of novel, Hold Tight, by Harlan Coben. This was my first Harlan Coben novel and it was so different from what I expected (though I understand that this book might be a bit of a departure from his other stuff?). Though it's a mystery, it's so much more. It touches on a lot of "big" issues: the parent/teen relationship, how we really don't know our kids (and can't), whether spying on them is (or ever can be) justified, etc. I really enjoyed it, perhaps because my children are at that age (cough, cough). But a warning: it leaves you with more questions than answers . . . This is another one that would generate lots of discussion at a book group.

Jungle Red Writers

2008-07-23T10:11:00.004-04:00

The wonderfully supportive and award-winning author/Boston investigative reporter Hank Phillippi Ryan has posted an interview of me over at Jungle Red Writers. We talk about how I came up with the idea for Tell No Lies, writing from a male point of view, and other odds and ends. Stop by and say hello, and try to guess the "little white lie" . . .

You'll see that Hank mentions Thrillerfest . . . I'll be posting any day now about my amazing experience at Thrillerfest earlier this month, so stay tuned.

Dutch cover for TELL NO LIES

2008-07-01T16:40:00.005-04:00

Whew! Now that the red has faded from my cheeks, I'm able to post the Dutch cover for TELL NO LIES, being released in the Netherlands this September ('08) by the Dutch publisher, Unieboek.

TELL NO LIES made it to Australia!

2008-06-27T09:32:00.003-04:00

I let out my own little whoop when I saw the following post from my Australian friend Davina at Inked-In. Here's what she wrote:

Julie Compton hits Australia - I "Tell No Lies"

My copy found and bought today is here on my desk. That was sleakly done, lass :) I was checking the new releases for my pleasure reading because I'm down to only a dozen or so in reserve (you gotta keep a bunch in case you have to go through them to find one that suits your mood), and there it was, brazen as you like and not a word of warning. When I saw it let out a whoop, and the girl came over to see what had excited me so. She giggled when I told her about you, Julie, and said she wished she knew people who wrote the books she puts on the shelves and how interesting these writer must be. I put her straight, knowing you wouldn't mind :-)Then she wanted to know what you looked like, no picture came with the books. Next thing I know I have a wee bunch of the staff around me. Hopefully they will now feel like they know you and push Tell No Lies and get more in. I offered to do a signing on your behalf but they didn't take me up on it :O)

What great news to wake up to on a Friday morning . . . Now I have to tell my brother (who lived there for many years) so he can tell all his friends! :-)

Gooey Butter Cake, Savannah, Dave Matthews Band, Tell No Lies . . .

2008-06-24T15:05:00.004-04:00

Well, the Gooey Butter Cake just came out of the oven and in a few minutes I'll abandon one writing activity (another read-through of Book 2, which -- though it's already gone to the editors -- keeps pulling me back to make more changes while I wait for their comments) to get ready for another (my booksigning at the Savannah Barnes & Noble tonight).

Those who have attended some of my booksignings know that I like to bake St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake to offer to anyone who stops by my table. (Sorry, St. Louis folks, I didn't do this when I was there at Left Bank Books in May, but I'm planning to for my July visits to the Borders in Ballwin!) It's a yummy little tie-in to the book for no other reason than it's a St. Louis specialty and Tell No Lies is set in St. Louis. But people seem to enjoy it and I enjoy sharing it with them (whether they buy a book or not).

Tonight should be low key compared to some of the other signings I've done because, except for my friend and former colleague Frank and his wife Liz (see post about Savannah), I don't know anyone in Savannah. Frank was kind enough to circulate an announcement about the event to everyone at the law firm where he works and to the Savannah bankruptcy bar listserve. Now that's friendship! But I'm still expecting it to be quiet. After all, most people won't show up for a booksigning of someone they don't know. Best to set expectations low and consider anything else mere icing on the cake. (Not on the Gooey Butter Cake though; it's sweet enough without icing . . .)

This will be the last signing for awhile, until I'm back in St. Louis in mid-July. I've got a lot of good stories to tell from my trips, and I hope to have the time to blog about a few of them in the next weeks. I've also come across a few really interesting articles lately (some about writing, some about politics) that I want to blog about. I'm making myself a list . . .

Until then, I think I'm due for a Dave Matthews Band mention. I ran across this blog post, and whether you like DMB's music or not, you gotta love this (scroll down to the June 22, 2008 entry). Say what you will, but Dave is just a stand up (no pun intended) sort of guy.

St. Louis Launch of TELL NO LIES - What a Weekend!

2008-05-20T10:47:00.030-04:00

My mother-in-law had great advice for me when I was in St. Louis last week for the launch of Tell No Lies (and for other things, too, as you'll see below). She said: "Julie, just take a deep breath and enjoy the moment so you'll remember it." She was so right.

These past few days, it's truly felt like I'm living my dreams. When you write your first novel, you can only hope that someday a publisher will want to publish it and readers will want to read it. Dream number one came true when Macmillan offered me a contract to publish both Tell No Lies and my second novel (still untitled - but officially sent off to my editor today!). Dream number two came true last Thursday night at Left Bank Books. I was simply overwhelmed by the number of people who turned out to show their support, listen to me blabber on and read from the novel, and buy books! The bookstore was packed with family, friends, friends of family and friends, and even some people who just heard about me and/or the book in the media. Afterwards, Shane at Left Bank (who, by the way, gave an introduction that blew me away --he should be a publicist -- he made me sound much better than I am) said they'd sold out! I am so blessed and grateful, and I hope I remembered to tell everyone that several times! THANK YOU TO EVERYONE!

On to some more pics. . . (will someone please tell me how to get pictures to go where you want them on Blogger . . .? And how to label them?)

This is my friend Lisa, who has been a great cheerleader -- talking the book up at every chance she gets and putting me in contact with some crucial media contacts. Top left below: I had nothing to do with the magazine placement behind me! I have my husband to thank for those hi-jinks. Middle right below: Sunny, my fabulous mother-in-law, and Missouri Supreme Court Judge Mary Russell. (How many writers can say they've had a Supreme Court judge at their book launch?)

Middle left above: my nephew Robbie and soon-to-be sister-in-law Devorah.

To the top right: Clyde and Phyllis (Clyde finding out the main character is not him . . .) Bottom left: The banners that greeted us upon our arrival at my in-laws. (It was also my daughter's 16th b-day this past weekend!) (I'll post more pics when I figure out to do it right . . .)

Today's the Day! TELL NO LIES U.S. Release!

2008-05-13T09:34:00.003-04:00

Today's the day! My novel Tell No Lies is officially available for sale in the United States!

A woman where Rick works came into his office yesterday and told him she saw it on the "New Fiction" shelf over the weekend at Barnes & Noble, so last night we stopped in and got a sneak preview.

The store employees saw us taking pictures and before I knew it, I was signing stock. Thanks to Scott, Sarah and James for being so gracious and excited for me (and to James for recommending some books to my daughter Jessie). I hope B & N appreciates you!

I'm heading out tomorrow for St. Louis and the launch at Left Bank Books on Thursday. I'm excited but VERY nervous . . . :-)

Guest Blogging at Moments in Crime

2008-05-05T11:48:00.004-04:00

I'll be guest blogging this week (May 5 - 11) on the St. Martin's Moments in Crime blog. Stop by, say hello, and make a comment or two!

But first, because I promised him I would, here's a picture of Klaus at the New Orleans Jazzfest this past weekend.

Great Reads

2008-04-20T18:04:00.005-04:00

I've read some excellent books lately -- The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and Heaven Lake by John Dalton. The Book Thief is incredibly sad but oh so well-written. It's just beautiful.

But it's Heaven Lake (another gorgeous book that I was sad to have end) that I want to talk about, because I have an interesting story about how I came to read it.

A long time ago, when I still lived in St. Louis (my hometown!), I participated in a small writing workshop at the local YMCA. At the time, I had just become a stay-at-home mom after having my second daughter, and I took the workshop to get myself back into the creative writing mode. Writing was a lifelong love -- I still have journals I wrote in as a kid -- but I had pretty much abandoned it for a while once I started practicing law.

Fast forward a few years -- I was reading Publishers Weekly and saw a blurb about a book that sounded very familiar. I looked at the author's name, John Dalton, and recognized it as the name of my YMCA workshop leader. I knew it had to be the same person because I remembered him talking about the novel he was writing, and the PW blurb matched his description. I held on to the issue for months, intending to look him up and also to search out the novel once it was released, but life got in the way and it never happened.

Fast forward a few more years (to this past fall). I recently remodeled my home office and in the course of sorting through many of my old notes from various writing workshops I've taken over the years, I came across a folder from the YMCA workshop. It reminded me again to look John up, so I got online, contacted him, and ordered the book from Amazon. The book has been sitting on my nightstand for some time (I always have a 'line' of books waiting to be read) and I finally got the chance to delve into it over spring break.

Let me just say this: the year Heaven Lake was released (2004), John won the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, and for good reason. I couldn't put it down, and I was sad when it ended because I enjoyed the reading of it so much. The writing is gorgeous, the plot and the characters are fresh and interesting, and it's chock full of issues (it's a great book club book). Here's the Amazon link with the summary, etc.

Motorcycle Mama

2008-04-14T08:59:00.007-04:00

This is what happens when I wait too long to blog -- I end up with a list of things I've been wanting to write about and then I consider cramming them all into one post. But I won't. Instead, in the next few days, I'll try to cover motorcycles, kayaking, great reads, and probably a few other things I thought of recently but have now forgot . . .

For today, motorcycles . . .

I still have to head over to the DMV office to get the endorsement added to my drivers' license, but other than that -- I'm now legal to ride a motorcycle! I took a course this past weekend at the local Harley dealership and yesterday I passed my test with almost flying colors. (Seems I forgot to brake going into a curve and that cost me some points -- my instructor told me otherwise I would have aced it . . .).

I've been wanting to learn for a long time. As a kid, my brothers rode, and I spent some time as a passenger and loved the thrill of it. The desire has grown since living in Florida, where we're surrounded by bikers. But what finally compelled me to get out there and take the course is the current novel I'm working on. ("The one that was supposed to be turned into the publisher on March 31," she says with a guilty look on her face . . . Luckily, my editor is very understanding and patient.) As the members of my writing workshop know, my main character rides. So I thought now would be the time to make sure I get the finer points of riding right, before I turn the manuscript in. I'd hate to think readers might later see something I'd written and think to themselves, "she got that all wrong!"

Of course, now I'm itching to get a motorcycle, and Rick says, "Wait a minute, I thought you just wanted to do this for your novel." My poor husband. He's even more patient than my editor.

They don't have pink, but I like this yellow one. :-)

Book Reviews, Falling Literacy, and Odds and Ends

2008-03-06T09:09:00.002-05:00

I'll do the Odds and Ends first:

1. My editor shared the news yesterday that Kirkus has given Tell No Lies a starred review. The news made my day. (I'll post the link when it's up).

2. I'm drinking my coffee this morning from one of my favorite mugs (second only to my Pac Man one from college), the one with the quote from Laurel Thatcher Ulrich: "Well-behaved women seldom make history." Apparently this quote has been taken (and exploited) out of context, see Slate article about Ulrich and her book of the same name, but I still love it. I've never been one for behaving too well, at least not in the way others always want/expect you to. It's made life difficult at times, but interesting.

3. From the annals of "Stating the Obvious": I turned on my radio in the shower this morning and caught the very tail end of a DJ giving a news report, and she was quoting someone as saying "We wouldn't have so much violence if people behaved better." Now there's some amazing, thoughtful insight about solving society's problems! Someone please tell me the person making this statement wasn't someone high up in our government . . .

4. Re: listening to the radio in the shower. Somewhere along the way, I must have told my publisher that the initial seed for the idea for Tell No Lies came to me in the shower (which is true), though I didn't mention the radio part. This factual tidbit has been passed along to interviewers, I guess, because I've had a few ask me about it during interviews. I realize now that it would have made more sense to them if they knew I had a radio in the shower . . . (I'd heard a news story that sparked a trail of ideas and, combined with another story I'd read in the newspaper, led to the idea for the novel).

And, with the mention of newspapers, I'll move on to the main point of this post:

I attended Sleuthfest this past weekend in south Florida and had a wonderful time. I hadn't really been too familiar with the mystery genre (and all its sub-genres), but since my novel seems to have been tagged as a legal thriller, I figured I should become a bit more educated on that front. What I found was a great group of people who were very wiling to welcome a new kid on the block and share their expertise.

I attended a talk given by Oline Cogdill, a reviewer for the Sun-Sentinel (if you like books, check out her and Chauncey Mabe's blog), and Cheryl Solomini, a reviewer for Mystery Scene Magazine, and one of the topics that arose was how difficult it is to get review space for books in newspapers. Oline talked about how her pages have been cut drastically in recent years, and of course we're all aware of how some of the biggies -- LA Times Book Review, for example -- are doing away with their stand-alone book review sections.

But Oline made a point that I thought should be repeated in every newspaper editorial board meeting across the country: In this era of falling subscriptions and newspaper sales, why are newspapers cutting out one of the key methods of promoting literacy? If you want to sell more papers, wouldn't it behoove you to cater to the people who like to read? Why, if they want to generate sales, are they catering to the demographic that doesn't even read or subscribe to the paper?

I know, I know, there's probably a valid business reason that the accountants and analysts have come up with to prove the book reviews don't generate ad dollars, but come on. Newspapers are for readers. Books are for readers. Seems it's the same audience. And if you want to increase that audience, don't you have to encourage the activity? Shouldn't you be the first one in line to promote literacy?

No Verdict on the Kindle Yet

2008-02-25T15:49:00.002-05:00

The jury's still out at my house on the Kindle. So far, I've read only one book on it: Blood Memory, by Greg Iles. This was my book club's choice for last month (which, by the way, was a very different type of book than those we usually choose), and one thing I didn't like was that I couldn't just flip through the pages at our meeting to find a passage being discussed. I recognize there is probably a way to search for terms, but that's part of my issue: I hate the learning curve that accompanies new technology. I don't want to spend the time figuring out all the intricacies. Picking up a real book is just so much easier! (This is why I never upgrade my cell phone, too.)
Having said that, I loved the way I'm able to adjust the size of the font. My eyesight just isn't what it used to be. (What am I saying? I've never had good eyesight . . . the only difference now is that I'm nearsighted and farsighted!) I also love that I can have the book instantly with just a click on the Amazon site.
I asked my fifteen-year-old daughter, who's also been using it, how she likes it so far. She loves it. Like me, she likes the ability to change the font size, she likes the size of the whole unit (it's small and light, she says), she likes how it stays charged for so long, she likes how, when you turn it on, it automatically goes back to the last page you were reading . . .
Next up, I'll be reading our book club's March pick, The Birth House, by Ami McKay. Maybe I'll take the time to learn some more features before I begin the book. . .
What do you think? Have you tried the Kindle?

Cool Photo

2008-02-24T09:16:00.005-05:00

My friend Karen took this picture in her driveway in Acton, Massachusetts. The "hearts" design was caused (unintentionally, believe it or not) by her car tires. I just loved it! Art in the unlikeliest places . . .

(I've also included a little pic of me and Karen goofing off on a frozen lake in New Hampshire, from when I visited her back in January. Fun "girlfriend" time!)

Was I Really in England This Time Last Week?

2008-02-21T17:51:00.013-05:00

I just returned Sunday night from England, and it's only Thursday now, but my time spent across the "pond" seems like ages ago. A few people have asked, "Did you go for a book tour?" The answer is no. A few others have asked, "Did you go for your book?" In that case, the answer is yes. There's a difference. Really.

When I planned the trip, I certainly hoped I would have the opportunity to do some "promotional" activities -- and made it clear to the publicist at my publisher that I was at her disposal -- but really, I planned to go regardless. It was a good excuse to visit England and I just wanted to see my book on a store shelf! (Like this picture above)

Until just a week or two before I left Orlando, I thought that would be the extent of it. Shortly before our departure, though, I started getting emails from the publicist about wanting to schedule various events. So yes, it turned into a mini-book tour, I suppose, though our sightseeing heavily outweighed promotional events!

It was all a bit surreal. I did two newspaper interviews, three BBC radio interviews, and signed stock in a few stores in London. The neatest part, by far, was just seeing the book on the shelves. That was a lifelong dream, and regardless of anything else, I'll carry that with me for a long time.The radio interviews were scary. I was nervous before each one (can you tell from the picture?), although once I started talking, I was okay. Ironically, the day or two before the interviews, there had been a big story in the news about the sentencing of some youths who had beat a man to death. Apparently, the sentence was somewhat light given the crime, and the man's wife was calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty in England. Well, one of the "issues" in my novel is the death penalty (my main character opposes it, but fudges his position to get elected as DA), and thank God my publicist gave me a heads up about this current event before the interviews! Each radio interviewer wanted to talk about it. Until then, most interviews I'd done focused on other aspects of the novel, or on why I left law to write, or whether my characters were fictional (I always get a kick out of that question!).

England itself was fantastic. We had three days of sunny weather, temperatures in the 50's (everyone kept telling us how unusual that was, and I told them we brought it from Florida!). The fourth day turned overcast and cold, but the last few days were sunny again (though still cold). We spent our first two days in Berkhamsted with a friend, taking a day trip from there to get a personal tour of Oxford from an English author, Nick Page, who is a friend of our Berkhamsted friend. We had dinner at a cute little country pub called the Alford Arms, just outside of Berkhamsted.

On Wednesday we went into London, and that's the day I did most of the book events (though every day we stopped in book stores!). We had dinner that night with a bunch of folks from Macmillan. They were a great group of people and I immediately felt as ease with them. I think we sat in the restaurant talking and drinking wine for almost 4-1/2 hours. (I love doing this, but my poor hubby can get very fidgety with lingering after the meal is done . . . He was incredibly patient and good-natured about it, though.)

We stayed in a little boutique hotel called Hazlitt's. I would highly recommend it, especially for writers. It's just off of Soho Square. They have a tradition of published authors leaving signed copies of their books, and they have a glass case in a small drawing room where they display them all. I left them one of mine to be added to the group! It was pretty cool for this newbie.

Other than this, we did all the typical tourist things -- Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Portobello Road Market, St. Paul's Cathedral, London Eye, Harrods, Harvey Nichols, saw a show in the West End, etc. . . . I wanted to go to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre but we ran out of time, and I decided it would be better in warm weather anyway, when we could see a play. I also wanted to see the Tate Modern, but we didn't get there, either. Next time, for sure. And of course we visited bookstore after bookstore. I could have spent hours in Foyles. I was impressed by how many bookstores one small country can support. Sometimes there would be 3 or 4 right near each other, and all were crowded. Who says reading is dead?

I wanted to get down to Dorset to meet my new online friend Innky (his real name is Andy, but he owns an inn, Mortons House Hotel, so he goes by Innky on our online writing community site). I think he was the first Brit to buy my book, and he's been really supportive, plugging it for me at every turn. He's written his own book -- Innkeeping with Mr Fawlty: The Confessions of an Hotelier -- and I understand it's supposed to be quite funny. I'm waiting for my copy to arrive as I type, so I'll post more about it later once I've read it. Anyway, Dorset, Mortons House, and Innky are on the musst-see list for our "warmer weather" trip.

One last pic -- in the airport bookstore (W.H. Smith) on the way home . . .

Idle Musings While Running

2008-02-04T10:39:00.000-05:00

Wouldn't it be neat if they had a device that could just transcribe your thoughts to paper, without the need to type them or say them out loud? On second thought, no -- this seems much too 1984-ish. (Can we use that term any more? Is it still relevant now that the date has passed?) The minute such a device exists, "they" will start using against "us" involuntarily . . . I won't even go there. And don't even write to tell me such a thing already exists; I don't want to know.

I had the first thought because I notice I always "write" blog posts in my head as I'm out running, but by the time I return to my computer, I've lost the way I wanted to say it. Sure, I usually remember the idea, but it never comes out on the screen the way it did in my head. By the time I sit in front of the computer, I'm ready to work on fiction, not on blog posts.

Anyway, I was listening to some DMB as I was running, and I realized why women don't mind the long jams at their concerts -- with the long, slow, extended lead ups and then crashing finales as Dave screams like a madman -- and many men, especially male music critics, do. Many guys accuse them of being self-indulgent. I don't think women see it this way. It's like foreplay and sex. I'll leave it to the reader to think about what I mean . . .

I ran alone this morning, and later, because my running partner Monica had to cancel. Monica has a baby -- she is Gerber baby cute, truly -- and baby was up a lot last night. The run reminded me of why I like running early; it was much hotter and much sunnier at 9 a.m. than it is at 6 a.m. (Indeed, right now it's still dark at 6).

On another, totally unrelated point: I think they should draw a line around the baggage claim carousel at airports, about 3 or 4 feet out, and tell everyone to remain behind the line until you spot your piece of luggage. Think how much easier it would be to (1) see the luggage coming on the belt, and (2) retrieve your suitcase once you've spotted it, without the need to force your way through the crowds hovering right at the edge of the belt. It might take a bit before people voluntarily adhered to the system, but I think once they saw how much easier it made the process, it would catch on. What do you think?

Next post: I'll talk about how I like (or not) the new Kindle book reader by Amazon.

It's Been an Exciting Week for TELL NO LIES

2008-02-01T09:47:00.000-05:00

A lot has happened this past week with my book, Tell No Lies.

1. Today is the day it officially goes on sale in the UK!

2. Just a week ago my editor here in the US sent me the final cover (at left) for the US edition, which comes out in May. I think it looks fantastic -- very striking, very contemporary. I've been really lucky to have such great designers for my covers. Let me know what you think.

3. On Sunday, the Travel section of the London Telegraph ran an interview with me about Orlando. Here's the link: Telegraph interview.

4. Best of all, the novel garnered some good reviews! Trashionista called it "an excellent pyschological thriller and an extremely polished debut." The UK's Guardian said Tell No Lies is "an absorbing account of an honourable man gradually yielding to multiple temptations," and "a strong debut from a writer who knows her law, and more importantly, can depict the ebb and flow of relationships, the conflict between love and desire and the irresistible urge to self-destruct of a 'man who has everything'."

So it's been a good week . . . I'm smiling.

Tales from the Road

2008-01-26T08:44:00.000-05:00

What a difference a few hours in a plane makes.

I'm in Concord, Massachusetts. I spend the morning on my first full day here writing in my room at the Hawthorne Inn, and I head out to get some lunch at the Main Streets Market & Cafe in Concord Center. I've brought my laptop because I have visions of sitting in the noise and bustle of life while I eat and get some more writing done. It's nearing the end of the lunch hour: 12:50. I park my car and stroll down Main Street marveling at how damn quaint it is up here in New England. I mean, I used to live here -- one town over in Acton -- so I know this, but still, I love it anew every time.

At the door to the little cafe I stop because on the door there's a sign (similar to the No Shirts, No Shoes, No Service type of sign) that says: Restaurant in Use, No Cell Phones, No Laptops.

I'm bummed. Not about the cell phone ban; if you read this blog with any regularity, you know how perturbed I get with obnoxious cell phone use in public places. But no laptops? Oh, that hits me where it hurts. I'm up here in Massachusetts for two reasons. The first is to visit my girlfriend Karen (yes, the same Karen who gets a grateful nod in the Acknowledgements section of my novel, Tell No Lies), and the second is to write. Karen and I can't get together until Saturday because of her school schedule, so I've come up a few days early to write. A section of the novel I'm currently working on takes place in New England, and I figure it can't hurt to immerse myself in the place since it's been ten years now since we moved away.

Anyway, at first I can't really understand the ban on laptops. After all, I'm eating alone, and the laptop's quiet, so I wouldn't be disturbing anyone. And in my experience, I've noticed that venues that allow - indeed encourage - laptop use tend to be hopping places. They become local hangouts, and that has to be good for business.

But once I'm in the cafe, I start to understand. This place is still hopping at 1:00 p.m. So perhaps they fear that diners using laptops will loiter for hours at a table, which could see several turnovers of customers otherwise.

So in the end, I accept the ban without feeling put out. I enjoy my lunch and just take in the surroundings, which helps the writing just as much if not more than the laptop. And I'm rewarded for my acceptance when I hear a waitress say warily to another worker, "Why's that person taking pictures at the front of the restaurant?" I turn to see what she's talking about, and sure enough, there's a woman just near the front door snapping photos of the restaurant interior. And I realize that's why I love it up here in Massachusetts. All over the rest of America, it seems, people would be mugging for the camera, either overtly or covertly, hoping for their chance to "be seen." Here, though, they still seem to value the concept of privacy, and guard it jealously. That waitress didn't view the camera as an opportunity, but as an intrusion, and there's something sort of refreshing about that in this age of everyone groping desperately for their fifteen minutes of fame.

Amazing Savannah photos

2008-01-19T10:13:00.000-05:00

You know how everyone has a place they'd love to live? A place where -- if money, job, children's schools, etc. were no object -- they'd move to in an instant? Well, for my old boss Frank, that place was always Savannah, Georgia. (Clarification: Frank is not old -- sorry about that Frank! -- what I mean is that he was my boss at my last job. Also, Frank is my friend, too, not just my "old boss". He started out a colleague, became a friend, then became my boss, and thankfully, even after that, he remained my friend -- because he's a really neat, interesting guy to have as a friend).

Anyway, not long after I left my last job to move to Florida and do this writing thing full-time, Frank's dream came true. He and his wife now call Savannah home. And that leads me to the point of this post.

This morning I sat at my computer to begin writing a piece for Lake Mary Life Magazine and I found a link to a photo slideshow in my email box, along with the following note from Frank:

I was introduced through a mutual friend to a German freelance photographer Ronald Schmidt and his wife Nadine who were traveling through the southeastern US around Christmas and New Years and were in Savannah from January 4-8.

I think you will all enjoy this incredible photo essay that Ronald produced of Savannah:

http://www.ronaldschmidt-photography.com/usa_slideshow/USA_slideshow.html

Some of these images are just . . . WOW.

And yes that is my Cadillac you see toward the end. I spent the afternoon of Saturday 1/5 with Ronald and Nadine and we rode out to Tybee and climbed the 178 steps of the lighthouse. Too bad Ronald didn't include any views from the top of the lighthouse, including looking back down toward the Cadillac in the parking lot, a view suggesting the car is probably visible from space . . .

If you enjoy photography, you have to check out these photos (and turn up your volume, too). Frank is right -- some of them are WOW. This guy really has an eye. What I found so impressive is that a German photographer could capture so well that sense of Americana -- Savannah-style. (In the interest of full disclosure, Frank mentioned that a couple of the marina photos are from the Charleston area, not Savannah, and one or two near the end (of the train and the skyscraper) we think may be somewhere in Europe).

NGU: Hard Work Truly Does Pay Off

2008-01-06T16:56:00.000-05:00

(January 9th, 2008) Happy Birthday to Dave Matthews (41), from your biggest fan. I read something somewhere that said he stands 6'4". Can that be right? He never looks that tall onstage . . .

Anyway, on to the point of this blog entry.

NGU. My daughter wrote those letters for me on the back of my tank top when I ran (well, okay, let's be honest - ran and walked) the Disney Marathon back in 2004. For those who don't know what the acronym stands for, it's Never Give Up. It's true for running, but it's also true for writing. I have a little story to tell about one of my writing friends from Philly that proves the point.

I met Deb Kossmann back in 1999, shortly after I had moved to Philly and joined a writing group. Deb was another writer in our group. Fast forward to October 2007. I received an email from Deb in which she shared the good news that a humorous piece she'd submitted to a local memoir contest had won first place and would be published in Philly's City Paper. That news alone is enough to make a writer's day. No, her week. Her month. Her year.

But . . . it just so happened that one of the judges of the contest was the editor of the Modern Love column in the Style section of the New York Times. He loved the piece and wanted to publish a shorter version of it in the NYT. So she worked with him to edit it down, and the piece was published on October 28, 2007 (and she got paid for it, too!). Here's the link to Deb's article. It's hilarious and a great read.

Now, if getting published in the New York Times isn't a big enough feather in the cap, it gets even better. The very day it was published -- on a Sunday, no less -- she got a call from a literary agent who read the piece and was interested in representing her! After checking him out (with good results), she eventually signed on and now she's working on a book proposal.

Imagine that. She started with the sole intention of writing a piece to submit to a local contest, and next thing she knows, her piece is published in the NYT and she's got a contract with an agent.

Now, if you just heard this story without knowing anything else about Deb, you'd think -- lucky dog! But the point of this blog entry (in addition to linking everyone who reads this to her funny piece) is that all these good things didn't just fall into her lap. She's been writing for a long time -- at least as long as I've known her and, if I remember correctly, since she was very young (like most writers). And she's been submitting as long as I've known her, too. Sometimes getting acceptances and sometimes getting rejections. I haven't asked her outright, but I suspect, like most of us, she has received more rejections than acceptances. But she didn't give up. She didn't blame the publishing industry, she didn't blame editors, or agents, or anyone. She just kept writing because that's what writers do. They write. They work hard. And sometimes -- there's never any guarantee -- that hard work pays off. So KUDOS to you, Deb! You deserve it.

In that same vein, I'd like to include something my new friend Joseph Hayes (the Burry Man) wrote in his blog (thanks for the reprint permission, Joseph!):

There are five levels of writing, as there are in grief:

People who know the language (they can speak and read) think they can write;
People who think they are writers believe they will be discovered;
People who aren't discovered blame editors, publishers and readers;
People who realize that writing is hard discover whether they are actually writers;
People who actually are writers, write.

'Nuff said. Happy New Year! To the writers out there, keep writing!

TELL NO LIES to be published in Spain

2008-01-06T16:50:00.000-05:00

A little update to my last post: I got the good news last month (I've just been derelict in my blogging) that the Spanish book club Circulo de Lectores (part of the Random House Mondadori group) has acquired rights to publish and translate Tell No Lies in Spain.

I had two years of Spanish many, many years ago, so maybe I'll be able to read and actually understand at least some of what I wrote. ;-)

More TELL NO LIES news and other odds and ends

2007-10-26T18:19:00.000-04:00

My UK publisher recently informed me that they've sold rights to a Dutch publisher to publish Tell No Lies in the Netherlands. Seems my novel is going to be translated into a different language!

It's finally cooling off a bit down here in Florida (though "cooling off" is relative, I know). I went for a run yesterday morning and the three and a half miles or so weren't too difficult, despite my sporadic running schedule. I credit the crisp air and overcast sky. I just joined up with a new running club in my area in an effort to force myself to run more regularly. I'm just not someone who likes to run solo every time out; I need the motivation of knowing someone has dragged herself out of bed at a wee hour to meet me, so I'd better show up. My first meet-up with this group is tomorrow morning, for a 5K run. Should be interesting . . . I haven't done a race since the Disney Marathon in '04, but I figure a 5K is manageable.

There's also been a change in the air with respect to movies, I've noticed. It seems Hollywood has finally realized some moviegoers are actually over the age of 17, and we like to see something other than special effects . . . For the first time in many, many years, I can honestly say there are several movies I want to see and they're all in theatres at the same time. Wow! Let's see: In the Valley of Elah, Rendition, Gone Baby Gone, Into the Wild, Michael Clayton . . . I'm going next weekend to see Into the Wild with my book group.

Last item for today, for you writers out there -- here's a link to a funny article in the October 15th issue of Publishers Weekly. I actually enjoy answering questions from other writers, because I remember asking them (well, I still ask them, they're just different questions now) and feeling that it was so difficult to get straight answers (and it still is). But I guess the lesson is -- don't expect easy answers, don't give up if you really want it, and do the work. You'll know what I mean after reading the article.

TELL NO LIES on display at the Frankfurt Book Fair

2007-10-10T21:13:00.000-04:00

Rick's at the Frankfurt International Book Fair right now, and he was at his company's booth (which just happened to be next to the Macmillan booth), and something caught his eye, so he looked over and THIS IS WHAT HE SAW! My book on display! My book on a really, really big display! My book next to a Rolling Stone! In typical Rick fashion, when he calls to tell me about it he says: "Well, you finally got your name in lights!" I'm still smiling . . .

A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That

2007-10-01T11:46:00.000-04:00

1. The other day I was running on the trail near my house, and I approached a little boy (he looked to be about eight or nine years old) who had dismounted his scooter and was crouched down low to the ground looking at something on the pavement. As I passed him, I saw that he was inspecting a leaf. I mean, really inspecting it. And I thought to myself: "How cool is that?" Here's this little boy, raised in the age of computers, video games, and DVD screens on the backs of every seat in the family minivan, and he's out on a Saturday morning, riding his scooter (not an electric one, by the way) and inspecting nature. I was truly thrilled. There is hope.

2. On the opposite end of the spectrum, my daughters' piano recital last night. A cell phone started ringing in the middle of one boy's song. Not once, not twice, not even three times. And I don't mean "rings" -- I mean separate calls. As in, repeated calls to the same cell phone. AT A PIANO RECITAL. Had it been one of my girls sitting at the piano at the time this happened, I'm not too sure I would have been able to restrain myself. I might be sitting in jail right now on charges of assault instead of typing this blog . . . You've heard of road rage? Well, what about cell phone rage? TURN OFF YOUR CELL PHONES, PEOPLE!

Introducing . . . .My Sexy UK Book Cover!

2007-09-20T10:12:00.000-04:00

Here's the new cover of my newly titled novel, Tell No Lies (UK edition). I am so pleased with it!

I often hear stories about authors who hated their covers and felt like the their publishers didn't choose an image that adequately conveyed the concept of the novel. I was a bit nervous waiting to see what my UK publisher would come up with. My editor told me she rejected a lot of proposed covers, so when she finally sent this one to me, I couldn't have been happier. I think they did a great job of preserving the "sexiness" of my original cover, and I love the dreamy, evocative feel of the blues and greys.

Now I'm anxiously waiting to see what the US publisher comes up with . . .

Has it really been three months?

2007-08-29T14:22:00.000-04:00

Without fail, every time I post an entry to the blog, I tell myself that I won't let so much time lapse before posting the next one. But without fail, I do.

It's not that I have nothing to say. The blog entries are in my head. I'm full of thoughts and opinions that I can't wait to share with the world, however trivial, but somehow I never find the time. When I manage to find time to write, it usually comes down to this: I can either (1) work on my novel(s), which means editing Best Intentions (which, by the way, is no longer Best Intentions, see below) or writing Book 2, or (2) blog. Since I have a publisher who is counting on me to do the first of these choices -- indeed, is paying me to do the first of these choices (and for which I thank my lucky stars on a daily basis -- no kidding! -- I really do), I usually end up choosing number one.

So why, you might ask, am I blogging this very minute? Simply put, I have a killer headache and though I'm perfectly capable of blogging in spite of my pain, there's just no way I'd be able to craft any type of readable fiction in this condition. Writing fiction, for me at least, involves entering a different realm, and the headache is like a sentry at the door, refusing to let me in.

Having said that, I hope the meandering topics to follow are somewhat coherent . . .

First, the novel. I came back from Africa to the news from my editor that they'd like to give Best Intentions a new title. Now, anyone who knows me probably realizes that I would freak out at this kind of news. (In fact, I think even my editor has quickly learned this about me, given the very nice and nonchalant way she mentioned the idea in passing -- but that could also just be because she is, without fail, a genuinely nice person.) I'm the type of person who freaks out whenever something unexpected happens, though it usually occurs behind the scenes (read: in front of my poor husband). And yes, I'll freely admit to some minor freaking out about the proposed title change. But the more I thought about it, I really warmed up to the idea. I found it easier to remember how I never really liked my existing title too much, and how it started out as a working title and only became the "real" title when I couldn't think of anything else. And once I saw the proposed title on the proposed cover (for the UK edition, that is), I moved quickly from "warm" to "thrilled". It looks fantastic! I'll share the title and the cover as soon as I have an image that's ready for public consumption.

Otherwise on the book front, I spent much of the summer working on edits, and I think (crossing fingers) that I'm about done. Without gushing too much about my editor again, I will say she's amazing, and truly knows her stuff. When I mention I'm working on edits, a lot of people ask me: "Well, what do you mean? What kind of edits do they want?" and I have a hard time explaining. I mean tightening, and pruning, and word choice, and knowing just the right moment when a chapter or a scene should begin and end. Knowing where the reader needs to have more of something, and where the reader needs less. All of these things and more. For those who are interested, I'll refer you to an article by Harriet Rubin from the June 4, 2007 issue of Publishers Weekly. The whole article is worth reading if you're a writer (and especially if you're a writer who gets defensive whenever anyone suggests cutting your "gems", as most newer writers do), but it's the paragraph in which Rubin mentions Victor Hugo that really rang true for me. It is a thrill when you see what your editor is suggesting, and you know, no matter how much it hurts to watch your words fall away, that she's exactly right.

So now I'm back to working on Book 2, and I couldn't be happier, because the story and the characters have really been quite active in my mind all summer, but I had to shoo them away. But my girls are back in school, I'm back at my workshop, and I have longer blocks of time to write, so if you send me an email or a comment and don't hear back right away, just know that I'm tucked away, writing.

Finally, last topic for the day: Africa. (I had other topics when I started, but that headache is making even the blog seem like an uphill battle, so I'll save them for another day -- a day, hopefully, sooner than three months from now). Rick and I traveled to Africa this summer to celebrate our 20th anniversary. We went to Kenya, Tanzania, and Zanzibar, an island just off the Tanzania coast. So many people have been kind enough to ask about our trip, and I really appreciate that. But what's odd is that I find myself somewhat reluctant to talk about it much. I'm not sure why that is. I think there are several reasons, really. For one, the experience just feels very special to me, and I want to keep it to myself, as strange as that sounds. It's as if, by talking about it, I somehow diminish it. And that leads me to the second reason. I honestly feel that I lack adequate words to describe what I saw and how I felt. This too must sound strange coming from a writer, but I mean verbally. I do intend to eventually write about Africa, whether for my own eyes or for others to read, and hopefully I can do it justice, but it's the talking about it that trips me up. I resort to just saying: "Go." There are a lot of misconceptions about the place, and really, it's hard to dispel them in a short "how was your vacation" type of discussion. Indeed, I feel like I just barely scraped the first layer of my own ideas of what it would be like, and I'm anxious to go back and dig much deeper. Until I can manage that, I'm doing a lot of reading. I'll post some recommendations in a later entry. So that's it on Africa, for now, except a note about the picture above (only one of about 1400 that I took while there!): no one fed the little guy; he climbed into a Land Rover and helped himself to the cookie you see in his hand!

Like Being a Fly on the Wall

2007-05-25T09:16:00.000-04:00

I had the wonderful opportunity on Monday evening to attend a book group meeting where the book being discussed was . . . drum roll, please . . . Best Intentions, written by yours truly. Now, I have attended a few book group meetings in the past at which my book was discussed, but in those instances the attendees were all friends of mine. In this case, the book had been recommended to the group by a friend, but otherwise I had no connection to the group.

It was a great experience. All of the women appeared to have read the book quite closely (indeed, one member had tabbed certain pages with Post-It notes!), and they were quite passionate about their opinions. I loved listening to them discuss Jack, the protagonist of the novel, and I found it very interesting to hear so many differents views about the choices he makes along the way. It was also satisfying to know that readers do pick up on the subtle things -- this particular group was very attuned to how one line of dialogue here, or a small action there, affected the meaning and tone of a particular scene. They were the enthusiatic and engaged readers that every writer hopes for!

Thanks to Leanne and Melinda, and all the other ladies who participated!

Great books I've read lately . . .

2007-05-03T11:37:00.000-04:00

I have no idea why I didn't discover this writer earlier, but I'm hooked on Paul Watkins after just one book and I can't wait to read more of him. I just read The Story of My Disappearance and it was fantastic.

Other books I've read recently and highly recommend:
The Great Gatsby (okay, that's obvious, but I just reread it for the first time in years, and I just appreciated it so much more than I did back when I read it in high school).
The Tortilla Curtain, by T.C. Boyle (should be required reading for Floridians and Southern Californians -- but would benefit anyone who thinks they have the whole illegal immigration thing figured out)
Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen (when I read the synopsis, I was skeptical - a novel with a circus setting just didn't appeal to me -- but I was wrong. It's a great read.)

DMB and other Online things

2007-03-02T10:55:00.000-05:00

For those of you sick of my constant references to the Dave Matthews Band, you may want to surf elsewhere . . . (although there are two "non-DMB" items at the end).

For the rest of you:

1. I came across a piece written by a college student, Patrick Snyder, about how it's become trendy to bash the band, and why he believes these so-called critics are wrong. I really enjoyed his piece (and I wrote him to tell him so*), because he was able to put into words that which I hadn't been able to. I also think, given his youth, he showed a lot of maturity, because at his age it's sometimes hard to speak out and say you like something when it's no longer "cool" to do so. Here's the link to his piece if you're interested: Patrick Snyder's excellent article in defense of the Dave Matthews Band.

2. Now, having said all that, I must also add that Dave has broken my heart . . . Why is that, you ask? Well, let me first say that I listened to a lot of DMB while writing Best Intentions. I'm the first to admit that I listen to a lot of DMB anyway, of course, but the band certainly played a part in cranking up the ol' muse each day during the time I wrote the book. Anyway, I wanted to use a small segment of lyrics from a song called "Seek Up" for my epigraph. (In layman's terms, an epigraph is that little quote you sometimes see on its own page, before the novel begins, that sort of sets up the theme, etc.) I did my research, found out who managed the rights to the lyrics, and sent off my request for permission. For months I waited, receiving an e-mail every once in a while from the contact person telling me she didn't have an answer yet. Because I still didn't have an answer by the time the book was set to go to print with my first publisher, I gave up and instead chose the Lord Jeffrey quote that you'll find in the book, and also on my website.

Then, lo and behold, the Macmillan deal comes through, and I realize, "hey! I have another window of opportunity to see if I can get permission to use the "Seek Up" lyrics!" So I write to the contact again, explaining the situation, hoping that with a large, well-known and very reputable publisher, I might have a better chance of obtaining a positive response. After all, DMB is known among their fans for their generosity -- not only with respect to charitable causes, but with their music in general. This is a band that lets fans tape the live shows -- and in fact provides a special spot and set-up at the concerts to assist them with this effort. So I'm thinking, if only I could ask Dave directly, I know he'd grant the permission . . . But we all know that is never going to happen . . . So I put my faith in the bureaucratic route to obtaining permissions. . .

Well, this time the answer came back promptly, and the response was "no" -- no explanation or reason given -- just a simple "Unfortunately, the publisher of "Seek Up" is unable to fulfill this request. Thank you for your interest in the music of Dave Matthews Band and best wishes with your project." I sent off my polite "thanks anyway" but inside I was not too happy. I mean, I've spent a lot of money on this band -- I mean A LOT OF MONEY. CDs, concert tickets, plane tickets, hotel rooms, etc. I always joke that if I was young, single, and childless, I'd probably be a groupie (do groupies even exist anymore?). I deserve to be able to use these lines, right? Is it really asking much to want to use ten lines from a song that the average person has never heard of. ("Seek Up" is not one of the band's songs that receives radio play.)

As a writer, I've received many, many rejections, and they always sting, each and every one. And this one stung the most. I considered breaking every CD in protest, never buying another concert ticket, canceling my membership in the Warehouse, all that "cleansing" stuff that is supposed to make one feel better. I even seriously considered my husband's suggestion (made jokingly, I think), that in the Acknowledgements section of the book, I add a little special note to Dave -- sort of a "thanks for nothing." But no, I'm a bigger and better person than that. In fact, I believe I've actually come to terms with this biggest rejection of all. How do I know? Let's just say I'll still be in the audience when the band takes the stage at the MGM in Las Vegas later this month, screaming with pleasure when the first note is played, singing along to every song, dancing in the aisles . . . Some things never change. . .

Okay, now let's move on to the non-DMB items:

1. My daughters and I have become addicted to a Podcast called Dylan's Couch. The creator is a 13 year old boy, and this kid is really funny in a sweet, self-deprecating way. (Not to mention his theme song is catchy and sticks in your head long after you've watched the latest episode). He's the kind of kid that I'd be okay with one of my daughters bringing home one day (several years from now, that is!). If you've got pre-teens or thereabouts (mine are 12 and 14), you've got to show this to them. It's a hoot! (FYI, the link above takes you to his website, but you can also access the episodes on YouTube -- the picture is bigger there, for some reason, and that makes the overall effect stronger).

2. In reference to the asterik above: Readers, please know that writers are an incredibly insecure bunch, and we love to hear when someone likes something we've written. (Now, if you don't like it, please keep that to yourself.) (Um, just joking.) So when I read something I like, I've gotten in the habit of writing to the person and letting them know. I even once wrote to Frank McCourt (author of Angela's Ashes), and though it was for a slightly different reason which I'll blog about someday, even he responded. (Hmm, maybe if I wrote directly to Dave about those lyrics . . . but I digress . . .) So I think the lesson here (if there is a lesson) is that us writers love to hear from you readers! Don't be shy!

The Genesis of a Short Story

2007-03-02T09:45:00.000-05:00

One of my older short stories, "Flying Lessons," was just published at the on-line literary magazine, Hamilton Stone Review. The story was always one of my favorites -- I had a lot of fun writing it, and I enjoyed hanging out with my characters. In 2000, Glimmer Train reinforced my good feelings about it when they picked it as a finalist for the journal's Short Story Award for New Writers. But it was long, and that made it hard to find a publisher. Most journals have guidelines limiting word count, and at 7500 words, my story was way over the average limit of 3000 to 3500 words. So I'm especially grateful to Hamilton Stone Review for being willing to publish it.

A lot of people read it and see the similarity between Ricky's family situation and the real life family of my husband Rick. In the story, brothers Ricky and Joe live with their divorced mother and their grandma. My husband Rick and his brother also come from divorced parents, and their grandma lived with them growing up. Joe is a musician; my husband's brother is a musician. But before anyone gets the idea that I've contradicted my earlier post below, and that this story isn't fiction, let me give you a glimpse into a writer's mind (or at least this writer's mind) to see how we sometimes come up with story ideas.

In "Flying Lessons," the real "story behind the story" (as I like to say) is the character of Lisa. Now, it's true that my brother-in-law dated a lot of girls with the name of Lisa (in fact, he married and later divorced one of them). My husband once told me a funny anecdote about one of these Lisas (not the one he married), about how she was um, how should I say. . . clear throat . . . noisy, and how their quiet, unassuming grandma once remarked on this trait at the dinner table. Now, moving to another family -- mine -- I also remembered one of my own brothers dating a beautiful girl who was Israeli, and who did, in fact, have to return to Israel to serve in the armed forces. So the Lisa in "Flying Lessons" started as sort of a basic composite of these two girlfriends, and then I used the relationship between the brothers as my structural foundation because I find such relationships so, so interesting. (You'll see more brotherly dynamics in Best Intentions, too). To my knowledge, neither of the girls upon whom I based Lisa was a pilot -- the details about flying come from my own experience as a pilot. And everything else that happens in the story -- well, you'll have to blame that on what goes on in my crazy little brain . . .

So that's about it. Does the story have some real life components to it? You bet. So is it still fiction? Without a doubt.

I hope you'll check it out and let me know how you like it.

Idle Musings . . .

2007-01-20T23:43:00.000-05:00

There's this columnist who writes for the Calendar section of the Orlando Sentinel on Fridays -- he calls himself Commander Coconut. I love this guy. When I'm reading the paper, I usually find myself muttering things out loud, most often in the form of invectives directed at some politician, or generalized grumblings over the state of the world. But with Commander Coconut, I smile and laugh and say things like "Yes!" or "Exactly!" or "I couldn't agree more!" His column is usually a bunch of musings about sundry things, many of which relate to the entertainment field: celebrities, movies, and what not. I'm not too big on pop culture -- my sense is that we're all victims of a pop culture overload. But I like Commander Coconut so much, I think, because despite our generational differences (I suspect, though I'm not certain, that he is much older than I), I tend to agree with many of his opinions. And many of his opinions tend to be contrary to popular opinion. And therein lies the attraction . . . Anyone who really knows me, knows, at heart, I am a contrarian.

So, in honor of Commander Coconut, I give you some of my own musings (some pop culture related, some not, some contrary, some not).

1. Am I the only one who doesn't think Ugly Betty is all that ugly? I mean, just because Hollywood puts glasses and braces on a girl doesn't automatically make her ugly. Anyone can see that underneath the appliances is a decent looking actress. Somehow, I think if they'd used a truly ugly girl, the show would have had more meaning.

2. Do you think the radio stations were paid to start playing "Bad Day" over and over again just before the new season of American Idol started? The song had been played to death last year, and it seemed to have finally gone away, but then I noticed that in the weeks running up to the new season, it had been resurrected.

3. I finally got a chance to see "Crash" and "Hotel Rwanda" -- both were amazing, though depressing, movies. Probably need a good comedy next. Instead, The Constant Gardener is next in line on my Netflix list . . . oh well. I read the book and enjoyed it; hope the movie is just as good.

4. I have to admit I'm becoming a Stephen King convert. Now, I don't have a lot to go on yet. I've always been a bit anti-Stephen King -- based upon the movies made of his novels, I assumed his writing would be formulaic, and I never liked horror anyway. I first read him when he used to write a column for Newsweek, I think it was, and I found that I really enjoyed the columns and often agreed with what he had to say. Then, a while back, my husband brought home On Writing, a non-fiction book by King about his career, how it was derailed when he was hit by a car, and his subsequent struggle to begin writing again. It was really, really good; I found myself recommending it to everyone, not just to other writers. In it, he discusses some of his early novels, and I must admit, just reading about his process of writing those works piqued my interest. Recently, a neighbor loaned me one of his most recent novels, Lisey's Story, and though it's dense and at times hard to get through, I thoroughly enjoyed it. And, what shocked me the most, his writing is quite lyrical. Anyway, I'm hooked and looking forward to the next Stephen King novel -- which for me, may be his first. I might just have to start at the beginning.

5. If our government truly believes that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness," then can someone tell me why our current administration (and many citizens, judging by the letters to the editor I read in the paper) thinks that only Americans are entitled to these unalienable rights???? I mean, in my world, a human is a human is a human -- I don't care which country they come from . . . It's seems to me that we grant our citizens certain protections because we believe it's right to do so, not just because there's an official piece of paper that tells us we must . . . If it's right to do so, then isn't it right to do so for everyone . . .?

6. A lot of people ask me how I ever finished writing a whole novel. It reminds me of when I lost about 40 pounds some years ago, and everyone asked me how I managed to do it. It's as if everyone expects I will give them my "secret" for achieving these things -- as if they don't already know the answer. Of course, both in writing and in weight loss, people do want it to be easy -- why else would there be so many products sold that promise quick and easy results? But deep down, everyone already knows the answer. To write a novel, you just have to put your butt in the chair and write. Every day. On a regular basis. It's called discipline. Writing has to be like any other obligation. It can't be one of those things that you get to when you've finished everything else, because you'll never finish everything else, and you know it. You can't wait until you're "inspired" because as nice as that sounds, the inspiration usually hits after you've been writing for a while. Which brings me to the weight loss -- because, like writing, it's all a matter of discipline. The answer is easy: exercise more, eat less. It's that simple. It's not easy, but it is simple. (Now, before someone gets on me, I'm talking about the average, otherwise healthy person -- I know there are certain medical situations where this doesn't hold true). And you have to really want to do it, whether it's writing a book or losing weight. If you're going to write a book, it's best to actually enjoy the act of writing . . . Don't do it thinking you'll get rich or be invited to appear on Oprah. Such motivation won't sustain you for very long. As for losing weight, well, I can't ever admit to enjoy eating less -- I love food too much -- but I have experienced runner's high, and having gained back about 20 of those 40 pounds I lost, I will be the first to attest to how much better I felt when I was slimmer, fitter, and stronger. But -- and this brings me back to my original point (about already knowing the answer to the question) -- I know exactly why I gained those pounds back. I'd been exercising a lot less, and eating a lot more. It's as simple as that. So . . . today I laced up my sneakers and hit the pavement, and guess what? It felt good. And afterwards, I noticed, that banana on the kitchen counter sounded a lot more appetizing than a muffin . . .

Booksigning Pics

2007-01-20T23:28:00.000-05:00

I'm happy to report that Rick found his camera! We thought it had been stolen, and needless to say, I was upset because it contained the only pictures from the Wilmington and Deland booksignings. Actually, the truth is that my friend Debbie found the camera -- unbeknownst to us, we'd left it at her house on Thanksgiving.

So, here I am outside the Ninth Street Book Shop in Wilmington, Delaware on November 10, 2006. To the right is my youngest daughter, Sally, and to the left is Gemma Buckley, owner of the book store.

At The Muse Book Store in Deland, Florida on November 18, 2006.

The Curse of the Dirty Fork

2006-11-01T15:26:00.000-05:00

Okay, this has been on my mind for awhile, and it justs seems like a good topic for a blog. You know, sort of trivial but still fun to crab about. Pardon me if I seem to be rambling, but . . .

. . . have you ever noticed how, when you go into a restaurant nowadays, they only give you one fork? And then after you’ve finished your salad or appetizer or whatever it is that you’re eating before the main course, they come to get your dirty plate (on top of which sits your dirty fork – yes, dirty fork – and you’ve placed the dirty fork there for exactly that reason: it’s dirty, just like your plate), and the waiter or waitress says “would you like to keep your fork?” This DRIVES ME CRAZY! I mean, is there any conceivable reason you would want to put the fork (still wet or at least a little sticky from your mouth or your food or whatever) onto the table in front of you, which is probably teeming with bacteria and other gross things? Is this a reasonable question for a waiter to ask? Is there some reason they don't want to give you another fork? One that is clean? Is that asking too much? I can't imagine there is that much more labor involved in giving patrons two forks instead of one. Can you? After all, isn't that the typical place setting? Two forks, a knife, and a spoon? It takes every bit of restraint I can muster not to say “If I wanted to keep my fork, I would have kept my fork!” or worse things that I probably shouldn't put in a blog . . .

And what gets me even more -- and here's where we all have the power to reverse this God-awful trend -- is that everyone sheepishly says "oh, okay" and then retrieves the dirty fork from the plate before it is whisked away. Some people, I've noticed, have even begun removing the dirty fork from the dirty plate before the waiter has a chance to ask the question! As if, somehow, it's our job. It's our duty. If that's the case, maybe we should all start offering to use the same plate over and over. "Here, take my salad plate and just use it again for my steak." Perhaps I shouldn't even suggest this, lest I give someone an idea . . .

In my opinion, we've all been brainwashed, and somehow, made to feel guilty for [gasp!] wanting a clean fork for our next course. It didn't used to be like this. This is a fairly recent trend.

Well, I simply do not put up with it anymore. When the waiter asks the question: "Would you like to keep your fork?" -- I look him in the eye and politely state with a smile: "No, I'd like a clean one, please." He gets it. And I get my clean fork.

St. Petersburg Book Festival

2006-11-01T15:14:00.000-05:00

The St. Petersburg Book Festival turned out to be a great event. I had the opportunity to meet some of the other authors from Port Town Publishing and get some pointers on this whole "marketing" aspect of the business. Even better, I spent a lot of time chatting with festival-goers, who were a friendly bunch. The picture on the left is courtesy of reader Phil Lieberman, one of my first fans, I hope!

I know Florida is full of northern transplants, but I was still amazed at how many people I met who hailed from St. Louis (my hometown and the setting for Best Intentions). The Gateway Arch on the cover of my novel sure turned out to be a conversation starter!

Anyway, thanks to everyone who took a chance on a new writer and purchased the book. I'd love to hear from you after you read it -- let me know what you think.

Check back for some more pictures from the festival -- I hope to get them posted soon.

History of the Orlando Sentinel "Being There" Essay

2006-10-01T18:15:00.000-04:00

Sometimes you can become published in the most unlikely ways.

Case in point: about two and a half weeks ago, I started back up with my writing workshop after having been away for about a year. (More on that in a later entry). Our second prompt of the day involved writing a feeling or emotion onto a small slip of paper, and then handing that word to the person at our left. The word I received was "peace." We were then instructed to write something that described the feeling or emotion, without ever mentioning the word in what we wrote. I wrote about a float trip I took on the Glen Canyon river in the fall of 2005. We all read our writing out loud, and to my pleasure, everyone guessed that my word was "peace." After class, the leader of our workshop, Jamie Morris, mentioned that my piece might be appropriate for some sort of travel publication. She suggested that I take the time to clean it up a bit and send it in. I was taken by surprise at her suggestion -- after all, the piece felt like a stream of consciousness journal entry of some sort -- but I told her I'd think about it.

A day or so later, when I had some free time to look at what I'd written with new eyes, I started thinking about where I might submit it. I checked the word count of the piece, and it came in at just over 450 words. I then checked the submission guidelines for the Orlando Sentinel's "Being There" feature -- 300 to 400 words. So I set to work to see if I could edit my work to under 400 words. There was a time several years back when I would have had trouble doing this -- but the experience of editing a 700 page manuscript down to 424 pages has made me an expert at tossing words and tightening sentences!

About an hour later, I'd succeeded at cutting the piece down to 399 words, and I'd even added the missing word from the original -- peace. I drafted a brief cover letter, and with the click of a key stroke, submitted the piece to the Sentinel.

The next day I received a response that the paper wanted to publish my piece. I was thrilled! I think this was probably the fastest I'd ever received an acceptance -- it's usually the rejections that come so swiftly!

The piece can be found in the Travel section of today's (October 1, 2006) Orlando Sentinel, and it can also be viewed online for a limited time.

The moral of the story? A good writing workshop is a wonderful thing . . . it can motivate you to do more than just put pen to paper. It can help a writer to see potential in things that might have otherwise been delegated to the bottom of the desk drawer . . . Thanks, Jamie!

No, You're Not In It

2006-08-15T08:03:00.000-04:00

Probably the most frequent question I hear from friends and family regarding my novel is: "So, am I in it?" The second is: "Is it autobiographical?" The answer to each is no (except for one minor exception -- see below) and no.

First of all, most writers prefer to remain friends with their friends, and as for family -- well, we at least want to be able to show our face at the dinner table next Thanksgiving. Although the idea of showing up as some character in a novel may seem appealing, it is the rare individual who is actually pleased when he reads how the writer portrays him. I mean, really, most novels are not about happy, perfect people, right? The characters must have flaws (and sometimes those flaws are really big ones!) in order to be interesting. Of course, we all know there are no perfect people, but that still doesn't stop your friends from expecting you to portray them as such in whatever you write . . . Most writers are very familiar with certain horror stories about what happens when you don't -- think Pat Conroy and his book "The Great Santini." Having a bestseller subsequently made into a movie sounds great and all, but I'm just not sure it's worth the exile he reportedly suffered. So, it's best to stay away from modeling your characters on people you know. No matter what you do, they won't like it.

That being said . . . there is one very minor character in my novel who is based on someone I know, but I've already forewarned the person. I believe this particular person knows himself/herself well, and also has a pretty good idea of his/her reputation (both in the eyes of admirers and detractors), so I don't think my portrayal will be surprising nor will it offend. I fit into the "admirer" category, so I consider my portrayal of this person to be favorable. I hope my "model" agrees!

As for the second question, is it autobiographical? The best way to answer this is to remind readers that this is a novel. My handy Merriam-Webster pocket dictionary defines "novel" as "a long invented prose narrative dealing with human experience through a connected sequence of events." Key word -- invented. Autobiographies and memoirs are both completely different beasts, and indeed, it's the rare person (I believe) who has an interesting enough life to write a whole book about it! Of course, all writers will admit to borrowing from their personal experiences to some extent or another -- the 'ol "write what you know" -- but what makes being a novelist so much fun, in my opinion, is the ability to tell the story as I see fit. I like to compare the act of writing to going to the movies, or dreaming. When I write, I get to immerse myself in a whole different world for a few hours each day, and even better, I get to decide what happens. (Or sometimes, my characters decide for me.) And though it's true I tend to stick to the types of people and places I know, and indeed sometimes I use little details that come straight from life as I know it, these things are what I would call my framework for the larger story I decide to tell.

So, when you don't see yourself in my novel, I hope you'll forgive me. Just chalk it up to the fact that I value my relationship with you -- whatever that may be!

My Website's Up

2006-08-11T23:21:00.000-04:00

I'm happy to report that my website is up and running. Check it out at www.julie-compton.com. Use the link at the site to send me an email and let me know what you think. And of course, I hope you'll buy the book! :-)

I've been drafting "thoughtful" posts the last several days for this blog, but life has been so crazy the past few days that I haven't had time to finish and publish them . . . Soon, soon. But for now it'll have to just be my mindless musings . . .

Went to my second DMB (Dave Matthews Band) show of the summer this past Wednesday, in Tampa. I went with two of my girlfriends and we met up with another friend from Jacksonville -- a gal who I met for the first time last year in Tampa for the same show. Life's interesting that way. We didn't know anything about each other (other than the fact that we're close in age and we're both big DMB fans), but that was enough to convince us to take a chance and attend the concert together. (Neither had anyone else to go with for that show.) We had a blast, and now it seems to be turning into an annual event. She went on the cruise, too.

What's even weirder is that one of the other gals was a DMB fan also, yet despite the fact that I've known her now about two years, I only recently learned this about her.

Anyway, we had a lot of interesting discussions during the pre-concert parking lot tailgating, and I'm sure I'll eventually get to them in my posts. One, I'll mention now, was our belief that you're never to old to enjoy a good concert . . . I get tired of reading reviews about DMB shows, and they always mention the "college-age" crowd. Yet if the reviewer really took the time to look around, he/she would find quite a mixed bag at the shows, in terms of age. Dave himself is approaching 40, and the band's been around now for enough years that the early fans have grown older with him . . .

More topics later . . . but here's a preview:
I'm reading a book called "The Sociopath Next Door." VERY interesting . . . and it's giving me a zillion ideas for stories . . . Now if only I can find a few hours to actually sit down and write something longer than a blog posting.

In Defense of Toll Brothers

2006-07-06T23:26:00.000-04:00

Check out one of my poems that was recently published in the Mom Writers Literary Magazine. Scroll down to the Poetry section; it's entitled "In Defense of Toll Brothers." Hope you like it.

Book Publishing Progress. . .

2006-04-22T16:15:00.000-04:00

The book cover for my soon-to-be released (July '06) novel, Best Intentions, is ready to go. I'm very pleased with how it turned out. Thanks go to my designer (and friend) Kathy McLaughlin of IDesign. Check it out:

In the next few days, you'll be able to read the synopsis and an excerpt at Port Town Publishing, and pre-order a copy if you like what you see . . . and I hope you do!

Interesting Item about Democracy

2006-04-12T17:58:00.000-04:00

My cousin forwarded this today to me by e-mail. I don't know who the original author is (if anyone knows, please let me know) but I thought it was interesting, scary, and confirms what I've been feeling in my gut for some time now . . .
____________________
How Long Do We Have?

About the time our original 13 states adopted their newconstitution, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at theUniversity of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continueto exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
1. From bondage to spiritual faith;
2. From spiritual faith to great courage;
3. From courage to liberty;
4. From liberty to abundance;
5. From abundance to complacency;
6. From complacency to apathy;
7. From apathy to dependence;
8. From dependence back into bondage"

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St.Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 Presidential election:
1. Population of counties won by: Gore: 127 million; Bush: 143 million.
2. Square miles of land won by: Gore: 580,000; Bush: 2,427,000.
3. States won by: Gore: 19; Bush: 29.
4. Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Gore: 13.2; Bush: 2.1.

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the tax-paying citizens of this great country. Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements living off government welfare."

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency & apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some 40 percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.

Pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom.
_________________________________________________

On a final note, Professor Olson is just a tiny bit more optimistic than me -- I put us somewhere in the "apathy to dependence" phase!

I'm Getting Published!

2006-04-09T10:41:00.000-04:00

Well, I guess I'm going to have to revise my profile . . . I'm no longer looking for an agent and/or publisher for my novel . . . Why's that?

I received an offer to publish my novel, Best Intentions!!!

When I first found out, I screamed so loud my kids thought I'd hurt myself. My husband was in Italy at the time on business (tough work, huh?), and because I didn't want to tell anyone else until I'd told him, I had to keep it bottled up inside me until I could reach him on the phone. Argh!

Release date is targeted for July 1, 2006. Check back -- I'll update as it moves forward. I hope to get the cover design posted when it's ready, with a blurb, etc.

I do want to add a quick thanks to my friend and former writing workshop leader in Philly, Alison Hicks. I don't think I would have ever finished this novel if it hadn't been for my participation in her workshops and her very inspiring critiques . . . Check out her site at www.philawordshop.com!

Dave Matthews and Friends Cruise

2006-02-07T14:09:00.000-05:00

Here's a post I made on WeeklyDavespeak.
_________________________
From WeeklyDavespeak:

I dreaded looking at the message boards today, because I had such a GREAT time on the cruise and listening to everyone whine was getting old . . . I was so happy to see that most of the comments posted are positive.

Was it poorly organized? Yes.
Was the "private" island not really private, but just the well-known Paradise Island? Yes.
Did it take forever to catch the tenders over to the island? For some, yes. For others, no.
Were there long lines for things there shouldn't have been (drink/food tickets, and then the actual drink/food)? Yes.
Did the weather suck? Yes.
Did the weather really, really suck? Yes.

Did any of this ruin my COMPLETE AND UTTER ENJOYMENT OF SEEING DAVE????? NO WAY!!

We were on the Sovereign. We left around 4:15 to catch the 4:30 tender, and were on the island by 5:00. (Some friends were on later tenders, and it did take them much longer . . . but they nevertheless arrived before the concert started). After I stood in a long ticket line for a long time without even a few feet of forward movement, my husband got creative and paid someone at the front of the line to buy some tickets for us. The drink line was long, but moved relatively quickly. I was disappointed that the only drink choices were beer and wine -- I think the Atlantis could have made a killing if they'd served mixed drinks -- but hey, I was gonna see Dave -- I was happy. And when one of the tenders arrived carrying more fans, my husband got creative again and got on the tender after everyone had disembarked and bought a bottle of rum from the bartender on the tender. Problem solved!

There were a lot of angry people on the island because of the tender/drinks issues, but once the concert started, all appeared to be forgotten. There was Dave -- I mean, really, THERE WAS DAVE -- RIGHT IN FRONT OF US -- SO INCREDIBLY CLOSE! There wasn't a bad spot on the beach, and everywhere I looked people were singing, dancing, making new friends, just having a ball.

And then the rains came . . . and came . . . and came . . . I live in Florida, and have been through 2 hurricane seasons so far, and even I was amazed at the amount of rain that came . . .

But did it dampen our spirits?? NO WAY! For most of us, the rain just seemed to add to the wacky, craziness of the evening.

As Dave and the other musicians left the stage, many started to ditch the island to head back to the cruise ships, but others headed to the beer tents to weather the storm. Plastic bags were passed out for everyone to don, and in some tents, the vendors felt bad enough for us to hand out free beers. Despite being drenched and frozen to the bone, everyone in the tents was laughing and goofing and living it up. We had no intentions of bailing if and until someone came back out on the stage to tell us that the concert for over. Much time passed, and we were rewarded for our efforts . . . the rains let up, and some of us spied activity up on the stage. We took off from under the tents and ran to the stage just in time to see Dave coming out and taking a seat right at the edge with guitar in hand. Even when I was in the 2nd row of a concert at Madison Square Garden, I was not this close! It was absolutely amazing . . . .

The night continued -- we continued to sing and party as if the rain had never happened, except now we were wet but a lot closer to the stage!

When it ended, Dave kept making the comment that "maybe I'll have to 'get on the boats' . . .!" I knew then that he wouldn't just say that unless he intended to do it. This feeling was confirmed when after he left the stage, and everyone was screaming "one more song!", one of the stagehands said, "Don't worry, you'll see him again tonight" Wink, wink.

My friends and I were in the last boat to finally leave the island (yes, there was even a line to get off of the island at the end of the evening). But no one cared -- the partying continued. Some played in the water, despite the cold. We made more friends, took more pictures . . .

When we arrived back at the dock where the cruise ships were, we looked like lost refugees . . . As we entered the boat, we received hot chocolate, not beer (maybe that was the earlier groups who came back, or the Majesty folks?). One of the boat's officers was greeting us, and I asked him where Dave would be on the boat. He said "Dave's not staying on the boat" and I said, "I know, but where is he playing?" and he quietly said -- "Go to the Follies", which is the name of the largest music venue on the ship.

We returned to our rooms, took a quick hot shower to thaw our bodies, and headed to the Follies. The doors opened, we ran down to the front, and a bit later, we were once again rewarded for our troubles --- DAVE came on stage and it was like watching him in a small, smoky bar. ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. My only regret is that I didn't get a center stage seat, because he shook the hands of those in the center at the end. But I can't complain about my spot on the side -- still right in front of the stage. I'm still smiling . . . . Thank you, thank you, thank you, DAVE!! You proved you were everything I thought and MORE.

The next day was interesting, to say the least. At breakfast, you could tell just by looking at someone's face whether they'd seen the whole thing (all 3 parts) or not. Some people were pissed -- and I'm sure I would have been too -- but in the end, I think I would have blamed myself for not sticking it out. Yet even the angry people chilled as the day went on. They started playing DMB on the pool deck, and because we couldn't go to Coco Cay (because the seas were too rough), everyone ended up at the pool drinking and dancing and just being silly. I suspect we all had much more fun than we would have had on Coco Cay, where everyone probably would have split up. Instead, the whole ship (or a large part of it) partied together on the pool deck listening to Dave.

To all of you who were there, THANK YOU FOR CONTRIBUTING TO AN INCREDIBLE TIME! It'll take a lot to top this one . . .
Life handed us lemons, and some of us made lemonade . . . And boy oh boy, was it GOOD!

Whatever Happened to Dick Cheney????

2005-09-06T14:58:00.000-04:00

Has anyone noticed how Vice President Dick Cheney seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth???

A check at www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresident reveals the last post about VP Cheney's activities was made on August 18, 2005. Before that, there were posts at least weekly, sometimes daily. With what has happened in New Orleans and surrounding areas, one would have thought he'd be in the news, touring locations affected by Hurricane Katrina. Is there something going on with him that the public is not being told? . . . . .

The Nature of Men

2005-03-09T13:17:00.000-05:00

In just the past two days I've heard comments made by women I'm acquainted with regarding the nature of men. The first occurred in my writing group. As part of a writing prompt, we were asked to make a list of things people were afraid of. We read our lists out loud to one another, and of course the obvious fears were contained in many of our lists -- death, heights, flying, etc. One of the items I listed was commitment. This was also one of the items listed by a man in our group, who happened to read his list out loud before I read mine. When he came to this item on his list, one of the women in the group piped up "Only a man would come up with that fear." Most in the group laughed (and all but two members of the group are women), but I took issue with this (good-naturedly), because as I stated above, this item was also on my list. I don't think fear of commitment is unique to men; I have known both men and women who I could fairly say appeared to have a fear of commitment.

Then today I took a walk with a friend, who in the course of our discussion made the comment that men are "simple. They're basically beer and football." I took issue with this also. I know my own husband hates beer, and I can probably count on one hand the number of football games he's watched from start to finish. He's just not that kind of guy, and in fact, most of the guys I've ever been interested in weren't. Don't misunderstand. There's nothing wrong with a guy who likes beer and football, and indeed, I'm sure there are many who do and at the same time are quite complex men. My point is merely that there are many men out there who don't like these things, and I sometimes feel that women cause their own problems with men when they lump them all together into such categories. Just as I would hate for someone to assume all women like shopping and gossiping with their girlfriends, I don't think men appreciate being thought of as mere couch-potatoes.

I wonder if growing up with so many brothers has made me more sympathetic to men than the average women? It'd be neat to take a survey of the women who think like those I've mentioned above to see if they grew up with no brothers?

More mediating the battle of the sexes later. . .

Words or Phrases I Hate or Am Sick Of

2005-01-26T15:16:00.000-05:00

There are some words and phrases I think are just so overused, or are used by people who are trying too hard. The ones that come to mind right now are:
1. absolutely (used in place of a simple "yes"; as in "Joe, is this issue important to you?" Joe: "Absolutely.")
2. edgy (someone define what this really means, please! Once you use this word to describe something, hasn't that thing already reached the point of not being "edgy" . . . ?)
3. hip (same here)
4. again (used often by executives who don't have something original to say, so they just repeat themselves; as in "Again, it's important to be a team player" or "Again, we need to think out of the box")
5. team player
6. out of the box
7. hunker down (remember, folks, I was in Florida during this past hurricane season)

More to come . . .

Bush, followed by more pleasant thoughts . . .

2005-01-25T16:27:00.000-05:00

When I first read this morning's headline that Bush was requesting $80 billion more to fight the "war on terror", I said to my daughter: "I know what I'll be writing about on my blog today!" But now it's after 4 in the afternoon and my boiling blood has calmed to a simmer. So I'll limit my comments on Bush (for today, at least) to this: Mr. Bush, why wasn't this request brought up BEFORE the election? After all, it was just over two months ago; surely you knew then what your plans were for January. Shame on you. You've been less than forthcoming with your constituents. It couldn't be that you knew the effect such a request would have had on the election, could it? Nah!!! A moral person wouldn't misrepresent himself in that way, and we all know that morals ruled the election.

Okay, enough . . . I'll make myself mad all over again. . .

Now the more pleasant thoughts . . . Today I went to lunch with 3 new friends from my writing group. We've been in the group together for a while, but this is the first time we've done something outside of the workshop. I enjoyed our lunch immensely! Such interesting people who help me to expand my mind. Thank you Linda, Don and Jeff!

I'm starting to believe that maybe someday I can really think of Florida as home, despite the rocky start . . .

Johnny Carson & Thoughts on Death

2005-01-24T16:31:00.000-05:00

Not necessarily the topic on which I wanted to started my blog -- but it's on my mind so I'll write about it. Last night I had a dream that my father died. Now, my father is very old, and not in great health. We've had some close calls, and frankly, I'm sometimes amazed that he's still with us. But the dream nevertheless shook me up. I could actually feel what it would be like for him to be gone, the emptiness inside that results when someone who has always been a constant is suddenly and permanently gone from your life.

Then I woke up, turned on my shower radio, and learned that Johnny Carson had died. It was too weird. I cried. Not only because I loved Johnny Carson, but because of the connection in my mind between Johnny Carson and my father, and the strange coincidence of the dream.

Born in the early 60's, I grew up watching Johnny Carson with my father. My father's not the most demonstrative of men I know -- not many from his generation are -- but watching Johnny together was a ritual for us. We were the night owls of the family. My mom couldn't stay awake long enough to watch with us, and that was okay with me. Johnny Carson time was daddy and me time, from when I was very young until I moved away from home at 19. I can still hear the music at the start of the show, and Ed McMahon's voice announcing "Heeeeeeerrrrrrreeee's Johnny!" I don't know where my five older brothers were; maybe sometimes they joined us, but not often. Not often enough to make an impression. It was just me and my dad. That's what mattered to me. There are family pictures of us on the couch, the only time we ever really cuddled together. Maybe that's why someone decided it warranted a picture -- to freeze the moment in time. But even without a picture, those moments will be frozen in my memory forever.

I've been weepy all day. When someone like Johnny dies, he takes a little bit of my childhood with him. With every death of someone from my father's generation, I find myself wondering: is he next? Will I be able to handle it? I've been lucky enough not to have someone close to me die. At 41, that's pretty remarkable. I know my time is coming, and soon I will begin losing the ones I love, the ones I grew up with, the ones who molded me.

Goodbye, Johnny . . . there are those who will never forget you . . .