First, THANK YOU to everyone who commented on the previous post. It's lovely. And still a little weird to realize I have written three novels now.Second, I gotta give credit where credit is due. Yes, I wrote the damn thing. No, I'm not minimizing that. But seriously...
Apprus, who is the Southern Gentleman that I turned for when I needed Southern Gentlemanliness. He was able to answer questions from emotions to sex to movies. If my hero is accurate in any way, Appsrus is why.
And my critique group, who became my critique group without any of us even realizing it, I think:
Crow, who continues to be indispensable. Period.
The Divine M, who's emails ran from plaintive to motivating to flat out demanding as she asked "Where are my pages?" Nothing keeps one quite as motivated to write as knowing the Divine M is waiting for her pages.
Dennis R. How I ever wrote a story or novel or a sentence without knowing him is beyond me.
And always, the FE, for being there during the icky timesYes, I wrote it. Would I, could I, have written it without them? Yep. But it wouldn't have been as easy, as fun, as good, or as timely without them.I'd say more but it'd get embarrassing.Those are Pobble Thoughts and Pobble Thanks. That and a buck fifty will get you coffee ~ or whatever the five of them would like.
(ed. note ~ All these images are copyrighted by someone who's not me. Thank you to them, as well, for their use here. And in case you were wondering, those aren't the real people they are meant to represent. Appsrus is far more handsome and Dennis R may be a POC, but his C isn't green. Nor is he an amphibian ~ not that there's anything wrong with being an amphibian...some of my best friends are amphibians...)
I just sent the next book to the publisher!!!!!!!!!!!!
And wanted y'all to know first.
Those are Pobble Thoughts and me doing the Pobble Hop! That and a buck fifty will get you champagne at my place tonight.
Rarely am I the least bit intrigued by the spam that comes into my spam box. With subject lines like "HII" and "Viagra For Free" they just aren't usually that interesting. However, if I was going to open one, it would be the one I received today:"Use mind to improve your fang"Come on, you gotta admit ~ it's tempting.Those are Pobble Thoughts. That and a buck fifty will get you coffee.
Whenever I am with my friends or Lithus or anywhere else for that matter and someone raises a glass for a toast, I make the toast and then quietly, subtly lift my glass skyward. Just a little. It's easy to miss if you don't know I do it or aren't looking for it. But I do it. Every. Single. Time.There was a time when I insisted on the first toast of every evening include my toast. I've loosened up on that requirement as it got time consuming to explain, remind, butt in. Still, the first toast of the evening, I raise my own glass and think "to Gino and Cleve and Gary and Greg."Eleven years ago today, I nearly died. I don't mean that in an oooh that was close kind of way. I'm not being melodramatic or overreactive. Memorial Day of 1998, I went into anaphylactic shock at the Marriott at DisneyWorld. The SGM and I closed ourselves away from My then 5 year old Heart so he wouldn't be scared of me I was so swollen and unrecognizable. While I could still talk, I was wandering around saying "I am not an animal." Then it stopped being funny. I don't remember much of it. The last thing I remember clearly is looking at the SGM and saying "don't let me go." The hotel sent two men from their Loss Prevention department. Gino and Cleve. Eugenio Francisco and Cleveland...Lyndon? Little (although I think that's probably running together with Clevon Little in my head). L-something though. (Addendum ~ Lyndsey. His name is Cleveland Lyndsey) They held my hand. They talked to me. They got the EMTs there. Gary and Greg. Orlando sent two response teams and these guys were the leaders of each. They could barely get a pulse. They couldn't get a response. They couldn't get a blood pressure. I was dying.All the while, my family is out in the other room of the suite, praying. The SGM is with me, talking to me, not letting me go. And Gino and Cleve and Gary and Greg are doing ~ whatever they were doing that was keeping me alive.Then the epinephrine kicked in. It didn't send me into cardiac arrest as I was told later they were concerned it might. I started being able to breathe on my own. This is when I start having vague images and memories again. There was one more moment in the ambulance. Gary explained he was going to give me a shot of benedryl and to let him know if I had an adverse reaction. I assured him I could handle benedryl. I turned and said "See, I'm feeling just..." and I gasped for air. You know in movies when a character suddenly arches her back and gasps, eyes wide, completely out of control of her body and breathing? I know how that feels for real. He cranked the oxygen up and pounded on the ambulance saying "don't dawdle." The lights and sirens went on.I don't know why it was important to me to know their names. I know it was. I asked all four of them, over and over again until I remembered them. Gino and Cleve and Gary and Greg.For years after, I sent flowers to the hotel for Gino and Cleve on Memorial Day. Then one year, they weren't working there any longer. But I still remember. And every single night a toast is made, I lift my glass to the four of them.If anyone happens to know these guys, Gino and Cleve who were on duty with Loss Prevention at the Marriott or Gary and Greg, who led two of Orlando's EMT response teams, on Memorial Day 1998, tell 'em I still remember. And thanks.Those are Pobble Thoughts. That and a buck fifty will get you coffee ~ and eleven more years to toast the men who saved your life.
A blogger I read, Rose, over at Lessons Learned, had up a very simple post the other day. It wasn't a meme or a tag. Just a post. It listed a handful of things she wants. It got me thinking...I want adventure.I want to find adventure where others miss it.I want to travel to mundane places and extraordinary ones.I want the mundane places and the extraordinary ones to be the same places.I want to wake up next to my dear Lithus more often than I don't.I want all my family together in one place occasionally.I want the kids in my life to be happy and healthy.I want enough money to not worry where the next payment comes from.I want to get back into my size 12s ~ with the occasional foray into a 10.I want to see Appsrus again.I want continued happiness.I want to laugh.I want to live life rather than to just mark time.I want, at the end of it all, to see my father and grandfather.It's a good list, I think. What do you want?Those are Pobble Thoughts. That and a buck fifty will get you coffee.
As I mentioned in my last post, I need glasses. They are really just for reading, driving and computer work but...umm...yeah. This is me, after all. So, apparently, I won't be in my glasses when I'm bathing and asleep. Got it.However, it is me we're talking about. So I got these:
Otherwise, really, what's the point?Those are Pobble Thoughts. That and a buck fifty will get you coffee.
Sadly, this does not continue with an upbeat love (sex) song. With a stretch of time in Mexico ahead of me, I decided to go get everything medical that might need poking, prodding, looking at, gone over or otherwise examined poked, prodded, looked at, gone over and otherwise examined. Physical? Check. Blood work? Excellent. Girl parts? Healthy. First ever mammogram? Not bad at all (although I get why it could be an unhappy experience for women not of a certain size). Eyes? In need of glasses, but we knew that. Teeth?Damn. I've had a hollow feeling in a lower left molar for a while now. Turns out the silver filling I got back when I was ten or something is beginning to crack. Apparently, they have a shelf life and I've reached it. This has nothing to do with my oral hygiene, I am assured. Still...dude... So give a call this afternoon if you want a laugh because they're numbing me up. Should make for interesting conversation. At least they sent me home to have lunch before.Those are Pobble Thoughts. That and a buck fifty will get you coffee.
For those of you unaware, there has been a veritable brouhaha in cyberspace for the past several weeks (bordering on months) that has been aptly named RaceFail09. From what I understand ~ because I don't hang out in forums or chat rooms to have witnessed it in real time ~ it started innocently enough when a discussion arose about white Sci Fi-Fantasy authors writing nonwhite characters. Could it be done? Should it be done? Must it be done? What was the author's responsibility to the POCs' communities to get it right? And then, as so often happens, instead of continued conversation and discussion about race, it devolved. This is the point, for the record, that I became aware of RaceFail09 and started following it myself.The name calling started. The defensive moves came out of the playbook. The deflection began. Reasonable concerns and responses to the issue were shot down as overreaction, "simple" misunderstanding and (my favorite) ungratefulness. (is that a word? it is now.) I was amazed with the pain and anger that was totally disregarded by authors, that was considered acceptable collateral damage while defending their own right to write shallow, token characters.Finally, there was the statement that POC hadn't been fans of speculative fiction prior to the internet and insinuation that (in one's best condescending tone) oh it's just so wonderful that they can even be a part of the debate. Which was followed closely by a not-terribly-veiled attempt to take credit for creating fen of color. Which is where Fen Of Color_United was born.Today, POC who grew up fans of sci-fi, fantasy, speculative fiction, choose your descriptor, long before the internet made it available to them are standing up today to be counted. To say check your priviledge ~ I've been here as long as you have. Now, before anybody goes and gets really stupid...I'm white. I know I'm white. You know I'm white. I'm also a sci fi reader from way back, raised by a sci fi reader who was raised by a sci fi reader. I once ended up with a boyfriend because I was able to recognize a completely out of context and very obscure sci fi quote. And I'm a writer who takes her craft seriously. Who understands that the whole world and my whole readership doesn't share my skin color or ethnicity. Who understands that I must research and understand POC characters and who gets that I will still sometimes get it wrong. When I do, it's not my place to be offended when my inaccuracies are pointed out to me but to learn and write a better character next time. And I stand in support.So here I am. FOC_U.Those are Pobble Thoughts. That and a buck fifty will get you coffee.
Well...His liver is going bad. His kidneys are going bad. His heart murmur is getting worse. There's something happening with his back legs. The seizure was a grand mal. His cholesterol is sky high (which, in case you don't know, in dogs means there is a major underlying condition).And yet his spirit is as strong as ever. His eyes are as bright. He loves his cheese, his sunny spot and demanding to be put on the futon. He's as likely to get away from me in the yard as he is to head right up the step and announce he is ready to go back inside.At this point, the vet doesn't suggest in any way that it is time to put him down. In two weeks...who knows. For now, though, we're hanging out, having lots of mommy and baby snuggle time and making sure life is full of cheese, sunny spots and naps on the futon.
Those are slightly less sad Pobble Thoughts. That and a buck fifty will get you coffee.
He isn't doing well. Today was his 6 month check up ~ and he had a seizure. Lithus saw him have a stroke one day ~ but then he was fine. There've been a couple times when I thought "that's not right" but, within 24 hours, he was always fine again, so I thought I was seeing things or overreacting. I guess not.We're running blood tests. Depending on what they find, we'll do some imagining. But he's sixteen and a half. He's had a great few years with me. I just want him to have a great few more, is all.We're supposed to go to Mexico to be with Lithus. He's supposed to bask in the warmth of the Mexican sun. I'm supposed to get him doggles for when we are exploring, him in my lap, wind blowing his ears. And I really want him to see Lithus again because he loves his Mr. Lithus. I'm not ready for anything else.I just bought puppy pads to see us through the end of the month. And a new flat of food. And Lithus has found a store that sells his dog food and checked to make sure the airline will take him in the cabin with me.I feel very alone right now.
I just emailed my finished manuscript to myself.
It's done.
Yes, there are final edits to be written. Yes, there are sex scenes to be written. Yes, there is punctuation to be double-checked.
Bottom line is, I have written, edited, and rewritten 250 pages in 70 days.
It's done. As of 4:13 A.M. Life's good.
Those are Pobble Thoughts. That and a buck fifty will get you coffee.
I pride myself on being prepared. My family and I have always been able to discuss what happens in case of serious illness and death. The SGM and I discussed not only what would happen were he to be killed in action but what would happen were he to be captured. I knew my father had a DNR long before the stroke that took his life. The people who need to know, know my wishes regarding medical decisions.Every now and then, though, one slips by. I remember when my mother brought her now-husband, then not-yet-husband, to meet the family in Colorado. One day, we went to the museum. He said he was going to check out an exhibit on another floor; we agreed to meet up later at another exhibit all of us wanted to see. He left. About five minutes later, the fire alarm went off. We looked at each other and actually laughed. As we evacuated the building, we decided that he was an adult and would find us on the grounds. Sure enough, he did. But when you're all adults, you figure out that yes, you will all meet up in 30 minutes in the Egypt room. You don't think to ask "Where do you want to meet if there's a fire alarm?" Another time, the SGM was heading out on a deployment and I was to join him in Newport for the last three days before he left. We discussed the things I needed to bring him. I doubled checked that I had my i.d. All was good. Until the attacks on the World Trade Center occured and they closed the bridge to the island and locked down all military bases. You don't think to ask "What's Plan B should there be an attack on US soil?"Want to know what else you don't think to ask? You don't think to ask "What happens if you're in the country that is Ground Zero of the swine flu that threatens to become a global pandemic?" Nope. That one didn't even make the top 10 list of questions Lithus and I thought to ask each other.Luckily, he is in a very small town and it is isolated enough that all should be well. He and his co-workers did not get on a crowded bus this morning and travel 3 hours to see the cool city that one of the Mexican pilots wanted to show the others. So they are being smart and responsive with being reactive, let alone overreactive.Still, you have to laugh. At least I do. Because who expects a global pandemic of swine flu during the only six weeks he's away? Welcome to our world. This is what happens when you combine my life with the life of the one other person whose stories I envy. You get a weird, synergystic swine flu pandemic. Or something like that. But it makes a great story.Those are Pobble Thoughts. That and a buck fifty will get you coffee.
* Trying to decide if I cut my hair, so it's easier to handle and cooler 
or if I leave it long, so it's heavier and thicker but can go into a ponytail and still protect my neck.
* Today, Lithus is in Mexico, swimming in a river, under a waterfall. Poor baby. Go ahead, feel free to pity him.* This blog is far more interesting and fun to maintain than my professional one. But God, don't tell, please. Because of course Pauline's blog is the best, more fascinating, creatively written work on the internet. *sigh** Lionel has started sleeping in a new position. I call him Mobius Strip Dog.
* This morning I had a load of laundry in and had the kitchen cleaned before my first cup of coffee was even ready. I am as shocked as you are.* High school friendship politics and pettiness is really old after, say, about, high school.* Fresh fruit is back. Especially strawberries. * Morning walks are making all the difference in how I view the world, how I sleep, how I feel. Next time I feel like skipping more than one day for less than a valid reason, I need to remember this feeling.* I don't really like Facebook, although I do understand how it is helping professionally.* The fact that my favorite local grocery store is open 24 hours really makes me happy. I'm not sure I've shopped during daylight in a couple months.* Yes, life is this basic right now. But the book's getting written. :)Those are Pobble Thoughts. That and a buck fifty will get you coffee.
With apologies to my readers who might see this elsewhere...I try very hard to present a professional face whenever I'm being Pauline. Casual, relaxed, one-of-the-girls AND professional, at the same time. A couple weeks ago, I ran a contest on my blog. Due to communication difficulties, the winner's prize just went in the mail today. My post office clerk knows me pretty well and is used to me coming in to mail all kinds of interesting things. Because I am in there so often, he is great about doing what he can to cut my mailing expenses. Today, I had picked up a box that would cost more to send the goodies to my winner than necessary. He dug around back and found another box that, while larger, would still be less expensive. Great! Sure, the box had been used before so it was a little banged up but I decided for almost five bucks and the karma involved in recycling, I could live with a little banged up. Only by the time we had added the padding to the box, it was suddenly more expensive than the original box I'd picked up and he'd rejected. Never underestimate the power (cost) of .9 ounces! "Don't worry, Pauline," he assured me, "I'll manage it." Ah, the joys of being a regular. So, I paid him and walked away from the counter. I still needed a couple of things so didn't leave the store immediately. Instead, I made the mistake of looking back over to see him "managing" it. He was mauling the inner flaps of the box, ripping them up, in order to lose the extra weight. Ummm.... Hm. By this time, I had paid and he had saved me money. "But it's unprofessional" just seemed, well, ungrateful. Still, it would be interesting to be a fly on the wall when my winner gets her goodies ~ in a banged up, reused and mauled USPS box. Sometimes you just have to laugh.Those are Pobble Thoughts. That and a buck fifty will get you coffee.
So, yesterday there were huge numbers of protests around the country. People brought tea bags. Lots of history here, obviously, plus they were wise enough to incorporate a very modern acronym: T.E.A for Taxed Enough Already. Only...someone, somewhere dubbed it "teabagging." So all these protesters spent all day yesterday...teabagging their legislators.Um....Are you gonna tell 'em? 'Cause I'm not gonna be the one to tell 'em.Those are Pobble Thoughts. That and a buck fifty will get you coffee.
...and don't fuck it up.
As you may have gathered from the post immediately preceding this one, today was a rough day in my writing world. A frantic phone call to Crow Mother was followed by an equally panicked email to Dennis R. Over four hours and innumerable emails later, I was less frantic, less panicked, had things back in perspective, had a plan and a mental road map. I was also fried. Burnt out. Done.This isn't the only stress in my world right now. It's just the most urgent stress. That doesn't mean the rest of it isn't stressful or always right there, simmering on the back burner. So yeah ~ I was done.What I realized was I work very, very hard. Usually, I also play very, very hard. Recently, there's been no play. At least not very, very hard play. I needed a reset. I needed to blow out the stagnant air in my brain and start fresh. There's not a lot of money right now. It's not only Sunday but it's Easter Sunday (a Pagan and a Jew walk into a bar on Easter...) so options are limited.We called Flora and went bowling. Yep. Bowling. With Flora. Sounds like a great game show, doesn't it?We were loud. We were inappropriate. We both amused and slightly frightened the family in the next lane. We sang and danced and boogied and wiggled to the videos playing. And then, just as it was my turn, it came on the video screen.
I cannot tell you how many hours I have spent playing Magenta. At parties. In movie theatres. In theatre theatres. In front of my own and my friends' televisions. At overnights and slumber parties. To not perform the song would've been sacrilege. So I did. Standing at the top of our lane, dancing, performing, doing the Time Warp (again!). My hair was flying; my choreography and lip sync were spot on. At one point, I heard Flora say "this is why I have such a hard time remembering she's shy." Lithus has informed me people gathered in the door of the room to watch and one guy even pulled up a chair. My focus was on Lithus and Flora. And resetting my brain.It worked. I feel great. I feel creative. I know my characters and their stories and as soon as I hit "publish post" I will write them. Guess I didn't fuck it up.Those are Pobble Thoughts. That and a buck fifty will get you coffee.
I think the book may be boring. Well written with great, fully developed characters, mind you. Just...boring.Hmmm...Need to find a way around this and quickly.Those are Pobble Thoughts. That and a buck fifty will get you coffee.
A comment from Graziella and an event last night made me laugh this morning. I used to live on the 3rd floor of a three-family in MA (for those of you who don't know that phrase, it's a three floor building with one apartment on each floor and shared front and back stairwells). After Graziella moved out of the second floor (which is how we met), two young men moved in. One was a conductor on the commuter train from Worcester to Boston and the first train left at 5:17 a.m. I was writing Falling In Love and Business Words at the time.The Conductor would leave home about 4:30 to go to work. When he walked out his back door, he would sniff. If he smelled cigarette smoke, he would lean over his balcony and look up. If I heard him, I would lean over my balcony and look down. "Good night, Pobble" "Good morning, Conductor. Have a good day." "Have a good sleep." And he would start his day as I was finishing mine.Lithus has been moving a bird from the west coast to the east coast. He needed to be up at 3:45 this morning. So, at 12:45 last night, I called him. "Good morning, Lithus. This is your wake up call." "Good night, Pobble. You get a good night's sleep. I'll see you in a couple hours."Because that's how it works sometimes.Those are Pobble Thoughts. That and a buck fifty will get you coffee.
My next novel has a deadline of June 1. We're grateful for June 1 because it originally looked as if it might be April 15th. Now, I could've made April 15th ~ but tears would've been involved. There very well may still be tears with June 1. There definitely would've been tears with April 15th. See, the more I write on this story, the more of this story there is to write.I haven't bothered to edit or re-read at all. That's Crow and the Divine M's job. I'm just writing. Get it written, get it finished, take the last couple weeks of May to edit and rework. That's the plan.I have given up trying to stay in touch with my friends, keep a clean house, participate in life outside of being Pauline. Luckily, I have very understanding friends and a husband (*giggle* ~ I still like that word) who is willing to wash out my coffee mugs.And I've learned some things. I really do need to compose initially in long-hand. Yes, it takes twice as long. Yes, it is a pain in the ass. Yes, I really need to do it. And I can't write in silence. But the background noise has to be very specific background noise. Music is great when I'm transcribing from my notebook to the computer. Preferably WBCN streaming in from Boston. For actual composition, though, I need what I call "slightly more intelligent than not television." Mostly, that means dramas. Mostly that means House. NCIS. Special Victims Unit. CSI. Hmm...that's it really. Anything else is distracting. Even other shows in that same general genre. I tried to say (very self-importantly) this is my writing time and this is my writing space and thus spake the author that she will not be disturbed. Yeah...not so much. Now, I turn on the television, find the reruns, curl up on the couch with my notebook, pen and coffee, and write.I'm also having to find time to actually be Pauline. She guest blogs. She has book signings. She runs a facebook page and her own blog. She gets emails. She's even running her first contest over on her blog. (Check it out ~ you can find it by clicking on "Pauline's site" over in my Places You Should Go links. The drawing will be random but the goodies will be good.) It's surreal as hell. And takes up more time than I'd expected, quite honestly.Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not (NOT) complaining. Mostly, I'm loving every minute of it. It's just new and different and taking some getting used to. And y'all are where I work through it all. So thanks. For keeping me sane. For knowing and loving me before I became Pauline. For hanging out and sticking with me through the ride ~ even though I won't be around as much (and will be very singleminded when I am around) between now and June 1.Those are Pobble Thoughts. That and a buck fifty will get you coffee.
Apprus, who is the Southern Gentleman that I turned for when I needed Southern Gentlemanliness. He was able to answer questions from emotions to sex to movies. If my hero is accurate in any way, Appsrus is why.
Crow, who continues to be indispensable. Period.
