Autographed Copy

When It Started with Dracula was published, I ordered a pack of 1,000 circular stickers that bore an image of a fountain pen (you remember those) and the words “Autographed Copy” to use during my book signings. They came twenty to a sheet, and in the last year and a half I’ve probably used…well, let’s just say it isn’t time to reorder.

The other day I was browsing through a tome I’d ordered from England. One of the two authors had started his own publishing company, and this title was the company’s first. He had signed my book before personally wrapping it for shipping to the United States. I know this because the handwriting on the package matched the signature on the title page.

It made me think: How many signed books did I own, and how had I come by them all?

I looked through my bookcase and pulled the books I thought had been signed by the authors. My idea was to label each of them with an “Autographed Copy” sticker so they could be easily identified in the future; after all, I had stickers to spare. The stack was about ten inches high; seventeen books.

An author picks up autographed copies at conferences and book fairs by meeting other authors or hearing them speak. I have a personalized copy of Rick Bragg’s memoir, All Over but the Shoutin’ because I was present in 2009 when he accepted the Harper Lee Award for being named Alabama’s Distinguished Author of the Year.

The seating arrangement often influences whom we meet and what books we buy. Last fall I was excited to obtain a copy of the werewolf novel Bestial signed by William D. Carl, whose signing table at a book fair was two rows behind mine. That same day I skipped Gillian Flynn’s table because I was counting my pennies and chose not to buy her best-seller, Gone Girl, in hardcover.

Professional affiliations can bring us books from authors who become our friends. My collection includes signed copies of Bram Stoker Award winner Michael Knost’s compilation Writers Workshop of Horror, Lee Maynard’s novel The Pale Light of Sunset, and G. Cameron Fuller’s chiller Full Bone Moon, all because of our affiliation with West Virginia Writers, Inc.

Several dear, long-time friends have signed their books for me. Anita Skeen, whom I met in college, is a wonderful writer who has published five books of poetry. Former newspaper columnist Ina Hughs signed my copy of A Sense of Human at a conference. Catherine Watson, who writes stunning travel essays, mentored me online as I was writing the Dracula book. I gladly buy their books and, when possible, attend their readings.

Through Anita I was introduced to the poet Andrew Hudgins, whose American Rendering is among my signed copies; but this isn’t a chronicle of the famous. I also have autographed copies of books whose authors may never make it. I may never make it. We don’t always know who will and who won’t.

Sometimes we find autographed copies by accident. Once in a Barnes & Noble I opened a Willie Nelson memoir to find the author’s signature. I didn’t buy the book, but I did buy the Writer’s Digest publication 2011 Guide to Literary Agents, which happened to be signed by WD Editor Chuck Sambuchino with the generic inscription “Good luck!”

If I treasure a signed copy, it’s because the book or its author has meaning to me. The book from England is that way: “To Jane,” it says, “Best wishes.” Opening that book to Wayne Kinsey’s note was a thrill. I’ve never met the man and may not, but nobody is going to get Hammer Films on Location out of my hands.

Joe and I have signed a few copies of Mr. Joe so far and hope to sign a whole lot more once the printed version is available to the public late this summer. With luck, Mr. Sambuchino, I’ll run out of stickers.

Barbara Walters

This morning I read the story of Barbara Walters’ impending announcement that she will retire in 2014. The news was no surprise; after all, Walters is 83 years old, far past the age when most people retire. Of course, she is not like most people. Barbara Walters has made a lasting imprint on us in her 52 years of television journalism.

As I read the story, I was struck by the pattern of the quotes. I’ll isolate some for you.

BW: "I am very happy with my decision…I do not want to appear on another program or climb another mountain…"

President of ABC News: "There is only one Barbara Walters. We look forward to making her final year on television as remarkable, path-breaking and news-making as Barbara herself.”

BW: "I want instead to sit on a sunny field and admire the very gifted women—and, OK, some men, too—who will be taking my place."

ABC: "We look forward to a year befitting her brilliant career, filled with exclusive interviews, great adventures and indelible memories."

Was he even listening?

Yes, Barbara has another year to work, and maybe she and Mr. ABC News actually are on the same page, but that’s not what I got from the article. I wanted to say, “Let her alone.”

We work for a living, if we’re lucky, most of our lives. Work gives us purpose and an income. We help others by using our special talents. We take pride in our accomplishments and learn from our failures. But then the time comes to move on.

Each of us has earned the right to define our retirement, in my humble opinion. I struggle with that every day. While I don’t want to spend my days watching television quite yet (maybe never), I am no longer employed in the traditional sense. I have projects, and some of them pay, but I decide which ones to pursue. That’s the status I’ve earned.

There is a state somewhere between climbing that mountain Barbara Walters talks about and retreating to a desert island a la Howard Sprague on the old Andy Griffith Show. Howard left his clerking job in Mayberry to gaze at the ocean and run barefoot across the sand, only to find out that complete inactivity didn’t suit him. It doesn’t suit me either, but I will fight for the right of anyone to make a choice.

Everybody has to explore the options when the time comes to retire. Barbara Walters, you, me. And then we choose which mountains we want to climb.

Best wishes to Barbara. May she enjoy her transition and have many happy years of retirement.

 

Hell's Bells

“What are you wearing?” I asked my brother, referring to our plans for Mother’s Day. “Shouldn’t we take it up a notch from our usual attire? We might end up in a restaurant.”

Joe is the kindest brother. Every year he takes me out on Mother’s Day, knowing that my son and his family live in Atlanta. In turn, I treat Joe on Father’s Day if he is available. Both of our parents have passed on.

All of these outings deliver us to the same place: a casino. We can talk it to death, but that’s the fact.

“What time do you want to go?” Joe asked. “I like the early morning, but I want to be able to stay a while.”

Here’s the thing about casinos: You might win or you might lose, thus the term gambling. Joe and I like to go early because it's not crowded. However, if luck isn’t with us, we can be heading home before most folks have their coffee.

“Don’t you need some sandals?” I asked. “We could go to the outlet mall later.” Translation: “Let’s make a backup plan in case the casino thing doesn’t go well. I don’t want to sit home all afternoon on Mother’s Day.”

This year, as noted in yesterday’s blog post, we have a mission. The day isn’t all about me. Joe and I are going to remember our mom with a toast at a slot machine called Hell’s Bells. I’m going to suggest that we put twenty dollars in the machine. That was always Mom’s gambling limit.

She was a timid player, but one time she won over two hundred dollars. We had taken a bus trip to Canada. That was back when coins were used in the slots. Mom was playing a quarter machine called Black Tie. Suddenly it got loud, loud. Quarters started pouring into the coin tray and Mom sat back, stunned at her winnings. That was fun.

The same morning I had been awake around 5:00 a.m. I looked over at Mom in the other bed and could tell that she was still sleeping. What was I going to do, stare at the ceiling? I silently dressed, left our hotel room, and headed to the gambling boat in the dark. When I next saw Mom, she let me know in no uncertain terms that I had scared her half to death when I’d vacated my bed without telling her. I don’t remember her tirade exactly, but I’d bet twenty dollars that “Hell’s bells” was part of it.

See? I was probably in my fifties and Mom was looking out for me--or trying to when I didn’t give her the slip. Thanks, Mom.

It’s time to get ready for my Mother’s Day outing. Joe will be picking me up soon. Something tells me this Hell's Bells thing will become a tradition.

 

"And Here's to..."

My brother and I are going gambling on Mother’s Day, as we do on many holidays in the absence of traditional family gatherings. On Sunday we’re going to find and play a slot machine called Hell’s Bells in honor of Mom. “Hell's bells” is something our mother used to say when she bitched, for instance, “Hell's bells! How long do we have to sit in this waiting room?”

Would Mom like our tribute? I think she would; in her later years she enjoyed the gambling casinos, where she would play the slots and smoke Pall Mall unfiltered cigarettes until she reached her spending limit of twenty dollars.

Mom died in 2008 at age 89. For most of her life, she was…well, not a mom you’d want. Every year when Mother’s Day approached, I stood in a store somewhere reading every card, looking for one that was not sentimental. It was my goal to give Mom a card that seemed loving, but wasn’t; one she would appreciate but wouldn’t question. I wanted a card pretty enough to display that wasn’t a lie. It couldn’t be too personal, and it definitely couldn’t be one of those cards that said “Thanks for all you’ve done.” Mom hadn’t done much to earn a card like that. The ideal find was large, colorful, and did little but wish the recipient a nice day.

Joe and I talk about the postings we see on social media by people honoring their moms, praising them, and openly missing those who are departed. For a few days now, with the holiday coming up, some have posted their mothers’ pictures in place of their own. That’s the way it should be, but those memories remind us of what we missed. The luckiest people have great moms for life; others are lucky to have them for a little while.

Mom left our hometown of Glen Ferris, West Virginia, and moved to Cincinnati at age 72. By then she had become a better person than the one we had known as children. Mom and I had fifteen years of friendship before she developed Alzheimer’s disease. We did errands together, went clothes shopping, and ate out. In a pleasantly ironic twist, she thought I knew everything.

Yesterday when I was cleaning the house, I thought of her. Physical tasks have a way of activating the brain, and in my case sorting the laundry or wiping a mirror will unleash half-buried thoughts. I thought of Mom in her apartment just a few miles from here, and I almost reached for the doorknob before I remembered. The feeling of missing her was as sudden and sharp as a splinter.

I didn’t miss the Mom it took 30 minutes to find a card for; I missed the one I liked, the one who liked me.

The word Mom still opens up a strange bag of memories, but I appreciate the best things about my mother. Even into her eighties, she was smart, well read, and funny. She won’t be a facebook post, but Joe and I will be smiling as we toast her from the Horseshoe Casino on Mother’s Day. Our toast is sure to include—you guessed it—“Hell’s bells!” I think she'll be watching.
 

Yesterday

The light at the top of the stairs to my loft burned out yesterday. This morning I got up around four o’clock, fixed my coffee, and started upstairs to my office. It was as dark in the stairwell as it was outside.

After the turn at the landing I could see my silent office idling like a space ship above me, the interior glowing from colored lights: orange on a battery-powered phone; a string of orange and green lighting the front of the cable monitor; little green ones on two printers; red outlining the switch below the computer monitor; and blue glowing off the computer power switch and the circle of lights on my wireless router.

For an instant I was a kid again, treated to a glimpse of the future. That was the way we pictured it, sitting in dark movie theaters on Saturday afternoons: black skies filled with stars, silver rockets aimed at the moon or Mars. Inside the ship, blinking lights illuminated sleek surfaces, beeps were background music, and grown-ups in stretchy suits guided the capsule past the inevitable meteor shower as it sped into deep space.

When the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) originated in 1958, I was finishing eighth grade. I remember dreaming of space travel, which had leapt off the movie screen to become real. In the fall of 1957 Russia had launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite in history, and followed it a month later with Sputnik 2, which orbited the earth with a dog on board.

The dawn of the Space Age was an exciting time, a competitive time. In January 1958 the United States successfully launched Explorer 1, putting us in the race. Three years later a Russian, Yuri Gagarin, became the first man in space. Alan Shepherd of the United States followed less than a month later.

One night I wrote a letter to NASA volunteering to be aboard the first rocket to the moon. I was quite serious. Whether the letter was even mailed remains a mystery; all I remember is sitting on our red couch in Glen Ferris, writing my heart out on a sheet of notebook paper.

NASA didn’t take me, and I lost my keen interest in space travel as it became more common and I grew up. If I had known in eighth grade that I’d be terrified riding in a regular airplane, my dreams would have been different anyway. But that was yesterday.

More Grocery Store Adventures

This seems to be my year to pursue wellness, and one aspect of wellness is nutrition. It was the quest for good nutrition that had me running from one end of Kroger to the other on a recent evening in what I will call the Strange Ingredient Scavenger Hunt.

My food conscience had been nagging me toward better eating habits. You know how an imaginary devil sits on one of our shoulders and an angel sits on the other? I’d been listening to the food devil’s whispers for many months. In spite of successfully maintaining a weight loss of 25 pounds since 2010, I knew it was time for a change. Ice cream, chips, and peanut butter were staples on my grocery list. I’d stopped cooking the traditional way, opting for sandwiches or pre-packaged microwave foods. I used my crock pot and froze the leftovers, but there were days when thawing them out seemed like a lot of trouble.

My nutrition goal was pretty straightforward: I wanted to introduce nutrition into my diet.

While surfing the Internet I had stumbled upon a “jump-start” program of healthful eating designed to eliminate belly fat. It was there that I learned there are two kinds of belly fat: the fat we can see and the invisible fat inside that can wrap around our organs and make us candidates for some serious diseases. Looking for motivation? There you go.

The belly-fat-reducing program provided a shopping list. I had to photocopy it, as I’d never heard of some of the items, maybe because they were fresh. “Cremini mushrooms”? Not only did I not know where they were; I didn’t know what they were. The strangest item on the list was “1-2 knuckles of ginger root.” I wandered back and forth through the produce department, an alien studying the vegetables and fruit to find what sounded like the beginning of a witch’s brew.

The list took me to other departments I had not visited, like fresh seafood (“1/4 pound tilapia and oils (“8-oz. bottle cold-pressed organic flaxseed oil”). If it wasn’t on the regular shelf, I had to look in the organic corner. Luckily I was a woman with a purpose, because my second purpose seemed to be seeing how many times I could cross the entire store to find an item. I wore out significant shoe leather in the two hours I searched for “1/2 gallon lactose-free skim milk,” “roasted or raw unsalted sunflower seeds,” and “7-oz. container of dried plums.” This was just after I’d volunteered for a two-and-a-half-mile walk the next evening.

After the first hour, my eyes were glazing over. I mistakenly got pineapple slices instead of tidbits (Oh, so what, I told myself; if they were cut up, they’d be tidbits.) and blackberries instead of blueberries.

My work was not done when I’d put the groceries away. The belly-fat plan includes the expected eight cups of water per day, but not just any water; water that has to be made ahead so that the flavors can mingle. Spending $89 on the groceries might have been what turned me into an unwavering slave and will explain why I was slicing lemons and cucumbers at 8:00 pm., counting mint leaves, and grating ginger root to make a recipe for water! I measured the ginger root by how long it took to grate the skin off my left thumb.

TIP: 1-2 knuckles of ginger root is equal to 1-2 grated knuckles of Jane.

How is all of this working out? It’s too early to talk results, but the food has been amazing. My meals are relaxing and filling. It now takes me about thirty minutes to eat a balanced meal, as opposed to five minutes for a peanut-butter sandwich.

I’m still committed (to nutrition, not the insane asylum). I’m going to keep educating myself about healthy, natural foods. We’re never too old to begin something new!

 

The Pull of Home

Three houses are for sale in my hometown in West Virginia. One is the mirror image of the house I grew up in. Without going inside I know the rooms, the location of the stairs, the rattle of the doorknobs, the view from the kitchen sink.

Compelled to browse the photos online, I see the spot where Dad’s brown chair sat in our house, the window where we used to watch the church traffic in our pajamas. There is the corner where we had the TV, and the stairs; my old bedroom. I study the position of each cabinet and piece of furniture as though the future of humanity depends on it. I briefly consider buying this home, which costs more than the one I’m living in now, just to capture it.

Capture what?

I have no desire to live in a rural town now. I can’t mow the lawn and wouldn’t have the budget to redecorate. My friends are gone. Most important of all, my childhood there was filled with terrible moments. Mom drank. My brother and I can tell stories that would keep you up at night. So, the question I ask repeatedly is: Why am I drawn to the look-alike house? What is this urge that pulls me toward a town and a time from the past? What am I searching for when I imagine going inside our house again, seeing the textured Spanish plaster on the walls, running my hands over the window frames, finding again the secret note I hid behind the woodwork in my closet fifty-two years ago?

Joe and I have had this conversation: Why do we care about a place that brought us misery, a house where both of us suffered as children and subsequently waged lifelong battles for self-esteem?

Is there something irresistible about home, no matter what? I’ve known grown-ups who visited their childhood homes. Some were disappointed to see them in disrepair. Some knocked and were invited in to step once more through rooms they had been holding in their minds. I do that, too; I hold the past in my mind, and maybe it becomes distorted there.

If I knew how to have an out-of-body experience, I would transport my silver-corded self to Glen Ferris and walk through our old house. I half-tried to see it in person once. I had gone back for a funeral, and on the way out of town I turned into our alley, now labeled a private drive. I pulled around to the back walk and saw a woman on the deck that had replaced our little porch off the kitchen. She looked up as if to ask what I thought I was doing there.

“I’m Mrs. Barnett’s daughter,” I said from the car, referencing the seller of twenty years ago. I had taken the detour hoping she would ask me in, but now her manner suggested otherwise, and I drove on.

Which might be why I Google “Glen Ferris real estate” every now and then, scrolling through pictures that tug at my heart. It’s hard to understand; living there was often a nightmare and moving back, a fantasy. Maybe I want to conquer that house after all these years—just walk through it peacefully. Whatever the reason, I continue to feel the pull of home.

Reality and TV

My brother recently wrote a blog that mentioned the pleasures of yelling at television characters when we have our own ideas about what they should be doing. This morning I was scanning my online news sources when I came upon a photo of a senior citizen featured in an article. My first thought was: You need to whiten your teeth.

“Get a hairdo!” I might yell at some poor soul on TV, or “Honey, pluck your eyebrows!” “Haven’t you ever heard of brown spot remover?” And who among us can’t spot a bad wig, especially on a man?  

The long, wide reach of the media does not leave many of us out.

I’m finding that I’ve been slowly and subtly—perhaps subliminally--conditioned to expect white, perfect teeth and flawless skin, beautiful hair and an attractive physique on anyone in the public eye. Some part of me is surprised and turned off when these folks don’t “take care of themselves.”

At the same time, there are TV channels I will not watch, a whole swath of them featuring (my term) “fake women” chosen for reality shows that highlight their bitchiness and balloon-like lips. Plastic surgery can enhance us or make monsters of us.

I find it disturbing to see young people who have never experienced a wrinkle hawking anti-aging products, for example the beautiful girl in the Juvederm ads. How old is she, twenty? Could that trend have anything to do with reality shows that highlight bridezillas barely out of their teens plumping up their faces for their perfect day? It's all part of the media message.

The next step, after blithely informing the men and women on TV that they need Botox or a Lifestyle Lift, is looking at oneself. Ah.

With a second book about to be published and a co-author who would love for us to be interviewed on TV, I keep wondering if I should be taking my own advice. I suppose a few layers of Luminess sprayed on before the cameras roll would give me that airbrushed look, but what about taking advantage of the products and procedures that are now as common as face powder?  

I have friends who routinely take Botox injections, have their makeup tattooed on, get chemical peels, and always look like they should be in the movies. I often think it’s too late for me, that if all those procedures had been pushed at everyone with a pulse twenty years ago, I might have started.

What about the money, the endless appointments, the risk? Marie Osmond looks lovely these days, but she does not look like Marie Osmond. Does it matter? What if things didn’t turn out so well? What if I underwent some procedure and the doctor overdid it? Can you ever go backwards? Do any of these enhanced people ever want to return to their former selves?

The world has become so competitive. I’m not sure what I’ll do about beauty enhancements, but I keep thinking about it, weighing the questions, especially this one: If I had, if I did, who would I be right now?

U Scan It

In a few hours, this section of Ohio is due for a snowstorm that’s been moving east across the plains for a couple of days. Five to eight inches’ accumulation is what weather.com was showing earlier today. Never mind that it’s the last full week of March; as others have pointed out, the groundhog lied, or made a mistake, or perhaps was just rattled after a trip through a U-Scan-It station at the grocery store.

Yes, U Scan It, my name for the evil plot hatched by grocers, or their parent companies, or Satan, to have us by-pass the staffed checkout counters and scan our items ourselves. Oh, yippee, let me. I already pump my own gas and serve myself at cheap restaurants.

I hate the self-scanners with a passion. However, when one shops at 8:30 a.m. at my local store, clerks aren’t an option--unless you get into trouble with the scanners.

The storm is expected to affect us for two or three days. I could not imagine life without coffee, ice cream, chips, peanut butter, or certain paper products, so out I went. The beauty of shopping in the early morning is the absence of other customers. I had the aisles to myself, and they were well stocked; no one was stampeding to grab the last carton of pop or pound of hamburger.

The hazard of shopping early in the morning…well, I’ve already told you: no checkout people. The U Scan Its loomed ahead of me as the only choice, so I picked one. Of course, it started talking right away. “Welcome, valued customer!” That, I wouldn’t mind so much if the thing would then shut up.

The patient, condescending female voice instructed me as though I were a befuddled sixty-seven-year-old woman who couldn’t keep up. Oh. Never mind.

“Place the item in the bag. Scan your next item and place the item in the bag. Scan your next item and place the item in the bag. Scan…”

After the first three or four items, while I fantasized about putting my fist through the glass, a clerk with a hand scanner appeared beside my cart and began grabbing up my groceries. The self-scanners must have silent alarms, like banks. “You might have trouble with such a big order at this station,” she said. “You should have gone to that large station over there.” Too late now, girlie.  

“Place the item in the bag and scan your next item.”

“Give me a minute,” I growled to the machine, and then I remembered the clerk. “I’m not talking to you,” I explained. “I’m talking to her.”

Sure enough, I ran out of space in the bagging area and the clerk had to move my groceries for me, as the U Scan It, being a vile instrument of the Devil, had gone wild when I put a full bag on the floor. Now the clerk was alternately scolding me and calling me Honey, like I was dim-witted.

I was glad to get home. Was the U Scan It experience worth it? Well, I have food and Kleenex and sweetener for the hard pioneer days ahead. So, yes. And I did not see a groundhog.

Selling Mr. Joe

Now comes the selling part of Mr. Joe: Tales from a Haunted Life. The writing is finished, early copies and e-books are appearing, and we have begun our publicity campaign. Fortunately, Joe and I have a publicist who knows her way around the business of spreading the word, but that doesn’t let us off the hook.

I could say that publicity is the building of awareness, but it’s all selling, whatever name you give it. I am bad at selling. I dislike it. Sure, I like SELLING BOOKS—the more, the merrier--but not the act of selling books. Many other writers will tell you the same thing: We like to write. We aren’t meant to be extroverts. We feel awkward pushing our products.

I’ve probably told you my theory on the division of people. Some people are better on paper, and others are better in person. Writers generally fit into the first category and publicists in the second.

And you know that authors must participate in publicity campaigns. Sometimes that participation is painless, as it was yesterday when I entered Mr. Joe in a contest and applied to have it featured in a local book festival. All I had to do was assemble and package the books, applications, information sheets, and a check for the contest entry. I did have to leave the house to take the items to the Post Office, but all in all it was easy. It required organizational skills and a bit of writing for the book festival committee, which wanted a brief synopsis. That was fun.

Selling can also mean approaching others in person, introducing oneself, and proceeding to talk up the product. Fortunately, I have a co-author who looks forward to this phase. Joe will gladly assume the heavy lifting when we are out and about, promoting Mr. Joe; after all, he IS Mr. Joe.

I am relieved at this changing of the guard. I was the sole author on my first book. My brother was a loyal supporter, often traveling with me and sitting in the audience, but I was doing the personal book promotion alone. This time we’ll be together, sharing the publicity phase as we did the writing phase. Soon we’ll be doing the part Joe thinks is the most fun. 

For Christmas I bought Joe a sweatshirt that says, “ASK ME ABOUT MY BOOK.” He’s been wearing it all winter, and a variety of folks from grocery store clerks to strangers have asked. He likes that. I would have worn the sweatshirt inside out, because I don’t have the same skill set as Joe. It’s not a criticism, just more about my theory on the division of people.

Mr. Joe is a combination of our greatest talents. It’s a perfect balance. We worked together on the book, and we’ll work together on the publicity; that’s teamwork. But take it from someone who’s better on paper: It will be Joe’s time to shine.

Noon Poem

I force myself to discard
Paper dinner napkins.
Conservation can be taken too far.
Long ago a boyfriend saved his glass at lunchtime,
Set it daily on the kitchen window sill, still
Half full of water.
The sun on its rounds didn’t miss a thing,
Lighting up the dull spot
Where his lips, greasy with peanut butter,
Had kissed the rim.   

It’s funny where our minds go sometimes. I haven’t written a poem in more years than I can say. My brother is always writing them. Joe begins every blog with a new poem.

Actually, I was trying to get out of writing when I turned off the light in my office, minimized my computer screen, and escaped to the simple task of fixing a sandwich.

I have a long to-do list. When you work at home, the hours blur. Your duties blur. Freedom blurs with responsibility. You think: Should I do this, or that? Put my nose to the grindstone, or do nothing? Get busy, or grab some “me” time? It’s easy to question everything and far easier to go downstairs, make a sandwich, and linger over it.

Just as I was getting up from the table, the poem popped into my mind. It’s part of a whole story I might tell one day.

Dawn of the Dressed

All right, people, I’m ready for you. If you rang the doorbell right now, I would not be forced to peek around the edge of the closed blind at you or pretend I’m not home. If you had come yesterday or the day before, it would have been a different story.

Today I’m presentable, on purpose, after two days of living in sweats and bedroom slippers, working without makeup, fluffing my flat “hair-don’t” in vain, and hoping I would not have to see another human being. I did open the door for the Culligan man, but when you need five bags of salt for the water softener, you don’t put it off.

My last two days were spent reviewing typeset proofs for Mr. Joe, the memoir my brother and I wrote together. We were given only a few days to turn the material around, and the compulsive personality latches right onto that. I finished my review/edit in one long day. Then, that evening, I started nagging Joe to finish his. Yes, I know: annoying.

The book file was in .pdf format, readable with Adobe Reader. I had saved mine many times as I made my comments. On the second morning, my cleaner program wanted to check my computer for malware, which involves a reboot. I had to close all of my files.

Afterward I could not open the book file. Worse, the computer couldn’t even find it. You can imagine my panic, which escalated when I learned that not only was the file inaccessible on the computer; my “cloud” program had not backed it up.

My long day’s work was lost.

The following day I did the only thing I could do: I redid my edits, spending nine hours at the computer in said sweats and bedroom slippers. At the end of it, my brain was fried. I could manage only a blank stare. After two days of sitting in this chair, I was stiff when I stood up to walk. Like a zombie.

It made me think of The Walking Dead. I must have looked like one of them, making my way to the kitchen, fixing the barest of dinners for myself—meat loaf chunks stirred into baked beans--and then spilling it as I attempted to eat in front of the TV. The only good thing I can say is that I did not stumble out into the neighborhood to scare others.

I love my work. I even love being busy, but this week I got behind. I neglected my appearance and felt like a zombie trying to catch up. I guess that’s why they call it a deadline.

But Literally, Folks...

I’ve always been a literal thinker. When I was a young girl, I used to stand beside my mother’s dressing table and watch her get ready for an evening out. Mom would always say she was going to put on her face, and I didn’t understand how that could be possible. She had a face; why would she have to put one on?

I was usually the last one to laugh at a joke. Mom thought I had no sense of humor, but she was wrong. I just spent an inordinate amount of time figuring things out.

My inability to think conceptually was a hindrance in business. Our company always wanted to be cutting edge, and we could see the latest trends in jargon by reading memos from senior management. Those memos were full of lingo that frustrated me. When I read “think out of the box,” I wondered: What box? Ditto “pushing the envelope”: What envelope? When someone spoke of a sea change, I wondered what business had to do with the sea. I didn’t know what any of those people were talking about. A particular favorite phrase was “going forward,” inserted anywhere in a sentence. Who or what was going forward? That was never specified. It took me years to realize that it meant “from now on.”

For a long time I thought something was wrong with my brain. Everyone else seemed to grasp what I could not.

I was in my fifties before I understood putting on a new face. NOW I get it. I get it every day when I stand in front of the bathroom mirror and dust on the various cosmetics whose purpose is to disguise my flaws or define my features or add color. “Add an expression” isn’t even too far-fetched on some days.

As for the business catch phrases, I do get them now…now that I’m retired and free from the onslaught of those frustrating memos. I now realize they really didn’t say anything.

I still stick with the truth. Writing fiction has always seemed like a magic trick to me. My genre is creative nonfiction, the creative part being in the words I choose, the examples I include, and the descriptions I write.

I’m still the last one to get a joke, always a few seconds behind the others. And I’m fine with that.

From To-Do to Ta-Da, Part 2

It’s a good crème rinse day. So what If my hair is flat from conditioner? As my former neighbor Betty K. used to say when she was tempted to gloss over the housework, “Who sees it?”

I’m not going anywhere. All my excuses are used up. I’ve already worked out twice this week. I’m low on groceries but not out. I filled the gas tank yesterday. There are no errands to run. I have nothing to buy; nothing to see; no one to meet. I put on my worst pair of jeans this morning, because…well, by now I’m sure you’re getting the idea.

I’m staying home because one of my urgent assignments is to prepare magazine submissions. Simply told, that means researching magazines, finding contact information, matching my ideas to their publications, crafting queries, and at least outlining the articles I’ll write if the queries are successful.

I’ve never submitted to magazines and find it daunting; however, that has become irrelevant.

Today’s organizational focus is my computer files. Specifically, I’m opening every Word file that might be relevant to my upcoming article blitz and making a list of what they’re all about. You might think the filenames would tell me, but you’d be giving me too much credit. What, exactly, is “Publicity Notes 120412”? What might be the content of “Article 82912”?

This morning I found 24 Word documents in which I began a query, an article, or notes for an article. That’s not bad, even though the keyword is began. Though none of the pieces are finished, these discoveries have spared me from a far worse starting point.

So, creating yet another Word document, I listed the other 24 by filename and content. I have a separate list of target magazines, so the next step will be to match the queries to the article notes and then match the topics to the magazines.

The other day I bought a 2013 Writer’s Market, which was a good move. This well-known reference includes nearly 350 pages of information on consumer magazines and trade journals. Luckily, when I went through those sections page by page, I had the sense to highlight magazines that seemed compatible with my subject matter. So part of today’s project is to note what page they’re on so that I can find them again among consumer categories from “Animals” to “Women’s” and in the trade section, “Advertising” to “Veterinary.”

So, the laundry’s caught up. Dishwasher’s been emptied. It’s time to dig back into the aforementioned project. The good news is that cutting a path through the confusion of files sitting in my “Documents” folder has enabled me to see logically what I have to do next. And, of course, it’s a good crème rinse day.

From To-Do to Ta-Da, Part 1

Overwhelmed? Desk a mess? Too many projects? Deadlines looming? Not sure what to tackle first?

Overeating to escape? Oh, maybe that was just me. Yesterday I downed yogurt, two kinds of fruit, cereal, a peanut-butter sandwich, cheddar chips, meat loaf, cheese, celery, a trail mix bar, a light beer, and a popsicle. I could have kept going if I hadn’t fallen asleep. Much of my frenetic eating had one purpose: to distract me from the challenges waiting in my office.
 

When I started this post, I wondered if I could stand to begin one more new document. I have so many unfinished Word files that I can’t remember what I named them. I start a new file when I get a new idea, and yesterday I had plenty of ideas.

We just got a pub date for the memoir I co-authored with my brother. Mr. Joe is due out in seven months, and we have begun the publicity campaign. Here I sit in the deep Ohio winter, wearing my sweats and fuzzy slippers, faced with our mission of creating a buzz--but not facing it alone. I am oh, so glad that Joe is in it with me.

Oh, you thought the publisher would do this? We’ve talked about these roles before: the publisher publicizes the book and the authors publicize themselves. Joe and I also have a publicist who makes our job easier, but many responsibilities still fall to us, the authors.

Yesterday Joe and I practiced interviewing techniques. We discussed what content to develop for our electronic press kit (EPK) and even touched on possible new projects. He is investigating websites related to books and has started a blog.

I started a gazillion Word files and ate.

Today had to be different, yet my brain was still in such a rat race with itself that I couldn’t think. So I stopped. I stopped and did what has never failed me: I took the time to get organized.

1.       Before I could be recruited for “Hoarders,” I cleaned off my desk. I moved everything off the top and ran a disinfecting wipe over the surface. I looked at every folder, sheet of paper, and sticky note, discarding what I could. I filed folders away and put books back on the shelf.

2.       I made a to-do list. This solution is tried and true, but many times I have to be facing disaster before I remember to try it. The length of the list doesn’t matter; its purpose is to separate the tasks that have become one big jumble and help us identify the most urgent ones. Here are mine:

Gather or create (with Joe) material for electronic press kit
Choose book excerpts
Write query letters
Send promised photos to horror website
Research magazines
Develop articles (with Joe)
Keep blog going

3.       I started working the list, my mind finally calming at the idea of one task at a time. For me, it’s the only way to work. And, for today, I can check off the last item on the list.

 

Touch Typing

So Write! is a blog about writing. Oh, all right, it’s usually about writing. Every now and then I stray from my focus and tell you the latest on the Kardashians—but not today. Today we talk about getting the words onto the page.

Today I celebrate touch typing.

If you’re of a certain age, I don’t have to explain touch typing to you; chances are good that you learned the skill in high school or college. Younger readers might have learned to type in junior high or even in one of the lower grades as formal typing instruction moved downward to accommodate the need for computer literacy.

If you don’t know what I mean by touch typing, it’s a method of typing quickly and correctly without looking at the keys. You learn to place your hands on the home row and then reach for the other keys, always returning to the home position. Touch typing is like riding a bike: it relies on muscle memory. With practice, your fingers know what to do and you can let your mind drift where it will.

Some writers like longhand. They work best when their pen or pencil makes contact with a sheet of paper. Some like writing by hand because it’s slow. I like touch typing for the opposite reason: it gives me the ability to keep up with my own thoughts, which often fly in multiple directions.

Writing is fun when the process doesn’t bog us down. I can text and even spell creatively when I can’t find the right key on my phone, but thumb-typing wouldn’t cut it for the long haul. Two-fingered typing and hunt-and-peck work for some people but handicap others, and they’re hard to unlearn. Speech recognition hasn’t taken off the way some proponents predicted, but with patience it can work. The point is that writers put down hundreds of words, thousands of words. The word count for a book can exceed 50,000 or even 100,000 words. It’s a tall order.

Typing I and II were the only business courses I took in high school, but they paid off. It wasn’t because of computers—they were not in use by the general public back then--but because of the careers I’ve chosen, most of them related and most having to do with putting words on a page. First I was a teacher; next I became a newspaper reporter. I was an editor. Now I’m a writer.

A court stenographer named Frank Edward McGurrin is credited with inventing touch typing in 1888. I’m grateful to him and to all the Business Education teachers who have taught and advocated this skill. It works for me. How do you get your words onto the page?

Shameless promotion: Soon you’ll see a new blog titled Mr. Joe’s Sweeping Thoughts. There’s a link on my website, www.janecongdon.com. The blogger will be my brother, Joseph Barnett, a former school custodian whose memoir is due out this spring.  Mr. Joe: Tales from a Haunted Life is a fascinating story of ghosts both literal and figurative. Joe is a talented storyteller, but typing 91,000 words isn’t his idea of a good time. I co-authored Mr. Joe by helping him get his story onto the page. You’ll be glad.

What I Did Last Summer

Why am I posting about summer now? I just found this piece. Sometimes I start a blog and lose steam before it’s done. Instead of discarding the partials, I save them. Every now and then I read them all and try to figure out what point I was trying to make. It’s like a game. So here is one from September.

Years ago in Glen Ferris we had a senior couple who traveled all year long. That was notable because most of the Glen Ferris population did not. When Christmas came, the couple’s annual letter was filled with tales of visits to their children and grandchildren. They called themselves the nomadic [last name] and wrote as though none of us could wait to hear their latest gripping adventures on the road. This post will be the opposite of a holiday letter, or maybe half of one.

In June my 50^th high school reunion in West Virginia was interrupted by a derecho (de-RAY-sho), a straight-line windstorm linked to severe thunderstorm activity. I’d never seen one or even heard the word, but the night of our class picnic I was returning to my hotel when the sky ahead turned brown. Broken branches and leaves blew across the road, and what looked like a giant cloud of dirt swept toward my car. In seconds I was enveloped, blinded. Swirling bits of debris ticked against the paint and glass of the car as I slowed down but kept going. Farther on, heavy rains flooded the highway. Orange construction barrels blew over and rolled into traffic. The capital city of Charleston was dark. Fortunately, my hotel had a generator, but the next day power was out all over the region and gasoline stations were shut down well into Ohio. The rest of the reunion was cancelled, and there was nothing to do but go home.

Two days earlier I had sent the manuscript for Mr. Joe: Tales from a Haunted Life, to the publisher, giving my brother Joe and me a temporary break from months of discussion and writing. I had finally cleaned my house.

In early July Greg and Annie came to visit. I love the summers because my sweet granddaughter, now nine years old, comes to stay a few days with her Cincinnati grandma. This has been our special time since Annie was two. My son’s visit was an added treat this year, though he divided his time between my house and his company’s offices in Columbus.

The sun threatened to roast us every day. With temperatures in the nineties, it was even too hot to swim. We stayed inside, and Annie watched the Disney Channel. On the 4^th of July my air conditioner quit. There was no discussion, no debating the pros and cons of a replacement. The new one was installed in a hurry, and a few hours later we were back to having cool air.

On July 24 my brother had back surgery. This was Joe’s second operation to address cervical myelopathy, a disease affecting the nerves along the spine. He stayed with me for the first two weeks of his recuperation, as his movements were limited initially by a walker and for a month by a neck brace. Though he wasn’t permitted to drive for another two weeks, Joe returned home in the middle of August.

Summer always ends with my birthday, which usually occurs during Labor Day weekend. Now in Ohio our yards are covered with gorgeous fallen leaves. Mr. Joe is in production. Annie’s been back in school for months. Soon it will be time for Joe to put his little red sports car away for the winter in favor of the safer tank our mom used to drive.

Time flies, you know? I haven’t been nomadic, not since the reunion. I’m just grateful that all of my former classmates made it home safely after the storm. I’m glad my brother is on the road again after his surgery. As for Annie, she’s rocking the fourth grade.

Bookstore Ambitions

This morning I’ve been reading blogs about what it’s like to work in a bookstore. That’s because I’ve applied for a job as a bookseller.

This is the third time I’ve applied to this particular store, which is located a few miles from my home. I figure its proximity might reduce my driving stress once winter arrives...if I ever get the job.

Honestly, I thought that hiring me would be a no-brainer for the bookstore manager. I’m presentable and articulate. I have related experience and a proven work ethic. What’s not to like? The first time I applied I was on high alert for a few days, expecting to be called any minute for an interview. Really, why did they they even let me leave the store after I’d handed them such a stellar application? It was all I could do not to look behind me on my way to the car. I would not have been surprised to see an employee chasing me through the parking lot: “Please, come back! We need you now.”

The real surprise unfolded when absolutely nothing happened: no chasing, no call, and no interview. I got up my nerve and asked a bookseller about the hiring practices of the store. She was quite chipper and encouraging when she said, “We discard our applications after a few months. By all means, apply again.” I went home and completed my paperwork for the second time, put it all in a folder, and handed it in the same day. I saw no point in playing hard to get.

Nothing happened. Months passed, and I knew that my application and resume had again hit the trash can. I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t even been given a chance to interview, but after two tries I let my bookstore ambitions go. Until now.

I know someone at this bookstore, which is how I heard a few days ago that they were hiring. Should I try again? Why not? Maybe the third time really is a charm.

Back in January, my hard drive crashed and many files were lost. My resume was one of them, and so I redid it. I completed the job application—again—and took both documents to the store. I made it safely to my car afterward, and so far my phone has not rung off the hook. At least I’m not surprised.

And that brings us back to the blogs I’ve been reading, the inside scoop about what it’s like to be a bookseller. They keep secret journals of stupid customer questions. They have to clean the public restrooms. The worst assignment in the store is magazines, because people are pigs. Kids run wild. The same in-store music repeats for months until you want to bash in your skull. People try to read entire books without leaving the store.

Do I still want to be a bookseller? Yes. I will let you know if it ever happens.

 

Is It Done?

Last week my brother and I submitted the manuscript for his memoir, Mr. Joe, to our publisher. I was the one who sent it in, using an increasingly common method: I attached the 362-page Microsoft Word file to an e-mail. Both Joe and I are compulsively early, so the manuscript left on its cyber-journey two days before the deadline—on Wednesday instead of Friday.

Perhaps you heard my “Ta-da!” as I clicked the Send button. At last, the thing was out of our hands. Mr. Joe has been a six-year labor of love, but that Wednesday I was saturated with it, having spent the previous ten days putting in revisions. As the message went to the Out box, I could almost hear the clang of rolling steel, as though a safety door had descended behind Mr. Joe  and forced me to let go—not a bad thing.

Our publisher normally responds like lightning to e-mails, so I was surprised when we heard nothing back from her.  Joe, with his trusting nature, assumed that all was well; but some of us harbor more anxiety. Some of us question everything. All I could think was: Did she get the manuscript? Did she read it? Did she love it or hate it?

The silence was agonizing.

When Friday came—the due date--I ventured a second e-mail in case the manuscript had not reached its destination. That time the reply was quick. Our publisher had been preparing for a huge book fair all week. Mr. Joe, one of many projects, was on her reading schedule for the following week.

“Are you ‘done’ with it?” she asked in her message. “Do you believe it’s ready to go?”

If I thought the silence from Wednesday to Friday was agonizing, this was worse. How could I say it? The day after I sent the manuscript in, I found an error: two words left out of one of the later chapters,  no doubt the result of my cutting and pasting. The spell check hadn’t caught it.

I’d also thought of a great line I could add to Chapter 44, regarding my mother’s statement that she did not want to live to be ninety years old. I hadn’t immediately seen that her words would connect beautifully to an earlier passage in the book.

Now my mind was racing. Should I tell the publisher about these changes? That would mean sending a new file. The changes were tiny. The missing words would be caught in Production. Should I read Mr. Joe yet again? Would I think of a dozen other changes if I did? I decided to delay my response.

She wrote again: “I’ll read it Tuesday and Wednesday if you feel it’s ready to go to typesetting.”

I couldn’t escape the  readiness issue. It made my heart race. It made my mind wild. It made me doubt myself—but let’s cut to the lesson. Joe has had to remind me a few times during this project that everything isn’t about me.  I don’t recall that he said it this time, but his words echoed in my mind like the clang of that virtual steel door.

Our publisher is beyond excited about Mr. Joe. Being also a busy publisher, she likes to avoid reading multiple versions of the same manuscript. Her unsettling questions weren’t a finger-wagging directed at me. She merely wanted  to know if the Author Final was indeed final. I told her the truth: I'm never done. Writers seldom are. We can always find something to change.

As she began her reading two thousand miles and three time zones away, Joe and I did the same in Cincinnati. I intended to make my two little fixes and hope the 91,000 other words would still stand. Here’s the thing: Every change in a manuscript starts a chain reaction. Maybe we should call it a change reaction, because every change can trigger a new story. Every change makes an author rethink what came before and after it. I got lost in Mr. Joe and felt like I was fighting my way out. Maybe you know the feeling.

Luckily, our inner survival mechanism eventually kicks in. When mine finally did, I completed my edits easily and clicked on the Send button without a single stab of conscience.

DONE!

Thanks to our publisher, Bettie Youngs of Bettie Youngs Books, for her steadfast support and encouragement during the development of Mr. Joe.

First Massage

A few weeks ago I bought my first smartphone, and the other day I got my first massage. Look out, world! The girl from Glen Ferris is on the loose. And when I say loose, well, it’s a nice segue to the massage story.

My brother gave me a gift card for my birthday entitling me to a session at Massage Envy. I’d seen the building: lots of windows and shades made it seem mysterious, but maybe they were just keeping the sun out. Some of the most glamorous spas are located in the vast and gorgeous West, where the desert takes its toll. This one is in a shopping center near my home in Ohio.

Massages were nothing new to most of my friends, who had always told me I would love the experience. I didn’t know if I’d love it or not. Was I supposed to get naked? In a salon where I got my eyebrows waxed, I waited for my appointments in a spa environment. On Saturdays, especially, it was common to see bridal parties in their white terry robes having a day of beauty before the wedding. They were always young and beautiful. Let’s just say that I’m in a different place and well accustomed to a daily routine of trying to disguise my flaws.

I have wrinkles. My belly isn’t tight. My legs are all freckled from years in the sun. Yes, such changes come with age, but all of a sudden somebody I hadn’t met was going to know those things. Maybe the Kardashians can just throw their clothes off and relax, but could I?

In some circles, massage is a shady word. That’s a shame, but I did think about it before I made my appointment. Would any of the touching be too close for comfort? Many people wouldn’t worry about such things, but after all these years I’m sure I represent the ones who would.

When I arrived, I filled out a questionnaire. My lack of experience prevented me from answering some of the questions, e.g., what kind of massage did I want. There was a list of body areas on the form so that I could indicate which ones were all right to include in the massage. One was gluteus. Who goes around saying “gluteus”? I wasn’t positive I knew what it was. That’s hard for a writer to admit, but at least I was right. The girl at the counter confirmed that it was my butt.

After the questionnaire and a little spiel about what to expect, I was shown to the inner sanctum of the spa. If you haven’t been, a spa environment is hushed. Soft music plays in the background. The lights are low. People use their indoor voices. Maybe you remember the Seinfeld episode about the “low talker,” the woman who practically whispered her every sentence. In a spa, everybody talks that way. The whole idea is for customers to relax. Even the rooms are named to soothe. While I was waiting in the Tranquility Room, I silenced my phone in case an actual call might come through. 

The massage took place in a small room with a heated table made up like a bed. I undressed to my undies and lay down under the covers to wait for Jen, my massage therapist. Some people like it quiet during a massage, but I knew that I would feel better if she explained what she was doing. I found out I was having a Swedish massage, and because it was my first time, Jen applied a light-to-medium touch. The light in the room was dimmed, and that helped my anxiety about my body.

From that point, I did relax. I realized that a skilled professional was taking the tension knots out of my back, improving my circulation, and helping me to leave my Type A personality behind for an hour. Anyone who can do those things—especially that last one--deserves high praise.

The second half of my massage, the part that took place after I understood the process, was very quiet. I no longer felt the need to talk. I left the spa relaxed. I didn’t feel like I would melt into a puddle, but maybe next time, now that I know what it’s all about.