A few of you may be old enough to remember the old western TV comedy show F-Troop.  Well, this headline goes that far back but refers to something a little further into the remote regions than the wild west.  And if you don’t remember F-Troop get it on NetFlix.  It was wholly un PC and really funny to a nine year old at the end of the sixties.  Probably wouldn’t get on the air these days.

Balloo is the big blue bear from Jungle Book, a Disney flick from way back when.  I don’t remember much about it except the triple jointed looseness of the boy Mowglie and the song that the ape sang.  ”I wanna be a man, man child, and walk right into town…”  So when I came across a seven foot tall Balloo and Ape in the Animal Kingdom I couldn’t hold back those irrepressible lyrics.  Keep in mind that my friend Denise and I had been out for hours by then and my signature color was sweat stained from the 1200% humidity.  I still maintain that it was condensation collecting on the surface of our skin since we were two hot babes in the woods.

My new admirer

Now you might think that I had enticed Balloo over to have his picture taken with me but no, in fact he was drawn to me by my melodic crooning.  Balloo wanted his picture taken with me.  So naturally I obliged.  It’s a pretty good photo of Balloo, but I’m afraid it’s a bit dodgey of me.  That Florida sun is unforgiving.  You’ll notice the resemblance between us in shape.  Yes, well, I’ll have to work on that.

But this wasn’t the only fun we had in Florida.  No, we were there for serious business.  My friend Denise and I were celebrating our Semi-Centennial year.  We will both be skipping across that meridian that separates youth from whatever follows, later in the fall.

We celebrated the entire weekend with trips to three Disney parks, both of the Universal studio parks as well.  There we discovered that the Harry Potter ride at Universal Studios called the hippogriff (or something like that) was not designed using the standard American Buttwidth.  In fact we suspect the designers may have been using the French Buttwidth or even perhaps the Japanese Buttwidth universal measures.  We very nearly didn’t get into the cars.  You will see us here in the photo I’m holding (although this is from Expedition Everest).  We are the ones wedged into the back seats.

As you can clearly see we are having what they call fun. But even more fun was yet to come.

Later that evening while we were enjoying a frosty beverage and massaging
our feet we recalled that we were not the only ones celebrating.

Dick Powers (his real name) was also celebrating the half way mark without us in Lawrence, Kansas.  So we serenaded him in a birthday salute that I will spare you.  I do have a still from that event that I will share just because it proves that you’re never too old to make an ass of yourself.

So this was my last hurrah prior to rejoining my romance writer sisters and brothers at the RWA National Conference.

Consider this the obligatory vacation slide show.  You have been subjected. The work of Conference would soon begin.

Now, go write.

And congratulations to Gretchen Jones (the young blonde talented designer)  for winning the first challenge and making it to the next round on Project Runway.

When I wrote the last post I had no idea this would become a theme but it’s starting to look that way.

Mack Fire Truck

Over the weekend my fabulous friend Meg and I went on our annual Writers Weekend.  We planned to go to Council Grove Lake in Kansas.  Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate.  Saturday’s forecast called for 28 degrees for a low temperature and snow.  I’m pretty game for camping in cold weather but Meg was leery of spending the weekend camping in snow so we decided to alter our plans.  We headed to Missouri and Truman Lake whose forecast was ten degrees warmer for the low.

Southwest view from Talley Bend Campground

The camping was wonderful and Meg and I were actually very productive.  She worked on a short story idea that had been bumping around.  She cranked out about 2100 words, and I managed to get about 12 pages done.

Except for a few minor hitches with the trailer and water supply we were filled to the gills with carbohydrates, managed to stay warm and energized in spite of the cool fall weather.  There were very few people there except for the two of us and people fishing.  Lots and lots of fishing.  Apparently the catfish and - I don’t know what else -  was biting last weekend.

By now you’re probably wondering “What on earth does this have to do with firetrucks?”

Well, Sunday afternoon a cloud of black smoke settled down on our campsite from the hill behind us.  We were camping at the edge of a lake but all behind us was a forest of sorts. No doubt there was a fire, and though we were away from the trees by the water edge, it was worrisome and well frankly, I was curious.

We didn’t think twice before jumping in Big Bird and heading up the hill.

A quarter mile up the road we found a campsite where a two guys got more of a barbeque than they signed up for.

According to the people I talked to the two men came back from fishing, hung their catch up on the line outside, and went into the trailer.  The trailer they were in was about a 16 or 18 foot trailer - I’m guessing, and from all accounts they were extremely pleased having purchased it.  Apparently it made a nice little fishing cabin right up until the electrical fire started.  I didn’t see it, but these guys were good.  They had the sense to get the propane turned off, physically removed the tank(s) from the mounting on the front of the trailer, and then unplugged the trailer from the electrical outlet prior to running out of harms way.

RV fire at Talley Bend

The campground does not have hydrants at each campsite like some places, just electrical, so the water source was not really convenient to the site.  Not that pouring water on all that melting plastic and who knows what else is necessarily a good idea, I remember something about not putting water on oil fires don’t know how that might apply to fiberglass, plastic etc.

The fire was good and high when Meg and I showed up.  It doesn’t show very well here because it had already been burning for about half an hour by the time I took these photos.  Keep in mind the trailer would have been about a foot higher than the fireman’s head shown in these pics.

Shortly after that I took Meg back to the trailer.  I had to go back with the cell phone camera and take photos for the blog.

RV Fire view 2 Talley Bend Campground

I did give the guy my card so he could contact me for pictures if he wanted to.  I’m sure he thought I was a PITA busybody.  I was moderately embarassed with my behavior but I was interested in watching the firemen and looking at the firetrucks (there were two, the white Mack and a new red one from Iconia Fire District) and like any good gawker I rationalized my behavior and continued what I was doing.

So even though I never got the pictures posted from the car fire last week (it was just smoke over the trees), I was able to bring you these and the following short video.

RV Fire at Truman Lake, Talley Bend Campground 10-11-09 from Gretchen Jones on Vimeo.

If you’ve got the audio on you may hear a burst of laughter.  That’s me.  Apparently I surprised the volunteer firefighter with my cell phone and he gave a kind of startled look that was priceless, but not really captured in the video.  I was laughing at his expression, not the unfortunate situation that brought him to the park that day.  And that they were volunteers is speculation on my part.  These two were wearing jeans and the guys that showed up in the later fire truck had the full protective gear.

And just as before I imagine the guys went back to the fire station thinking it had been an interesting day. The fisherman took his catch and went home bummed.

(For the post on the Deb Werksman visit scroll down to the post below)

Today was a perfect summer day.  The air dry and clean, fluffy white clouds scattered amongst the blue.  The temperature hovered in the mid seventies in the shade.  It was fabulous.  Meg and I started out our day at the farm with a donut and after all the beer last night decided that Yoga would definitely be a bad idea.  Instead we fixed the lawn chairs whose elastic had worn out and pulled them up beside the new pond.

A view of the pond

Meg is a gardener extraordinaire.  She has 13 acres and is gradually filling up the yard with gardens.  This summer’s project was to put in a pond with a waterfall.  A curious concept to me since I had always thought her yard was essentially flat.  But she found a slope and made it work.

We laid back in the chaise loungers with our faces to the sky and listened to the frogs clicking, clacking, and making a funny finger across a balloon sound.

I was inspired enough to get out of the chair and grab my camera from the truck.

There were at least five and maybe as many as ten frogs in the pond.  We spotted three hanging out on the south end of the pond near the waterfall.  One sat in the water facing upstream and watched and the food came right to him.  He snapped up the morsels and went on with his day.  Two others slightly larger hung to the side wary of me and my clicking digital nikon.

If you look closely you can see at least two and maybe three leopard frogs.

In this photo you can see two of the leopard frogs in the foreground.  We listened to them last night and figured there were about three in the pond but today it seemed like each time we heard a croak it came from a different place and we counted three on each end for sure.

They weren’t terribly pleased that I took their photos.  Perhaps they disdained the paparazzi or were afraid that the camera would steal their souls.  Frogs are known to be deeply spiritual.

The plants in the pond are absolutely fabulous, a multitude of textures and colors, shapes and sizes.  A handful of goldfish have cleaned up the water to a sparkling clear result.

She seems sure that most of the plants are hardy enough to overwinter in her pond and I hope that she’s correct.

I loved the way the lilly pads seemed to knit themselves together in the foreground of this photo.

You can also see one of the small goldfish in this image and blooms not yet opened on the plants.  The fish are doing a fine job of cleaning up the mosquito larva for which we are grateful.

Water Lillies, reeds, duckweed and a yellow primrose water plants

Here you can see a bloom on the lilly not quite ready to open.  The plants with the bulby centers are water hyacinths.

A close up look at the lilly pads - no frogs on them yet, but we're hopeful

The light was just perfect before noon and I captured these two additional photos.

A water hyacinth in bloom

Now, the day grows long and I need to go back to my life in the city away from the peaceful shush of the wind in the trees, sleeping dogs, and the clacking of the frogs.  But that’s the penance I pay for spending my weekends in a place that gives me peace and an awful lot of fun.

Thank you Meg for sharing your pond with me.  It is the most fabulous pond in the world.

Yesterday Deb Werksman came and spoke to our local RWA Chapter here in Kansas City.  Here’s the lowdown on what she does and does not want at Sourcebooks in no particular order.  As always check their website for current wants and the four “does want” items are clearly listed in almost every blog and guest blog she’s done.

• No first person POV “it doesn’t work in contemporaries”
• No series where the same protagonists (hero/heroine) pairs are repeated in the next books.  Connected books, with different characters are fine.
• No suspense with romantic elements (But she DOES want romantic suspense, contemporary, historical, regency, Jane Austin related of course, - see their website for other specific genres)
• She wants a hook - something to help her sell the book to the higher ups and know how to sell it to book buyers.  Doesn’t have to be a single sentence, maybe a maximum of three or four that gives her a an idea of how she can sell it.  She gave two examples, one was about a werewolf story where only the men were werewolves and as the full moon got closer they became crankier. (They had “that time of the month”)  The other one (another werewolf story) the woman had studied wolf behavior and Deb felt as though she was learning something about wolves as she read the book.  Think smart stories.
• A hero the reader can fall in love with
• A smart heroine the reader can root for.
• There’s one other thing in this short list but I forget what it is at the moment.  I think it’s evidence that the author has a career arc.

She says it’s hard for her to sell a single book to the marketing and higher ups.  It takes about four books to establish a readership for a new author and you’ll need to be ready to produce those next books.  Expect her to ask what your next book is about. She’ll be quick to tell you if you’re missing your hook for a series and tell you what it is.

If you’re an author with a track record different rules apply.

She had tips for submissions as well.  They are on her website under submissions.  It appears very few people actually read the submission guidelines.  If you do then you’re ahead of the game.  Last week she actually got five submissions that followed the instructions, and thought that maybe all the yelling she’s been doing about that is finally getting through to people.  All I have to say about that is - People, what are you thinking? Read and use the submission guidelines.

Contacts for all the editors are on the page for agents and Deb does take unagented submissions for romance. She didn’t say much about what the other editors were acquiring though she did mention there was an editor taking YA submissions.

She prefers e-mail queries with synopsis and full manuscript.  She reads all these on her Kindle so it’s important that you put your name and contact information in the header on all materials (that way it’s on every page) that way she can call you if she has something she must talk to you about when it comes up.  Otherwise you risk going to the back of the queue.  She says if all the files you send her start with the title of the book they’ll sort nicely together.  I think this is all accurate, but as always check their submission guidelines before querying.

So, I went to pitch Lone Survivor even though I know I shouldn’t pitch an unfinished manuscript, but everyone keeps saying get the pitching experience under your belt, she was there so what the heck.

I was absolutely petrified since this was my first pitch, and I practiced and practiced. The fear was completely irrational since I knew going in (after her presentation) that she wouldn’t want LS.  It’s first person (ding) It’s potentially a series with the same protagonists (ding), it’s not a romance per se (ding).  Talk about stage fright. In spite of the fact I knew going in she wouldn’t want it, I couldn’t sit still for about 20 minutes afterwards still buzzing on adrenaline.

I did have a take away, which was that I should be pitching my story as a mystery which is very helpful.  She said my hook is definitely a mystery hook. I gave her the hook and she sort of looked at me.  I said, “yeah, it’s dark.”  She agreed, then went on to say that dark does really well in the mystery category.  For the record I had searched Amazon for Sourcebooks titles before  the meeting and didn’t really see anything dark in their list of titles, It looked like they had a couple of mysteries by well established authors.  It didn’t appear that they had anything terribly dark. That was only what I found though, so do your own research.

They don’t currently have any inspirational or Kimani equivalent stories they were publishing.  She didn’t rule them out as an eventual area of interest, but the story would have to be really special and be something they could figure out how to sell.

I had been at kind of loose ends as to where to categorize it and that really does help me, so for me it was a useful exercise.  I’m afraid my five minutes was a waste of time for Deb, but I know she did ask for at least one manuscript from one of our fabulous regency writers, and we fed her well, so the trip wasn’t a total loss for her.

Deb is very approachable, nice, personable.

She had some done some interesting research about how sourcebooks’ authors debut sales stack up against other publishers, which sounded like they did quite a bit better than other publishers and gave credit to the marketing they do up front if my memory serves me right.

We had a good day and boy was I ever glad to get that pitch out of the way. Last night Meg and I sat around her new pond (see tomorrow’s blog for that update with fabulous pics) cleaning out the fridge and the cooler of all beer, and watching the stars, listening to the frogs, speculating on our old age, and thinking about Michfest next year.

It was a glorious evening in Kansas.

Had a fabulous time at Nationals.  First off we went to the FBI Academy on the KOD tour and shot guns.  Big ones, little ones, old ones, new ones.  Ones that fired one at a time and well several one right after another.  Okay they all operated in semi-automatic fashion.  I felt a little Suessian just then.

I didn’t take too many photos but here’s some of the ones that made it into my camera.  Others on the new phone I haven’t figured out how to extract yet.

There were hot spy chicks on the shooting range as illustrated here…

She was definitely all romantic suspense on the range in those heels.

Then there was a stop at the training neighborhood.

A nice location but the neighbors?

And a day at the State Department

The room is modeled after the UN they told us (at least I think that's what they said)

Everyone’s hair was lovely from the back

The KOD AGM really happened…

And now I need to write the minutes for that meeting I suppose.

Finally, Nora Roberts.  Attended her chat session.  Insightful.  Guess what, she’s a regular writer (except for that whole “nearly every book is a best seller” thing she’s got going on).  Just a little impatient after all this time with the same old questions I think.  Cool lady.

Nora Roberts- Sorry if the pic isn't fabulous. Used my cheap camera.

At the Death By Chocolate Party Cheryl won a crystal skull…

Cheryl and Deb With Cheryl's prized skull

Then there was the wonderful evenings spent with good friends.  Not all of them are in this pic which I swiped off of Lynn Cash’s web site from Jackie Bannon’s Camera.

Gretchen, Aimee, Jackie, and Heather

It was fabulous overall.  Can’t wait for next year in Tennessee.

Cover for Invading Britain book

I’ve been threatening for two years to create a travel book from the blog we did when we went to Scotland and England in 2007.  Finally I got the right combination of software and hardware to pull it off.  Aperture 2 is the Apple application used to manage photographs on my Mac - it’s a step up from Iphoto.  The book template process was fairly easy with the exception of crashes that occurred frequently toward the end.  Mostly the crashes were around editing a single caption or “meta-data box” that was placed under a map of Alnwick that I inserted into the document.  I finally decided folks would just have to figure out that it was a photograph of a map and leave it to that.

 I have a really low powered Macbook so it may be related to lack of memory. 

After inserting photographs in photo frames and text in text boxes I finally figured out how to do columns and alignment of text in the text boxes and the result was really nice.  I used the PDF producing capabilities to generate a PDF file for the preview and finally when I was satisfied I couldn’t make it much better I clicked on the buy book button.  

The books arrived about two weeks later and were fabulous.  Afterwards I wished I’d used the large format template and purchased the hard bound books with the dust jackets but I would have had to start from scratch to do that.  I also wished I’d used a larger font and was a little more careful moving the text away from the center so that it wasn’t wedged into the binding quite so much.  But other than that I’m delighted with the result and am posting it here for your viewing pleasure.

You should be warned the file is about 83mb (HUGE) but it’s 86 pages and has over two hundred photographs in it so the size couldn’t be helped.  Click on the cover photograph above to download the PDF file.

Enjoy…

Halloween is not normally something I get particularly worked up about in terms of decorations and costumes etc. This year however, I planned to attend Hannah’s Halloween party and I wanted to be suitably festive. Now there was a special twist this year because it just so happened that I planned to pick up (no pun intended) a new truck I purchased on that very day. So it was a busy one for me.

I prepared my costume with great care, intending to make the best effort to celebrate with the 30 or so teenage friends of Hannah and Eilee, her Mom and Pop.

So I worked all morning after buying the supplies I would need the night before. Oddly even though it included two boxes of Rit dye I somehow managed not to make a giant mess in the house. Anyway here’s the result.

Yes, I’m embracing my inner jaundice. 

II took my trailer to Council Grove Lake in the Flint Hills of Kansas this weekend (Oct 11th) to spend the last camping weekend of the summer communing with the wind. It’s always windy at this lake for some reason. Probably because there is nothing between there and the Rockies except a few trees. I always enjoy camping here because it is quiet and the camping spot where I normally park is within 20 feet or so of the water.

So after I set up the camper, I had a nice dinner, read for awhile and finally called it a night Friday.

When I woke in the morning to the rattling of the wind I stepped out of the camper and was amazed by a ballet of birds dancing on and above the water.

It doesn’t seem as spectacular in this image as it really was but you may get a sense of my enthrallment.

I walked out to the shoreline just a few feet away from my trailer and watched as the birds did their dance. They would float along on the water then rise up on the breeze. Their striking white wings catching air and lifting them in a vertical motion that could have been on wires suspended from the sky. The birds would hover and drift then exert their will to fly upwind then drift down again to the water’s choppy surface.It reminded me of the box route that the balloons in New Mexico use to fly along the mesas during their festivals there.

I must have watched them for half an hour before deciding that if I spent any more time there I’d be there all day and there was much too much I wanted to do.

Later that day after consuming all the coffee and reading a book or two I headed out for the town of Council Grove where I bought a toaster for the camper and then a cheesecake to honor my friend Meg who planned to join me later that night.

She arrived and we had a wonderful time exploring the campgrounds all around the lake. We finally returned to the town, made some grocery store purchases and headed back to the camper. A fabulous steak dinner later we awaited the arrival of her husband who spent the evening with us sitting around the campfire telling lies and drinking beverages that enhanced the tale telling experience.

Now that it’s November, I’m missing the last days of summer and wishing winter would hurry up to come and go.

Tomorrow I leave for a weekend camping trip that I’ve been waiting for.  Off to a campground in the flint hills of Kansas.  I’ll spend the weekend by the lake watching the waves, listening to the wind blow and doing some serious reading and writing.  I did this last year and had a ball.  Taking a weekend off for myself to relax and recharge my writers muse.  Hope it works.  

Meg is planning to join me on Saturday so I’ll have a day to myself and then Meg’s comfortable companionship Saturday evening through Monday.  I can’t imagine a better way to spend a weekend.I’ve got a lot of edits to catch up on and a new chapter to write.   I’m bringing a grocery sack of books to read and I have workshop material to catch up on.  I’m bringing more food than I’ll ever need and have all kinds of grand plans.  I’ll let you know how it goes. 

I’m passionate about laughter.  Whenever I can I surround myself with people that make me laugh and who will laugh with me.  Many of those people have travelled the same road that I have over the years. We have drifted in and out of each other’s lives like sailboats on the horizon, sometimes meeting on distant shores to share a meal or our sorrow but parting again on a summer’s breeze. 

Even in our darkest moments the laughter carries us through.  Mostly it’s silliness that drives our voices.  A reminder of our youth, like the leftover shadow of childhood carried along joyfully.  Memories stay with us as so many marbles rolling against each other in our pockets, that squeaky friction of glass on glass occasionally reminding us that it’s time to take them out and play. 

We come together with no expectations except to embrace the affection that has endured over the years.  It rarely disappoints.  When it does, I shrug it off and blame the fates for interrupting that stream of fellowship that binds us together with that fragile element love.   Whatever insignificant schism has come between us will evaporate and heal with the application of time and trust.  Time and trust that we have in abundance, or so it seems.  And then another youthful summer day comes along and we toast each others company with gleeful jabs at flabby waists and thinning hair and share our successes and failures, our hopes and dreams and we laugh together again.