Beauty and Barbed Wire

So, I took the advice of my friend, Carol, and decided to take pictures of the precious mommy and matching baby horse. This caused some irritation within my neighborhood. Now I might have to move.

1. I drove very slowly (by slowly, I mean about 47mph) past the pasture where the bookend mommy and baby horse are located.

Irritation factor: The speed limit on unposted country roads is 50. With inflation, that means 60 to most people, and in my neighborhood a lot of people have obviously been plagued by inflation.

2. The bookend horses were not out. Other, less adorable, horses were out in their place. I passed the driveway with the pasture on each side, but thought I spotted the mare and foal in a small paddock.

Irritation factor: To my dismay, my right blinker isn't working AGAIN. I've had it fixed at least ten times. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

3. I decided to hang a U-turn at the next little country road. Someone was waiting to turn onto the speedway I was on.

Irritation factor: I signal with my arm because my blinker isn't working. The man in the pick 'em up truck doesn't understand traditional hand signals. "Nice blinker, you--expletive deleted-- " he shouts and gives me what is also a traditional hand signal, although it doesn't mean he was about to turn.

4. I backtracked to the long, long, long driveway with the pastures on each side. I squinted ahead and, yes, there are the horse and foal.

Irritation factor: Just as I started up the narrow driveway someone in a pick up started toward me from the house at the end of the driveway. He stopped. With tires crunching on the gravel, I pulled over as far as I could but there was still not enough room for two cars. Backing up is not my strong point. I continued until I got to a wider spot.

5. When I got to the wider spot, I pulled to the right, putting on my non-working blinker. When that action failed to spur the pick up forward, I stuck my hand out the window and motioned to the driver to go ahead past me.

Irritation factor: He didn't understand my hand signals. The big truck idled at the head of the driveway, pawing the ground and snorting.

6. I hung out the window and waved him toward me.

Irritation factor: He finally spun his wheels and spilled to a stop next to my car, gravel spewing and a scowl on his face.

I forced a smile, though I thought I could hear dueling banjos. "Do you know who owns those two horses there?" I asked.

"No."

Hmmm. "Well, I wanted to get a picture of them because they are so cute. Do you think that would be okay?"

"I don't know. They are boarded. The driveway is the next one down." His teeth clamped together and his knuckles grew white on the steering wheel.

Not to be discouraged, I smiled. "Oh, well, would it be okay if I just jumped out and snapped a picture?"

He looked pointedly past my car.

"Can you get by me?" I asked.

He rolled his eyes. "Yeah." With that he excelled, leaving a cloud of dust and tiny pebbles plinking across my hood.

I vaulted from the car and yanked my camera out and snapped a few quick pictures. I'll have to try it again when they are in the pasture because you can't see how cute they look together here.

But first I'll rent a car with a decent blinker and wear a disguise.

Too Cute for Words

I am fortunate to be forced to drive through the country to get home from work. My regular route, which already has the ambiance of rural country life, gives me a spring-time view of baby sheep and baby cattle and baby horses. Unfortunately for my gas mileage, the main road to my house is closed for about six months, forcing an even more scenic way home. I drive past a sign that advertises eggs for sale, and another that advertises numerous veggies for sale if I desire the fun experience of tramping through the fields to pick it myself, and another boasting hay is available.

But somewhere along the way is a pasture with a mommy horse and a matching baby horse. They are either pintos or paints (I can never remember which is which) and they look exactly alike. I want to stop and get a picture because it is one of those instances where a picture really is worth more than words, but there is no "shoulder" on the road where I could pull over and pretend I have something wrong with my car and shoot a couple pictures unobtrusively. No, I'd have to pull up into their driveway and jump out and haul out my camera. It is a long, long, "pasture on each side" driveway.

I need a vote. Would it be rude to pull into the driveway and take a picture of the mare and foal? Should I drive up to the house and ask permission? The baby is getting older. I've been kicking this around for a month. What should I do?

Heros and Anti-Heros

One of the most difficult things for me to do is write a decent hero. It is lucky the anti-hero is so popular, because I cannot seem to find a hero who is perfect. I've come into contact with many heroic men and they are hardly ever perfect (at least that is what their wives, mothers, girlfriends and teachers say). But they are still heroes nonetheless.

At Christmas, during that unusual deep snow that lasted for two weeks, I met a real live hero. I live on a steep, narrow dirt road which falls steeply into a creek on either side. Foolishly I thought I could get up to my house even though there was a snow pack and a mist of ice topping it (protagonists rarely have to be bright). I got stuck. Worse, when I tried to back down to the bottom, I slipped sideways, nearly sliding into the creek. With my heart pounding, I picked up my cell phone and prayed the sketchy Verizon coverage in the hills would pick up my call. Tim, the neighbor at the top of the hill, listened as I cut in and out over the air, and--due to the superior intelligence of heroes--figured out not only that I was in trouble, but that I was in trouble on the steepest part of our road. He tramped the quarter mile from his house swinging a flashlight back and forth until he saw me, the rear end of my car precariously teetering at the edge of the road.

He yanked my chains out of my shaking hands (he didn't need the set of instructions I had been reading by my dome light) and got them onto the wheels. Together, we spun and slid and spun and slid up the hill to the semi-level part of the road.

It was only later I found out from his wife that he had been in bed, ill, that night.

I used to have a "Hero List" when I was in my early twenties. One of my co-workers saved me from an assault and arrested the culprit. And he did it with gusto. Another co-worker came to my house on his own time and installed burglar proof sliding glass door locks after I was burglarized. Another came over and figured out the reason I was so very cold was that my pilot light was out on my heater and he lit it.

Their names were Denny, Chuck and Danny and they are still on my hero list, but they are no longer alone. Tim is there. And another neighbor, Mike, who came charging to the rescue when a tree fell on my house.

And then there is Nita, who scooped me up and drove me to the hospital when I fell and dislocated my shoulder. She is a hero too.

These are all pretty heroic acts, but in writing a hero, sometimes it is little things that make an every day man become a hero. I came across one at the PNWA Writer's conference this month. His name tag announced he was "Jason Wilson", followed by "Literary Fiction". That is all I know about him. I didn't even talk to him, but on the first day of the conference, we all crammed into a large room to hear a lecture on How to Pitch to Agents and Editors. Having never attended a conference before, I didn't know I should get to the lectures early to get a good seat. I stumbled in five minutes before it began and it was packed. There were only two vacant chairs.

"Pardon me, sir, is that chair taken?" I asked.

The gray haired man looked up. "Um...yes. I'm sorry." He gaze drifted to the door in a frantic search for his peer, before it swung back to me. He gave me a guilty, lopsided grin and shrugged apologetically.

Dang. Okay, I leaned over him and used a stage whisper to another person several chairs down. "Excuse me, is that chair taken?" We repeated the process. She told me it was, glanced nervously at the doors and gave me a sheepish grimace.

Fine. I backed up to the wall and leaned against it, preparing to stand for two hours, juggling to get out the yellow pad and pen and vowing to get to all the other classes early.

Halfway down the row, a dark-haired man in a casual polo shirt and khaki pants rested his eyes on me. I was aware of his gaze, as one is nearly always aware they are being watched, and out of the corner of my eye I saw his shoulders drop as he heaved a sigh. He reached down and gathered his lime green PNWA bag and unfolded his body, stepping over the feet of all the others in the row. With his eyes still on me he said, "Please, take my chair."

I immediately fell into hero-worship.

I protested, of course, but he insisted, so I stepped over the others and took the seat, trying not to let guilt overpower the gift. As it happens, minutes later they came in and told us they were moving the lecture to a larger room, so my hero got to have a seat after all. But he cannot escape the result of his action. The fact remains, he is heroic.

So Jason Wilson, you are on my "Hero List" if you ever happen to come across this blog.

You are right there with all the aforementioned heroes. And I'll change the name, of course, but I might use you to model my next hero. You, and my other neighbor, Dick, who saved me from the tarantula. But that is a whole other story.

Mainstream is Still Upstream from Me

Jane Lotter lives in the Seattle area and is in the process of writing a book called The Bette Davis Club. It’s “a contemporary mainstream comedy set against the background of the Hollywood film industry.”

That is all she will allow me to say, but she sent me the 25 pages she submitted to the PNWA contest and it is really good. Daring. Different. Delightful.

Laurel Krill also lives in the Seattle area and sent me her contest entry too. It raises goosebumps and sends shivers down your spine. I am so keeping my fingers crossed that she gets an agent soon. If the rest of the book is as good as the first 25 pages, we'll be seeing it on the shelves.

It is so fun to meet the people who write books. I've often wondered what Steven King is like in person, or Mary Higgins Clark. What goes through their minds when they hear a bump in the night in their own house?

PNWA Awards Banquet

"You have to go."

"No I don't. I can stay here and...wash out my stockings," I whined.

Cheryl's hands found their way to her hips and her eyes narrowed. "Oh, come on." She huffed out a bracing sigh.

"I could watch television." Suddenly interested in what the television had to offer, I glanced at it to see if there was some easy way to turn it on.

She grabbed my shoulders, turned me to the door and gave a not-too-gentle shove. I limped along the two and a half miles to the convention center and jabbed a finger at the elevator button. Nothing. I stabbed it again. Nothing.

Cheryl placed a dainty finger on the button and pushed. Nothing. We hauled in the sheets and changed course two points into the parking garage. We found the stairs and climbed to the second floor. An elevator hovered in the shaft with the doors open. We rode it up to the third floor and sauntered off, trying to look cool in the late afternoon heat. I fingered my finalist ribbon and contemplated ripping it off.

"Finalists enter first. Finalists, finalists, come through," members of the PNWA staff shouted from each doorway. Cheryl and I slithered through the crowd and tossed ourselves into the banquet hall. Up in the very front of the room, near a big projection screen, I found the table labeled "Mainstream". I strolled around the table to the place card with my name and sat down. An empty chair beside me indicated a relative did not show. On the other side of me, Barry Brennessel stared down at the table cloth, fingering his silverware. I had expected Barry to be larger than life--like a politician or a CEO of an American financial institution receiving federal bail-out money--because he had finaled in two categories; mainstream and mystery/thriller. I mean, you have to be great to final in two categories, right?

"How do you do?" I said.

He looked up and gave me a shy smile. "Hi, I'm Barry."

We spent the next half hour talking about our books and now I faced a dilemma. I wanted him to win. But I still wanted Jane, Steve and Ben to win. I began to chant in my head that Barry would win the mystery/thriller category. It isn't as if I didn't want Laurel Krill, George Jarecke, or David Huebner to win, it is just that I hadn't had a chance to talk with them and hear about their books.

I leaned over toward Barry. "When they make the announcements, which category do they start with?"

"Last year they started with Mainstream."

"Good. We can get this over with fast," I mumbled.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Sandy McCormack said from a raised podium, "Welcome to the fifty-fourth Pacific Northwest Writer's Association's Writer's Conference."

Sandy began announcing the categories and the third, second and first place winners. Mainstream ended up being last. By the time she announced it, I was slumped in my chair, trying to remember the signs of stroke and wondering when the last outbreak of Legionaire's Disease occurred. I felt fuzzy and my palms sweated.

"Third place is...Laurel Krill." Although I hadn't really talked much to Laurel I was happy for her because she had a nice smile and she had a twin sister named Melanie. I clapped and clapped as she sailed up to get her ribbon and certificate.

"Second place is...Melanie Sherman." Oh, dear Lord, I said aloud. To myself I continued the prayer...please don't let me trip and fall. Don't let me knock someones coffee down their shirt. Don't let me pass out. I picked my way up to the front and someone stuck a piece of paper in my hand. My heart slammed and my mouth dried and my knees wobbled. I had written these symptoms before, in my book. But they were always describing my protagonist, Jessie, when she faced a broadside from an pirate ship, or held a flintlock to an enemy's chin, or waited to hear if she would be flogged. It was never for something good.

"And first place goes to Jane Lotter."

Laurel's sister, Melanie, took pictures and they herded all the first, second and third place winners into the elevators and across the red hot parking lot, up to the third floor of the hotel and into an executive suite. A reception with agents and editors followed. Only they weren't there yet. I swallowed and mopped my forehead, terrified. I tried a glass of wine. I talked with Shelly Shellabarger, who won third place in screen writing. Last year she had won first place in the romance category. Security came and told us there'd been a complaint...from the first floor. Please keep down the noise. Sure, ask thirty-six (or so) winners of a literary contest to be quiet. Finally the agents and editors arrived and I thought it would be perfectly fine to hide behind the curtains. Darcy Carson, bless her heart, dragged me out and launched me at some poor, unsuspecting agents.

Security came again...twice. On the third visit, they 86'd us. A day in infamy. My first experience with being escorted by several security guards out of a hotel room and down the stairs (they didn't trust us to use the elevator?). They led us to a small banquet room in the hotel and stood guard over it so we could not escape.

When I was finished blubbering to all the agents (which went about as well as the one the day before) I skulked up to the door and pointed down the hall. The guard turned to look and I scooted behind him and ran the three miles to my room, panting and spreading a palm over my heart.

I have to change my name so when I send in my submission to the agents, they will not recognize it.

Saturday at PNWA

I awoke and slit one eye open. My roommate, Cheryl, was already up and humming. I read my latest pitch to her. She smiled benevolently. Dear Lord.

Rewrite.

We scuttled the mile and a half to the convention center. During that time I decided Steve Jaquith, Jane Lotter and Ben Barrett should win first, second and third (in no particular order) Maybe that shows a certain amount of prejudice, but I liked them all so much and their book ideas that I wanted them to win.

To tell the truth, I never even wanted to be a finalist. I'm a writer, for crying out loud. It is a solitary pursuit. I'm not used to dealing with real people. I'm used to dealing with fake people in a pretend environment, in a totally different time zone--namely 1805. If one of my characters annoys me, I kill them off. The thought of having to interact with actual, live humans in real time, in an actual location terrified me. What if I forgot they were real and fired a cannon at them? What if I pointed my flintlock with one hand and sent my cutlass flying with the other?

Now I must admit that once I got to the conference, kicking and screaming, walking around with the black "finalist" ribbon waving under the name badge carried a certain thrill. It was...well, it seemed so unreal it compared favorably with my own beloved fictional people (the ones I haven't sent to Davy Jones). Total strangers approached and offered congratulations at the accomplishment. My face burns red as I write this, but...I liked it.

But first, second or third would require one-on-one interaction with agents and editors. That is carrying fun just a little too far.

More classes, more rewrites, more reading the pitch to more writers, more blank looks, more rewrites. It finally came time for my ten minutes with the agent. Walking down that long, empty hall, hearing my heels click on the uneven wooden floor and the echo of my heartbeats, clutching seventy-three yellow, damp versions of my pitch in sweaty palms, I faltered as I rounded the corner. A man in a black, hooded robe approached me, his sickle balanced on his shoulder. An unearthly, deep voice asked, "Are you here to for your last ten minutes?" I glanced at his face, hidden by the folds of the hood, and nodded. He stuck out a gnarled, skeletal hand and crooked his finger. I shuffled behind him into a dark room lit by hundreds of candles. The sulfuric odor of fire and brimstone overpowered the smell of death. I slouched into an empty chair and faced the flaming head of the agent. She bellowed out, "Why are you here?"

"I just want to go home," I squeaked out. Beside me, ten feet away, a dark curtain fluttered.

"Pay no attention to that curtain," the flaming face roared. "Tell me about your book!"

"It is about...um..." I glanced at my notes but couldn't find the latest version. "It is about a young woman who accidentally gets pressed into the Royal Navy in 1805."

"And?" reverberated into the chamber.

"And...ah...what she goes through."

Lord have mercy.

"And why are you bothering me with this," the head sizzled in the dark. I glanced under the curtain and saw a pair of expensive leather high heels. "Pay no attention to the woman behind the curtain!" the head exploded.

"Oh, sorry."

Oh, wait. Come to think of it the agent was very nice and patient. She did suggest I should rewrite the adventure story into a regency romance, but she was kind and professional with what could only be described as a cowardly lion presentation. "I do believe, I do believe, I do, I do, I do believe." When I exited, I'm positive it was in exactly the same manner the lion used after his first visit with the great and powerful OZ. I loped the two miles back to my room and hid behind the easy chair.

The awards banquet, only an hour away, had my breath spurting out in short gasps and little beads of sweat popped out on my upper lip.

PNWA Day two

I wrote a "pitch" I thought was very good. I found my new friend and peer, Ben and gave it to him. He grimaced.

I rewrote it. I went to the "Agents Dos and Don'ts" seminar. I rewrote it again. Lori Tinkey, another first-timer at the conference told me about her book and I asked if I could read my pitch to her.

"Sure," she gave me a wide, gracious smile, "go ahead."

After I read it, her smile dissolved into a blank look, before she got it under control and the smile reappeared. This time it looked a little strained.

I rewrote it. I went to the "Agents Forum". I rewrote it. Some poor unsuspecting writer sat at a table in the Writer's Cafe and I read it to her. Her eyes became glassy and she gulped in a breath. Her smile looked more like gritted teeth to me.

I rewrote it. I went to the "Editors Forum". I rewrote it. Two struggling writers sat on a bench. With my little yellow pad in hand, I plunked myself down and forced them to listen. One of them raised an eyebrow and mentioned she had an agent's appointment, leaping up and dashing down the corridor. The other stared vacantly at a nail hole.

I met Jane Lotter, another finalist in the Mainstream category. When she talked about her book, she could barely contain her mirth. It made me want to read it. When I talked about mine to her, I stammered and lost my train of thought.

More rewrite.

A tall man, not quite on the verge of dropping into middle age yet, gave me a slow smile and held out his hand. His short dark hair nearly matched the "finalist" ribbon. My hand slid into his and in a satiny smooth voice, he gave his name, Steve Jaquith, a peer in the mainstream category. We talked and his easy charm and sense of humor made me fall madly in like with him. Aaarr, matey, I'm having to love a shipmate with a pirate flag on his business card. His book sounded delightful and I will be the first in line to have my copy of his book signed when it is published.

His smile didn't falter when I gave him my pitch. But a cloud crossed those gorgeous eyes.

I rewrote it and attended more classes. During the breaks I'd pitch it to others. They'd stare and finally say, "Humm."

Rewrite.

The dinner on Friday night was so fun, and so interesting. Sandy McCormack told my about the historical fiction she is writing that sounds so fabulous I nearly drooled. I got her email address so I could ask her to let me know the minute she gets an offer on it.

Joseph Finder, the author of Red Carpet; the Connection between the Kremlin and America's Most Powerful Businessmen, exposing the connection between Armand Hammer, the CEO of Occidental Petroleum and the KGB, gave a great talk. Mr. Finder went on to write many thriller novels, some of which he has sold movie rights. While he gave his talk, I secretly outlined seven other versions of my pitch.

I tacked the mile to my room that night and boarded my bed with gusto.