About once every 48,980 miles, I go to Les Schwab to have my tires rotated. I haul in my kids, switch on the cartoons and start inhaling popcorn. Why not? It’s there and it’s free.

While there last week, I picked up a woman’s magazine and read a beauty article. I learned that some people willingly allow others to stick needles in their faces – even though it causes temporary facial paralysis. Other people put chemicals and acids on their faces to disintegrate several skin layers.

Still others volunteer to have layers of skin “vaporized” by a laser to rid themselves of wrinkles and other imperfections. Yes, there’s a procedure that can vaporize part of your cheek!

Why would a sane person do this? Such a simple reason: People claim it makes them look younger, fresher, sexier.

One of my favorite procedures involved Botox. Botox is otherwise known as botulism toxin. Doesn’t the name alone scare you? Botulism is a bad word.  Botox is injected into the muscles in your face with needles to puff out nasty wrinkles. This sounded about as relaxing as dermabrasion.

In “dermabrasion” a doctor uses a tool, often a wire brush, to remove unwanted skin layers. I didn’t know there were layers of skin I shouldn’t want. I’ve filed that away as  Useful fact. The article did warn that dermabrasion can be bloody and cause more scarring. But people are willing to pay $1,500 to $2,500 for a professional to bloody up their face.

“Microdermabrasion,” was yet another option. It also is called a “power peel.” I peel bananas. I peel onions on the rare nights that I cook. I cannot imagine wanting to peel my face.

Here’s how it goes: A doctor uses a tool, which the author compared to a sandblaster.  Take a moment to picture a sandblaster. There ya go. The sandblaster shoots teeny crystals right at your face at a rapid rate to removed the dead skin. Then, the dead skin is vacuumed away. People  pay about $350 to have their faces vacuumed. (Note: I have three kids to put through college. I will vacuum your face with the special hose attached to my vacuum cleaner for half the price).

The “chemical peel,” involving the above mentioned acids, costs $4000 to $5000. The author warns recovery can take weeks, and you might have crusting and scabbing. That’s not hard to imagine.

If someone is scarred from acne or accident or surgery, I could understand extreme measures. But it appears that outwardly normal people have these procedures to help them look younger.

People, we have taken our quest for youth to a new and insane level.

Before I am buried under a thousand letters from dermatologists who claim these are safe and useful procedures, please, I tell you, don’t bother.

Nothing can convince me that dumping acid on my face is safe. Nothing can convince me that injecting Botox through needles into my laugh lines is a good idea, making it so I can’t move my face like a normal person. Nothing can convince me that a procedure involving a laser that “vaporizes” layers of skin over my forehead is a smart thing to do.

They told us implants were safe, too. About 20% of those have to be taken out when they burst, harden, shift, break, or cause pain.

The tires are soon rotated. I grab the same number of kids that I walked in with who address me as “Mom,” and we go home.

Later that night I call my father and tell him about my experience. First, he must get over his shock that I took the car in to have the wheels rotated. I dare say, he is proud. Then we talk. My father is 66 years old and can run a seven and a half minute mile. Watching him run is like watching a puffing tank zoom down the road. Do not get in his way. He will not stop.

I tell him about these new procedures, and he makes a crack about masochists. Then we start talking about beauty and youth. He is wise, and he is kind and knows much more than me. I know this, I do. “Beauty,” he tells me quietly, “real beauty, is in the soul.”

I knew it.

One more reason to keep the dead skin on my face, right where it belongs.

 

This article was printed many moons ago in The Oregonian.

I hate shopping.

Here’s a list of things I’d rather do than shop.

1) Capture a porcupine with my teeth.

2) Build an igloo and live in it.

3) Perform kidney surgery on myself.

When I even think about shopping I feel somewhat faint.  Sickly – like, as if I’ve swallowed a sea urchin. Fortunately, I don’t need to shop much.

Why? Because I am a writer. Me and my graphic, cartwheeling, crayon-colored imagination do not need to look hot because I am alone. A lot. Plus I’ve been married a long time.

I have gangs of characters in my head who screech, cry, throw cherry pie, paint whimsical chairs, lie, fall in love, name concrete pigs, sneak peanut oil into condoms, sit naked on their decks, and declare that men are pricks.  I have entire families going back generations in my head and they never, ever shut up. Sometimes the characters leave their books without my permission and mix in with characters from other books and that is never good.

So I slop around in jeans and sweatshirts, write away, and try not to argue or talk out loud to my characters when others are near me. (It scares them).  During the last weeks before a deadline I’m often in pajamas until my kids troop home from school because I work ten to sixteen hours a day.  My pajamas ones with the reindeers are my favorite. Who needs fashion for this?

But recently I have been forced to admit that I have crossed the line from sloppy, liberal thinking writer-style into abject frumpiness. This happened because of back to back deadlines. It also happened because I have grown so darn fat nothing fits. My urge to get at least something decent was also stoked by a saleswoman’s snarky comment about “those things,” when referring to my jeans.

So for advice on what to buy, and to see what is currently in style, I bought a fashion magazine. I have not bought a fashion magazine since the moon was blue with gold stripes, in other words: I can’t remember.

Here’s what I saw in the magazine to help me shop.

Apparently, silver, shimmery dresses from Uranus wrapped in metal bars and ball bearings are all the rage. It’s Space Martian meets hardware store.  Also, it is fashionable to dress like a leprechaun. I know this because I see a model in green frills and ruffles holding live doves. I don’t know if a live dove would stay on my finger, but I could give it a try.

Dead animals attached to purses must also be cool because there is a dead animal attached to this girl’s purse. I am from Oregon and we like wearing dead animals about as much as we like shoving umbrellas down our throats while warbling, so I will have to pass on that.

I am startled by two models wearing short dresses barely covering their privates made from leather in geometric shapes in red, black, and orange. Their expressions say, “I think we’re being chased by stampeding rhinos. We should run!”

One model is wearing a swirly painting. She is standing on her head. It is unlikely I would ever wear a painting and I will never promenade around on my head so I feel a wee depressed.  Another outfit has a kaleidoscope of colors that makes me wonder if the designer was on drugs when he made the dress. It appears there is a robot, a goose head, a sad dog, and an old lady with a Cyclops eye on the material. Why would a Cyclops eye be fashionable? I am now depressed and baffled.

Finally I come to a model who is wearing a tie dyed skirt and part of a Scottish kilt on the top. Her cleavage is out and she has black tattoos up and down her legs that look like American Indian totem poles. She is carrying bamboo and is so thin I know she is thinking of eating the bamboo.

In fact, all the models are about the size of cotton swabs with heads, their legs longer than my ladder. Honestly, they look ravenously hungry and could do with more hearty soups and chocolate in their lives. I am hungry looking at them.

After studying the fashion magazine, I am exhausted. If I were a drinker, I would drink. I would swim in kahlua, in fact, spurting it like whales do from my mouth.

I decide not to go shopping. Too confusing. Too expensive. I don’t know where to get a live dove. I don’t know where to find a wearable painting or a robot. I can’t walk on my head.

I wonder: What is wrong with my reindeer pajamas anyhow?

Nothing, I tell myself, with quiet pride. Nothin’.

Besides I have another deadline and have no time to shop.

It was the pancakes.

That’s how I came up with the idea for my book, The Last Time I Was Me.

Pancakes, hot maple syrup, and two gray haired women reading books.

I was sitting with my kids at an old fashioned pancake restaurant in my hometown. It was just us and the two women, both who were sitting alone, books in hand. They looked to be about seventy and I started thinking about them.

What were their names? Why were they alone? Did they like eating pancakes by themselves? Were they married and happy, married and miserable, divorced? What had happened in the first seventy or so years in their lives? What hopes did they have? What grief had they endured? Did life turn out as they had planned?

And, most importantly, at least for my purposes: What secrets did they harbor? Did they haunt them, or did the women dive back into their scintillating secrets periodically and enjoy every moment, delighting in the memories of forbidden love or crazy antics?

Aha!

I then had a vision of pancakes, a pancake restaurant, and women who have – ta da – secrets. As I later drove down a tree lined street in Welches, Oregon, near Mt. Hood, and saw several charming white houses, one with a blue roof along a river, the plot unfolded for The Last Time I Was Me in full, brilliant Technicolor, including Jeanne Stewart’s naked run along that river, a bar fight, and anger management counseling that has her flying like a bird and painting her body.

Need ideas for your books or characters?

Look around. Listen. Be quiet, be in the spot you’re in, and just be.

Be. That’s all you need to do.

How did I get my idea for Julia’s Chocolates? I had an image… an instant, crystal clear image of a white, fluffy wedding dress being tossed into a dead looking tree on a dusty, deserted street. That dress fluffed up into the air, and back down, up and fluff, and down again. Finally it caught on a dried finger -hook of a branch. The question that launched that book: Why is she throwing her wedding dress into a beat up looking tree?

I had my Julia. Then I gave her quirky, scared, passionate friends and an Aunt Lydia who had a pink house, a rainbow – painted bridge on her front lawn, and five foot tall ceramic pigs that were named after men who had ticked her off.  I asked myself how I could get all those ladies together in an original way. So I invented Breast Power Psychic Night and Your Hormones and You: Taking Over, Taking Cover, Taking Charge Psychic Night. Getting To Know Your Vagina Psychic Night followed.

For my book, Such A Pretty Face, I knew already that I had a girl with a troubled mother. When I watched Storm Large’s brilliant play in Portland, she talked about her mother and their troubled relationship. In the midst of one of Storm’s rockin’ out songs, drums pounding, guitars banging,  I had an epiphany: My character’s mother has schizophrenia. Boom. In the midst of the hard rock, the funny lyrics, and the darkness of the theatre, I had my story line.

The idea for Isabelle, in Henry’s Sisters, was based on a mood. My father had just died of prostate cancer and I was grieving. I was in a terrible mood. I gave my terrible mood to my character, Isabelle. At the same time, a conversation came up with me and a few girlfriends in my church about promiscuity, and how one of my girlfriends had such a hard time putting her past behind her, forgiving herself, and moving on. So, Isabelle formed into a character with a lot of bottled up anger, grief, and loss with promiscuity in her background. The question that launched the story: Why was she promiscuous?

I wrote from there. I gave her two sisters and a brother. I am from a family of three sisters and a brother, so I had a familiar family formation. But Henry, unlike my brother, is specially – abled. I decided to write a story about the beautiful impact Henry had on his whole family , inspired by the brother of a friend who was also specially abled. That brother had recently died and listening to my friend tell me about the love and kindness her brother brought to so many people was just tear jerking. I was also touched by a photograph of a specially abled young man with his father in a poster for Goodwill. I stared at that photograph for so long, amazed at the joy and peace on that young man’s face. So I had my Henry.

For ideas for your books, look around. Listen. Be open. Talk to others. Listen more. Take drives and listen to music you usually don’t listen to. Go on day trips to the beach, hike, head downtown, go to shows, plays, the symphony.  Accept and embrace people’s differences, their walks with life, what hardships they’re going through, what triumphs they’ve had. Stroll along a river and daydream, drive to a town you’ve never been in before and where no one knows you. Be anonymous. It’s a safe place.     Notice people. Watch people, not in a stalky way, of course, but watch them. Watch movies, study your ancestral history for cool family members, call an older relative and ask about her life. Always read newspaper articles about elderly people for the wisdom and guidance they can offer. Paint, draw, create. And read. Book after book after book, read.

Wishing you a rush of ideas for stories that will make your readers laugh and cry…

For years I was a freelance writer for The Oregonian. I wrote about homes, home décor, people, events, and fashion. When I started freelancing I had three kids under the age of five. I was buried in diapers, the housework was crushing, and I rarely slept like a normal human. I tried to remember to brush my hair. My most glorious of days occurred when I realized I did not have spit up on my shirt. My three little sweethearts were dear and wonderful, and oh, how I loved them and their sweet smiles, but the Role Of Mommy was all encompassing. I felt myself, I felt Cathy, slipping away, down a rocky cliff, no life raft or calm and serene, pineapple – filled deserted island in sight.

Until I started working as a freelance writer.

Freelance writing gave me something else to think about. It gave me an identity. It gave me something to do that I loved doing – write. I had a new, part – time job, complete with interviewing and photo shoots, and it did not involve seeing how lickety-split fast I could change two diapers in a public restroom.

I loved going into people’s homes and writing about them and their remodeled, glittery kitchens, their tiny pink house with a red and yellow Scandinavian bed, or how they decorated their kids’ bedrooms with jungle animals. I loved meeting all of them and learning how others were living their lives. The fashion article assignments never ceased to amuse me because I do so hate shopping and have zero fashion sense, but it was fun. Yep, fashion was fun. Anyhow, I digress.

During my freelancing years I also wrote an article for a local hospital on patients who had had bariatric surgery. They would usually lose a hundred pounds in a year and more after that. They were whole new people. I talked to many of them and was truly touched by their stories and fascinated by what their doctors had to say about the new lives these people were leading. However, not all parts of these new lives were happy.

That always stuck with me. We so often want change, but change doesn’t mean all will be well and dandy. It certainly doesn’t mean all problems poof into thin air like magic dust. In fact, a lot of these now thin people had a whole new set of problems, including some seismic shifts in their relationships with others.

Anyhow, the character in my book, SUCH A PRETTY FACE, Stevie Barrett, has bariatric surgery, then a second surgery to lift and tuck and remove excess skin. She loses 170 pounds and starts her life over. But all is not perfect. It is not dandy.

As a writer I had to figure out why Stevie let herself get to 320 pounds in the first place. What’s behind that? Who is she now? Who was she then? Why? How is she changing?

I gave her a past…and then I gave her a future.

In between, well, that’s the story. SUCH A PRETTY FACE is about an old, white schoolhouse that was remodeled into a home. It’s about a farm, a field of corn, a vision named Punk, a damp cave, a schizophrenic mother, a bridge on a frothing night, planting a vegetable garden, blood, fantastical wood chairs, roller derby, grief, falling in love, a green house with a white picket fence, dead people in cans, a hope chest, daring to dare, finding home, blow up dolls, Trash Heap, a dark and terrible room at the end of a dark and terrible hall, an ice sculpture of a mermaid, and Amazing Grace.

I hope you like it.

 

Printed first in Fresh Fiction. http://freshfiction.com/page.php?id=2747

 

  THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF MY LIFE started with a slightly scratched and dented eighty year old violin. Our daughter has played the violin for years and we decided to buy her one, instead of continuing to rent. Standing in a dusty, old music shop downtown, with a quirky owner who had been in that same exact place for decades, who possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of all violins for the last three hundred years, I was struck.

Struck with a new story idea that centered on unanswered questions about that violin.

Who had owned that sweet sounding instrument before my daughter? Had they cried over it? Had they lived long and well? Had their dreams come true, or had their dreams remained just that – dreams? Had they lived lives filled with hardship or lives filled with love and laughter or both? Who built the violin? What countries had it been played in? What languages did the owners speak? How had it become scratched and dented? How had it landed in that dusty shop?

Over the next few weeks, while I was, to the point of annoying obsessiveness, thinking about that violin, I also had a stream of images flowing in and out of my overloaded brain. These are the images:

A  lavender farm in Oregon I’d visited.

A bustling beauty parlor on Cape Cod.

The color pink.

Gunshots.

The secrets families hide for generations when they flee other countries.

Running from your past.

Sisterhood.

Love.

A yellow ribbon.

Explosives.

I wanted to throw all those images, along with the scratched violin, into a  story. I started scribbling in my journal and drafting characters, settings, plotlines, etc. but I was suck on my main character, Madeline O’Shea.

Who was she?

That was when my editor, John Scognamiglio, rescued me from my own mental torture and gave me a life coach.

As in, how about if Madeline is a life coach?

Ah ha! The fog cleared. The mess in my head settled out. I was off and running or, more accurately, off and writing.  Madeline became a life coach who didn’t have a clue how to run much of her own life, yet she was advising others on how to run theirs.

I tossed into that literary cauldron a reporter who was going to expose a tragedy in Madeline’s childhood, a mother who wears high pink heels and a shooting in a courtroom.

I folded in a wee bit of blackmail,  a fiery magazine column, a wild appearance on a morning talk show, a sister who likes her explosives, an Irish fisherman father, a tortured grandfather, and a Grandma with dementia who drew a finger down the dents and scratches of the violin and started revealing a long-hidden history.

And, for humor, I sprinkled in a few of Madeline’s clients, one of whom wears a tail, another who hurdles chairs, a lady named Mae who sexually blackmails her husband when she needs things done around the house,  three sisters who dress like cats, and a client named Aurora King who throws fairy dust.

With THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF MY LIFE, as with all my books, my characters lived in my head until the story was done.  This is like co – habiting with a strange, troubled, funny, very noisy family that is out of control, and only exists to you.  It becomes a problem when I get into arguments with my characters and they win the argument.

As for my violin playing daughter? When I see her playing that slightly dented and scratched violin, with all the mysterious history behind the strings,  I still smile. Inspiration for writing can come from anywhere, but when it comes from your child, your dear and well loved daughter, there’s a special sparkle to it.

I hope you enjoy Madeline, and the story of her violin in THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF MY LIFE.

 

 

Below is an interview I did with EZ Read about being a writer.  http://global.ezread.com/meet.asp?id=56

 

From your website’s biography, you have obviously always loved writing. But, what made you finally decide to write books? What was the actually turning point for you?

I decided to become a writer when I was about sixteen and went to work for Beaverton High School’s newspaper, The Hummer, as a reporter. It was the most thrilling thing to ever happen to me outside of learning how to skate board really fast and crashing my ten – speed bike into the garage door because for some inexplicable reason I couldn’t find the brakes.

I was hooked on writing and decided that HAD to be my career, in one form or another.  My journalism teacher and I are still friends and we laugh about how much she had to use her red pencil on all of my articles. Honestly, it looked like she bled on them when she was done, but she was one of the key people who taught me how to write.

In addition, my late mother always encouraged me to write, from the time I was three. She was an English teacher, she loved reading and writing, and I clearly inherited her genes and her addiction to the written word,  which translated into my novel writing.

 

Was it difficult to transition into a full-time writer?

 

Not difficult at all! I loved it. I skipped into writing full time with a jig and a happy wiggle and a few hoots.

Writing full time is what I dreamed of doing for years.  I plowed through many, many rejection letters, a bunch of tears, feelings of hopelessness because I was often sure I would never become a real writer, and wrote millions of words to get to the point now where it’s my full time job. I considered myself a  full time writer after I sold Julia’s Chocolates in 2005.

To get to the “full time” part, I was very busy, didn’t sleep much, and was very focused on that one goal. I was a freelance writer for The Oregonian for years while my three kids were young, which I absolutely loved doing, while I also worked on my novel writing late, late, late into the night. A couple of times over the years I had to go back to school and renew my teaching certificate in case I never made it as a writer and had to go back to teaching. (A VERY real possibility).  But every night now, no kidding, and every day when I wake up, I am so grateful that I’m able to do this.

 

How would you classify your seemingly versatile style of writing?

I call my writing women’s fiction, even though I do get letters from men, too.

I like laughter. I believe that tears are a part of life. I combine the two. Maybe that’s the versatile part.

 

You have been a part of several compilation books of short stories with other authors. What is it about these books that interests you?

I love writing my short stories. (See list below)  They’re about 35,000 words.  My novels are between 135,000 – 155,000 words. The  novels are  monsters, but the short stories are just that…short. And they’re a lighter tone. They must end happy.  I try to develop my characters and add supporting characters that are relatable, interesting, funny, and add a new dimension, or depth, to the story. I keep it light, but I want there to be meaning, too, something that women can read and hold onto.

You have to use the delete button a lot when working on these short stories because the word count is very tight. So you get a tight story, where every word is maximized, the scenes flow, and the story line is quick and gripping, in a good way.  And, let’s face it. I do like happy endings, and I do like the romance part of those books.

 

What other hobbies do you like to do, when you’re not writing?

My primary hobby is my family. We are not a perfect,  Brady Bunch sort of family, too noisy and rowdy for that, but we sure do have a lot of fun together.  I love reading, walking, I do not love going to the gym or running, but I do it anyhow. I do not like to cook or clean because it is boring.  I love going to lunch with friends, to the beach, to the mountains, and to bookstores. I am in love with Broadway shows, smaller plays, and the symphony. I love going to Starbucks and I am really good at going on vacation and sitting on a deck reading books. I daydream a lot.

 

Is there anyone you like to discuss your stories with, besides your editor or publisher?

 I discuss my stories with my editor and with my agent. They have been immensely helpful with my books. My deadlines are really close, so I lean on them for advice and help and direction so I can be off and writing. I also run ideas by my daughters.  That’s about it. Too many voices and you have a mess in your head. I do not need a mess in my head.

Once I start writing the story, and I get it, so to speak, I dive straight in, no life jacket.  I draft out the whole story, no corrections as I go, few deletions, and I just write. I let the words and the story and the characters flow naturally, even though that takes me off on tangents that I hadn’t planned. I listen to the characters in my head and watch what they’re doing and write it down.  I edit all my books at least eight times before I send it off to my agent and editor, then I edit more.

Makes me tired even thinking about it.

 

Which of your books has been the most fun to write, so far?

 

Honestly, they’re all fun. Julia’s Chocolates gave me the most laughs, however, because it published first and I was just so thrilled. I don’t think I’ve quit smiling since then.

Well, okay. Breast Power Psychic Night, and Your Hormones and You: Taking Cover, Taking Charge Psychic Night, in Julia’s Chocolates also made me laugh.

 

Does your previous work in education influence any of your writing?

I think that my work as a fourth grade teacher gave me a unique perception of kids and the very real troubles and hardships that they go through. Some of my students had very, very sad problems in their lives. That experience made me even more sympathetic to young people. That said, I also met some quirky, funny, creative, kids who were definitely on their own unique walk and I use that knowledge to form “compilation kids” in my work.  And, I throw parts of my own kids in my books, too. 

 

What has been your greatest accomplishment in your writing career, so far?

My greatest accomplishment?

I hope it is still to come.

 

Is there anything else you would like to share with your fans?

Thank you so much for reading my books!  If you have a book club, invite me! We can Skype or you can put me on speaker phone. Email me if you’d like to chat! I eventually look up from my stories, from the cacophony in my head, from the strange characters saying odd things,  and answer all emails.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wrote this article for Lori’s Reading Corner.  http://www.lorisreadingcorner.com/

 

Each year my husband and I have a Marital Moment on Halloween night.

Some people’s Marital Moments might involve a negligee, wine, and candles.

Well, none of my negligees fit anymore. I tried to struggle into one of them the other evening and I thought my breathing was going to be cut off. It felt like I was wrapped in a purple python’s grip. Not helpful. So, no negligees.

As for the wine? I very rarely drink.  Alcohol makes me cry, and I don’t need more of that in my life. So, no wine.

Candles I like. So my husband and I set some out.

We climb the stairs to our upstairs bedroom, chuckling as long married couples do, open the door to the attic and …. Pull out our Ghoul Masks!!

Our Ghoul Masks are white with eye holes, surrounded by black. They are crazy scary. I scare myself when I look in the mirror.

We make ghouly sounds to each other, dance around a bit, and embrace our annual Halloween Marital Moment.

Mr. Ghoul and I head out into the cool, star speckled night and sit, oh so quietly, oh so still, in two chairs, on our driveway, and await the Trick or Treaters. Beside us, our house is decorated and spooky.  Our orange pumpkin in the window flashes on and off, the white, wispy cobwebs cover our bushes, and two  plastic skeletons, one without an arm, dangle from our porch.

Halloween is a sweet holiday in many ways. It’s not like Christmas, which takes weeks to plan, buy gifts, decorate, and gain yet another ten pounds from fudge and frosting.

It’s not like Thanksgiving where a turkey must be basted, salads set out, pies bought, stuffing crammed into the bird, a house scrubbed for relatives and friends, and a relatively clean outfit found that does not have stains on it from browning onions.

No, Halloween is easy: Grab a costume, hopefully out of the box in the attic. Invite friends over and have a chili contest. Buy bread, cheese and sour cream. Buy a bag of candy. Send the kids out trick or treating.

And put on your Ghoul Mask.

When the Trick or Treaters arrive we sit real still until the kids are about five feet away, then we BOO them. They think we might be Halloween decorations up until that moment. We NEVER scare the little kids, but the older kids, they are fair game as we bring a little trick into their Halloween.

Each year there’s one kid that says, “I’m not scared of you two. I’ve been here for five (four, three, two) years and I know what you’re going to do.”

We sit, so quiet, not moving, he gets closer and closer and, “BOO!”

He still jumps. Every single year.

We also have a number of visitors, parents and children, from Japan and India who are participating in the trick or treating, which I think is just wonderful.

They bring their cameras and I flash the peace sign. My husband slings an arm around my shoulder as the whole family surrounds the ghouls, smiling, giggling. I’m up nights wondering how many photograph books Mr. Ghoul  and I are in all over the world.

Between Trick or Treaters, I eat the Butterfingers, my husband eats the M and M’s and we talk about serious stuff like: Why do we eat this junk? And, I wish it would stop raining. And, Where are our own children? And, You look sooo hot in your ghoul mask, give me a kiss baby.

The sky is dark, the kids are laughing as they run by. Tonight they are robots, Darth Vaders, angels, firemen, gypsies, and super heroes. They will go home and stuff themselves with candy.

Halloween is a heckuva fun American holiday.

And as for my husband and I?

It’s an excellent Marital Moment.

Happy Halloween to one and all! May your tricks be funny and your treats be yummy.

I wrote this article for Lori’s Blog Corner…obviously for Halloween. See below for a little bit about my Nana, Mary Kathleen. http://lorisreadingcorner.blogspot.com/

 

 

When I was a little girl my Nana turned me into Little Bo Peep.

I don’t know why someone like myself, who ran around in ragged shorts and sandals, climbed trees, rolled on the grass, studied spiders, hid in bushes during Hide and Seek, and roller skated everywhere wanted, all of the sudden, to be a sweet and gentle Little Bo Peep for Halloween, but I did.

My Nana, Mary Kathleen, could sew anything.  The sewing machine and she were one and magic came out the other side.  I still remember a padded golden sewing kit and playing with a jar full of unique buttons.  From yards of white silky material and pink satin sprang the most beautiful dress and bonnet for me. I was a homely kid, and I knew it, but for once, in that soft white and pink material,  I felt pretty.  I was Little Bo Peep Cathy, complete with a wood staff.

It’s interesting what you remember about your grandparents, and what you wish you had asked them before they died. My elegant Nana died when I was in my mid – teens, long after Bo Beep, but before I was mature enough to realize that I should be sittin’ my ole’ bottom down in a chair with Nana and asking a bunch of questions.

I knew a little about my Nana, and much of it was heart breaking. Her mother died when she was four, a few weeks after giving birth to my Nana’s brother. She died of “blood poisoning,” their term then, which we would treat here immediately and the mother would go on home and put her feet up. After her mother’s death, Mary Kathleen’s father took off into the wild blue yonder. I do not believe that he ever returned from the yonder.

Mary Kathleen and her baby brother were then tossed around from family to family and, I heard, through my own mother, that my Nana never felt that anyone really  wanted her. She felt she was a burden. It was rumored that the son of a judge in her town in Decatur, Texas, wanted to marry her and would pay for her to go to college if she did, but that marriage was not to be. She politely declined,  a southern lady through and through.

Tall and willowy, she fell in love with my Grandpa, Thomas Cecil, a tough man from a tough background who loved her from the start.  Thomas Cecil was the son of an Arkansas farmer who, with three wives, all of whom died before him, had eleven kids. His, hers, and theirs. Thomas Cecil’s mother died when he was about four years old, also. His family had a farm and all the kids worked it, long hours, every day. You worked, or you didn’t eat. Pretty simple.

As he told me later, with some bitterness, “You don’t want a farm, Cathy, honey, it’s hard, hard work.”

Thomas Cecil and his brothers moved from Arkansas to California for a better life and built houses all over  Los Angeles.  He knew what being poor looked like, and he did not like it. He knew his way out was through endless hard work, long hours, long days, maybe a fight or two. He would swear up one side and down the other at other men in the rough and tumble construction business, but never at my Nana and never at my mother.

He went through booms and he went through busts, a pile of money, and no money. My guess is that his houses are still standing as the man believed in quality and craftsmanship.

Mary Kathleen and Thomas Cecil had a long marriage. Both lived into their seventies, though they each started smoking in their teens. It was stylish, it was cool. They didn’t know then what we know now.

They had my mother, who they adored, and she had four kids, one of whom was Little Bo Peep on Halloween because her wonderful Nana, who had survived painful hardship and loss, took the time to lovingly, carefully, make her the perfect Halloween outfit, a treat she has never forgotten.

Hello.

I’m a writer.

This means I am just about half sane most days. I wander through my mind often, skip and hop, and play. I have an odd imagination and tell stories to myself.  I hear voices in my head when I am writing my books.

I think I’ll blog once a week. Maybe. Or twice. Or when the moon looks orangish or when I see a cool humminbird and I watch it for awhile. I think I’ll also add excerpts from my books, or rants or musings from my characters, interviews of other people, funny pieces, and photos that are pretty or interesting. At least to me.

I truly hope you enjoy it.

I need chocolate.

I like images.

When they pop into my head, I sit and enjoy them for awhile, wondering why they’re there, what I can learn, and how they’re going to change my thinking for that moment.

Sometimes the image is a mermaid or a white butterfly.

Sometimes it’s a white wedding dress in a tree, a five foot tall pig, a lady having a nervous breakdown, a condom smeared with peanut oil, sisters, a one night stand, wind, a Queen Anne house, an old white schoolhouse remodeled into a home, schizophrenia, a garden, a cross, or a pink beauty parlor.

I see images. I see pictures. The pictures form stories. And the stories form my books.

For my latest book THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF MY LIFE, the image that started the book was a violin. We were buying my daughter a violin after years of renting. In a dusty, old shop downtown, with a man who I am sure has worked there for two hundred years, we found the perfect violin for my daughter. She loved the sound, she loved the feel. It was eighty years old, scratched and dented.

I held that violin in my hands and had images of people…people from all over the world, all ages, all colors. I thought, “Who owned this violin? Where was it played? Did it cross the ocean? Who built it?” And, most importantly, “What were the lives like of the people who owned the violin? Did they love the violin, or did they love scotch? Did they love the sound of the violin more than they loved the sound of their grandchildren playing? Did they laugh and smile while playing their songs or were they very serious, valuing each note? Did they play with friends? Were those friendships still strong, or did they break along the way?  Why did they break? Did they cry over the violin as they played  for a lost wife, a lost love, a lost son?  What hardships had life thrown their way? What kindnesses had they received? Did they like sunsets or sunrises better?

Who were they?

Other images came for THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF MY LIFE. Images of a pink beauty parlor and a mother who wore a yellow ribbon for hope.  A sailboat. An Irishman. A lavender farm. Terror, tears. Love. Israel. World War II. My own parents’ gravestone with this Irish saying, “My the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, and the rain fall softly upon your fields. And until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of his hand.”

And that violin….the image of the violin danced over the whole story.  So, I dropped the image of the violin and all the other images together, mixed them around, pulled out the characters, shifted the settings, combined the tears and the joy, and worked through my story.

I like images.