Jan 4, 2008
I’ve always been a sucker for reading life lists and resolutions. I’ve learned not to make resolutions since I never keep them, but I do like lists. There’s such satisfaction as you cross items off, not to mention that things need to be in writing so I can remember what the hell I’m supposed to be doing. So how could I resist Geoff Norman’s article on MSN entitled Things to Do Before You Die?
Mr. Norman had a near-death experience. Going in for routine surgery, he had a cardiac arrest, which naturally made him contemplative about how much time he had left on Earth. His example of an original Things to Do Before You Die list looks a little like something you want someone to find it in your pocket in the morgue and be very impressed. All very manly things, too.
1. Climb the Matterhorn
2. Read Proust
3. Have a suit made on Savile Row
4. Drink a Bellini at Harry’s Bar
5. Shoot grouse in Scotland on the Glorious Twelfth
6. See a living great white shark
Mr. Norman then states, with considerable humor: Some items on the list are there just to make you feel good about yourself. After a certain age, the arithmetical truth is that you’ve had more than enough time to read Proust. You could have easily knocked off Remembrance of Things Past in the time you’ve spent watching football on television. Could have learned French and read it in its original language. So it isn’t about time. That item is on the list so you can think of yourself as sensitive and literary. You have, in short, been bullshitting yourself.
Of course, when you aren’t doing it to yourself, there is always someone around to do it for you. I have actually gone to Harry’s Bar in Venice and ordered a Bellini. This is one of those rituals like running with the bulls that has been sanctioned by Hemingway. There are sublime drinking moments in life, and Hemingway rendered them better than anyone. But maybe he ruined this one for the rest of us. When I was there, Harry’s Bar was full of loud, international expense-account warriors, and the drink was revolting. Sweet and tasting of, for God’s sake, peaches.I have fonder memories of a single can of cold beer after working all day with a shovel or a chain saw.
I like the taste of peaches, but maybe Harry’s is out. I’d still like to see Venice someday. And my husband always talks about running with the bulls in Pamploma, although I think he’d be much safer on a balcony with a glass of red wine, watching.
As he was recovering, Mr. Norman was still thinking about lists, and called his brother about something he remembered Satchel Paige saying. Paige was a great pitcher who never got the chance to show the wider world his arm until he was 42. As an African American, he was unwelcome in major league baseball until Jackie Robinson finally broke the color barrier.
Mr Norman writes: Paige, however, was not bitter. Life, he evidently believed, was for living and too short for that other stuff. And when he was striking out major-league ballplayers half his age, a reporter asked him how he stayed so young. Paige replied with the following six rules:
1. Avoid fried meats, which angry up the blood.
2. If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts.
3. Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move.
4. Go very light on the vices, such as carrying on in society. The social ramble ain’t restful.
5. Avoid running at all times.
6. And don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.
Now there’s a list both Mr. Norman and I can get behind.
What’s one thing you’d put on your TTDBYD list ? I’m keeping visiting Venice, but if I never get there in the present century, I can always time-travel and watch the divine movie Dangerous Beauty. Rufus Sewall may have a wretched name, but the rest of him will do quite nicely. Reading Amanda McCabe’s lush, plush A Notorious Woman is not a bad way to spend a few hours, either. Loretta Chase is working on a Venice-set historical too, Your Scandalous Ways—can’t wait!
Here’s to a great 2008. May the things you’ve dreamed of get crossed off your list.
Attenzione! I’ll still be posting here at least once a week, but I make my debut as a Romantic Inks blogger on Sunday, January 6. Come visit every Sunday! It will be almost as good as going to church. 😉
Jan 1, 2008
What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. ~T.S. Eliot,
Little Gidding
I had another post planned altogether —a kind of pro-list, anti-resolution thing, which will go up a bit later in the week. But I want to share my elation with you that I finished the first draft of my Regency Noir manuscript, Paradise (Thanks Anna Campbell and Stephanie Laurens for the new genre name).
Elation is probably too strong a word. I used to feel it and think I was actually finished when I wrote The End. I completed two books that way, both of which were written before I knew a thing about GMC ( I’m not talking trucks), backstory or POV. It’s only been this past year where craft has come to my attention. Something must have sunk in, because it wasn’t too painful to revise Third-Rate Romance. I knew when I finished it in the spring that I would be revising in the summer. Okay, early fall, just in time for the full manuscript request. I am cautiously optimistic that those books- under- the- bed can also be fixed with a little torture and time. One of them just finaled in a contest (the first 10 pages are great, LOL!). I specialize in “starting and stopping” (for proof, just see the blog Begin As You Mean To Go On to the right). The books-under-the-bed may be flawed but at least they’re finished.
I’ll tell you what I really hate, though: query letters and synopses. No matter how many helpful articles I read, I just want to poke my eye out with a quill pen. Paradise (the book) will be hard to describe. If I ever get to Paradise (the Milton kind), I’ll try to send a message back to you.
So, I’m going to let Paradise percolate a while before I slice it and dice it. Maybe work on the several things that have been put on the back burner. Why I have these kitchen references, I don’t know, since I’m pretty much sick of cooking. But I’m not sick of writing.
Thanks to all of you who joined in the crazy fun celebrating the first anniversary of MRMR. You may alarm, but you never disappoint. Where else can I find people to talk to about angels’ nipples, lizard kisses and cheesy motels? Congratulations, Santa ! You are the hopefully hangover-free winner! E-mail maggierobinson8@yahoo.com with your address.
Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right. ~Oprah Winfrey
Dec 26, 2007
I am a (somewhat) mature woman, and I have never had a martini, dirty or clean. Hard to believe. This is not to say I’ve never indulged in other liquid libation, but no martinis, appletinis, whatevertinis. I’ve never played a drinking game, either.
College kids today (and probably middle-schoolers for all I know) play “Have you ever…?”
Here are the rules, from Barmeister.com:
A group of people sit around in circle with a shot glass in front of them. The bottle of drink sits in the middle of the group. The players elect someone to go first. They must think of a question for the other players to answer. They question could be, “Have you ever gotten arrested?” All the players that have been must take a shot of the drink.
Each player takes a turn in asking questions. It’s played until someone is rather drunk. Each question must start with “have you ever”. If the person doesn’t start the question with that then they must drink.
I thought we’d play a virtual round of this, in the wild, week-long celebration of Maggie Robinson Means Romance’s first anniversary. Yes, on December 31, 2006, I ventured very tepidly into the Blogosphere. In my first of 88 posts, I pledged to finish my WIP, which I did (and several other projects besides) and said something or other about Oscar Wilde.
It turned out to be a pretty good writing year. The Vanettes (an offshoot of the Romance Vagabonds) have provided terrific online support and friendship. I joined RWA and got my PRO pin. Third-Rate Romance was requested in full and is languishing on an editor’s desk in New York. I finaled in the Southern Heat contest with Waking Beauty. I got this fabulous rejection letter from Samhain’s Angela James: “I wanted to tell you that I think you have a wonderful author voice and that I see great potential for it… I think your voice is strong enough that you will have no trouble eventually finding publication, even if not with this book, and I hope you will consider Samhain for future submissions.” From her fingertips to God’s ear. So Happy Anniversary to me and Happy New Year to you! More of the same!
On to the fun and games. The first poster can answer the question below, then post their own. Second poster answers that, then asks, etc. You don’t have to answer truthfully—we’ll never know if you’re lying. *g* Ask as many questions as you like. We’ll do this until New Year’s Day, when a randomly selected player wins a new copy of one of my favorite books of 2007, The Rules of Gentility by Janet Mullany and other good stuff!
What does a drinking game have to do with romance, you ask? Well, I have my heroes swilling brandy by the barrel, a very acceptable way to show male torment in romance novels. But drunk guys are so not hot. Drinking should probably be poured into the romance glass with a light hand, and now I’m off to think of another way to torture my men. Any suggestions?
Off the soapbox and into the Boxster. Have you ever made love in a car? (I’m drinking my virtual martini now.)
Dec 19, 2007
Ring Out, Wild Bells
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be. ~Tennyson
What’s your Christmas wish? Whatever it is, my wish for you is that it comes true this holiday season. Go bake and eat some cookies, trim the tree, kiss the kids. Come back on December 26th for MRMR’s week-long anniversary party celebration and contest!
Dec 15, 2007
The advertising agency JWT recently released the results of a poll taken by 1,011 adults. The results may not surprise you. 15 % said they would feel uncomfortable going without Internet access for a day; 21% said they might make it a couple of days; 19% said “a few days” was okay. Just a fifth said they could hang on for a week. I myself have been forced offline for long stretches. I lived to tell the tale, but it was not pretty. I need my daily fix of favorite blogs and bulletin boards just like my vitamin pill. What would I do without YOU, gentle readers?
The survey also found that 20 percent of the respondents said they spend less time having sex because they are online. I’m not going to touch that finding.
Generally, people are communicating electronically more often than face-to-face. E-mail has replaced paper notices and eliminated endless meetings in school systems and offices. Sociologists are probably rubbing their hands in woe, but the fact is your known world can be boring and inefficient. An e-pal may seem like more fun than an old friend. In Third-Rate Romance, the heroine Kelly’s husband Bob runs off with a blackjack dealer he “meets” on the Internet. Poor Kelly can’t even shuffle cards, and Bob knows all her tricks anyway.
If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. Novels, movies and TV were once criticized for dooming relationships; now it’s online entertainment. Who knows what other addiction we’ll come up with to avoid reality in the future?
Do you, like me, spend too much time online? Are you totally wired? Blackberried? I-phoned? Do you think you could go back to the Stone Age of drop-in visits, phone calls, newspapers and letter-writing? Text all.
