Dec 13, 2008
I hate the phone. For somebody who considers herself a communicator, who talks to the public all day long, who actually worked for New York Telephone for a year, I am surprisingly shy. When I come home, I don’t answer the phone. I’ve turned into my grandmother, who grew up without a phone, and always viewed the instrument with considerable suspicion. Convinced that someone had died or wanted to sell her something, she wouldn’t answer it, and this was in the day before voice-mail. Who knows what opportunities Granny missed?
We just got new phones for the house, as the Caller I.D. conked out on the old ones, like an Etch-a-Sketch that had lost its magnetization. Numbers were unrecognizable and when I missed a call from my son in Florida, I knew it was time to head to Wal*Mart. I do talk to my kids—quite happily and frequently—but for most of the rest of the world, I’m incommunicado. Shoot me an e-mail. Send me a letter. Knock on my door if you have to. Just don’t call me up and expect me to chat. I may get The Call and never know it, LOL. And don’t even ask about my cell phone, which is never charged.
I’m a changed woman from my high school and college days, when I’d talk for three or four hours at a stretch. About everything. About nothing. I still love my friends, but I’m giving them a Christmas card instead of a Christmas call. My kids complain that they always have to call me, and it’s true. As the perfect mom, I don’t intrude on their lives. When they’re bored or want something, they’ve got my number.*g*
I wonder if I’ve turned off the phone because I’m so steeped in the nineteenth century. Love letters played an important part in Mistress by Mistake. Now, a love letter—that I could live with.
Phone-phobic or chatterbox? Do you text? I don’t do that either. I will be calling my oldest daughter Sarah on December 13, her birthday!
If The Phone Doesn’t Ring, It’s Me. ~Song title by Jimmy Buffet
Dec 6, 2008
I used the words “miasma of evil’ the other day to describe the rather unsubtle aroma and ambience that was to be found in one of the rooms of my house. My husband was impressed and challenged me to use it in one of my books, where I promptly told him I already had.
I had great English teachers who made us memorize all sorts of fancy words that one rarely has a chance to use, and after all these years, they seem to be bestirring in my brain. My current heroine is a writer, and here is her situation:
She felt an enormous pit of emptiness, which she would only dig deeper when Edward came tonight. And he must come. If he didn’t—
Well, she’d simply go on. Alone, alone, alone.
My, but she was being maudlin. Positively lachrymose. Lugubrious. Sepulchral. She spent much of her time with a dictionary handy trying to broaden her vocabulary for her novels. One had a duty to educate one’s readers after all.
Most of us don’t read with a dictionary handy, though. What do you do when you come across an unfamiliar (obscure, recondite) word or phrase? Do you skip it, look it up or try to figure it out on your own? What’s your favorite fancy/weird word?
I like the word “indolence.” It makes my laziness seem classy. ~Bern Williams
Dec 1, 2008
I used to wake up and bounce out of bed with a smile on my face. I still wake up, but my bouncing and smiling days are over. I am such a bitch in the morning. Don’t talk to me. Don’t interrupt me. Let me get my breakfast and leave me the f*** alone. Somewhere below I posted my morning routine, but I neglected to add that my sunny self does not appear until rather late—10:30 A.M. in fact, when I must (wo)man the circulation desk at the high school library. I am sweet as sugar then, because lots of kids need to be smiled at.
My poor husband has only recently discovered he married a BIM (no BO, just Bitch in Morning). Our schedules have changed lately, and he actually gets to see me before I put on my lipstick and my smile. Poor guy, he wants to talk. Fat chance. I want to drink my tea, read my blogs and write.
For the last book in my Courtesan Court Trilogy,
Mistress by Marriage, I’ve decided to use my crankiness as a plot point. What happens when opposites DO NOT attract? Nothing good so far. My heroine Caroline has been banished by her husband to live on the most infamous street in London. How they patch up their differences is as yet unknown, as I am a Pantser-Plus. But it’s going to be fun to figure it out, and maybe I’ll learn how to manage my own marriage a little better. (For a sneak peek of the new WIP, you can read the first few paragraphs
here.)Yes, I finished writing Mistress by Mistake yesterday, almost 4 months from the date I started.
93,175 words. D-U-N. Yahoo!
Beauty or Bitch in the A.M.?
Nov 24, 2008
In the immortal words of Elvis, I thank you faithful MRMR readers very much for accompanying me on my writing journey. I’m off to catch the turkey so I can put a cute hat on it before I eat it. Have a wonderful holiday with the ones you love (and even those you merely tolerate because you’re related to them in some way. Just drink plenty of wine.).
Tofurkey or the real thing? Sweet potatoes or mashed? Pumpkin pie or apple? What’s on the menu? Who’s cooking? What’s your favoritest thing to be thankful for? I say Sadie and Juliette and my four kids. And happy birthday today to Jessie, my Thanksgiving baby!
Nov 19, 2008
The calendar may not yet mark winter, but I live in Maine, and I’m cold. It’s supposed to snow this week. Ugh. I’m in my red LL Bean 3-in-1 jacket, gloves in the pocket.
Years ago I had a silver fox fur jacket that I bought at a vintage clothing store in Greenwich Village, but I wouldn’t dream of buying a fur coat now—not only because of the money, but because of the ickiness of it all. Yes, I eat meat and wear leather shoes. But somehow the idea of wearing dead little woodland creatures has lost its appeal.
My husband tried to buy me a mink coat once. We lived in Connecticut, and every single woman in our circle of friends had one. He sat back in a plush chair in the store as a saleswoman brought out coat after coat. As glam as I felt in chocolate brown fur that matched my eyes (that’s the saleswoman talking), I couldn’t do it.
My mother had one of those hideous snapping mink stoles that scared the bejesus out of me when I was little. Full bodies. Beady little eyes. Jaws biting onto tails and paws. Shudder.
Yet I’ve dressed my historical heroines in fur-lined cloaks. They’ve had fur hats and tippets and muffs. There was no PETA then. Nobody was throwing buckets of red paint around in protest. Fur is fine in fiction. Historicals give you a little leeway in the political correctness department.
What have you run across reading that would be icky in real life but that’s just ducky to read about? How do you feel about fur?
No one in the world needs a mink coat but a mink. ~Murray Banks
Book giveaway! The utterly fabulous, desperately delightful Eloisa James guest blogs tomorrow, November 20 on Vauxhall Vixens! Be sure to visit!
