The Necessary
Something I’ve noticed now that I’ve been active on FaceBook for a couple of years and am now on Twitter: I know more about the, um, elimination habits of my contacts’ pets and children than I ever wanted to know. Are we so addicted to social networking that we must post every time a child has loose stools or the puppy pees on the carpet or the cat yaks on granny’s quilt?
Well, I’m joining this “dark side” of TMI-sharing on the interwebs today by sharing this passage from Nelson’s Trafalgar by Roy Adkins, which is a vital piece of research for Ransome’s Crossing:
In the larger ships the captain had his own private toilet in a small cubicle at one end of the stern gallery, which ran across the width of the stern and had a row of windows giving light into the captain’s cabin. This cubicle was known as a quarter gallery, and on the decks below similar quarter galleries were provided for the officers. These toilets merely consisted of a seat with a hole over a vertical waste pipe or over an open drop to the sea, and at the very least they were draughty. . . . Midshipmen and warrant officers used a similar cubicle called a roundhouse, located right up in the bows of the ship in the part called the beakhead.
This area extended on either side of the bowsprit [mast] (below which was the ship’s figurehead) and was floored over with wooden gratings. There were usually two roundhouses, one on either side, and again they had a seat with a hole over a clear drop to the sea. One roundhouse was often reserved for the use of men in the sickbay. In larger ships, there were about twelve other seats with holes in this area (fewer in the smaller ships), and they were arranged in an equal number on each side of the bow. They did not have the privacy and shelter provided by the roundhouses and were completely exposed to the weather and the sea. Never pleasant to use, these toilets were dangerous in rough weather and high seas.
Probably taking the name from the nearby cathead [beams on each side of the bow, from which ropes were used to heave up and secure the anchor], beakhead, and figurehead, the general name for toilets was ‘heads,’ and ‘going to the heads’ meant going to the toilet. The most basic method of all was not to use such facilities, but for the men to relieve themselves while hanging from the shrouds (the rigging steadying each mast) at the points where they were secured to the side of the ship. . . . [T]he lee (downwind) side of the ship was chosen because the wind tilted the ship over in this direction, giving a clear drop to the sea.
Now . . . isn’t that more than you ever wanted to know about how they went to the bathroom aboard ships in the late 18th/early 19th century? I’d actually run across an obscure reference to the fact that midshipmen had access to a somewhat private privy before making the decision to have Charlotte disguise herself as a midshipman to get to Jamaica, knowing it would be vital for a woman on a two-month voyage. I was actually looking for something else in Adkins’ book when I ran across this passage. So of course, my first reaction was: I have to use that in the story somehow!
Will I? Find out next July . . . 😉
Beauty . . . In the Eye of the Beholder
Those of you who’ve read Stand-In Groom know that I gave the character of the romantic heroine (Anne) a somewhat unusual twist: I made her a plus-sized woman at 5’11” tall and a size 18. As a plus-sized woman myself, I’ve lived with the idea that only women who are slender (but with big boobs and curvy hips), who are short enough the top of their head barely reaches the hero’s shoulder (I’m 5’9″ tall—the average height for men in the U.S. is 6′, only three inches taller than me), and who are lightweight enough that the hero can easily sweep her up into his arms to either rescue or ravish her are worthy of having that gorgeous, muscle-bound, broad-shouldered, head-and-shoulders-taller-than-the-rest-of-mankind hunk of masculinity fall in love with her. So it was with that stereotype in mind that I chose as the Real World Template for Anne Hawthorne the world’s first plus-sized supermodel, Emme.
I have to say, the response to Anne as a “real”-sized woman has been 99.9% positive. Here are some examples from reviews on Amazon:
One of the things I liked best about this book was that the two main characters were not “perfect.” They were written older than normal, he was thinner than your average dashing hero, and she was not your teeny 19 – 22 year old ravishing beauty. They each had to overcome obstacles, and had strengths as well. That’s not to say that he wasn’t truly romantic and she wasn’t a very pretty and sassy, confident heroine ~ but it was so good to see something dare to be a little different with her main characters. I loved it.
~P. Smith
Anne is a hardworking wedding planner who loves her job but harbors a lot of emotional pain and distrust from her past. I love that she’s a “normal” woman, not a toothpick-thin beauty queen who turns every one’s head. But she did turn George’s head. He is also not a glamorous hot-body but an average looking man full of respect and integrity.
~Sunny
One thing that really stands out in my mind about the book is that Kaye’s heroine is a beautiful, full-figured, size 18 woman. Kaye shows us that size 18 is as beautiful as size 4. The hero, who works out several times a week and is in good shape falls for this shapely woman.
~Kimberly Byrd
Now, I had to downgrade that positive response ratio from 100% to 99.9% because of an e-mail I received from a reader this morning, in which the reader, after stating the fact that she liked the book, expressed her concerns over Anne’s being a size 18—this reader just could not “picture her as a beautiful woman with all that flab.” The reader also took issue with the frequency of food being mentioned in the story, and finished with this: “I would rather see the main character as attractive on the inside (of course) but also on the outside and de-emphasize food.”
It reminded me very strongly of this comment by a reporter who is a self-proclaimed “fattist”:
I am a fattist. I find obese people unappealing in almost every regard. They are physically unattractive, they lead unhealthy lives, they take up too much space on public transport, and (most of all) they are a strain not only on their clothing but on NHS resources.
The secret of their size? Their outsized appetites are matched by a lack of self-control and even less self-respect. There, I’ve said it. Just as I have said it many times in my column for this paper. And each time I do so, it’s greeted by the same howls of outrage.
~Amanda Platell, Mail Online (online version of the London Daily Mail)
Hate much, Amanda?
Whenever I read or hear remarks such as that, it makes me wonder why I’m trying to become a fitter person—why I’m trying to lose weight—because I don’t want to lose weight only to become associated with all of the “skinny,” fat-hating people out there.
But there is hope!
There is a subversive and growing trend in a few branches of the “fashion” industry that is starting to recognize that the average woman (whether American or European or wherever else in the world) is NOT a size 0-2. That, in fact, most of the models who are a size 0-2, who are being held up as the paragons of “beauty” and “fashion” (and therefore what we should all aspire to look like) are actually unhealthy and run more risks of severe health problems than the “average” size-12 woman does.
In fact, a book that just came out in September 2009 deals with this problem from a first-person perspective, that of model Crystal Renn entitled Hungry. In an August 2009 interview with the StyleList.com website, Renn discussed the fact that her desire to be a model led her to becoming anorexic just so she’d fit the agencies’ desired size/shape. (She is over 5’10” tall and at one point weighed less than 100 pounds!)
In September, there was a minor brouhaha in England over designer Mark Fast’s decision to use three “plus-sized” (i.e., sizes 10/12/14) models in his Fashion Week runway show. (The use of the term “plus-sized” to describe size 10-12 models is very frustrating, because at that size, they’re the optimum size for ALL of the major clothing lines in every department store on the planet. True plus-sized women are the ones with the W or X behind the number on their clothing tags.) Two of his stylists resigned from their jobs over this decision. But let’s look at the shocking contrasts between one of the “regular” sized (0) models (on the left) and one of the plus-sized (10-12) models (on the right):
Which model looks healthier to you?
Every woman who’s ever gone to the grocery store or Walmart or Target or who has turned on a television has been bombarded with the message—both subliminally and overtly—that the only way to be considered “beautiful” is to LOSE FIFTY POUNDS IN THE NEXT THREE DAYS or to starve ourselves so that we look like those models and actresses on the fronts of the “glamor” and “fashion” magazines—with every bone in their body showing, looking more like survivors of Andersonville or Auschwitz than icons of true beauty. Magazines/tabloids that rain scorn and condemnation on an actress or singer who happens to have some curves, some healthy meat on her body (in the same way that many of them pick on the underweight by accusing them of all manner of eating disorders).
The magazine Glamour “shocked readers” by including the following picture of a model in a spread about “body confidence”:
Isn’t she beautiful? And look how happy she looks (unlike most models in fashion magazines)! The model in this picture is Lizzi Miller, age 20, size 12-14—who is described as an avid softball player and bellydancer. Even though Lizzi wasn’t the featured model in the spread, the response to her photo was overwhelming. “The emails were filled with such joy—joy at seeing a woman’s body with all the curves and quirks and rolls found in nature” (Cindi Leive, Editor). This flood of positive response to the image led Glamour to launch a “Body Image Revolution” campaign in their magazine with a spread in their November 2009 magazine featuring “Supermodels Who Aren’t Super Thin”:
The truth of the matter is, when I clicked through the photos of these “plus-sized” models, to me they all still looked slender, healthy, and very worthy of envy—because I know I’ll never be that “small.” I haven’t been that small since I was twelve or thirteen years old (I was already in a size 13/14 by the time I started high school).
Prejudice—hatred, condescension, condemnation—and discrimination against people who are overweight is an insidious social crime, akin to racism and religious intolerance. People who are overweight are more likely to be passed over for promotion or job opportunities than someone with less experience/education who’s slender (therefore perceived to be “fitter” or “healthier”). People who are overweight are charged more for health insurance (exorbitantly, which is why I’m uninsured, because I cannot afford a $500/month premium and a $5,000 deductible). We’re even charged more for clothing. If you look at a catalog or website for a retailer that carries clothes in “normal” and “plus” sizes, the “plus” sizes always cost more. Why should a size 16 cost more than a size 14, when the size 14 costs the same thing as the size 2? (And not only that, but we are much more limited in the number of stores where we can shop, the section is usually shoved in a corner as far away from the “normal” sizes as possible, and there is a woeful lack of choice when it comes to style and fit.)
Just as I’ve been saying in my posts about the modern Christian church and singleness, “size acceptance” is another area in which we all need to put our prejudices and preconceived notions of what’s acceptable/right/good aside and just love each other. Those of us who don’t fit modern society’s standards of “beauty” already face enough problems without having to face prejudice and hatred from the skinny people around us.
A Ransome’s Crossing Teaser
As I mentioned at the beginning of the month, my local writers’ group is doing our own version of NaNo in October (I’m way behind where I should be!). I’ve been sending out encouragement and challenges every day, usually a word count. But yesterday, Tuesday I sent this:
- Well, it’s not the full moon, and it’s not even Friday the 13th. But in honor of its being the 13th of October, make something strange—or weird or scary—happen to one of your characters today. Be as creative as you can be—it doesn’t have to be something that’ll go into the story. But you might be surprised what you’ll learn about your character by putting him or her in a completely off-the-wall situation.
Then share it with the group!
As my “homework,” I shared the following, which was what I happened to be writing at the time:
An hour later, Charlotte returned to the cockpit with the rest of the mids. The smell of so many perspiring bodies in wool uniforms in such a close space nearly made her sick, but she managed to maintain control of her stomach. She endured quite a bit of jostling before a mug and plate were thrust into her hands.
She sat at the Yates End of the table, but when she looked down at the gray muck on her plate, she was uncertain she would be able to eat. She grabbed her mug instead and took a gulp.
Her stomach heaved, and she retched, turning just in time so that the liquid hit the floor instead of the table.
“That is vile.” Coughing, she wiped her mouth on her sleeve, wishing she had water to rinse the foul taste from her mouth.
Everyone around her laughed. “You act as if you’ve never had grog, Lott.” Hamilton pounded her back until her coughs subsided.
Grog. Rum mixed with water and a bit of lime juice to ward off scurvy. She should have remembered—everyone aboard was allotted a certain amount, half served at dinner, half at supper.
Another midshipman picked up her mug and sniffed it. “I don’t think grog is all that’s in here, lads.” He set the mug down on the table and leaned forward, dropping his voice. “Smells like turpentine.”
As you can see, by her second day aboard Audacious disguised as a midshipman, Charlotte has already made some enemies. Well . . . off to write the follow-up to that scene.
Singleness Sound-off: Are You My Neighbor?
“Today’s church is not the neighborly, participatory place it once was.”
(Julia Duin, Quitting Church)
Most evangelical churches today will have as a major thrust of their mission statement that they’re there to attract “seekers.” But what are they attracting seekers to? Fancy buildings that stand empty (except for the church staff) more than 80% of the time? Factories where if you aren’t homogenized with the cultural and social and political beliefs of everyone else in the congregation, “quality control” makes you feel so unwelcome you end up leaving? Fancy display screens and upbeat, feel-good music but no real, personal connections with anyone else? Sermons and Bible studies that use dogeared Christianese that is unintelligible to the unchurched and white-noise to life-long believers?
What ever happened to the concept of sanctuary? Remember Quasimodo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame skulking around and hollering that word? When did the connotation of sanctuary become limited to the room in which a church holds its services? If you look the word up in the dictionary, you’ll find (as one of the many definitions): “any place of refuge; asylum.” What’s happened to this concept? Of the church being the place where hurting people go to find solace? Someone whose life is in shambles is more likely to seek out a professional (usually non-religious) counselor or a non-church support group to deal with their problems—to deal with their sins—than they are to go to church seeking sanctuary. Why? Because they are more likely to face judgment and condemnation by walking into a church in their “unfixed” condition.
When did “the church” become an idol—like the ancient temple in Jerusalem—that cannot be made unclean by the presence of those who don’t fit neatly into that particular congregation’s stereotype of the “right” kind of member: those who leave all their troubles at the door, put on a happy face, and pretend for the few hours they’re there that they don’t have doubts and fears, that their marriage and children are perfect, that they aren’t lonely, that they aren’t addicted to porn or gambling or pain pills?
I’ve always joked that one of the main differences between Catholics and Baptists is that Catholics go into a private booth and confess their own sins to a priest; Baptists go to prayer meeting and confess everyone else’s sins to the whole congregation as “prayer requests.” Sure, it sounds funny, but this is why we’ve lost a lot of that neighborliness and participatory nature in the modern evangelical church: because instead of being quick to love, quick to forgive, quick to help, we’ve become quick to judge, quick to ostracize, quick to gossip.
When I was a member of the seven-year church, with as much of myself as I poured into that congregation, there were things I struggled with that I never shared with anyone there—because I knew it would get all around the church and blown way out of proportion. I could tell my non-church/non-Christian friends, but not the people in my own “church family” because I knew I’d be judged and talked about behind my back. I’d seen it happen far too often to others—who usually ended up leaving the church.
Jesus said in John 13:35 (NASB): “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” But when I get attacked for stating my political affiliation—when someone tells me I cannot really be a Christian because I’m a Democrat who supports this country’s lawfully elected president for whom I voted—that is not love. That is not Christianity. One of the reasons so many people have quit attending church, or are avoiding anyone who openly calls himself a “Christian,” is because for most people outside of the very closed off, very elitist “Christian Community,” being a “Christian” has gained the connotation of being judgmental, condescending, unwilling to accept alternative viewpoints or ideas or ideologies—especially when it comes to politics. Christians are seen by unchurched America as people who are going to beat you over the head with a Bible, tell you you’re a horrible person, and leave you in the dust if you don’t agree with everything they say. (Yes, I am speaking in generalities here and painting with a very wide brush—I know not every Christian is like this—I’M A CHRISTIAN, TOO!)
“Many churches have become like supermarkets or gas stations: totally depersonalized arenas where most people no longer feel a responsibility to be hospitable to the person standing next to them. . . .
As for those who drop out, no one notices.”
(Julia Duin, Quitting Church)
Remember the story of the Good Samaritan? Think for a minute about the characters in it. Jesus was not just talking about doing good deeds or being a good neighbor. He was also making a point about “church people.” It wasn’t the church leader who stopped to help the hurting man. It wasn’t the deacon/elder/teacher who stopped. It was the “unclean” Samaritan who stopped—the person who was part of a group that had been kicked out of “the church,” the person who didn’t fit in, who wasn’t welcomed in “the church” of that time (the Temple). If we were to relate this story in today’s terminology, we might say that the characters were a preacher (the priest), a Sunday school teacher (the Levite), and a member of the LGBT community (the good Samaritan). It is just as shocking today to think that Jesus might use a transgender person as an example of a “good neighbor” in this story as it was for the Jews of His time to think of a Samaritan as a “good neighbor.” But the truth of the matter is that I know more people who are part of the LGBTQIA+ community who do more to reach out to hurting people around them—right in their own neighborhoods, their own local communities—than people from the churches where I’ve been a member.
So many singles feel like that battered, bloody guy in the middle of the road. (Heck, not just singles, so many people feel that way.) But when the leadership and good, upstanding members of our congregation—what’s supposed to be our spiritual family—cut a wide swath around us to keep from having to acknowledge how much pain we’re in, it’s only natural that we’re going to turn to sources outside of “the church” where we’ll be helped and loved and accepted for who we are, right now, without being told we need to change (i.e., clean ourselves up, get married, have kids, or whatever precondition it is) before we’ll be worthy of “the church’s” love and acceptance.
“For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. . . . We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.” (1 John 3:11–18, NASB)
Let’s be people who notice—people who care, who love, who accept. Let’s show we’re Christians by our love, rather than standing on the street screaming it into people’s faces—then disproving it by our judgmental and condemning attitudes and actions. Let’s covenant together to remember what it means to be a “good neighbor” and just love one another.
Next Contemporary Series: The Matchmakers
It’s official! I received a contract for a new contemporary romance series with Barbour over the weekend. I’m signing it and mailing it back today. I’ve mentioned the main idea behind this series, but wanted to share a little more about them, now that they’re contracted—and even have ISBNs assigned already!
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Every grandmother wants to see her grandchildren happy, especially when it comes to their love lives. Join five active senior ladies—and one gentleman—who take a great interest in the lives and loves of their single grandchildren and become The Matchmakers.
LOVE REMAINS (August 2010)
Book 1 of the Matchmakers Series
ISBN-13: 978-1-60260-989-1
Barbour Publishing
Nashville native Bobby Patterson has just returned home after many years away to take a position with the Tennessee Criminal Investigations Unit. His new job: lead a task force investigating potential real estate fraud connected with the Middle Tennessee Historic Preservation Commission. Zarah Mitchell, who’s worked at the Commission for more than a decade, is about to face a piece of history that could ruin the life she’s built in Nashville: Bobby Patterson—her first love and the reason her father kicked her out fourteen years ago. When Bobby realizes Zarah is part of his investigation, he is tempted to use his grandmother’s not-so-subtle setups as a way to learn if Zarah is involved in the fraud. Zarah, at her grandmother’s suggestion, tries to put the pain from the past aside to see if any love remains between her and Bobby. But when she learns he’s been investigating her, will she be be able to forgive him a second time?
Coming August 2010
THE ART OF ROMANCE (May 2011)
Book 2 of the Matchmakers Series
ISBN-13: 978-1-60260-990-7
Barbour Publishing
English professor Caylor Evans moved in with her grandmother five years ago when Sassy’s eyesight became too poor to get her driver’s license renewed. Though she is now writing sweet/inspirational romance novels, Caylor still draws inspiration for her heroes from the portfolio of covers and sample images drawn/painted by Patrick Callaghan for the steamy romances she used to write (as “Melanie Mason”), and dreams of meeting a man like that cover model. After losing his teaching position and being shunned by the fine-arts community in Philadelphia, artist Dylan Bradley has returned home to Nashville to regroup and determine the next step for his life. His grandparents offer him their guest house for as long as he wants it—along with plenty of opportunities to meet young women. Though it was years ago, Dylan is uncomfortable with the fact that his face—only slightly disguised—is on the covers of half a dozen steamy romance novels by Melanie Mason, the artwork he did to put himself through college under the pseydonym Patrick Callaghan. Especially after he meets Caylor Evans, a woman who has her life together in a way he only dreams of. Will Caylor and Dylan learn that the true art of romance is grounded in honesty and truth?
Coming May 2011
TURNABOUT’S FAIR PLAY (December 2011)
Book 3 of the Matchmakers Series
ISBN-13: 978-1-60260-991-4
Barbour Publishing
The grannies are at it again, this time trying to make a match for Jamie O’Connor, an executive with a marketing firm, always on the go and seemingly unlikely to ever settle down. When a widower joins the senior adult group—a widower with a single granddaughter—the matchmaking grannies set to work to concoct a plan to get the two youngsters together. But Jamie, raised by his grandmother, Cookie, can read her like a book. He agrees to the set-up date with book editor Flannery McNeil on one condition: that Jamie’s grandmother and Flannery’s grandfather go with them. Flannery has more to worry about in her life than setups and dates, between trying to convince her grandfather, Big Daddy, to sell his farm an hour outside of Nashville and the fear that the publishing company she works for is about to lay off a bunch of people—including her. Not to mention the fact that she thinks Jamie O’Connor is condescending and patronizing—toward her and toward his grandmother. She finally agrees to the date on the promise that Big Daddy goes with her. Jamie is the last person she wants to spend time with, but when he comes to her with a plan to turn the tables on their long-widowed grandparents and set them up, Flannery agrees—because she can see how happy the seniors make each other. When Big Daddy ends up in the hospital with heart problems, Cookie fears losing the crusty farmer and has to decide if she’s willing to start a new relationship at this stage of her life. She also sees Jamie’s perfectly cultivated shell of perfection crack when Flan is laid off from her job and is almost immediately recruited by a literary agency in New York. Flan doesn’t want to leave Big Daddy and doesn’t really want to live in New York, but she has to work to support herself and the job opportunity is better than anything she’s ever dreamed of. Can Jamie drop his veneer of self-sufficiency admit that he needs Flan in his life?
Coming December 2011
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Fun Friday: Fall 2009 TV Season
As I mentioned, my friend Ruth suggested I do a list again this year of all of the shows/new shows I’m watching this new TV season. And as a disclaimer, yes, I know there are lots of shows listed here. Some of them I watch all the time, some I watch occasionally. One of the reasons I watch so much TV is because it’s pretty much the only time I have when I can just let my brain shut down, between editing (which means lots of reading) and writing for a living.
[Saturday 5:30 p.m. — Updated!]
So here we go . . .
Monday–Friday
Countdown with Keith Olbermann — yes, I’m a (liberal) politics junkie (though I’ve gotten to where I watch this online after it airs so I don’t have to deal with commercials)
Jeopardy! — have to have my dose of trivia for the day
Mondays
The Big Bang Theory—One of the only sitcoms I’ve ever watched regularly as an adult. Not quite as good this season as last season, but still LOL funny. 
Castle—I loved Nathan Fillion in Firefly so this one was a must-see for me last year. Though I thought last season dragged halfway through (I missed several episodes), they ended on such a high note, I had to come back and watch this season. It seems like they’ve gelled much more as a cast this year and even though Rick Castle’s involvement with the cases they’re handling is unrealistic, it’s still fun to watch.
Tuesdays
Catching up with stuff that recorded earlier and/or watching some of the “Occasionals” listed below.
Wednesdays (a.k.a. “Reality” TV Night)
America’s Next Top Model—I’m not really sure why I keep watching this show, but there’s something addictive about it (and I’m not into fashion at all!). I hope that with as much press as plus-size (well, average size—10/12) models are getting recently that they’ll do a cycle focused on women who are average to slightly larger, since this season they’re focusing on women under 5’7″.
Top Chef—You cannot have been reading this blog very long if you don’t know that I absolutely adore this show. I’ve been a loyal watcher since the first season. I even watched the entire Masters series they did this summer. This season, I’m rooting for Kevin, Bryan, Jennifer, and Laurine. We’ll see two of those four in the finale.
Thursdays
Flash Forward—This show, when the previews started airing a few months ago, was being touted as the replacement for LOST (which ends this spring). Replacement may be too strong a word—but WOW! This is a fantastic show. Okay, it helps that each week is an exercise in picking out the actors/actresses who’ve had recurring roles on LOST (the primary one being Sonya Walger, who plays Penny, Desmond’s squeeze). Last night, Kim Dickens, who played Cassidy (the mother of Sawyer’s daughter) on LOST was the primary crossover guest star . . . but they keep promising us that Dominic Monaghan is going to eventually show up. Oh, and hello Jack Davenport!
Vampire Diaries—Yes, a few weeks ago, I called for the end of books about vampires. And here I am watching one of the many TV shows inspired by one of those series. (Another LOST connection—Ian Sommerholder, who played ill-fated Boone on LOST plays Damon, the bad vampire, on this show). This one is still iffy for me—the teen angst is starting to grate on my nerves. But I do like the lead female character and her African American best friend much better in this show than in True Blood.
Project Runway—What is the deal with everyone fawning over Logan? He’s not that hot, even if he was the only young, unmarried straight guy on the show.
The Mentalist—This is another one that lost me midway through the year last year but ended with such a bang that I had to come back this year. And it’s been good so far. We’ll see how long they can sustain the “Jane must catch serial killer who killed his family” as a subplot, though. After a while, it’ll just become ridiculous.
Fridays
Dollhouse—At the end of last season, the intrepid former FBI Agent Paul Ballard (played so well by the lovely Tahmoh Penikett) had infiltrated the Dollhouse. This season, I’m so happy that they’ve now made him a handler—which hopefully will result in more screen-time for the template of the hero of my next contemporary novel.
Medium—This has always been an on-again/off-again show for me. I never felt like I had to watch it every week. But I’m giving it another shot now that it’s moved to CBS. And tonight—the absolute sexiest man in the entire world, Oded Fehr, is guest-starring (as the bad guy—he does bad guys so well!). Of course, I’ll be at a formal dinner chatting up my books, but this is why we have DVRs, people!
Numb3rs—I’ve been a fan since season one. This show for me isn’t about the cases or the fancy math they use to solve them. This show is about the characters and the relationships, and that’s what keeps me watching week after week.
Saturdays
Robin Hood—When Jonas Armstrong (Robin Hood) announced he’d be leaving the show after the end of the third season, but the producers announced the show would continue, we wondered how they’d make that work. Well, halfway through the few weeks’ worth of previews before this season started airing here in the States, they added a line to the ads/trailers: The Final Season. Even though I LOVE the new character they’ve added this season, Friar Tuck (WOW!), I absolutely HATE the new female character (Kate with the weird hair/braid headband thing) they’ve brought on because the actress playing Marian got too big for her britches and left the show after the second season (it was really hard to get worked up over her death, since she wasn’t really likable and because they’d already announced she was leaving the show before the second season ran over here).
Football—Geaux Tigers!
Sundays
Extreme Home Makeover—This is actually more of a “catch it when I can” show. It’s also one that, when it’s on, I’m usually doing other stuff, like laundry or cooking or planning my meals for the upcoming week. But it’s always interesting to see the befores and afters, as well as the families’ reactions to their new homes.
Army Wives—This is my soap opera, my alternative to Desperate Housewives. They have a tendency to wrap up the problems the characters deal with a little too easily/too neatly. And they have a tendency to have recurring conflicts—such as some threat of the army base closing down or the general and his wife having to move. But they’ve also touched on a lot of topics that are never seen or discussed outside of military-family circles, such as a female officer having to leave her six-month-old daughter behind when she is called up for a tour of duty in a war zone; how being a recruiter affects the soldier’s family; the stress that being in a top-secret squadron (Delta in this case) puts on the soldier’s family who never know where he is, when he’s coming back, or even if he’s been captured/tortured. This is one of the cable shows that runs on a different schedule—premiering when the regular season ends and running through the summer, ending in the fall—so the season finale is next week. That actually works out well, because it opens up another night of the week for me. One of the most fun episodes they’ve done to date (they’re in season 3) was a couple of weeks ago when they used the regular cast to re-enact a story being told to them by two ladies who’d lived at Fort Marshall during WWII.
Mid-Season/Spring Shows
LOST—Again, you can’t have been reading this blog very long if you don’t already know I’m a LOST addict. The season which starts in late January will be (sniff, sniff) the final season of this strangely addictive show. I was just talking about it with some colleagues over dinner the other night—two who watch it, one who doesn’t. It’s definitely one of those shows you must watch from the first episode. If you’ve always wondered what it’s all about, wait until next summer and then get the DVDs from Netflix (you can sign up for it for only as long as it takes you to go through the six seasons of the show). I’m excited with a bit of trepidation to see how they’re going to start answering all the questions they’ve spent five years raising on this show. It had better be satisfying!
V—I saw the first ad for this during Flash Forward this past week. Why did it catch my eye when I was fast-forwarding through the commercials? Because it was a closeup on the gorgeous face of Morena Baccarin—a.k.a. the template for Alaine Delacroix from Menu for Romance and A Case for Love. This is another show that they’re trying to pull LOST viewers in with the casting: Elizabeth Mitchell, who plays Juliet, was cast as one of the main characters in V. Now, those of us who grew up in the 1980s will remember that there was a miniseries followed by a short-lived TV series. According to everything I’ve seen, this is a “reimagining” of the original series.
PBS Masterpiece Classics: Emma and Cranford 2—These are the only two titles that have been confirmed for PBS’s spring Masterpiece Classics series. Emma—the first miniseries treatment of the Jane Austen novel since the late 1970s—has been airing in the UK for the past few weeks . . . to very mixed reactions by viewers. The second Cranford movie will be airing in Britain as a Christmas special, and features many of the original stellar cast members from the original miniseries. I’m really looking forward to it.
Occasionals
The Daily Show
Property Virgins
House Hunters
For Rent
My First Place
Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives
Throwdown
Dinner Impossible
Iron Chef/Next Iron Chef
The Rachel Maddow Show
X-Weighted
Gordon Ramsay’s F-Word
Storyboarding…Brought to You by Recycled Super Sticky Post-it Notes
Well, I didn’t write a blog post to pre-post on Monday night for Tuesday because I thought I’d wait and report my word count for Tuesday in the morning (since I usually do the bulk of my day’s writing after I turn off the internet-connected computer and go sit in the bed).
I spent most of the afternoon Monday “storyboarding” Ransome’s Crossing. I’d started this in PowerPoint, where I can color the background by POV and include images of the characters and the settings. But after getting a couple of chapters done, it wasn’t as useful as I really wanted it to be—I wanted to be able to see everything at a glance, but in PPT, once I get more than about 12 slides done (and I do one per scene), I have to start scrolling down. So I wanted something simpler, more at-a-glance. So, I pulled out my handy-dandy 4×4 lined Post-its and, using five different colors, went through the existing chapters and wrote out a summary of each scene. Next, I wrote notes for several scenes I’ve thought of in recent weeks as I’ve worked on the manuscript. I then pulled up my original, full-length synopsis (the one I used as part of the proposal that sold the series) and made scene notes for those scenes as well.
Here’s what I ended up with:
Dark pink = Charlotte’s POV
Green = Ned’s POV
Yellow = Julia’s POV
Blue = William’s POV
Bright Orange = ??? POV and/or research
But by the time Monday night rolled around, I wasn’t feeling well—my stomach hurt and I was just worn out, so I ended up falling asleep before I could get anything written. I figured I’d be able to write Tuesday. But then when I got up, I had a voicemail waiting for me offering me a rush editing job (at time-and-a-half!) if I could get it done and back to them before Thursday. Since the one project I still have at home to do isn’t due until next Monday, I decided to take it. So I ended up spending the day Tuesday working on that.
At 6:30, I met up with three of the sales/marketing executives from Harvest House for supper. Shane and I discovered we’re both “recovering Southern Baptists” and spent the next three and a half hours shocking Barb and John with stories about growing up in the Southern Baptist culture (Shane actually has it worse than I do—he’s originally from Texas). So it was after 10 p.m. when I got home.
Once I got home, I ended up spending another hour inputting the edits so that I could send the .pdf of the editing project back tonight so that the editor can look at it tomorrow and make sure the way I did it (she sent me a scanned copy of the file, I copied and pasted the page images into PowerPoint and marked it up using the drawing and text-box tools, then converted it back to a .pdf document) comes out legibly on her end. All in all, it was really a good day’s work.
But now, I’m even more behind in my writing. And I really only have two working days left this week—because Friday is blocked off for the Southern Festival of Books (see my Appearances page) and Saturday is my local writing group meeting, a book signing (Colleen Coble and Tamera Alexander at the Cool Springs LifeWay from 11 to 1), then a modeling gig for my favorite clothing store, C.J. Banks, at 3 p.m., and then the LSU–Florida football game that evening (GEAUX TIGERS!). Which means I’ve got to get 5,000 to 6,000 words written in the next day or so just to catch up, as well as getting a gift book about tea parties (the kind with actual tea) pulled together before Monday.
Guess I’d better get off this computer, go write, and then sleep fast so that I can be up and at ’em early Wednesday.
Marathon and Ransome’s Crossing Updates
I would have posted this earlier, but I had to type in what I hand-wrote yesterday so I’d have an accurate word count to report. While the volume is nowhere near what it needs to be to get this manuscript finished in the next few weeks, I’m already off to a better start than what I’ve been doing for the past few months. So here are my word count results for the first four days of the month-long writing marathon challenge I’m doing with my local writing group:
October 1: 552 words
October 2: 1,609 words
October 3: 731 words
October 4: 636 words
Four-day total: 3,528 words
I really need to be averaging between 3,000 and 4,000 words a day. But I also needed to get back into my story. And now that I’ve got everyone aboard their respective ships, even though I’m occasionally having to stop writing and pull out a research book just to make sure I’m not too far off the mark when I have one of them do something (it helps that I’m using this book as my “lap desk” for sitting in the bed writing by hand), I’m making headway with the story. I was tickled with the scene I wrote last night—Charlotte’s first day on her ship when she’s confronted by the bully of the midshipmen. It was one of those times when I felt like I was just recording something that was really happening—the whole scene was so clear in my head.
Something that’s been a little harder for me in writing this book is the fact that for the first time I have a couple from a previous book returning as POV characters after they’re married. As in, beginning the day after their wedding. So I’m having to figure them out as they’re having to figure each other out. It hasn’t been easy, and I have a feeling that once I get through to the end of this manuscript, there’s going to be plenty of revision needed (right now there’s a lot of “inside the POV character’s head” stuff going on in the first eleven chapters). There were a lot of things I needed to know about the characters which may or may not stay in after I finish the book and really know who they are, especially with Charlotte and Ned. Even though Charlotte was a POV character in Ransome’s Honor, she was still more of a secondary character. 
Crossing, however, puts her front-and-center, so I had to take some time to get to know her better. And of course, Ned is our new POV character in Crossing and even though I’d worked out a lot of his backstory before I began writing, as with any new character, there has to be a “get to know you” phase once the writing starts. It’s one thing to know what a character’s backstory is; it’s something totally different to get inside his head and find out what his goals and motivations are.
I was hoping to be able to sit out on the porch to write this afternoon, but as it’s not even 60 degrees yet (at 12:30) and still threatening rain, I guess I’ll have to settle for the recliner in the living room with the laptop.
I posed the question last Thursday about what you could make a daily practice for the 31 days in October to get something accomplished or create a new (good) habit—writing, housekeeping, journaling, reading the Bible, exercising, etc. Have you figured out what your “marathon challenge” is for October? Have you started yet?
Fun Friday–National Parks I Want to Visit
As everyone knows, I’m a TV and movie junkie. So this time of year is one of my absolute favorites, with all of the season and series premieres. My friend Ruth suggested I do another post like the one I did last year about the new shows I’m watching, but I think I’ll give them a few weeks to shake out and see what I stick with and what I drop after a few episodes.
But in addition to all of those new shows, this week I’ve also been watching a miniseries by my favorite documentarian, Ken Burns. As you may recall, last year, I named The Civil War as my all-time favorite documentary. Well, I now have a new #2 documentary: The National Parks: America’s Best Idea—A Film by Ken Burns. He’s done several short documentaries, as well as three other miniseries (on baseball, jazz, and WWII). I watched most of the WWII documentary two years ago, but it never captured me the way the Civil War series did. I was excited, with a touch of trepidation, when I started seeing promos on PBS earlier this summer for the National Parks series.
I’ve watched, transfixed every evening this week. Aside from learning history I’d never heard about in my life, Ken Burns has a way of finding historical figures and turning them into characters whose stories he draws the viewer into. And it’s amazing how visionary the founders of the National Parks and the National Parks Service were—and how hard they had to fight to protect some of the places that we now couldn’t imagine having unprotected. Of course, part of my interest that plays into this is having been a Civil War–history minor in college and writing several papers about endangered Civil War historical sites that needed protection.
Okay, there are four basic types of sites in the NPS (probably more, but this is how my brain interprets it): national parks, national historical parks, national monuments, and national military parks. Of the three, I’ve been to more of the monuments and military sites. I’ve visited Carlsbad Caverns National Park (NM), White Sands National Monument (NM), Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument (NM), Rocky Mountain National Park (CO), Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park (TN/GA), Hot Springs National Park (AR), Great Smoky Mountains National Park (TN), Stones River National Battlefield (TN), Blue Ridge Parkway (VA), Shenandoah National Park (VA), Manassas National Battlefield Park (VA), George Washington Birthplace National Monument (VA), Harper’s Ferry National Historical Park (WV), Antietam National Battlefield (MD), Gettysburg NMP (PA), Flight 93 National Memorial (PA), and pretty much every monument/site in Washington DC. And I’ll be adding Shiloh National Military Park to the list on October 24.
After watching the National Parks series, even though I’m not an outdoorsy person, here are a few of the National Parks I would really like to see sometime during my life.
Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
- “Located in northwestern Wyoming, Grand Teton National Park preserves a spectacular landscape rich with majestic mountains, pristine lakes and extraordinary wildlife. The abrupt vertical rise of the jagged Teton Range contrasts with the horizontal sage-covered valley and glacial lakes at their base, creating world-renowned scenery that attracts nearly four million visitors per year.”
Arches National Park, Utah
- “Arches National Park preserves over 2,000 natural sandstone arches, like the world-famous Delicate Arch, as well as many other unusual rock formations. In some areas, the forces of nature have exposed millions of years of geologic history. The extraordinary features of the park create a landscape of contrasting colors, landforms and textures that is unlike any other in the world.”
Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico
- “From AD 850 to 1250, Chaco was a hub of ceremony, trade, and administration for the prehistoric Four Corners area—unlike anything before or since. Chaco is remarkable for its multi-storied public buildings, ceremonial buildings, and distinctive architecture. These structures required considerable planning, designing, organizing of labor, and engineering to construct. The Chacoan people combined many elements: pre-planned architectural designs, astronomical alignments, geometry, landscaping, and engineering to create an ancient urban center of spectacular public architecture—one that still awes and inspires us a thousand years later.”
Glacier National Park, Montana
- “Known to Native Americans as the ‘Shining Mountains’ and the ‘Backbone of the World,’ Glacier National Park preserves more than a million acres of forests, alpine meadows, lakes, rugged peaks and glacial-carved valleys in the Northern Rocky Mountains. Its diverse habitats are home to over 70 species of mammals including the grizzly bear, wolverine, gray wolf and lynx. Over 260 species of birds visit or reside in the park, including such varied species as harlequin ducks, dippers and golden eagles. The park is named for its prominent glacier-carved terrain and remnant glaciers descended from the ice ages of 10,000 years past. Bedrock and deposited materials exposed by receding glaciers tell a story of ancient seas, geologic faults and uplifting, and the appearance of giant slabs of the earth’s ancient crust overlaying younger strata. The result of these combined forces is some of the most spectacular scenery on the planet.”
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
- “Established in 1872, Yellowstone National Park is America’s first national park. Located in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, it is home to a large variety of wildlife including grizzly bears, wolves, bison, and elk. Preserved within Yellowstone National Park are Old Faithful and a collection of the world’s most extraordinary geysers and hot springs, and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.”
Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona
(Yes, can you believe it? I grew up in New Mexico and have never been to the Grand Canyon!)
- “Although first afforded Federal protection in 1893 as a Forest Reserve and later as a National Monument, Grand Canyon did not achieve National Park status until 1919, three years after the creation of the National Park Service. Today Grand Canyon National Park receives close to five million visitors each year—a far cry from the annual visitation of 44,173 which the park received in 1919. The oldest human artifacts found are nearly 12,000 years old and date to the Paleo-Indian period. There has been continuous use and occupation of the park since that time. The park has recorded over 4,800 archeological resources with an intensive survey of nearly 3% of the park area. Archeological remains from the following culture groups are found in Grand Canyon National Park: Paleo-Indian, Archaic, Basketmaker, Ancestral Puebloan (Kayenta and Virgin branches), Cohonina, Cerbat, Pai, Zuni, Hopi, Navajo, and Euro-American.”
It’s October
Today is October 1 and that means one thing: MTCW Marathon Month. That also means that I’m only two months away from the deadline for Ransome’s Honor and, as per my usual M.O., I barely have a third of the book written. So, something’s gotta give.
Instead of bypassing freelance opportunities (a girl’s got to eat) this month, I’m going to be cutting back on other things that take up big chunks of my time. Like writing long, involved blog posts every day. I’m going to continue the church/singles ministry posts—but in a new feature on Sundays (I’ll figure out a name for that). I also already have some Fun Friday posts in the pipeline.
All of that is to say that I will most likely be writing new blog posts every day—but they’ll probably be shorter and more focused on my writing or interesting tidbits of research I discovered or just silly randomness to give myself a mental break. Oh, and I’ll be reporting my daily word count as well.
So here’s a challenge to you. October has 31 days. What can you accomplish by making something a daily practice for each day of this month?
KayeDacus.com 