Juliet thinks guys have it easy when it comes to shoes...but grrls have more fun

I don't mean to whine. I really don't. I detest whiners.

But this schlepping carry-on bags onto airplanes really blooooows. Where the heck am I supposed to pack my shoes?

Like Rachael, I'm not a huge shoes fetishist. Imelda Marcos found no sympathetic ear at my house. But when I'm off to a conference, or a long weekend in New York, or even just on a visit to see my parents, shoes become an issue. Packing shoes, more specifically. It becomes a major feat of engineering and coordination, since shoes have a whole lot to do with the rest of the wardrobe.

And what makes this much worse is that I've noticed men do not have this issue.

Guys: go to a conference and get away with a decent pair of shoes on the plane, and every day and night thereafter. If they get fancy they might bring along a pair of sneakers or running shoes.

Me:
1) Comfy, easy to slip on-and-off pair for the plane and airport security.

2) A pair of decent looking shoes that can be worn with nice conference clothes but that won't leave you crippled at the end of the day.

3) that same or similar pair in light colors for light stuff, dark colors for dark stuff. And maybe a red, but a bright lipstick red that only goes with one outfit... but it really makes the outfit.

4) A pair of fabulous looking shoes that might just leave you crippled for cocktail parties, dinners out, when you need to impress someone, etc.







5) Summer? sexy sandals. And if you come from Oakland, boots are a must.





6) Pair of sports shoes for the hotel fitness center that you swore you would go to every day but almost never do.



Don't even get me started on open-toed or closed, and therefore what kind of nylons a person needs, and thigh-high vs. panty hose and how many extra pairs. Or bras, for that matter.

When it comes to packing, womanhood kind of blows. On the other hand, men have to wear the same old shoes all the time. They don't get to constantly change their personality, based on their footwear.

So I guess, ultimately, it's more fun walking in my shoes.

Juliet's Amused by the Muse

I was musing about this week's topic, and the Muses (fickle creatures that they are) deserted me. Just like that. Every last one of them.

I found I had nothing to say. I was bemused by this fact, but not at all amused.

(This is related to the fact that I have a deadline looming. Deadline: the kind of line in the sand that is, indeed, deadening to one's creativity.)

So the former academic in me kicked in: I looked up the word muse on an internet site dedicated to etymology, or the history of words.

(This is one of those sites no doubt created and maintained and patronized by word nerds like me. Other people start reading celebrity gossip on-line and lose an hour or two -- I stick my toe into the waters of word history and the whole afternoon's shot. One of my favorite books of all time is The Word Museum: The Most Remarkable English Words Ever Forgotten. Ever heard of "bumwush" or "fatherbetter" or "quank"?)

But I digress. Muse, as we use it in English, comes from the French amuser, which means to "divert, cause to muse." Which might help explain that when the muses fail to show up, it's not a lot of fun for anyone.

Of course the French got the word, at some point, from the Greek Mousa.

The Greek muses were the nine daughters of Mnemosyne. Together, they were supposed to provide not only the inspiration to their arts, but the perseverance to carry such projects through to completion.

The Muses are:
Calliope, epic or heroic poetry
Clio, history
Erato, love poetry and flute-playing
Euterpe, lyric poetry and lyre-playing
Melpomene, tragedy
Polyhymnia, sacred music and dance
Terpsichore, choral music and dance
Thalia, comedy and idyllic poetry
Urania, astronomy and cosmological poetry

(Notice that there's no specific muse for mystery writers, much less painters. Maybe that's my problem...)

According to the etymologists, bemuse maintains more of the original meaning of the French word, which refers to the ability to divert a person's attention, often to deceive or cheat, rather than with any sort of artistic inspiration.

Of course, if you're searching for inspiration you might consider wandering through a museum (a seat or shrine to the muses) or listening to some music, which is a series of coordinated sounds evocative of the human spirit, overseen by the Muses.

Amusing, isn't it?

--Juliet

Let it be resolved...

I'm not a big one for New Year's resolutions. Rather, I make resolutions every day.

It's quite common for me to proclaim (quite loudly) that I have decided to move to Paris. Or that from now on I will walk around the lake every day while learning Italian. Or that I will dance naked around the house naked to Billy Idol whenever I can't think what to write next.

Happily for me, my friends and family are accustomed to my heartfelt declarations...and even more used to witnessing those resolutions fall by the wayside in favor of new ones. Since they are my friends, they don't judge me too harshly when, quite predictably, those resolutions don't quite come to pass.

So this year I'm taking a new tactic. I will only resolve things I do already. Since I don't do a lot of things that are good for me, these are fairly easy to innumerate.

Let it be resolved...

...I will not take up smoking cigarettes (unless I'm diagnosed with six months to live, in which case Sophie and I have vowed to start smoking like chimneys)
...I will enjoy sleeping (new fleece sheets for Christmas, yay!)
...I will write two more books (fingers crossed, and Billy Idol at the ready)
...I will --from time to time-- drink too much, say and do inappropriate things, and have a fabulous time
...I will never, ever, wear yellow pants (I was visiting family over the holiday and saw several pictures of me as a young girl wearing bright yellow pants. Disturbing at best. Yes, it was the seventies, but still...there's simply no excuse for that kind of behavior.)

And finally, with a nod to my dear blogmate Rachael, who stole my idea for this week's blog: I resolve not to stab anyone this year.

Unless, of course, I'm provoked.

--Juliet

Um...Juliet doesn't knit

I have to say, I'm a little abashed to be writing this post after the examples set by my two previous Pens.

Let's be clear: I don't knit. Or crochet. Or embroider. If something rips, I either try to cajole a friend into sewing it for me, or I keep it around with the intention of someday doing something about it until it goes out of style. At which point it becomes Goodwill's problem.

But still, as long as a "craft" doesn't involve textiles, I'm up for it. Yes indeed, I have Big Plans.

I save things. Weird things. And always with the intent to use them in one crafty form or another. Bottle caps? Surely they're useful for something. Wine corks? It goes without saying. Those tiny plastic tables that keep the pizza box from smooshing the pizza? Cool. Clothespins, old Tarot cards, abandoned Scrabble tiles...oh yes, I've got 'em. and I'm not afraid to use them. Eventually.

Problem is, I'm a little busy right now. The craft of writing has me in its grasp, and it's pretty tough to extricate myself. And peeking out from behind writing's skirts, clamoring for attention just as soon as I find some free time, is painting (if you're interested, check out www.truefauxdesigns.com to see what I used to do before I caught writing fever.)

A good friend of mine has been watching a TV show called "hoarders", and lately I think she's been pondering staging an intervention. But I contend that the very best thing about a junk-filled artist's studio is that there is so much promise, everywhere. How many things in life offer such possibilities? A blank canvas calls out; a stray piece of wood whispers; a styrofoam ball inspires. My housemates cringe, my neighbors worry, my son rolls his eyes. But I would argue that, at least to some extent, hoarding is a sign of a creative mind.

Especially if you're hoarding really awesome things like Altoid tins. Do you have any idea how many things a person could make with Altoid tins?

Still, my eternal optimism is not shared by all. So I guess I'd better be crafty about hoarding cool stuff until I get a chance to dedicate myself to some really craftiness.

And when I do, those Altoid boxes are going to become some amazing mini-shrines. Just you wait.

Juliet says: Let Fly Your Inner Anthropologist

This morning I’m off to meet an SFPD Homicide Inspector for coffee and a chat about crime scenes. A friend of mine, who just happens to be an Assistant District Attorney in San Francisco, set it up for me. Yep. That’s me. Hanging out with ADAs and Homicide Inspectors like it’s No Big Deal. Just me and the City’s movers and shakers.

Dontcha just love research?

Maybe it’s because I was trained as an anthropologist, and then worked as a social worker. I adore listening to people, watching them, studying them, interviewing them. Even in my latest occupation–painting murals and faux finishes in people’s homes—I love listening in while I paint. When you work in someone’s house for a while, you become a piece of the furniture. Rich people, especially, seem to easily forget you’re there. Not that I'm a gossip, but it fascinates me to see how differently people view the world. Give me a glass of wine and a few hours, and I could tell you stories…

Which is precisely my point. When we writers talk about research, most of us think of Google –and indeed, it’s a fabulous, irreplaceable resource. (Seriously, what did we ever do without it?) But to me, the biggest part of being a writer is listening, watching, observing. In anthropology, "hanging around and noticing things" is a legitimate form of qualitative research, called "fieldwork."

For my latest series featuring a witch with a vintage clothing store, I've gone to coven meetings and spent afternoons wandering aimlessly around Haight Street scouting secondhand clothing. I've interviewed witches and store owners. I've mixed up herbal balms and observed a clothing conservationist doing the laundry (much more interesting than it might sound).

If I sit around waiting for my imagination to come up with random ideas, I’m in for a long wait. Life, on the other hand, is chock-full-o' stories for the borrowing. The other day I noticed a torn note under a windshield wiper: “Amber: call this number. Trust me. 555-8769” ... my imagination was stoked. Was it from an old boyfriend? Could Amber owe money to someone? Was it a job opportunity? Has a child has been kidnapped and only Amber will be able to save it?

How about a ratty leather satchel left on BART, covered in French stickers? A frail old woman being helped from the bus by a punk in a thug outfit? A stripper with a chatty streak? Life is fascinating, and everyone has a story. I mean everyone. The kid on the way to school with a backpack half her body size. The fiftyish neighbor who lives alone with cats. The mail carrier who keeps misdelivering mail. They’ve all got something to say…and even if they don’t, I’ll bet I can make something up for them based on clues in their dress, bearing, and mode of speech.
Overheard the other day while standing in line for coffee: “So the stripper says to me, this guy is obsessed with the Lord of the Rings. He wants to be Frodo and her to be a Faery Queen. 'Cept, of course, naked."

Hmm, I feel a story coming on.

I love research.

Hazardous Holidays

Nothing says Christmas like a tale of disaster.

Okay, it's true.... I have sappy, bring-tears-to-your-eyes tales from my childhood...complete with warm cocoa and footie pajamas reading stories featuring Santa and Rudolf. We had the tree and presents and friends and family and everything one might expect from a beautiful, indulgent, fortunate Christmas. And when my son was young, I recreated those scenes: I tied the bow on the dog, hoisted the angel atop the tree, and brought in a mound of presents. And of course we loved all the great holiday shows: Peanuts and the Grinch (tops in my book) and It's a Wonderful Life, and the fabulous campy antics of that wacky quartet in A White Christmas.

But one of my fondest memories of my youth is when I escaped from the family festivities one Christmas afternoon with a bunch of other adolescent malcontents and went to see that unbeatable double feature of damnation: Earthquake and the Towering Inferno. Now that's a holiday.
Maybe it's partly in reaction to all the joy (genuine and forced) around me, but I like to celebrate the season with a smattering of mayhem and End of Days and imminent cataclysm. And clearly I'm not the only one: I am never alone in the theater on Christmas Day.
Here are a few other catastrophic favorites: The Poseidon Adventure (the original, of course), Airport (hole in the cockpit...Classic!), The Andromeda Strain (blood turns into powder! Gnarly!), and who could forget Soylent Green? (It's PEOPLE!!!)

I realize I'm giving away my age. Yes, I was raised during that golden era of disaster movies: the 70s. More recently there have been some pale imitations: The Day After Tomorrow, Independence Day, Volcano, Deep Impact. They don't have the same oomph, exactly, as those early calamitous movies...but the smell of popcorn and Red Vines never changes.

(Looking for a movie the whole family can enjoy? Fargo is always a crowd favorite, even though you have to re-create the theater at home. And it's not really a disaster movie per se, but the leg-in-the-wood-chipper scene makes it say "holiday" in my book.)

This year? Wanna see stuff get destroyed? I recommend "2012". They seriously blow s**t up, and then send the rest (Los Angeles first) to the bottom of the ocean. Awesome.
And if you're looking for me on December 25, I'll be at my local theater, the venerable Grand Lake (complete with a Mighty Wurlitzer), at the matinee for The Road, a post-apocalyptic world where hottie Viggo Mortensen still reigns supreme.

That's my kind of holiday movie.

Juliet's trying to figure out what Nanowrimo is all about....

Like so many other endeavors in my life, I got into this whole writing thing backwards. Here are a few examples:

I set off to write my first book on a lark, rather than with any actual game plan. (I figured since I liked reading mysteries, how hard could it be to write one? Answer: hard.)

I had no critique group (though I wrote my first book with my sister, so we were each other's de facto critiquers).

I didn't know about helpful professional organizations like Mystery Writers of America or Sisters in Crime.

I didn't realize mystery writers held conventions full of thousands of people, from authors to agents to fans.

I didn't know any other authors.

I didn't know any agents.

I didn't know what a freaking query letter was.

So is it any wonder that I'm only now figuring out what Nanowrimo is?

Here's what I love about it: Nanowrimo is a valuable, energizing, exciting, instructive way to learn to apply one's butt to the seat of one's chair and WRITE, which for many writers is the most difficult part of writing.

By its very nature it reinforces what I have come to believe: there is no waiting for the muse, no "feeling it", no looking for inspiration. There is only sitting down and getting words on paper, even if they're not perfect words (because really, how often are they perfect, no matter how much time one spends?)

The major problem with Nanowrimo is that there's no talk of revision, and as any novelist knows, that's often the hardest part. Fair point. But without the original words in the first place, there is no revision, no re-write.

Over the long run, the point isn't to get 2- or 3- thousand words a day down on paper. The point is to get some words down on that first draft, just about every day. Can't make 2,000? It's going to take you longer than a couple of months to complete a manuscript.

But even 2 pages a day, produced consistently, will add up to a sizable book in a matter of six months -- and that's assuming you're taking off weekends! Do that over and over, and pretty soon you'll have produced a whole stack of books.

Here's my pet peeve, overheard far too often: "I just don't have the time to write."

Some people don't. Some people are saving dying folks in remote parts of the world or caring for both parents suffering from Alzheimers or raising sixteen children not yet of school age.

But most of us do have the time, we just don't choose to use it. We don't prioritize.

I think the novelist Harry Crews said it best:

'You have to go to considerable trouble to live differently from the way the world wants you to live. That’s what I’ve discovered about writing. The world doesn’t want you to do a damn thing. If you wait till you got time to write a novel or time to write a story or time to read the hundred thousands of books you should have already read–if you wait for the time, you’ll never do it. Cause there ain’t no time; world don’t want you to do that. World wants you to go to the zoo and eat cotton candy, preferably seven days a week.'

And if you love writing, if you're bitten by the bug, your "work" is also your "fun"...even when it's not that fun. Hard to explain.

So if you don't want to write, do something else wonderful with your life.

But if you want to write, sit down and write no matter the circumstance. And if you do write, but don't write enough, and want to learn to write a lot, fast, jump on that Nanowrimo bandwagon!

Pens in Action

Three little pens went off to Bouchercon, the largest mystery convention, in Indianapolis last weekend. Did they get into some hijinx? Hmm, perhaps.

It all started when they roomed together.

Juliet, Gigi, and Sophie

Later Sophie stole Brett Battles' brand new Barry award for Best Thriller Ever. (Juliet tried to stop her.)

Steve Hockensmith tried to get them in line by using his stern, no-nonsense look but Mary Saums encouraged the gals not to be intimidated.

Oh dear, there's Juliet again, this time hanging out in a bar with Jen Forbus and Brett again. Watch out for the deer heads and Christmas lights, Juliet!

Meanwhile Sophie tried out a new look. (Too bad she stole the glasses...new friend Libby nabbed them back.)

In the end, our heroines had a lovely time and missed the rest of the Pens muchly.

Wednesday, Bloody Wednesday --Juliet

Maybe it's because I'm an artist, but whenever I think about blood, I think of the color red. What fascinates me is the dichotomy of the color: red is associated with life and love on the one hand, and death and injury on the other.
Indeed, in psychological experiments red is said to evoke the strongest reaction of all the colors. This is why many warning signs and cautions regarding heat and flammability are written in red. To be caught red-handed means to have the blood of murder on your hands. Red is said to incite violence and frightened thoughts.

At the same time, red is supposed to be the ideal paint color for dining rooms and restaurants, as it is said to increase the appetite. Does that mean we have a hunger for violence and frightened thoughts? (You can trust me on this one: in one of my past lives I was a professional color consultant, "Certified by the State of California.")

A red-blooded person is healthy and virile, but red-light districts are full of vice. Red roses are the symbol of true love, but red is the color associated with martyrdom. Red is lust, and violence, and sacrifice, and love, and life.

Blood (and the color red) has been used as a powerful statement in art through the ages, as in one of my favorite paintings by Caravaggio, above (c. 1599). Don't you just love the perturbed look on Judith's face as she is beheading the invader, Holofernes? She looks as though she's avoiding the blood as best she can. Wouldn't want to muss the dress.

One of Hollywood's all-time great shots is in Kubrick's The Shining: the camera shows a bank of elevators and...wait for it...the doors sliding open slowly... and something gushing from within. A deep, black-tinged crimson liquid rushes into the hallway, careens off the wall, and lifts an upholstered chair with its force. Finally, it covers the camera, leaving the screen black.Our strong reaction to blood has led to some very unfortunate uses of it in contemporary "art", in my humble opinion. For instance, British artist Marc Quinn created quite the sensation when he sculpted a self-portrait of his head out of 4.5 liters of his own frozen blood.

Recently, women's blood art (check it out, if you dare: blood art) was taken off E-Bay, as the online auction site prohibits the sale of human body parts (story at: Blood art taken off e-Bay)

I remember reading that the Aztecs marveled over the fact that women could bleed without being injured, not only monthly, but also during childbirth. It was considered sacred, as well as scary. Women bleed all the time, yet most times they don't die. Interesting.

But speaking as an artist, there are a lot of perfectly good bloody-looking pigments out there available for things like painting. In my mind, I'll continue to associate my favorite color with life, and lust, and love...and only very rarely with bloody violence.

Graceful? Nah. On the lookout for Grace? Always.

Grace. Strictly speaking, I ain’t got much. I’m the one who spills the wine at the table (that’s why I hang around Sophie, hoping she’ll spill first…)

I trip. I stumble. I bump into things. But despite being the most likely amongst my companions to spill, to trip, to falter, I find that if I keep on going, I get to my destination nonetheless.

I try to hold on tightly to that metaphor as I careen my way through life.

Clearly there’s a difference between being graceful and encountering Grace-with-a-capital-G in one’s life. When I remind myself to slow down, I find it easy to recognize fleeting moments of Grace: the sweep of my son’s eyelashes when I catch him unawares, before he pulls away. The unselfconscious elegance of Oscar-the-cat stalking a fly, his sinewy, soot-black body slinking through the tall grass. The sensation of trailing a soft sable brush through buttery artists’ oil paint. The slant of afternoon sunlight through the majestic window at my stair landing, and the beams of moonlight through the pantry windowpanes at night. The rush of water over a rock in a crystal-clear mountain stream. Forgetting myself in my writing, so that I’m unaware of time passing. The peal of a child’s laugh. The understanding smile in a friend's eye. The whisper of a lover’s sigh.

Then there’s always the proof of enduring grace: the historic architecture of the house where I am lucky enough to live, wherein the ghosts of the architect, skilled craftspeople, and the original owners live on in scrawled messages on naked plaster, old newspapers in the walls, yellowed photos, a baby’s shoe. A picture of a dancer I painted years ago in Florence, which changes through time so that every time I see it I am reminded of a long-ago steamy, sweaty summer in that Italian city…and increasingly of the young woman that I no longer am. Holding my published books in my arms, knowing that my imagination has created stories read by perfect strangers all over the world, who sometimes even write to me. The long, smooth, perfect limbs and almond-shaped eyes of the being who emerged from my body so many years ago, now on the cusp of leaving my side to create his own life, to find his own, profoundly personal, moments of Grace.

Oops, just spilled the coffee.

Time...gee I wish I had some more

I believe in a theory of relativity.

For example, the way time expands and contracts, relative to what you're doing.

I don't just mean how, when one's book is due, say, in one week... that week seems like two days. Or how it also, simultaneously, drags on for a month, so that it's impossible to remember Life Before Manuscript Due .

How about when you take a trip to...anywhere, really... as long as it's someplace new. Time slows down. You return home three days later and folks hardly even noticed you were gone, but you may well have had a life-altering experience. At the same time, the time absolutely flew and you can't believe it's over.

Right now, though, all I can think about is the manuscript that was due two days ago (seems like an eternity)...my editor gave me a couple of extra days, which is great because I need the time, but not so great because I will take all the time I can get, which means the days will simultaneously stretch ahead of me and rush by, and I won't get to other stuff. Petty things like paying bills (those bill collectors apparently don't understand the whole "time is relative" thing) or fulfilling those obligations to friends and family and colleagues that have been piling up over the past few weeks.

Wish I could see the future, and see how it all turns out. But I guess I'll wait for time to unfold its mysteries, on its own schedule.

Juliet's showing her age...what's a fangirl, exactly?

The first time I heard the topic for this fortnight, "Fangirl", my mind went immediately to fan dancers.
I do like the idea of fan dancers -- a great deal, actually-- but having never been one I wasn't sure what I should write about the topic.

I did have a brief fantasy of using this topic as an excuse to go out one night and give fan dancing a whirl, but I'm going to have to put that on my list of Things To Do One Day on Lower Broadway, right after pole dancing (Sophie Littlefield and I saw some great pole dancing in L.A., and felt inspired...)

But I quickly realized I must be wrong. As my 17-year-old son likes to remind me with many scathing I-can't-believe-I'm-related to you eye rolls, I'm not exactly up-to-date on modern lingo.

So I looked it up. According to the fabulous Urban Dictionary, a fangirl is:

1. A rabid breed of human female who is obesessed with either a fictional character or an actor.

2. A female who has overstepped the line between healthy fandom and indecent obsession.

Hmm, rabid AND indecent obsession. Sounds right up my alley. But I'm having a hard time thinking of someone --or some character-- for whom I've felt that kind of love and devotion...other than, of course, my childhood wonderdog, a cockapoo named Princess:

(We did share a rather indecent closeness, bordering on rabid obsession. On my part, not hers. She was a very patient, mature canine, while I was very young and in love.)

Then there's always David Cassidy. I know my age is showing like a frilly undergarment below a 1970s miniskirt, but y'all don't know quite what the Partridge family meant to me, back in the day. And David Cassidy's total awesomeness...well you kind of had to be there. It's a little hard to explain to those coming to maturity in the world-weary 2000's. I know we have great characters surrounding us today, but please -- do any of them ride around with their singing family on an old schoolbus with a Mondrian-inspired paintjob? I ask you, is that not worthy of fangirldom?
Plus, that feathered hair was sigh-inspiring....

Ah well. As for current fangirl squeeing...hmmm. I did enjoy Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And I Javier Bardem raises my temperature whenever he walks on the set. I got tongue-tied when I met Maya Angelou, and was pretty fluttery when Octavio Paz made a pass at me at a cocktail party (he was pushing eighty at the time, but still).

But when it comes right down to it, I still think fan dancing sounds like a whole lot more fun, not to mention squee-inducing.


ssree

Julie deleted many a scene between books 2 and 3 of the Art Lover's Mystery series...

(To the right: me, fellow Pensfatales Sophie Littlefield, and Ann Parker on tour in Arizona. Thanks to Lesa Holstine for the photo!)

Readers of the Art Lover's mystery series (written under my pseudonym, Hailey Lind) may have noticed that Josh-the-boyfriend was pushed back to a rather ignominious position as a "guy on the phone" before being shoved out of the books for good, all off-stage. I've heard from plenty of readers who wondered what happened to him...and while rummaging through the file of my many, many "deleted scenes", I came across this one.

Originally, the third book was going to entail a trip to Annie's home town in the Central Valley. The following scene opened the book:

“I wish I could go with you, Annie,” Josh murmured in my ear.

“I wish you could, too,” I lied. In marked contrast to most of the men in my life, the one who held me in his brawny arms was reliable, sweet, and refreshingly uncomplicated. I really didn’t deserve him. Josh Reynolds, contractor extraordinaire to the San Francisco Bay Area’s rich and upwardly mobile, had no flaws at all.

The one and only problem with Josh was that he was so...reliable. Sweet. And uncomplicated.

Josh and I had been dating ever since he had swooped in and saved me from celibacy last fall. He was like my very own white knight in denim, little gold earring, and tie-dye T-shirt. For a simple, straightforward kind of guy, Josh was remarkably tolerant of my somewhat checkered past. Which was a good thing because my normally quiet life as a legitimate faux-finisher was occasionally punctuated by high-drama incidents, like when I was busted for drug smuggling last fall.

But lately I was beginning to feel like I represented Josh’s Walk on the Wild Side. Even more sobering, I was wondering whether Josh might not be my very own Walk on the Mild Side.

“I have to stay and keep on top of the construction, otherwise we’ll fall behind schedule, and I’m not getting paid for falling behind,” Josh explained while he cleared the table of the remnants of the 3-course vegetarian feast he had lovingly cooked for me earlier in the evening.

That was another thing about dating Josh: normally I wasn’t a huge carnivore, but now that I was dating a vegetarian I had begun craving meat. The other night after Josh had wooed me over a sumptuous dinner of chickpea-tofu stew I found myself making a beeline toward Oakland’s famous Everett and Jones’ barbecue for an extra-large order of spicy baby-back ribs. Halfway through my surreptitious feast I looked down at the caveman-sized platter, my own sauce-covered hands, and my growing belly and wondered how I had gotten so out of control. Seemed like it was time –past time-- for me and Josh to have a little Talk.

But until I worked up the nerve it was easier just to leave town.

The series took off in an entirely different direction, but I always felt like we gave good old Josh the short end of the stick. Ah, well. The funny part is that I kept this scene, as though it could ever be used elsewhere.

Writers are nothing if not stubborn optimists.

Juliet's Appetite for Living

I have an astonishing ability to eat just about anything. I'm not sure that's a good thing -- and recent pictures of me demonstrate that it's really NOT-- but it did make me a successful anthropologist. Nothing like giving chili-sprinkled fried grasshoppers a go to ingratiate yourself with the local population in a small village in Mexico. Or gnawing on gelatinous chicken feet in a dim sum restaurant in San Francisco's Chinatown. Or actually asking to try seal meat while in a Yup'ik village.

After all, how can you understand the flavor of a culture without trying its food?

The other day I was in bar with a bunch of other mystery writers (why are we so often found in bars?) and a young man was talking about his stay in Sweden, where he was offered a fish dish that is considered a great delicacy. He knew he was in trouble when the family's young daughter ran outside to throw up the moment they broke the seal on the jar. It seems that they prepare the fish with a variety of spices, then let it putrefy in the ground for a year or so until it reaches its prime.
(About the picture at left: I'm sure they weren't eating clownfish, but isn't it cute?)

When Bouchercon (the big mystery conference) was up in Anchorage a couple of years ago, I took part in the Authors in the Bush program, which sends authors out to remote areas of the state. I flew on a bush plane out to a Yu'pik village right on the Bering Strait. Hooper Bay is still almost entirely native, and its people survive primarily by using traditional means of hunting and gathering. I was speaking at the school and asked the children about their family hunting trips, and one girl told me her favorite thing to eat was "mouse food."

At first I thought she was referring to "moss food" or some such, but I was wrong: she was talking about the stash of food mice build up all summer, carrying home grains and roots and berries in their mouths and tucking them away for the winter. Apparently it makes for quite a delicacy (though it seems cruel to steal the mouse's stash, they leave half for the mouse to eat). I was just as glad there wasn't any available for me to try -- the seal meat was about as far as I could take this whole adventurous gourmand thing.


(For more info on the trip, and pictures, check out my artloversmysteries blog here.)

I wrote my first mystery series with my sister, who doesn't like to cook, so our protagonist Annie Kincaid does great take-out -- which is pretty easy to do in the Bay Area: Mexican, Thai, Vietnamese, Ethiopian, German...you name it, it's available. The possibilities are endless.

But now that I'm writing a new series on my own, my protagonist --who happens to be a witch-- loves to cook. Like me, she observes that cooking is a kind of everyday magic. You can infuse your cooking with love and caring...there's a reason that the first thing you do when someone visits your home is to offer them food and drink. It's a way to show your affection and respect...or is that my food-loving parents speaking?

I grew up in a family that adored food, and cooking. Life revolved around the kitchen, where my mother whipped up her own mother's southern dishes --gumbo and cornbread were my favorites-- and my father honed dishes he invented during years of cooking at resorts in the Adirondacks and Santa Fe--including the unforgettable "Lawes steak" and "Lawes spaghetti".

These are indelible parts of my childhood memories now, as much --or more-- food for the soul as for the body.

Juliet says, "Stay Classy, San Diego"

When I accepted the invitation to become a member of the PensFatales grog, I didn't know my fellow groggers well, with the exception of Sophie and Gigi. And even then I didn't know a lot of their secrets... like the fact that Gigi once played WonderWoman on stage (of course I knew her that way in real life) or that anecdote about Sophie in the Oakland cop bar with a jar of Miracle Whip and a poodle...but that's really more appropriate for another post.

ANYHOO, now that I'm reading my grog sisters' posts regarding movies, I'm happy to note that I'm not the only one who fosters a sneaking fondness for guilty pleasure movies, like Bridget Jones' Diary or Die Hard (I got there second, Martha!) or Anchorman. (You may have recognized the quote in my title, said by a supercilious Will Farrell at the end of every night's broadcast.)

The quote seemed particularly appropriate because I was just down in paradise...er...San Diego, where I was on an Escapist Fantasy panel at ComicCon. This crazy, geeky convention-on-steroids used to be all about comics, superheroes, and graphic novels, but it has expanded to include television and movies that have anything at all to do with fantasy or science fiction. Why not? For a lot of us, movies are our only entree into the world of grown-up comics and graphic novels. I never read Ironman, for example, but I happily watched a buff Robert Downey Jr. (rroowwrr!) just as soon as the story came to a screen near me.Like so many other novelists out there, I nurture a tiny flame of hope that one day someone will see how absolutely PERFECT my books are for the movies. A series about an irreverent, former art forger trying to go straight in San Francisco? Who wouldn't want to see a movie about that? Or a witch with a vintage clothing store in the Haight -- Charlaine Harris, move over!

While at ComicCon, I was assured, I would meet the likes of Joss Wheadon (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame) and Jessica Alba (of...what?... bikini fame?) There was the slight possibility I would share an elevator with a producer hungry for a new project like mine, or stand in line for the restroom with someone-who-knew-someone. Alas, I met some great, talented folks, like my panel-mates: Marjorie Liu (DARKNESS CALLS); Jackie Kessler & Caitlin Kittredge (BLACK & WHITE); Diana Rowland (MARK OF THE DEMON); Sina Grace (CEDRIC HOLLOWS IN DIAL M for MAGIC); and Harry Connolly (CHILD OF FIRE), and got to hang out a little with my friend Mysti Berry and her fantastically talented artist/writer-type guy, Dale Berry (Myriad Publishing).
But the only star I really cared about seeing was Johnny Depp. Oddly enough, though I know he was there, Depp didn't make it a point to look me up. And there were another 100,000 people or so who thought, erroneously, that Johnny Depp was their future husband as well. Weird.

I'll have my people call his people, and set up a meeting.

Julie doesn't like being creative under pressure

It's sad, but it's soooo true: for me, creativity and pressure don't make happy partners. They refuse to skip happily down the street together. They fight and claw at one another, each seeking precedence...but in my case, at least, the deadline always wins.

(To the right: searching for inspiration...)

In fact, I'd go so far as to say pressure --as in a deadline, or several deadlines-- crushes creativity as easily as a butterfly's wing under the heel of a heavy-soled boot.

Consider the word "deadline." Any wonder that it uses "dead"? As in "better not cross that line!!!" Doesn't it kill you to have to come up with something, anything, to turn in before the death knell tolls?

On the other hand, I'm a world-class procrastinator. Without something to shoot for (and rail against), I'm unlikely to get anything done at all.

Still, I'm realizing lately that being a full-time author means being called on the carpet, again and again, to be original and creative on command. Personalizing an inscription on a book? Write something memorable. Talking in front of a group of readers? Be insightful and funny. Answering emails? Better not sound like a form letter. Come up with something creative-on-demand for Facebook, and blogs, and the current book, and the other book, and public talks, and the Litquake liar's panel, and and and...

Makes a person feel downright...what's the opposite of creative? Derivative? Status quo? Expected? Uninspired? Unimaginative?

Boring and inadequate and downright dull.

Anyway, I imagine it's clear by now that I'm not feeling very creative. Maybe I'll go out and take a walk in the sunshine. And whine. Or take a nap. And whine.

Can whining be seen as a creative endeavor?

Missing Pawnee Wells

Above: the cabin as it looks today.
A bit worse for wear, but still standing!

Juliet here:
When I was a mere stripling, my parents bought a 20 acre parcel of land in Northern California's Siskiyou Mountains, east of Yreka --$8,000, back in the day. My dad talked his good buddy, George Heskett, into buying the plot adjoining ours sight unseen, and for the next couple of decades my folks and their three girls would spend the summers up on the mountain with the Hesketts' three girls, along with whatever hangers-on were willing to brave the mosquitoes. Our place was dubbed Pawnee Wells, and the Heskett's was Dinky Springs.

To the right: my sisters helping me to walk on the foundation logs of the "temporary" cabin, built by hand by my mother and father

Surrounded by Klamath National Forest, sixteen miles from the nearest town -- Fort Jones, boasting all of 500 residents-- There was no power or telephone, but there was a creek nearby with the sweetest-tasting water...apparently in those days we were either blissfully unaware of water-borne illnesses, or they weren't so much of a problem.

To the left: me "helping" my dad, starting me on a lifelong career as a painter

Sure, we sat around innumerable campfires, sang, ate S'mores, and told stories. But it was much more than that.

Here are some memories of those long, hot, blissfully lazy summers, in no particular order:

Going to Jones Beach, a small patch of sand at the banks of the Scott River, riding the rapids in massive inner tubes, reading, and soaking up the sun...

Catching frogs and digging clay out of the clear cold creek beside the cabin, convinced we could make a fortune selling "natural" pots...

Scrounging around in that very same creek, determined to find just one more Shasta Grape Soda floating around in the murky bottom of the "cooling hole" where we kept our drinks....

Spending several days setting up a "haunted trail" which all adults were invited (read: required) to tour, including an entrance fee and plenty of chances to throw money into the Haunted Well and the Haunted Grave...

Making "snakeskins" by putting Styrofoam cups on the end of sticks and letting them melt and twist in the fire (these were then featured along the Haunted Trail, see above)....

Waging a merciless campaign of nagging and cajoling that began about one week into the vacation, wherein we children would target some poor adult with the aim of getting them to take us the twenty-five miles into nearby Etna (population 700 --the "big town" in the Scott Valley), which had a theater that ran third-run movies ( I remember seeing "House of Blood"). This outing always included a stop at Dotty's Jolly Cone, which served chocolate-dipped soft-serve ice cream that would inevitably drip down your arm before you had a chance to eat it.

To the right: My very tired (yet handsome) father with his three girls (me making a face, of course)

It was the kind of multi-week summer idyll most of us don't have time for anymore. I know I don't.

When I returned to California after spending ten years back East, I packed my boy, a couple of brave friends, and a whole lot of supplies into my truck and headed north, cleaned out fifteen years of mouse droppings and deteriorated furniture, jacked up the porch, laid down some tile, cleared the fire circle, and set up summer residence once again in the cabin that my folks built by hand.

When they built it, they declared it was the temporary structure that would suffice until they built their dream home on the mountain. Things change, plans go awry. But the cabin is still standing, guarding our memories and summer secrets.

I was bound and determined to go up this summer to lay on the beach with a book, write by hand on a pad of paper, and trek into town for a soft ice cream cone (which, I have to admit, is not nearly so sweet now that I can drive myself any time I want.)

But no luck. With two manuscripts (for two different series) and a media tour planned this summer, I finally had to admit last week that I wasn't going to make it to Pawnee Wells this year, after all.

But I expect part of my mind, and most of my heart, will always remain at Pawnee Wells, relishing the never-ending summers.

And once I make a my fortune and find the time, you'll know where to find me...just stop in at Charlie Bob's bar in Fort Jones, and ask for directions.

Characters Behaving Badly

--by Juliet Blackwell

For the past week, my characters have been behaving badly.

Here's the scenario: I'm writing along, following (more or less) the outline that I was contractually obliged to turn in to my editor months ago --long before I had a clue what the book was actually going to be about-- and then some character pops up and goes an entirely different way than originally intended, veering off the outline and careening into brand new, uncontrolled territory.

What the hell?

I'm a reasonably intelligent person. I realize only too well that these characters -- in fact, this whole fictional world-- is a product of my mind, and my mind only. So how on earth can a character decide to disobey my demands... act and say things that are NOT part of my script? This makes no logical sense.

I used to be a social worker, so I jump up and consult the DSM-III-R (which, if you're in the field of psychology, gives you an idea of how long ago I trained -- I think they're on the DSM-X by now). This is the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic Statistical Manual, which is supposed to help in the diagnosis of disorders.

*Frantic flipping through pages...*

Hearing voices in my head...yada yada yada...Yup. I must have a multiple personality disorder. But don't we all? According to a great literary name, Mel Brooks:

Every human being has hundreds of separate people living under his skin. The talent of a writer is his ability to give them their separate names, identities, personalities and have them relate to other characters living with him.

So maybe all fiction writers are just schizophrenic, living with multiple characters within us. This idea frightens me because I write murder mysteries. I hang out with people who write about murderers, assassins, and serial killers...these people enjoy nothing so much as talking about gruesome, inventive ways to kill someone. Does these mean they're just waiting for the right moment to let their inner Hannibal Lecter out for a spin? Should I become a romance writer instead? After all, I'd rather be romanced than...ya know...killed and eaten.

Maybe I'm becoming a romance writer already, whether I like it or not. Because the character that I said was behaving badly, the one who inspired this post? The one in a perpetually bad mood, who smokes, wears motorcycle boots, a black leather jacket, and a scowl? He just hit on my protagonist, right out of the blue.

He was supposed to be a bit character with a simple walk-on role, and now this.

The real problem is... my protagonist kissed him right back. I cannot keep that scamp under control.

The Unrequited Search for a Kick-Ass First Line

"On my forty-ninth birthday, I decided that all life was hopeless, and that I would eat myself to death.” –Anne Lamott, Plan B.

Great line. Great first line, to be more precise.

I’d like to say that first lines aren’t important; certainly they don’t make or break a book – most of us count amongst our most beloved novels those that start out with a tepid whimper but end with an unforgettable bang.

But like most writers, I’m also a voracious reader. And I do what most readers do upon picking up an unfamiliar novel:I glance at the back cover, then open it to the first page and peruse the first few lines.

I remember standing one summer in Booksmith in the Haight, San Francisco, and looking for the perfect airplane book: Paperback, not too stupid, but not too worthy, either. I don’t like to have to think a lot on airplanes, much less in airports.The young woman standing next to me-- sporting a nose ring, two eyebrow piercings, and an intricate tribal tattoo that ran around her neck-- told me Laurell K. Hamilton’s vampire hunter series was “hecka tight”.

I was skeptical. I’m not really a vampire-hunter kind of gal. I had never watched Buffy, and the last Dracula movie I saw starred Frank Langella as a young and sexy bloodsucker. Now the man plays Nixon.

Still, the young woman was so much cooler than I could ever hope to be that I picked up the book and took a look. The back cover blurb didn’t move me –and I’m far too cynical to be swayed by enthusiastic endorsement quotes-- but I flipped to page 1 and read:

Willie McCoy had been a jerk before he died. His being dead didn’t change that. He sat across from me, wearing a loud plaid sport jacket…He was a slime bucket, but he was an undead slime bucket. – Laurell K. Hamilton, Guilty Pleasures.

I bought the book.

As an author, I’m not sure I have yet managed to write that kind of “gotcha” first few lines, though I do try.

Our eyes met. I tried to keep a poker face. I failed. (Feint of Art)

“Anthony, that body is not part of your exhibit,” I said for the third time, my voice rising in desperation. (Shooting Gallery)

The sweet-faced boy, one arm curled around his cocker spaniel puppy, paid no attention to the swaying and bobbing of the sagging helium balloons near the doorway. (Brush with Death)

And now my latest, but the very first line in a new series:
Witches recognize their own. (Secondhand Spirits)

Nope. Haven’t written my best opening line yet. I know it's in there somewhere. The sentence that makes you buy the book because you absolutely, positively need to read the next 335 pages. The line that makes you laugh, and recognize yourself, maybe even weep.

Okay, I’ll admit it. The first time I heard this week’s topic, I thought of nothing so much as the lines on my face. The first ones were a bit traumatic. But now they are numerous, and I forget which ones came first. I like to think of them as marks of experience, a well-lived life, and if I’m very lucky, plenty of laughter.

And unless I decide, like Anne Lamott, that life is not worth living and I must eat myself to death, I expect my lines to be with me the rest of my life.

Much like a really kick-ass first line of a book.

--Juliet Blackwell

I’m the kind of writer who feels like she’s getting away with something

Juliet Blackwell...


I’m the kind of writer who feels like she’s getting away with something.

Seriously. Most people I know are condemned to spending a goodly portion of every day doing things they would prefer not to. And I’m not even talking about the folks who unclog city sewers or pour asphalt on hot summer days or peel endless sacks of potatoes.

As a friend of mine used to say: “Work is work; if it were fun they would have called it fun.”

But I thoroughly enjoy my work. There’s something…downright un-American about that, isn’t there?

Even when I’m not taking actual pleasure in my work-–because yes, it can be bone-crunchingly, soul-numbingly hard-- I’m still compulsively driven to do it. I wake up before dawn and start to write; by the time others are coming on home in the evening, kicking off their shoes, and mixing a pitcher of mojitos, I still would rather keep writing than join them. Makes me a bit of a freak in my tight-knit neighborhood.

When I was working full-time as an artist, painting custom murals and portraits of children in the guise of Raphaelite angels, architects and bookkeepers and computer programmers would stop by my Berkeley studio, look around at the easels and paints and ask me: “How come you get to do this?”



Good question. A lot of luck, certainly. And plenty of hard work, and the fortitude to forgo a whole lot of consumer items. But mostly, the enticing idea that I might get away with doing what I want to do.

I managed to stay in school for years, studying anthropology. When the whole anthropology doctorate thing didn’t quite work out, I became a professional artist. And now, a fiction writer.

Clearly I’m not cut out for a real job.

But I’ve never regretted my choices. For me, being a writer means getting to live in my head, to look around at the world and imagine an altered reality full of characters both real and imagined; and to enjoy myself, and my work, just about every single day. It’s a lot like being an artist, or an anthropologist for that matter: The pay sucks, but the working conditions are awesome.