R.I.P. Darling Davy

Oh God, I loved him.

The Monkees were a created group, created to piggy-back on the popularity of the Beatles. Davy was the cute one (like Paul) and the only Brit.

I loved all the Monkees but Davy was created to win the young girl's hearts. So beautiful, sweet voice and possibly the first love of more American women than anyone.

Davy died today from a heart attack and I feel bereft. He was supposed to be forever.

He will be in my heart.

Open Letter to the A-Holes, Young and Not So Young

Dear creatures with dangly bits,

those of you who were at the Key Arena last night... and even those who weren't but whose behavior I might be commenting on,

I have a few things to say to you.

My daughter and I were anticipating the wrestling show for months. This was Mollie's gift from Santa and her chance to see one of her heroes live. Our seats were spectacular and we were buzzing with excitement. So were you, we could tell.

However, there were a few issues for us last night. Such as, that child. You know, the boy who might have been 8 or 9 years old who screeched with the power of a thousand jackals and usually right in my ear. The one that I asked to not screech into my ear. Yeah, the woman sitting next to my daughter asked also. She and her husband left early because of him, did you notice that?

I know you didn't care. You stated as much to me and to the other woman and her husband. You paid your money for seats and you had every right to act however you wanted. You might have been right because you continued to let the boy screech his inanities and you continued to bellow yours.

The only thing is that I paid my money too and I deserved a little respect or human decency. I didn't ask the child not to yell, just to sit back and do it from his seat instead of on his feet and in my ear. Of course had he done it the way I asked then he would have been annoying you. Better to have him annoying strangers.

I don't know how old the group of you were, I'm betting around 18 or thereabouts. You were jerks. Just want you to know.

And to the nice man sitting next to us: you were nice. What wasn't so nice was the amount of beer you drank and ultimately spilled. We had placed some things on the floor and well, they got ruined by beer. My daughter was a little upset.

Just because they sell beer, doesn't mean you have to drink so much of it. And if you must, perhaps let your wife hold it. She seemed nice and I doubt she would have ruined my daughter's signs.

And to the guy in our row who got upset about the man who had his son on his shoulders. Dude, really? Yes, they blocked your view but it was only for a few minutes. His little boy was probably only 5 years old. He couldn't see anything and his dad was giving hm a chance to see someone he probably loved.

You know, flying over the barrier and attacking the guy wasn't okay at all. His kid and wife was there. Hell, a lot of people were there. You manged to knock over a row of chairs, scare a lot of people, attack a man and his family and get kicked out (as well as get that other family kicked out too).

And your trying to hit the man's wife was one of the worst things I'd seen.

Which brings me to my last comment. We were at a televised wrestling event. A lot of testosterone in the air. Testosterone does not have to equal misogyny. Screaming at the women to shut up and let the men do their work. Congradulating your screechy little friend for his nasty gender screeches. Suggesting that any of the hot women wrestlers would ever give you a tumble (even I wouldn't and I'm a million hotness times removed from those women).

I know not all men are jerks or act like it at such events. But for you who did and especially those in the row behind us, I just wanted to say...

SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTHS AND LET THE WOMEN ENJOY THE WRESTLING YOU DWEEBS!!

What's the Difference?

This might sound truly bizarre to anyone else and I might be totally embarrassed....

So I've been working on a book for awhile and it's one of those that means something to me but I put it aside and come back to it and do that ad nauseum... so right now I've been working on it and I'm not that far into it and realized that I have a lot of situations but no plot.

There's conflict galore. There's misunderstandings. There's growth. Do all those things equal plot? I don't feel like it does and now I'm trying to figure out what exactly plot means to me.

I know there might be some people having quite a giggle over my idiocy. "Look Marge, she writes books and doesn't know what a plot is. No wonder she writes romance." (Okay, that last dig was for fun.)

But the thing is that conflict doesn't always mean plot. To me, plot is an arc that begins as the book begins and ends when the book ends. The plot is the crux of the story.

Boy meets girl = construct.
Boy loses girl = plot?
Boy gets girl back = resolution.

How about...

Boy meets girl = construct.
Boy has issues with his mother and despite falling in love, can't release his painful issues and therefore loses girl. He seeks closure with his mother and seeks therapy and cries at her graveside and goes to see his father who tells him to grow a goddamn pair = plot.
Boy gets girl back = HEA and resolution.

So what I have...

Girl wants changes in her life = construct.
Boy crashes through her bedroom wall and destroys her home. Boy's uncle offers to fix everything. Boy is in love with neighbor girl whose father hates the boy. Uncle falls for girl who wants change in her life. = it doesn't feel enough like a plot.
HEA for everyone = resolution.

Am I crazy? There's issues with family, with anger.... there's hints of magic and friendship and story-telling and I think I'm answering my own question. I have a plot. I'm just putting so many layers atop it that I don't remember what I've got.

Wow, thanks for talking this all out with me. I feel better. Really I do.

The Shame Game

Over at Dear Author there's a thread that just won't die... almost 400 posts at this point I believe and it's the best example of the good and bad of blog discussion. Thankfully none of the women have come out and cursed at each other but a fella named Tom tried the paternal 'shame game' that didn't work.

I love the shame game. It's this thing that men do when they aren't right but want to shut down conversation. It's "you should be ashamed of yourself young lady..." It's the scolding and the admonishment and in Tom's case, calling the women harpies and saying they're beneath him.

Because he can't make them agree with him.

I'm pathetic. A little part of me squee'd when he tried it. He didn't get as trashed as I thought he should have but I loved seeing it and loved the few responses he got. And none of those responses were the ones he wanted.

Heh.

Smashwords Has Disappointed Me

And now my books are no longer available there.

PayPal has decided to come down on online book retailers and stop the sale of certain "pornographic" materials. Well, what they really have done is enforced their TOS and now they're telling the retailers, take down the objectionable content or you can't use us anymore.

PayPal has every right to do so.

Smashwords has agreed to take down the content and I disagree with their decision. They're choosing censorship as their best option and I can't get my head around that at all. because once they start dictating what they deem 'pornography', who's to say that they won't decide anything outside of one man/one woman isn't? In fact, isn't that the backlash we're seeing now in American politics?

I might not like certain types of stories and I wouldn't buy them or read them but I'd defend any adult's right to read or buy it for themselves. Smashwords apparently would not.

I cannot in good conscience keep my books on Smashwords while they allow PayPal to dictate their policy.

Recs Please

I lovelovelove books with cooking in them. Books where food matters and is described in loving detail. Where cooking matters and is described in loving detail. Whether romance, women's lit, non-fiction... it's a deep in my heart reading need.

I need more books of this type. Anyone? Please?

Winter at My House

It's that time of year when everything seems dead, or at the very least, asleep.

This year winter at my house is a roller coaster ride of iced over car windows alternating with turning the car A/C on in the afternoons. It's not unusual to go from 20°F at night to almost 70 as a daytime high. It's overcast more often than it's sunny, and it's been raining so much I feel like Selma is challenging Seattle for the title of the rainiest city in America.

The winter darkness is brightened by the orange-red breasts of a flock of robins. A veritable herd of robins, come to winter in my neighbourhood. Everywhere I look, there are robins.

Back in Ontario, where I grew up, robins were solitary birds except for their mate. Together they raised two or three families and they never flocked together as starlings do.

Here in Alabama, robins flock. And they sing. Their song drifts through my open windows and lifts my heart out of the winter doldrums. They've created a game at the back of the house, where the wilderness borders the yard. They fly through the seemingly impenetrable bushes and branches, zipping through tunnels visible only to them, circling around to do it all again. Somehow they avoid collision, both with the woods and each other.

I wanted to share this with you because every year I'm fascinated all over again by these 'common' birds, who are really so very special. And when the full beauty of a southern spring is upon us, they will leave, off to northern climes to replenish the robin population.

I'm glad they spend their winters here. They are a small joy in the dark time of the year, when things can become overwhelming. God's choir, come to cheer us up. :-)