Thoughts on Upcoming Appearance

I am a rather private person by nature. I don't go around talking about myself much. I don't really say much about my family either. I really don't even talk about my books very much, which is probably not a good thing.

I guess I'm just not much of a talker.

So, this weekend I feel like I'm back in college cramming for a mostly oral exam, except I can refer to the text book, which in this instance is Miss Peculiar's Haunting Tales, Volume I. I've read through the book and highlighted some of my favorite passages. The top of the book bristles with torn strips of medium blue Post-it Notes marking these highlighted pages. I have something marked to read from each of the six stories.

What I don't have is much to say about myself. What's there to say? I just don't know.

I was born in Northampton, MA, raised for the first fifteen years of my life in Easthampton, MA and then moved with my family to Westfield, MA to the neighborhood where I presently live, only this house didn't even exist when we moved here. Where I live now was only woods with a dirt track bulldozed part way around marking the projected development of this section of Eastview Heights. I hiked here as a teenager, took walks with my cat Sierra and played hide and seek with him in the swampy area where neighbors houses now stand across the street from us.

I graduated from Westfield High School, class of '76. I went to Fitchburg State College for a year and a half as an English major, planning on being an English teacher but balked at doing a lesson plan on video. I do not like being photographed or filmed. I'm not photogenic in the least. So I bailed out of Fitchburg, came home and finished college at Westfield State College (now Westfield State University) earning my Bachelors degree in Criminal Justice.

My employment career includes child care, carpet repair, retail, store detective, campus police officer, campus police night shift supervisor, injection mold operator in a major construction toy company, office product sales and medical secretary. I've arrested shop lifters, shown up in court to testify against them, hauled injured college students to the hospital for stitches in my personal vehicle when they'd refused am ambulance (really- thumb dangling by a flap of skin and you think it'll heal on it's own? Now that is really drunk and dumbass thinking!) I've gone to the state police academy (Framingham and Agawam) for training and continuing ed courses (learning defensive driving, how to talk perps out of their vehicles and get them down on the ground to be cuffed and then into the back seat of a cruiser without losing control of the arrestee). Currently I get patients prior authorizations for medications from their insurances, help people get hospital beds and wheelchairs, walkers, canes, diapers, braces and VNA services.

Throughout my entire life I have written. I wrote my first story about a magical lion in a zoo when I was very young- maybe first grade. I was inspired by the song The Lion Sleeps Tonight that was playing on the radio. I never stopped writing. I wrote short prose and poetry then tried my hands at longer prose. I wrote never ending stories, restarting them, changing them every two minutes, basically working on character development and storytelling throughout high school and into college. In high school I took as many creative writing classes as they offered. Satire was one of my favorite classes and I liked that my short stories in that class made my teacher laugh. I also have kept a diary since I was twelve years old, and write in a journal. When Kelly was three years old I began writing stories for her and my story about teaching children how to cope with the monsters under their beds and in their closets, Monsters No More, was published in an anthology of teaching and healing stories for children when she was four. I co-wrote a magazine article with a friend out in New Mexico that was published in a British teddy bear magazine. I wrote for my high school and college literary magazines, and was editor in Fitchburg for half a year.

As Kelly grew up so did my stories. I basically wrote short stories, novelettes and novellas. One year I decided to write my best friend a book...it ballooned into a 435,000 behemoth- an epic story about three half brothers all in love with the same young heiress. I discovered I really didn't know where to stop when writing a novel! And she never got a copy because it was too huge!

I didn't write a real novel until 2012. Kelly was away at Worcester Polytech. She was instrumental in reviving their arts and literary magazine during her four years there. She and her friend Bethany had done the NaNoWriMo 50,000 word novel in 30-days challenge in November 2011. Kelly wanted me to try it in 2012. So, during March of 2012 I set myself the task of writing a novel in 30 days. I finished in 24 and it wasn't bad. It needed some editing, corrections, grammar fixes and continuity checks- but overall it was a 62,500 word novel and I felt like I had accomplished something in my life.

In November 2012 I wrote another novel, in less than 30 days. Every November since I've written a novel. The least amount of time it took me to write a NaNo novel was 18 days. I thought Kelly would lunge across the table and throttle me for finishing in just 18 days! She was struggling with her novel.

Since then I've written about 15 novels and a lot of short stories, novelettes, and novellas. I've been writing annual holiday stories for family and friends since about 1997. I stopped for two or three years after my mother passed away in 2000, taking her passing pretty hard, but resumed as a way to keep my Dad going. For years and years everyone kept telling me to put my stories in a book. In 2015 I finally sat down and weeded out the stories not connected to novels (several of my novels have a bonus Christmas story with the same characters- like The Archetypes-Shockwaves and Life Skills). When I had them all sorted out I found I had 23 stories- way too many to put into one book. They filled three average sized trade paperbacks! I then did the same thing with my annual "Halloween" stories, or haunting tales. I began writing them in 2012. Collected and sorted, they filled three volumes with some remaining as a start to volume 4.

I entered the Romance Writers of America Golden Heart contest twice- first with Talon:An Intimate Familiarity in 2013 and then The Subtlety of Light and Shadow in 2015. I'm really not a true romance writer, but I was given fairly decent grades for Talon and even better grades for Light and Shadow. But I don't write the kind of romance they're looking for.

I really don't know what my genre is- but some novels and collections fall under supernatural/romance, while others fall under urban fantasy/romance. The Archetypes novels are more sci-fi/action-adventure/romance. Life Skills is contemporary. All my stories have some romance in them- love makes the world go round, so they say!

Through all the years that I've been writing- since way back when I gripped my pencil and wrote words on school composition paper I have striven to tell a story to the best of my ability. I have worked hard to improve my writing and storytelling. And I'm the kind of girl who, when bored one summer when I was sixteen or seventeen years old, read the Merriam Webster paperback dictionary, primarily as a means to learn as many words as I could to improve my own vocabulary! (Kelly has grown up to be an avid reader so her vocabulary is pretty amazing- she and I have entire conversations where we have to think fast and use the rarest word for each word we want to say. Talk about a brain exercise! "I perambulated to the edible goods emporium to purchase a cylindrical container of pasteurized whipping cream for esthetic purposes and delighting the palates of our post prandial dessert indulging dining companions." (Or, in layman's terms, "I went to the store to buy a can of whipped cream to spiff up dessert to make everyone happy.") My husband just shakes his head when she and I get going!

Otherwise, I'm just an ordinary person who prefers to listen to people instead of talk to them. I'm more observant than the usual person because I'm always studying people, things, the environment around me for things I might weave into a story to make it that much more realistic. I like to fill in all the blanks. I like to take my readers on a wild thrill ride through the pages. I'm the author that rides on the cow catcher of the literary express train laying down the track just ahead of the engine. I never know what lies ahead but I keep laying down that track. When I reach the end of the line I just say, "Whew," and shake my head. And I hope instead of "Whew!" the reader says, "Wow!"

And that's about all I have to say about myself. I have a just a few very close friends, a bunch of co-worker friends, a bigger bunch of acquaintances, a little group of writer friends, a very small family, some of whom don't even have a clue that I write. I have one sister and one brother. I have one cousin somewhere and one half cousin somewhere else. I have two brothers-in-law, one who's a musician the other is a cardiologist. I have three sisters-in-law. One who has disassociated herself from the family, one who is the caregiver of my elderly father-in-law, and one I never see. I have no nieces or nephews, but boy, do I have a lot of feline versions of same and one canine one. My parents are both gone. My mother-in-law passed away this past January. I live in a house on the side of a mountain. I collect camels, teddy bears and antique and vintage clothing buttons specialized to charmstrings (for which I have a separate charmstring museum blog). I was editor of and a contributing writer for the Massachusetts State Button Society Bulletin, a 42-44 page annual publication, for 10 years. When I resigned this year no one stepped up to take my place so the Bulletin is no more. Kelly manages the website where any future articles can be uploaded. I'm a Director of MSBS and have been the Secretary for a number of years in the past. I've been the Treasurer of the local button club, Crescent Club since 2007. I was a member of RWA for a few years but didn't renew this year. I'm currently a member of Artworks|Westfield.

Authors who have influenced my writing include Charles Dickens (Miss Haversham=haunting tale), Edgar Allan Poe, Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury (Something Wicked This Way Comes), Alexander Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo- the ultimate revenge book).

Currently I read (and this is directly from my little black book where I list all the books by each author I have in my library)- Carol McCleary, Jennie Bentley (cozy Fixer-Uppers), Stefanie Pintoff, Victoria Thompson (Gaslight Mysteries), Jonathan L. Howard (OMG! Johannes Cabal, Necromancer- Kelly and I are addicted!), Alan Bradley (Flavia novels), Linda Castillo, Andrew Martin (RR detective novels), Kylie Logan cozies), Sarah Graves, Amanda Stevens (Graveyard Queen series), Darynda Jones (Charlie Davidson/Reyes Farrow series), Claude Izner, Casey Daniels, C.S. Harris (Sebastian St. Cyr), Kevin Hearne (druid novels), Judy Clemens (grim reaper series), Tessa Harris, Charles Palliser, Christine Trent, Erin Kelly.

This is me- reader/writer/mother/medical secretary/wife/other people's neighbor/friend and worrywart. I can write about who I am and what I do, but when it comes to talking about it in front of people...well, I'm really not sure I'll have much of anything to say.

Unless I talk about the ghosts.

Weird Sounds in the Woods

I am very familiar with the hoots of the great horned owl, barred owl and screech owls that inhabit our woods. Tonight while lying on the bed writing in my journal there have been a series of loud noises that could be a different type of owl, but have an almost eerie animal quality to them. I've really never heard anything like it in all the years I've lived up here (since 1973).

This is the type of thing scary stories are derived from- unknown, unidentified strange noises emanating from the dark wood on a chilly autumn night.

The sound has moved away deeper into the woods.

For all I know, it could be a werewolf!

Back To Writing

Now that the health crisis with Riley Beans is resolved I can concentrate on writing again.

I was at a party for staff where I work Saturday night when Kristina asked me what was going on with Romney and Ivy. I had given her a few pages of my first attempt at book two in the series about a month ago. I told her I had trashed that beginning and restarted the second novel after deciding I needed to write this one now instead of in November as my NaNo novel writing challenge. I have another book in mind to write in November.

Kristina was shocked that I had trashed the dramatic first chapter. I assured her there was another start with a bang first chapter already written with several more chapters following in its wake. I'm currently 16.063 words into the sequel. I printed out 32 pages that I'll give her tomorrow because she can be an advance reader for me and let me know if she finds any continuity errors or whatever.

Tonight after dinner after a weekend of mostly running errands and doing household chores with a little novel writing thrown in and a few hours spent Saturday afternoon and evening at the party, I sat down at 7:30PM and wrote the first of this year's annual haunting tales. About a week or so ago I'd written a horror story that I thought might be a haunted tale, but I really am not comfortable writing gory stuff so I filed it.

Tonight's story about a fifteen-year old girl who has to take her three younger half brothers (10, 8 and 6 years old) out trick or treating around the neighborhood, is more along the line of the supernatural/suspenseful tales I pen for Halloween for family and friends. What happens to them is unsettling, to say the least! No gore, no horror...just suspense and the unfamiliar appearing in one's familiar neighborhood.

Feeling like I'm back on track!

Improvement but Not 100% Yet

Riley Beans began acting more like his old self last night after several weeks of being practically invisible, not eating well and not drinking water. We put him on a grain free diet, wet food, limited dry food and are offering him a second source of water apart from the bowl near his food dish. He even amazed me this evening and let me groom him with a brush I found in the desk drawer that had probably belonged to Jason back in 2006. Beans has never sat still to be brushed before so I was pretty amazed when he allowed me to groom him head to tip of his tail, and even his belly fur!

His vet, Dr. Moss called to check on him today. Although he is eating and drinking fluids again, he has not had a bowel movement in two days, so she said to keep an eye on him and bring him in on Monday to be reassessed if nothing is happening in the litter box.

So, while he's acting like his old self and seems happy, he still has intestinal issues. Keeping our fingers crossed his new feeding and watering regiment will help, plus the Laxatone every other day to move the hairballs through his digestive system.

Meanwhile, after a warmer than expected day a cool front has moved in with gusty breezes! Feels good! Will be an awesome sleeping night!

A Near Miss

Last night I attended an Artworks meeting downtown. After the meeting which adjourned about 9:06PM I dropped a friend off at her home, also downtown, then headed home to the north side of Westfield. I had two choices after leaving my friend's house- I could go right and get on route 20 and go home that way, or go left, head to Elm Street, cross the bridge and either go up North Elm to Holyoke Road, or take Union Street to Springdale to Dry Bridge to Holyoke Road to East Mountain Road. I chose to go left.

I had no problems as traffic was fairly light from Union Street on. I reached the stop sign at the end of Holyoke Road at one of Westfield's more dangerous intersections because there is the Pioneer Valley RR overpass to the left with extremely poor visibility for any vehicles coming from the left. There are also the two Mass Turnpike overpasses directly behind the PVRR underpass. I am always super cautious when attempting a left turn onto East Mountain Road from the end of Hoyoke Road. I'm also super cautious when coming up to the stop sign just past the PVRR when traveling south on East Mountain Road because the Lane Construction big haulers SELDOM stop for that stop sign at the end of Holyoke Road because I guess it's too difficult to apply the brakes and obey traffic rules when you come to a stop sign. (But that's another issue)

I looked in both directions twice and saw no cars, nor headlights approaching in either direction, so slowly began to pull ahead, and still I saw no lights coming through the underpass. I started to cross the road and suddenly a car came flying through the underpass at a minimum of 40MPH, but I'm thinking they were going maybe 50MPH, which isn't unusual, and blew through the stop sign, swerving onto the other side of the road to miss me by mere inches.

It happened so fast that I don't know how I managed to stop. If I hadn't caught that rapidly approaching glow from the corner of my eye and slammed on the brakes I'd have been broadsided at the driver's door and probably killed at the speed that car was traveling.

I must have a Guardian Angel with super fast reflexes...and for that I'm truly grateful! Still here today to continue with things I want to accomplish in my life!

Riley Beans is Sick

My five-year old long-haired grey and white kitty, Riley Beans, the sweetest little guy in the world, is sick. We had him at the vet's last night for fluids, blood work and an x-ray. He's always had bowel issues as well as dental issues. He was labeled a "chronic" when we adopted him from the rescue shelter but we took him home anyway to give him the best possible life we could. When faced with having ALL his teeth pulled at six months old due to juvenile gingivital hyperplasia we took him home to think about that. A little fella with NO teeth was just not sitting well with us, but we had to make a decision because his gums were growing over his teeth and absorbing them. Something needed to be done.

His incredible vet did his own thinking and decided to try laser gum surgery on Riley before sending him to the vet dentist for full mouth dental extractions. He was willing to take a risk by lasering the gums back and pulling the few damaged teeth, and seeing what happened from there. The vet told us he would either outgrow the condition or eventually have to have his teeth pulled when his gums got inflamed and grew back over his teeth. We took him home and he's had annual dental cleanings and care and he's only had to have two other teeth pulled since then.

But he's always had chronic constipation and slow motility in his intestines. He's long-haired so he's also had his share of hairballs. It's only in the past month that his condition has worsened. He's lost over two pounds and is not passing much if any stool. We were given Laxatone, but trying to get him to take it has been no picnic. He's not eating or drinking. We should have taken him for another fluid bolus this evening but my husband scared him half to death and he hid under the king sized bed and would not come out. I'm not a happy camper this evening. Feeling incredibly stressed right now.

I will run him over to the vet in the morning for fluids if he doesn't get scared under the bed again. It's getting to the point where additional vet care is critical. I guess I am the only responsible person in this house and will have to do this by myself.

Please keep little Riley Beans in your thoughts...he's very sick right now.

Fat Boy...oh, dear!

Revere has been stress eating since John lost his job back near the end of February. He was 16 pounds and now I'm afraid to put him on the scale.

John has begun calling him FB for Fat Boy.

The reality of Revi's weight gain came to a head this morning when he walked from the bed onto my bedside table, a normal thing for him to do as he's waiting for me to reach over to hit the snooze button so he can swat my hand.

Only this morning, for some unknown reason, he jumped down into the corner, a kind of tight, small square area between the bedside table, the corner where the heat ducts meet and John's tall chest of drawers. There is a very narrow space between them that even skinny pin Riley Beans cannot fit through.

All I heard was a very soft, very humiliated, "Mew?"

This is not normal for usually very vocal Revere so I immediately threw aside the blanket, gt up and put on my glasses thinking he was sick. I really couldn't tell lying down where that soft, plaintive mew had come from. But as soon as I had my glasses on I saw him moving around in that little space, trying to figure out how to get out. There are a few things stored in that space so he didn't have the room to leap up onto the bed side table, plus the clock is there, and the cordless phone in its cradle.

I looked at him, he looked at me. I said, "Buddy, you need to go on a diet." He looked away because, of course, cat's can be embarrassed at times, and he certainly was that due to his predicament.

I had to pull the bedside table out and aside but there is just a narrow path up that side of the bed. He had to suck in his gut to squeeze through the widened gap I made for him. I then put the table back in place and laid down.

He jumped up onto the bed with dust bunnies clinging to his black fur, and stood with one paw on my chest as I plucked them off of him. He was purring, happy that I cared enough to get out of bed and rescue him when he was in such dire straits.

Of course as soon as Kelly got up I had to tell her what had happened to her cat!

He's now officially on a diet...not liking it, but he'll be a happier, healthier cat for it.