Author: Becky

Sunday Sundries


If I read anything over the next week, I plan for it to be a reread of Mary O’Hara’s wonderful series. I first read a condensed version of My Friend Flicka as a kid, and my mother owned a copy of the third in the series, Green Grass of Wyoming. I think I was able to check out and read Thunderhead from the University of Alabama library when I was a student. I treasure this collection of library bound hard copies. If my memory is right, I had help getting them from my friend Steve V, who worked at a Houston independent bookstore (Detering Book Gallery) that helped customers find and acquire rare or long out-of-print books.

I’m putting the most recent musical homage photos from my Instagram feed behind the cut. There are some fun recollections, or if nothing else, the photos offer an interesting look at some of the T-shirts at Houndstooth Hall belonging to Tom, Timothy, and me. =)

Continue reading “Sunday Sundries”

Early* Saturday post

*early as in 12:30 AM

I haven’t gotten done some of the things I wanted to this week. When I was taking care of at least a few of those things during Thursday errands, I spotted these on my way home.


A Little Free Library. Even skeletons like to read.


And they’ll also invite you over to shoot the breeze.


I’ve had my eye on this Jolly Grinning Giant for a while. If I ever saw his people, I’d have asked if I could bring my skeletons over for a photoshoot with him. But his people are never outside.

Friday had some sadness. The first time I let the dogs out, they spotted a young squirrel. He barely got away from them, just a few feet up a tree, where he rested in the V where the tree splits. It was obvious he was either injured in some way, or maybe dehydrated, or just terrified. With help from Debby, I was able to get my frantic dogs inside, while the neighbor’s dogs were very vocal on the other side of the fence. We coaxed the squirrel out of the tree so Debby could carry him in a cloth pillowcase outside the fence to the side of the house. Then Tim got him into a box, tucked inside a towel, to take him to the SPCA’s Wildlife Rehab unit. Unfortunately, the young squirrel died en route. At least he didn’t die from either my dogs or the large neighbor dogs attacking him, but in an air-conditioned truck with a kindhearted, calm driver taking him for help.


Also on Friday, I was able to finish this book. Another political thriller that I couldn’t put down. Now it’s time to take a break from reading and work on my own novel.

Mysteries and Politics

Reading is what I’ve been up to, and these books were purchased locally at Murder By The Book.

New this year:

I can’t believe Requiem For A Mouse is my friend Dean’s sixteenth book in his Cat In The Stacks Mystery series. I feel like I just started reading them! Writing as Miranda James, his cozy series features a librarian/widower named Charlie Harris and his helpful Maine Coon cat, Diesel. The books are set in a fictitious college town, Athena, Mississippi, and every time I read one of the novels, his characters make me feel like I’m spending time with old friends. There are other cats, the occasional dog, and enough bad guys and murders to keep Charlie busy as an amateur sleuth. Plus: a library and plenty of good Southern cooking!

Martin Walker’s Bruno series includes 24 works, including novels, novellas, and a short story collection. There’s also a Bruno cookbook he wrote with his wife Julia. The series features Benoît Courrèges, aka Bruno, a former soldier turned policeman, enjoying the “pleasures and slow rhythms of country life” in the fictional village of St. Denis in the Périgord Region of France. The novels’ horses, dogs, townfolk, and meals are part of those “slow rhythms,” but Bruno’s romances, the crimes he solves, and the historical context Walker provides season the novels with delicious details, while the international intrigue adds a soupçon of suspense. I’ve learned so much from Walker’s books and his booksignings, and an offhand post-war diplomacy tidbit he once mentioned at a signing inspired me to research and develop an intricate part of my own Neverending Saga.

I got this one a couple of years ago and have finally raced through it in two days because I COULDN’T PUT IT DOWN.

I would hope anyone reading here knows who Hillary Rodham Clinton is, and Louise Penny is the author of the Inspector Gamache mystery series set in the fictitious Three Pines, Québec (the nineteenth novel in that series is due the end of this month, and I can’t wait). The real-life story of how the two woman became friends, and how publishing figures and life events brought them together to write a suspense thriller, is naturally fascinating to me–friendships having been not only a huge part of my adult life, but also because I co-authored novels with friends. Though I only occasionally read thrillers, political or otherwise, this one held me spellbound. It features a new administration in the White House, including a new president and his female secretary of state. She was the head of a publishing empire, and the president may have chosen her only to settle an old grudge and ultimately disgrace her. We get to travel the world with this one, and meet plenty of heroes and villains, though sometimes we’re not exactly sure who’s who. Though published in 2021, the themes and ideas explored remain topical, and I appreciated reading about strong, smart women, complicated and often painful family dynamics, and fascinating settings (the political leaders and figures throughout are fictionalized, though there are effective references to real-life international figures, as well). I also was delighted to find Easter eggs in mentions of Penny’s Three Pines village and characters (Clinton was a reader of the series before she and Louise Penny were introduced). I hope one day these two will write another together.

Tiny Tuesday!


Barbie and friends do a reenactment of me preparing to find fashion, dress skeletons, and post photos to social media (i.e., my Instagram account), with Lord Cuttlebone and his nephew Ambrose supervising (i.e., chattering unsolicited advice into my ear). Since the theme is set: a spooky season homage to music, WILL I HAVE ENOUGH T-shirts or band memorabilia to do the entire month of October? The Shadow knows…

I’ve put my first seven days of photos behind the cut, if you want to see the artists I’ve featured.

Continue reading “Tiny Tuesday!”

Plotting


Haven’t written in this journal in a while. It’s a gift from Lynne that I use as a sort of character journal when I’m trying to figure out things in the Neverending Saga. I blurred out the thoughts I wrote down, and tried to photograph it in such a way that you could see what the dragonflies look like with and without their shimmer.


I liked the quote from George Sand because the character I’m writing is making changes to her life, her home, herself. To me, she’s a person who shines, but not every character sees her the way I do. That seems true to life. When I was young, I wanted all my friends, however different they were from one another, to know and be friends, too. Experience taught me how unrealistic that is.

Today I watched a 2016 film called Maudie which came highly recommended by a dear friend of many decades. I think she realized I’d like it both as a character study and a look into the life of an artist. It’s an odd kind of…romance…and it’s quite sad. Really, it’s both sad and somehow not sad. The character Maudie is played by an English actor, Sally Hawkins, who won lots of praise and awards for the role. Interestingly, the male lead is played by Ethan Hawke. My friend didn’t know it was supposed to have been my Ethan Hawke summer, so it was a cool coincidence. Sometimes people who know and love us have an intuitive sense not only of what we’d like, but when we need it. It’s a great part of friendship.