Tag: authors

Struggling?

Mid-March, a blog post included this quote from a character in Louise Penny’s novel A World of Curiosities: “Happiness as an act of defiance. A revolutionary act.”

It’s not a new concept, at least to me, but it seems that now and again, I need a reminder to affirm it. I think always of this quote from the song “La Vie Boheme” in Jonathan Larson’s musical, RENT: “The opposite of war isn’t peace. It’s creation.”

Two musicians I keep up with on social media both live in Nashville. One has a new song coming out tomorrow, and he posted his performance of a cheerful song (by another artist) to celebrate it today. I sent him a quick message letting him know that I’m aware things are tough in Nashville right now, and that I value his creation, like happiness, as “an act of defiance” and “a celebration of existence.”

The other musician posted a song he just wrote in reaction to the Nashville school shooting. He brought his wife and two children here from another country. They support his dream of success in the U.S., and I’ve been a fan of his since I found him on Instagram. He’s struggling with recent events. His home isn’t far from the site of the school shooting. His children’s school is even closer, I think. He’s come from a place without this kind of gun violence. I sent him a similar message to the one above, citing his particular circumstances. It’s heartbreaking to me that he’s experiencing, as a father, husband, and artist, too closely what people all over the world simply don’t get about this country and its gun culture.

I don’t get it, either. The posturing, the fighting, the name-calling, and politicizing while the slaughter of innocents continues in workplaces, churches, synagogues, mosques, grocery stores, malls, hospitals, nightclubs, theaters, and in homes. Schools? It’s estimated that about sixty-eight percent of gun-related incidents at schools were with weapons taken from the shooter’s home or from a relative or friend.* An estimated 4.6 million American children live in a home where a gun is left loaded and unlocked.* In 2022, 34 students and adults died while more than 43,000 children were exposed to gunfire at school.*

Is there any place gun violence doesn’t occur? Victims are every race, age, gender, affluent or poor, even if in disproportionate numbers, in every state, city, and town. Among all the perpetrators, there is no single defining, common characteristic except one.

Guns. They used guns.

All this overwhelms me. Makes me feel helpless. It robs me of hope and joy. When I feel this way, creative things I love to do, want to do, seem pointless. I know I’m not unique. I know we all suffer. Society suffers.

Today, I tried to write, and nothing happened, and I reminded myself that art is an act of defiance. Revolution. Resistance. Connection. Love. Faith. Reverence. Growth. Hope.

A search for more led me to a collection of quotes from others who have said what art is. Maybe there’s something on the list that resonates for you.

Tomorrow, I’ll wake up and deal with the mundane: computer issues that frustrated me tonight. Making and eating breakfast. Reminding myself to breathe. To feel gratitude for everything good in the world and in my life, including family, friends, home, dogs, nature, humor, kindness, and art.

I’ll open my manuscript and try again to make something with words that affirms or comforts or challenges or engages, as so many writers, artists, musicians–all of the arts–have provided before me and continue to provide. I’ll try to be the opposite of the violence, fear, aggression, hate, dishonesty, greed, and prejudice that are part of this gun culture.

I’ll think about this.

*Statistics taken from the Sandy Hook Promise site.

Tiny Tuesday!

I don’t know why I’m how I am. I know there are women who want their spouses/partners to give them jewelry and trips and cars for their birthday. I’m not one.

When Lynne was visiting recently, we went to Buchanan’s, a favorite nursery in the Heights, so Lynne could buy botanicals for her yard. I always like going there because of the fun things I find, like little Rocky a few years back, who keeps vigil over Houndstooth Hall.

This time was no exception. I spotted a new friend among many other items and walked it over to Tom, telling him this was what I wanted for my birthday.

We know I can’t use him as a planter, because I’m more deadly than a great white shark to indoor plants. Even if I find nothing to put inside him, he’s still a delight.

Or maybe….

Tarot Etc. Thursday No. 24

It’s been a while for this category, but thanks to my birthday and Timothy, I have some new stuff to share. Like this coloring book.


Some of the sketches are Tarot cards. Others are just really cool celestial sketches. Or character-type sketches like this one.

I’ve noticed on some people’s posts of coloring pages on Instagram, they put something over the page to keep people from being able to just blow it up and reproduce it. The pencil is my way of trying to respect copyrights, too.

In addition to the beautiful coloring book, Tim gave me this Jacqui Oakley deck, perfect for a Jane Austen fan like me!

I picked The Magician card to share, with its description.

King of Clubs/The Magician: Skill. Jane Austen makes magic with her pen at her writing desk, using her prowess to begin something new.

Of course I believe writers are magicians, creating galaxies, worlds, beings of all kind, and stories. So many stories. I’ll have more to say about stories later in another post.

I did get some good writing done today, finishing one chapter and beginning another. I forgot to listen to music, though!

Hump Day

It’s been a day… So here are a few happier things to make it better.

When I was at Lynne’s for a few days last week, she made me an early birthday cake. IT WAS SO FREAKING GOOD.

We had another cake Sunday, when we finally got to celebrate Lindsey’s January birthday along with mine. It was a very fun night of food, conversation, and gift opening!


This is a pillow we got for their “you’re back at RubinSmo Manor after your big remodeled house” warming present. It’s from the web site of a favorite Instagram account of Rhonda’s, Lindsey’s, and mine, associated with Effin’ Birds, where nothing is sacred and the easily offended dare not go. 😉


Richard Marx, Stories To Tell: Greatest Hits and More; and Limitless.

I have done a bit of writing in fits and starts. A lot has gone on in and around Houndstooth Hall the last week or so, plus the world and all its happenings are a distraction. Since I’m still in the “M” playlist section, I decided to listen to the Richard Marx I have in cardboard sleeves (as I’m moving them from the box where CDs go when they won’t fit in the binders I use to a netted section in the front of the binder with all the Mellencamp CDs that are also in cardboard sleeves). Time will tell if that works out, especially since I have more in cardboard sleeves that would need to fit in this binder (thinking of McCartney and Petty, for starters).

ETA: My last book read this month, also a gift from Timothy, is the latest Stephanie Plum by Janet Evanovich. The supporting cast of characters she invents each book are brilliant and keep me laughing. They tend to turn up again in future books.

More birthday stuff to come. I like to drag this celebration out each time I hit 135 years.

Hey, hey, you, you…

Managed to get another book read this month despite the vision challenges, Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Daisy Jones & the Six. When I saw Amy at the beginning of March, she recommended the book to me because she’d enjoyed it (she may have also been watching the Amazon series; I can’t remember). She said things about the story reminded her of characters or situations in my old Rock and Roll Soap Operas, as I called them. This actually made me less inclined to read the book, since those old R&RSOs are the foundation for the series I’ve been working on since 2019.

Why? It’s not so much that I fear being influenced by another writer’s work. It’s because I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve created completely out of my brain, in my attempt to flesh out my characters, what is for me new and original writing. Then I’ll read some artist’s biography or memoir and find something from their real lives that’s eerily similar. Timothy, among others, cautions me not to let it bother me, as there’s “nothing new under the sun.” But the possibility that anyone would think I plundered artists’ or celebrities’ lives for my fiction has a real “ick” factor for me. I started writing these stories when I was thirteen, and I’m significantly older than that now. The characters have grown and changed, as have I. It would be impossible for even me to find anyone I’ve known or known about who’d be their prototypes.

In deciding whether I wanted to read the novel, I read about it first, and readers kept mentioning that it was loosely based on Fleetwood Mac. Then I found out Lynne had read it, mentioned that, and she said she didn’t see parallels to Fleetwood Mac (other than the obvious; they’re in the music business). She had a copy (I couldn’t find it as an e-book, and right now, it’s easier on my eyes to read print books anyway) and loaned it to me. And like her, while reading it, I didn’t get a Fleetwood Mac vibe, though the author has been very clear that she loves and is inspired by Fleetwood Mac.

I must remember that people see/read/assume/judge whatever fits their narrative. I learned, when I (either alone or with my writing partners) had books published, that people read through the lenses of their own experiences, fears, hopes, losses, joys. It’s satisfying when someone tells me what they enjoyed about something I wrote, but I’d rather not know their analysis of how it’s their story, or their relative’s story, or even what they believe is my own personal story. My characters are too real to me, as they are, to be reflections of me or anyone else. Lynne and I first created them as inspired by our musician crushes. Decades later, not a single one of those real-life inspirations has lived a life anything like the lives I’ve written.

So when I finally sat down and read Daisy Jones & the Six, I enjoyed it for the stories and characters it offered. It was wonderful to be lost enough in the story to laugh, cry, and worry. I could sometimes see where Reid’s research coincided with my own, but I totally accepted her novel as a work of fiction born of her imagination, and I liked both her narrative choices and her characters (including the unlikable ones).

FAR more disturbing than anything else is that the book’s genre is listed as historical fiction. Yikes! I think of historical fiction as being from the 1800s or earlier. Does this mean that by my writing a series stretching from the 1950s to sometime in the 1980s, I have become a relic? Am I just a few pages away from telling people to get off my lawn? Or…

And still…


During Christmas 2012, I received a copy of My Ideal Bookshelf from Geri and David. I came up with a bookshelf of my own favorites and loved all the comments I received from people about what books would be on their ideal bookshelves. I think I used my selection for my banner in 2013, or maybe part of it, or maybe for just part of the year? I used to replace banners (mastheads?) frequently.

I thought I’d share the cover of the book again because of the titles the authors gave the books in their illustration. It’s probably impossible to list one book in any category–reading experiences and reactions can be fluid depending on our age, circumstances, memories–but feel free to share a category and which book in your reading history fulfills it. Or put your answer on your social media and let me know in comments so I can drop by there.

If the photo’s hard to read, the categories are: “My Favorite Book,” “Book That Changed My life,” “The Book I Read Again and Again,” “The Book I Love The Most,” “The Book That Made Me Who I Am,” “The Best Book I Ever Read,” and “The Book That Makes Me Cry Every Time.”

My own shelf as a I curated it in early 2013.

Two quotes from the world of Three Pines


Despite my eyes dealing with Their Troubles, I found that I could read this physical book (one of my Christmas gifts) more easily than an ebook. A World of Curiosities is the eighteenth Inspector Gamache novel from Louise Penny. This is a favorite series of mine, and this one is darker than they usually are, darker than I would usually read.

For me, there’s a trust that must happen between a writer and a reader, especially in a series. I trust Penny to the point that when I was absolutely sickened by a crime from the past, when I got a hard look at evil of a type that I can’t bear, and when a suspension of disbelief was required to accept that Gamache has been, in either his thoughts or his life, absorbed by people from the past who were never mentioned in the seventeen books previous, I kept reading. Even if this journey was going to be a challenging one, with tears and anxieties and sometimes revulsion, I held on to that trust. I realized, along the way, that the characters who’ve come to be familiar friends were on the same journey; they, too, grappled with the kinds of things or events that often haunt me.

I came away with two quotes (there are always bits of poetry or conversation in Penny’s books that stay around long after the last page) that held powerful meaning for me.

“You’re lying on your deathbed. You have one hour to live. Who is it, exactly, you have needed all these years to forgive?”

And a bit of dialogue that encapsulates more than I wish to expound on here:

“Anne Lamarque…was punished for many things, including being happy. So I wanted to capture that. The power of it. Happiness as an act of defiance. A revolutionary act.”

This isn’t a book review, because I don’t do those, but I give up very little writing space/time to things I don’t like. I’m glad and relieved to say that in the end, I trusted Penny and Gamache, and they didn’t let me down.

International Women’s Day

Despite my urge to say more related to International Women’s Day about what’s going on in the U.S. and worldwide, I can express it no better than this. Be you. Be kind. Persevere.

On a personal note, thinking a lot about Riley on the date of his birth. It never mattered how much of our lives were lived away from each other, or all we never had enough time to tell each other. The core connection was unbreakable… and remains so.

It’s a false narrative that being a feminist means hating men. A desire for equality, inclusion, and parity are not indicators of hate. The desire to prevent and eradicate those things… That’s hate.

Some Saturday stuff

Friday evening I was catching up my day planner when I did this prompt: “Draw and label an ‘ideal version’ of yourself.” I shot this photo with my iPad, with the phone covering my self-portrait and the things I wrote, to focus on: the fact that I did a prompt and drew something AND those four silly dogs, bottom right of the sketch, who I show watching me in case I decide to eat anything or plan to take them out and then give them treats. All four are highly food motivated.

Items show ways I keep up with what I write in my planner and the stickers I use there, appointments, activities, nutrition and meds, and social media/blog. Can’t say I’ve done a ton of writing the past couple of days, but I’m inching along. Keeping the planner helps hold me accountable. Patti Smith is my 2023 daily muse.

When skimming through a few photos on my laptop, I found this screen cap from October 2020. I don’t remember what I said, but David Crosby liked it, and that was one of the highlights of that dreadful year for me. Oh, how that man’s voice has been part of my life from teen to whatever I am now. I will miss him. I will miss his acerbic tweets, music commentary, memories, wit, and the way he’d respond and rate the joints people rolled when they tagged him in their photos. Carry on, Cros.

I barely scroll Twitter now, maybe two to three times a week, because Musk so thoroughly ruined everything that was fun for me, and boy, if people thought there were haters there before, now they don’t even try to cover their viciousness with a wink and a smirk. They are unapologetically vile, and thanks to the new algorithms, they show up in my feed. So many of the people I enjoy reading have left or are quiet with a wait-and-see attitude. I purged my account of tweets and retweets, which meant I lost a lot of my memories and photos. (Some of those tweets keep reappearing, and I delete them again.) I’m keeping my name ownership on the site, but there’s no reason for me to leave my content and photos on an even worse hellmouth than Facebook became.

Your mileage may vary.

Finally, along with Patti Smith’s A Book of Days, pictured in the top photo, which I continue to read daily, in January, I read these two books.

Writing as T.G. Herren, Greg Herren’s A Streetcar Named Murder, A New Orleans Mystery No. 1. A fun introduction to new characters in this cozy, with the ever-compelling city of New Orleans as the backdrop.
Prince Harry’s memoir Spare, which thoroughly absorbed me, particularly as the daughter of a veteran. Whatever sensationalized scandals people might have expected and raged about, that’s not what this is.