Tag: novels

How Everything (except me, maybe) Works


I found this book a while back and grabbed it because it wasn’t expensive and it does provide a surprising amount of information on a variety of subjects that a person lacking scientific, engineering, and mechanical know-how (i.e., me) can learn from.

For example, here is interesting information I found about ants. The picture of the Australian Red Fox is just a bonus because of the beauty and was photographed about to walk in front of an urban wall with a fox painted on it (not shown in the photo).

The pages don’t have numbers, so a bit of searching has to be done despite a table of contents, but it’s a fun book to browse. I always believe things like this will find their way into my fiction some way or another. I hope random research counts as “work,” because my work-in-progress is not…progressing. That’s okay.

Still summer: movies and smoothies.

I’ve watched all six movies in this collection, although only Pillow Talk (1959), Lover Come Back (1961), and Send Me No Flowers (1964), all with Rock Hudson as the love interest, and The Thrill of It All (1963), with James Garner playing her opposite, count as romantic comedies. One of the two suspense movies, Midnight Lace (1960), with Rex Harrison playing the husband, is one I’d never seen, and it is indeed a thriller (though probably tame by today’s version of that genre, which I don’t watch, suspense and violence being too hard on my nervous system). I’d seen clips from the Alfred Hitchcock-directed The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), with Jimmy Stewart as the husband. It was good to watch the film in its entirety and know how it got to the scenes I’d already seen.

What are you doing when you’re not working?

Sweet dreams, Troubadour

I was already asleep last night when Jim texted the news that J.D. Souther has died. His text was the first thing I read this morning. I’ve tipped my hat to Souther before on this site. The songs he wrote, the songs he sang, his collaborations with other artists including Linda Ronstadt, the Eagles, Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Bonnie Raitt… All part of the poetry that gave a soundtrack to the hopes, dreams, fears, and heartbreaks of my formative years. He had a tour scheduled with Karla Bonoff beginning later this month.


I’m sharing this photo by Henry Diltz and the following story, both taken from the Instagram feed lostcanyonsla.

J.D. Souther and Linda Ronstadt were inarguably one of the hottest and most talented couples in the LA canyon scene of the early 1970s. In the documentary on Ronstadt’s life, “The Sound of My Voice,” Souther tells a cute story of how their relationship began after meeting at the Troubadour. “I said, I think you should cook me dinner,” Souther recalls. “She said, okay and gave me her phone number. I went over and she made me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and I fell in love with her. The next day I said ‘Listen, let’s go get your stuff, you’re going to live with me.’”

It’s the kind of story I’d write* for the Neverending Saga, but it’s real. The romantic relationship didn’t last, but their friendship endured. And J.D. Souther’s music will endure.

*I DID write a PB&J sandwich story into a romantic encounter years before I read this real-life one. Timothy keeps reminding me that nothing is new and that’s okay.

Sunday Sundries

Reference materials from my decades as a student, writer, and author.

I wonder about other writers. With all the resources at our fingertips 24/7/365 thanks to the Internet, do writers of a certain age hold on to the books that came to them through writing classes and workshops and at the advice of teachers, editors, and other writers? Do writers who got their start in this century know the pleasure of turning the pages of a thesaurus, reference books, manuals of one type or another, and writing guides and exercises? Do they ever use pen and pencil or red pen on paper or only their keyboards or phone notes to catch, record, and alter their words?

I read an article recently about implied (country name redacted: who needs their bots or supporters landing here) threats to the cables that cross our ocean floors and the satellites hovering over us in space. It touched on the catastrophe to shipping, transportation, communications, and financial markets that a hostile nation could wreak on the rest of the world. Imagine your phone, your access to the Internet, your credit card or ATM card, online banking, retailers, airlines, grocers, all rendered useless or severely inefficient at once.

If this is what science fiction and dystopian writers try to capture, what means would they use to compose and edit their work, find a publishing/distribution system, and market and sell to an audience? I mean, Elon Musk will be fine, but what about the rest of us?

My Sunday rewatches made today Kate Hudson Day, and both films I saw were about writers. In 2003’s How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days, Hudson plays a magazine columnist, Andie Anderson, who writes a “How To” feature in each issue. Inspired by the way a friend messes up potential romantic relationships, she pitches a column to her editor. She’ll start a romance with a stranger, repeat her friend’s dating mistakes, and cause him to break up with her in ten days or less. If the editor, played wonderfully by Bebe Neuwirth, likes the column, she’ll start giving Andie weightier topics than cute “how to guides” for future columns.

A couple of ad executives, at Andie’s magazine to pitch an idea for an ad campaign, learn about Andie’s story idea. When they go back to their agency, a rival agent, Ben Barry, played by Matthew McConaughey, competes with them to take back the ad campaign for a diamond jewelry account on which he’d done all the preliminary work. They disparage his ability to understand how to sell diamonds to women because he doesn’t know how to get or keep a romantic relationship. Ben bets their boss that he can make any woman fall in love with him in ten days. His boss agrees that if Ben is successful, the diamond account will be his.

The rival agents secretly contrive to hook Ben up with Andie at a restaurant/bar, knowing the two will be at cross purposes. When Andie agrees to go out with Ben, she does everything she can to make him break up with her. He tolerates it all and does everything he can to make her fall in love with him. It’s a RomCom–we know how it’ll end. Meanwhile, there are entertaining incidents at Knicks games, a movie date to Sleepless In Seattle, a dog who isn’t house-trained, Ben’s fun family on Staten Island, and Andie’s self-sabotaging friend posing as a couples therapist.

Also released in 2003 (Kate had a good year!), in Alex & Emma, Luke Wilson plays Alex Sheldon, a genius novelist with writer’s block. He borrowed a large sum of money from loan sharks to keep himself afloat, and now he can’t pay them back. The “Cuban Mafia” gives him thirty more days, and he appeals to his publisher, Wirschafter, played by the film’s director Rob Reiner. Wirschafter is good for the money (because this is fiction, and Alex must have had some really successful previous novels!), payable only when Alex gives him the completed novel in thirty days. Alex hires a stenographer (with a promise to pay her in thirty days), Emma Dinsmore, played by Kate Hudson, to make the writing process go faster.

Emma not only takes dictation all day and transcribes the manuscript at night (without pay! And with one terrible incident in which she falls into a puddle of water while catching a bus, losing almost twenty pages in her flooded bag; LOSING PAGES is a common and horrible ordeal most writers experience at one time or another, including ME, but at least I didn’t owe money to the Cuban Mafia).

While taking dictation, Emma’s reactions to what Alex narrates help him make improvements to his novel. Unbeknownst to Emma, as the two of them begin to fall in love, it isn’t only the manuscript’s loan sharks who mirror Alex’s life. The love story in the novel is based on his real-life relationship with a former lover who returns just as the thirty days ends.

Rob Reiner also directed When Harry Met Sally, and he includes a nod to that movie in this film. Emma says she never buys a book without reading the end first. If she doesn’t like the ending, she returns the book to the shelf. Billy Crystal’s character Harry also reads book endings first, because as he says, if he dies before finishing a book, he’ll at least know how it ended.

Alex & Emma didn’t make back its production costs and was not a favorite of the critics. However, as a writer, I’ve enjoyed it both times I watched it. I only wonder where I can find a publisher who’ll front me the money to hire a stenographer or at least a researcher, because research is the most labor-intensive thing I do, whether it’s via my shelf of reference books or online.

Saturday No. 2

I’m not sure that 2009’s New In Town with Renée Zellweger and Harry Connick Jr. is a rewatch because I don’t remember seeing it before. When we were at The Compound, all of the DVDs lived in the Doll House with Timothy. This made it easier, whenever one of our writing partners visited, for someone to sit on the floor and read out titles to the rest of us until we all agreed on something to watch. But when we moved to Houndstooth Hall, we had more room over in the house, so the DVDs are shelved here, including ones Timothy added. He remembers watching this one, so it’s probably one he grabbed from the used bin at Blockbuster. I enjoyed it, not only the leads, but the supporting cast.

About A Boy, from 2002, isn’t really a RomCom so much as comedy/drama. I’m pretty sure I read Nick Hornby’s novel (same title), and it felt like something I wanted to see today. Directed by brothers Chris and Paul Weitz, it features a solid cast that includes Hugh Grant, Toni Collette, Rachel Weisz, and Nicholas Hoult.

I also finished the seventh and final novel in the series I’ve been rereading. It was quite strange, because there were passages that seemed different to me, and I didn’t think that could be possible. I’ve read these novels so many times. One of the passages was so jarring that I took my iPad to Debby’s to read to her, asked if she remembered it as having been written the way that was unfamiliar to me, and she did. That’s when we discovered that her physical book versions of at least one of the novels and the versions I downloaded on my iPad match, but are different from the physical books I’ve been reading since I was an adolescent that were published by a bookclub. The editor in me has what I think is a good grasp of why the bookclub made the edits it did (and I prefer the bookclub versions). I’d like to know how the author felt about the changes. (She’s been dead since 1984, and these are not books that would have gotten literary analysis/criticism that I could research.) Another problem with my ebook versions of all seven novels is that they contained many copy errors (e.g., misspelled words, missing words, wrong character names). If I ever read the series again, I’ll stick to my print copies.

Sunday Sundries

Back when I was still working and going to transport two to three times a week, one of the things I did to make arriving to work between 6 and 6:30 AM more bearable was to wear a lot of bracelets. In those days (not really THAT long ago), stacking bracelets was called an “arm party.” I looked up the term; it’s still used, and people still do it, although bracelet styles have been added.

None of my bracelets was expensive, which was part of the appeal for me (I often made my own; plus if a dog was going to jump on me in a friendly way and a bracelet broke, it wouldn’t be a big loss). Almost all of my bracelets hang on a stand on my dresser, and some of them were gifts.


I never wore this bracelet, however, because the string seemed fragile. I’m not absolutely certain of its origin. It either came from Tom after he went on a barefoot cruise with his family in 1992, or it could have come from someone in his family after a trip to Hawaii.


A heap o’bracelets.

Here’s a photo of a couple of my favorites, a guitar set in a leather strap (in honor of the Neverending Saga’s musician), and one of wraparound beads, both of which I purchased as a treat to myself in 2020, when no one was going shopping, and so many stores were closed. I think both of them were advertised on my Instagram feed.

Then, OOPS! As I returned the wraparound bracelet to the stand, the elastic band broke. Beads were bouncing around on my laptop keyboard and all over the tile floor in the sanctuary. It took Tom and me using the mini-vacuum, a broom and dustpan, and a phone flashlight to find them all (hopefully). Maybe I’ll build another bracelet or a necklace with the loose beads. Who knows.


Meanwhile, I proceeded with the remaining two of my Bridget Jones movie rewatches, 2004’s Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, and 2016’s Bridget Jones’s Baby. I like all the movies, but The Edge of Reason is my least favorite because I often want to scream at Bridget for the way her insecurities cause her to make dumb choices. I understand it; after all, there could have been no second film if the hopefully-ever-after of the first movie hadn’t gone south for some reason in the intervening years.

I remember after Timothy James Beck’s first novel, It Had To Be You, which tells the story of Daniel and Blaine, came out, so many readers wrote to ask us for a continuation of their story. They even wanted the same story but from Blaine’s point of view. Those are things best left to readers’ imaginations. It’s not much fun for a writer to retell a story just because it’s from a different point of view. If multiple POVs are necessary to tell the same story, it’s best to use an omniscient narrator in a single novel. Our second TJB novel introduced an entirely new character and narrator. When we continued to get requests for more Daniel and Blaine, I said to my writing partners, “Be careful what you wish for!” We then proceeded to break up the characters for the third novel–but at least it was told from Blaine’s perspective!

Back to Bridget: I like the third movie and the baby storyline much better, mostly because by now, Bridget has learned to be more independent, to forge a more successful career for herself, and to work hard to get herself healthier. She still sometimes tends to react to things that look suspect without simply confronting other characters and demanding explanations. This trait does add conflict and push the plot along, but it makes me doubt that she’s maturing.

The last surprise at the end of the movie adds to the fun. Now that I know there’s a fourth movie planned, I look forward to seeing how the various characters are juggled in Bridget’s future. Bonuses: Bridget’s group of friends are still around and still fun, even if their lives are changing. And her parents, played by Gemma Jones and Jim Broadbent, always make me laugh (her mother) or happy (her father).

Yesterday Once More

Since I was only able to get about three hours of sleep Thursday night, even though I managed a couple of short naps during the day (the dogs approve of this lifestyle), my brain was too tired to offer me much that was productive. I posted to Photo Friday, paid some bills, and got the dogs in and out between rain showers, but mostly I gave myself over to two RomComs. Nor did I try to atone for passive entertainment by coloring or researching for the Neverending Saga. T.I.R.E.D.

First up was 1996’s One Fine Day with Michelle Pfeiffer and George Clooney. George was looking mighty young in this film. At one point, his newspaper reporter character Jack describes Michelle Pfeiffer’s architect character Melanie as “luminous,” which is how I’d still describe her. Movie cameras love her. The one scene I always remember from this movie is the first time (of several) Melanie’s son stains her shirt. She carries a leather bag (how Jack envies this bag) filled with things a mom-on-the-go needs, and grabs one of her son’s T-shirts, emblazoned with a dinosaur, switching it with her shirt. TINY woman! But enough about their looks. The movie is frantic with the pace of two busy New Yorkers trying to balance work with parenting. They meet; they bicker; they negotiate; they commiserate over children who are sometimes maddening, sometimes wonderful; they give each other some grace with a lot of sass; they fall in love–all in the same day. It would take me hundreds of pages…or many books…to write such a thing. =)

Then after dinner last night (and an episode of the funny TV show “Ghosts,”), I wanted to keep myself awake long enough not to go to bed too early and then be wide awake in the middle of the night. I chose the 1995 Sandra Bullock (playing Lucy)/Bill Pullman (playing another Jack) RomCom While You Were Sleeping, about a misunderstanding taken to an extreme. Can anyone play more likable characters in this genre than Sandra Bullock? Equally likable is Jack, and unlike in Sleepless In Seattle when Bill Pullman lost the girl, this time, he’s the lucky guy. The talented supporting cast is by turns funny, sweet, and ridiculous. It’s a good comfort movie to see before bedtime, and YES! I slept six hours, woke up for a while, then slept again off and on for at least another two hours. SO GRATEFUL to feel rested in the morning.

Cats and dogs (both my Coventry novels have dogs) are always good in RomComs. These movies both featured cats. In One Fine Day, the newspaper editor keeps a cat, Lois Lane, in his office who is important in a couple of plot points. At one point, Jack’s daughter chases a stray tabby cat, who she follows into a store, where she finds the cat has kittens, including one named Bob. These cats, too, are all part of the action and plot development.

In While You Were Sleeping, Lucy has a cat named Mel (played by rescue cat actor Princess) who provides some amusing moments. When Lucy realizes that Peter, hospitalized in a coma, has a cat which no one in his family knows about (he was only catsitting), she gets into his apartment to take care of Fluffy, providing more comedic moments with Jack.

This afternoon, Tom and I both had hair appointments with Larry in our old ‘hood. That’s three hours in the shop, the drives there and back, plus picking up dinner for us and Debby on the way home. We wanted to thank her for sitting with our dogs for those hours. We’d been a little concerned about Eva, who was hacking and coughing periodically before we left. We gave her some warm water with honey, which can sooth an irritated throat. She didn’t have a fever, and none of the dogs have been around any other dogs who could have given them anything like kennel cough, but since she wasn’t interested in breakfast this morning, we wanted to be cautious. Debby said she only coughed a couple of times, though she did cough a lot when we got home–maybe she was over-excited, because Tom is her whole reason for existence. Seriously, she starts watching the front door an hour and a half before he gets home from the office. But she ate her dinner with no problem and hasn’t coughed so far since dinnertime. Fingers crossed!

My hair is very short! Which is fine, but strange to see in the mirror. And since last night’s film got me in the mood for more Sandra Bullock, tonight’s DVD rewatch will be 2000’s Miss Congeniality, with Sandra Bullock as FBI Special Agent Gracie Hart, Benjamin Bratt, Michael Caine, Candice Bergen, William Shatner, Ernie Hudson, and John DiResta among the cast. After the movie, I’ll read a while before I get another hopefully good night’s sleep on this Labor Day Weekend. If so, tomorrow: WRITING!

Writing prompt

Today has been a research day with only a small bit of writing. My character has wanted something she can’t get, and now she will be meeting the person who thwarted her. When she takes the time to listen to a bit of this person’s family history, she begins to understand. The problem is, I’M the one who has to come up with that history, and it’s taken many hours of research and thought. I’ll be ready to dive into writing it all tomorrow, I hope.

In the interest of writing something, I grabbed this book and opened it to a random page, where the prompt read, Do you prefer sunrises or sunsets? I thought of another of my characters who finds late afternoon and early evening the low point of his day. He gets that from me. Sunrises. Definitely sunrises, never more so than when we have power outages, and I get to experience what I wrote below. Don’t know if you can read it, but feel free to share your own preference in comments.

Mid-week once more

Yesterday was spent writing and rewriting. Editing and revising. Writing a little more, and working out plot points in the Neverending Saga. My thoughts were so much north of here with Lynne and Minute, and I tried to memorialize that funny, sassy, brave, and loyal Westie in the post I wrote and the photos I picked. My brain was tired by the time I ate dinner, so I decided to delve into RomCom adaptations of Jane Austen’s novels.

I started with the 1996 DVD of Emma, with Gwyneth Paltrow. I think she does a wonderful job of portraying Emma and her well-intentioned meddling in the romantic lives of others. This movie makes me laugh a lot, beginning to end, so it was just what I needed. (Favorite quote from Gwyneth as Emma, when Emma fears that Mr. Knightley has gone to visit his brother John, and possibly ask his advice about taking a wife, and Emma tells her former governess: “Oh, but if he seems happy, I will know that he’s decided to marry Harriet, and I will not, I know I will not, be able to let him tell me. But if he seems sad, I’ll know that John has advised him against it. I love John! Or he may seem sad because he fears telling me he will marry my friend. How can John let him do that? I hate John!”


I fell in love with Jane Austen’s writing at age eleven, when I read a “condensed” version of Pride and Prejudice (adapted for younger readers in my Readers Digest Best Loved Books For Young Readers, shown on the lower left in the photo above). It was only later, thanks to library books, that I read more of Austen when I was old enough to appreciate her as an adult reader. Then I was either a struggling student, teacher, or whatever other jobs I took to keep my head above water, and you can see the used books I grabbed so I could read more Austen or reread favorites. (I also have Pride and Prejudice as an eBook, and several novels by other authors that feature fictitious versions of Jane Austen herself, or use her literary romances to create novels of their own.)

The book on the lower right is an edition of Sense and Sensibility that came out in 1995, the same year as the movie with Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman, and Hugh Grant. It has photos of the cast in costume inside it. This evening, while I cooked, so I wouldn’t BURN THE PEAS, Lynne and Debby, I put my laptop on the bar in the kitchen and finished watching the movie that I’d started after I did my writing/editing for the day. Tom got home from work and was looking over my shoulder while he was feeding the dogs, and said this movie has some of his favorite actors. I know for sure no one could portray Colonel Brandon as well as Alan Rickman, but he’s right. The entire cast, leads and supporting actors, is stellar.

I’ve seen a couple of film adaptations of Persuasion, and several of Pride and Prejudice, but without a doubt my absolute favorite is the 1995 BBC television series with Colin Firth. Once I saw him, there will never, never be another Mr. Darcy for me, and I don’t care how many beautiful actors rise up to play the part. I mentioned watching it in this post in 2016. I rewatched it at some point during the pandemic after I got laid off. It’s such a comfort watch for me, but it is an investment of time, so I think my recent watch of a newer version of Persuasion, and these rewatches of Emma and Sense and Sensibility will conclude my Austen RomComs for this go-round.

Sunday Sundries


The plan for today is to keep working on Book 7 of the Neverending Saga. For some reason, I’m in the mood to listen to Holland, a classic Beach Boys album among Beach Boys fans and collectors.


Thinking of Holland in general, I decided to show this assortment of items from the dresser in the master bedroom. From left to right, that’s a ginger jar that belonged to my mother and still has potpourri that she put in it. (I don’t think it has a lot of scent anymore.) On the bottom, she wrote “Lola, 2001,” so possibly it was a gift to her from Aunt Lola. Next to that is a blue and white candle bowl which may have come from Bombay Company. If so, it was likely a gift from my mother to me (she liked to shop there for me, and I liked their merchandise). The three in the middle: a small ashtray, a windmill, and two Dutch boys sharing a kiss, were all gifts from our friend Steve C after he went to The Netherlands one year. On the far right is a vintage vase that Tom’s parents gave us from his grandmother’s house after she died. She was the only one of his grandparents that I got to meet, and I just adored her mischievous humor.

Behind these items is the Holland doll from the Arco Gasoline Dolls of the World collection. I had several of those when I was a child, and somehow they were donated or discarded. A few years ago, I replaced the ones I’d had thanks to the magic of eBay!


I rewatched 1998’s Hope Floats this morning. It’s categorized as a RomCom, and I do really like it, but I’d forgotten how sad it is, too. I’d also forgotten how uncomfortable the beginning is, because it hits a little too close to home related to an incident from my past. Thankfully, my humiliation wasn’t televised in every time zone. That part will go well with what I’m currently writing.

The main reason I picked the film was to honor the late Gena Rowlands, who plays Sandra Bullock’s mother and is a longtime favorite of mine. In mid-August, I edited a post from July 25 to note that Gena Rowlands had died on August 14. I’ve appreciated seeing so many tributes to her on Instagram. She truly was a gifted actor with a long career.

ETA: Couldn’t resist some of these photos that have shown up on Instagram of John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands. Their longevity as a couple seems like an uncommon thing in their business.

Low Key Saturday

Today I didn’t color anything or reread anyone’s novels or rewatch any movies. I only reread the Book 7 manuscript of the Neverending Saga and resumed working on the chapter I’ve been stalled on for a while. There are no photos to illustrate that, or the dinner I cooked, which is noteworthy only because I cook so few meals these days. We’re eating light or picking up from restaurants (not fast food, which is even rarer than homecooked) this summer.

Maybe things are stalled at Houndstooth Hall because a few things are waiting for Mercury to go direct. I don’t mess around with Mercury. =)

I uploaded the cartoon below early in July but don’t think I ever shared it. Conventional wisdom has it that we don’t particularly enjoy hearing accounts of other people’s dreams. My own dreams have been busy, with very large casts, and I’ve kept them to myself. But imagine if you were a therapist…or went to a therapist, and… 🤣