Oh sheesh

Job interview this morning. Trying to figure out how to leave my stomach at home. So, I know I just did this a couple of days ago, but I'm too nervous to think of anything else.


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Did You Know?

A great writer died this weekend and you probably heard nothing about it. Maybe because he wasn't Louis L'Amour, but the Western Writers of America voted him Best Western Author of All Time. Still, not one word on the news, not an obituary alert from CNN (yes, I get obituary alerts, so sue me).



Four of his books won the Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. The aforementioned Western Writers of America awarded him their Spur Award 7 times. Four of his books won the Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. In 1987 he received the Barbara McCombs/Lon Tinkle Award for “continuing excellence in Texas letters” from the Texas Institute of Letters. Yes, he was born in Texas and lived here his entire life, and yet not one local news channel commented on his death.



You probably never even knew that one of his books "The Good Old Boys" was made into a TV movie starring Tommy Lee Jones.



His name? Elmer Kelton. While there are more Louis L'Amour books in our store than any other western writer, it's Kelton's books that are rare - when they come in, they go out quickly. He is in high demand.



“His contribution to literature in this state cannot be underestimated,” Judy Alter, former director of the TCU Press, said. “Elmer didn’t write the traditional western; he wrote history."



Kelton had 62 fiction and non-fiction books to his credit.



Four of his books won the Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame.



The German Association for the Study of the Western, based in Muenster, Germany, made him an honorary member. The association presents the Elmer Kelton Award for Literary Merit every year.



He earned a journalism degree from the University of Texas at Austin. He was a true Texan, and except for the years he spent overseas in WWII, his whole life was spent here.



Yes, a great writer died last weekend ....




April 29, 1926 - August 22, 2009 “One thing is certain: as long as there are writers as skillful as Elmer Kelton, Western literature will never die.”

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

I have a job interview Friday morning! I'm really nervous about it too. This is the first job interview that I've had in almost 12 years. Sooo, after getting my outfit figured out I realized that my hair wouldn't do. It was half-way down my back, straight and unmanageable. What do you do with fine Irish hair except scoop it up in a clip? I can't French braid, if I could it probably wouldn't be a problem. Bebo took me out yesterday and got me a haircut. It's a bob that stops at my shoulders, and there are bangs. It's certainly, well not really different 'cuz I've had it this short before in my life, but it does make a big difference.

So I'm ready for Friday. Maybe. If I can get my stomach to settle down.

What are you looking forward to this week?

It's Friday already? Sounds like LOLcats to me

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Casey at Bat

I've been participating in this writing game - a certain number of new words a day. Doing okay - not wonderful, but good. I'm going to share a bit - BUT it is totally unedited. I'm not stopping to fix things, not reading through to make sure that spellcheck didn't catch "saw" instead of "was", not even stopping to "fill out" spots. I'm considering this the bare bones of the story. I've already decided that I need to go back and insert 2 chapters, but that's for later. Anyway, this is a bit of what I'm doing.


Now, it wasn’t that she was overly tall, okay maybe she was; but Jit was about as tall as a toadstool, and skinny to boot. And standing there in that oversized jumpsuit, its pants and sleeves rolled up at least half a block, he looked more like a scarecrow than anything else. Yet, he was Jit, always faithful, always ready to lend a hand, especially if Casey were involved. She didn’t feel guilty worth a wit for using that hound dog loyalty to her advantage, and this month she really needed advantage.

“Jit hon, I really need that car fixed. You know I promised Maisey that trip to Dallas this weekend, and I can’t let her down.” Again. In Maisey’s short life, Casey had let her down in more ways than she wanted to think about.

“Don’t worry, Mac and me’ll get this old piece of junk ready afor Friday evenin’.”
Narrowing her eyes she looked directly into his “If you don’t sleep through it. So help me Jitty, I’ll pull out whatever hair you have left on that scrawny head if you let me down.”

“You know, didn’t your momma ever tell you that you can kill more flies with honey than you can with vinegar.”

“Yeah, and a few other aphorisms too, like you can lead a whore to culture, but you can’t make her think.”

“Aphor-what?”

“Aphorisms, little sayings. That’s my word of the week.”

Jit scratched the three hairs on his chin, his face screwed up tight. “Sounds dirty to me.”

“That’s ‘cuz you have a dirty mind Jit.”

“Hmm … say, is that Nick Trevor over there?”

Casey didn’t need him to indicate what ‘there’ was, the hairs on the back of her neck had already alerted her to the fact that her bastard of a neighbor was in the vicinity. Blatantly she turned around, just in time to see Nick slip into the hardware store, the bell on the door jangling from across the street. She hadn’t seen him since Friday, when he’d disappeared quickly over the fence into his own yard. Not that she’d been looking of course, but then again …..

Stepping into the street, she nearly tumbled forward when the sole of her flip-flops curled under her, but she continued to walk doggedly towards the store, ignoring Jit’s call behind her.

“Friday, Jit. Just have the damned thing ready by Friday.” Upon reaching the other side, she hesitated, unsure of herself for the first time in a very long time.

“Shit a duck, it’s only Nick, a man. A member of the forever doomed and avoided. Get a grip.” Still, she wished she had something else on instead of her Daisy Dukes, cropped top and flip-flops. “Excuse me? He’s a moron, a degenerate, a piece of ….”

“Cassandra Sue, you talking to yourself?” Jit’s voice, so close to the middle of her back, startled her, and this time the flimsy flip-flop gave in, tumbling her gracelessly to the cracked sidewalk. Even Jit couldn’t catch her, not that he could have handled her weight if he had, no the lame-brain stood watching helplessly as Casey landed on hands and knees just as Nick stepped out of the store.

“You all right?”

Casey stared at his knees, unwilling to look up.

“You know, at any other time, that wouldn’t be a half bad position to have you in.”

This time Casey lifted her head, the hair that had earlier been pinned up tumbling into her face, obscuring her view. But she didn’t need her eyes as she blindly crouched forward and bit him on the leg, hard.

“Dammit Casey” Nick leapt back, hand clasping his leg just below his knee, hopping on the other leg for just a second before smashing to the walk beside her. There he lay, sprawled on his back and Casey felt a bit of a smirk.

“You know honey, at any other time, that wouldn’t be a half bad position to have you in.” Jit snickered behind her and Casey couldn't help but giggle. Yeah, this could work.

But they're vintage ...

New Upcoming Authors:

(you figure them out - if you can't,just ask - and remember, on some of them, they may have the name right, just not the pronunciation - I'm spelling them like they said them)

Lori Forster
Jill Shallis (Hey, once again, at least they're asking for her!!)
Kate Quinn
Louie Laymur
Jane Pikcoat

There are no stupid questions ......

After being told that we don't have that book, and neither does our other store. Now we've suggested *shudder* our competition, 'cuz we're like that.
"Do you know if they have it?"
(Yeah, I go through their inventory every night after they close ...)

"Do you have their phone number?"
(Yep, number 0 in my speed dial)

Or, we won't take their stuff, and again have suggested that "other" store:
"How much will they give me for it?"
(How much do you want? I'll call ahead and suggest it.)


You're bringing us what?

"I have 30 boxes in the truck, where do you want me to put them?"
(at that other store ....)

"These belonged to my grandmother and she only read them once"
(Every Sunday while driving her car to church)

"I have two bags of magazines, will you take them?"
"No, we only take current magazines, unless they are .... "(names off very few exceptions)
"These are from the 70s, they're vintage."
(I'm going to shoot her ....)

My Playlist

I know, blogging on a Wednesday, what is the world coming too?

I'm actually here to ask you for a few prayers. My brother David had 2 heart attacks yesterday, and is having a cathertization (spelling?) this morning. For those of you that remember, David had quadruple bypass in 2003, so his heart is definitely a big issue.

Okay, and here is the playlist for the current WIP Casey at Bat. Normally I pick only instrumental music, and music that has never had lyrics - like the soundtrack to Lord of the Rings or something. The words tend to distract me. But this time I felt the need for actual music to set the mood.

Oh, and I've written 2,156 words since Monday. WhooHoo!!!

Ummm .... hi there

Just got home from work and realized that I'd forgotten to blog. It's funny, 'cuz I just mentioned to someone last night that I needed to think of a blog topic for tomorrow (today) .... and I literally just remembered now. Sheesh, sorry about that. So, since I'm supposed to either write 1001 new words or revise 28 pages, I need to get going. Here's a funny for you to smile at as you contemplate the fact that Bailey forgot you .... *kiss*


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Imagination is a writers friend

BOOGEDY BOOGEDY BOOOOO

Bless you

Huh?

You sneezed, didn't you?

No, I was singing.

Sounded like sneezing to me. What song was that.

Well Bud, it's one that I thought up myself.

You can't do that Ernie.

I can't? Why not.

Voices have no imagination.

We don't?

Nope, Bailey imagines us, and it all comes from her mind.

Can't she imagine that I've imagined a song?

I imagine that she might be able to imagine you imagining a song, but that's really beyond all imagination.

Imagine that!

Yeah.

What if I imagined there was no heaven?

You couldn't even if you tried.

Oh, so everything we think, everything we say ... that's Bailey?

Yeppers

Poor girl

And she's even on meds.

What is she imagining now?

She's imagining that you are saying goodbye Ernie

Okay, goodbye Ernie

You betrayed me so I'm going to have your baby in a flash back

I watched this new series tonight – “Defying Gravity”, the entire 2 hours. I won’t be doing it again next week. The episode was boring (why did I sit through the entire thing???) and confusing. It kept going back and forth in back flashes – to the point where I was saying “Get on with it already!!” It reminded me of my old WIP “The Devil You Know” which was full of back flashes and made me realize just how confusing that can be. It’s a plot device that is used often, but the author must be careful to not over use it to the point that the reader says “Get on with it already”, or worse yet, just put the book down. If I hadn’t been so lazy, that’s what I would have done with this series. A back flash starting a story off, for example, can be effective. Or little snatches here and there as a character comes to turn with something, like amnesia brought on by the shock of a crime, can work too – as long as they are short snippets and kept to a small number. In this TV series the flash backs were entire scenes, or worse yet, interspersed within one scene so often that you lost track of where you were, who was who – especially with the men. The women were easy to keep track of in this back and forth storytelling as their hairstyles changed, but the men were more difficult to follow.

Anyway, that’s one plot device that can be annoying. Others that I’m not fond of?

Lovers that break up because of a misunderstanding or lack of communication and then get back together, with one seeking revenge and the other not really knowing what is going on, or endlessly apologizing, etc. etc. etc. You know what I mean. You’re sitting there reading it and going “you idiot, if you had just asked him in the first place instead of listening to the ex-girlfriend …..” Why don’t characters talk????

Secret babies. ‘Nuff said

Leaving the group of people to explore the house alone after 15 gadzillion people have been slashed to death …. Yeah, I had to throw that one in.

The ex-girl/boyfriend betrayed me so ALL men/women are the same …..

There’s more, but now it’s your turn. What plot device, whether in movies/TV/books, really annoys you?