Inspiration

Every so often, I take (mental) stock of the events that have transpired in my life over the months preceding said inventory, and sometimes the things I discover surprise me. For instance, I recently made the comment to someone that I had been to more "book things" in the past six months than I had in the past three years. It started with the launch of J.T.'s third standalone thriller in August and carried me through to the Murder in the Magic City conference I've been a big proponent of since 2003. That was in February. And it brought something home for me that has been quietly steeping on the back burner for six months.

Old friends. In my rather lengthy dissertation on the reappearance of my muse, I mentioned reconnecting with some of my old writer friends. I've been doing that quite a bit over the last six months. In listening to these friends talk about their latest books, their writing process, and where they're going next, I found myself thinking about the book (the one I left untouched for three years before digging it out of the laptop storage files, brushing it off and picking away at it) in much greater detail and with much greater enthusiasm than before. And it's finally happened. The epiphany, the aha moment, that tiny spark of an idea that changes the whole course of your story.

Now, granted, I thought this moment happened a long time ago. A very. LONG. Time ago. Apparently, I was wrong. But it's okay. I'm re-inventing myself. Again. And that's okay too.

Older and wiser. Today is my birthday. Bonus, it's Saturday. And since I've already cleaned the house this week (the WGH will expound ad nauseam on how I only clean when we're expecting company, and that happened Thursday), today I am free to do whatever I want. Two of our three Amazing Offspring will be here for dinner - which I am cooking myself, because, you know, I can - but I have a nearly full day ahead of me to write, watch basketball, write, do some laundry, watch more basketball (go BIG10), run to the store to get the stuff to make said birthday dinner, and, um, let's see ... oh yeah, write.

Hey, it's what I do.

Foster Puppy is happily gnawing on her chew-bone, the rest of the household is still quite asleep, and I need coffee. So until next time, have a great day, and read a book. It's good for you.

Grief is a Funny Thing, Parts 1 & 2

Grief is a Funny Thing, Part 1

It’s not about me. Somewhere in the mid-1990s, the contemporary Christian group DC Talk had a hit called In the Light. If you’ll allow me to paraphrase some of the lyrics from that song, I am the queen of excuses. I’ve got one for everything I do – or in this case, everything I don’t do. And I use them. A lot. Thus begins the litany of the “reasons” I haven’t been writing, REALLY writing, for over three years.

I keep trying to convince you (and perhaps myself) that it goes back to my mother’s death in the summer of 2015. But here’s the thing. It does, and it doesn’t.

Always Have a Book

So much for sleeping in, Saturday. It's always my goal to stay in bed a little later on Saturday mornings than I have to get up during the week to go to the day job. Sometimes I don't always achieve that goal. This morning, for instance. I woke up somewhere in the vicinity of 5:30 a.m. and could not for the life of me get my brain to shut off. I have quite the extensive to-do list today, and of course the minute I woke up I started thinking about everything I want/need to do and ... well, here we are. I decided to make good use of the time between the-sun-hasn't-come-up-yet and gotta-leave-for-the-office by putting to paper (er, screen) the things that have been on my mind - and the nightstand.

When Life Happens

Lemons, baseball, and other analogies. I learned to make lemonade a very long time ago, and it's really a good thing I did, because life has handed me a lot of lemons over the years. I've always been a glass-half-full kinda gal, anyway. Indomitable spirit and all that (thank You, LORD).

There have been times, however, when life has piled a rotten bunch of lemons on me so mountainous that it's been a little harder to claw my way back to the top. Hence my absence from the blogiverse these past 13 months.

I was about as close to the bottom of the ninth, three men on, two men out and full count as a person could get. No, I didn't hit a grand slam. By the grace of God, that last pitch came in "juuuust a bit outside" and I've been walking toward home ever since.

I know, the analogies are corny. It's kinda my thing.

JB's June Writing Challenge: Y is for ... Yankee

My bio says I'm a "bona fide Yankee transplanted to the South." In truth, I'm a bona fide Air Force brat who spent most of her youth in the North after Dad retired.

Years ago my old publisher invited its authors to contribute to a compilation of stories about our mothers (I think it was a Mother's Day tribute or something), so I wrote a piece about my Mom, the military wife, who organized and orchestrated 13 moves from the time I was born until I was about 9 years old.

JB's June Writing Challenge: T is for ... Tomatoes

I'm beginning to think that you, my sweet friends, are having more fun coming up with topics for me to write about than I am having writing about them. Evidence today's suggestion from my lovely friend Blake.

Tomatoes
The WGH suggested I talk about the difference between cherry tomatoes and grape tomatoes.

JB's June Writing Challenge: P is for ... Pickles

My funny friend Stephanie from the day job is getting really good at coming up with off-the-wall topics for me to write about for the June Writing Challenge. Today's suggestion made me laugh so hard I had to tell the boss about it, and he thought it was a great idea! All I can do is shake my head, crack my knuckles and start typing.

Pickles
I did a Google search for "pickles", hoping to find out how many different kinds of pickles there actually are. When your search engine returns 10.1 million results, you come to realize several things:

JB's June Writing Challenge: L is for ... Laughter

"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter."
-e.e. cummings, US poet (1894 - 1962)

Laughter
Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard the phrase, "Laughter is the best medicine." This is another concept in which I believe with all my heart. Not only that, it's a scientific fact! Laughter produces endorphins, and endorphins make you feel better. A workplace without laughter is a dull, oppressive, gloomy place. We laugh a lot at the day job--and we're a doctor's office, so we're spreading healthy karma.

JB's June Writing Challenge: K is for ... Keepsakes

The plea for a "K" topic this morning brought quite a few intriguing suggestions, but I like this one from my lovely friend J.T.

Keepsakes
Dictionary.com defines keepsake as "anything kept, or given to be kept, as a token of friendship or affection; remembrance." Synonyms are listed as well: souvenir, memento, token. Also on the page is this alternate definition from the World English Dictionary: "A gift that evokes memories of a person or event with which it is associated."

JB's June Writing Challenge: J is for ... JIGGY?!?!?

When my friend Stephanie suggested I use "jiggy" for today's topic, I thought she had lost her mind. But the more I thought about it, the more the idea started to appeal to me. The whole point of a "writing challenge" is to make it challenging, right? I think using "jiggy" as a topic definitely qualifies in that respect. Intellectual and creative? Yes, I can be both of those things.

SAD Like Me

Today I am sitting in my newly de-cluttered and reorganized study. I can actually see the tops of both desks (AND the carpet!). My laptop is in its proper place, center stage on the writing desk. I can actually walk from one wall to its opposite (a distance of about 12 feet) without tripping over something. The WGH actually complimented me on a bit of décor I've employed to hold some of the books that are overflowing from the two barrister bookcases (aren't they adorable?):

What inspired this sudden urge to get my little life back in order? Sunshine and a guilty conscience.

Houston, we have a problem ...

Years ago, my lovely friend and fellow writer Susan McBride (have you read any of Susan's books yet? why not?) wrote a post about how she wasn't the only Susan McBride on the block. She'll have to refresh my memory about whether she was the only one who was a writer.

Well, I have discovered - you guessed it - that I am not the only Jennifer Brooks. In addition, I am not the only Jennifer Brooks who writes.

For Book Lovers Only

It's an unusually sunny January Saturday here in the mid-state ... we've had so much drear the past few weeks that I actually forgot what sunshine looked like. Cold, still - it is January, after all - but a lovely day to lounge and read. Especially since the WGH did all the laundry yesterday and I don't have to do anything today but go grocery shopping. And that's a maybe.

According to Goodreads, I'm 2 books behind on my 2013 Reading Challenge, so I'm off to the recliner for some quality time with Jamie and Claire. I'll leave you with some reading material to peruse from some of my favorite literary peeps ...

(Cracked) Reflections on A Year in the Life

It's either apologies or homage I must pay to my good friend Robin, who writes a blog called Cracked Reflections on a(n) (ab)Normal Life. I'm stealing her theme here for just a moment ...

Year in Review. I write an annual "update letter" to send out with our Christmas cards. This year I started it with the following disclaimer:

Old Friends

Over the years I've had the great privilege to make acquaintance with some spectacular writers. One of my old favorites is Robert Fate, author of the Baby Shark series. I had an email from Bob the other day with an update on what Baby Shark and the rest of her motley crew are up to, and he asked me to share the news with all of you:

GOING DIGITAL AND GETTING THERE
Robert Fate, author of the Baby Shark series

It was sad news when Capital Crime Press, my honest, hard working publisher, decided to throw in the towel, but more than that, it was scary. How about the agreements with the distributors? Where were readers, bookstores, and libraries going to find my books? And what made it the scariest was how fast change was happening all around me. How could I be surprised, though, with major bookstores going belly up and taking their WiFi and coffee bars with them? Larger publishers than mine were calling it quits; eStuff was replacing dead tree stuff so fast it just felt rude. Okay, maybe books must go, but why not with a little more dignity? Nope, no time for that––the future had arrived.

The truth is, I wanted to go all Pollyanna and believe that things would take care of themselves, after all, folks weren’t going to stop reading books––were they? So I let a little time slip by before reading some altruistic Joe Konrath rants and seeing the light. Joe has a way of throwing that switch. No more dragging my feet, I had to go digital.

For me, going digital meant penning 2nd editions of the first four Baby Sharks and releasing them on Kindle. This was the beginning of the “process” part of leaving one world and entering the next.

Okay––making the books available for Kindle readers was step one. But how about all those folks who like holding a “real” book in their hands? After all the badmouth that has been given Print On Demand (POD) by the traditional publishing guys (to serve their own purposes, I fear), I was happily surprised to learn that POD books look EXACTLY the same as the book traditional publishers print. Hooray! That meant all readers would be served.

So, new covers for the PODs would need to be arranged, as well as some other details, since I was now the publisher, but it was all within reach. I think it is fair to say that Amazon (Kindle) makes it easy to self-publish, but that’s relative. If you want to go this route, be prepared to exert some effort. It ain’t rocket science, but there are many niggling details that must be addressed. Patience and perseverance are required, and also some thick skin, since there is still a lot of resistance to “going it alone,” even if it is the American way.

The final stage of the “process” is the marketing, of course––the Sisyphean task of making folks aware of your books. Amazon offers help, but as in all things, you must help yourself, as well. I am now in that final stage. Here comes some marketing.

FREE BOOKS!!

Baby Shark will be offered free for five days on Kindle –– Click HERE on May 18 thru May 22, 2012 for your free book. The purpose of free books is to introduce the series to those who haven’t yet read it, and to re-kindle (you should excuse the pun) an interest in the series with those readers who’ve been there, done that. The other books in the series will also be offered free in the near future––go to www.robertfate.com for that information.

If the free dates slip by you, borrow the titles from the Kindle library, that’s free, too. Ain’t it great? However, some restrictions may apply, as they say.

When you go to robertfate.com to read all the fabulous reviews, be sure to check out the Book Club section, some new stuff there.

More marketing––watch for the summer 2012 publications of Baby Shark’s Showdown at Chigger Flats, book five in the Baby Shark series. And, Kill the Gigolo, a contemporary standalone with a male protagonist and a femme fatale that is a real piece of work.

TWEETS –– If you also live on Twitter––Beginning May 18th, please Tweet this: Free Baby Shark on Kindle http://tinyurl.com/freebabyshark

Best wishes and happy tweeting.

“Digital” Bob

Robert Fate, author of the Baby Shark series, is a Marine Corps veteran who studied at the Sorbonne in France, roughnecked in the oilfields of Oklahoma, fashion modeled in NYC, sold show scenery in Las Vegas, and has been a chef in Los Angeles. As a Hollywood special effects technician, he won an Academy Award for Technical Achievement. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, a ceramic artist, and his daughter, a cum laude graduate of USC. A regular guy, he has a dog, two cats, and a turtle named Pharrell.

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If you want to find out more about Bob Fate and his fantastic series, in my previous life I did a few interviews with him that you can peruse at your leisure:

• Interview with Robert Fate (March 2007)
• Robert Fate Returns to the Lunch Room (April 2008)
• Lunch Room Surprises

Happy reading!

Overwhelmed!

Great big thanks going out to all who responded to my beta reader request - the list is officially full, and I'm both thrilled and honored, as well as beyond grateful.

Exciting things are afoot here in the study - stay tuned!

A Call to Arms

Up with the chickens. It's 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning and I'm awake. Awake enough to be thinking. Of course, once my brain wakes up it's hard to shut it off, anyway.

This always happens. I work the day job three days a week, and on those mornings I sometimes have to drag myself out of bed just to get to work on time. But on the mornings I get to sleep in, what does my brain do? Wakes up early, of course! Why is that?

I know why it happened this morning. Wednesday night was "group" night - I've said before I have the most amazing critique group. EVER. And the most amazing critique partner a writer could ask for. (I'm so blessed.) - and I got jump-started. Seriously jump-started. JT introduced me to Scrivener, and I am in love. Love, love, love. This is a fabulous tool for writers and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who wants to get organized in a hurry. I've already spent several hours working with it; I'm officially addicted.

We also put together a game plan for my writing career. I've been slogging around the study trying to make a go of things for too long; it's time to take some serious action - to stop trying and start doing.

So I'm up early on a Saturday morning, doing just that. It's snowed a bit here in Middle Tennessee - oops, just looked out the window, change that to snowing - and I'm tucked in and ready to get down to business.

Help wanted. To wit, I need beta readers. If you're interested, please click here to send me an email - tell me a little about yourself and why you'd like to read for me. I'll take the first 10 responders and we'll go from there. In advance, I thank you.

And now, Harry and I are settling down to work. Enjoy your Saturday, whatever you're doing. And read a book - it's good for you!

Music of the moment: Soundtrack, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Bookmarks

Over on Twitter I follow the #fridayreads hashtag. The other day I tweeted that I'm reading too many books at once. This is scary but true. To keep track of things myself, as well as to share them with you, here's a list of the books which currently have one of my bazillion bookmarks in them and are sitting in various stages of "being read":

• Bram Stoker's Dracula. I downloaded this to my Nook for PC application and am currently on page 304 (of 406, not including endnotes).
• The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis: Book 4 - Prince Caspian.
• A Bad Day for Sorry by Sophie Littlefield.
• Coach Wooden by Pat Williams with Jim Denney. This is a biography of one of the most notable 20th-century sports figures the U.S. has ever known. The book actually belongs to my husband, as it was a gift from my parents, but I snagged it first. =)
• My friend River Jordan's Praying for Strangers. I really am almost finished reading this one.
• Flipped Out. Fifth in the DIY series by my sweet pal Jennie Bentley. Amongst the "thicker" books on my nightstand, this lighter fare is just right for a quick wind-down before bedtime.

In the words of J.K. Rowling, I think that's probably "quite enough to be getting on with."

I've been working the day job all week but actually have tomorrow off. Think maybe I'll devote some time to changing at least one of these from "currently reading" to "read".

What's on your "currently reading" list?

Remembering

September 11, 2001. I've seen a lot of blog posts and news stories over the past several days about what has come to be known as "9/11". There will be hundreds - even thousands - more today, the 10th anniversary of a day no one in America thought they'd ever see. There will be church services, temple services, and yes, even mosque services that will commemorate this day in one form or another. A lot of people will share a lot of memories - answering the question, "Where were you ...?"

Over the past 10 years I've done my best to avoid 'remembering' 9/11. I turned the station on the TV when anything about it came up. I didn't want to relive that day, didn't want to see the images, didn't want to hear the countless stories of loss and suffering. Of course I was affected by it. I don't believe there's a single person in this country who wasn't affected by it - everyone knows someone who knows someone who knew someone ... no one can rightly claim otherwise, because we live in a tiny little world where everyone is connected to some degree. And it wasn't that I wasn't 'remembering' - it's a day I'll never forget, just as millions of Americans will never forget. It was all just too personal, just too overwhelming. Just too incomprehensible. But I'm confident I wasn't alone in my aversion to the endless coverage, the endless stories, the endless heartache, the endless tears.

That's changed now. Somewhat. I still don't like to see the horror of that day splayed all over the television. What I'm beginning to appreciate more, in addition to the stories of heroism and sacrifice, are the accounts of coincidence and salvation, Divine intervention and genuine compassion. I read one such story yesterday, a firsthand narration of the events of that day by author Meg Cabot, who lived in Manhattan, mere blocks from the World Trade Center. Meg's story touched me in a way that made me realize there are probably hundreds if not thousands of stories just like hers, that help make a little sense of an otherwise senseless event.

Our story isn't nearly so touching or heartbreaking, but since it's true that everyone has a story to share, I'll share mine. It was an ordinary Tuesday at our house - except that I was home, in bed and asleep, sick with an upper respiratory infection that would keep me knocked down and away from work for nearly a week. My husband had the day off as well, and we'd put the kids on the bus and gone back to bed.

The phone rang somewhere around 8:00 a.m. our time. It was the kids' godmother, a longtime family friend who works at the corporate office of one of the major banks in downtown Nashville.

"Are you watching the news?" she asked.

"No. What's going on?"

"Turn on the television. It's bad. It's just really bad." And she hung up.

We turned the TV on in time to see the second plane hit the World Trade Center.

From that moment on, for the rest of the day and into the evening, we were glued to the coverage. It was horrifying. Unfathomable. We kept asking ourselves the same question over and over: How could something like this happen?

When our kids arrived home from school that afternoon, the first thing our son, then 10 years old, said when they walked through the door was, "The Twin Towers collapsed!"

They sat with us and watched the news. We prayed. We cried. They asked questions we couldn't answer. We prayed and cried some more. Their godmother called back later, sobbing. Some of the 3000 people who died in the towers that day were colleagues, people she talked to on the phone every single day at work. One of them always addressed her as "Hotshot." She said, "I can't believe I'm not going to hear him say, 'Hey, Hotshot' ever again."

What do you say to that?

All we could do then, and all we can do now, is offer a shoulder to cry on, a hug, and a prayer. (Brace yourself, 'cause I'm gonna preach for a second.) Our pastor said in his sermon this morning that 9/11 was a wake-up call to America. That it should be a wake-up call to Christians everywhere: We need to pray for this country, for its leaders (even if we don't agree with the way they're running things), and for its protection.

Lastly, and most especially, pray that nothing like 9/11 will ever happen again.

God bless America.

Good Days and Bad Days

Cats and dogs. You automatically think rain, right? Well, yes, it has been raining rather more than seems normal around here so far this season. But I'm literally talking about cats and dogs this time, in concordance with the title of this post.

Every day is a good day for a cat. A cat's life consists of eating, napping and playing. Day in and day out. All day long. Every day a new adventure, exploring the house for new and interesting smells and new and interesting things to play with.

Case in point. Merlot (technically our oldest daughter's cat, of whom we have temporary custody) is currently sitting behind my laptop, rummaging through the large plastic stadium cup full of pens and pencils that sits on the left back corner of my desk. It's the same cup that's been there for months, with the same pens and pencils in it that he's played with before, and yet he's pawing at it as if it's some fascinating new thing.

He slinks down off the desk and saunters over to my recliner, on which our miniature beagle, Calliope, is napping, intent on causing whatever mayhem he can stir up by popping her on the snout with a splayed (clawless) paw. There's the dog's life. Pretty much same as the cat's, only the napping involves a snoring, deep-seated sleep which leaves the pup groggy for a minute or two upon wakening - whereas the cat by definition does not sleep so much as rest with its eyes closed, then awakens with a start to run off and chase whatever the new and interesting item of the moment may be (in this case, the dog).

Oh, to be a cat, and there would be no such thing as a bad day. Cats don't care if their bosses yell at them, or if they get stuck in traffic in the rain and miss their daughter's rugby game, or if they forget to order their son's new flannel bedsheets so that they'll be ready for him when he gets home for spring break.

Cats don't care if they write endlessly for days and end up cranking out nothing but blibbering drivel, a pile of superfluous crap which must subsequently be deleted and rewritten.

Balance. Fortunately, we humans have a slight advantage over cats and dogs - we possess the power of positive thinking. We can take our bad days in stride, knowing there are good days ahead. We can find and revel in the joy that is balance. Last Friday may have been a bad day for me, but the days that followed were good enough to make up for it.

On Saturday I braved the rain to go to JT's only Nashville signing for So Close the Hand of Death, the sixth book in her Taylor Jackson series - she (seated right) was joined by author Sophie Littlefield (seated left), an altogether delightful woman who writes three different series (I've added the first book of her crime fiction one to my tottering TBR pile). They were both charming and lovely and entertaining and a well-deserved, much-needed boost for my sagging spirits.

Monday was also a good day. (Given that this is usually a contradiction in terms, I was pleasantly surprised.) Our oldest came home for the day and treated me and her brother to a lovely lunch at our favorite local Mexican restaurant, and I was able to rest and recoup from the week-long sinus infection I'd been battling.

Finally, Wednesday night was our bimonthly writers' group meeting, and though there were only three of us there, it was a very productive and beneficial session. With the others' input, I am revitalized, inspired and motivated once more to work on the heretofore referenced pile of superfluous crap I've been writing.

I have a feeling today's gonna be another good day.