The Sister Thing

"Sisters never quite forgive each other for what happened when they were five."

Pam Brown

I spent yesterday working on the new book, Under the Skin -- Elizabeth's sister Gloria has come for an indefinite visit and Elizabeth is, somewhat to her (and to my) surprise, becoming a tad bitchy.

Now I don't have a sister so I have no personal experience to draw on. But that doesn't stop me -- I've never (knowingly) encountered a murderer either but still I write about them.

Of course there are sisters who are best friends and always have been. But when one is writing a novel, high on the list of Must Have's is CONFLICT. Not just one big conflict but lots of little ones as well. So, Elizabeth and Gloria -- two very different people with very different world views are bound to clash.

Also, as I mentioned just a month ago, I'm writing Elizabeth in first person -- getting really up close and personal. In the past, sometimes I've thought that Elizabeth was just a little too good to be true -- so balanced, so kind, so good natured, so . . . rational.

Well, there's nothing like being around a younger, slimmer, richer sister, who also likes to tell you how you should live your life, to bring out the inner female dog in a protagonist.

I'm finding it interesting.

Portrait of Bear

Look at this lovely portrait of Bear! Liz G. who is a regular commenter here, had a friend do this watercolor of my sweet girl and surprised me with it.

The artist's name is Soko Okada and I think that she captured Bear's look perfectly. The watercolor sketch below was done by Soko's teacher, Robert Stott. (Liz said that Soko asked for his help in painting a dog she'd never met.)

And this charming German Shepherd below is more of Soko's work -- Liz's dog Sky, adorning a note card taken from the original.

I'd say Ms. Okada has a real knack with dogs! Many thanks to her and to Liz!

And many thanks to all of you who commented or emailed with condolences. The loss of a beloved pet is never easy -- but your kindness and concern has been heartwarming.

Pat in TN Was Wondering . . .

. . . what ever happened to my writing chair that I hauled off to be re-upholstered. Well, here it is, in its fresh new green cotton splendor.

I really should have taken a before picture -- under the home made blue and green slip cover (shown in the photo over in the sidebar, just above the Zombie Chicken Award) was a truly ghastly sight -- filthy, faded, fifty-year old pale blue brocade covered the chair -- mostly. Except where the stuffing was poking out. In spite of a pillow on the seat, it was becoming increasingly uncomfortable to sit in for any period of time.

The ottoman, another piece of furniture from my grandparents' house, was in fine shape -- its faded yellow brocade untorn. But I went on and had it recovered as well.

They look just grand -- and the dogs and cats agree, fighting to sleep in the chair when I'm out of it. So I've put the old slipcovers back on to protect them.

At least it's not clear plastic.

Pat's other question was about a comment from Willow a few days ago. "your sighting of the young girl with the hoe just gave me the shivers! What a perfect inspiration for a book character."

And that comment was in response to a comment I had left at Willow's blog on a recent post she did about a ghostly sighting.

Briefly (and there's not much to tell anyway), our house (built by my husband in 1975) sits in the middle of what was once a tobacco or a corn field. One night, in the early years of our occupancy, I was alone in the living room, drowsing on the sofa, and I saw a young woman in an ankle-length homespun skirt, standing there with a hoe in her hand.

That was it. She didn't move or speak or go Oooooh. And I've never seen her again. But she was in my mind when I wrote the Little Sylvie story -- twenty-five or so years later.

Any more questions? I know the answer to the Ultimate Question, the one about Life, the Universe, and Everything.

It's 42.

An Unreasonable Attachment

I'm not a sports fan.

I was out of college before I understood what 'downs' were in football. In spite of being surrounded by hard-core Carolina basketball fans, I've never learned to appreciate the strategy and beauty that I'm told are part of the game. And golf?

As if.

So why am I totally enamored with Harlan Coben's suspense/thriller series about Myron Bolitar, a sports agent, all of whose clients are (obviously) athletes ?

Probably because Coben manages to be both extremely funny and extremely serious. Bad things happen and Coben makes us care -- while the indomitable Myron Bolitar with his tender side and his smart ass humor is a guy after my own heart -- in spite of the sports thing.

And then, even more improbably, I am completely fascinated by Myron's sidekick, Win (that would be Windsor Horne Lockwood III,) the psychotic preppie. Oh my, this is quite a fella -- but as the series develops, we find out the reasons for his . . . quirks.

As I've mentioned before, when I'm writing I still have to read -- with breakfast, with lunch, in the bath, before falling asleep -- and I tend to pick up books I've already read so I don't race through to find out what happened.

I've been re-reading my own Signs in the Blood, just to remind myself of what I've said previously (after four years some of it is a bit hazy.) But the other night, I felt in the mood for something different and picked up Back Spin which I've already read a couple of times -- and I'm hooked all over again.

A Thing of Beauty . . .

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness . . ."

from Endymion by John Keats

Some beauty is more fleeting. Kate the Donkey is shedding her winter coat and emerging, for the summer, sleek and lovely as a race horse. (Well, possibly I exaggerate. But I think she's beautiful.)

The tiger lilies are here for their brief moment of glory.

And this evening, the beauty of the mists on the eastern mountains changed constantly.

But the view -- ah, may it remain a joy forever!

Senseless Acts of Beauty

Diving by our county's branch of Asheville's AB Tech -- a fine community college -- my eye was caught by the magnificent display of flowers planted at the entrance and I remembered a few years back, seeing Dr. Connie Buckner, the director of this facility, dressed in jeans and out digging in the dirt.

Her efforts have been richly rewarded! What could easily have been a generic planting of low maintenance shrubbery surrounded by mulch and a litter of cigarette butts is instead a garden of breathtaking exuberance.

Hybrid day lilies, liatris, gladioli, purple cone flowers, black-eyed susans, rosemary, and a lavender plant that seems to be on steroids are the main features of this lovely spot.

The injunction to 'practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty' comes to mind.
It's probably not in their job description but the folks at the Madison County branch of AB Tech have done just that in creating this stunning garden.

Many thanks to Dr. Buckner and her horticultural cohorts -- Virginia Norton, Jerome Moriarty, and Sherri Davis for this amazing display!

The River

Though we don't see the river from our house, it's an abiding presence in our lives. To get, well, almost anywhere, we have to cross the river. I love the sight of it and it always shows up somewhere in my books.

from Signs in the Blood -- Little Sylvie at the river:

I looked at the river, runnin there so fast beneath the bridge. Teacher had showed us on a great map how a flatboat could go down this same river into Tennessee, on to Alabama, back to Tennessee and Kentucky all the way to the Ohio River and from there to the mighty Mississippi and right smack down to New Orleans. And in New Orleans, she told us, you can get on a ship that can take you right around this world.

It seemed a marvel to me that his same water I was lookin at would travel so far while I stayed put. I thought how I would like to go on one of them boats and see all them places . . .

Le Secret des Appalaches

Ooh, ooh!

I have received my copies of the French edition of Art's Blood -- and again I'm having fun seeing my words translated into French. (My knowledge of French is minimal, by the way -- I recognize some words; that's about it.)

It was a thrill when I received the translation of Signs in the Blood and it's still exciting to me on this second one.

Once again I was eager to see what Miss Birdie sounds like. On page 159 of Art's Blood, Birdie says:

"Git you a chair, Lizzie Beth. I'm just stringin' these soup beans here in the cool of the evenin'. I do love a bowl of shucky beans come wintertime."

The French Miss Birdie says (and they don't use quotation marks, by the way): -- Prends-toi une chaise, Lizzie Beth. Je profite de fraicheur du soir pour finir ca. (I'm unable to reproduce the diacritical marks, alas!) Quand vient l'hiver, je suis toujours contente de pouvoir manger une bonne soupe.

I note that Sophie wasn't able to deal with 'stringin' soup beans' and substitutes something like "I'm using the cool of the evening to finish this.' 'Shucky beans' was also a problem, I see.


And this time YOU really could be a winner. If any of you are interested (and that includes folks not here in the US), I have an extra copy of Le Secret des Appalaches. Tell me, either here in the comments or by email, that you want to be in the drawing and I'll put your name in the hat -- I'll draw the winner on the 1st of August.

Bonne chance! (Is that correct? )

A Sport

According my Merriam Webster Dictionary, one of the definitions for sport is "an individual exhibiting a sudden deviation from type beyond the normal limits of individual variation usu. as a result of mutation, esp. of somatic tissue."

I think that's what's going on with this lovely pale clematis, blooming on the same vine amid all its deep purple sisteren and brethren.

But I'm not so sure about this autumnal branch of orange leaves on the buckeye tree -- this may just be a dying limb that chose to go out in style.

And then there's Eddie -- the sole feline member of dog club. I'd say he's a sport, in more ways than one.

The Glorious Fourth

Listening this morning to NPR, I was moved, as always, by the annual reading of The Declaration of Independence. Boy, that Thos. Jefferson could turn a phrase like nobody's business!

I have always loved the long list of complaints, directed at "the present King of Great Britain" -- poor old George III who ended his life in madness.

The charges range from the relatively staid "He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good" to my personal favorite "He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people."

A busy monarch -- I picture him descending like Gulliver on the Lilliputians, like Godzilla on Tokyo,white wig awry, snatching up ships and helpless colonists.

But that's just my vivid imagination at work.

What I really came here to talk about was the line that says "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

It's been 233 years and we, the people, are getting closer than ever to living up to this manifesto. The men who signed this stirring declaration said "all men are created equal" but were pretty limited in what they meant by 'men.'

White males only need apply. Protestant property owners preferred.

In the years since the signing of the Declaration, our country's laws have discriminated against women, African-Americans, Native Americans ("the merciless Indian savages" mentioned in the Declaration) and immigrants of all sorts -- and then there are all those discriminated against for their religion (or lack of it), their disabilities, or their sexual orientation.

We've come a very long way toward affirmation of that statement of equality. But we're not there yet.

(That was the end of this post. Then I took John in to pick up his truck from the garage. Coming back, I turned on the radio and was looking for some music. Instead I got He Who Shall Not Be Named -- the chubby right wing pundit whose initials are R.L. He was just talking about The Declaration of Independence and he mentioned the need to 'return to the principles of the Founding Fathers.'

All of their principles? I wonder how old R.L. feels about slavery. )

A Person of Faith

A gardener is a person of faith --who looks at little green tomatoes and plans spicy sauces and salsas, salads with rich red slices glistening with olive oil, the first wonderful bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich of the season . . .

The gardener looks at the compost and grass seed and hay and sees a lush green lawn in the making . . .

Tiny green figs? A future delight -- get the prosciutto ready!

And sometimes the faith is rewarded -- as when a 3 dollar bare-root rose takes hold, climbs and blooms -- just as it was supposed to do.

YOU May Be A WINNER!!!

I don't gamble. I don't buy lottery tickets. But several time a year, I invest a stamp and some time in jumping through the various hoops needed to enter the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes.

Find the special stamp HERE and paste it THERE; initial this; verify your address and the directions to your house so that the Prize Patrol can come right to your front door with The Big Check and the red roses. (Ha! They'd better have four wheel drive.) Verify name of local florist. Okay. I've got the vase ready.

They used to include a car as part of the prize -- years ago it was a Jaguar and I was always torn between elegant black and British Racing Green. I made my choice but alas! no Jag. I wonder how much time I've spent, in the past 30-some years, doing these silly entries.

The current Big Prize is staggering -- $100,000.00 a week for a year! Half a million in just five weeks! Over five million by the end of the year!

The mind boggles. Even after government took its hefty share, there should be enough left for a little modest fling.

Or, as the old joke has it, we could just go on farming till it was all gone.

End of June Walk

The air was clear; the sky was blue. Come with me for a stroll on the last day of June.

(Click on picture to enlarge -- choose full screen option for best results)