Archives

The Story Of This Book

Jan8

heavenbesideyou

To be totally honest, I wrote this book because I wanted to practice writing sex scenes. After I finished my first and second books (Three Alarm Tenant and Spark of Desire) I decided I needed practice writing sex scenes. When I finished it, this manuscript was a mess of head hopping, bad grammar and continuity errors, but there were lots of sex scenes and I never planned to publish it anyway. Well, as it happened, I was working in South Korea and decided to look for a writing group online. I happened across the group I am still with many years and three continents later. At the time, new applicants were required to submit some writing and a bio, and do a sample critique. Why I decided to submit Jason and Cassandra’s story, I don’t know. I had two completed novels and a novella gathering cyberdust on my hard drive at the time. Regardless, it worked and I was accepted by the group.

 

Within the first few days of being accepted there was a kerfuffle over another writer who had applied at the same time I had. Apparently she had read through some of the posts about her when the group was discussing letting us join and was offended, quitting the group immediately. Well, it had not occurred to me that the group might have discussed me and I wanted to know what they had said. Not much as it turned out. One member who shall remain nameless because I have no recollection of who it was said she thought I would be a decent critiquer, but thought my manuscript would be a “plotless wonder” (this I remember.) I already had a pretty thick skin by that point so I shrugged, laughed and filed the phrasing away as it was the first time I’d heard it.

 

This book was milled through the group and then published with another house under the unfortunate title The Rockstar’s Retreat. Believe me, that was the best one we could come up with at the time. I hated that title and knew I could do better by the story, so when the initial contract expired I took back the rights and proceeded to mess with it some more in addition to writing four more novels and five more novellas (and counting) in the same world.

 

And so the story goes.

What I’m Watching: Oh Brother, Where Art Thou

Jan7

O Brother was one of those quirky perfect matches for me when it came out. I don’t consistently love the Coen Borthers and I don’t consider myself a fan of George Clooney, but I loved reading the Odyssey in college and still own the book. (I have a more historically accurate version of the work starring Armand Assante too.) I also happen to be very fond of that musical era. It was either going to be a perfect match or something I was going to walk away from wishing I had that 2 hours back. If you haven’t seen it I suggest that you do.

Amazon

Why Jason is my favorite member of Touchstone.

Jan6

Jason Callisto is a dark, wounded musical genius. I am a sucker for dark, wounded genius. Jason was the first member of Touchstone that I “met.” About <mumble mumble> years ago when I was in college, I spent many long lectures dreaming about Jason Callisto and his girlfriend Cassandra Geoffrey. Don’t worry, most of the information sunk in. Most of the daydreaming was done during history and psychology lectures that I could have given myself thanks to a curious nature and a mother with liberal views on appropriate reading material.

 

I’ve always thought Jason was an Aries. Focused, determined, and passionate. He wants what he wants when he wants it. Aries are the babies of the zodiac and I don’t know about you, but in my experience, they can be pretty single minded about their desires. Jason is the real musical talent in the band. He’s an extremely gifted musician. Plus he’s got this super hot prime Steve Perry (Journey)/Eric Martin (Mr. Big) thing happening. Sigh.

 

Video Friday: Country Roads

Jan2

Heaven Beside You is the name of an Alice In Chains song that I always liked, but the reason it was so very appropriate for this book was because West Virginians’ refer to the state as heaven. John Denver’s song “Country Roads” was written about driving through West Virginia and refers to the state as heaven. During the Depression many, many West Virginians migrated to Akron, Ohio to work in the rubber factories. They referred to Route 77, which is the direct route from Akron to West Virginia as the Highway to Heaven.

 

Funny aside, Koreans are obsessed with John Denver (and Kenny Rogers, but that’s not my point.) If you happen to have a guitar in your hands, Koreans will ask if you can sing “Country Roads.” Sometimes they will break in to song themselves. Now consider the Asian difficulty with the letter R. “Contilee loads / taka me hoome / to the prace I be wrong / West Virginia / Mountain mama / Taka me hoome / Contilee loads.” It’s difficult to keep a straight face.

 

Not terribly surprising though. Korean landscape looks remarkably like West Virginia. I remember being out in the countryside at a resort looking around felling like I was in West Virginia and then coming across a spirit pole. Weird.

Video Friday

Feb21

You know that first scene where Maureen is obsessing about Bear maybe being a serial killer and how she’s going to end up rolled up in a rug? That came from this song. Her being chopped up into little pieces was edited out of the book. A tad gruesome for me.

Mom’s panic attack

Feb6

Excerpt:

Maureen let him escort her to the car and open the door. Panic crawled through her chest. Tony had a son going into second grade next year. If he didn’t like her dating his brother, he might talk to other parents. If enough of them decided they didn’t want their child in her class the school board might not renew her contract. That was probably a lot of wild paranoia, but having a class full of kids with hostile parents wasn’t. Linda had a pack of them this year in third grade and they were making her life hell. Two years ago Jenny Gilchrist had six kids fail and those kids’ parents drove her so crazy she ended up in the hospital with panic attacks and quit at the end of the year.

Nothing galvanizes a person quite like having a sibling a call to say, “I don’t want to worry you, but Mom was taken to the hospital today.” Several years before she retired my mom (yes, I am a second generation teacher) had a number of students failing her elementary class. The grade she taught was high stakes because it was the year before the state tests are administered so kids who aren’t going to hack it, aren’t getting out of third grade. Their parents disagreed. Stridently. My mom had taught for almost 30 year at this point, over half of it in third grade. She knew her stuff. They harassed her so much about it that toward the end of the year, in the middle an assembly, my mother passed out cold on the floor.

Turned out Mom had had a panic attack from the stress and an overabundance of coffee. (My mom loves her coffee.) She wore a heart monitor for a day, failed the kids anyway and carried on for three more years before she retired.

So, is the scenario Maureen cooks up possible? Likely? That little heart attack I had when my sister called that day says yes.

Please remember, when you have a disagreement with your child’s teacher, that teacher may be somebody’s mother too. Keep civil, gather your evidence (because not all teachers are as excellent as my mom) and take it to the principal if you can’t get satisfaction from the teacher.