Taillights, gladiators, & things that keep us moving

There’s a sizable mountain range separating my part of Oregon from the part where all the Romance Writers of America (RWA) meetings occur.

In the summertime, the mountains are merely scenic. In the wintertime, they’re downright treacherous. It’s not unusual to see cars buried in snow banks or flipped upside down, and I prefer to keep my eyes shut tight for most of the trip.

That doesn’t work if I’m driving alone without Pythagoras, which was the case this past weekend.

The drive over on Thursday afternoon wasn’t so bad, but Saturday evening’s return trip scared the holy living snot out of me. The roads were icy, the sky was dark, and the snow was flying from 859 directions.

I wanted to curl up on the floorboards and whimper. I settled for fixating on the taillights of the guy ahead of me. For two hours, I kept pace with his Jeep. I gauged his speed on slick curves, noticed when he tapped his brakes, and invented an imaginary identity for him that included a falcate sword and a gladiator costume.

By the time we made it over the mountains, I wanted to follow him home and hug him. I refrained, mostly because he’d think I was a stalker, but also because I would have been really disappointed if he didn’t have the sword.

The experience made me think about the post I wrote last Friday. In it, I talked about the downside of having bitter or jealous thoughts about other authors. The post sparked one of the coolest discussions we’ve had here, further cementing my belief that the people commenting on my blog often have smarter things to say than I do.

One of the most thought-provoking comments was this one from Mark Simpson:

When I was a hurdler in high school there was a kid in the next town (lets call it Colstrip because that's what everyone calls it) who was both amazingly talented and a complete asshole. (Lets call him Bobby Gregg, since that's his actual name. ha)

More than anything I wanted to beat him, to see his face lined in pain as I broke his will. So I drug railroad ties through the snow, trained and bled and sweated. I finally did beat him a couple times, although he won the ultimate contest. (probably because he was better than me.)

But even as the memory of my broken heart spilling its blood into the gutter of my soul still rings fresh, I know that loathing disdain for him still brought out my absolute best. I needed him like spring needs the rain. (And now we're FB friends. ha)

These days instead of running endless intervals to the Top Gun soundtrack on my Walkman, I read Tawna's blog. And although I am dazzled daily by her unattainable level of wit, humor and charm – there is a part of me that wants.. nay NEEDS... to see something that ISN'T clever, funny or charming. Every day I scour the text in vain yearning, all while honing my own writing skills – skills that even as they peak will always be deep in her shadow.

Tawna is my modern day Bobby Gregg– inspiration, nemesis, and femme fatale.

She is the rock I break myself against.

As a side-note, if you’ve ever wondered how many regular blog readers I know in real life, the answer is “almost none.” Mark is one of the few – an old pal from college I haven’t seen for years, but who recently found me on Facebook. I bring this up because seeing that comment from a total stranger might’ve creeped me out a little. Seeing it from him just made me giggle.

But I digress.

Aside from his facetious Tawna-worship, Mark makes a great point. While I don’t encourage petty jealousy and evil thoughts about others, a little friendly rivalry can push you to be better.

During my bumpy path to publication, one thing that kept me going was the steady stream of positive feedback and “almost there” comments from editors.

But on the flip-side of that, the comments that made me even more determined to succeed were the ones containing traces of the sentiment, “you can’t.”

Those were the comments that made me stand up straight, shake off my disappointment, and scream, “hell yes I can – watch me!”

So while I stand by what I said Friday about holding your venomous thoughts in check, there’s a benefit to having something that keeps you driving forward when you might otherwise be tempted to curl up and cry.

What pushes you to keep going? Is it a professional rivalry, an outright failure, or just a guy in a gladiator costume with a bright pair of taillights? Please share!

A little rain must fall

For all the non-Oregonians reading, what do you think of when you picture my fair state?

Hats off to those who said “wine,” but I’m guessing at least half of you said “rain.”

(Feel free to insert your own Oregon joke here about how we don’t tan, we rust. Or maybe the one about how our state flower is mildew).

While it’s true spots like Portland and Eugene are supremely soggy, that’s not the case here in the high desert of Central Oregon where it seldom rains. Though Pythagoras and I both grew up in rainy parts of the state, we’ve been on the dry side for 13 years.

That’s just long enough to alter our perception of rain to the point that we briefly considered canceling our hike when we woke Saturday morning to see drizzly conditions. Then we remembered real Oregonians have gills. We scoff at umbrellas. We don’t consider it a true hike unless there’s mud, dammit.

So we set out for a hike around Tumalo Falls. By the time we returned to the car, it looked like we’d both spent the last few hours standing fully clothed beneath the falls.
I posted that picture on Twitter with some silly comment about it looking like I peed my pants in reverse. I didn’t think much of it until an online pal wrote that she was sorry the rain ruined my hike.

That struck me as funny.

Maybe it’s the fact that if Oregonians let rain ruin things, we’d have very little bliss in our lives.

Or maybe it’s that the rain kind of made the hike.

I left my jacket at home, so Pythagoras chivalrously loaned me his. The dog – unaccustomed to soggy soil – kept spinning out and making us laugh. And the smell of the high desert when it rains is the closest thing I can think of to heaven.

I guess I never considered the rain might be a negative.

Admittedly, I’ve always been an optimist. I probably couldn’t have endured such a bumpy journey to publication if that weren’t the case.

Even so, it can be tough to keep a positive attitude when you’re in the trenches gathering rejections or struggling with a book that won’t cooperate. You have it in your mind how things should go, and any deviation from that can send you into a tailspin.

But sometimes what seems like a setback can turn out to be the best thing. There’s no doubt I was crushed years ago when Harlequin/Silhouette canceled the Bombshell line a month before my debut was scheduled for publication, but I look back now and breathe a sigh of relief. That’s not the sort of book I wanted to write in the long-term, but it took a major shakeup to prompt me to realize I should take a different path.

While you probably won’t always feel like dancing for joy when the downpour hits, there’s almost always something to be gained from it.

Are you an optimist, or do setbacks tend to hit you pretty hard? Can you recall anything that’s happened to you that seemed heartbreaking at the time, but turned out to be the best thing for you?

Please share in the comments. I’m still trying to get the rainwater out of my underwear.

Making car rides entertaining with minimal risk of arrest

The drive from my home in Central Oregon to the Emerald City Writers' Conference in Seattle is 7-8 hours each way. Even broken up with a pit-stop in Salem to see my parents, that's a helluva long time to be in the car with nothing to amuse me but the occasional glimpse of a passing motorist picking his nose.

This is where audiobooks come in handy. Pythagoras and I first borrowed one from the library about ten years ago on a drive to Nevada where traffic is so sparse we didn't even have nose pickers to amuse us. We listened to James Patterson's KISS THE GIRLS and cracked up every time the narrator dramatically growled "tick-cock."

Since Pythagoras' daily commute is less than two miles and mine is a flight of stairs down to my writing computer, we don't really listen to audiobooks during the week. Still, they do come in handy. Two years ago, Pythagoras accepted a temporary job in a town 2.5 hours away. We spent 10 months living in different places and visiting each other on weekends (a lovely way to celebrate your 10th year of marriage).

I credit audiobooks not only with keeping us sane on many late-night drives, but also with exposing me to books I might not have read otherwise. I was curious about Barbara Kingsolver's ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MIRACLE (a memoir of a year spent deliberately eating only food produced in their town) but knew it was one of those books that would never rise to the top of my to-be-read pile. I found it on audiobook and spent several memorable car trips pretending Barbara was sitting there in the passenger seat sharing my bag of Doritos and reading me her story.

For this trip to the Emerald City conference, I've loaded my iPhone with several selections to make the miles pass quickly. It's got me wondering whether my books will ever be done in audio format. I looked at my contract this morning just to see if it's mentioned, but I got bored reading and only managed to confirm that the phrase "audio rights" is indeed in there (along with about 8 million other words that make me very sleepy).

The very idea blows my mind. I listen to Cynthia Nixon reading the Emily Giffin novel currently in my player and think, "could she someday be reading the Strip Battleship scene from MAKING WAVES?"

Probably not, but the thought amuses me even more than the nose picking thing.

Do you enjoy audiobooks? If so, are there certain books you'll listen to while reserving others for reading yourself? How do you think it changes things to listen to a book instead of reading it yourself? Please share.

I'm busy cracking up at the thought of Cynthia Nixon uttering the line "Oh baby! I want to rub your cheese doodle 'til my hands turn orange!"

My hole got plugged so my jugs aren't full

Before we get started on this fine Monday morning, thank you SO MUCH to everyone who offered blog organization tips in response to Friday's post.

I asked Joelle Anthony, author of RESTORING HARMONY, to choose one lucky commenter to receive the autographed copy of her book. After a complicated selection process that involved calculating the square root of pi and sacrificing several small mammals, Joelle chose blog commenter ~ M (also known as Mary Alongi). Congratulations, Mary! Email me with your address and I'll get the book to you ASAP!

Now, back to our regularly scheduled blog post.

I traveled to Salem, OR this past weekend to take part in the 20th Annual Grape Stomp Competition at Willamette Valley Vineyards.

Participants compete in pairs with the "stomper" using bare feet to crush grapes, and the "swabber" using a dipstick-like device to keep the drain clear and the juice flowing into the milk jugs.

I stomped. My dad swabbed.

We sucked.

Something went awry with our drain tube, and despite my dad's best efforts, we couldn't get it clear. On top of that, the teenager I asked to take video of the five-minute event manged to record exactly one second of footage of me stepping out of the barrel.

But this is exactly what I wanted. A learning experience.

Though it's possible I'd do this event even if I didn't have an ulterior motive, I do have one. The third book in my contract, LET IT BREATHE, takes place in the Oregon wine industry. Though it won't be released until August 2012, it's never to early to look for interesting promotional opportunities.

I don't know yet if the 2012 Grape Stomp might be a good place for a book signing, or if my time might be better spent lighting my hair on fire and screaming "buy my book!" as I fling grape pulp at the competitors.

But I do know how the event works now. I know that next time, I'll watch the earlier heats to see which barrels have trouble draining. I know I'll spend more time finding someone to take video. I know I'll poke holes in the bottom of the other competitors' jugs so all their juice drains out I'll wear my hair up next time so it stays out of my face.

It's a bit like writing, no? Even if some of your earliest efforts are abysmal failures in terms of publication or feedback, they aren't wasted efforts. You learn from those efforts, and those lessons will serve you well with future books.

What are some learning experiences you've had so far in your writing? Please share.

And speaking of sharing, here are some of the lovely photos my mother took on Saturday. Enjoy!

A plethora of grapes await stomping.

Dad scopes out the barrels before the competition.

A little pre-competition beverage.

Sizing up the competition before the whistle blows.

Stomping...

More stomping...

Wow, this stomping is lasting on a long time.

Yay, team! Oh, wait – we sucked.

My grape stomping machines.

Getting cleaned up afterward.

Standing in line to get our juice strained and measured.

Hanging with my parents!

Places that twist your tongue

This was the first summer in nearly a decade that Pythagoras and I did not get on a plane and journey to some exotic foreign locale. Instead, we agreed to spend time exploring our own backyard.

Once we got tired of spying on the neighbors and stepping in dog poo, we broadened our travels and set out to explore some other Oregon locales we hadn’t seen for awhile.

An unexpected benefit of this sort of travel is that we didn't have to learn to pronounce new cities. Instead of bumbling the pronunciation of Essaouira, Morocco or Moloolaba, Australia, we boldly shouted the names of familiar places like Sweet Home and Seaside and Newberg.

We were both born and raised in Oregon, so we probably have an unfair advantage when it comes to pronunciations here. That’s not always the case for visitors.

I was at a concert once where the performer made the mistake of telling us how glad she was to be in “OREY-gone.”

The crowd would have reacted more kindly if she’d slit a puppy’s throat onstage and then peed on the carcass.

They booed. They chanted “OR-uh-gun! OR-uh-gun! OR-uh-gun!” Someone threw a pack of gum. I swear I saw the guy next to me pull a switchblade.

Mispronunciations like that aren’t limited to the name of the state. A friend told me about a time she and some pals journeyed through the coastal town of Yachats. When a debate broke out about how to say the name of the place, the camps were split between YAH-hots and YEAH-chats.

Outside intervention soon became necessary, so they pulled in at the local ice cream parlor and approached the cash register.

“Excuse me,” said one of the guys. “Settle a bet for us – how do you pronounce the name of this place?”

The girl behind the register studied them, then frowned. “Dairy Queen.”

I’ve been thinking about this a lot this summer in light of the fact that all three of my contracted novels have ties to Oregon. Most of the places I describe are easy to pronounce, like Portland and Dundee and McMinnville.

Others might prove more challenging for readers unfamiliar with the region. How about the Willamette Valley? It’s the setting for the make-believe vineyard in LET IT BREATHE, but I’m certain at least one reader will stumble over its pronunciation.

Fortunately, a recent visit to Willamette Valley Vineyards outside Salem took care of this problem for me. I think this clears it right up, don’t you?

Are there places in your books or in your state that are tough to pronounce? Do you snicker at out-of-towners who trip over the words? If you’re a writer, what do you do to make sure your readers know the correct pronunciation of your settings?

Please share in the comments. I’ll be busy trying to figure out how to set my next novel in Garibaldi. Or Scio. Or Yoncalla. Or—

The power of poo

I’m not a terribly spiritual person, but I do have one very deeply held belief I cling to above all others. It is my belief in Dog Doo Karma.

If you own a canine companion, you know what I’m talking about.

For those without four-legged friends, the principle of Dog Doo Karma dictates that all humans shall clean up their furry friends’ canine landmines. Do so, and your shoes and soul shall remain poo free.

Fail to do so, and the universe will make sure you get what’s coming to you.

Pythagoras and I have the utmost respect for Dog Doo Karma, and travel everywhere with little doodie baggies tucked in our pockets. Even if we don’t have a dog with us. Even if we’re dressed in formal attire or swimwear, you can pat us down and find baggies.

But we had a momentary, regrettable lapse last week. We were visiting the Oregon Coast near Warrenton, and as we trudged along a desolate stretch of beach hunting for sand dollars, our dog hunched up performed her duty.

I looked one direction, then the other. Not a soul for miles and miles.

“Maybe we should leave it,” Pythagoras said. “The tide’s coming in, it’ll be gone in a few minutes.”

I hesitated. Did we dare tempt Dog Doo Karma?

But we were planning a long hike, and the thought of toting a smelly baggie for several hours didn’t hold much appeal.

“I’ll just make sure no one will step in it,” I said. I found an empty crab shell and used it as a makeshift scooper to fling the business out to sea. The seagulls were delighted. The dog was angry she wasn’t allowed to fetch it.

We looked around. No one had witnessed the sin.

We continued our walk, with the dog racing ahead and Pythagoras lagging behind in search of sand dollars. Maybe an hour passed. I had almost forgotten the incident when I heard a colorful string of curses behind me.

I knew without turning around what had happened.

Well, not exactly what had happened.

To protect your delicate sensibilities, I shall refer to the substance in question as peanut butter.

“First I stepped in this huge pile of @#$% peanut butter,” Pythagoras snarled as he did a one-legged dance to get his sandal off. “Then I lifted my @#$% foot and a big chunk of peanut butter fell off onto my other sandal. Now I’ve got peanut butter all over my toes and under my foot and—”

I tried very hard to be supportive. Apparently “supportive” does not include falling down in the sand laughing hysterically as your spouse drags one foot through the water and scrapes the other with a stick while the dog dances around waiting for the stick to be thrown.

Finally, Pythagoras got cleaned up. Our mood was somber as we continued down the beach.

“So the Dog Doo Karma got us,” I said.

Pythagoras glared at me. “Us?”

“I feel your pain,” I told him solemnly.

“I could sense that from your maniacal laughter.”

So do you believe in Dog Doo Karma? What about other closely related beliefs like Shopping Cart Karma and Last Square of Toilet Paper Karma?

Please share in the comments. I’ll be busy burning my husband’s sandals.

Poor Pythagoras tends to his poo-covered sandals while the dog assists.

By the seat of your pants

Monday afternoon, I had an unexpected urge to visit the Oregon Coast.

Since we live 4 hours away and it’s the middle of tourist season, you might think the trip would involve some advance planning.

You’d be wrong.

Within an hour, Pythagoras and I were in the car with one haphazardly-packed bag and one confused dog. We didn’t make hotel reservations. We didn’t know which towns we’d visit. We didn’t even remember to pack dog food or deodorant.

Bindi enjoys the ride.

But the trip was incredible. 36 hours of beautiful scenery, unexpected adventures, and good conversation.

On the beach in Florence, OR

This is pretty much how I write. Authors call this being a “pantster” (short for "seat of your pants") as opposed to “plotter” (those amazing souls who don’t regard outlines as tools of Satan).

There are advantages to both methods, and trust me – I’ve had moments I wished I could try the other method as both as a writer or a traveler. People who plan ahead probably don’t spend nights sleeping in a skirt on the floor of an airport delirious with fever from a bacterial infection contracted in Morocco.

Are you a pantster as well? Or maybe a plotter who’d like to let your hair down and try being a pantster? Here are three tips for both writing & traveling by the seat of your pants:

Don’t panic. There will be moments you realize you’ve backed yourself into a corner with your story or your journey. It’s all part of the experience.

While traveling in Europe, we hopped a bus to Slovenia without considering what we’d do if the bus dropped in the middle of nowhere without access to a telephone, computer, or ATM. For a few minutes, Pythagoras and I assessed one another while considering which of us would fetch a higher price on the black market. Fortunately, we kept our heads, shouldered our packs, and hoofed it a couple miles to a post office that kindly swapped our Euros for Tolars and pointed us to a pay phone. Slovenia ended up being one of the highlights of that trip.

It’s been the same with writing for me. When I set out to write MAKING WAVES (my debut novel) I knew I wanted to write a sort of pirate parody. I didn’t stop to consider the difficulty in setting an entire novel in the confines of a 45-foot ship. That challenge forced me to develop some twists in the final third of the book that are now my favorite parts of the story.

Choose travel companions wisely. I packed for Monday’s beach trip in about 30 seconds, so I may have neglected a few essentials. Like a toothbrush. Or a razor. Or deodorant. Since Pythagoras also forgot the latter, he ran to the store for the deodorant while I helped myself to his razor and brushed my teeth with a cotton ball stolen from his bag. (Incidentally, nothing says true love like sharing deodorant).

It’s the same thing with writing. Plotting is not my forte, so I made sure to nab two critique partners who are masters at it. When I get stuck, I can email either one and whine, “my heroine got drunk at the hero’s male strip club – now what?”

Take the scenic route. My favorite thing about writing and traveling as a pantster is the chance to discover new things. Our trip home from the beach yesterday involved a meandering drive through several small towns. Along the way, we saw a gorgeous covered bridge in Sweet Home and a pair of large mammals copulating at Sea Lion Caves.

Nookie at Sea Lion Caves.

Weddle Covered Bridge in Sweet Home.

Same deal on the writing front. I had no idea when I started writing LET IT BREATHE (the third in my contract) that the story would include pink-haired biker grandma or an alpaca who head-butts men in the gonads, but those are now among my favorite features of the manuscript. Use your pantster experience to try new things. You might be surprised at what your brain comes up with.

Are you a plotter or a panster when it comes to writing or travel? What tips can you share for making your method work? Have you ever tried the other method just for fun? Please share in the comments.

I’ll be over here shaking sand out of my shoes.