It’s the big weekend for me — the Pennwriters conference. If you are new to the Hangout, know that you’ll wind up in comment moderation until I get home and can approve you. So go about and visit folk anyway — and if you GET visited, make sure you return that visit!

The hangout is, after all, about networking with some cool people.

Please follow these rules. Like Trevor, I loathe rules. But I do see the point of them from time to time. Here are some that made sense to me:
1. Leave a comment here, on this post. Say hello to me, tell me what you’re reading, what song you’re jamming to… You pick, just say SOMEthing! Leave your link (I can’t get Comment Luv to work regularly) to your blog.

2. Go visit the blog link in the comment above you. Tell them “I’m from West of Mars” and hopefully something nice about their post. Because, you know, the best way to make new friends is to actually read what they write.

3. When three people have left a comment since your last one, you may play again. If no one’s commented for two hours, you may play again. This is the ONLY time you may visit someone other than the person above you.

4. If you’re new here, your comment will go into moderation. I’m going to try to keep on top of that, but do check back to make sure no one missed you. If you were skipped, leave another comment — even if you break the three-person rule.

5. Be nice. Have fun. Make new friends — that’s what this is all about. And, of course, I operate on the Commutative Principle of Friendships, whereby any friend of yours is a friend of mine. Which means anyone and everyone is welcome to play.

6. Game ends Sunday night, even if I post something again in the meantime. I doubt I will, but sometimes, the conference needs to be blogged about as it happens. Or as close to “as it happens” as you can get when you’re commuting from home — and leaving the laptop at home, as well.

Okay, then. Have at it! Hang out!

Man, that blog post title sounds like something you’d see in my fiction, doesn’t it? Believe me, I played with the idea of what Mitchell would do if he screwed up his own lyrics. It wouldn’t be pretty; he’s awfully hard on himself.

So. What’s this First Verse Fuck Up all about?

It ain’t a new band I’ve created here — although that’d be a great band name. Nope.

Over the weekend, I stopped in to visit author Tim Ellis. Because I’m talking — again — about how music influence my writing, he prettified the post with some videos. He’s got some Black Sabbath (yum!) and Zeppelin (Classic!) and … at the end of the post, an awesome version of Metallica doing Fade to Black live.

I’ve never seen this version and I have to admit, the musical intro almost moved me to tears. Maybe it was my mood. I don’t know. I don’t even know which show it’s from (although it’s clearly post-2001, as Robert’s playing bass). All I know is that it hit a chord (ha) and … then James started singing.

I’ve heard him joke about skipping the second and fourth verses in his own songs, but I’ve never heard him say ANYthing about flubbing the first verse so spectacularly.

Go check out what *I* had to say (author and rocker Jeremy Wagner agreed about The Blue One and The Red One, he Tweeted to me), and then this version of Fade to Black. Let me know what you think about my hero fucking up his own first verse.

Note from Susan: If you’re looking for the Weekend Hangout, you’re on the right blog, wrong post. If you’re here to check out my Friday Flash, Three Word Wednesday, or fiction in general, you’ve hit the right blog, right post. Have fun.

“Grace?” Trevor said. He looked the girl over; she was too skinny to be considered thin, and was more jittery than a coke addict who’d just gotten all toked up. He couldn’t see her eyes; she was looking down, but she knew how to work those jeans, in a quiet, un-self-conscious way. It wasn’t enough.

“A woman named Grace ought to have some,” he said and walked away.

“Hey,” Mitchell said, his voice low but not concerned, “you’re passing?”

“I don’t do junkies,” Trevor said with a sniff.

Mitchell snorted, then wiped at the base of his nose with the back of his hand. It went horizontal, knuckles to wrist, and then disappeared into the front pocket of his jeans.

Trevor eyed him.

“Junkies. You’re sniffing. Oh, never mind.”

Trevor sniffed again. Just to prove the point.

He felt her hand on his wrist before he sensed she’d come near. Shit. Skinny, graceless, as jumpy as a junkie — and ghostlike.

This girl was not Trevor’s type. But here she was, grabbing at him, ready to protest that she did, indeed, have grace.

She got two words out before she tripped over something.

Trevor didn’t have a choice. He had to play the gentleman and stop her from falling, if only because she was trying to take him out on her way to the floor. He glanced down at her feet, hoping she’d tripped because it wasn’t easy to totter along in those heels his favorite girls wore. Then again, he hung out with strippers. They knew how to work a pair of heels.

Graceful, here, was wearing flat boots. Not even the clunky type that were easy to trip over. Nope. They were dainty, delicate.

Like a girl named Grace ought to be.

“I don’t want…” She blushed. Trevor stared, fascinated. He’d seen all sorts of shit by this point in his life, but girls who looked at him and blushed were a novelty.

“Well… I don’t want that.”

“That?” Trevor folded his arms over his chest, the same way he expected Mitchell had. Mitchell was behind him, out of sight. It was only this ugly duckling mis-named Grace who had the front row.

Her blush deepened. “Yeah. That. You know. What most girls want from you.”

Trevor smiled. She’d managed to say probably the only thing that would save her from an immediate ejection from his personal space. “You’re not most girls?” he asked.

“Not that type,” she said and finally met his eyes. Hers were green, a bright emerald green. And holy shit, but if she gained some confidence and grew into her name, she’d be one of those chicks every man on the planet lusted after. He watched a backbone steel itself somewhere deep inside her. “I don’t even want to be. Not really. I just want to be…”

She broke their gaze and looked away. Her hands scrubbed her sides, looking for pockets.

“You want to be my steady girl? The one above all others? The one I call when it’s late and I’m bored and lonely?” Shit, how many times had he heard this song and dance?

“Cool,” she said, and this time, there was even more backbone in her eyes.

Trevor knew what this was costing her. He nodded. “C’mon, then. But here’s your first lesson. Cool? Comes from inside. From wherever it is you found the balls to tell me what you’re after, here. It’s there. You just need to let it out.”

Her eyes had stuck themselves to him. If they could have come out of her head and physically picked a spot where they’d live forever and ever, amen, they would have. For the first time, he got what it meant to have someone hang on his every word.

He put his arm around her. “Come with me, little Graceful.” He lifted his face to the ceiling and let out a delighted cackle. “Uncle Trevor here’s got a thing or two to teach you.”

It’s been a very quiet week over here — at least on the front end. Where you can’t see me, I’ve been busy getting ready for the upcoming Pennwriters conference, formatting Demo Tapes: Year 3 for print, and trying to work on this week’s Three Word Wednesday prompt. I’ve neglected Win a Book drastically this week; are you sure none of you can chip in and help out? I’d hate to have to close it down, but it’s starting to look like it may be a casualty of a busier life that’s chock full of writing and increased promo.

Anyway, onward to the fun.

By now, you oughta know the drill. In case you don’t, here are the rules:

1. Leave a comment here, on this post. Say hello to me, tell me what you’re reading, what song you’re jamming to, which is your favorite Easter candy… You pick, just say SOMEthing! Leave your link (I can’t get Comment Luv to work regularly) to your blog.

2. Go visit the blog link in the comment above you. Tell them “I’m from West of Mars” and hopefully something nice about their post.

3. When three people have left a comment since your last one, you may play again. If no one’s commented for two hours, you may play again. This is the ONLY time you may visit someone other than the person above you.

4. If you’re new here, your comment will go into moderation. I’m going to try to keep on top of that, but do check back to make sure no one missed you. If you were skipped, leave another comment — even if you break the three-person rule.

5. Be nice. Have fun. Make new friends — that’s what this is all about. And, of course, I operate on the Commutative Principle of Friendships, whereby any friend of yours is a friend of mine. Which means anyone and everyone is welcome to play.

6. Game ends Sunday night, even if I post something again in the meantime. I’m overdue for some fiction, I know.

One of the many things keeping me busy in real life these days is the upcoming Pennwriters conference. Writers, I really suggest you look into this group. They are savvy, professional, and just all-around-cool.

(This is where I link back to last year’s conference. Go here. And here.)

I’m the one in charge of making sure the agents and editors don’t get lost or need help finding places this year. After last year’s adventures, are you surprised? I’m not. I’m loving it.

But I’m also doing something else. Something that’s maybe a little bit underhanded among this group, who is still pretty avidly anti-DIY publishing. I’m putting together two baskets for the Chinese Auctions. Baskets of books.

Some of these books have been self-published. Some have come out on small presses. I was hoping for some major press releases, but no one stepped up when I’d send general queries out. Yeah, maybe I should have asked folk directly, but hey. I’m busy trying to take care of people who haven’t arrived in my fair city yet.

I wanted to share the titles with you, so you know who the cool and adventurous people are.

In the BestSeller Bound basket will be:
Second Chances by Maria Savva
Nexus Point by Jaleta Clegg
You Had to Be There by Sharon Cathcart
Harmony’s Passing by Joel Kirkpatrick
The Cutting Edge by Darcia Helle

In the West of Mars and Friends basket will be:
Rock and Roll Homicide by RJ McDonnell (A West of Mars Recommended Read!)
Immortals: Carpe Noctem by Katie Salidas
Not Nice And Other Understatements by Annetta Ribken
Fish Tales, the Guppy Anthology edited by Ramona DeFelice Long (a friend!) and autographed by contributor Annette Dashofy, another friend.

And yes, I’ll be putting a book of my own in there, as well.

Isn’t this awesome?? I have to say a big fat public thanks to all my author friends who’ve stepped up and sent books. If you’ve got something for me, if you can get it to me before next Thursday, May 12, go for it. There’s always room in my world for you guys. You know that.

Whoa. Six weeks now we’ve been playing. Hope you’re having fun and meeting new people — remember to invite your friends along!

By now, you oughta know the drill. In case you don’t, here are the rules:

1. Leave a comment here, on this post. Say hello to me, tell me what you’re reading, what song you’re jamming to, which is your favorite Easter candy… You pick, just say SOMEthing! Leave your link (I can’t get Comment Luv to work regularly) to your blog.

2. Go visit the blog link in the comment above you. Tell them “I’m from West of Mars” and hopefully something nice about their post.

3. When three people have left a comment since your last one, you may play again. If no one’s commented for two hours, you may play again. This is the ONLY time you may visit someone other than the person above you.

4. If you’re new here, your comment will go into moderation. I’m going to try to keep on top of that, but do check back to make sure no one missed you. If you were skipped, leave another comment — even if you break the three-person rule.

5. Be nice. Have fun. Make new friends — that’s what this is all about. And, of course, I operate on the Commutative Principle of Friendships, whereby any friend of yours is a friend of mine. Which means anyone and everyone is welcome to play.

6. Game ends Sunday night, even if I post something again in the meantime. I’m overdue for some fiction, I know.

If you’re thinking I’m on a tear of reading great stuff, you’re right. A scant ten days ago, I was raving about Joanne Rendell’s third novel, Out of the Shadows.

And now, it’s time to rave about Chris Bohjalian’s 2008 release, Skeletons at the Feast.

Wow. Just… wow.

Okay, let me try to be coherent here. It’s not easy.

This is a Holocaust book, no matter how much we want it to not be. That’s because we have one character — and this isn’t a spoiler; you guys know me too well to think I’d spoil a read for you — who jumps out of one of those cattle cars the Germans used in to transport the Jews to the concentration camps. And it’s also because we have another secondary character who is a prisoner.

But the heart of this book is what makes it. The heart is a young woman named Anna. Raised in Prussia on a sugar beet farm, she’s as close to gentry as it gets. But she and her family are on the run; the Russians are coming, and the Russians (sigh) aren’t nice people. Atrocities abound when Ivan gets near. It’s sad. It’s scary.

Anna’s family has a secret: a Scottish POW. They’re hoping he’ll come in handy when they get to the West and find the British and American troops.

Anna and the POW have another secret. Bet you can guess what.

What makes this book so fascinating is the tale — based on true events — of their flight and the hardships THEY have to endure. Think about it. When we talk about WWII, we focus on the Jews and what happened to them. It’s hard not to. Six million people is an awfully huge number.

But lately, I’ve been reading books that focus on more than the Jews. Jenna Blum’s Those Who Save Us is one of them. Her character named Anna (and no, we’re not going there… I’m quite sure Anna was a very common name) was trying to keep herself and her daughter alive in a time of uncertainty and deprivation.

To be honest, I like that. I like what our escaped Jew does. I like how the woman prisoner survives. And I love this Anna. She’s got a heart and a worldview that Blum’s Anna lacked. Not because Blum’s Anna wasn’t a good character. Oh, my, is that Anna a phenomenal woman.

It’s that Bohjalian’s Anna manages to rise above. Of course, she has less to rise above than Blum’s character did. It’s not even fair to compare the two women.

Go read both books. Not back to back; that much Holocaust will kill anyone.

Eew. Pun NOT intended. Yikes. Sorry about that.

***
(My book club told me Tuesday night that Diane Ackerman’s The Zookeeper’s Wife is another. I haven’t read it yet. Sounds like I need to.)

A year or so ago, my book club finally read Those Who Save Us, Jenna Blum’s debut novel. I liked it quite a bit; didn’t love it, but most of my book club did. (What held me back? Personal shit. Don’t ask. I won’t answer.)

Somehow, I was snoozing when Jenna put out her second book, The Stormchasers.

This is a good thing, because in the meantime, we’ve chatted via Twitter quite a bit. She’s exposing me to a brand new world: that of the real, actual, honest-to-goodness stormchasers.

This is also a good thing because my son and I got sucked into last season’s Stormchasers TV show on Discovery Network. I’m now following series star Reed Timmer on Twitter (and, okay, Facebook) and am learning LOTS about weather. It’s actually quite fascinating. And it definitely has given me a new, better approach to the power and beauty of thunderstorms. I’d love to go chase storms with people as smart as Reed and his gang.

You see how all of this has come together into a perfect storm of sorts.

So… with the news that The Stormchasers, that book Jenna wrote that somehow slipped under my radar, is coming out TODAY in paperback, I asked if she wanted to drop in and tell us what song makes her think of this new gem of a book. (Really, I am DYING to read it!)

Here’s what she said:

That’s a tough one in a way, because the book has a whole soundtrack. Its twin hero/ heroine come of age in the 80s, which as far as I’m concerned is a Golden Age of music (this is coming from someone whose hair on just one side of her face used to be bigger than her whole head). So while I was writing the novel, I’d listen to its soundtrack on my iPod during my evening walks (sometimes, I’m afraid, conducting).

The STORMCHASERS soundtrack is available on my blog.

If I had to choose just one, I’d say it’s Copland’s Appalachian Spring, the allegro movement. It’s bold and beautiful and strange, with some majestic crashing discordancy that to me is reminiscent of Charles Hallingdahl’s manic episodes, followed by a tender coda that reminds me of his sister, Karena. THE STORMCHASERS is a quintessentially American book, and the Copland piece sums up everything I love about the wild beauty of this country, its people and their bravery in the face of their struggles, and its weather.

(And, hey, this YouTube video that I linked to? It was posted by someone named playingmusiconmars. I TOLD you this was a perfect storm!)

The Stormchasers. Jenna Blum’s follow-up to her monster hit, Those Who Save Us. Available today.

I hope you’ve been wondering why I’ve been silent about a rock and roll collection of short stories winning literature’s biggest prize, the Pulitzer. The book I’m talking about is A Visit From the Goon Squad, written by Jennifer Egan.

I mean, hello? What could be better exposure for the genre than the Pulitzer Prize? Right there, isn’t that enough? Doesn’t that give the genre the credibility I’ve long been seeking for it?

Yes and no.

Yes because hello? Here’s a book about rock and roll that’s getting huge exposure and selling like mad. As I’m typing this, it’s the number one seller at Powells.com, and I’m sure it’s number one at Amazon, B&N, and every indie store on the planet. Winning the Pulitzer tends to raise a book’s profile and make people think they want to read it. You can call them bandwagon jumpers if you’d like. I call them people in search of something good to read. (I just wish they’d experiment a little more!)

No because this book isn’t identified as a piece of rock and roll fiction. It’s identified as brilliant, interlocked short stories that just happen to be about an aging record exec.

If you follow my Rocks ‘n Reads blog, you know what I thought of Good Squad.

What you may not know is what I thought of Ms. Egan’s dismissive comments about chick lit. Reading it for myself, I don’t think it’s so terrible. She’s encouraging women to shoot high. There’s nothing wrong with that. And frankly, I don’t see her cutting down “that Harvard student” for plagiarizing chick lit so much as plagiarizing BAD fiction. (It’s the last paragraph on the page. Go read it.) Maybe the authors “that Harvard student” ripped off are the best in the genre. I don’t know. I don’t overly care for a lot of chick lit, myself — although I do keep trying. The chick lit books I’ve read that I’ve liked are books that I’ve REALLY REALLY liked. For me, there’s not a lot of middle ground.

So I can’t totally vilify her. I CAN wish she’d won an award for a book that didn’t bore me into deleting it off my iPod. (It was a library book, thank goodness!). I CAN wish the profile of rock and roll fiction (or maybe we should rename the genre Music Fiction, since there’s nothing rock and roll about some of the books I’ve identified as great reads) was higher, so that Ms. Egan had been recognized for not only what some considered to be a great book, but a great ROCK AND ROLL book.

Keep reading, folks. We’ll get to the point where people recognize the brilliance in the Rock Books genre. One day.

Yep, it’s the weekend. Easter weekend for you who celebrate (as you noticed from my last post, I do not). I wish you all many many chocolate bunnies, with ears just waiting to be bit off.

It’s spring break here, which means kids are underfoot along with the foster cat. I’ve been toying with the idea of a post about Jennifer Egan’s Visit from the Goon Squad winning the Pulitzer; it IS a rock and roll book, after all. I just need time to write it.

And it’s the NHL playoffs! You know I’m glued to the TV… editing some new stuff for you. I hope Mannequin set the bar high for you.

By now, you oughta know the drill. In case you don’t, here are the rules:

1. Leave a comment here, on this post. Say hello to me, tell me what you’re reading, what song you’re jamming to, which is your favorite Easter candy… You pick, just say SOMEthing! Leave your link (I can’t get Comment Luv to work regularly) to your blog.

2. Go visit the blog link in the comment above you. Tell them “I’m from West of Mars” and hopefully something nice about their post.

3. When three people have left a comment since your last one, you may play again. If no one’s commented for two hours, you may play again. This is the ONLY time you may visit someone other than the person above you.

4. If you’re new here, your comment will go into moderation. I’m going to try to keep on top of that, but do check back to make sure no one missed you. If you were skipped, leave another comment — even if you break the three-person rule.

5. Be nice. Have fun. Make new friends — that’s what this is all about. And, of course, I operate on the Commutative Principle of Friendships, whereby any friend of yours is a friend of mine. Which means anyone and everyone is welcome to play.

6. Game ends Sunday night.

Those of you who’ve been here for any length of time know I’m Jewish. It’s not as big a secret as my birthday, and you’ll notice I’ve even come clean about THAT of late.

I’m a parent now, myself (as you know if you hang out here regularly). And that means that along with alternating years with each side of the family (that’d be MINE and HIS, and yes, I suck at that “alternating regularly” part, so let’s not focus on that but on the story that’s about to unfold, okay??), on occasion — always the MINE years — we wind up making holiday meals.

This year, we’re doing Passover for the four of us and my parents.

So, of course, the latent baker in me, the one I had to bury while I built the strength back up in my back so I could actually complete baking something without handing it off to my husband to finish — well, that latent baker is back. I baked cookies to take to a friend’s house for dinner over the weekend. Okay, fine. I made cookie dough and took THAT over to their house and baked it there. Same diff.

Six people, of course, means two desserts. Both baked from scratch. The husband wanted the cheesecake I’ve made him in the past. There’s no chocolate in that cheesecake, and since my middle name should have been Chocolate, not Helene, that meant … well, it was a joint decision. The Girl Band liked the picture in Passover By Design. So the Chocolate Mousse Pie it was going to be.

This cookbook came to us because I agreed to review it for Front Street Reviews — back in 2008. At that time, I didn’t make anything from it. It wasn’t Passover, and that was when my latent baker was off, waiting for my body to heal. I loved the book. It looked great. The food sounded like something we’d make around here. And a quick perusal of this Chocolate Mousse Pie made it seem like it’d be easy.

I am one who can’t do more than give a quick skim to a recipe before I dive in. I’ll get the ingredients out — usually — but I tend to take recipes step by step. Otherwise, I get confused. I do things out of order. I get ahead of myself, and disaster happens. Know that NOW.

I should have aborted when the directions for “6 tablespoons sugar, divided” didn’t mean 3 tablespoons used in two different spots. Nope. It meant one, then two, then three.

And where it says to “set a metal bowl over a pot of barely simmering water to form a double boiler,” it does NOT say how big that bowl ought to be. It never dawned on me to use anything but my smallest All-Clad sauce pan — I’ve been melting chocolate long enough that I don’t do the double-boiler thing. I’m trying to cut down on the numbers of dishes I wash at the end. It’s all about the back’s endurance, you know… Besides, All-Clad is freaking HEAVY. Even this small pan I’m using will be weighing my arm down, and it doesn’t help that today was a Boot Camp day. 30 minutes of push-ups and sit-ups. My arms are toast. Yep, I’m all about this little saucepan. It’s perfect for the sugar/chocolate/butter mix.

(Mark those words about the numbers of dishes I have to wash at the end. We’re just getting started.)

So okay. I’m melting the chocolate, the butter, and the sugar. I’m dividing the eggs. Break a yolk. Good thing the cheesecake needs four eggs; it was the third egg I opened where the yolk broke. Pour the separated eggs back together, add a fourth, put aside for the cheesecake. Okay. Not a problem.

But… I’d expected the egg whites to be beaten. Why the hell I put them in a cereal bowl, I don’t know. So I had to finish separating SIX eggs and then get out a bigger bowl, one I can whip the egg whites in. Not a problem. I whip away, as the directions say.

What’s this? Whip the yolks?? In the cereal bowl?

Really. I know better. Why I pushed the issue, I don’t know. Except it makes for a better story.

Okay… so we’ve got the yolks in a bigger bowl. They’re whipped until they are thick and lemon colored. What next?

Temper them. Okey-dokey. I’ve done this before. It’s no big deal. I take a ladle and have at it. It goes well.

I check the cookbook for the next directions and … what’s this? Add the eggs to the chocolate mixture?

I eye the saucepan I’m using. It’ll be tight, but… yeah. I can do it. I’ve got it.

Back to the cookbook. Fold large dollop of egg whites into chocolate.

Wait.

WHAT???

INTO the chocolate? Into THAT pan, the one full up to the brim? You’re kidding me, right?

So I grab my biggest All-Clad mixing bowl (oh, how I love the All-Clad twice-yearly seconds sale! Where the world’s best pots and pans only cost the equivalent of your first-born’s freshman year college tuition, instead of all four years of that tuition.) and hope it’ll be okay. After all, the saucepan is still warm. The mixing bowl? Not so much.

Go figure that as I add the egg whites, I notice… since I was directed to whip them before the yolks, they’ve already started to separate. And of course, I don’t notice this until I’m halfway through the procedure of folding them into the mousse.

By this point, I’m swearing.

And then we get to the “Pour 3 cups of the mousse mixture into the prepared pan and bake… Store remaining mousse in refrigerator.”

While this makes sense, we’ve got to stop and examine the contents of my fridge. It’s full-up with THE REST OF THE UPCOMING PASSOVER DINNER. Even the beer’s in the fridge downstairs and there’s no way I’m running downstairs with a bowl of mousse. Not when I’m going to need it to finish this puppy off in an hour or so.

I shift some vegetables around, stack the yogurt, cram the top shelf as full as possible. Toss some leftovers in the sink. Voila. Room for my biggest mixing bowl.

Okay… next?

Wait. WHAT THE FUCK.

Take the hot, fresh-out-of-the-oven pan and put it in the fridge? The one with GLASS SHELVES? The one with NO ROOM?

Yes, boys and girls. I made room. Somehow. I put potholders down on my glass shelf. I held my breath and hoped I wouldn’t find the cake had fallen into the fruit drawer and ruined itself AND my fridge. I sorta like my fridge.

It all worked out okay, except I’m still having fits about this damn recipe. Better prep instructions would have been nice. A note about needing to use a large saucepan, so I could fit everything in it. Whipping the yolks before the whites. And a note to reorganize the holiday-stocked fridge BEFORE starting.

In the end, I wound up with seven or eight bowls that needed to be washed. I haven’t tried the pie yet as of the time I’m writing this (it’s 4PM on Monday), but the batter was tasty enough…

Oh, and the cheesecake? Other than the eggs, which had been a victim of the mousse pie, you’ll remember, I used ONE bowl: the bowl of my big KitchenAid.

Maybe my husband’s on to something and next time, I’ll be content with a cheesecake. For all that it lacks chocolate, it’s really quite delicious…

(and this humorous story barely scratches the surface of why I hate Passover, but we’ll deal with all that later, okay? I’ve got dessert to go eat. And baking clothes to change out of, and holiday clothes to put on.)

We interrupt our irregular programming today ’cause I read a book that I just LOVED, and I NEED to tell you guys about it.

It’s Joanne Rendell’s third book, Out of the Shadows, and let me tell you… Joanne’s hit her writerly stride with this one. Okay, I haven’t read her second book, Washington’s Crossing, yet so maybe it happened there. And that’s not to say her debut, The Professor’s Wives Club wasn’t a good book, either. It’s that Out of the Shadows is an incredible read.

This is the story of Clara, a woman who was raised believing she’s got some of Mary Shelley’s blood in her background. It’s the story of her fiance (of a number of years), Anthony. We don’t see much of him, but his story is pivotal. So is Mary Shelley’s, even though she’s long dead. (This is not a ghost story.)

I don’t want to say too much, other than this was a great read. Go get it. Joanne, who has become a friend of mine via Win a Book (see what you’re missing out on over there?), has penned a great tale. She gets her characters into jams and then back out again with a style and grace — and some very, very creative thinking. You may *think* you know what’s going to happen… but you don’t!

Just… go. Pick this one up. It’s a keeper.

I may or may not keep numbering these babies. I don’t know. Does it matter to you if I do or not?

By now, I hope you know what to do. But if not, here are the rules:
Here’s how to play:

1. Leave a comment here, on this post. Say hello to me, tell me what you’re reading, what song you’re jamming to. You pick it. Leave your link (I can’t get Comment Luv to work regularly) to your blog.

2. Go visit the blog link in the comment above you. Tell them “I’m from West of Mars” and hopefully something nice about their post.

3. When three people have left a comment since your last one, you may play again. If no one’s commented for two hours, you may play again. This is the ONLY time you may visit someone other than the person above you.

4. If you’re new here, your comment will go into moderation. I’m going to try to keep on top of that, but do check back to make sure no one missed you. If you were skipped, leave another comment — even if you break the three-person rule.

5. Be nice. Have fun. Make new friends — that’s what this is all about. And, of course, I operate on the Commutative Principle of Friendships, whereby any friend of yours is a friend of mine. Which means anyone and everyone is welcome to play.

6. Game ends Sunday night.

It’s been four, five days and it’s still hard to walk into my bedroom. There’s an old blue comforter, a reject from my bed, sitting on the floor in the far corner.

We used to call it The Cave. That’s because the cats would curl up inside it, turning it into a cave. They’d pick the end closest to the heating vents; Devon Rexes are notorious for getting cold quickly.

Now, we call it a comforter. Something we have to decide what to do with. Leave it there? Keep it? Give it away? Just trash it, since in their attempts to burrow, beat each other up, and who knows what else, it’s now full of holes?

I’m not ready to deal with it. I’m not ready to deal with the hole it’ll leave. Hell, I’m not ready to deal with the hole the litter pan left, or the food bowls, or the lack of an angry blue-cream tabby cat, standing at the top of the basement steps, yelling at me for going away without him. I still walk into my bathroom and turn to call them, one hand on the faucet so I can turn it on when they come running. I still get into bed at night, five months later, and have to remind myself that no, Chanterelle doesn’t need her medicine.

You may remember that I lost my Chanterelle back in November. I’d thought her littermate, Cooper, would hang out for a year or two more. But I don’t think he ever recovered from the way in which Chan broke his heart.

In fact, it WAS his heart that was his final downfall. Last Monday, I took him to the vet. He hadn’t greeted me when I’d gotten home the night before from a camping trip with my son. In sixteen and a half years together, he’d never once failed to greet me when I’d been gone that long.

They took an x-ray, but couldn’t get a good look at his chest cavity. They warned me there might be a mass in there. My oldest sister is a vet. This wasn’t news that was hitting me from left field.

I actually waffled about doing an ultrasound the next day to find out what the problem was. That’s because Cooper wasn’t eating. I’d been down this road with Chanterelle. If Cooper didn’t eat, it didn’t matter what was wrong with him. He’d die of starvation in a few days.

But at the last minute, I called the vet and went ahead. What they found surprised me. Cooper had severe dilated cardiomyopathy. In other words, heart failure. His heart would expand and fill with blood, but it wasn’t contracting and pumping that blood on through to the lungs. Fluid was collecting outside the sac holding the heart; it had collapsed part of his lung.

We *could* treat him, and I went home with medicine. But… a cat who won’t eat anything is a cat getting ready to join his littermate.

Two days later, it was time. I knew it before Cooper would admit it. After I called the vet, I went to look for the old man. He had gotten out of his green Polartec bed and made it to his pan (thankfully. At 5:30 that morning, with him asleep on my stomach on the family room couch, we hadn’t been so lucky.). But he couldn’t manage the steps back upstairs.

Right there, like that, as he huddled on the bottom stair and waited for me to come rescue him, the fight went out of my cat. Not all of it, but enough. It was time.

It was also time to leave for the vet.

Unbelievably, for a cat who was dying of heart break and heart failure, his spirit left before his heart stopped beating.

***

I can’t tell you how much I miss him. That I’ve never spent a night in this house without a cat in it. That I sit on the couch and hold one of The Girl Band’s stuffed animals even though it can’t come close to being my cat. He was a kneader, my Cooper. Before I had The Boy Band, he’d drool on me as he kneaded: cat behavorialists will tell you that’s a sign that the cat thinks you’re his mom. He was trying to stimulate milk flow from the crook of my right arm. After I was a mom to human children, he’d keep kneading. But he never drooled again. He knew Mom had had a new litter.

It’s not that Cooper was my cat so much as I was Cooper’s. That’s why this void is so damn hard, and why I’m struggling so much. Yeah, part of it is that it’s harder to go from one cat to none than it is to go from two to one. When you lose one of a pair, you’ve still got a companion. And it helps that Chanterelle loved everyone the same. Her void, while large, wasn’t quite as unbearable as Cooper’s is.

But… I’ve got the shelter where I volunteer. Someone there will adopt me. I’ve got more room now for a foster kitty; I’m thinking of putting them here in my office with me instead of in the Boy Band’s room. And it’s kitten season, or it soon will be.

We’ll find more cats. My kids will get to experience the fun of a couple of kittens; they are exactly the right age for this, and they’re experienced enough to know how to handle a kitten or two. (Not three. Of course, watch those be the words I later bite.)

It’ll never be like the two small Devon Rex kittens my sister brought me back in 1994. Those kittens won’t adopt me the way Cooper did. They’ll adopt the kids, and that’s the way it ought to be. I had my time. Now they get theirs.

***

Our final night together, I kept telling Cooper that it was okay, that he should go join Chanterelle. He wouldn’t. I’m not surprised. As I texted my sister, she was probably up there waiting for him, ready with a growl, a hiss and a paw swipe, just like she did whenever one of them had been to the vet.

Now that she’s gotten that out of her system, I know they are curled up together once again, just like always, a little puddle of blue and blue-cream, yin and yang in their bed.

And I miss them. Oh, how I miss them.

Ever since I put The Demo Tapes: Year 1 out, back in November of 2008, I have asked for one simple thing for my birthday: royalties.

Okay, I ask for iTunes gift cards, too.

But I can hardly ask you guys to buy me iTunes gift cards, any more than I can ask family and friends to buy yet more copies of my books. If I do that, I turn into one of those loser authors who sells more copies to family and friends than to actual readers, even if the family and friends hand those books over to people who become actual readers.

This year, I decided to make it easier for y’all to grant my birthday wish.

This is the Super Secret part of the day’s event. Because until now, I’ve been coy about my birthday. “Pick a day in April,” I’d say. That would be it. You’d never be wrong and I could continue on my merry way, absolutely loathing my birthday.

It’s not the whole getting a year older thing that inspires such disgust and hatred in me. Nope. It’s that no matter how low my expectations, they are NEVER met.

I’m changing that this year. I want royalties for my birthday (and the rest of the year, but let’s start small and special, shall we?) and so I have thrown up a charming little short story at Smashwords and Amazon. It’s called Mannequin. It’s the story of Lynne, whose dad takes her shopping with him at a high-end men’s boutique. Lynne likes to sit at the feet of the mannequin in the window and dream of what he’d be like if he were real. One day, a stranger walks in. For Lynne, nothing will be the same ever again.

You may recognize the stranger. You may not. But you’ll have to read the story to find out if you do or not.

C’mon. 99c. I bet it’s the cheapest birthday present you’ve ever bought.

Besides, how many birthday presents let YOU keep the goods?

I love meeting fellow writers. You guys know that. You guys also know I don’t give two figs how an author gets into print. That’s why this Featured New Release spot can highlight a friend or an author whose books I love. Or both.

Today I bring you Morgan Gallagher, a new-to-me friend. Her new, first book is called Changeling, and it looks AWESOME. It’s set in London back in the glorious 1980s (hey, if a vampire was made with big hair, were they stuck with that big hair for all eternity? Wow. Talk about a nightmare!), and yep, it’s about a vamp.

Before I give you the real blurb, let’s ask Morgan our favorite question: what song makes you think of your book?

Her answer?

Ah, obviously really. I didn’t need to think too hard, as I do think of Dreyfuss every time I hear this song. I think of lots of other things too, but this is the one that makes most connection for me, most times.

“You’re So Vain (I bet you think this song is about you.)” by Carly Simon.

When I hear it, I often hear “You’re so vain, I bet you think this book is about you…. ” in my head. And the thought of an ex, in exactly the same way Carly puts into the song.

Before I get to more of the book’s good stuff, let me point out that the video I linked to is from a 1987 concert. Big hair, boys and girls!

Okay. More about the book. Here’s the back cover blurb:

London, April 1987

Dreyfuss holds all the cards: money, power and no conscience. He steals Joanne from the busy streets in a moment; she wakes in a room with no windows. He spends months schooling her to obey, tearing her down with pain and terror. When she begins to break, as hope of escape fades… he reveals his final madness: he is vampire. She too, will be vampire: his Changeling. A greater battle begins. All she has is her will and the need to be free. Can she keep fighting, or will he win?

How long can she stay human?

Changeling is the first novel in the Dreyfuss Trilogy: a compelling and unique vampire mythology for adults.

Nice, huh? You can buy the e-book at Amazon, or via Smashwords. I’m not seeing it in print yet… be sure to let Morgan know if you’d like it that way!

**One small note: The Smashwords link will let me take a small cut of the goods, via the affiliate program. Not so for Kindle. Regardless of that, I always suggest using Smashwords for ANY of your e-reader’s formatting needs. They’re good to me. I like to be good back.

Yeah, we took last week off since I was off with the Boy Scouts again. But we’re back! Come hang out this weekend. Make new friends, visit old ones. Spread the word — the more people who play, the more fun we have!

Here’s how to play:

1. Leave a comment here, on this post. Say hello to me, tell me what you’re reading, what song you’re jamming to. You pick it. Leave your link (I can’t get Comment Luv to work regularly) to your blog.

2. Go visit the blog link in the comment above you. Tell them “I’m from West of Mars” and hopefully something nice about their post.

3. When three people have left a comment since your last one, you may play again. If no one’s commented for two hours, you may play again. This is the ONLY time you may visit someone other than the person above you.

4. If you’re new here, your comment will go into moderation. I’m going to try to keep on top of that, but do check back to make sure no one missed you. If you were skipped, leave another comment — even if you break the three-person rule.

5. Be nice. Have fun. Make new friends — that’s what this is all about. And, of course, I operate on the Commutative Principle of Friendships, whereby any friend of yours is a friend of mine. Which means anyone and everyone is welcome to play.

6. Game ends Sunday night.

Hey, you.

Yeah, you.

Tried to buy a print copy of Trevor’s Song since I published it last JULY?

Been to my Amazon page lately?

Notice anything missing?

Yeah, me, too.

If you haven’t been around to see it, that’s okay. There’s nothing to see.

Well, no. You can see the Kindle version of Trevor’s Song over there. But you’re not after the Kindle version, or you’d have bought it already. You’re after the print version. Which until now, you’ve only been able to buy through Lulu or direct through me.

Not anymore.

This took me months to pull off. I’m not kidding. I had wanted it done in time for last year’s Musical Hanukkah Celebration, so that anyone joining the fun could pick up the book. And it took until this very morning, but it’s done.

For now, you’ll have to use my CreateSpace store, but in a few days, you’ll be able to see it on Amazon. And in a few weeks (I know!), you’ll be able to order it through any bookstore.

Best of all, while Lulu made me charge $17.98 (that was the price they demanded if I was going to put it up for sale at Amazon, which they never did, despite me telling them to. TWICE.), I can now charge what I’ve been charging when you buy it from me: $12.99.

Oh, you can still get copies from me. I’ve got 8 copies of the Lulu edition left, and I’d like to either sell them or send them out as review copies (finances permitting!). After that, it’ll be all CreateSpace editions. I’m going to out-and-out delete the Lulu version, so there won’t be any confusion whatsoever. In fact, I just did. (Oy. Now they’re saying they retired it because it can’t be deleted. WHATEVER.)

I’ll keep the first two Demo Tapes books up at Lulu, but if you guys demand it, I’ll switch them over to CreateSpace, as well. And look for Demo Tapes 3 heading your way soon!

In the meantime, mark your calendars: April 12. It’s a big day, even if I’m up to something small.

Sounds like something I’d put in my fiction, doesn’t it? Maybe a name for a new band? Laundry Basket Attacks.

It’s not. It’s real life.

It began a week ago. I’d gotten out of the shower, thrown on some older clothes I can wear to the animal shelter and get dirty while I play with the kitties, and then I went and did it.

I walked into my laundry room.

It’s not a huge room. Because of that, once I take the clothes out of the dryer, I slide the now-full basket along the floor, so it’s between me and the door.

Don’t do this. Don’t let an Attack Basket block your only means of escape.

When I’d partially dislocated my elbow almost a year ago, I got into the habit of kicking that evil thing down the hall. But that was almost a year ago, and kicking laundry baskets, even empty ones, is hard on the busted-up cartilage in my foot, not to mention the toll it takes on my bad hip.

So I bent over to pick up the basket. Didja catch that reference to my hip? That means I know how to bend and lift properly.

Didn’t matter last week. As soon as I wrapped my fingers around the Attack Basket’s handles, I was sunk. I actually screamed, me who’s had kidney stones, two natural childbirths, and who spent three months walking around with a rib out of joint.

And yet despite pain that had me screaming, I stretched out in bed with Only, Lonely Cat and thought that once the spasm subsided, I’d go play with the kitties at the shelter after all.

Yeah. Here we are, eight days later, and I’m still waiting for that initial spasm to subside. Oh, I went to my masseur on Friday and had him agree with my diagnosis: I’d managed to dislocate the left side of my pelvis, an area called the Sacroiliac Crest. He put it back in and warned me that the spams would get stuck in my shoulder and neck as they relaxed.

They’re still doing that, too.

Getting my medicine (muscle relaxant and anti-inflammatory) was a drama of epic proportions. First the message to deliver it had been lost, somewhere between when I watched my doctor write it on the prescription form and when the medicine wound up in the Will Pick Up pile. Then came the mistake made with the credit card on file.

I just got the medicine last night. It should have been here Monday. And throwing a monkey wrench into life is the fact that tomorrow, I’m headed out to our first Boy Scout campout. (Yes, I’m bringing the Boy Band and no, he’s not going to take care of me. He’s doing his thing and I get to sit and chill and just be outside, which you all know is one of my favorite things to do. If he and I don’t talk all weekend, it’ll be a good one.)

Would you believe this is only part of the saga? That I went to the Hoity Toity Health Club on Sunday and got some relief from biking five and a half miles? (A light ride for me these days) And that I then ruined it by spending an hour sitting in the bleachers at The Boy Band’s soccer game, and then — this is where I really did myself in — THREE hours at Panera, talking about a writer’s conference I’m helping organize. That the doctor told me my diagnosis was right, that my choices of medicine were right, and even my instinct to exercise was right. I know what to do, how to handle this stuff. But circumstances didn’t let me, as always seems to be the case.

That’s the story. Pass it along. And get ready to make this place hop while I’m off in the wilds of this particular Boy Scout camp we’re headed to. I’ll open the Weekend Hangout like usual — so if you haven’t left a comment yet, you’ll want to do that now.

Beware of laundry baskets, gang.

As soon as I can sit and concentrate long enough to tell you guys what’s going on with my back, I will.

In the meantime, yesterday I stopped in at Darcia Helle’s blog, A Word Please, with my good friend RJ McDonnell. Check out what we were up to.

And today, I return to an old stomping ground, the Working Stiffs, in search of my mojo. Seen it? Me, either.

In the meantime, I’m trying to heal. Slowly. And figure out why the pharmacy didn’t deliver my meds like they were supposed to…