Author Archives: Sandra Hutchison

About Sandra Hutchison

Indie author and publisher of THE AWFUL MESS: A LOVE STORY and THE RIBS AND THIGH BONES OF DESIRE.

Rules for dating my daughter

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Some time ago this t-shirt made the rounds of Facebook and Twitter, and met with general approval from the wild-eyed feminists I tend to hang out with:

feminist dad t-shirt

From https://www.facebook.com/rhrealitycheck

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I certainly approved of it as an antidote to some other much more macho versions I’ve seen, like this one:

rules for dating my daughter -- macho version

Via Anna Eaton on Pinterest

 

Talk about being hostile and possessive. (Though I totally agree with the doorbell thing.) It all seems to amount to this, really:

Rules for dating my daughter you can't

Via Anna Eaton on Pinterest

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And that’s just about as patriarchal as it gets. Also, I’m the mother of a teenage son, and I don’t really appreciate these sentiments being directed at him. It’s as if these guys were all such sleazes in their own dating days that they expect the worst from every other young man.

Not that I’m going to suggest typical young men — and quite a few older men — are not highly, highly motivated to get some.

Which is, of course why there are risks out here for young women who are dating (or just trying to get a meeting with Bill Cosby). And my novel The Ribs and Thigh Bones of Desire demonstrates at least one of those risks fairly dramatically.

But how many people would really be willing to apply “She makes the rules. Her body, her rules” to their own teenage daughters?

The heroine’s arguably wacko feminist mother in The Ribs and Thigh Bones of Desire DOES hold this philosophy and actually puts it into practice at a key moment …. and plenty of women I consider feminists react to that moment by saying “WHAT? She said WHAT?”

Not without reason. The 17-year-old may be legally of age (in Massachusetts) and unusually mature, but she’s recently survived a harrowing ordeal. And the fellow she wants to make her own rules with is a much older man who is messed up in his own way, though I don’t consider him a predator.

And perhaps it’s easy for me to try to support the idea that SHE makes the rules, because I don’t have a biological daughter, and my stepdaughter is now safely grown up (though we had plenty of nail-biting moments), and I myself avoided most of the dangers of immature sexual experimentation by being a total nerd for a long, long time.

But I was a daughter. And while my childhood was thankfully not much like Molly’s, I do remember how I felt about being protected from my own opportunities to grow up: I resented it.

My old Clearwater High School friend Gayle recently posted on Facebook about how I had a “purity of purpose” in high school, whereas she was obsessed with boys. The reality was that I just kept my obsessions quieter. Yes, I campaigned for Jimmy Carter at age sixteen. And yes, I was enthralled by him (a Southern liberal! It was such a refreshing concept!). But a lot of that effort had to do with the fact that I was canvassing with the lovely young Michael Billiris. (He never laid a finger on me, I’m sad to say, though I’m not sure I would have had the slightest idea what to do if he had.)

When Carter won, Michael and I were of course invited to the local campaign party to celebrate, and that was when my dad said no. My father was a local journalist and he knew what those parties were like — probably not at all a safe place for a naive 16-year-old. Even though I know this now, that “no” still rankles all these decades later. I worked on that campaign, damn it! And Michael Billiris was going to that party!

Maybe Dad saved me from some horrible trauma. But as far as I was concerned, when it came to all that stuff I was always waaaaay behind my peers.

The thing is, learning how to handle sex is part of growing up. For girls as well as boys. There’s fumbling around and figuring out what the deal is, especially since everybody has been trying so hard to keep you from learning it.

There’s learning how to cope with people who want it from you — perhaps especially if you don’t want it with them — or to cope with people who don’t want it with you when you desperately want it with them.

There’s crappy beginner sex, getting-better-with-practice sex, and, hopefully, some really great sex. Maybe you’re lucky and it’s all with the one great love of your life. Most of us aren’t that lucky. (And do people that lucky actually know how lucky they are?)

The thing is, you can’t ever just check sex off your bucket list as something you’ve done. All your life, you’ll be affected by your own and your partner’s (or partners’) libido. You are going to have to cope with the sometimes heartbreaking difference between sex and love, between sex and actual emotional intimacy, between sex and commitment. You may be faced with betrayal or boredom or disability. You may be one of those sad people who compulsively pursue sex even against your own best interest (see Bill Clinton, or Arthur in The Awful Mess).

As parents, we’d love to make sure this area of life always goes well for our kids, along with everything else. Hopefully, we teach our sons and daughters to respect themselves enough that they won’t do things they don’t really want to do just to be accepted. Hopefully, we teach them to respect others enough that they won’t wreak horror on someone just because they can.

And perhaps fortunately, there’s a sort of natural limit after which it becomes creepy to the rest of the world if we don’t let go and let our children make their own decisions about it.

Their bodies. Their rules.

But, oh Lord, please help them get them through it safely.

As I told a reader at the Sand Lake Town Library this weekend, if reading The Ribs and Thigh Bones of Desire keeps just one young woman (or young man, for that matter) from getting drunk at a party and paying the price for it, it will have been worth everything I put into it.

And if it prevents even one person from judging someone harshly for a youthful misstep in this area, that will make me happy, too.

What about you? When do you think “her body, her rules” kicks in?

Art or gimmickry or pornography?

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This post is potentially NSFW, which means Not Safe For Work, non-internet-savvy readers. (Hey, my parents read this blog!)

Molly’s mother in The Ribs and Thigh Bones of Desire is the kind of artist whose work would make any teenage girl cringe. Multiply that by ten if you happen to be her daughter in a small town where everybody knows about it.

Of course, Cassandra was great fun to write, because she allowed me to tap my inner terrible feminist artist. I love art, and I didn’t decide that I wasn’t going to pursue it as a career until I got to UMass and couldn’t get into any of the studio classes my freshman year. (I declared an English major that year, and that was that.)

But writing will never be as in-your-face as the visual arts can be. And while I admire certain artists for making the unspeakable a topic of discussion, I have also always wondered what it would be like to actually, say, be their kids, or their husbands, or wives.

One work, in particular, inspired such thoughts: The Dinner Party, by Judy Chicago. It premiered in 1979, toured to great controversy, and is now housed in the Brooklyn Museum. It’s a triangular arrangement of dinner settings that purports to represent important women from three historical eras. (Yes, Virginia Woolf is there.) What made it shocking (at the time) was that the plates were painted to represent stylized vaginas.

As Wikipedia says, it provoked a range of opinion. Some loved it.

Feminist critic Lucy Lippard stated, “My own initial experience was strongly emotional… The longer I spent with the piece, the more I became addicted to its intricate detail and hidden meanings,” …. These reactions are echoed by other critics, and the work was glorified by many.

Many others hated it.

Hilton Kramer, for example, argued, “The Dinner Party reiterates its theme with an insistence and vulgarity more appropriate, perhaps, to an advertising campaign than to a work of art.”[9] He called the work not only a kitsch object but also “crass and solemn and singleminded,” “very bad art,… failed art,… art so mired in the pieties of a cause that it quite fails to acquire any independent artistic life of its own.”[9]
Maureen Mullarkey also criticized the work, calling it preachy and untrue to the women it claims to represent.[9]

(Go to Wikipedia for the full article, plus references.)

Personally, I am as guilty as the next Philistine of thinking of some contemporary art as a vulgar gimmickry (although I will also grant you that sometimes vulgar gimmicks are what it takes to get a conversation going). One generation’s shameless art may well become another generation’s fine art, and vice versa. Also, there’s clearly a lot more artistic attention to detail in The Dinner Party than there is in Cassandra’s work.

Of course, Cassandra’s art is not the only art in the book. Towards the end of Ribs, David takes Molly to The Clark Institute, one of my favorite museums in the world, where he is freaked out by two paintings on display in the first room. If you click on the link for the Clark above and let the photographs at the top of the home page run through their animation, you’ll see just how striking William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s Nymphs and Satyrs painting is as you walk in. It’s not subtle, either, David tells Molly, when she shares that  criticism of her mother’s work. But she forgives Bouguereau’s piece for not being subtle because it’s beautiful.

Another painting still on view at the Clark (which recently renovated) is Jean-Léon Gérôme’s Slave Market (below). As the Clark’s web site points out, “This disturbing scene is set in a courtyard market intended to suggest the Near East. The vague, distant location allowed nineteenth-century French viewers to censure the practice of slavery, which was outlawed in Europe, while enjoying a look at the female body” (Lees, Sarah, ed.).

And as I look at this painting with fascination — and I have visited and done so many times — I always feel uncomfortably voyeuristic. There’s inherent drama in this painting. There’s arguably a point being made about a brutal and unfair balance of power (possibly a racist and anti-Islamic one). There’s also that icky feeling of wondering if I’m essentially just looking at pornography in a very public place.

The thing is, I know that I can’t explore the topic of sex in my books without asking myself if what I’m writing strays into that territory. And, in fact, David asks Cassandra that question about her art.

But I feel compelled to write about it anyway, because sex is part of our existence, and so is the risk of becoming a victim, not just of the rapist, but of the bully, the murderer, the thief, the car driven by the drunk, the awful storm, the disease, the plane crash.

Of course, we prefer not to think about this, even to shift blame to the victim, as if somehow if that person had just prayed harder, gone only to the right places, eaten only healthy food, had the good sense to be born in the United States, been a good enough person, then God would have protected her, or him. Or, if we don’t expect God to protect us from all harm, then perhaps we assume that excellent judgment will provide its own shield from disaster.

And surely it does help, but not enough, not all the time.

And perhaps, if we could empathize a little better with people caught in that reality, and sympathize with those who have gone through it, we will be better able to lend a helping hand. Maybe we’ll try a little harder to prevent some of the trauma and carnage in the first place, instead of just turning away, or condemning the victim.

That’s my hope, anyway. If you’re not a kind person, and your reaction to Slave Market ends with “Woo hoo! Look at them titties!” here’s where I humbly suggest that there are a whole lot of Tumblr sites that would be a much better match for you.

10 Confessions of an author-publisher

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1. I would rather do anything than mop the floor. Come up with this list, for example.

2. I got my MA in fiction writing because I didn’t want to have to pass a French exam. I may have also been avoiding some additional expensive GRE component. I was such an idiot in those days that I didn’t even read the work of the writing professors I would be studying with before applying. Mind you, I mostly wanted to get out of editing technical articles about the Radio Shack TRS-80, and UNH did pay my way with a teaching assistantship. And I discovered that I loved teaching. So it worked out okay on that front, but after two years of graduate writing seminars I developed a strong preference for going out and living my life rather than writing small, artful stories. Which, in hindsight, was probably healthy.

3. I will do almost anything to avoid calling someone. I have to put it on a calendar and work myself up to a phone call. I am not terrible once I’m on the phone, but I dread getting on it. My (separated) husband likes to Skype, and my dad enjoys doing Facetime on his iPad. Oh, the horror! That supplies everything uncomfortable about the phone, plus wondering if your hair is combed and how messy the room behind you looks. Also, just saying goodbye becomes strangely long and drawn out.

4. I have thrown at least fifty boxes of books in the dumpster. People donate a lot of bestsellers to the thrift store where I volunteer and we have limited space. By the time we get the latest Danielle Steel just about everybody who wants it has already read it. Yes, there are ways to recycle books, but we haven’t quite figured out how to work it into our system yet. I have to tell you, it makes me feel pretty virtuous publishing e-books.

5. Reading often feels like work now. Do heterosexual male gynecologists get jaded about ladies’ private parts when they’re off the job? I’d love to just lose myself in a book, but I’m often hyper aware of other writers’ craft. Also, I have such a pile of books that I really should read in addition to the ones I just want to read that I feel I will never catch up. It’s a bad zone to get into.

6. I hide chocolate. I go days when I don’t eat it, but I like to know it’s there.

a photograph of the author's messy office

My messy office

7. I work in appalling disorder. About once every six months I organize my office and keep it that way for a week or two. Strangely, I usually find things much faster when it’s a mess.

8. Social media feels a little too much like high school. On the plus side, I get to hang out at the lunch table with my friends. But sometimes I post something and get crickets and feel like an awkward fifteen-year-old again. Or nobody favorites or retweets or follows me on Twitter for a stretch and I wonder if I’ve developed bad digital breath.

9. I can’t proofread my own stuff worth sh*t. Nobody can, but this time around my attempts were much less successful. Maybe I’m just older, but changing a manuscript from first person present to third person past is also an editing nightmare. A friend just pointed out more typos that I missed in my last book. He also offered to beta-read next time. (Both of those are being a very good friend.)

10. I named a heroine after an outhouse. It’s true. When I picked tobacco as a field hand for Consolidated Cigar Company in the Connecticut River valley of Western Massachusetts between high school and college, the outhouses were called Mollies. I always wondered how they’d gotten that name and what it must have been like to be the original Molly. Those girls could be pretty mean. (You didn’t want to be IN the Molly when they decided it would be fun to rock it.) But Molly in The Ribs and Thigh Bones of Desire already had enough to deal with, so the only thing I did with my summer of picking shade tobacco was crash David’s plane into a field of it.

Here’s one of the songs the girls would sing lustily on the bus or at lunch (to the tune of “I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener”):

Oh, I wish I were a CCC tobacco barn.
That is what I’d really like to be,
‘Cuz if I were a CCC tobacco barn,
All the boys would be inside of me!

Yes, I sang it, too. Adolescent girls are just not the sweet, innocent little dears you might like to think they are.

Any confessions of your own to offer? (And here’s one of those points when I might hear nothing but crickets. Ha!)

 

So you’re thinking of indie publishing? (Updated 1-31-15)

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Do your homework first and check out some of this information on the state of the art.

I originally pulled this information together because I was presenting about self-publishing at the Troy NY Public Library with traditional authors Jenny Milchman and Diane Cameron. That session filled quickly and ended up with a long waiting list, so there’s clearly a need for this information. (We may well do more sessions in the future — in fact, I am already working on one for March — so join my mailing list if you want to hear about them.)

The Ribs and Thigh Bones of Desire -- showing a (dressed) teenage girl on a bed, looking rather pensive.It was a handy review for me, too, as I decided just how much to undertake in the marketing of my second novel The Ribs and Thigh Bones of Desire — which came out last month and is just not selling itself no matter how much I wish it would. (Yes, that’s one of the things you need to know about indie publishing.)

I’m just going to assume that you’ve written a good book, gotten plenty of feedback from people other than your mom, and gotten it properly edited and proofread and formatted. I’m also assuming that you can handle a bad review without melting down. (If you can’t, stop now, because you’re not ready to publish.)

Indies Unlimited
This is a great site to explore because it offers tons of good information shared by knowledgeable and experienced indie authors. There are also opportunities to promote, but that’s mostly going to fellow authors, so don’t get too excited about it. Start here, since it’s a guide to the whole site:
http://www.indiesunlimited.com/2014/12/29/how-indies-unlimited-works-2/#more-61154

Kristine Kathryn Rusch on “Business Musings: Things Indie Writers Learned in 2014”
This is a post that pretty much sums up the state of the business at the end of 2014. Among other things, Rusch points out that “writing is hard,” “publishing is hard,” and “the gold rush is over.” In short, this article provides a useful reality check about indie publishing. But it’s not completely hopeless! So if you can read this and still feel willing to buckle in, consider giving it a try. (You should also read her year-end take on traditional publishing if you are contemplating that as an option.)
http://kriswrites.com/2014/12/23/business-musings-things-indie-writers-learned-in-2014/comment-page-1/#comment-131576

Hugh Howey on “Where do we go from here?”
Howey, probably the most famous indie author success story, is more upbeat than Rusch here, though he reminds us that no entertainer can expect to succeed forever.
http://www.hughhowey.com/where-do-we-go-from-here/

Anne R. Allen on “Why the Self-Published Ebook is No Longer the ‘New Query’”
This post by Anne R. Allen provides a useful counter to Howey, in case he encourages you a little too much. I think it applies best to people who are hoping going indie will transition them into a successful traditional career selling literary fiction. I would honestly recommend trying traditional first if that is your goal. But if you hit a brick wall or don’t sell well enough in your debut, even though people unrelated to you are quick to say your stuff is good, indie publishing is the other way to start finding your readers.
http://annerallen.blogspot.com/2015/01/why-self-published-ebook-is-no-longer.html

Lindsay Buroker’s marketing advice for 2015
Good stuff here from a successful and personable indie author, including the perennial discussion of whether to be in Kindle Select or not. Her blog is worth mining for lots of good information, especially if you write historical mysteries or series.
http://www.lindsayburoker.com/e-publishing/ebook-marketing-strategies-for-2015-what-will-work/

Build your author platform
Instead of giving you a blog link, I’m giving you a book link, because I think this is a really good guide at a reasonable price (though you could also just track down the author’s blog posts on the subject):
http://www.amazon.com/The-Extroverted-Writer-Marketing-Building-ebook/dp/B00BT5SW78

Network with fellow authors
Jenny and Diane and I were doing this when we got together to put on a presentation. Writers often benefit from working together, perhaps especially if they share a genre. Or maybe you’re neighbors, or one of you started as a fan of the other, or you met and bonded while surviving a crazy writer’s workshop (that’s Jenny and me). Anything goes. Be supportive of other authors to the extent you can without lowering your own standards or turning off your own audience.

Having said that…

  • Don’t ask authors for favors when you haven’t even bought their books, or reviewed them, or written to them, or helped them get the word out, or in some way established a relationship that isn’t just asking them to do something for you.
  • Unless people are already your friends — and volunteer to do it — assume that you will need to pay them for editorial services. Nobody edits or gives feedback for the sheer joy of it.
  • Don’t “trade” reviews. It puts you in an unpleasant ethical bind.
  • Don’t write nasty reviews. Reviewing fellow authors is fine, but if you didn’t like their books, it’s better not to review at all. Even a middling review could get you in trouble.
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My first (homemade) cover

TheAwfulMess 396 x 612 pixels

Designed by Damonza.com

Get the right cover
Whether you think you have the skills yourself (it’s possible), or plan to hire someone, the cover is a big decision. (Though it need not be a final one – as an indie, you CAN change covers much more easily than a traditional author can.) Joel Friedlander, AKA The Book Designer runs a monthly cover contest, and reading his honest commentary can be really educational as well as entertaining. He’s particularly geared towards e-book covers, which have slightly different requirements than bookstore covers – they have to be something you can get an impression from even when they are really, really tiny. (It’s worth noting that my friends still argue over which cover is better, but to my mind there is no contest.)
http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2011/08/monthly-e-book-cover-design-awards/

Get the right copy (book blurb)
This is a useful exercise whether you are traditionally or indie published, or are unpublished and setting up your author platform. (It’s also very helpful as you query agents.) I especially like this post from Ruth Harris because it not only offers good advice, it gives you links to lots more good advice:
http://annerallen.blogspot.com/2014/03/8-tips-for-writing-that-killer-blurb.html

Avoid being taken for a ride
During the California gold rush, the people who made the most money were the people who sold stuff to miners … and the people who stole stuff from them. That’s true of the indie publishing phenomenon, too. Heck, people who are trying to be traditionally published often fall victim to scams, too. Before you do business with anyone who claims to be in publishing, check that person or business at Preditors and Editors. You might also want to check with Indies Unlimited, the Writer’s Café at the KBoards, and anyone you know who’s already out there. Go beyond the first pages of Google (which can be manipulated by savvy operators) in doing your due diligence, and include in your searches terms like “reviews” or “complaints” as well as the business name.
Preditors and Editors: http://pred-ed.com/

Finally, two rules you really need to understand before you publish:

Rule #1: DON’T SPEND ANYTHING YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO LOSE. Even legitimate expenses don’t always pay off in this business. No provider can guarantee you financial success, and you should be deeply suspicious of anyone who makes that kind of claim. (On the other hand, you should also be prepared to invest in your business.) The obvious companion to this: Don’t quit your day job (unless you really can afford to).

Rule #2: SUCCESS AS A WRITER IS A LONG GAME. If you hope to make a living at this, or a decent supplemental income, or a measure of fame, one book will not do it. Most people who do well already have four or five or six books out and have been slogging away without great reward for years. So if you just want to publish your memoir or your Great American Novel and be done with it, realize that you are essentially just making it conveniently available for friends and family rather than trying to build a career as an author-publisher. And if that’s the case, you really don’t need to learn your way around — just find a handy vanity publisher or formatting service and get it done.

Feel free to add info below — we can all benefit from your knowledge!

One writer’s resolutions for 2015

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  1. Keep a drafting-new-work schedule, with no clicking out to “research” or just peek at social media. I had resolved to do this last semester and failed miserably. We’ll see how I do this time. I’m going to set up timers and documentation I can see on the bulletin board. Maybe I’ll give myself a gold star each day I get it done.
  2. In the time allowed for it (and no more!), get a much better handle on my social marketing and content marketing, including figuring out just what the hell those things really are. I need to get serious about this blog and make it worth the time involved.
  3. Get the audio books done. Some people just read their books that way.
  4. Read more. Just chip away at the to-read pile. Because it’s horrifying, and because writers must read.
  5. Find a way to help out fellow writers that doesn’t require me to have actually read and liked their work yet (see #4). Maybe on my web site, which might hit two resolutions at once.
  6. Get rid of more stuff. The move helped a lot, but when I went downstairs to organize the basement this weekend I realized how much more crap needs to go. I want to sit down with at least one file folder or drawer or cabinet a night and WEED. Once that’s done, I can take another look at organizing what’s left. This includes my computer files. Hopefully I will spend less time looking for stuff and more time moving ahead.
  7. Make fitness a priority – Writing is bad for you, physically. You’re mostly sitting on your butt, hunching in some cases. In the last three years I’ve been coping with Achilles tendonitis from a disastrous flirtation with barefoot shoes and a frozen shoulder that probably started with some minor injury and then blew up from all that hunching. I happily took the excuse to avoid weight work, but it’s time to get back to it. (Well, almost – I’m still holding off on shoulder work until I get an all-clear.) I tried Zumba for the first time a couple of weeks ago (fun!), and I plan to stop being a yoga virgin this year, too. And I’d like to do more country and contra dancing. And then, of course, there’s walking. I live on a hill, so I get a little workout just going around the block.

    Set up for weights and meditation. It ain't pretty, but it gets the job done.

    Set up for weights and meditation. It ain’t pretty, but it gets the job done. (Making it pretty can be next year’s resolution.)

  8. Meditate. I’ve known how to do this since college, but do I make time for it? Hardly ever. I have no idea if it will help with writing, but I suspect it might prime the mind for creativity a little less wastefully than standing in a hot shower for too long (which is what I do now – and since my shoulder IS still a bit stiff and my husband has retired to Puerto Rico, I’ve had to start applying lotion to my back with a rubber spatula – so dignified!).
  9. Have more real life contact with real people. Facebook is nice but it’s no substitute for knowing what’s really going on in the lives of the people you love. This has nothing to do with writing per se, but writing is rather isolating, and even introverts need friends.
  10. Practice gratitude. The picture below is a gift I got myself this Christmas. The space for each entry is short, so I’m going to challenge myself to also tweet something I’m grateful for each day in 2015. I was invited to do a shorter version of this on Facebook this year, and I found it helpful.
A Christmas present for myself

A Christmas present for myself

The evidence of 54 years on the planet suggests that I’m not going to actually accomplish all of these, of course.

But hey – any forward progress counts. Add it up day by day and that is the trick to getting anything done.

What are your resolutions for the New Year?

Season’s Greetings … and here’s that free story!

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Amazon absolutely isn’t cooperating, nor is Kobo, but you can enjoy a free romantic comedy short story on me if you download it from Nook, Smashwords, or iTunes. (At Smashwords it will be in multiple formats you can choose from.) Or, if you’re on my subscriber list, I’ll email you a way to read it online sometime Christmas Eve.

#Free on #Nook – http://bit.ly/13nM7Bs

#Free on #iTunes – http://bit.ly/1CdFvo1

#Free on #Smashwords – http://bit.ly/1JKo3tD

The Short, Spectacular Indie-Publishing Career of Matilda Walter

The Short, Spectacular Indie-Publishing Career of Matilda Walter

Thank you for all your support this year, and I hope you have a great holiday!

Exciting arrivals this week!

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A FREE read is on the way!

I’ve only got a week left of classes, and if all goes well before it’s out my Christmas present to fans and fellow indie writers will be available. So keep an eye out — or sign up for my email list to get the link sent to you as soon as it’s live (and also truly free — that can take awhile at Amazon since I have to upload it elsewhere and then get them to price-match). Here’s the cover:

The Short, Spectacular Indie-Publishing Career of Matilda Walter

AND The Ribs and Thigh Bones of Desire releases this Tuesday!

 

Two Thanksgiving scenes

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I was a little startled to realize, last night, that Thanksgiving looms pretty large in both my books so far, and serves as a significant turning point in the first one. This surprised me a little because I’m not exactly a stickler for holiday traditions. My son and I are happily joining friends for Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant. Although I regret not being with either my grandkids or my brothers’ families today, I have a little bit of a cold and I am actually very content not driving long distances in uncertain weather, or cooking and cleaning.

These are not the most significant parts of the Thanksgiving events in each book — I don’t want to spoil anything major — but I thought you might enjoy these little excerpts in honor of the holiday.

From The Awful Mess: A Love Story

Cover for The Awful Mess: A Love StoryAs Thanksgiving approached, the food pantry got hectic. November was prime time for food collections and for new volunteers, who naturally expected to be given something to do. The generous Thanksgiving boxes, a point of pride and competition among the local churches and civic organizations, had to be organized so that frozen turkeys didn’t defrost, stuffing mix didn’t expire, pies didn’t get squashed, and no one got lost trying to make deliveries.

Mary organized driving maps along sensible car routes for the approximate number of volunteers they expected to show up on delivery day, the Sunday afternoon before Thanksgiving. She and Annie supervised the distribution of lists and boxes. She had just finished checking off one set of boxes into the care of a couple of Catholics, when she turned to find herself facing Winslow.

“Oh, hi.” She tried to ignore the rising heat on her face. “I didn’t see you on the list. Are you here for St. Andrews?”

“No, Chapel on the Hill.” His blue eyes met hers for what seemed like the first time in months. “Dad’s back is bothering him.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Here are their boxes” — she walked him over — “and this is where to deliver them.” She handed over the packet with a tight smile. “Tell your Dad I hope he feels better.” She stepped back, anxious to avoid further awkwardness.

He boosted a box into his arms. “You’re not lifting these, I hope.”

“No, not me.” She patted her belly. If he had ever found her attractive, he must be safely past that now. Perhaps that explained the sudden willingness to talk to her again.

“My sister’s arriving tomorrow,” he said.

“Your dad told me she has big news.”

“She’s bringing Carla.”

“Does he know?”

“No.” He frowned and shifted the heavy box over to one hip.

“Don’t you think it might be a good idea to give him a heads up?”

“She didn’t want me to. She says if they have to leave, they will.”

“Well that sounds like a fun holiday for everybody.” Mary was annoyed on Bert’s behalf. “Was this your sister’s idea, or Carla’s?”

“Probably Carla’s. She can be a drama queen.”

“I could tell him, if you want.”

He looked astonished. “You?”

She suddenly realized how far she’d overstepped. There went her face, burning again. “Sorry,” she said wretchedly. “Dumb suggestion.” She turned away, blinking back tears of embarrassment, and stumbled over to another volunteer who looked like he needed direction. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Winslow staring after her. She turned her back and tried to focus on the man in front of her, who was geared out as if he were about to go climb Mount Monadnock.

“Hey, are you okay?” the man asked.

“Hormones,” she said.

The man looked alarmed. She tried to smile. “Which group are you?”

“Unitarian.”

Thankfully, the Unitarian boxes were on the other side from the God’s Chapel on the Hill boxes, over by the Kiwanis boxes. Perhaps Annie had mapped out the boxes by dogma, or lack thereof. Mary helped the Unitarian fellow and then hovered while he carried out one heavy box at a time. Winslow came in and out, too, loading his own boxes. She sensed him looking over at her, but carefully avoided making eye contact until his last box was gone and him with it. Then she checked both sets of boxes off her list and collapsed into a folding chair.

“You okay?” Annie asked, panting a bit herself.

“I’ll be all right.”

“Somebody say something mean to you? Tell me who it is, I’ll fight ’im!”

Mary just shook her head.

“What are you doing for Thanksgiving?”

“I thought I might sign up to work the soup kitchen in Keene.”

Annie scowled. “Why don’t you let the once-a-year folks do that? I’m going to have a nice restaurant meal with my home girls. You want to come?”

“Home girls?” Lawson was not exactly a hub of hip urban street culture.

“Other divorced women from my support group. The few of us who don’t have families we want to hang out with on Turkey Day, anyway.”

Mary hesitated. “How expensive is it?”

“Pregnant unemployed food pantry volunteers get to eat free.”

“I can still pay my way!”

Annie laughed. “No you can’t. The restaurant is owned by one of the women in the group. She never lets us pay a dime for the food, just for the service.”

“Well, that sounds lovely, actually. Thank you.”

Annie did a little happy dance. “Excellent! Now everybody’s taken care of.”

From The Ribs and Thigh Bones of Desire

The Ribs and Thigh Bones of Desire -- showing a (dressed) teenage girl on a bed, looking rather pensive.He arrived at three. He hadn’t really wanted to be that punctual. But he’d taken a shower, and shaved, and changed, and changed again. And then he couldn’t think of anything else to do, and it was still only 2:30.

It occurred to him that he should take something, so he drove to Stop n’ Shop. It was closed.

He tried the package store. It was open, of course. He bought a bottle of wine and felt like a grown-up. Elaine hadn’t even had to tell him to do it.

“Happy Thanksgiving,” he said, and handed over the wine.

“Oh, thank you!” Cassandra looked genuinely pleased. “I hope it goes with turkey. I completely forgot about wine.”

“I think maybe anything goes with turkey,” he said, as if he had a clue, which he didn’t. Elaine would have known what wine went with turkey, or she would have asked the guy in the package store. David sure as hell wasn’t going to ask.

Colin came up to take his jacket. “This is my first Thanksgiving. We don’t do Thanksgiving where I come from.”

“No? Well, and why would you?”

Colin looked unsure whether that was a dig or not. David hadn’t intended it as one, but he enjoyed setting Colin back just a little anyway.

“We do have Guy Fawkes Day in early November,” Colin said. “We light bonfires and set off fireworks and roast bangers on sticks. Bangers are sausages, you see.”

“Sounds like fun,” David said.

“What I don’t understand about this holiday is the football part of it. Not that what you lot play is what I would consider football.”

Colin had already said some variation on this to him at least once a week since he’d met him. “Are you watching the game?” he asked hopefully. He had no actual interest in the day’s games, but having a television on would reduce the pressure to have conversation.

“Good Lord, no,” Colin said. “I did watch some of that parade, though. A bizarre tribal custom if I ever saw one. Huge inflated totems, dizzying drumbeats, virgins displayed like offerings to appease the gods!”

“So where’s Molly?” he asked Cassandra, who looked as if she’d had just about enough of Colin.

“At a football game.” She sounded tense.

“A football game?”

“The Turkey Day game. It’s home this year. Shadbrook vs. East Hadley. I assumed she would be home by now.”

“You see?” Colin says. “More madness. And on a day like this.” He gestured outside, to where the snow was falling more heavily.

“I hope he knows how to drive in this stuff,” Cassandra said.

“He?” David asked.

“Steven. Steven Bishop. A guy she used to know at the local high school. He looks nice enough.” Cassandra didn’t sound too impressed.

“She was very excited,” Colin said. “Our Molly hasn’t gotten out much.”

“I wish she would get home,” Cassandra said. “I’m glad she’s getting out, but I guess I’m really not used to this. Would you like a glass of wine before dinner, David? Or one of Colin’s imported ales?”

“Wine, please.” Yes, by all means, give him a drink. Had she invited him over here on purpose to make sure he knew about Steven? Maybe this was Cassandra’s way of saying it’s over, pathetic man, get on with your life.

x x x

He was glad he’d already downed that first glass when a beat-up old Plymouth pulled up outside. “I think she’s home,” he said.

But she didn’t come in right away. No, she stayed out there in the car with Steven.

Finally, Cassandra opened the door and stepped out onto the stoop. Molly got out of the car. She tried to neaten her hair. She looked so excited and happy. She practically bounced through the accumulated snow to the door.

Despite the ache in his heart, David found it impossible not to think: This is good. This is right and proper. Look at her, isn’t she beautiful?

When she saw him, though, some of that animation drained away. She licked her lips nervously. They looked chapped. Her entire face looked rough and red. He could remember kissing like that, centuries earlier, back when kissing alone was amazing.

“Hello, Molly,” he said, and smiled bravely.

She smiled back. The happiness overspread her face again. She just couldn’t contain it, could she? “I didn’t know you were coming,” she said. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

“How was the game?” Cassandra asked.

“The game? It was fine.”

“Who won?” Cassandra asked.

Molly opened her mouth, then closed it. “I have no idea.”

Colin chuckled, then patted him on the shoulder and steered him toward the kitchen. “Let’s refill your glass, David.”

 

FYI — The price on The Ribs and Thigh Bones will rise after it’s released Dec. 9, so pre-order before then to save a dollar. Or pre-order because you want to help me make it more visible to other readers (pre-orders really do make a BIG difference). Or … don’t worry about it and go eat some turkey. It’s a holiday! Hope you have a nice one.

If life hands you spam, make spam-ade

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Found Poetry Constructed from Spam Comments on my Blog

Seriously a few moments.
Plenty of adventures
Are usually now being formed.
Your daughter’s virginity disappear.
Meals left out during the open
Can turn out to be the ideal nesting internet site
For spring pests.
Until you have young, get a secure broken relationship.
Chance to go somewhere for you was really very much required
To get these adolescent girls who’ve got a great deal of likely,
Wouldn’t have the infant
In an exceedingly Denver habitation.
Sizzling out of this scenario is the two of us.
To have initiative —
Also trust around the would-be with this marriage.
Just pay for the music.
Possess a moment.

 

The English is better in this book, which was one of five general fiction semifinalists for the 2014 (and apparently last) Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award:

Cover for The Awful Mess: A Love Story

More excerpts from The Ribs and Thigh Bones of Desire

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The Ribs and Thigh Bones of Desire -- showing a (dressed) teenage girl on a bed, looking rather pensive.(Which is still coming out December 9 and can be pre-ordered here. Outside the US, try this. I’m still waiting for a link to the paperback edition.)

Foul language warning on this one!

Her shelves were filling up again with other books, like those John Jakes Bicentennial paperbacks in which people experienced all the important events of American history between simultaneous orgasms. There was also Anne Frank’s diary and a bunch of depressing Holocaust novels. Sometimes she wondered if she liked to read those because no matter how difficult her life got, she could always think well, at least I’m not in a concentration camp.

The crash was still his downfall. As he’d explained to his psychiatrist, if the plane was a black box in which he might or might not have done all that he could to save his family, all those realities had existed at the same time until the moment someone found him lying unconscious in a field of shade tobacco. He had to live with the version of reality in which they were dead and, at the very least, he was the one who’d put them in that box to begin with. Schrodinger had designed his experiment specifically to either kill the cat or not, and luckily for him it wasn’t a real cat, because if it had been, he’d probably be the most notorious man in the history of physics. But David’s family had been real.

“I’m sorry, what?” the doctor had said. “I’m not following you at all.”

“It’s theoretical physics,” David had said. “Schrodinger’s cat? Very basic stuff I’d expect any college graduate to know. But never mind.”

“Is this level of arrogance normal for you?” the doctor had asked. “If so, I believe you may really be improving.”

“What I don’t understand about this holiday is the football part of it. Not that what you lot play is what I would consider football.”

Colin had already said some variation on this to him at least once a week since he’d met him. “Are you watching the game?” he asked hopefully. He had no actual interest in the day’s games, but having a television on would reduce the pressure to have conversation.

“Good Lord, no,” Colin said. “I did watch some of that parade, though. A bizarre tribal custom if I ever saw one. Huge inflated totems, dizzying drumbeats, virgins displayed like offerings to appease the gods!”

“So where’s Molly?” he asked Cassandra, who looked as if she’d had just about enough of Colin.

MOLLY WISHED Farrah Fawcett would stop smiling. She was clearly out of touch with what was going on in this room. Or maybe she wasn’t – her smile had a kind of gritting-her-teeth quality to it, as if the actress was just possibly being forced to hold that smile under the threat of death. It reminded Molly of the huge, helpless grin on the skeleton in her biology class; she could practically see the white, bleached skull waiting to be revealed under all that perfect hair and skin. But she didn’t want to think about that, anymore than she wanted to be where she was.

If she really insisted on going through with this, it was going to be like making love to a pill bug. One touch in the wrong spot, and she’d curl up into a little ball. Hell, he might, too. How did two pill bugs ever mate? He guessed they had to possess a basic level of pill bug trust, or just be too fucking horny to care.

I think that’s it for free excerpts, except that I might do a couple of future posts with locations and paintings that show up in the book. If you’re on my mailing list, you already got Chapter 3, and you’ll get Chapter 4 and then 5 soon. Also, you’ll get a prequel chapter from The Awful Mess sometime early next month. If you tried to join and didn’t get anything, try again and remember to confirm your subscription.

The Awful Mess ebook will be on sale Oct. 28 – Nov. 4. It’s that title’s first time out through BookBub with the newer cover, and also the first time promoting to multiple retailers rather than just Amazon. I’m very curious to see how it does …  and hopeful it might goose pre-orders on this one.