Remembering the Fallen: 9/11

Verse (c) 2006 by Carolyn Burns Bass

Literary Digs in South Beach at The Betsy

I just spent two wonderful days at the Betsy Hotel in South Beach. The Betsy sits on Ocean Drive across from Lummus Park in the Art Deco district. Recently renovated from the ground up, the Betsy is a historic property listed in the Florida’s State Registry of Historic Places. The pure white colonial facade of the Betsy shimmers among the crowd of art deco designs along Ocean Drive. Awnings and sidewalk umbrellas shade the street-side dining of celebrity chef Laurent Tourondel’s BLT Steak, where locals and guests dine on Angus beef and other culinary confections.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't gush about a hotel in this blog, I'd save it for my travel blog. But the Betsy is more than a hotel. It's a community in the making.

My room wasn't quite ready when I checked-in early at the Betsy. While I waited, account manager Livingston Alexander took me around the hotel and shared a bit about the philosophy of the hotel. The Betsy hopes to be more than just another place on the strip with rooms, beds and showers. Drawing from the legacy of historic hospitality, the Betsy aims to be a true public house, where locals mingle with guests for conversation, celebration, and cultural exchange.

This philosophy shows in the art that lines the interior walls. Currently on exhibit are photographs by renowned photographers Bobby Sager, Richard Bluestein, and a collection of prints from the Rockarchive. Large and luminous, the photos reflect the commitment the Betsy has with arts and literature. The Betsy welcomes non-guests to stroll through the hotel’s public areas to view the photographs.

Livingston walked me to my room on the second floor and showed me around. Most hotels of this class come with a mini-bar stocked with beverages and priced for profit. But how many hotels stock the bookshelves in the guest rooms with first-edition bestsellers? I went ga-ga when I saw this. He hinted at a writer in residence program under development.

Tingling with the thrill of a writer in residence program at this beautiful place, the next day I met with Deborah Briggs, whose title of VP Marketing and Philanthropy says it all. The EdD at the end of her signature reveals even more about her and alludes to the amazing legacy taking root in South Beach. Deborah is the daughter of the late Hyam Plutzik, a poet nominated for the Pulitzer shortly before his untimely death in 1962. She is a diva of ideas and is as passionate about education as she is about the arts and sees the Betsy as a place where ideas prosper with practice, life embraces art, and hospitality extends beyond the check-out date.

Deborah and I dined on Lincoln Avenue, at Da Leo Trattoria, the oldest Italian Restaurant in South Beach, where we talked about writing, art, music, our families, and our dogs. In between these topics, Deborah shared more about the philanthropic plans for the Betsy, which include the creation of a writer’s room at the Betsy and a writer in residence program to help writers birth literary projects. To commemorate Veteran's Day in November, the Betsy is bringing the Lennon Bus to South Beach for a school and community-wide tribute and educational outreach.

I promised to keep in touch with Deborah and herald news of the Betsy’s innovative ideas and philanthropic endeavors. The writer in residence program may not be fully operational as yet, but that didn’t keep me from writing while residing at the Betsy.

Clar de Lune, Susan Boyle and My Mother

My novel, THE SWORD SWALLOWER'S DAUGHTER, yes, the one I'm still revising, draws much from my childhood. My father really was a sword swallower and my mother was a closet chanteuse who played piano and sang with a voice that rivaled the divas of her day. In fact, when I hear Susan Boyle, I think of my mother. She had that kind of voice, but zero confidence.

The photo at right is my mother playing and singing with my younger sister, Angie, who inherited Mom's voice and musical abilities. Sadly, Angie passed away from melanoma in 1990 at the age of 29. My mother has been gone since 2003.

Some of my fondest memories of my mother are when she played piano and sang. My Mother's Day tribute this year is a short excerpt from THE SWORD SWALLOWER'S DAUGHTER, all of which is true to the point of memoir, rather than fiction.

Enjoy.

We returned from school that day to the sound of Mama pounding out “Clar de
Lune” on the piano. Mama’s piano playing was a barometer to her moods. When she
played and sang sad love songs, she was irritable. When she played upbeat show
tunes, we pretended we were the Lennon Sisters and joined in for fun rounds of
musical togetherness. Sometimes she played hymns, especially for Uncle Teddy,
who insisted she sing “How Great Thou Art” every time he saw her. But when she
played from her big, brown classical music book, she channeled the tension of
her life into the music, because when she closed the piano lid and stepped away,
her face was always relaxed and her voice as soft as a kitten.

After dinner that night, Aunt Cissy’s boyfriend, Ernest, pointed to the piano in the parlor adjacent to the living room. “Anyone play piano?”

My little sister jumped up, ran to the piano and began plunking out the right hand side of “Heart and Soul.” She turned and asked me to play the two-handed left side. I was not about to play this kiddy song in front of Ernest, so I declined, saying I couldn’t sit on the piano bench with a broken leg.

Aunt Cissy stuck her head into the room and said, “Ask Edie. She plays and sings just like Rosemary Clooney.”

Mama rolled her eyes, but I could tell she liked the remark. She had a repertoire of songs she would sing and play in the evenings when Daddy was gone out to wherever it was that he liked more than home.

“Really?” said Ernest, looking to Mama with more than a little interest. “Oh, please play something.”

“Play ‘Moon River,’” said Aunt Cissy. “That’s one of my favorites.”

Mama groaned and then opened up the piano bench and dug through a bunch of sheet music. With an “ah ha,” she pulled out a warn folio and spread it across the piano.

I loved it when Mama played and sang. When she put her hands to the piano keys her face changed. The harsh lines around her eyes softened and her shoulders relaxed enough to let her arms flow up and down the keyboard.

She could imitate the sound of just about any singer I’d ever heard. Sometimes Daddy would hang around after supper and ask her to sing for him. Her music soothed whatever it was that drove him away.

“Play Unforgettable,’” he’d say, standing behind her, close enough to touch, but never touching.

Other times Daddy would recline in his chair and smoke, blowing smoke rings inside smoke rings while we ran around trying to catch them. Mama would play through her repertoire of pop songs while Daddy let us crawl over him. Those were memories I cherished. That was the Daddy I remembered, the Mama I wanted.

Seeing Mama unwind at the piano now lit a flicker of something I couldn’t wrap my heart and mind across.

From THE SWORD SWALLOWER'S DAUGHTER, copyright 2009 by Carolyn Burns Bass

In honor of National Poetry Month: A Poem

Labor Pains
By Carolyn Burns Bass

I was silenced too long by the sound of my own
heartbeat.
Joy in living and grief in the passing of love.
Stories grew in my waking dreams,
but I dwelt
in the glow of a thirty-year literary pregnancy.
Labor came without warning.
Stories grown through those years of gestation
now speak through
that heartbeat
of fear, of failure, of success.
I wish sometimes for the old stillness,
but labor,
once started must finish.

--began 9/22/06, finished (for now) 4/11/09

Everyone Has a Story to Tell

Several years ago I wrote and self-published a guidebook to help ordinary people write their lifestories. I used this guidebook, WRITE FROM THE HEART, in the classes I taught in memoir writing through our city adult education program. For the last month I've used my morning writing time to revise that guidebook and am publishing it once again.

WRITE FROM THE HEART is not a book on how to write a bestselling memoir, it’s not intended for people who want to be the next Augusten Burroughs or David Sedaris. It’s for people like my mother, comfortable with words and writing, but unsure of where to begin, how to organize, and how far to go. My mother loved telling family stories and when she died, those stories went with her. This book is for people like her.

I have another plan for this book. For several years I’ve wanted to help seniors connect through the global village, which means putting them behind web-connected computers. My master plan begins here. I’m working on a plan to teach computer skills to seniors and then move them into writing their lifestories.

I’ll be talking a bit more about WRITE FROM THE HEART and my master plan to connect seniors to the world wide web next Monday on Black Authors Network (BAN) blogtalk radio, hosted by Ella Curry.

Your next thought if you know me is, but Carolyn is not black. True. I have no African heritage, but I have connections to the African-American community. Even if I didn’t, the message of WRITE FROM THE HEART is colorblind. There is no racial twist, no gender or sexuality preference, and no religious slant. It's all about storytelling and the self-discovery that happens when a person sits down to compose one's thoughts in writing.

If you’d like to stop by and listen in, here’s when and where to go:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Black-Author-Network
Show time: promptly at 7pm-9pm EST

On childhood faith: Remembering Ash Wednesday

It’s Fat Tuesday. A day of worldwide gluttony and pursuit of pleasure before Ash Wednesday and the season of lent. Growing up in a very diverse neighborhood in SoCal, many of my friends at school were of Mexican heritage, which also meant Catholic. They went to catechism. They came to school every year on Ash Wednesday with a smudge on their forehead, a secret symbol for an exclusive club. Until my mother went through her revival of religion when I was in high school, my family worshipped the TV and observed nothing but commercialism at Christmas and Easter.

In those days we were simply protestant. Shortly after my parents split up, my mother dragged us to a church within walking distance of our apartment in Pomona. A small, A-shaped sanctuary housed the Gospel Tabernacle. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was a Pentecostal church of roof-raising proportions. Prior to attending the Gospel Tabernacle, I’d only been to church once. I was about five and all I remember was a man standing in front talking, talking, talking, my mother trying to listen, my two sisters and I fidgeting on the hard wooden pews. My Daddy picked us up afterward and I asked him why he didn’t come with us. He said, “Oh, I don’t believe in that Mickey Mouse stuff.”

That church certainly wasn’t Disneyland, not that I’d ever been, even though we could see the Disneyland fireworks every summer night from the front yard of our house in Santa Ana. Still, I wondered what Mickey Mouse had to do with church. So when the music and the singing began at the Gospel Tabernacle, the voices would cry out across the room like animated voices from a Saturday afternoon cartoon. Rounds of “hal=le-luuuuuuuu-jahs” lifted over the singing, while “Praise you, Jeeeee-sus” filled the space in between songs. Gospel Tabernacle wasn’t a placid Mickey Mouse church like the one in Santa Ana, it was a wild ride through the jungles of joy where Tarzan was expected to show at any time.

Yes. Tarzan. I really didn’t know what Tarzan had to do with church, but surely as my name was Carolyn, I heard it loud and clear over the top of the praise fest, “The king is coming! Tar-zaaaaaan is coming!” I looked around, expecting to see a wild man in a leopard loincloth swing before the faces of the faithful. When Tarzan never appeared, I chalked it up to another cartoon fantasy, as if the lady who called out for Tarzan preferred a wild human god to a talking mouse.

Years later, at a roof-rocking church in Laguna Beach, I heard about the swinging king coming again. It wasn’t Tarzan. It was Hosanna: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

So anyway. We stopped going to the Gospel Tabernacle after only a few weeks and didn’t go to church again for years afterwards. I listened to my Catholic friends talk about catechism as if it were a secret club and I wished for an invitation that never came. They bragged about the fancy white dresses they wore for their first communion and primped up the fanciness when they made their confirmation. On Fat Tuesday they feasted on ham sandwiches and Hostess chocolate cupcakes, because they knew there’d be no meat for 40 days and they were giving up chocolate for lent. They would go to mass on Wednesday morning before school to receive the secret mark of the sacred.

When I was nine, I asked my mom if we could go to mass in the morning before school to get ashed. Her eyes shot forth in horror like I’d just asked if I could go to school naked.

“We are not Catholic,” she said. “That’s all hocus pocus stuff.”

I took my faith into my own hands that year, showing up in Mrs. Vargas’s fourth grade class with a great big smudge across my forehead. Several of my friends remarked that they didn’t know I was Catholic and they didn’t see me at mass that morning. I told them I went to a different parish with my dad—a boldfaced lie. In truth, I had my own private mass on the way to school. I reached into the barbeque grill beside our front door for a fingertip of ash and smeared it on my forehead.

I spent the day feeling like an insider, one of the Smudged for Jesus crowd. Knowing I couldn’t give up chocolate, I gave up TV for lent and expected to observe it. As the day wore on, I became oblivious to the smudge on my forehead. Upon returning home, my mom looked at me with wary eyes and asked what was on my face.

“Oh this?” I said, running my finger across the smudge on my forehead. “It’s my ashes.”

My mom's face went hard. “I told you we are not Catholic. Where did you get that?”

“Not in church. It’s from the barbeque. I put it on myself.”

My mom threw her pointing finger toward the bathroom. “Get in there and wash your face this minute.”

I slumped off to the bathroom and stared at myself, just as I had in the bathroom mirror at school. I licked my finger and wiped the smudge around until it faded into my skin. It was no longer visible, but I knew it was still there. My ash Wednesday was a rebellious act of faith and it was mine alone.

Okay then, the 25 random things

Back in early January, the "25 Random Things About Me" was "16 Random Things." Like a game of virtual telephone tag, the list grew from 16 to 25. I've been tagged a few more times since the meme morphed to 25, so rather than rehash more random things, I will add 9 more to my previous list of 16.

Nine new random things:

1. I am an expert secret keeper. For some reason people confide things in me; things I would rather not know, but often it's just because they need to talk about it. Athough I am not always the best listener--I frequently interrupt with questions and comments--I never let it past my lips again.

2. In stressful settings, I tend to blurt out my opinions with emphatic pitch that is often misconstrued as harsh. If I've done this to you, it's not about you. It's about me and a fault I'm working to overcome.

3. We have a pet cemetary in the wayback of our property. Graves include one bunny, three dogs, three cats, a rooster, a hen, and a lizard. I love animals and would have a pet rescue if I could afford it.

4. In third grade I swiped some matches from our babysitter and took off with my best friend Stewart Crump to see if it fires were really *that* easy to start. We holed up in the babysitter's garage and flicked match after match, but couldn't get the place to burn. I got called home and dang, wouldn't you know that while I was home, Stewart got the garage to burn.

5. More about fire. When I was young we were so poor we used to drive up to the baseline of the mountains to watch the annual forest fires in the nearby mountains. Cheap entertainment.

6. More cheap entertainment. Back in the days when we were poor, gas was cheap. When there was nothing else to do we would hop in the car and go for a ride. Oh yeah. Loved it when we parked in a motel parking lot outside Disneyland to watch the fireworks.

7. I am fiercely protective of my mornings. I get up early to write for the first three hours. This is typically my fiction writing time and my family knows to give me a wide berth. I love them for it. After writing time is over, I'll all about my work in the travel and motivation business.

8. My father died in 1989, my mother died in 2003, my younger sister died in 1990. I miss each one of them more than ever. Time changes grief, but it never goes away.

9. I love people. As a journalist and travel consultant, I meet amazing people all over the world. I am tagging a zillion people in this note from other countries. We are a global village.

The original list of 16 Random Things

1. I was born in East LA and have lived within a 50 mile radius of my birthplace for all but three years of my life, when I lived in Iwakuni, Japan during 1987-1990.

2. I ate my first oyster from a half-shell only a month ago, at a restaurant in Ventura, California called The Watermark.

3. My first grade teacher tied me to my chair because I wiggled, squirmed, and "visited with my neighbor" too much. I think I had A.D.D. before it was an official disorder. Despite this awkward incident, she was my favorite teacher for many years.

4. I hated math growing up because of the repetition. I mean, I got it the first time (1+1=2, 2+2=4), so why did we have to do pages and pages of silly math problems? I eventually turned off my brain when the teach said to pull out the math books.

5. I wanted to marry a Beatle when I was a little girl--Paul, the cute one, of course. I still get tingly when I see pictures of him with his peg-legged pants and that funny shaped guitar he used to play. Now that I'm older, I get tingly when I listen to John's lyrics.

6. I fell in love with Shakespeare because my English teacher, Mr. Mann, taught the bard with literary romance and passion. I can hear him introduce our first play, "MacBeth," saying how he envied us that we would be hearing Shakespeare for the first time.

7. I wanted to be a stewardess back in the day when it was still a politically correct term. Back in that day, however, there were height requirements. I was too short.

8. Also back in the day, I was editor of my HS yearbook. My travel careers advisor read a poem I'd written and told me, "Why do you want to be a stewardess? You should be a writer." Wish I could find him and say thank you.

9. Pertinent to numbers 7 and 8, I did become a writer and now travel the world writing about beautiful places, friendly faces, and lasting traces.

10. The pinnacle of my life was the birth of my first child. Then the birth of my second. My children are now old enough to teach me things.

11. I've loved every era of my kids' lives, from breastfeeding to packing them up and dropping them off at university.

12. My daughty is scary smart, headed for a PhD in English Lit, and my son has a photographic memory and is looking to be a Naval officer.

13. Both of my kids friended me on Facebook of their own choice. Many of their friends have as well. This pleases me.

14. I wrote my first novel when I was 43. It's still not published and I hit the mid-century mark last year with a second yet-unpublished novel behind me.

15. My husby helps with housework, thinks I'm a great cook, keeps my car washed, and generally indulges my whims. He looks really good in a flight suit, too. I think I'll keep him.

16. Did I say I love animals? In addition to my two doglets, Tank (a Jack Russell) and Buck (a beagador), I have a pet chicken named Rosie who roams my backyard and pecks on the backdoor windows, plus three more hens in a coop in the wayback of our property.

Here's to a Fine 2009

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. Even as a young girl I remember thinking that New Year’s resolutions were silly, that if there was something you wanted or needed to do, why wait for the new year to make it happen.

So this year I will continue doing what I’ve been doing pretty much all of my life: Getting up in the morning and going to bed at night.

Boring, huh?

It’s the in between things that define the quality of a person’s life. He’s a glimpse at what I do in between the rising and setting of my days.

I wake early without an alarm clock—thanks to all of the years I had to get up at 6 to get my kids ready for the school bus by 7. My husby works nights and sleeps until about 10 am, my daughty is away at university and my son exercises his post-high-school-afternoon-college habit to sleep until noon. This gives me blissful silence every morning to court the muse.

Make coffee—I used to prep it to automatically brew so it was ready when I got up, but I found the new coffeemakers hold too much moisture in the system and it gives the coffee a musky flavor. Fresh brewed is best.

Yoga, or not—I do yoga to the rhythm of the coffee brewing. I usually have two dogs vying for my attention while I’m reaching and stretching.

Lie on the sofa with laptop and dogs—I’ve written both of my novels in jammies, laying on my sofa with dogs curled at my feet and laptop where it belongs: in my lap. Just like now.

Morning pages—My friend MJ Chapman gave me a copy of THE ARTIST’S WAY last year for Christmas and one of the practices is called “Morning Pages.” I left behind hardbound journals a long time ago, so my morning writing is in a Word doc, formatted into a table with date and comment fields. I don’t journal my feelings/emotions and such, but list things I have to accomplish that day. This helps me clear the clutter from my mind so that I can move on to my next morning activity.

Personal writing—This is my favorite time of day. Personal writing is whatever I’m working on that doesn’t yet have a paycheck or deadline attached. If I’m writing an article for the newspaper or a magazine, that’s not personal writing and I do it during my working hours. My blog and fiction fall into this writing cycle.

Socialize—I absolutely love working from home, but it can be very lonely for a chatterbox like me. Facebook and my online writer’s groups are like watering holes that offer camaraderie and comedy. After I’ve finished my personal writing, I open Facebook and email and the work day begins.

Get dressed—Sometime after I’ve yakked at my virtual watering holes and am on my third cup of coffee, I meander back to the bedroom where BassMan has finally awaken. He’s often grumbly in the morning, so I slink around him without my usual prattle. My career attire begins with jeans and a sweater in the winter and a skort and t-shirt in the spring, summer and fall.

Commute to the desktop—I love my work. My commute is from my bedroom to my office. I have one main client that keeps me busy with interesting projects, professional education opportunities, events to coordinate, correspondence with uber-professional people, and opportunities to visit beautiful places. I keep my virtual watering holes open most of the day when I’m working, unless I’m utterly slammed with a deadline.

Travel—Last year I stayed in 29 hotels for a total of 64 nights, 11 of those hotels were in Mexico. My favorite? Hacienda Puerta Campeche, a blissfully beautiful boutique hotel in the colonial city of Campeche on the Gulf of Mexico. If I’m not traveling or writing about travel, I am planning my next trip. Next Monday I’m off to Palm Springs to review the recently reopened and restored legend, The Riviera Hotel and Spa.

Eat, pray, love and read—All things in moderation. Favorite food continues to be pizza in various mutations of the traditional stuff. I pray for peace, for safety to my friends and loved ones, for understanding, and I am not afraid to pray for patience. My husby, kids and dogs are the center of my love life, yet I love my virtual friends as much as my in-the-skin friends. Read? I love books as much as I love food. My favorite book this year wasn’t Ann Patchett’s RUN (as much as I had hoped), but a quiet book SALVATION by Lucia Nevai, published by Tin House Books, a terrific indie press.

After all the other stuff-I take my dogs Tank and Buck to the off-leash park where they frisk and frolic with their buddies when they’re not chasing balls or Frisbees. Then I cook dinner, read, maybe watch some TV, and I'm in bed by 10.

Reading all of this makes me tired. Maybe I’ll add a nap to the routine.

So anyway. Do you make New Year’s resolutions? Do you keep them? What are the highlights of your days?

Distasters Happen

There is never a good time for disaster. Put a disaster during the holidays and it seems worse for some reason. Maybe I'll rattle on about the philosophical, cultural, or emotional reasons for why disaster during the holidays is so awful, but for now, I just want to share a need with you.

One of my author friends, Linnea Heinrichs, lost her home to a fire last Sunday. She and her husband purchased the 50-year-old farmhouse in northern British Columbia several years ago to restore and run a small farm. She's blogged her small-farming efforts here. I'm unclear on the details of the fire, but Linnea said all was lost. Her son managed to save the computer tower and her laptop, but all of her research for her books, as well as all other household effects, were lost.

Several of us at the Backspace writing community are rallying around Linnea to help rebuild her life. Kim Stagliano suggested that anyone interested in donating to Linnea and her family consider sending Amazon.com gift cards, which can be used to purchase anything for sale on the world wide web.

Another thing you can do is buy Linnea's historial YA novel, THE FIRST VIAL:

Set against the backdrop of the inescapable horror of the fourteenth-century plague and medieval heroism and chivalry, The First Vial details the morbid reality of a time when the Black Death forced people to take the law into their own hands to survive the wave of chaos that was ushered in.

Katherine, Lady of Crenfeld Castle, pits her wits against the enemies trying to take over her castle. After surviving two attempts on her life by a land-hungry priest, she is forced to leave her castle just as the plague engulfs her village. The villainous priest seizes her lands, convicts the innocent, and burns them at the stake. As the plague rages on, the tension intensifies. Balanced with intrigue and action, The First Vial builds to a feverish pitch as death saturates the country and Katherine must battle not only for her lands and castle but for her life.

Heinrichs's categorical research into medieval town life, castles, and the Black Death, make the this novel a noteworthy companion to Connie Willis' Hugo-winning Doomsday Book and clearly mark Heinrichs as a new talent in this genre.

You can send Linnea Amazon Gift Card to her at this email address: linneaheinrichs@gmail.com.

You can buy Linnea's book, THE FIRST VIAL at any of these online bookstores:

• Amazon
• Barnes and Noble
• Chapters.indigo.ca (Borders Canada)
• Borders

As an aside... my stepdad's business burned down a week ago. It's a copier and printer repair shop located behind his home--the house I grew up in. The heat burst the windows on the house, but thankfully, it didn't catch fire. We went over the morning after the fire and helped him sort through the ashes. There was nothing salvagable. All his tools from 40 years of business, his customer's machines, and all his records, completely lost.

Jungle Journeys 101

Alternate title: What NOT to Wear in the Jungle

I joined a group of travel journalists on an adventure tour of the Riviera Maya coastline south of Cancun in September. The tour itinerary gave instructions like, "wear comfortable shoes." As far as I'm concerned, Teva flip-flops are the most comfortable shoes in the world. So I wore them during each of my adventure outings.

Here is my foot in the jungle of Punta Venado on the first day of the jungle journey:

Here was my foot after I got home:

Here is what I learned in between:

The Mayan Riviera is known for its gorgeous white sand beaches and private, all-inclusive resorts that offer so much on site that visitors never have to leave the property. The only view of Mexico that tourists see is from the airport, down the main highway, and through the guarded gates. I call this insular tourism.

There is so much more to Mexico than beaches, margartitas and tacos. Underground rivers flow through pavilion-like caverns. Freshwater pools, cenotes, fed by the underground rivers rise up and spread across the jungle. Mangrove forests cut with channels of freshwater currents lead to savannahs of grasses higher than your head. And the jungle. That verdant shag that covers the vast reaches of the Yucatan Penninsula is rife with wildlife, flora and mystic Mayan surprises.

I'll be spinning more Mexico stories more in the future, but one last word about The Toe. When I told everyone about my broken toe, they offered the prevailing myth that you can't do anything for broken toes, that all you need to do is tape it to its neighbor. Not so, according to my podiatrist, Dr. Roger Tsutsumi. The break was in the joint of the bone that connects to the foot. He advised surgery to pin the bones together. I now have a pierced toe. I'd post a photo, but Dr. T scared the toejam out of me with stories of infections in the bone, so I dare not unwrap it.

Jungle Adventure Tip: Always wear the kind of sensible shoes your mother would.

Promise in YOU.

This month in LitPark, Susan Henderson asked about Promise: "Tell me a story about someone seeing promise in you. What did they see, and how did this affect you?" Here is my reply:

My first grade teacher--the one who tied me to my chair because I wiggled and giggled too much in class--asked me to stay after school one day. I was terrified that I'd really done something bad. When all of the kids had left the room, she pulled out a paint-by-number set and told me that she was giving this to me because I loved to paint. She told me it had been her son's. Earlier in the year we'd learned that her son had been killed in a place with a weird name: Viet Nam.

While growing up I told everyone I wanted to be an artist, a painter. I wanted to pay back the promise Mrs. Jenkins saw in me. To do it though, I had to change the medium from paint, brushes and canvas, to letters, words and paper. Mrs. Jenkins will always hold a special place in my heart.

Go ahead and tell us a story about someone seeing promise in you, then skip on over to LitPark and share it there.

Hollywood, Here I Come

My son and I are taking a Hollywood getaway before his new college term begins. We're staying at the Hilton Universal in Universal City, right there near the Universal City Walk.

After a quick lunch at Puccino Pizzaria, we headed over to the live taping of America's Got Talent to see my friend sword swallower extraordinaire Dan Meyer, aka Captain Cutlass, who was one of the wild card picks. We watched all of the finalists, including our favorite singer, Jessica Price, but alas, Dan didn't make the pick into the finals.

We went out with Dan and some friends from the show (pictured here is Dan, along with Miss Pussycat and me) to the Saddleback Chophouse at Universal Citywalk, where the burgers are huge, the fries hot and salty, and you can ride a mechanical bull until it throws you off. And it will. Eventually.

Tomorrow we're going to Universal Studios and then out to see the Broadway production of Wicked at the Pantages Theatre.

I love NY

This post first appeared in my Press-Enterprise travel blog, INLAND TRAVLER.

New York is a city of wonders. As many times as I've visited, I never seem to see enough. I've just attended the annual Backspace Writer's Conference, where I spoke in a non-fiction writing panel called, "Real Places, Real Faces, Real Stories."

I stayed at the Radisson Martinique Hotel on 32nd and Broadway, in an area called Korea Town and not far from Times Square. My daughter, E, came along to check out grad programs at Columbia and NYU while I was conferencing.

When you're in town for a conference, you don't ususally get out and about the city. Wednesday night we stopped in for pre-conference cocktails at the Algonquin Hotel, the legendary watering hole of NY luminaries of theater and literature.

Friday night we did the town with some author friends, beginning at a book launch party for FALLING UNDER author Danielle Younge-Ullman at the V-bar in the West Village. We walked over to the Peculiar Pub with a few other friends, where we ate french fries and drank Stellas. The walls of the of Peculiar Pub were lined with lined with brewing paraphenalia, bottle tops and all kinds of kitchy stuff.

We crunched six into a taxi for a ride over to Hudson Bar & Books, a classy cigar and wine bar lined with bookshelves and full of literature and encyclopedias. James Bond films played soundlessly on video screens, while the waitresses served up cocktails and wine in red-satin dresses. Our friend Ron Hogan enjoyed a cigar and the rest of us sipped a lovely Pinot Noir.

Saturday morning found us West Coasters finally adjusting to the three-hour time difference. E and I slept in, then rushed off for a NY deli breakfast with Jackie Kessler and Heather Brewer. Jackie, a native NYer, called my bagel of scrambled egg, bacon and cheddar cheese a "heart attack bagel." Glad I don't eat like that all the time.

E and I took the subway to Central Park for an afternoon walk before hitting the train for our ride down to Harrisburg, Penn., the next stop in our summer vacation. I could spend days and days exploring Central Park and some day I hope to. There is a lovely bridge that holds a special memory for me there. Not romantic, just motherly. The first time D and I took our kids to NYC, our son J, was about seven. The only thing he wanted to see in the park was the bridge where "A Troll in Central Park" was set. I revisited the bridge and remembered the seven-year-old boy, but not the film.

Are you a serious writer?

Two days in New York can really change a person. Especially if you’re a writer attending the Backspace Writer’s Conference.

The Backspace Conference is for serious writers. I don’t mean writers who write only serious material, but writers who are serious about writing. Serious about getting published. Serious about a career writing and publishing. Serious about finding and keeping readers. Serious about helping other writers achieve their goals in a relay of success.

I attended the first Backspace Conference in 2005. Built around an online writing community, the first conference was attended by many of the friends I’d made through my participation in the forums. Dozens of the people I met at that first Backspace Conference have gone on to publish in a variety of genres. I want to talk here about three of them.

Jackie Kessler. Full of sparkle, humor and quick wit, Jackie had written several novels and had not been able to get an agent. She loves urban fantasy, but at the time was writing a chick lit set in a sexy lingerie store. Jackie was already an accomplished storyteller and writer, but talking with other writers and listening to the success stories of published authors gave her a jolt of inspiration. When she got home from the conference, she laid aside that project and went full bore on an idea that gelled her love for urban fantasy with a sexy theme. Within months she’d written HELL’S BELLES, had five agent offers and a three-book deal with Kensington.

Jon Clinch. Imagine writing five novels and never landing an agent. When I met Jon Clinch at the first Backspace Conference I found it inconceivable that this brilliant, literate, intense person had not been published. He writes literary historical fiction and two agents he spoke with at the conference told him that men don’t read historicals and literary historicals don’t sell anyway. Jon went home from the conference and put his marketing hat over his literary mind. He began imagining the story of a figure almost historical, a character seen only in sketches through the eyes of an American literary icon so familiar he feels like a real person. I’m talking here about Huck Finn. Jon wrote FINN in a matter of months, got an agent from the strength of the first chapter, the book sold at auction and he announced at this year’s conference the sale of the film rights.

Karen Dionne. Tireless co-founder with Chris Graham of the Backspace writer’s site and community forums. Author with one book that didn’t sell. Along with running a household and family business, Karen took her time writing her second novel, FREEZING POINT. Her agent put it on submission and they waited through several rounds of rejections. Undaunted, Karen continued to believe in the strength of the manuscript and the experience of her agent. Karen has whooped with dozens of other authors when their YES came along, but when it did for her, you could hear her whoop all around the globe.

Success doesn’t just happen. It doesn’t land on you like a rare butterfly. You must go after it. Success comes from listening to the stories of those who have gone before you. It comes from applying what you hear in those stories. Jackie learned that you must write about what you love and she went home and did it. Jon learned how to position historical literature with commercial appeal and he went home and did it. Karen learned that no matter how many no*s come around, it only takes one yes.

Each of these three authors were at this year's Backspace Writer's Conference to share, advise and encourage. If you're a serious writer, next year consider spending a two days in New York City at the Backspace Writer's Conference. It's worth it every minute.

You can see more pictures of authors at the Backspace Conference here.
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Casa Bass: Sofabed and Breakfast in So Cool SoCal

Casa Bass is located in a countrified SoCal township only an hour's drive from the beach, the mountains, the desert, Hollywood, and only 30 minutes from Disneyland.

Guests at Casa Bass enjoy views of Mt. Baldy over the housetops across the street, while planes descending into nearby Ontario Airport glide overhead.

In addition to the private sofabedroom without ensuite facilities, guests have full access to the refrigerator that is always stocked with foodstuffs of dubious expiration dates.

Happy hour is served each evening beside the pool, with complimentary pomegranite/cranberry martinis and salt-rimmed, lemoned-up beers a house favorite.

A gourmet dinner prepared by our celebrity chef in residence may include such gastronomic delights as salmon florentine with garlic-empowered couscous; beer-can chicken with lemon peppering and garlic-smashed potatoes; shrimp amedea with olive-garlic sauteed vegetables over radiatorre pasta over-dente.

Stimulating conversation is guaranteed from Casa Bass locals. Patriarch of the casa is BassMan, a former Marine officer with a shrine of artifacts brought back from his visit to the private island of Iwo Jima. Carolyn holds the distinctions of writer in residence, celebrity chef, clutter-keeper and chauffeur. UCR student Ellebelle (21), when not chasing or being chased by her boyfriend, provides musical entertainment on the piano and is conversant in English, Spanish and Farsi. Jondude (19) will keep you in stitches with his Stephen Colbert opinions, while also recruiting you to join his Wii Rock Band, Sun Fun Warriors.

Snuggle up in the evening before the big-screen TV with house canines Tank, an Irish Jack Russell who barks in a brogue, and Buck, a velvet-faced beagador who snores. Both dogs are available to guests for snuggling, ball-chasing, and toe-licking.

Summer is nearly over, so book your stay at Casa Bass today.

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Five annoying things about me

This week in LitPark, Susan Henderson asked a simple question: What are your five most annoying habits. This caused me to sit back for at least ten seconds to consider mine. Here is what I posted at LitPark:

1. I am a clutter magnet. I have a beautiful, roomy office with several storage cabinets and cubbies, but my desk always looks like someone dumped a box of assorted business materials, files, pens, and other unusual items all over it. As I gaze over at it, I can see the following:
   
   . A small can of Play-Doh (orange).
   . Broken things: two digital cameras, a cell phone, a watch, and a light bulb.
   . A flying fish car intenna flag from Catalina Island
   . My cartoon mentors: Gumby (flexibility); Felix-the-cat (resourcefulness) Rafiki (wisdom), and Sponge Bob (humor).


2. I am a compulsive reader, especially when dining alone. I will read anything within eyesight and will get fidgety if there is nothing to read. When I am reading a novel, I slip out of this world and into the author's world so completely I lose interest in my own world--even my own writing, which is why I seldom allow myself to read novels when I am working on my own.


3. I am a crackberry addict, who has been known to check email in business meetings, read blogs while dining alone (see number 2, re: compulsive reader) or write notes about the coming week during church.


4. I am a computer geek to the detriment of my physical wellbeing. I would rather play at my computer than go to the gym with my husby. Because I also love to eat, this annoying habit is very noticeable to everyone who sees the extra fluff around my face and body.


5. I accelerate fast, stop fast, and generally push my car and myself to the limit whether or not it's a hop across town or a long road trip. If you read between the lines, this is also a metaphor of my life.

What are your five most annoying habits? Tell us here and then swing over to LitPark and share them with the gang at the park.

Mexico City Surprise

Could this grand old city be the Mexican version of Seattle? After my first genuine red eye from California to Mexico, I woke up to find my plane descending into clouds. These weren’t fluffy cotton candy clouds, but thick marshmallow clouds that looked like they were held over the campfire too long.

I never saw outside the airport until my driver pulled out of the parking garage and headed onto the highway choked with morning traffic. A light drizzle fell over Mexico City, laying a slick shine that filmmakers like when they shoot roads.

Checking into the lovely Hotel Nikko, I headed up to my 18th floor room and swept open the curtains to survey the view. The city was enshrouded with mist, clouds hovered over the hills in the distance, while huge skyscrapers jutted up from above the cloud’s horizon. A zig-zag of lightning zipped across the sky at eye-level. A moment later thunder roared across the sky and rattled the plate glass window in front of me.

I spoke with a friend who lives here and she assured me this is typical weather for July and the city is known for its stormy weather. This was not the Mexico City I was expecting and I’m looking forward to seeing more of Mexico’s capital city.

It's all good

I love first drafts. The excitement of the story unfolding at your fingertips, the flurry of what-if and when-do, and the passion of new love. First drafts are like courtship. Revisions are like marriage. Still, it's all good when your heart's in it.

I just posted this on my friend Allison's Facebook page, a congratulatory note to her for finishing the first draft of her new novel.

Af for me, I'm back in revisions with THE SWORD SWALLOWER'S DAUGHTER, but like I wrote to Allison, it's all good.

The day that almost wasn't my son's birthday

Today is my son Jonathan's birthday. He was born three days after the June 4th massacre at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. I remember this well, because the hospital in which I was set to give birth was the closest American airbase hospital to China and it was placed on alert to accept casualties.

BassMan was currently stationed southwest of Tokyo, at MCAS Iwakuni. Our little base didn't have maternity facilities in its clinic, so they routinely booked all pregnant women on a Medevac flight to Yokosuka Airbase, where they checked into a holding zone called "The Stork's Nest" and awaited the onset of labor. Jonathan was a big baby, and I'd had a C-section with my first child, so my doctor scheduled me for another. My surgery date was set for June 7th.

[Photo caption: My mother, Elnora, with newborn baby Jonathan. June 7, 1989.]

A week before the surgery, BassMan, our almost two-year-old daughter Elisabeth, and I Medevac'd to Yokosuka, checked into the temporary housing on base, then took the train into Tokyo to pick up my mom who'd flown in from California to be with us. We had a grand time visiting Tokyo, me with my giant baby bump, my mom warming to the Japan she'd only read about during WWII propaganda, BassMan pushing Elisabeth in the stroller and trying to keep under the radar of the Japanese people who wanted to reach out and touch her blonde hair.

The day before my scheduled surgery, the hospital called to tell me that because of it's proximity to Beijing and the instability of the region, the hospital was placed on alert. All elective surgeries were put on hold and I would just have to wait to see what happened next.

I was disappointed. Jonathan, snug inside me, had no idea his scheduled birthdate was on hold and showed no inclination to exit on his own. Yokosuka had a Mexican restaurant on base, so to commiserate we went out for tacos and enchiladas.

The hospital called me about 10 p.m. on the night of the 6th and said they got clearance for my C-sec first thing in the morning and could I get to the hospital and check in right away? BassMan and I packed up my things, kissed my mom and Elisabeth goodbye and taxied to the hospital.

Six a.m. the nurse woke me up, scrubbed me down, numbed me up and wheeled me into surgery. BassMan stood next to my head and held my hand as the doctor sliced me open. I felt a stinging burn along the way, but the doc assured me it would be over in just a few minutes. And it was. The doc pulled out Jonathan, exclaimed at his size, then sent him over to be cleaned and weighed.

Jonathan weighed in at a hefty 9lbs 15oz. The nurses nicknamed him Konishiki after the American-born Sumo champion famous at the time. He was the only boy in a nursery of about a dozen baby girls.

Happy birthday, Jonathan.

Mexico City Surprise

Could this grand old city be the Mexican version of Seattle? After my first genuine red eye from California to Mexico, I woke up to find my plane descending into clouds. These weren’t fluffy cotton candy clouds, but thick marshmallow clouds that looked like they were held over the campfire too long.

I never saw outside the airport until my driver pulled out of the parking garage and headed onto the highway choked with morning traffic. A light drizzle fell over Mexico City, laying a slick shine that filmmakers like when they shoot roads.

Checking into the lovely Hotel Nikko, I headed up to my 18th floor room and swept open the curtains to survey the view. The city was enshrouded with mist, clouds hovered over the hills in the distance, while huge skyscrapers jutted up from above the cloud’s horizon. A zig-zag of lightning zipped across the sky at eye-level. A moment later thunder roared across the sky and rattled the plate glass window in front of me.

I spoke with a friend who lives here and she assured me this is typical weather for July and the city is known for its stormy weather. This was not the Mexico City I was expecting and I’m looking forward to seeing more of Mexico’s capital city.