Bye Bye, Summer

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Well, after a last week of September with temperatures upward of 90 degrees each day, fall has at last descended. My husband spent a good part of the early day closing the pool. But not before Evie, our mutant springer spaniel, had a last dip and doggie paddle laps retrieving a ball. It feels odd looking out from our screened-in deck over the ugly green pool cover, which looks somewhat like a humongous green mushroom in place of clear water against the blue-tiled effect of the pool wall. It’ll be a while before I get used to the sight. Before the cover comes off, though, snow will transform the mushroom into an enormous cake with white icing.

Fall is an absolutely beautiful season here in southern New England, where the foliage can be breathtaking in colors of fire and ocher, red and fading green. Leaf peepers from out of state or out of area make it difficult to get away for weekend trips, as our favorite inn in Connecticut’s “Quiet Corner” is always booked solid. But why go anywhere when, all around our yard, colors blaze under a crystal blue sky in the last hurrah of summer sun and dry autumn air? Our little veggie garden remains vital, vines heavy with ripening tomatoes; peppers; chard, and herbs. Soon they’ll wither and die in the shortening hours of daylight and chilly nights. But for the next couple of weeks, they’ll continue to ripen.

photo by Tim Brown

I don’t exactly hate autumn. Why should I? The weather’s penchant for perfection rivals only those days in early June when the sun is warming, nourishing; the world is finally green again after a long winter and filled with the fragrance of wild roses. Our garden shows promise in June, and that promise leads to the gastronomic anticipation of perfectly ripened tomatoes, fresh basil, mozzarella, olive oil and a drizzle of a balsamic vinegar reduction. Those promises are only now being fulfilled.

I’ll miss summer. It’s my favorite season and always has been. Maybe it has something to do with those days way back when. As a kid, I hated the end of summer, the conclusion of those active, fun filled days spent outdoors from morning till night (with time out for lunch) and then after supper until dusk transitioned into dark and one-by-one we’d each follow the sound of our mother’s voice calling us home. There were fireflies and fireworks, days and the beach and barbecues, baseball games and cousin parties.

Following my public school days, I spent seven of the next nine years in college and graduate school getting a BFA and an MFA, then four of the next six years either teaching or living in an academic environment. My life from five until fourty-something revolved mostly around a school calendar. I loved having my kids at home all day during their summer breaks when they were young, even with the seemingly endless pool parties, the trails of wet feel and dripping bathing suits through the house, the platters of PBJ and tuna sandwiches, watermelon slices and ice cream cones. My husband, who taught theater in middle and high school, retired last June after 39 years. The end of summer fills me with sadness and nostalgia.

Seasons come and go so quickly these days. That is a drawback to getting older, I suppose. Where does the time go? The kids are grown, the grandson recently turned five, and the zucchinis and summer squash are spent. Soon we’ll have a frost and children in Wonder Woman and Kylo Ren costumes will come around for tricks or treats. 

Thanksgiving will be upon us before we know, and all too shortly afterwards, we’ll celebrate the beginning of a New Year. It’ll be cold for months. Snow will pile up, and I’ll dress in multiple layers, thick, warm socks and sheepskin boots. Spring won’t come soon enough…and then it’ll be fall again 😒

In the meanwhile, I will savor my Caprese Salad with the warm, juicy, delicious taste of summer.

photo from The Pioneer Woman

Recipe for Caprese Salad

2 Large red, vine-ripened tomatoes (preferably freshly picked) thickly sliced

1 ½ Cups balsamic vinegar

10 oz. mozzarella (preferably fresh) thickly sliced

Handful of fresh basil leaves

Olive oil to drizzle

Salt and pepper to taste

Reduce the balsamic vinegar in a small sauce pan for 10 – 20 minutes over medium-low heat until it’s a thick syrup. Pour into a small bowl or cruet to cool.

On a platter, alternate slices of tomato, mozzarella and basil leaves. Before serving, drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar reduction. Garnish with basil leaves.

Enjoy!

~*~

Kathy Fischer Brown is a BWL author of historical novels, Winter Fire, Lord Esterleigh’s Daughter, Courting the Devil, The Partisan’s Wife, and The Return of Tachlanad,  an epic fantasy adventure for young adult and adult readers. Check out her BWL Author page or visit her website. All of Kathy’s books are available in e-book from a variey of online retailers, and in paperback.

Cats Make You Talk Dumb

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This bit of observation came from my youngest when he was somewhere around five. He was angelic, blonde and small for his age, and his remark regarding all the “Tum-tum pusseh-wusseh! Paw-weh-cious puddy! Tum, Sweetie! Come up here'n' be Mommie’s baaaay-beh” stuff that he heard around the house has stayed with me over the years. 

Bast with her kittens, Brooklyn Museum

In those days, the adorable cat to whom we “talked dumb” was a slim, elegant black girly-girl named Bap. Her original (1970's Cool) name was Bast, after everyone’s favorite Egyptian goddess. However, “Bast” was more than two-year old Jesse could get his lips around, so “Bap” he called her and soon the rest of the family was calling her “Bap” too. 

Half a squirrel is better than...?

We’re usually a multiple cat household—“like potato chips, you can’t stop at one.”  These days, we host a mere two. B0B is our gray striped tiger, the terror of the neighborhood wild critters unlucky enough to attract his laser-green gaze and lightning fast claws. Our “joke” this spring was: “B0B! Wipe that bunny off your face before you come in this house!”  I have no idea how there can be another generation after all the body bits I’ve cleaned off the porch, but somehow, after  nine years in residence, he still hasn’t got them all. Astonishingly, somehow, each year, a few wily rabbits survive. Then, in spring, there are the little bodies again, pitiful innocents. 

     

Cat #2 is Kimi, fluffy, blonde, a rescue we were gifted. She arrived as a PTSD sufferer, so for the first few years, we hardly ever saw her. She was variously referred to as “Basement Cat,” “Dementia” or just “Stop that Damned Hissing!”  She showed up to eat, but touching/grooming by her human caretakers was pretty much forbidden—or, when these services were finally allowed, only permitted within a carefully circumscribed set of her own, often mystifying, rules. 

Traumatized Newbie

Then, suddenly, about seven months ago, all this changed. I think it was the daily-imposed-by-me-despite-the-bloody-scratches grooming ritual that finally ground down her resistance to human handling. (Long-haired cats must be groomed, or there will be vet bills you don’t even want to imagine.) She still has  rules about patting, but she’s as likely as not to be over here while I’m busily typing, trailing her fluffy tail seductively along my leg, or standing a little way off, repeatedly calling with her particularly desperate meeeoooow until I am compelled to spend time sitting on the floor to do the dedicated petting she now craves. She’s even jumped up to stand on the keyboard while I’m trying to finish/edit the soon to be published Fly Away Snow Goose —“jes' wike um’s a wee-eel too-woo kitty!”       

Happy Ending

~~Juliet Waldron

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Writing Around Your Day Job by Connie Vines

It’s a 5:00 world, at least that is what the popular “Vogues” song from yesteryear (1965) tells us.  In 2003, the song was reborn via the movie, “Big Fish”.

Up every morning just to keep a job
I gotta fight my way through the hustling mob

Sounds of the city pounding in my brain
While another day goes down the drain
(Yeah, yeah, yeah) but it's a five o'clock world when the whistle blows
No-one owns a piece of my time

As most writers know, writing hours are made after you complete your day job.  You time is also doled out in little snippets while watching your child’s water polo practice, Harp recital, or while boiling pasta for the evening meal.

For those of us who may find writing until 1:00 AM and having the alarm set for 5:00 AM a bit fatiguing.  It seems we are keeping good company. 

Some of these stories you may be familiar with, others may come as a surprise.
He may be a renowned author of over 50 novels, but Stephen King wasn't always a full-time writer — his time as a high school janitor helped inspire the novel Carrie. King originally threw the first draft of the story in the trash, but his wife Tabitha fished it out and told him to keep going because she wanted to know how it ended.

Before she wrote To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee worked as an airline reservations clerk in New York. She eventually quit when her friends helped support her financially so she could finally write full time.

He's a well-known author now, but before Nicholas Sparks wrote The Notebook, he worked odd jobs, including selling dental products over the phone. She was a talented science-fiction writer and awarded the MacArthur Fellowship — but before her success as a writer, Octavia Butler worked as a potato chip inspector. She also worked as a dishwasher and a telemarketer, using these day jobs to support her writing. And they really were day jobs, because Butler would get up at 2 a.m. to do her writing before going in to work! Amazing.

She's known as a mystery novelist; Agatha Christie was once an assistant apothecary. She reportedly knew a lot about poisons, which was no doubt helpful as she created the characters of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Just goes to show that you never know what knowledge will come in handy later.


Bran Stoker wrote Dracula while working as the manager of the Lyceum Theater in London, imagining Henry Irving, a famous actor and owner of the theater, playing the vampire himself.

So how about you?  What is/was your day job(s)?

Does your day job get your creative ideas flowing?

I work in the field of education where students, staff, and events give me ideas—or at least creative thoughts.

Sometimes, after a long day. It will take me five minutes to write a sentence.

Five minutes of staring into space until the idea of writing an opening line about how long it took me to think of an opening line popped into my head.

In the grand scheme of things, five minutes isn't all that long. But for a writer, five minutes for nine words can add up.

Writing takes time. A whole lot of time.

I always imagined I'd write my first book in a vacation hideaway overlooking the beach or cabin in the Grand Tetons.   Unfortunately, most first-time authors won't get to live out this literary fantasy.
In fact, circumstances will most likely be the opposite: writing during off-hours, scribbling notes in public, enjoying less sleep than you'd like and slowly losing your mind while trying to maintain personal relationships a full-time job and run a household.

Say you've finally found a quiet hour to yourself. You know you should write, but you're tired from work and are only on season four of “Game of Thrones.” What were once simple choices become tormenting tests of will power and resolution.

As George Orwell famously stated, “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.”

In his book “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft,” Stephen King shared a similar though more concise sentiment: “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”

So how do I stay on track to complete my novel?

I’ve learned to say “no.”

I also participate online instead of driving to Orange County Romance Writers or L.A.R.A. monthly meetings; I sign-up for online classes.  I miss interacting with other writers, and my plotting group, but talking isn’t going to write my novel.

This doesn't mean you have to say no to everything, but writing is always going to require compromise.

A large part of writing for me is preparing my environment. I like to have a cup of coffee by my side, music playing. I prefer to write from 8:00 to 11:30 PM every other day. On Fridays I write until
2:00 AM, Saturdays after I the gym and running errands.  I’ll write for a few hours, then spend time on other tasks, until about 8:00 PM.  Sunday, unless I have a blog post due/or am on a deadline, I do not write.  I may edit my week's work in the evening but that is the extent of my writing.  This is family time for me.

Remember: If you keep waiting for the perfect moment, the perfect time, you’ll never get anything done.

Pencil in you time to write on your calendar, or task journal.  Honor that time like you do all of your other commitments.

You may find your day job fits in quite nicely into your novel.  After all, if you have life experience, no research in needed.

Happy Reading and Writing,
Connie

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I don't do horror, but I like a little thrill - by Vijaya Schartz

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Let's face it, many books and movies nowadays focus on the scary, the morbid, the deadly, the darkness in people's souls. Some are masterfully written (thank you Mr. Stephen King) and that's well and good for those who relish the genre. Personally, it gives me nightmares. When a hopeless group of people is doomed to certain death by an unknown and unstoppable evil, watching them die one at a time in utter paralyzing fear, panic and dismembering bloodshed is not fun to me. Horror focuses on creating fear... a negative emotion that releases toxic chemicals in the human body.

You can find General KAVAK, "the worst villain in sci-fi history" in the Ancient Enemy series

In my novels, I prefer to focus on hope, and the courage of the brave heroes and heroines who overcome their fears to fight the battle of good vs. evil. Although reviewers said I write "The worst (meaning best) villains in sci-fi history," I do not need a large body count to demonstrate they are bad guys. Usually, one death by elephant, one human sacrifice, or one severed head rolling on the sand is enough to make my point... there are bad people out there, and demons, and things that go bump in the night. But in my books, for every demon there is a loving immortal, a determined human, or a half-angel willing to risk their very life to fight it.

The Archangel twin books, a tale of redemption in the battle of Good vs. Evil

In the world of medieval fantasy romance, I've been accused of writing bloody battle scenes, because I do not sugarcoat the middle ages. As a writer, I want to reflect the truth of the historical period according to my extensive research. In the horror genre, however, I would be considered an innocent babe. My goal is to write an uplifting story with flawed but worthy characters who constantly overcome their fears and limitations to save others.

The Curse of the Lost Isle series depicts the Middle Ages in a realistic way

Call me a boy scout if you like. I just like the good guys to win and redeem themselves in the process. I like action, adventure, and romance in my books, those I read and those I write. I've been accused of mixing genres, and I'm proud of it. So sue me. I live for the thrill of a good story, with heroic heroes and villainous villains, plenty of action and adventure, and a dash of romance.

Vijaya Schartz, author

Romance with a Kick

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