Author Tour Comes to San Francisco

One of my fellow bloggers whom I most admire is Claudia Hall Christian of On a Limb with Claudia. She has kept me in riveting bedtime stories for over a year with two (count 'em - TWO!!!) serial novels, Denver Cereal and The Fey. She is currently doing a blog tour with The Fey, a thinking woman's thriller-adventure story, and today is MY turn to host her and her fascinating characters.

1. Contest: Claudia is offering one free book to the reader of my choice. I will determine the winner in a drawing of all who ask for a copy, and announce it one week from today on May 31st.

2. Discounts: There is a special discount code, 2YSB5GPG, which gives my readers 10% off books when they purchase from Claudia's Create Space store. The discount does not work at Amazon.com, however.

INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR CLAUDIA HALL CHRISTIAN

1.) In your serialized novels, how many chapters ahead do you generally write before you publish them?

Denver Cereal is a true serial fiction. We publish on chapter a week. I have no real idea where it’s going or when it will end. Every time I worry that it’s ending, something else happens and story line is off and running again. I try to keep a month ahead of schedule. That said, life has kept me right on top of the deadlines. Sometimes the chapter goes up Sunday night just before publication. I don’t particularly like doing that because I miss major edits. But a chapter a week is a tough schedule.

The Fey is a novel with a finite beginning, a middle, and an end. In fact, there’s two sequels (Learning to Stand and Who I Am) waiting in the wings to be published. The Fey is completed and available for sale. Learning to Stand is in final revisions based on the last editorial review. Who I Am runs in the same time frame as Denver Cereal. (For example, the event that recently happened to Paddie Hargreaves is a part of Who I Am.) Who I Am is in first draft form.

2.) (a.) How many hours a day do you work?

I’ve never thought of work as different from play or living or relating. Thus, since I’ve been writing, I’ve never kept track of the hours. I get to my desk around eight in the morning and leave it around seven at night. In the time, I handle marketing, writing, manage the art work, care for the websites and also write. I try to get words on a page for at least four hours a day. Of course, some of my best story ideas happen in the hours I’m not at my desk.

(b.) How do you divide your time between the two projects?

I’ve done different things at different times. Write now, I start the week with Denver Cereal. Midweek, I transition to working on Learning to Stand (the second in the Fey series)

3.) I know the characters in both your books are somewhat related, and several of them even appear in both. Are any based on actual people?

No. In my mind, they are beings in their own right. They exist somewhere in some place that I’ve never been. I strive to be clear enough to tell their stories well. I met them when they appear on the page.

4.) It is a truly amazing feat to write two novels at the same time when most of us can't even manage one.

(a.) How do you navigate between Denver Cereal and The Fey without favoring one over the other?

Have you ever been in the mood for chocolate? You eat chocolate for a few days, then aren’t interested anymore. That’s what it’s like for me. I have a Denver Cereal mood then a Fey mood. The pressure to keep up with the weekly chapters keeps Denver Cereal in the forefront. And still I’ve devoted weeks to polishing a chapter or scene in the Fey series.

I’ve also been working on two other serial fictions – a real time serial set in Philadelphia and another post-apocalyptic set in New Mexico. My mentor would like me to have more serial fiction in more cities. I’ve held him at bay for a while. When Denver Cereal reached it’s year anniversary this June, I may start another. We’ll see.

(b.) Do you have a secret favorite child between the two?

I don’t think I favor one character over another. Some days, I like one character or the other as I work on telling their stories.

The character I admire the most is Alexandra Hargreaves. I’ve learned the most from her. She is tough and funny and loving all in the same moment. She has a kind of self confidence that comes from being really tested.

(c.) Also, who is the character you most enjoy writing about in each book, and why?

To me, they are unique, perfect in their own imperfections, valuable, and I’m merely their scribe.

5.) Do you work from outlines, or do you let your characters lead you where they need to go?

I let the characters lead me. I’m frequently stunned by what happens. For example, I had no idea Jacob would be injured or that Trevor would be killed. These things just happened.

I generally have a sense of where things are going. Sometimes, I have the specific stories written out already. And still, I’m regularly stunned at what’s revealed.

6.) I've noticed that Jill has become more confident and is no longer the timid, meek woman we first knew, traumatized by her mysterious disappearance when her parents died and her abusive marriage. In fact, she becomes more like Alex, the heroine of your other book, all the time while Alex has become more vulnerable. Do you believe that every downtrodden woman has an inner Alex, and every strong, confident one an inner Jill? Please discuss.

Jill and Alex represent two separate archetypes of women.

Jill is very Athena-like. We meet her when she’s doing an incredibly courageous act – attending her ex-husband’s engagement party to set the record straight. She survived the situation with her parents and the poverty that it brought. She has a lot of secrets – one of which is her own power.

Alex has traits of Artemis. Everything is play to her. She greets every event and challenge person as if it was placed in front of her to toy with. She’s capable of great loyalty and deep love.

I believe that every downtrodden woman is incredibly strong. How else would they survive? They stay in difficult situation because they are so strong, not because they are weak. In the end, it’s this strength that can lead them to happiness.

7.) If Jacob is psychic, how is it that he didn't know Jill was his mystery lover and Katy his child, especially since Delphie knew?

Psychic’s aren’t any good at predicting things for themselves. Things get very muddy when it’s about them. Some people say it’s against universal law for them to know their own future. Jacob has a sense of what will happen, but not the details. He knew that Katy would be his daughter, for example, but not that she was his biological daughter. That’s pretty realistic for psychics.

8.) Is there a castle in Denver like the one in Denver Cereal?

There is a home in which the Castle is based upon. I’d tell you where it is but I keep forgetting to tell the occupants! I also officed in the Crooke Patterson Mansion for three years. The scope and size of Crooke Patterson is more similar to the Castle than the original house.

9.) Writers are always cautioned to write what they know. Are there other reasons why these books had to take place in Denver?

One of the beauties of serial fiction is it’s capacity to interact with the real world. Dickens used real characters to help make his fictional characters come alive. In Tales of the City, a serial fiction set in San Francisco, Armstead Maupin was able to change the way people thought and felt about AIDS. Cupcakes are a big deal because they were highlighted in Sex in the City.

My hope with Denver Cereal was to include real streets, stores and locations. Various readers have told me that they get the feeling they could walk down a street in Denver and see Jacob, Jill or any of the Denver Cereal characters. That sense of realism brings a wonderful grounding.

I’m not sure why the Fey thriller novels take place in Denver. I only know that the story is better, deeper and more consistent when it takes place here. Part of the current rewrite of Learning to Stand is bringing it back to Denver. And it’s better here.

10.) The Fey is a multi-book series while, if I'm not mistaken, Denver Cereal is intended to be only one book. What were your reasons for expanding one but not the other?

There are at least eight books planned for the Alex the Fey series. We’re just getting started there.

As a serial fiction, Denver Cereal can continue… forever potentially. I believe the longest running serial fiction, the Diary of V in Redbook, ran for nine years.

I don’t have a specific timeline or number of books for either project. I will continue to write as long as these characters have something to say. So far, they haven’t stopped talking.

11.) Honey and Brianna have names but Trevor's second wife, their sister, does not. I've theorized that you didn't want to ruin any name by giving it to someone so evil, but Lucretia Borgia, Regan in The Exorcist, Carrie, and Cruella de Ville all have names so I'm probably spinning my head in the wrong direction. Would you explain why you didn't give her one?

I chose not to give Trevor’s wife a name because everyone knows someone like her. Everyone has a person in their life that treats the world as if it owes them things. The hope was that the reader could project their own evil name onto her.

Denver Cereal is inhabited with flawed people who, at the end of the day, try to do their best. Sometimes they succeed. Many times they fail. Positive, hopeful characters get too little time in our modern imagination. Characters like Trevor’s wife (the step-whore) have dominated fiction for the last twenty years. She doesn’t need a name. Because she, like all people like her, are just wasps that get in the way of the positive, hopeful, doing their best people of the world.

12.) I'm confused about the fact that Alex and Max have been referred to as "identical twins" often enough that it seems like a biological description rather than just a statement that they strongly resemble each other. How is this possible when they are not same-sex twins?

Opposite sex identical or monozygotic twins are possible, but incredibly rare. There are three documented cases in the world right now. And even then, technically they are not identical because one has two X chromosomes and the other has an XY chromosome.

Alexandra and Maxwell Hargreaves are monozygotic twins. A few of our early readers are monozygotic twins. They have agree that beyond the way they look, Alex and Max act like monozygotic twins.

13.) Do you speak fluent Gaelic? My great nephew from County Wicklow taught me to say "kiss my ass" which sounds like "pog mah hog" ( with hard "o's") but I couldn't spell it to save my hog.

I don’t speak Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic or Ulster Gaelic. The Fey team learned Irish Gaelic because it’s not spoken in the Middle East and only rarely spoken in Europe. Knowing Irish Gaelic gave them a chance to speak to each other with ease without fear of being overheard or easily understood even if they were monitored.

14.) When you come to San Francisco for an author signing, can we do dinner?

I am thrilled to come and spend time with you – dinner, a walk, a cup of tea. Name the place and time and I will engender to be there.

How Not to Run a Business

or Allstate Insurance Redux


I just received a phone call from a person named Crystal at Allstate Insurance, the purpose of which was to check that I am still happy with my policy. Um, no. I canceled both our policies over a month ago and took out new ones with State Farm. The question should have been: How was I unhappy with my policies? Let me count the ways.

My agent quit the company and never informed me, resulting in countless messages from me on his answering machine which were never answered. They once received my payment ONE DAY later than the due date and the next morning there was a rude notice from Allstate tacked to my door. After many years of being their customer and never missing a payment. I couldn't believe it. There is a twelve-day grace period, so I wasn't really late by normal calculations. From that point on, I hand-delivered my payments to their office instead of trusting to the mails, and in fact, I left payments on both policies in their mailbox after the office was permanently closed because there was no indication of it. I knew that they normally locked their door for lunch and it was lunchtime, so I made what turned out to be a wrong assumption.

After I changed to State Farm, it turned out that the vin number I had given them for my car, which I got from our old Allstate auto policy, was wrong. In other words, there was no vehicle with that vin number registered in California and if we had been involved in an accident, we would have been considered uninsured drivers even though we paid Allstate for years to keep our policy in effect. Since the vin on the car was hard to read, I got it off the car's title, and I believe we are now legal. (Allstate had changed a letter and a number, which was never discovered although they continued to renew our policy every six months.)

Crystal's call today is yet another indication of how severely out-to-lunch Allstate is. Apparently, they are not aware that I canceled our policies with them, which makes me happier than ever that I did. It's good to know that there is always room for more La-La in La-La Land.

Displaced Person

I was born on Long Island, New York, which, like most coastal land, is flat. I always thought there should be mountains although until I was 11, I had never seen any and believed that they resembled upside down ice cream cones, only larger.

I was aware of the so-called New York accent, but never developed it. It was one of endless ways in which I was a misfit. Years later at acting school, I was the only person in my class who had no regional accent of any kind. I sounded like a Californian.

For a couple of years, I lived in Minnesota where all the people were nine-foot blonds except for the men, who were taller. Their ancestors came from Norway, Sweden and Finland. I was never taken for Scandinavian. People politely asked me, "What sports do you like?" as they looked down at my five-foot oneness, and I knew they were thinking "Jacks. She plays jacks." What they said was "Oof-tah." In Minnesota, everyone plays ice hockey, which is a vicious sport. You would think it was about skating but the skating is just the means to beat someone up. Hockey players tend to be missing their front teeth. Nobody minds this.

Lunn's grocery store, which was carpeted, had seven or eight aisles of cookies and pastry as opposed to the standard one or two in other places. I assumed the intensely cold winters had something to do with this flagrant need for fat-building carbs. It is so cold in Minnesota that some men earn their entire year's living driving around the stadium parking lot jumping cars with dead batteries after hockey games. An evening at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis was memorable not only for seeing a young Tovah Feldshuh, who later played a major bitch on Law and Order until they killed her off, but for the fact that my post earrings froze in my ears during the short walk from car to building.

You would think that with such severe winters, the summers would be moderate but you'd be wrong. The summers are as insanely hot as the winters are cold. It didn't escape my notice that there is no ocean in Minnesota, but there are millions of lakes which infuse everything with the loveliest quality of light I have ever seen. The beaches are manmade, truckloads of sand deposited on the shores of lakes. Even the mosquitoes are oversized, probably from sucking on giants.

I missed the ocean so much that I moved to a small town by the sea in Massachusetts, which has a distinctive accent, too, as in Hah-vard. Boston was built in circles, even the places called Squares, so you can't get anywhere without driving miles out of your way to turn around, which could reduce even Marcus Aurelius to tears. The fashion industry has no foothold there; jack boots and dark down are worn for all occasions because sensible trumps death.

Later, living in Vermont, I was considered a "flatlander." This is not a compliment. "Varmint," as I fondly called it, is no slouch either when it comes to sub-arctic temperatures, especially when your house is not heated. I built a wood stove out of a galvanized garbage can and chopped logs every morning. To this day, I sneer at people who go camping in their RV's and think they are roughing it.

When I moved to North Carolina, I was told often and most tediously the difference between Yankees and Damn Yankees, the former being folks who come to North Carolina from above the Mason-Dixon line, the latter being folks who come to North Carolina from above the Mason-Dixon line and STAY. The Blue Ridge Mountains of Western NC are incredibly beautiful, and so is the Eastern coastline, the Outer Banks, miles and miles of exquisite empty beach ending at Cape Hatteras.

But I have never known another place where purveyors of so many religions were after my soul: The Southern Baptists, Methodists, Nichiren Shoshu Buddhists who chant for goods and finally lost interest in me when I confessed that I was only in it for the sushi, the Church of Christ, Seventh Day Adventists, Snake Handlers, Sister Polly and her tongue language and prayer cloths and the Jehovah's Witnesses. I'm sure I've left out a few. Apparently, I have a soul that cries out to be saved by every manner of deity, but I stayed true to my roots and rejected them all regardless of race, creed or national origin. I am an equal opportunity heathen.

To the rest of the country I may not have an accent, but my lack of a drawl designated me a depraved Union foreigner in Tennessee. I wish I had a pair of shoes for every time I heard "Y'all ain't from around here, are ya?" In the South, you would think the Civil War happened last week, and they're plotting a rematch.

It seems oddly full-circle, in a way, to be living in California because all my life I have been asked if I am from here. I am neither blond nor Asian so I will never blend into either of the majority populations, I did not move here to be discovered by movie makers, and I have not experienced a major earthquake yet, though it's only a matter of time.

But I will say this -- I am finally in a place where I speak the language.

Why, Yes,

I feel fine. Why do you ask?

What's in a Name?

Today, I received an email urging me to buy cosmetic products for my Administrative Professional on April 22nd. I think they used to be called Administrative Assistants and before that, in the antediluvian past, Secretaries. It was considered innovational when Secretary's Day was originated in 1952, for now those thankless clerical workers would be acknowledged. Eventually, the word "Secretary" became shameful and lacking in importance, so now we have Administrative Professional's Day.

Everybody is a professional these days. I wonder if ditch diggers are called Entrenchment Professionals, and what about chain gangs? Would they be called Linked Incarceration Professionals? (L.I.P's.) Immersion, Agitation and China Purification Professionals = dishwashers. Garbage collectors, called "garbage men" in my youth, are probably classified as Environmental Waste Accumulation & Distribution Professionals.

I have issues with this pretentious renaming of livelihoods: Everyone deserves respect regardless of the kind of work he/she performs. Why must we dress it up to sound more esteemed than it is? Garbage collection, for example, is a very important job. If no one performed this service, our entire society would very quickly perish of nasty plagues.

There is also the matter of semantics. When I was a child, a "professional" referred to a doctor, lawyer or dentist. Later, the meaning expanded to include those who were paid for doing something which other people did for recreation, like athletics. Or sex. (Which can, of course, be combined endlessly, but that is another post entirely.)

There is also the assumption that if secretaries are not given a more important-sounding title, their self-worth will suffer. Or perhaps it's a cynical ploy to ensure a steady stream of people willing to perform secretarial duties for their bosses. And here we open another can of worms - the corporate hierarchy. I have no problem with the fact that there are bosses - those with the most training, ability and experience should absolutely be running things, and anarchy in the workplace is to be avoided. I just don't like the word "boss." It has ugly connotations. I especially dislike the term "superior" to describe a person who ranks higher than another because I am overly steeped in the quaint notion that all are created equal, even though some of us earn far more than others.

All these ruminations aside, since I do not actually employ an Administrative Professional, I will not have to take him or her to lunch on the 22nd, nor bestow said Administrative Professional with burnt offerings. But I certainly hope that like all people, they are appreciated and rewarded every day for their work, not just once a year.

Love Poem by Eight-Year Old

(A note found on the playground
pinned by wind against the chain-link fence)


I simply love this!



From: Daniel A.
To: Meesha

In case you guest
I love you it is a present
to see you.
When I dreem.
I dreem you Not gold
not a cristal pond not a bird
singing evry song
you ever herd jus you
Only. None else

Because I love you
and love to say your name
I saw you
and remember this
Thanks you for a dreem

Who? can take
Your plase

Tales of a Tired Road Warrior

Every time I drive my car, I notice that people are getting stupider. We are devolving, which seems the opposite of how our human journey should be going. I have witnessed automotive maneuvers which indicate either a collective false sense of security or a massive death wish. They all share delusions of invincibility which could only be attributed to the widespread wearing of superhero cloaks.

I have a theory. We no longer need the survival skills of our forebears, mainly because theirs were so acute. They had to be extremely clever and work hard every day to provide themselves and their families with things we take for granted: shelter, food and clothing. They had no time or energy for entertainment so it wasn't a big issue. As time went by, they invented machines to do the work of men and large animals, and eventually, stores to buy everything they needed so they would not have to labor to acquire them anymore.

When the wheel came along, life got much easier. It became the basis for vehicles that would be pulled by oxen or men, until finally engines were invented. The wheel had become the cornerstone of life in so-called "civilized" nations.

This was Progress.

Unfortunately, the less we were forced to exercise our brains, the more they atrophied. Most jobs could be performed by machines that were faster and more accurate than we were, which left us with huge blocks of time to fill with more pleasurable pursuits. Soon, we began to show signs of helplessness and confusion, traits which would have consigned our ancestors to abandonment by their clans since they could not contribute their share. While I would never advocate letting our helpless fend for themselves, I wish that we could have a wholesale reawakening of the magnificent powers that must still lie within us, our cellular memory of when using our brains was a life-or-death matter.

I wonder if there are spiritual consequences to not fully utilizing our excellent brains and extraordinary bodies. We go to gyms to work muscles that used to be active in the daily course of fighting off physical threats -- large, hungry animals, warriors from other tribes who wanted our share of the scant provisions offered by the environment, exposure to the elements, and to build shelters with our own hands, hunt and gather food, spin and weave fabric to make protective clothing, natural medicines... there was no leisure. There was only self-reliance and constant improvisation.

Perhaps the saddest loss of all in modern life is that so few people think for themselves but judge the merits of a thing by how popular it is, which is the kind of mob rule that should have been left behind in high school. Such prefabricated thought processes are junk food for the brain, readily digestible and so little effort that we barely notice how un-fulfilling they are.

We tend to believe that we are the pinnacle of Creation, the most powerful race of humans to ever walk the earth. We treat each other badly, and in every situation assume that we have the right of way. We have forgotten any semblance of fair play, of how to share the world with others. In our mindless arrogance, we see only our own objectives, regardless of who is standing in the way. Worst of all, we take our immense good fortune to be living in a time of such limitless possibility for granted. Instead of giving thanks for all those who worked themselves to death over many centuries so that we wouldn't have to, we feel entitled. When we could be using our excellent brains to develop ourselves further, most of us are content to do nothing but rest on laurels which are not even our own.

I think a little humility is in order. And a lot of driving lessons.