Mailbox Mondays...too enticing to resist!

Thank you to Cathy of Kittling Books for turning me onto Mailbox Mondays, and to Marcia of The Printed Page for hosting the meme.

Into my house this week came Patricia Cornwell's Book of the Dead. I can already say I am not impressed and will most likely send it right back out the door. Also new to my home is what I hope will become a valuable jumping off point: The Complete Encyclopedia of Signs and Symbols by Mark O'Connell and Raje Airey. Definitely not a cover-to-cover read, but research material to keep at my desk.

Those are all the newbies, but I also started and finished some great, relatively ones. I read Elizabeth Spann Craig's Pretty Is As Pretty Does in two days. Loved Myrtle and Bradley, hoping for more Elaine. Finally finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson. Slow start and drawn out close, but well-plotted. I'll definitely read the next two.

Good reading week - and the stack on my nightstand isn't getting any shorter!

Under the Beautiful Fall Weather

I managed a couple of comment-provoking posts this weekend, but I'm afraid I most sit back and watch for a couple days. The nasty Sore Throat has hit our house and I must curl up in a blanket, sip hot tea and stare at the shivering leaves while echoing their sentiments.

But I will make the rounds on blogs I follow today, and hopefully spend my time on my own WIP.

Sounds like a plan. Let's get started.

Empty Houses

We are childless for the weekend. My parents and in-laws so graciously offered to watch our son and daughter until my family drives out for Thanksgiving, so we have the quiet and the freedom that can only come with being childless.

But that is not what I mean by "empty houses."

Yesterday my husband and I spontaneously(freedom!) stopped the car to take in one our favorite hobbies: model homes. This was our kind of subdivision, million+ dollar homes with all the trimmings. The kind of place we get enjoyment (without guilt) from critiquing.

Nothing seemed out of place. The lot was filled with cars. The signs were accurately marked with realtor-in-residence times. The yards were well-manicured and driveways roped off. But the doors were locked.

We tried the next model, a soaring, white brick home-turned-clubhouse. The heavy oak door creaked open. No warmth greeted us. No sound but the echo of our own breath and the continuing creak of the door.

I won't spoil the rest by describing the barely verbal, hoodie-clad golf "pro" who came to the door, but the developer was bankrupt. The houses built and sold won't resell any time soon. Those warming families are a made a little colder by the empty lots on all sides.

This is happening all over the country, but that is not my focus. My focus is the setting: what a setting! What other settings have inspired you lately? Whether it is circumstance or a particular place, please share.

HELP...Writing.....Slogging through...

I can write a damn good opening chapter...and then what? I have an entire plot in my head, but how do I execute? Some people just write - and I thought that was me. Now I know I have to be more organized. And I need a little help.

I have asked various authors/bloggers how they do it, and now I am sending out a general SOS.

How do you lay out your book? Do you use note cards? Software? Cork boards? Red pens, blue pens? Post Its?

I know it's all about finding what works for each person, and I have tried several different methods! But I seem to be a little stuck, and I would love a few ideas to push me over the hump.

Maybe a compilation of ideas will help others as well. I hope so! Thanks in advance.

Clueless about Emma

Do you know what it says on the back of the DVD case for the movie Emma? It says, "Based on the same story as Clueless." And yes, that is true. But they never once mention that story happens to be classic romance literature written by the inimitable Jane Austen.

Is it even important Emma the movie hatched from the same storyline as Clueless? Isn't it more important to Clueless that it hatched from somewhere more grounded than its own intentionally groundless title?

I saw Clueless at Graumen's Chinese Theater in summer of 1995. My family was visiting L.A. on the way to a soccer tournament in San Diego. My father and I are classic movie buffs, and Graumen's was a dream. And for a teenage girl (I was 15), Clueless was also a dream. So was L.A. in its way. My mother and grandmother took my sister and I to get our hair done on Rodeo Drive. We shopped and cavorted as only the young an impressionable can do out of their element. Then we moved on to the sunny San Diego.
.
But now I see that Emma reigns supreme in its original book form. The movies serve different audiences and are, in my opinion, incomparable. But to completely ignore Jane Austen on the back of the movie based on her book? Horrible. Ignorant.

And to tie Emma the move to Clueless as if the former burst from the empty mind of the latter. Inconceivable. Literally.

I have a brother-in-law named Scott...but not really.

Everyone in Memphis thinks I do. He is a pilot and when he flies they call him "Scott," when he lands they call him "Scott," when he runs pre-flight checks and calls for gas they call him "Scott."

But his name is Nick.

It turns out that Nick interviewed for the pilot job on a whim, not thinking he had much of a chance at it, and as a joke put down his middle name as his preferred name. Then they hired him. And he is stuck.I just heard this story last night and it got me thinking. My brother-in-law is a very honest person, but what a great way to weave dishonesty into a story! How many ways could we use something like this in a narrative?

1. We could make an honest character bad. The protagonist could knowingly play a trick that snowballs into murder.

2. We could shine light on the sneakiness of the antagonist. Common use would be a secret life, but we could also use cover names for doing evil deeds, create a spy from whole-cloth, etc.

3. We could...Any other ideas?

As for my brother-in-law, I don't know how long Nick will be Scott. His wife now follows this blog so maybe she will keep us updated. I'm sure it gets tricky answering the phone at home and going to office parties. But nothing is easy in the life of a pilot.

Or maybe we should ask the question, who is he really, Nick or Scott?

Hero

He won't admit it, but my husband is a hero. In college he decided he wanted to serve his country by flying for the Air Force. He was already a fantastic pilot, good enough to train others as a flight instructor. He soon learned he would achieve his lifelong dream, not just as an Air Force pilot, but as one of the elite, training at the Euro NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training school. Yes, he is impressive.

Eyesight difficulties blew his dreams away as if they were wisps of smoke. But the Air Force didn't care. The Air Force still demanded his service and my husband stepped up to the plate. He wore his uniform proudly, stood his ground as an officer on the flight line. In Phoenix at Luke AFB he was in charge of maintenance workers and was around F-16s every day. Every day he had his hands on those very jets he had dreamed of flying. And still he stood proud.

On Veterans' Day he marched beside others and held overnight MIA/POW vigils. When the Air Force said go here, he went; when they said move to NC, he moved.

In 2006 the US Air Force decided they had too many officers and pruned the ranks. My husband wouldn't have been cut. But he was a man with an MBA and knew he could make it on the outside. He also knew there were others who wanted to be career military, so he volunteered to leave.

On this Veterans' Day I salute my husband, Russ Emrath. He is my hero, my rock, my support. He is the love of my life, my True Companion.