| Arizona |
[Dec. 15th, 2009|09:48 am] |
I’m writing a few blogs on my time out west over the Thanksgiving Holidays. We visited Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon and Arizona. The purpose of the excursion was to attend my best friend’s daughter’s wedding and we added in extra stops. I’ve posted pictures, too.
I’m talking about Arizona today.
I can see why people move out there. It’s sunny all the time. I walked outdoors in a t-shirt and shorts, and only needed long sleeves at night. We went for a wedding and spent a lot of time in the backyards of some wonderful Arizona homes. Exquisite landscaping, pools still open, flowers and the mountains in the background. Honestly, it was all so beautiful. My friend’s sister took us up to South Mountain’s peak and that was truly picturesque. I’ve got pictures of us standing with the backdrop of the city.
The best part, of course, was the wedding and spending time with my friend. The ceremony was held amidst trees and flowers, as it was held outdoors at five at night. The bride was gorgeous, the groom handsome and my friend lovely as the mother of the bride. It was also great spending time with her kids, who I practically raised. They’re all out there for the winter and I miss them.
I thought a lot about people living in different climates. I’m sure you Arizonians can’t fathom tolerating the cold in the Northeast. It can be treacherous. But if I ever moved, I think I’d miss the seasons and the loveliness of upstate New York in the spring, summer and winter. To each his or her own, I guess.
Back to reality now with Christmas preparations and writing. No matter how good it felt to be away, I always like coming back to my own home.
Kathy |
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| The Grand Canyon |
[Dec. 10th, 2009|10:39 am] |
I’m writing a few blogs on my time out west over the Thanksgiving Holidays. We visited Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon and Arizona. The purpose of the excursion was to attend my best friend’s daughter’s wedding and we added in extra stops. I’m posting pictures, too.
Our second stop was the Grand Canyon. On the way, we detoured to the Hoover Dam, a remarkable structure considering it was built decades ago. That said, my upstate New York background made me think how much more impressive Niagara Falls is!
The Grand Canyon was magnificent, though. My husband loved it. As a traveler who prefers art museums and big city lights, I wasn’t looking forward to this stop. However, I’m glad I went. The scope of the canyon is unbelievable. Our hotel room overlooked it and we took a sunset tour and saw the sun come down on its surface. We stopped at several viewing areas, enough so I’d had my fill.
Of course, because it wasn’t my thing, I started to daydream. What about a person taking one of those donkey rides down to bottom? Who could she meet? What would happen? Or what about a wilderness guy who meets a city girl with the Grand Canyon as the backdrop? I guess your writing follows you everywhere.
The worst thing about the place was its weather. I had no idea it would be 35 degrees there. My husband swears he told me, but everything I brought was too light. I did manage to layer four shirts and sweaters. Now, I’m from snow country, but I guess it’s a matter of being prepared.
Tomorrow, Arizona…
Kathy |
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| Thanksgiving Photos Galore |
[Dec. 7th, 2009|05:20 pm] |
The Bellagio Ceiling
Kathryn and her hubby at the Grand Canyon
Kathryn and her friend on South Mountain, Az. |
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| My trip out West |
[Dec. 7th, 2009|10:48 am] |
I’m going to be writing my next few blogs on my time out west over the Thanksgiving Holidays. We visited Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon and Arizona. The purpose of the excursion was to attend my best friend’s daughter’s wedding and we added in extra stops. I’m posting pictures, too.
First stop—Las Vegas. The city lived up to all my expectations and I wasn’t disappointed with what I’d heard about it. The strip itself looks like an adult’s Disney World. Seriously, there are hotels that resemble some of the exhibits in Orlando-- Gondolas at the Venetian, the Eiffel Tower at the Paris, Roman statues and architecture at Caesar’s Palace. We had dinner at the Mirage one night and stayed at the Bellagio, which was a beautiful, convenient hotel. As you enter the lobby, you’re greeted by a ceiling full of glass flowers of all different colors. As the daughter of a Corning glass blower, I could really appreciate this. The place also sported a conservatory decorated with holiday themes, great restaurants and buffets, and an upscale shopping mall.
The casino, of course, is the focal point. It’s huge but well laid out. I finally got comfortable there and found favorite machines. I played the slots (they used to be called one armed bandits and I know why), but my husband liked craps, which I never could get the hang of no matter how many times he explained them to me.
We also saw the Cirque de Soliel’s LOVE, an interpretation of Beatles songs in dance and acrobatics. We sat in the same row where Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr sat when they saw it (thanks to my husband’s research). It was truly an extravaganza and brought back memories for us.
The best part was the total lack of responsibility to be anywhere or do anything. We only had to talk to each other. I loved that, as I’ve been working hard on my writing and needed a break.
Next up, the Grand Canyon (with a stop at the Hoover Dam).
Kathy |
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| Video Games vs. Books |
[Nov. 8th, 2009|09:46 am] |
I read in the newspaper this morning that in a few days, a video game about war will be released and the expected sales for ONE WEEK are 500,000 copies. That’s half a billion games. I’m stunned, but I don’t know why I am. We’ve heard for years that with the advent of other popular media, books sales are plummeting. People would rather watch movies than read. People DVR programs that they miss and view them later instead of picking up a book. Obviously, video games are on the rise. Then there’s the whole segment of the population who spends many of their waking hours on the computer doing email, in chat room, reading blogs like this one.
It’s disheartening to authors like me. Unless you’re a really big name like Nora Roberts or Dan Brown, people aren’t buying your books like they used to. I myself rarely go to brick and mortar stores anymore, but order all my favorites online. I think this affects sales too because we don’t see what’s out there so customers make less impulse buys. We writers are conspiring in the loss of sales, too.
Do I think books will become passé? No, never. Do I think they might all go to electronic publishing? Maybe. I’d regret that immensely because I love the feel of books. However, we may not have a choice.
Still, we all continue to write. I can’t imagine not telling stories now that I’ve been published. I’ve spun tales since I was five. My high school friends talk about how I’d regale them with plot lines on the way to school. And my college roommates still joke about me reading my current creative writing projects to them the night before they were due. (These friends rejoiced when I published my first novel.) Yet I can’t help but worry about books and publishing when a war video coming out this week soars and novel sales suffer. What do you think?
Kathy |
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| Any Yankees Fans Out There? |
[Oct. 30th, 2009|10:25 am] |
Hi, readers.
I’ve been thinking about how life changes and yet stays the same. I come from a sports- loving family, partial to the New York Yankees. I remember my parents watching them on our new black and white TV and how I had to be quiet the whole time. I remember the joy of the team making the World Series. The fun of betting in pools. However, as I grew up, I lost interest. (Just me, as my sisters in different cities still call each other during the games.) Life got busy with boys and books and I found real life more interesting, though I did date a few minor league baseball players.
Recently, my oldest sister has been staying with me and has gotten me hooked on those New York guys again. I can tell you the starting lineup of the team, some of the players’ batting averages and know how to read the numbers and little yellow squares on the screen. I was even jealous of Michelle Obama getting a kiss from Derek Jeter at the opening series game. But I really knew I was hooked when my husband got up this morning and asked who’d one last night. Long after he’d gone to bed, I stayed up watching the rest of the game with my sister, so I knew. When he asked me who scored, I shocked myself by recounting exactly who hit the homers!
This all led me to wonder if we ever really lose what’s been ingrained in us during our childhoods. Many people blame their current problems on their early life, but do we articulate how good experiences remain somewhere in our psyche too, just waiting to surface again? It’s surely a point to consider when writers develop characters.
What do you think?
Kathy |
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| The Curse of Computers |
[Oct. 23rd, 2009|07:44 am] |
Good morning, readers.
I’ve been busy revising and polishing my work for both THE PERFECT FAMILY and the first book in my online dating trilogy for Harlequin. In the midst of this very close reading, my laptop turned itself off for no reason, then turned itself on and all my documents, the desktop I’d chosen, etc. were gone. It was really spooky. I rushed right to the place I bought it and they told me it had gone into default mode because…they didn’t know why. They did retrieve my documents (which were hiding in the hard drive) but I had to leave the laptop there for diagnostics.
This in itself wouldn’t be a big deal, but I’ve had rotten computer karma since February. On our annual trip to Florida, my husband put our computers into the trunk of a rental car at the airport. When we got to the condo, only his computer was there. The trunk had popped on the drive from the airport, and when we closed it, we didn’t notice my computer was gone. I never got it back, despite canvassing the area, calling the police and airport and taking out an ad in the local newspaper.
So, after an appropriate waiting time, like any professional writer might do, I bought a new one. While the company was “cleaning it up” before I took it home, the screen went blue. I was told this was “the dreaded blue screen syndrome” and the computer was defective. Of course, I got my money back and bought yet another one.
In the summer, the hard drive crashed on that laptop. The store said I needed to call the company, they diagnosed over the phone its hard drive had crashed and sent me a new one. I had to put it in myself.
Then, in September, my son’s computer died and he was moving to his own place, so I gifted him with my computer and bought a new laptop—with a bigger screen, so I was happy. This is the computer that shut itself down and is now getting diagnosed.
I feel cursed. Thank God I have a desktop, so I can work while I wait, yet again, for my laptop. But it seems to me that four major problems in eight months fills my quota for computer problems FOREVER. I don’t know how authors wrote books before the advent of computers, but I think sometimes we’ve cursed ourselves with technology. When I was a high school teacher, I taught a course in Science Fiction and that was certainly a theme.
Kathy Shay |
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| World Habitat Day |
[Oct. 5th, 2009|08:38 am] |
The United Nations has chosen the first Monday in October to be World
Habitat Day, a time to stand up and let it be known that affordable,
adequate housing should be a priority everywhere. In honor of that, I’m blogging once again on the relationship I have to Habitat and how it’s incorporated in my work as a writer.
Habitat for Humanity is an organization I’ve always greatly admired. I’d heard about them, of course, but didn’t understand what they did until, under my direction as chair of the outreach committee, my church sponsored a collection for them. Our congregation had a lot of fun bringing in hammers, saws, nails, gloves, tape and a myriad of other things. A person from Habitat came to church after the drive and spoke to us. I was very impressed with how their projects really puts roofs over people’s heads and gives them a sense of self-worth as they do it. The majority of workers are volunteers.
When I began to search for a setting for my latest book, BACK TO LUKE, out from Harlequin Superromance in August 2009 (and still available), I remembered Habitat. Once again, that year, our church joined forces with them. This time, we went down to a site and helped build a house. I learned a lot from the workers there and if you read the book, you’ll be able to see the parallels. I created a fictional group that builds houses for those without homes and you’ll recognize the process, the staff and the volunteers as those similar to Habitat.
On a personal note, I loved getting involved in this kind of outreach. It was truly a new experience and as with most volunteer work, I came out more aware of the plight of the less fortunate and how we—ordinary people—can help them.
Habitat for Humanity is an international organization so you can find them anywhere. And they always need volunteers. You can do it through your church or go to their website, http://www.habitat.org/, and see how you can help. Give money. Give your time. Give of yourself. You’ll be a better person for it.
Kathryn Shay
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| New Sale--THE PERFECT FAMILY |
[Sep. 18th, 2009|09:15 am] |
Good morning, readers.
I took a break from blogging after BACK TO LUKE came out and I wrote several entries about the book, but I’ve been doing a lot or writing related activities that I’m anxious to share with you. First off, I sold “the book of my heart,” THE PERFECT FAMILY. Below is the announcement sent out by Bold Strokes Books about the sale. The story is a departure for me, as it is not a romance, but more general fiction and family drama. I’ve been writing (and revising!)the manuscript for four years in between other projects and now it will be out there in 2010, probably September. This is a great pub date because it’s so soon!
Here’s the press release:
September 10, 2009 Press Release: New Title from Kathryn Shay
Bold Strokes Books is pleased to announce the acquisition of Kathryn Shay’s new Liberty Edition novel, THE PERFECT FAMILY, scheduled for release in 2010.
THE PERFECT FAMILY
What happens to the "perfect family" when the future suddenly changes in the most unexpected way?
Seventeen-year old Jamie Davidson doesn't think being gay should be such a big deal...until he comes out to his parents and friends. Even as Jamie celebrates no longer needing to hide his true self and looks forward to the excitement of openly dating another boy, the entire Davidson family is thrown into turmoil. Jamie's father Mike can't reconcile his religious beliefs with his son's sexuality. His brother Brian is harassed by his jock buddies and angry at Jamie for complicating all their lives. Maggie, his mother, fears being able to protect her son while struggling to save her crumbling marriage. And Jamie feels guilty for the unhappiness his disclosure has caused. Every member of their “perfect family” must search their hearts and souls to reconnect with each other in this honest, heartwarming, and hopeful look at the redemptive power of love and family. |
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| BACK TO LUKE reviews |
[Aug. 24th, 2009|04:07 pm] |
Here are some reviews of BACK TO LUKE when it was released this month....
This is a great contemporary romance due to a strong cast especially the lead couple and the Harper duet. Fans will enjoy this super second chance at love enhanced by the secondary pair's marital woes.
Harriet Klausner, reviewer on Amazon.com
Sparks fly between Jayne and Luke as they rekindle their romance in Shay’s well thought out plot. Jess’ problems with his wife (the secondary storyline) add nice depth to the plot.
RT BOOK REVIEWS
As a member of the Harlequin Reader Service where I get the six Super Romance books ahead of the bookstores, I've already read "Back to Luke". As I knew I would, I liked the story line and the personalities of the characters. I'm always a sucker for a male character who interacts with a senior citizen like Luke does. Another great read!!
Blog Post
I just finished reading your book, BACK TO LUKE from Harlequin Super Romance collection. I really loved your book so very much! I have 3 kids so my "Reading Time" is very limited but when I was reading your book I just could not put it down whether I was staying up late at night reading or during the day. I…was sad when the book ended. I really enjoyed this story with so many strong-willed characters. The love story between Jayne & Luke was both lovely and scorching hot. Thank You for writing your book.
Reader Mail
Cool, huh?
Kathy |
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| BACK TO LUKE Themes |
[Aug. 13th, 2009|07:37 am] |
Can trust ever be rebuilt after a very serious breach?
I’m not sure about the answer to that question. When one person lets another down, badly, can the hurt party go on with the one who hurt her? Yes, I believe strongly in the tenet of forgiving others. I think that’s easier than forgetting. Isn’t there always a fear there that the person will let you down again, do something to hurt you again?
This is complicated by the fact of having been hurt in the past and taking a chance on someone new. Every single one of us probably has been dumped by a romantic interest. If it’s very harsh, very serious, we’re often afraid to go on to another relationship. When we do trust again, and that trust is betrayed…wow, will we ever put ourselves in this situation again?
I know when I’m reading books, and the main characters do exactly what they said all along they wouldn’t. I cry. I hate to see people do this, but of course, use the theme in my own work.
What do you think about trust and forgiveness and forgetting?
And don’t forget to check out this idea and those in all my posts this week in BACK TO LUKE, on sale now from Superromance.
Kathy |
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| BACK TO LUKE Who is Jayne Logan |
[Aug. 11th, 2009|06:24 pm] |
The heroine of BACK TO LUKE is a very troubled woman. She’s been troubled for a long time, having been raised in a cold, unforgiving household. Her father’s priority of success over personal relationships didn’t set well with her at first. She went to college and escaped the tyranny of his beliefs and there met another character in the book, Jess Harper, who becomes her best friend. She also gets close to his mother, Eleanor. (Based, btw, on a wonderful woman named Eleanor that I know.) But things go sour when Jayne and Jess are accused of cheating in college. It takes Jayne’s father to get her out of the mess, but Jayne is never the same again, especially because of who is involved. (I can’t give too much away here, you know.) At this point, she closes down emotionally, like her father.
Years later, Jayne meets Luke Corelli in New York City. For a myriad of reasons, their relationship doesn’t work out and she leaves the city to make her fortune in California as an architect. She becomes the female Frank Lloyd Wright but problems send her back to Jess, who still lives in Riverdale. She’s stunned to realize Luke has moved there, too.
What I really like about Jayne is how she changes as a character and is willing to take risks after some pretty bad breaks. I hope you like her, too. Her spirit is indomitable and brings up the issue, “What happens when you make a costly mistake and can’t do anything about it?”
This is the premise on which I based the story of BACK TO LUKE. I kept thinking about second chances, the old cliché, “If you get lemons, make lemonade,” and the fact that mistakes follow you wherever you go. Often have to change course, as Jayne does. It’s hard, especially if you don’t want to. That’s Jayne Logan’s predicament. And I felt sorry for her.
In many romances, people get to atone for a mistake. In this one, they get second chances in relationships, but Jayne’s career is really in jeopardy. I wonder how many people really can go on with their lives.
I think about the mistakes I made in life where there are no do-overs. Where I can’t go back and change what I did in my past. I don’t mean making different choices, like “Should I have made a different choice like to stay home until my kids went to school before I went back to work,” but more the kind when I hurt somebody I loved. You just can’t take those things back, and we suffer over them.
What do you think about this?
The issue for tomorrow is, “Can trust ever be rebuilt after a very serious breach?”
Kathy |
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| BACK TO LUKE Who is Luke? |
[Aug. 9th, 2009|12:34 pm] |
The hero of my new book, Luke Corelli, 38, is a man’s man. The youngest boy in an Italian family, Luke has four older sisters. He was a high school football star, but he blew out his knee and that ended his hopes for an athletic scholarship. Instead of choosing college, he and his best buddy Timmy decided to go to Dubai and take a chance on the building boom there in the late eighties and early nineties. They make what my parents used to a call “a mint” and return to New York City with enough cash to buy into a big conglomerate’s construction business. But things don’t go the way Luke expected and he finds himself back in his hometown as a contractor for Harmony Housing, a not-for-profit government run organization that builds houses for the disadvantaged. (See picture and story in yesterday’s blog.)
Like many men, Luke needs to run things, to fix things, and (pardon the pun), bulldoze his way through his own problems, his family’s issues and the heroine’s current conflicts. This brings him head-to-head with Jayne Logan. Not only can’t he fix her life, he can’t even control his when she’s around. Luke has a lot to learn (I love when heroes do!) as does Jayne, and wow, are there fireworks. Of course, because it’s a romance, they end up together but, truthfully, there were times when even I thought, “How am I going to get them together?
Tomorrow you’ll hear Jayne’s side of the story.
Kathy |
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| BACK TO LUKE The setting |
[Aug. 7th, 2009|04:11 pm] |
To let readers know about my August release, BACK TO LUKE, for the next few days my blog will cover the setting, characters and issues in this book. I thought it would be fun to share some insider information. I know as a reader, I’m fascinated by the background and character sketches when authors I like discuss their books.
The novel is set in a small town which I patterned on Corning, New York, where I grew up. The hero’s best friend lives in the house I myself lived in many years ago. The streets look like Main Street and there are even Glass Works plants. Also portrayed are the whistle that used to call people to break for lunch and the black office building, visible as you enter the city. Most vividly, perhaps, are the numerous hills in the Southern Tier and the picturesque valley nestled below.
 Many scenes in BACK TO LUKE take place on a construction site for a fictional corporation called Harmony Housing, which resembles, but doesn’t copy, Habitat for Humanity. Coincidentally, while I was writing the book, the church I attend decided to help in the construction of a house for Habitat, and so I went with them to volunteer. I mostly did it because our church was involved and it’s a wonderful cause, but I confess I had an ulterior motive—to research my book. We were put straight to work as soon as we arrived. We laid the footings for a new house in a day and I learned all about measuring and marking out the wooden molds and pouring concrete instead of using cinder blocks. I also learned about framing, wiring and material use. Readers will see all this in the book, and hopefully, I portrayed construction realistically. More so, as almost all the work is done by volunteers, I learned about how incredibly selfless people can be in giving their time to help others and how huge organizations exist solely to better people’s lives. As an added bonus, my daughter worked on the house, too, and it was nice to share this experience with her.
Stay tuned to a character discussion tomorrow and Sunday.
Kathy
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| The RWA Conference |
[Jul. 26th, 2009|05:53 pm] |
I’m back a week from the Romance Writers of America conference. Every year, nearly 2000 members (we have 10K) meet in a big city and network and offer/take workshops. This year we met in Washington, DC. I always love this conference because we have such a good time at it and make important connections.
This year, I met with my agent, went out to dinner with my Harlequin editor and talked to two other editors who are considering some of my work. I also caught up with many, many friends whom I only “talk to” online. My roommate and I also went out to eat A LOT. We go to the Ruth’s Chris’s in every city that has one, and this time, that happened on my birthday (July 17.) Harlequin also had a really snazzy party on that night at the Ritz Carlton Hotel with a DJ for dancing, an open bar and fountains of chocolate and other desserts.
Another thing that was fun was seeing all the famous writers walking in the hall, in the elevator or at parties. I got to glimpse my three favorites in the romance world: Nora Roberts, Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Linda Howard. The last gave a luncheon speech and was rolling-on-the-floor funny.
Now it’s back to reality. My next series of blogs, beginning in August, will be about my new release, BACK TO LUKE, coming out on the 11th.
Kathy |
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| Letter from prison |
[Jul. 14th, 2009|11:08 am] |
Yesterday, I was getting ready to go to the RWA conference in DC and was finishing up chores—hitting the drugstore, the tailor, the post office. At the latter, where my P.O. Box is housed, I found a letter from someone in prison. This isn’t the first note I’ve received from an incarcerated person (actually romance writers get a lot of them), but it was poignant and it reinforced one of the reasons I write. I like to entertain readers, make them think and also have them relate to the experiences people have in my books.
This particular man cited THE WRONG MAN FOR HER, a 2007 book published by Superromance. In the storyline, the hero is a counselor at the Crime Victims Resource Center, an organization that assists teens and adults who’ve been victims of crimes. Ironically, the writer of the note said that if he had a counselor like the main character, Nick Logan, in his life, he wouldn’t be in jail now. Nick’s empathy and ability to help people make the right choices could have helped him, this man thought.
I like this comment for several reasons. First, it shows how real my characters are to people. My readers saw Nick as someone who could have been an actual counselor. Second is the fact that this person thought about my hero and what he did for others in relation to his own life. I know my books have themes, but it’s nice to hear they truly do reach the reader.
So, do any of you react to characters like this man did?
Kathy |
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| THE PROPOSAL |
[Jul. 5th, 2009|08:59 am] |
In keeping with my light summer blogs, I’m writing today about THE PROPOSAL, starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. I went to see it this week with my sister-in-law one rainy day here in upstate New York (not hard to find those). We both liked the storyline and the stars were really attractive. There’s some nudity in it that surprised me. And the premise was based on book publishing, a fact I didn’t know before I went, so that interested me.
What I was most surprised by was the similarity of the plot and some scenes specifically with the movie WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING. For some reason that film has become “a comfort-food movie” for me. I often watch it when I want to escape, or am bored. Sometimes, I just catch a scene of two. And Bill Pullman is so yummy in it! So I know the movie pretty well. I was struck by someone of Sandra Bullock’s stature making a movie so similar to one of her others.
In writing books, I worry about this all the time. If I pen another firefighter book, will I overlap topic and themes? When choosing to write an architect book with something going wrong for the main character in her job, I wondered if it overlapped an earlier book. To me, the story was so different, but a reader asked me about it when she read the description on my website. And sometimes, in a Nora Roberts’ books, I see a likeness to another one she wrote, but I love her work so much, I don’t care. And she always treats the story differently.
I guess readers do make the connection and it’s up to the writer to vary the storyline and characters enough so as not to repeat herself.
What do you think?
Kathy |
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| BEL CANTO and Summer Reading |
[Jun. 25th, 2009|01:40 pm] |
I thought I’d post about summer reading. I’m in a book club, and for our last meeting until September, we read Ann Pachette’s BEL CANTO. It’s a bizarre story, really, about a group of terrorists in an unnamed South American country, who take hostage about sixty people gathered at the Vice President’s home for birthday party for a visiting businessman. The story tracks their four plus months in captivity. It sounds like a pretty grim book, but what happens is that the two groups become friends, and in a few cases, lovers. The plot and characters are so beautifully entwined, the prose is seamless. Its lazy style and beautiful language—imagery, metaphors and description—made it a joy to read. The implausible setup soon became commonplace and I lost myself in the story.
BEL CANTO will be one my heaviest reads for a while. I’ll be buying Nora Roberts’ BLACK HILLS (lucky me, I still have VISION IN WHITE to read); Linda Howard’s BURN; and Janet Evanovich’s FINGER LICKIN’ FIFTEEN. I read everything Roberts and Howard write, as well as any book by Susan Elizabeth Phillips, and I’m a sucker for Joe Morelli in the Stephanie Plum books.
But I need more suggestions. Anyone have a great summer read?
Kathy
BTW, I’ll get to see Nora Roberts and Linda Howard at the RWA summer conference in DC. I always gush like an idiot about how much I like their work. |
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| Shattered Glass |
[Jun. 16th, 2009|09:40 am] |
There I was, Sunday morning before Church, getting ready for a party we were having in the afternoon. Since my husband was grocery shopping, I went out to the deck to clean up so he wouldn’t have to do it. We have a two-tiered deck and I was on the bottom one, near the pool. After washing the glass topped table down there, I lifted the umbrella that goes with it and tried to put it through the hole in the middle. Now, I’ve done this before, by myself. However, this time, the umbrella slipped and went in at an angle. Awkwardly, I tried to pull it out. There was a loud, crashing noise and the glass simply shattered at my feet. This is no exaggeration—thousands of tiny pieces lay there under the table, on the deck, only ten feet from the pool. I kept saying “Oh, my God, oh, my God.” Then, of course, I got tears in my eyes. Then, of course, I decided this wasn’t something to cry about. I could be mad, but tears are reserved for real tragedy. I began the monumental task of cleaning up. It took me three hours. I had offers of help—my daughter, who I called to tell her I was missing church, but the party was still on. My best friend who dropped by to bring me food she made for my party. And my husband, bless his heart, who’s only concern was that I wouldn’t get hurt. But I took care of my own mess.
BTW, I didn’t get hurt. I put gloves and my glasses on and managed to get every spec of glass off the deck with sweeping, vacuuming and washing off the boards. But to an author, everything is material, so while I was completing this tedious task, I planned a scene where the heroine is cleaning up her deck, picks up the umbrella….you get the picture. Funny story, not too much damage, and fodder for my current manuscript.
Kathy |
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| MENTAL, the TV show |
[Jun. 8th, 2009|05:50 pm] |
MENTAL, the TV show
Hi, Readers.
Does anyone watch the new TV show MENTAL on Tuesday nights? There have only been two episodes, but already I think it has an interesting premise: the setting is a psychiatric hospital with a HOUSE-like cast, though the main character isn’t a curmudgeon like Greg House. The plotlines are quirky and they stretch the boundaries of what most of us probably think of as mental illness.
As a writer, the thing I find most vivid is when the show shifts to the viewpoint of the patient and the viewer actually sees what he or she sees, what he or she fears. They have portrayed aliens, drowning and a pregnancy which wasn’t real.
I think writers like to see visuals because we’re always trying to paint those pictures with words. I know I cut out pictures from magazines of what my current characters look like.
Other favorites on now, in this down season: THE CLOSER, RAISING THE BAR and ARMY WIVES are among mine. Feel free to post here about any shows you’d like to discuss.
Kathy |
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kathrynshay's journal