One Little Elephant

Once in there is no escape from the queue, short of vaulting over a barrier of display tables. My heart sinks as the fan line goes sluggish just as I come abreast Author One.

She's a lovely person: bright, vivacious, generous. But I'm on a budget. I've promised myself I'll only spend $20 at this signing. To ensure it I've only brought $20. That means two books tops. There are four authors signing.

Author One and I make awkward chit-chat while I politely eye her offerings and she arranges and rearranges her erotic romances. It quickly becomes embarrassingly clear I'm not going to buy. She glances past me to the next person in line - repeatedly. We are thinking in stereo: Please let the line move on. Now.

I wonder if she thinks I disapprove of erotic romance and that is my reason for not buying. It isn't. It's about only having come to the store with $20. But that said, I do share my home with voracious teenage readers.

I'd been scolded not long ago by a friend who noticed a handful of way hot romances mixed in with the year's other big-sellers on the bookshelf in my office. It didn't matter, she warned, if I was reading them as market research; having them in the house guaranteed my teens would read them. Did I allow my teens to go to sexually explicit movies?

Er, no.

Then why, my friend demanded, would I expose them to sexually explicit books?

Point taken. I'm against censoring adults' reading materials, but my personal tastes run more in the PG category. So protecting my teens was a real and handy excuse that let me off the 'market research' hook for reading the steamies. I'd driven away from the donation center without a backward glance and gone home - content - to my newly roomy bookshelf.

Finally the queue moved forward. I smiled at Author Two. Her new release , comfortably PG-13, was the reason I'd come to the bookstore today. I snagged a copy and she signed it for me. We chatted. The line moved forward again.

I had enough money remaining to buy one more book and though the signing table had been set up for four authors, I noted with relief that the last chair was empty. My money would take me to end of the table without any additional akwardness.

Author Three was offering both blazing hot and milder fare. I chose a mild one. As she signed it a chorus of scolding jubilation rippled through the crowd.  Young, beautiful, genuinely kind-hearted, and terrifically talented, Author Four was a crowd favorite. She slid into the last seat at the signing table while her entourage set up a snacks table at the end of the line and the crowd sweetly scolded her. She'd just had major surgery. She shouldn't be there. But the crowd was glad she was.

They flocked around the food, laughing and talking, blocking the queue from moving. I stood trapped in front of Author Four with no money left to spend.

We made awkward conversation about her health and her work. I felt a nightmare-ish sense of deja vu as she arranged and rearranged her display of ultra-steamy books, glancing past me repeatedly to the next person in line. People around me began to frown. I could almost hear them thinking: Who's the complete casserole who won't buy from this beloved author who has valiantly risen from her sick bed to be here?

Mercifully, the huddle at the refreshment table finally cleared enough for me to squeeze past the barrier of display tables. I shot out of the queue and past the refreshment table, paid for my books and slunk out of the store.

Note to self: never leave your credit card at home.

Something that's helping me write today: an unusual bout of insomnia.

Elana Johnson, author of POSSESSION, has done an interview at http://www.authorsadvisory.blogspot.com/  that is really worth listening to.

Something that's helping me write today:  Recharged energy from a relaxing weekend spent at my cousin's lakehouse with people who, by their example, remind me of what an adventure life can be when we use our gifts and talents to the fullest.

I'm having tea with a girlfriend in a public place. A man we both know stops to talk. Though I've known him for years he is a nodding acquaintance only. Someone you know without really knowing, probably met at a long ago PTA meeting or soccer game.

Today he seems agitated. He sits, then stands, then sits again. He begins to ask pointed questions about my religious upbringing. It reminds me of the street preachers that used to hang about campus when I was in college, the ones who often confused my relaxed disposition for a malleable mind.

He stands again and begins to pace. There is a quality of controlled franticness to his movements. He launches into a monologue about his responsibility to correct his brothers and sisters. He describes the methods he has for doing this. Most depend upon inducing guilt and feelings of worthlessness in his target, in his mind a necessary condition before they can realize the error of their ways.

He stops pacing abruptly and looks first at my girlfriend and then at me, as if choosing. We sip our tea. We are sisters at some deep level, but with personalities as different as Kung Fu and Tai Chi. He decides on Tai Chi.

He pulls a chair over, sits too close, and stares into my eyes with an intensity designed to intimidate. Then in a chastising tone he lists what he sees as my failings. These are surprisingly minor - but then he barely knows me. His face is hard, authoritarian, as if demanding I break down and weep my repentance. I smile politely into his eyes as if I am pleasantly deaf.

Nearly half a minute passes. Our eyes are locked, his demanding my submission, mine happily clueless. Across the table Kung Fu is silent with interest. His neck muscles bunch beneath the strength of his emotion as he wills me, wills me, to respond. What does he want, I wonder. Shame, humiliation, subjugation? Does he expect me to defend myself against his accusations of trifling sins like too much soda, too much mother-pride, too spoiled an existence, serenity he claims is rooted in arrogance rather than humility. I continue to smile into his eyes, wordless. His face reddens. Veins bulge. I begin to think he will have a stroke. I take pity.

"How is your family?" I ask sweetly. Like a lion tamer who's swaggered into a cage whip in hand only to find that his adversary is a kitten, he seizes the opportunity to exit with some dignity.

"You're too kind, playing dumb," Kung Fu says. "I would have punched him in the gut, verbally of course."

Part of me wanted to. But not long after that I hear through the grapevine that that day was one of the worst of his life. Things had happened to him, big things, before he crossed my path, that had left him angry and humiliated and heartbroken. In pain, he wanted to inflict pain on another, and for whatever reason he chose me.

God bless him.

Something that's helping me write today: the reminder that it's easier to write about life if you get out there and live it.

I write on a timer - 15 minutes at my desk, 15 doing housework - and currently my most productive hours are 7am to noon. That adds up to 2.5 precious writing hours. I'm not useless in the afternoons, but I'm not as productive. So why do I regularly allow my morning writing time to evaporate while doing tasks that could be done at other times?

Today I spent 4 hours of prime writing time getting Number One Son's scholarship paperwork trundling through three different institutional offices. Mission accomplished. He'll have the money to continue school in the fall. That's wonderful. But I didn't get any writing done today. And that's not. I could have done the same scholarship research, sent the same emails, made the same phone calls, sat on endless hold multiple times, and done paperwork just as effectively in the afternoon. But I didn't.

So why didn't I? Am I really serious about writing? Do I feel that I must earn my writing time by making sure everyone else is taken care of first before I "indulge"? What is it that keeps me from maintaining a protected time and space for writing?

I need to do some hard thinking on this. Perhaps by answering those questions, I can overcome this odd writing sabotage I commit against myself on too regular a basis.

Something that's helping me write today: the truth that the sun doesn't need to be rising in the east to start a day, or at least to start a day over.

Wise men and women have warned against it for centuries. Yet most of us at one time or another are guilty of trying to take the speck out of another's eye while ignoring the plank in our own.

Not long ago I attended a formal banquet where the guest speaker was a trim, fit man. A dynamic speaker, he held the room of middle-aged women spellbound from appetizers through entrees.  But as smartly uniformed waiters moved amongst the tables offering trays loaded with luscious desserts something happened. The speaker changed course and suddenly went off into a shocking rant about the girth of the attendees.

Yep. He called the audience of carefully primped and polished middle-aged ladies FAT.

Dessert forks froze just short of rouged lips. Brows knit. Cheeks reddened. The click of forks to plates and the clink of cups to saucers ceased abruptly. And in that sudden silence you could almost hear the roar of female brains.

Me? Is he referring to me? Oh, what made me think wearing this torturous girdle would matter? But my husband assured me this color was slimming - or at least he grunted in what I thought was a positive manner when I asked. Oh why have I let myself go like...?

Hey! Wait a minute. Wait just a darn tootin' minute! Who does he think he is? We paid him to be here. We didn't pay him to insult us. He's throwing stones? Sure, his waist is trim, but he's gray and wrinkled and his shirt and tie don't match. Isn't he on his fifth marriage? Isn't he the one who practically gets tennis elbow from lifting so many cocktails? Who the heck does he think he...

The mistress of ceremonies, who'd handed the guest speaker the mic with an adoring smile at the beginning of the meal, plucked that same mic from his hand with tight lips and a terse, "thanks." He smiled and trotted off to retake his seat oblivious to the distress he'd caused, while she stumbled through a feather-smoothing speech of her own about member accomplishments and upcoming events. Cups began to clink against saucers again. Though fewer forks clicked dessert plates.

I drove home thoughtful. He'd been out of line - speaking the truth like that - hurting people. But despite whatever planks he might have in his own eye, there was no denying he'd clearly seen the chubby specks in ours.

I mulled it over in my mind, coming to a decision as I pulled into my driveway. I could remember that banquet as The Night of the Hurtful Hypocrit, or I could allow it to become The Night of the Helpful Hypocrit.

So...

Darn It!...

fewer burgers, more salad.

Something that's helping me write today: a stationary bike and a wireless keyboard.

My buddy Aimee Carson, author of Secret History of a Good Girl (Mills and Boon September 2011) and How to Win the Dating War (December 2011), has kindly nominated me for a Sweet Award. Thanks, Aimee!

Sweet Awardees are asked to do two things. So here goes...

The first: list 7 random facts about yourself on your blog

1. I love Masterpiece and Mystery Theater
2. I recently joined an in-person critique group
3. I'm addicted to Sonic cokes
4. A horny toad lives in my front flower bed.
5. In high school I set several school basketball records that it took 20+ years to break
6. I own multiple name-tag brooches because I like them and because paper ones get caught in my hair
7. I enjoy Sudoku, crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, solitaire, and brain teasers

The second: nominate 10 bloggers for the Sweet Award (in random order)

1. Wendy Marcus who inspires me with her work ethic and sense of humor
2. Jen Probst who reminds me that one mom raising a family with love and laughter changes the world
3. Aimee Carson who makes being a fulltime mom and a dedicated doctor look easy and makes me want to be the best version of myself
4. Jen Fitzgerald who reminds me of the little treasures buried in each day
5. Karen Whiddon who shows me that goals plus hard work are the keys to success
6. Clover Autrey who astounds me with her positive attitude, energy and courage
7. Adele Countryman who clears the path before me constantly by sharing her wisdom and experience
8. Dave Farland who generously shares market trends, writing tips, and business smarts with aspiring authors
9. Marty Tidwell who makes being an empty-nester look like a BALL rather than a bawl
10. My husband and kids who relentlessly support and encourage my writing

Okay, I confess numbers 7 and 10 aren't bloggers, but they are Sweet! so I put them in anyway.

Something that's helping me write today: remembering to visit http://www.4badmommies.com/ for a chuckle.