I know I’m tooting my own horn a lot lately but think of the months years you never heard a peep from me. A confluence is happening for some reason. Maybe Vermont and Banff had a part in it. Maybe I should blame Emily and Toby for the editing skills and encouragement. Or Hillary for being an amazing reader. Whatever is going on, I’m enjoying it while it lasts. Yesterday “Flash Flood” at Every Day Fiction and today an interview at K. C. Ball’s 10FLASH.

Here’s the link to the interview: A Look at Pomegranate

So has anyone seen the recent commercial for Kahlua?

It features a man and woman stumbling onto Montezuma’s throne room. Being the king of the Aztecs, Monte demands to know how dare they intrude.

He asks “Are you kings?”

The girl starts to tell the truth, “NO we—” but she’s hastily interrupted by her friend.

He shouts, all full of confidence, “Yes! Yes we are kings!”

And the crowd in the throne room explodes with cheering and demands for more Kahlua!

Now where can the genesis of this scene be found???? Who you gonna call?

You guess it. At least I think so.

On the roof of Dana Barrett’s building, our guys with proton-packs stumble into Gozar. Here’s the scene:

Gozer: [after Ray orders her to re-locate] Are you a God?

[Ray looks at Peter, who nods] Dr Ray Stantz: No.

Gozer: Then… DIE! [Lightning flies from her fingers, driving the Ghostbusters to the edge of the roof and almost off; people below scream]

Winston Zeddemore: Ray, when someone asks you if you’re a god, you say “YES”!

Dr. Peter Venkman: All right! This chick is TOAST!

My story “Flash Flood” is up at Every Day Fiction today. If you get a chance, check it out.

LULU, my story collection called “Pomegranate,” the frustrations of the last week, and especially my inability to grasp any instructions written online that are supposed to solve my problems, all of these make the list of what is pissing me off today.

What do I want to vent about today? (There’s always something: grocery store bag boys/girls who think lettuce is made of steel and will survive the gallon bottle of milk dropped in on top; friends who call and hang up as soon as they hear my voice mail message and then later tell me”I called and you didn’t pick up!” WTF! And everybody who is more interested in talking than listening. People who ask me a question, but before I can get the second word out of my mouth have cut me off. If you want to talk without having to listen to someone else respond, get yourself a blog!)

O, yeah. Venting. Today is generally about technology and what it offers, those who offer it but make it crazy-making, and aging. Specifically, my aging or rather me being too old to figure out all the nuances of technology.

I am competent when it comes to everyday technology. Not great, no hacker abilities whatsoever, but I can do a lot of photoshop things, I can build a website, I understand basic html, and I’m not stupid. However, whenever I’m trying to do something new, whatever the “site,” the download, the program is, I usually struggle because it isn’t clear what it is I’m supposed to do.

I had this crazy idea the last couple weeks that since I’d pulled together eight short stories to enter into a chapbook contest, I should at the very least print them up at lulu.com since give them to my family and friends for the holidays. The more I thought about this, the more I wanted to do it. I’ve given away books with my stories before but they’ve been anthologies and suddenly I had the desire to put something out there that was just mine.

So I started about a week before Thanksgiving. I’d gotten it pulled together in September to send out to win something, so it had to be in great shape, right? Wrong. It is amazing to me how a piece can be proofed by me three or four times, by an editor at least once or twice, and then still have problems. But it’s true. I’m talking typos, where I’ve deleted something or copied and pasted and left extra letters and words behind. I’m talking punctuation. And my fault completely, unclear or awkward sentences.

Great I thought. Maybe not as polished as I would of wanted, these six pieces published elsewhere and two not published. It’s okay. I’ll just be more thorough so my collection will be in much better shape. No problem. And it wasn’t. As a matter of fact, I loved doing it and was surprised at how exhilerating it was for me to realize how “professional” I felt when I saw a problem and knew it wasn’t right and how to fix it.

After I went through my stories, I gave them first to a friend to proofread and edit and then with her notes, I fixed what I agreed with and gave them to my daughter. That girl is amazing. She is 99% right with her suggestions, especially in the areas of logic and clarity. So I worked to get this done and planned to upload to lulu in what I’d hoped would be plenty of time to have gifts.

But formatting is a bitch. And I just realized I’ve blogged for a half hour and haven’t even gotten to the part that is sending me over the edge.

****SPOILER ALERT****DONT READ BEYOND THIS POINT ****IF YOU WANT TO THINK IM A SANE AND PATIENT PERSON

If anyone out there knows why I can have a whole document in garamond (double checked for stray fonts page by page by highlighting and looking at the font box: garamond only) and be told by lulu that they can’t take it because I haven’t embedded a timesnewroman STP (I can’t remember the real letters) when I don’t even have that font on my list in my computer, then please help!

• I’ve tried uploading the word doc with my 6×9 printer settings (document layout), but lulu says the doc is still 8 1/2 by 11 and after they adjust it, it comes out ugly like an ape.
• I made a pdf and it’s gorgeous, but then I can’t upload because I can’t embed that stupid timesnewroman stp shit. which I don’t have! My print drivers don’t have the options someone suggested or at least I can’t find them for embedding.
• The little tool document that lulu offers to ensure embedding is obscure about how to use it. I’ve put it on my desk top, in the doc folder with the docs I want to publish, and rubbed it on my ass.
• Nothing works.
• I went to Adobe help and it offers no comprehensible (layperson’s) explanation re embedding in a PDF.
• I went to the community board at lulu. Several other people can’t do it and the advice suggested there (doing a universal replace in the word document to make certain everything is garamond and changing a setting on a driver didn’t help. My drivers don’t seem to have that setting choice) so dang me.
• I am STUCK.

Every Day Fiction’s
December Table of Contents

Dec 1 Timothy Miller Vaccine
Dec 2 sn wright The Smell of Rust
Dec 3 Dee Martin Ladies Night
Dec 4 Deborah Winter-Blood Deadache
Dec 5 Therese Arkenberg Ameran Theatre
Dec 6 Wayne Scheer The Naked City
Dec 7 Larkin Cunningham Knowing Her Priorities
Dec 8 Michelle Klein Mutilation
Dec 9 S.J. Higbee A Boy’s Best Friend
Dec 10 Sarah Hilary Water’s Edge
Dec 11 Kevin Jewell Holiday Party Subjunctive
Dec 12 Debbie Burgess The Sacrifice
Dec 13 Stephen Taylor A Day at the Fur Auction
Dec 14 Gay Degani Flash Flood
Dec 15 Michael Mallory The Bite of War
Dec 16 John Brooke Bummer
Dec 17 Jim Reine The Last Patient
Dec 18 J.C. Towler EF 5
Dec 19 Brian George Dave Is Still Talking
Dec 20 Laura T Praderio Lynn Wheelchair Memories
Dec 21 Chris Allinotte Code Mustard
Dec 22 Oonah V Joslin Song of Everything
Dec 23 Mary Baader Kaley Giant Snowflakes
Dec 24 Ty Johnston Milk and Cookies
Dec 25 Cathryn Grant A Christmas Package
Dec 26 Sylvia Hiven Safe in Sparrow
Dec 27 Katherine Periam The Potion
Dec 28 Richard M. O’Donnell The Perfect Fit
Dec 29 Claire Webber She’s Fixed
Dec 30 Mickey Mills Fire on Falcon Road
Dec 31 Tanya Byrne Forever is a Locked Door

Here is the calendar of stories to be published in November by Every Day Fiction.

November’s Table of Contents
Nov 1 Richard M. O’Donnell The Inheritance
Nov 2 Stephanie Scarborough 8-Bit Procrastination
Nov 3 Jessa Marsh Us In Tapes
Nov 4 Barbara A. Barnett Mind Games
Nov 5 Ben Werdmuller Meaningless Battles
Nov 6 Alexander Burns With the Band
Nov 7 Aaron Polson Faith
Nov 8 Celestine Trinidad Fifty-five Percent
Nov 9 Christian Bell The Art of Stealing Sharks
Nov 10 Grá Linnaea Your Own Personal Genie
Nov 11 Mark Partin Sergeant Smith
Nov 12 Patsy Collins Overlooked
Nov 13 Brian Dolton El Mystera Del Tempo
Nov 14 Gwendolyn Joyce Mintz Game On
Nov 15 Oonah V Joslin Dock
Nov 16 Ian Rochford Dog People
Nov 17 JR Hume Tears of the Android
Nov 18 Laura McHale Holland Invasion
Nov 19 Jennifer Tatroe Daddy’s Girl
Nov 20 David J. Rank Friday Midnight Five Stars
Nov 21 Stef Hall Back from the Hills
Nov 22 Nora Offen Lessons Learned
Nov 23 K.C. Ball The Maple Leaf Maneuver
Nov 24 K.C. Shaw Fall or Fly
Nov 25 Deven D Atkinson How the Human Got His Free Will
Nov 26 Bob Jacobs Broken Waters
Nov 27 Finale Doshi The New Pet
Nov 28 Wanda Morrow-Clevenger Heineken Haze
Nov 29 Jameson Parker Layaway
Nov 30 Frank Roger Mirror, Mirror

BLOGGING

So I haven’t blogged in a while. Wish I could say I finished my book. Hahahaha. But I’m working on it. Working out the 1948 plot. Actually thought it was in good shape and yes, structure-wise it is but as for the language…well, got a way to go. But today has been a good day getting back into it after spending two and a half days in Quebec with my son.

QUEL QUEBEC?

Okay so I know absolutely know no French other than firme le bouche (sp? My apologies) But I can’t believe how much fun roadtripping in ca is. The highway up to Quebec City is gorgeous even in a non-stop drizzling rain. It seemed to take it us forever but I have to say the colors were amazing. So many patchwork quilts out there climbing up into the mountains.

QC was a complete surprise. I didn’t know what to expect but whatever I expected I got so much more. Our hotel was downtown in the old area of the city, the great ancient wall visible as we stepped out into a drizzling rain. We walked through the arched opening and it was like walking into Europe with charming narrow curving streets, other century buildings, and on the air: French! I did not take French in school (I know it’s obvious) but had no idea about the LILT in a merci and bon jour. Lovely. Also that quarter of the city kept going on and on, no Disneyland this, but a real place.

Second day Nick and I went to Maison Bellanger-Girardin which is a small stone house on Avenue Royale in Beauport. I’ve wanted to visit there ever since my cousine Claire told me that she and her father had visited and both felt that it was possible that the Nicolas Belanger who lived in the house when it was just a cabin is an ancester of ours. Unfortunately all the information was in French and therefore nothing was proven to me, but I still got a thrill being in the house. Even if this Nicolas Belanger isn’t OUR Nicolas Belanger, our family most likely lived in a house just like this before heading down the Mississippi to Houma.

Montreal was wonderful too though we had less time there. We ate at a quaint little restaurant called Le Caveau just around the corner from the Hilton Garden Inn where we stayed. No Trish. We did not stay at the Ritz Carlton despite the snapshop! We also visited a huge church on a hill that had a lovely garden and promised a fab view of all of Montreal but we did not make it to the top.

BACK IN VERMONT

Listening to Sam Cooke and wasting a little time blogging. Someone told me we’re supposed to get three INCHES of snow tomorrow. Is that even possible? Except last night after dinner, something white and wet came down and it wasn’t snow, it wasn’t hail, I have no idea, but at breakfast I heard the term mixed winter? Could that be right?

TIN STAR TOWN

I have a new piece up at K. C. Ball’s 10 Flash, issue 2, called Tin Star Town. It takes place in Globe Arizona, one of my favorite towns on our way to Sprucedale. No idea why I find it so evocative but I do. “Monsoon,” a longer story, also features a paragraph about Globe.

I think jewelry plays a part and all those shows Tim and I watch on cable, “How It’s Made” and discussions of steel, copper, bronze. Globe is a copper mining town at the foot of the mountains just east of Phoenix. And one of the metals I like to work with when I bead is copper. I love the look of it and I’ve learned that it’s an indispensible commodity in our world. Copper is used for communications, as an alloy ingredient. I don’t want to look all this up, so this is just off the top of my head. Let’s just say that for me metal rocks.

VERMONT

So I’m here and working. And it’s been raining almost every day since I arrived. It’s a good thing, I suppose, since that means I stay in my little studio room and write instead of getting out with my camera, taking pictures. But it’s all good. It can’t possibly rain for the whole four weeks, can it?

Since I just wrote a piece about what to do when your car goes off a bridge, I’ve got my eye on the river outside my window. Picked a marker rock to see if the water rises. In Arizona this can happen in an afternoon (again referencing Monsoon!), and I can tell by the steep banks on both sides of Gihon that it’s likely to rise with the rain. Regardless, it is beautiful and I feel truly blessed.

Every Day Fiction’s October Calendar is up at FFC. Here’s what’s coming up.

Oct 1 K.C. Ball /Canticles
Oct 2 Alexander Salas /The Hungry Squirrel
Oct 3 Donna Gagnon /Ilker Drennan
Oct 4 Scotch Rutherford /Harvest Moon
Oct 5 Matthias R. Gollackner /Real World Heroism
Oct 6 Harry Steven Lazerus /We Had No Right
Oct 7 Megan Arkenberg /Grown from Man to Dragon
Oct 8 Jim Steel /Enemy of the Party
Oct 9 Mickey Mills /Trajectory
Oct 10 John A. Mackie /Destination: Beach
Oct 11 Rachel Lim /Water Bottle Musings
Oct 12 Fred Meyer /Blind Spots
Oct 13 G.T. MacMillan /Evidence
Oct 14 Sarah Hilary /Invisible Mend
Oct 15 Essie Gilbey /The Love Stone
Oct 16 Erin Ryan /Fark Those Takkloving Aliens
Oct 17 Wayne Scheer /Stripped of Innocence
Oct 18 Martin Turton /A Song for Cara
Oct 19 Krystyna Smallman /Miss Flossy and the Ferals
Oct 20 Karl El-Koura /Beat-Down
Oct 21 C.L. Holland /Beauty Sleeping
Oct 22 Eric V. Neagu /The Vegetarian
Oct 23 Shelley Dayton /Identity Crisis
Oct 24 Kendra C. Highley When Mom’s Sick
Oct 25 Sharon E. Trotter /The Haircut FIRST PLACE WINNER OF FFC’S STRING-OF-10 FLASH FICTION CONTEST
Oct 26 Karel Smolders /Brains
Oct 27 Stef Hall /Fingers
Oct 28 B. J. Adams /A Hearty Breakfast
Oct 29 Patrick Perkins /Feeding Time
Oct 30 Barbara A. Barnett /Dumping the Dead
Oct 31 Stefan Bachmann /The Pale Lean Ones

Sarah Hilary’s After a Long Illness, Quietly At Home at Right Hand Pointing.

Robert Swartwood’s Phantom Energy at Wigleaf.

Jonathan Pinnock’s Mid-Life Crisis at Boston Literary Review.

Alexander Burn’s Twit-Tales at Twitter.

Erin Kinch’s The Wall at Hypersonic Tales. (Podcast!)

K. C. Ball’s Tin Man at Big Pulp.

One whole week with writing on the menu? No dry cleaning to pick up, no salads to toss, no television to distract, what else could a writer ask for?

Nothing really, but I got more. MORE in caps and bold. A terrific writer in Joan Clark, as available, knowledgeable, and wise a mentor as anyone could ever want. A workshop setting between gorgeous peaks to stir the imagination. And peers with skills, ideas, and a desire to help. I cannot begin to explain how important these few days in the Canadian Rockies have been in putting me on the course to finishing my long unrevised novel. I finally feel capable of and joyous about the task.

The site itself, of course, is amazing. The Banff Centre sits on a mountain maybe a half mile or so above the little village of Banff. It’s a large complex with lodgings for artists of all kinds, several places to eat, comfortable classrooms, and access to many trails, activities, and resources.

My room was a nice-sized hotel kind of thing (blond, modern, clean lines) with so much storage I could have stayed a few months before I filled up every cubby hole. King-sized bed, long sleek desk, a breakfast table, A COFFEE POT, and in my case, a very short walk over a pedway into the dining hall.

Buffet set up with food for every imaginable picky appetite, veg, vegan, non-dairy, bland, spicy. Made to order omelettes every morning. Banquet every night. Fabulous views courtesy of floor to ceiling windows all around. Easy to eat there. No money needed. Just slide your “artist’s card.” My meal plan made it through the whole week, with only breakfast the last morning having to charge to my room.

The program.

In our building, the writers in the Writing with Style Program have their own lounge. This is Workshop Central with mail slots for each writer. Two computers and a printer available 24-7. This is where readings are held (8 slots each night, unbelievable quality of material) Tue-Fri nights at eight. Welcome party and so-long party also fit nicely into the space.

The classrooms are located across the street–well, a new building is being built in the middle of that street, but somewhere beyond the backhoe are the classrooms. And as is perfect for writers, “The Kiln” coffee house is right there in the building, lattes and sandwiches available until 7:00 every night with the swipe of that card.

The people.

Robert Kroetsch. Writer in Residence. Making sure you felt as if he’d been waiting for YOU to walk through the door.

Edna Alford, retiring director (and founder too I think) of Writing with Style program. What a wonderful, supportive, passionate woman. She made certain that every writer felt comfortable and respected.

And of course, Joan Clark, an extraordinary mentor. Funny, casual, down-to-earth, with-it-attitude, in addition to being a pioneer for Canadian literature and an inspiration to all writers. I sound a little star-struck because I am.

My fellow writers in the historical fiction group: Helen, Jane, Alanda, Voula, Chandra, and Doug. Amazing talent, intelligence, and sincerity. Love you all.

It was a terrific experience for me. I feel now that I can actually get my novel What Came Before into the kind of shape it needs to be to begin sending it out. This is my goal and now I feel one step closer to achieving it because of my time at Writing in Style.