Yeoooooowwwwww . . . Body Parts Everywhere

My eight-year-old son is a huge Family Feud fan and for the past few weeks he has been pestering me to find him the theme song from the John O'Hurley version of the show. We sat down together and started searching the internet. One site seemed promising and it had the McAfee Site Security green checkmark of approval (which I have come to realize is a commentary on the anti-viral quality of a site and not a rating of its moral content). So, we clicked and just as my eyes were starting to read, the page suddenly changed and there were body parts everywhere. And worse than that . . . there were body parts doing things to other body parts.

I let out a yeeeeeoooooooowwww. My left hand instinctively reached out to cover adorable, innocent 8-year-old baby blues as my right hand frantically tried to close the window, which of course was frozen. I needed my left hand to accomplish an "end task" and told him to look away. Meanwhile, he's responding to my yeeeeeeowwwwww with an aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh. I finally managed to "end task" and we sat there laughing. I asked him what he saw and he said a lady wearing a black shirt with a baby. Okaaaay. Sounds good to me.

After things had calmed down, I sat thinking about my first internet experience gone wrong with my son. I realized that my reaction--that initial yeeeoooooow that I let out--wasn't on behalf of my son. It was my own reaction to seeing strange genitalia eight inches from my face on a bright, sunny afternoon. Definitely too much information. One person had this tiny mole right on . . . um, never mind.

They say that men and women have different reactions to things, especially sexual matters. I'm not much interested in generalizing. All I know is that, for me, sexy is a function of attitude, personality, sense of humor, creativity, intelligence, and a tuned-in vibe that puts two people on the same wavelength. Physical beauty plays an extremely small part and without the rest is meaningless to me. Maybe that's why you'll never find me in a crowd of screaming women, trying to put a dollar bill down some anonymous buff guy's g-string. And there's no stranger out there in cyberspace that has such breathtaking physical beauty that I could ever be moved by a full-monitor-sized naked image of him on a bright, sunny afternoon.

A Spanish Major??? What are you gonna do with that?

Many moons ago, I was a Pre-Med student at Washington University in St. Louis sitting wide-eyed in an organic chemistry class trying to process a list of rules when the professor broke out into a list of exceptions to the rules. As a bit of drool dribbled from my open mouth (think Edvard Munch's "The Scream"), I decided it was time to declare my Spanish Language and Literature major.

I had always loved studying languages but, after three years in a High School Pre-Medical Program and another two years in college, this declaration came as a bit of a shock to some. A Spanish major??? What are you gonna do with that? Are you going to be a teacher? Will you work for the United Nations? (I was also taking Italian and Russian at the time.)

Truth was, I didn't know what I was going to do with a Spanish major, and I didn't much care. I was just enjoying my liberal arts education (okay, and the frat parties, too).

Graduation came and so did a job, with the Division of Special Education at the Board of Ed, as an interpreter for suspension hearings. In other words, a kid brings a machete to school, gets in trouble, heads down to the suspension hearings office with his parents (who don't speak English), and there in that room with a sometimes still violent child, a lawyer, and a tape recorder, I would translate the legal proceedings for the parents.

Take a guess--how many of those hearings do you think I interpreted? One, five, twenty? [Sound game show buzzer here.] Try zero.

I bet you think it was the thought of that machete that scared me, right? Wrong again. It was the tape recorder. Some of the parents were not educated people and their Spanish in no way resembled the language I had learned in school. Some of them spoke at lightning speed and chopped off the ends of their words. (I imagine Midwesterners have the same complaint when they speak to me, a New Yorker.) Let me just say there were many repeats on the nightmare channel that season and they all involved a village idiot resembling moi not being able to communicate with parents as the tape rolled in the background.

A short time later I got the job that would eventually lead to my current career as a technical writer, and the Spanish major was no longer an issue. However, I often take the opportunity to point out to my parents just how valuable my knowledge of the Spanish language has been. Like, for example, when my husband needs to know whether the arroz con pollo is on the bone or not. "Your tuition dollars at work," I tell my parents. (I am the cause of a lot of eye rolling in my family.)

Despite the suspension hearings thing, I truly do love learning languages and I enjoy speaking with people whenever I get the chance to practice. I once got to say "In nazdik-tarin raheh" to a cab driver in New York (translation: "This is the shortest way," in Farsi), which was a lot more rewarding than just randomly blurting out "I want to buy apples and cheese." Of course, once I pointed in the direction I wanted to go, the conversation was mostly over.

Then, there was the time I was traveling in Italy with my cousin on a day when there was the rumor of a train strike. My cousin went to the ticket window to inquire about the strike. When I saw the expression on the ticket agent's face, I stepped in a bit closer and heard my cousin ask in Italian if there was going to be a "syrup" today. The difference between sciopero and sciroppo. College Italian saved the day.

While these moments were fun, I have to admit I sometimes yearned for a greater use of my college major. That moment finally came last night when my brother, a real estate agent in Manhattan, needed a translator to assist him with a potential client calling from Argentina. With an hour to spare, I looked up any words I didn't know in the listing and converted square footage to the metric system. When the call came, we managed to communicate.

Tuition dollars at work. ;-)

Make like a cartoon character running through a wall

Yesterday, I had one of those moments when you look at your life, let out a deep sigh of relief, and say "Thank God I'm married and don't have to deal with this singles s&*t."

My friend's cousin met a guy on vacation and the relationship continued when they returned home. She asked him if he had a friend for her cousin. He did. Soon after, my friend received a call. All was going well on the phone--for the first few minutes anyway--when he suddenly asked "What size shoe do you wear?"

Having heard this question only as it related to men (and usually there was some rib-jabbing and winking as accompaniment), I was intrigued to hear where this was going.

My friend was speechless for a moment and then asked why her shoe size mattered? The answer . . .

He's not attracted to women with big feet.

Say what? How many big-footed women has this guy encountered that this has become his lead-off question? Has someone gotten the word out to Manolo?

Hmmm, wasn't there a Jerry Springer show a few years back . . . GUYS WHO DON'T REALIZE THEIR QUEENS ARE OF THE DRAG VARIETY?

Maybe there were some childhood issues . . . that day back in 1978 when he left the marbles from his Hungry Hippo Game strewn all over the floor and his large-footed mother took out her rage with the help of her Tecnica Moon Boots.

Whatever the reason for his question, I was left wondering if big feet were the only deal breaker for this guy. My evil twin would have played a bit--talked up my tiny, dainty feet. Then, just before our first date, I would have stopped at Ruby's Costume Store to pick up a few blacked-out teeth, the beginnings of a goatee, and ears that should have been pinned back in childhood.

With my luck, it would have been love at first sight.

And that's why I'm glad I'm no longer eligible to compete in the love games.

Prayerful Rejection

Okay, so the other day I received the dreaded prayer card (I'll explain in a moment). An agent had responded to my query for Redemption with a request for the first 50 pages. In mid June, I received a letter from her, which I thought was a rejection letter. Instead, I found "It's not a good idea to begin a book with a dream-they're too easy to write and the reader is disappointed. May resubmit."

Hmmm. I didn't start my book with a dream. I started it with a Prologue--a crime in the past--upon which the entire book is based. In Chapter One, I do have a reference to my protagonist awakening from an old nightmare, and you could say the prologue is her old nightmare, but that doesn't mean the prologue is only a nightmare.

What to do, what to do. For those of you who don't know me, I am an assertive, mostly self-confident person. However, I've got to say that all the books on publishing I've read make me feel a bit like the Cowardly Lion on his approach to the Almighty Wizard of Oz. Up till that moment, I had minded all my P's and Q's, not to mention 1" margins, Courier 12 pt. font, double spacing, proper placement of personal information, good quality paper, no staples, paper clips, ribbons, bows. For Pete's sake, after printing my manuscript, I'd hold it up and cover one eye and make sure everything lined up, like some print surveyor. Should I email the agent and request clarification? Would that be annoying? Would I forever be cast out into the zone of WWDICWAAWNSITDS (WRITERS WHO DARED INITIATE COMMUNICATION WITH AN AGENT WHEN NOT SPECIFICALLY INVITED TO DO SO). Hell, I thought, I'm going to need intensive therapy soon. Dr. Tony, are you ready for me?

I sent an email requesting clarification and she told me to redo it. Alas, on July 11th, the dreaded prayer card arrived. Just to clarify, the prayer card was dreaded because it signaled rejection. This particular agent has a listing that indicates she is "a spiritual person and often attempts to soften a rejection with a prayer card; if this would bother you, you may not want to query her." I need all the prayers I can get, so it didn't bother me any.

On the enclosed letter, she wrote "Good storytelling but the college setting didn't appeal. Will pass with my best wishes."

My initial thought was I wish she had mentioned the college setting along with the dream--I could have changed that too. Then I realized that there are some key events in those first few scenes before I jump forward to present time. But it gets me wondering--have I started my story too early. Is there a way to rewrite it so that those events in the past are just mentioned in the present, thereby catapulting the reader into the middle of the present-day action. I'll have to think about this.

In the meantime, I still have some queries out there. So, we'll wait and see. For now, I'll just be happy that an agent wrote "Good storytelling" about something I submitted. We take our crumbs where we get 'em, no?

The Beginnings of a Blog

My first blog entry and it seems there is nothing more appropriate than a few paragraphs on finding the time to write. I can find so many reasons for not starting now, whenever now may be. Bills to pay, desks to clear, books to read. You know how it goes. But whenever I take the time to write and throw away the phone and any other distractions, I'm always amazed by what I end up with. Today was one of those days. I printed out what I had on my novel-in-progress to refresh my memory, applied sunscreen, and headed outside with a cup of coffee and my Neo (more on the Neo later--for now, just imagine a portable word processor that is smaller than a laptop).

There is nothing more inspiring to me than being in nature, and today was certainly the day. Even the tree cutters and landscapers couldn't get me down. I was in my own little world, doing my thing, typing away out front on the driveway. My neighbors still look at me strangely when I do this. I'm originally from Ozone Park, New York where everyone sat out on their front stoops. On Long Island, people don't do that. (In fact, you rarely see your neighbors except when you ring their doorbell to politely ask them to refrain from feeding the half dozen feral cats that have decided your front yard should be their litter box. Geometric progression nightmares keep me awake at night, but I digress) I figure when I get published, the neighbors will no longer look at me strangely, but will nod knowingly, aware that they had been witnesses to a minor miracle in progress.

Needless to say, I got tons done in my novel. And the creative energy generated by just taking the time inspired me to complete the tasks I left behind in order to write. Writing must always be the priority. I'll never create anything good if I first sit down to write after a day of mind-numbing chores.

So, more on the Neo. But first let me say that many years ago I invested in a popular laptop, one of the first models that had a full-size screen. The thing weighed a gazillion pounds and put off heat like a sauna. I thought I would cozy up with my laptop and write the great American novel in my bed at night. How many times do you think I attempted that? How about not once. The thing was just too clunky. So, I continued with my notebooks and pens. I am a sucker for supplies. My husband tells me I get an eerie gleam in my eye whenever we drive by a Staples store. I buy college-ruled spiral notebooks with colored covers and perforated pages. In the past, I used to write with a fountain pen, but lately I'm into those blue and white barreled Bics with the four colors of ink. I use the blue and black ink for writing my drafts and the red and green ink for editing my drafts.

I always feel much more creative when I am writing longhand than when I am typing. Typing is too mechanical and detracts from my creative flow. I have written entire novels longhand with no problem. My issue is when it's time to type them into my computer. I HATE that part. It is the most tedious thing I have ever done. And I can't pay someone to do it because they wouldn't be able to read my handwriting. I tried bypassing the longhand stage and just typing into my desktop computer, but the distractions were a hindrance: email, stock quotes, Webkinz, Amazon, you name it. And then, I found something called a Neo by Alphasmart. I don't quite know how I stumbled upon it. Probably in a frenzy of web surfing to avoid typing my manuscript. But there it was, a tiny little device, smaller than a laptop and under 2 pounds that offers a full-size keyboard and a screen that displays three to six lines of text at a time (I prefer four). That's it. No email, no games, no Amazon, no stock quotes, no instant messaging, no distractions. It's so small I can sit anywhere and type away and when I'm done I plug it into my computer and all my info gets put into a Word file. What more could I ask for? And with only four lines of text displayed at a time, I'm not tempted to constantly edit my work as I am writing (the worst form of writer's constipation). With three batteries, I get something like 700 hours of juice. It automatically saves my words and shuts down when inactive. When I press the on button again it takes me right back to where I left off. There is room for 8 different files. Some of the techies out there will complain that it isn't enough. But that's the point, it's simple. All you do on it is type your words.

Oh, and it offers a typing tutorial for those who are still using hunt and peck. In fact, at $200, I bought one for my eight-year-old son who is a budding writer and he has been learning how to type with the proper fingers. He also uses it to record the play-by-play of the Islanders games. It comes in a lightweight carrying case, with the cord to connect to your PC when you're ready to upload, and a user manual that is very clear. Originally it was marketed to schools for students. But I have to say, it is one of the best gadgets I have ever seen for writers who want to get back to the basics and just write. In closing, let me say that I was not paid any money to say any of the above. I really do love it. In fact, I am writing this first entry on my Neo.

It's got to be after 7 PM and I'm still sitting outside, although I'm wearing a sweatshirt now because the wind has whipped up a bit. It's time to go in. But the creative energy is still high. I'm zapping some to all of you writers out there who are looking for a bit of inspiration. Just get outside or wherever you're most creative and start writing whatever pops into your head. Before too long, the juices will be flowing. If anybody out there has any good tips on getting down to the task of writing, I'd love to hear them.

Nitey nite.