Hump Day

Why a camel?

* It's the middle of the week for people with M-F jobs.

* This is what trying to write the middle of a book feels like.

* Camels are notoriously bad-tempered, which is what writers are like in the middle of a book. (Bite me.)

* It's hot out there.
* To remind me to go to the chiropractor today.

Hero

I may write this in installments throughout the day, 'cause I'm imitating a slug this morning. Keep me away from salt and beer, please.

You can't hang out for years with fiction writers without certain topics coming up over and over: what's a "story," what's a hero, and what makes a character likable? These are big topics, debatable topics, topics that are metaphors for Real Life, so maybe we should take them one at a time.

Let's talk about heroes. What is one?

In my opinion, simply being on the scene of a terrible event does not make a person a hero. If I'm in a building when it catches fire and I make my way safely outside, that may make me smart, or simply capable of following directions, but it does not automatically make me a hero. Even being brave during that event doesn't do it. I could be terrified of fire and have to force myself through it, but that still doesn't make me heroic. People can be brave without being heroes. For me, heroism must have an element in it of conscious self-sacrifice. The person has got to make a choice--maybe in a split second, but a choice nonetheless-between her own life and somebody else's, and choose to help that person at the risk of hurting herself. In that fire, I've got to have a moment when I see that I'm five feet from the door and if I run for it, I'm probably going to live, but there's somebody behind me with a broken ankle and she can't make it on her own, but if I go back for her, I may die, too. If I choose to go back for her, I'm a hero, by my own definition, whether either of us lives or dies.

I think I'll stop here for now and go water the flowers. It's going to be very hot out there. If I don't go out, I'll stay cool, but the flowers may die. If I do go out, the flowers will live, but I may die of heat stroke. I'm such a hero. :)

Do you have different ideas about who is a hero? Have you ever had a moment when you had to make a choice between your own safety and somebody else's? Have you ever seen a hero in action?

UPDATE: I told you, my brain is operating in fits and spurts today. Watch out, here comes a spurt. Or possibly a fit?

Maybe I need to ask first, even before I ask about heroes. . .what is courage? I have a friend who is absolutely emphatic in her opinion that you don't have to be afraid in order to be brave. She thinks some acts are inherently brave. Going into a burning building to save somebody, for instance. I disagree. I think there has to be fear before there can be bravery.

Can a person who does something dangerous, but who isn't afraid at the time, be said to be brave?

UPDATE 2: Wanna see something startling? Go here! (Scroll up to the YouTube video.) BE SURE TO LISTEN TO THE SOUND ALL THE WAY THROUGH, EVEN THOUGH IT'S ANNOYING AT FIRST.

UPDATE 3: I love the tv series "Heroes."

Hot tamale

When I was young and younger, I hated any fireworks louder than a sparkler. Couldn't stand spicy food. Hid from horror novels. Scorned violent movies and the people who loved them. Now I'm the one who adores BOOMS that make my ribs vibrate, pours Tabasco sauce on everything from grits to gravy, watches spooky stuff with a grin and a pleasurable shiver. And I saw The Bourne Ultimatum yesterday and loved it. (If you've been reading along in this blog, you already know that I think there are few movies than cannot be improved by a velociraptor, or two.)

Maybe all my senses have dulled, and that accounts for the dramatic change? Maybe it just takes more to get me to hear it, taste it, feel it? That might actually be true when it comes to taste. But my hearing's fine. I can still hear whispers and I still love a good sweet love story. No, there's just something in me that actually enjoys some kinds of intensity more than it used to. I don't know why.

I was thinking, yesterday, while I watched car chases and gunfights, how wonderfully cathartic those kinds of movies can be. And how happy I feel when I leave one that I've really enjoyed--like all three of the Bourne movies. It sure doesn't make me want to go out and shoot somebody, or even argue with people.

If there's a larger point to this little post, I have no idea what it is yet. I guess I'm interested in learning how this strikes you according to your personal experiences.

And if there's nothing really here to talk about? Ha. With this crowd, there's ALWAYS something to talk about, "praise the lord and pass the mashed potatoes," as my ol' grandpappy used to say. But put a little Tabasco on them first, please.

Sunday Bulletin Board

A weekly spot

to share your news,

link to photos,

flog your blog,

or say howdy.

This crazy thing called blog

Happy traveling, Beth! (She's off to Florida to live, by way of Seattle.) We'll look forward to your check-ins, en route!

Boran2 is starting a new painting today, over at his blog.

Saturday update: I'll be gone all day, so I'll just leave this post up.

Sunday Bulletin Board will be posted tomorrow for news, photos, etc.


(Friday) I'm watching the Ellen Degeneres show and she just gave every audience member two round-trip tickets to Cancun, and I'm feeling really bad that I can't do that for you guys. Could you be happy with some really really nice pictures of the Gulf of Mexico? :)

So I guess you're here 'cause you want to be, and not because of the free food, right? Me, too. I started this blog in a funny way a few weeks ago when I thought I was clicking on a button that would let me see what "my" blog might look like if I had one. It turned out to be the button that actually *made* the blog. Oops. "Well," I thought, "I guess I'll just plunge in. . ."

And then you crazy kids showed up!

But who are you, that's what some lurkers might like to know. And why do some of us already seem to know each other pretty well? Without giving away anything private, I thought I'd explain a little of that. . .

There are several of us who met a few years ago through a political blog, and especially at a "cafe" at that blog. The cafe was a place where nobody argued and everybody was kind and nice to each other. It was a relief, a refuge from the contention that sometimes was going on in the main rooms. I think nobody from that group will mind if I state categorically that we grew fond of one another, and now we follow each other around the blogsphere.

So that's one bunch, the "politicos," you might say.

Then there are some people who happened over here from other blogs. I think I first knew of farfetched from katiebird's blog, for instance.

We might call that group the "other blog friends."

And then we have writers and other creative types who have found us and popped in to say hi, and some of them have stayed on.

And that's it so far, I think. Have I left out anybody?

What's *your* blogging history, if you'd care to say?

(If you'd like to comment, but you're having problems with it, let me know. You can find my email address in My Profile or on my website.)

Life in the kingdom

Night before last I saw five deer, one fox, and a bat. One of the deer was a 14-point buck. This spring, we've had in our yard a family of marmots (aka groundhogs or woodchucks), a rat snake, a garter snake, countless rabbits, squirrels, birds, and chipmunks, two raccoons. . .and those are just the ones I've seen.

This totally knocks me out. I feel so privileged to have this ringside seat to the Kingdom.

My neighbor and I joke that we spend half our time just running to our windows to look outside to see what might appear next. Last fall we heard coyotes, including pups yipping. Neighbors on both sides swear we have bobcats. (Want to see, want to see!) Oh, and did I mention Bertha the wild turkey who hung out here all spring? (My mother named her the day she flew up onto our second floor deck railing and paraded back and forth there.) I cannot tell you how funny it is to be typing away and have a turkey walk past your window in your peripheral vision. A couple of weeks ago there were three turkey buzzards, (a different bird) feasting on dead something in the street. You go, guys. It's all yours.

Some neighbors love all this wildlife. Others think of them as pests, and fret over their roses and tomato leaves. I met one neighbor who says she likes the deer, except when they won't let her in her driveway.

They say black bears are coming back bigtime to our next-door state of Missouri. Okay, that makes me glad to live in Kansas.

Got any animal stories to tell? Close encounters of the animal kind?

Once upon a time, there was a turkey named Bertha. . .

#@1&*%#*

Yesterday I got my once-a-year email from the sisterhood of Miss Grimshank, complaining about the bad language in my books. (It's ALWAYS a woman.) She informs me that using such words makes me a bad writer, that such foul words are not necessary, that I should write books that don't use such words, and that she will not ever read any more of my books.

Oh, the temptation! I sooo want to write back, "Well, shit! I'm gonna miss the hell out of you!" But I sit on my hands and don't reply at all, because I can't do it without at least some tinge of pissyness, and I don't need to make things worse for whomever she encounters next in the grocery store. At some point, it dawns on me that I'm itching to be just as bossy as she is. She wants to dictate to me what words I may use and how I may write my own books? Well, I want to dictate what may or may not offend her and what she may or may not say to me. Miss Grimshank, meet Miss Pissypants.

It gets pretty amusing in my own head sometimes. The cast of characters, you wouldn't believe!

So the Miss Grimshanks won't read books with cussing in them. Other readers are offended by sex. Some refuse to read prologues. Others don't like epilogues. Some detest novels written in the present tense. Others hate it when a book slips back and forth between different time periods, or has too many points of view, or. . .

In my 17 novels, I have managed to offend all of those readers at least some of the time. I've used all that stuff--cussing, sex, prologues, epilogues, prologues with sex, epilogues with cussing, present tense, different time periods, multiple points of view. . .

I've stopped worrying about it, mostly. That's all you can do, right?

I figure, the next time Miss Grimshanks writes one of my books, she can use darn and drat and shoot, if she wants to. But since I'm still the author of them, I'll continue to write them however I damn well please, dammit.

So, how the hell are you this morning? :)