Ghostly Hands in the shower, and Linky Love

I'm having a good old time laughing on my Facebook page about, um, the weird thing that happened to me while I was in the shower. This came after a night of really bizarre dreams. But the comments about it are cracking me up The weird thing that happened is this, and I'll just cut and paste from FB status:

At the risk of sounding really weird (hush up! I heard that!) here’s what happened: I was in the shower, rinsing shampoo from my hair, pushing my hands through my hair—right hand, left hand—when suddenly I felt a THIRD HAND push against my head! Freaked. Me. Out! I turned, heart pounding: nothing there. Then I realized it must have only been water hitting my head just so—that’s my story & I’m sticking to it. Dang.

Ghostly hand helping me wash my hair - good lawd! Then last night, my coffee maker turned on and started the coffee while I was in bed reading -LAWD! - okay, maybe it was accidentally programmed - or ... do do do do do do do do do do do do .... So, anyone have ghostly tales?

Today I have links -

I was a guest at the wonderful William Johnson's place: Life through the Prism: an author's journal - stop by and say hello and visit: Writing out the Fear . . .

I hope you'll go by the Rose & Thorn Journal blog - lots of good stuff there. I am the first post today (we post every Wednesday) but if you scroll down, you will see so many great posts about writers and writing and life. We have a feature called "Back Story" where the writers we have published in Rose & Thorn Journal write a post for the blog about their experience or thoughts, etc, on the story they wrote. My post is actually an archive from my blog here "Behind the Wizard's Curtain."

I just finished two wonderful novels - one is yet unpublished and the other recently published: Our own Sharla Scroggs (She is writing under Sharla Lovelace) has a novel coming out soon - I read it to "blurb" it for her and was so enchanted; I adore her book! I simply could not put it down and was sad when it was over; BRAVA Sharla!

The second novel is The Secret of Lies by Barbara Forte Abate. What is funny is we were both reading each other's novels at the same time and we both loved each other's novels - I felt so lucky to have read two books in a row where I could not put down the book and where I loved loved the characters and setting, etc. Barbara has a great inspiring blog post up today: If you write it, they will reject it.

You can win a copy of Teresa Frohock's newly almost-released book - Win an autographed copy of MISERERE: AN AUTUMN TALE! on her agent's blog, Weronika Janczuk.

Jan O'hara, Miz Tart, is doing a survey on Author Interviews - she'd love your help and response!

Okay, that's enough for today. Y'all have a good great day and weekend to come!

(all photos are kat magendie's except for R&T keys icon & R&T cover art

Whoooooshhh - that's me passing by in a blur . . .

Hi Y'all - just a quick stop in to say hello, happy Friday, and that the Rose & Thorn fall issue is now Live! Hope you will go by and take a look at the prose, poetry, and our artist.

We have company at the little log house, so I need to get back in there to be sociable.

What are your plans for the weekend? Do you have changing leaves and a nice chill in the air as we do?

Next week, on Wednesday, I'll be leaving GMR, the cove, the dogs, the ghost dog, and the little log house, my mountains, for Oregon to see my son, daughter in law, and my little Norah Kathryn --so excited. Anyone have any trips coming up?

Later y'all . . .

Land of a Thousand Dance Moves

When GMR was out of town, I decided to clean the house so only my mess would be there and not his...huhn. But before I picked up rag, vacuum, sponge, I slipped into the player a mix of CD’s labeled “Fun Music.” It’s an eclectic blend that GMR doesn’t enjoy so much—he loves his jazz and even sometimes "show tunes," and the like, and I like some of that (and not some of that), but there are times I am bored with Jazz, bored of what I also deem as the “Elevator Music” he listens to in the car when he’s not listening to jazz. My main requirement for the music’s enjoyment, which GMR does not enjoy, is to play it very loud. How else can I experience it properly? It’s the same way in my car or when I am running on the treadmill—I must turn it up to obtain maximum pleasure from all the thumps and fwumps the music offers. The beat has to pulse in my veins so the blood is racing willy nilly, make my marrow boil, cause my bones to rattle, jitter my ear drums.



I push “Random.” And Wait! The first song happens to be one of my all time favorites: Wilson Pickett’s “Land of a Thousand Dances.” I've told GMR when I die, go head and play that song so that my ghost will feel happy. One simply cannot be still when Thousand Dances is playing. I shake, I shimmy, I rotate, I want to watusi, alligator, and mash potato as the song instructs, but I don’t know what those dances are (and I vow right then and there to learn those moves). I do my own wild jittery dance, laughing to beat the band, “Na na-na-na-na na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na na-na-na-na.”


Once Dances is over, I begin my wiping and dusting…until! Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” blares from the speakers. Well, how can any woman clean house during Respect? It's just too too . . . ironic! I pretend I am in a karaoke bar with an audience. I point, I pose, I sing out: “R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Find out what it means to me, R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Take care, TCB,” and then I gyrate to, “Oh, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me.”

And then it’s back to cleaning. La la la tee dah (and why on commercials is it always the woman cleaning up and doing the laundry? Even when the guy makes the mess? It's 2010, y'all! Still, commercials use the woman - - well, GMR cooks, cleans, and does his own laundry, so commercial land, what's up with that? huhn, just saying!).


Big Bad Voodoo Daddy shouts “King of Swing!” right as I’m about to vacuum. Well, one can’t vacuum during Big Bad Voodoo Daddy—“When you feel your bones a shakin, and your temperature is risen… .” I do a quieter, but no less energetic, cleaning job until one of my least favorite songs comes on—it is a woman’s strange rendition of “Girl from Ipanema,” except she’s singing it as “the Boy from Ipanema” . . . bleah . . . it doesn’t have the same charm--time to vacuum to drown out her voice.


The music helps the time go by swiftly when I’m cleaning, driving, running, or maybe just goofing off.


In fact, the very first introductory lines to TG came from listening to Angels of Venice's "Lionheart" while driving with a "Natural Wonders" CD blasting. I could picture VK riding up her mountain, hair flying, hooves thundering; I saw her jump of Fionadala's back, holding her momma's ashes; saw her turn turn turn spilling the ashes . . . It was such a concrete real beautiful image, those words formed and I added them to the manuscript almost as a P.S. right before mailing off the query that brought my contract with Bellebooks.


Music has inspired me many times in my writing life, even if I can't or don't listen to it while writing. But cleaning house: yeah. Driving: definitely. Running: a must.


I bow to you Musicians: thank you all—I blow to you a kiss, a shimmy, a bust-a-hip move...Watch me work, now!


What's music for you?
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(Jacqueline Cook's SUNRISE is still available for give away - see post below. I do like to support other authors and their works, even outside of my genre. This is a Bellebooks author and of course I want to support my publisher's authors! I'll keep it on give away one more day and then if no one claims it, I'll donate it to the library.)

Rose & Thorn summer issue is Live . . .

Rose & Thorn Journal summer issue is now live! Stop by and read the eclectic offerings in prose and poetry, and as well, our guest cover artist.



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Enjoy!

Trailers for sale or rent.....

I have a trailer. We're tweaking it here and there as we look at it or get feedback, but it's fun (while waiting for mine - here's one to watch ...teeheehee... 500 impressions in 2 minutes )

I am feeling a little wild - a little whoopee - a little gigglypoo and as if I should dance. Not because of anything in particular - except that I feel happy right now. It's not just my VK coming alive - it's the way the chimes are singing in the wind, the bones of the trees tipping over and back, the way my hair is stuck up on end and I don't care, the coffee taste on my tongue, the cold north carolina mountain air-but I'm tucked in my little log house nice and warm, the way my robe feels soft and cozy, the way I can feel the buzz of all of you even though I can't see your eyes--blues and browns and greens and hazels--the way the birds flock to the feeder with their feathers puffed out against the chill, the red squirrels grown plump on our sunflower seeds, the way the currents of the air hold promise for things I've wished for in the dark, my eyes open to the black night, but a good black night, a mountain cove night, a night that turns into a brightly lit morning with the mists hovering over the Great Smoky Mountains - those grandfathers and grandmothers that cradle me here, ancient and wild and bold. Yes, I'm feeling a little wild and as if I will dance.

It's weird when you begin to see interpretations of your words into images - covers, trailers, and even titles. How curious I'd be to sit down with people who will read the book, or those who have, and ask them questions. Or to show them a series of images and ask them to pull out those that say "tender graces, that's it right there, that's the book/the character/the setting/the tone/the feeling of it." Maybe I'll do that one day.

I thought of a new "contest" for the BRIDA book. It's probably lame as poo-bah-doo but for a writer, I am sometimes sadly lacking in imagination *laugh* This was my midnight thought: to have a couple of smiles put here, the mouth only, and the one who guesses who the smiles belong to wins the BRIDA book -huh? huh? yeah? *laugh* Of course, it'd be "famous" people smile; I mean, not like the guy down in the valley who owns the little grocery, or my Aunt Mabel--especially since I don't have an Aunt Mabel. Anyway, unless I just finish all my Deep Creek Blend coffee and realize this is a really bad idea, that's what I'll post tomorrow...mouths. Huhn. Yeah.

Okay, I'm placing an image here of when I was a baby - about six months I guess. On my left hand, "wedding ring finger" is a ring! Since this is the first time I've ever seen a photo of me as a baby this young (long story), I never knew about this ring. And why would they put it on the "wedding ring" finger? Anyone else ever wore a baby ring when you were a babe? Anyone know if there's some significance to it being on that finger - or maybe they just stuck it there because that's were rings went back then and people didn't really wear rings on other fingers? Huhn. Anyway - first time I've seen a baby photo of any baby with a ring on their finger, but I've been told this was a big thing "way back in the dark ages of the fifties and early sixties." Now I know my incredible cuteness and that little curl on my head will distract you - but, there's that ring, on my little teeny finger. You can click on the image to see it larger if you can't see that ring.

(stock image from google:

www.asifa-hollywood.org[ More from www.animationarchive.org )