The Dirty Secrets Club

Not everyone has a quote from Stephen King:
"The next suspense superstar."

By Meg Gardiner

An ongoing string of high-profile and very public muder-suicides has San Francisco even more rattled than a string of recent earthquates; A flamoyant fashion designer burns to death, clutching the body of his murdered lover. A superstar 49er jumps off the Golden Gate Bridge. And most shocking of all, a U.S. attorney launches her BMW off a highway overpass, killing herself and three others.

Rest of the jacket, you'll have to read for yourself. And I highly suggest you do. Although I wish a couple of the characters were more fleshed-out, the book held me captivated to discover the secrets of these characters who would rather kill themselves then have their dirty little secrets revealed into the glaring, unforgiving light. A couple of them I thought, "Um, okay, not worth killing oneself over, but hey... whatever works."

Then I thought about my life (as one is prone to do when reading a fascinating novel about secrets, the irony of the timing in my own life almost laughable) and found myself desperately boring. I don't have huge secrets. And the few I have, they're definitely not the kind I'd rather kill myself over, much less murder another prior to suicide.

And you? Do you have those truly dark, beyond conscious-forgiving secrets which could absolutely ruin your life as you know it, resulting in not only affecting you, but your CORE BEING: your family, your children, your entire world imploding if others found out, so great and disgusting that suicide is the only way you'd ever find inner-peace?

Like I said... fascinating read.

The Adultery Club by Tess Stimson

Without pause or exaggeration, this should be required reading for every adult on the planet, regardless of reading preferences, regardless of whether you're single, divorced or married.

Just... read it.

A Mother's Brag

Being Mother's Day, I can't get over the idea that this is quite possibly the last Mother's Day that I know for sure Shan will be with me and not at college, or married with her own family some day.

This picture was taken last weekend for her prom, but it's also the photo I included in her graduation invitations. The beauty of her blinds me, knowing her soul and the funky mentality and wit she possesses is captured, the confidence she radiates, it's all in this photo and it leaves me speechless. My baby girl...

Shandie has been accepted to Texas State University, her SAT score of 1790, and graduating high school with thirty-three college credits already successfully completed. My pride knows no bounds.

I look at my other three kids, ages 14, 8 and 6 1/2, and I remember when Shan was that small, when The Class of 2008 seemed forever away, and yet in less than two weeks, my baby girl will no longer be mine, but simply Shandie, in all the wonder and splendor that she is.

So yeah, it's Mother's Day, technically MY day, but all I can think of is when I met a blood relative the very first time: Shandie Alexandra Fontenot.

The world is yours, baby girl. Rock it.

Happy Anniversary to a Glorious Addiction.

Of all the photos and cartoons on one of my favorite websites, I decided to use this one because like caffeine, Evil Editor is an absolutely wicked addiction.

And I'd have it no other way.

Today celebrates the 2nd anniversary of Evil Editor gracing the Internet and making it a better, if somewhat more sardonic, place. Sometimes I try to think of what my life was like without his presence but my brain just doesn't wrap around the idea. He's alpha and omega. He just... IS.

In celebration of this day, there is a party blog created by his many devoted minions. Please stop by and see why we bow in amazement at this man, and how overall awesome his entire community is. We are this incredibly odd-functioning family who love, need and depend on each other. It truly is a fantastic thing to be a part of, and I love it.

EE has the rare ability to place us on pedastals when we need it, then back to groveling at his feet when we need that too. He is encouragement, he is punishment and scathingly harsh, he is witty and sarcastic and a man who will forever have my loyalty. He gives without expectation. He strives to make us smarter, faster, to mold us into the writers he knows we have the potential of becoming. We have mourned deaths, celebrated successes and became brothers and sisters from the fatherhood he created two years ago today.

How do I put into words what this anonymous man means to Brenda though? I've never heard his voice. I've never seen his face. I don't know his nationality, his age, his history. There is not one personal thing I know about him save one thing:

I know his heart.

You humble me like no other.
You make me laugh through my tears.
You lift me up when I can no longer see the sky past my own fears and insecurities.

Most importantly, if I never get published, I will forever know there is a very wise man out there who truly believed in me, and that's a gift beyond comprehension and worth more than gold.

Happy Anniversary, Evil Editor. You truly are a god amongst men.

One Song

I drove down the road today, admittedly tired, so that may be why I was affected so, but I doubt it. A song came on, one that used to calm me, but now it just rips through my soul with an ache beyond words, the kind that makes you double over and wrap your arms around yourself, rocking back and forth in an effort to self-soothe. In one instant, in the beat of four notes of a song, and my good mood plummeted. That fast. That intense.

My fingers wrapped tighter around the steering wheel and my mind flashed to different times, to moments in my life when that song meant something else to me, to those memories that hurt and you try not to think about anymore. I have no idea why I didn't change the station. If I'd thought of it, I doubt I could. The bittersweet memories held me captive.

Breathing hitched, fighting off a panic attack I hadn't experienced in a long time, the road blurred as tears threatened to escape and I blinked and blinked and blinked, my eyes wide in an absolutely lost effort to keep tears from escaping. But one did... one fled from my inner eye and trailed down my face. I tilted my head to the side and the salty moisture lingered on my lip and I licked it back into me.

It didn't escape after all.

My mood hasn't lifted yet.

How was your day?

Tired but... Unethical?

Granted, I don't know crap about cars, much less tires, so we're going to begin there with that little fact.

My daughter's car had a flat tire. For some ungodly reason, in the two years we've lived in this little town of God Spit, Tx, we have had a LOT of flat tires. Not sure what's up with that. I went to our one and only tire store to have it patched.

The owner comes in and tells me it needs to be replaced, that "steal is showing", but what do I want to do? I knew the car needed to be aligned - it's been pulling really badly. He gives me a rundown on tire prices plus alignment. "So around $175-$200." Um, okay. I mean, it's my daughter in this car. I don't want her to have a blow out or anything. I need her safe.

This was at 4:30 yesterday and they said they'd do it this morning. During the evening, I found out it's ILLEGAL to patch a tire if the steal is showing. Ooooh, I see. So which is it? Was the steal showing as he stated and they HAD to be replaced? Then why offer to patch it if it's ILLEGAL? I can't fathom an ethical place risking lawsuit and sanctions by doing that. Or, if it WAS patchable, why lie to me and tell me steal is showing? Either way, he's lied about something. Either way, this is a dinky town man screwing over a citizen by playing up their ignorance on the situation. Either way, it's WRONG.

I dropped the kids off this morning and rushed immediately over there to tell them to patch it and do nothing else because of the information I found out last night. Oh too late. It's already done. Of course. Oh, and, by the way, it's now $233. Whatever. Fine. I pay it. Shandie is to pick it up after school.

I come home this morning and I'm talking to people about it. I finally call this dinky place back and tell them to put my tires in the trunk because I want them ON HAND to show people what they did. They didn't seem too happy about it, but I really couldn't care less.

I called around and two shops in Temple are going to look at the tires and give me their opinions on it. Should be interesting.

Anyone else have anything like this happen to them? I'm pondering a letter to the editor in our Once a Week newspaper.

~Yawn~

I have a theory, and I don't claim it as my original idea, because I'm sure I heard it from somewhere but I have no idea where that may have been: Life is too short to read a boring book.

I believe this 100% except for one small factor. Dr. Dickson, my biggest nightmare through two years of Advanced English, held the belief that you should give any book at least 100 pages before you made a judgement on it. I specifically remember which book we read at the time of him making this small declaration: LORD OF THE FLIES.

If you've read it, you do know, for a fact, that after the first 100 pages, that book gets quite um... interesting.

And being the ever hopeful one, I like to think that even if I can't stay awake in the first 50 pages, surely it will improve or it wouldn't have been published anyway. Then before I know it, in a quest to prove this book worthy of being read, I get past the Dr. Dickson required 100 pages and I just don't have that much left anyway so I trudge on through it.

But when your To Be Read list takes up approximately four shelves (and those shelves are a good five feet across and packed double layered and some on top of others - in other words CRAMMED full - I took it upon myself to ignore Dr. Dickson's 100 pages and if I couldn't get sucked into it, I'd give up after about 3 chapters (that's the writer in me - supposedly this book sold on proposal, so SOMEONE thought the first three chapters were good).

Another thing I can't do is read more than one book at a time. My brain can't seem to keep the characters of two unrelated books straight, so I have to do one a time. This is so extreme that during a judging contest, I have to stop reading for pleasure or it confuses me going from a judging 'script back to my pleasure reading.

Now, add that all up: I can't read more than one story at a time and I'm bound -- most times -- to finish one I've started. The first book I never finished was Terry Pratchett's THUD. I spent a month trying to slog through it while my TBR list sat and waited helplessly. I finally gave up. I wanted to like it really badly because a lot of people praised it like crazy, but alas, I just couldn't do it and I grew recentful because it kept me from the books I DID want to read.

I'm now on another book I just bought. I specifically bought it because it's written 1st person past tense and I'm looking into working on one of my 'scripts that's written the same way (my only one like that) which I hope to make into a series. I found this book and barely glanced at the pages, realized immediately it was a contemporary AND written first person. Rock on. When I got home, I then learned it was a series book too! ~GOLDEN~

Oh. My. God. Trudge. Trudge. Trudge. I'm dying here. I'm on day four and still, I'm barely making it through. I literally started falling asleep in the tub while reading. Uncool. Worst part yet, the author quotes on the cover are from goddesses in writing. If you take the premise (series) and the viewpoint (1st person past) and the quotes on the cover from some of my favorite authors, this should have been a freakin' goldmine in "reading my line" but as of right now, I don't see how I will ever get it finished.

Have you ever had a book like this? One you felt you needed to read, one that came with great quotes and recommendations and yet in the end, it was dryer than a marked up copy of Cliff Notes?

Talk about sleeping material and it was SO unintentional. I doubt if I ever meet this author she'd want to hear, "Whenever I had a hard time falling to sleep, I just picked up your book and started snoring after three pages." Ugh.

You have one of these? Please oh please say yes, even if you have to lie to me.

Hop Skip and a Cyber Jump

Life is filled with rituals, but I think my most tried and true is my morning online ritual while inhaling nicotine and guzzling caffeine. Those places I check in first thing every morning. I work through my "favorites" folder and go down the list, one at a time, doing my daily check for all the things out there in cyberland that make Brenda smile, or at least things that make me go "Hmmm".

I've been trying to find new places to add to my usuals, and of course, the easiest way is to blog hop. Then my morning checklist goes from that above to looking more like this:

(And I have no idea why when I upload an image here, it automatically puts it at the top and I have to go and copy all that flippin' code and cut it to where I had it originally destined to be placed. Grrr.)

So what does your morning ritual consist of and where are you favorite cyber spots? They may be places I'd love to visit too and who knows - may accidently bump into you there.

Expanding Horizons

I'm doing new things as a writer I've never done before. (And although I said I was going to blog daily and don't, ya gotta admit, I AM doing it exceedingly more often than I ever have, so any progress is good, right? Right!)

After a couple of years drastically out of the writing world, I'm slowly but surely making my way back.

I look for any excuse not to write, it seems, so for me to suddenly participate in writing challenges/exercises is something I pushed myself to do. There's no commitment to 250-300 words or to spend 20 minutes pushing my brain into new places and genres and thinking ideas. I've found it quite fun, especially to see if I can nail to the EXACT word count required. I've always felt that if I write, it has to be toward publication, toward a finished product, and never just for fun.

Another new thing I'm doing is participating in novel chats and book discussions (well I haven't yet, but will be).

I owe these new horizons to the God of All Things Sadistic and Brilliant. Thank you.

Love & Chocolate

I never know what to write for holidays like this, but at the same time, especially being a romance writer, I feel it's expected, like married sex on holidays and birthdays, even if you would really rather ignore it.

Evil Editor had a romance writing exercise, so I did that. I believe there were 23 scenes submitted, so if you need some reading material, scuttle on over there and read up.

I spent the evening with the heathens. The typical Italian meal, served on a white tablecloth with my red dishes, candles in red and white and pink, gifts on their Valentine's Day napkins atop the plates, helium balloons tied to their chairs. They loved it. Spoiled punks.

Then we spent the evening watching Pride and Prejudice.

There are many things that come to my mind on this holiday, and for those who are regular readers here, you already know how I feel about days created for forced appreciation, like this day, and Mother's Day, etc. Regardless of claims, expectations are set and often disappointed, and I'd rather be told what I mean to someone on a regular basis than on a day someone chose from the calendar.

So to keep from blathering on about this... holiday, this year in particular being difficult for me - I decided to list my favorite all time romantic movies (in no particular order):

Pride and Prejudice
Ever After
The Notebook
The Princess Bride
A Knight's Tale

I find it interesting that my favorites tend to be period films. Hmm. Maybe I was born in the wrong century. That would explain so much.

What are your favorite romance movies?

Oh, and a special thank you to Furry Sound for the Valentine heart I posted here. It was my only Valentine. So thank you, much. ~kiss~