Tag: mom

First Day Disaster

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

Snapped this pic with my phone on the way to St. Thomas. Sunsets from above can be great, too.

We landed after dark and stayed at a semi-skeezy hotel near the airport, because we couldn’t check into the timeshare until the next afternoon. In the morning, we ate breakfast at a restaurant on the beach, which was lovely and warm. Then we loaded up the car and headed to the timeshare hotel. Stepdad Dave asked for early check-in, but that still wouldn’t be until about 1 or 2. But the hotel stored our bags and we got to walk around and see the premises.

After this pic, my mom took my phone and tried to take one with me in it. Somehow she hit the button to make it into a video. I think it’s so funny to watch – turn on your speakers, too. Sorry it’s so huge. If anyone knows how I can reduce the size (decrease resolution maybe?) with Windows Live Movie Maker, let me know!

Posing

So, then we traipse off to find a restaurant David and I ate at when we were on St. Thomas years ago. It was part of this hotel of individual condos, with these great walking trails that switch back and forth down the hillside to the beach. The steps are natural rock and my mom tells Stepdad Dave to watch his footing. He complains that my mother thinks he’s clumsy, but that was one trip to Mexico and it was because his glasses were bad.

We find the place. Have a fun lunch with beers. (I’ve been asked to add that Stepdad Dave wants it known that HE did not have anything to drink – only Diet Coke.)

All is well.

See the happy fun?

Well!

So, Stepdad Dave gets a call from the hotel that our rooms are ready. He’s all excited to go check in. We head up the first hill and we’re all kind of dragging rear. I jokingly say that the climb back up is the price we pay for all the beers. We cross the little asphalt road and Stepdad Dave is huffing a bit. He tells us to go ahead. My mom is perkily climbing away. David, behind me, asks Stepdad Dave if he needs to rest. Or, I say, over my shoulder, we can bring the car down to pick him up.

We hear a funny noise.

I look back and Stepdad Dave has fallen off the path, rolled down the hill and is clinging to a root at the edge of the drop-off. David is already running down the path to get to him from below. I’m wondering how the hell we’ll do this, that maybe David can push from below and I can get to him from above.

Then the root breaks and he drops over the side. Of this.

That’s looking up from below.

My mom didn’t see any of this, but she’s coming back down. I yell at her to go slow (very helpful of me, I know) and I’m running down, thinking he could be dead, with his skull cracked open. I’m wondering mainly how I’ll explain to stepsister Hope that I got her dad killed on St. Thomas.

Fortunately, he didn’t die. He came down that embankment, rolled over the retaining wall and landed on the road. The ambulance came to get him. We spent most of the rest of the day at the hospital. The doctor on duty was fortuitously a guy who’d trained in the Los Angeles Trauma Center. After multiple x-rays, it turns out that Stepdad Dave broke his shoulder blade. An amazingly minor injury, all things considered.

No surgery. No vacation cut short. Just an immobilization sling and pain meds.

Here he is a few days later, looking jaunty with the carved walking stick we found for him. We’re hoping he’ll get in the habit of using it, just to stabilize himself. He didn’t get to snorkel, alas, but we had a great time anyway.

How to Become a Phenomenon

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

We got snow. A lovely, soaking snow that started in the afternoon and continued through the night. The ground is busily sucking up the much-needed moisture. Don’t worry – the spring flowers are fine. I only wish you could hear the birdsong soundtrack that goes with this photo.

Also, big shout out to Marcella Burnard, friend and critique partner, whose sexy novella Enemy Mine releases today! She’ll be visiting the blog tomorrow, when she plans to blame it all on me, as I understand. Despite that threat, I plan to give away a copy to a carefully chosen commenter.

But that’s not why you’re here, is it? You want to know how to become a phenomenon.

Don’t we all.

I’m hearing this discussion a lot lately, especially with the sudden frenzy over 50 Shades of Grey. My mom sent me this link the other day, to the Fifty Shades Frenzy video. It’s not that long and kind of fun to watch, if only for the sheer enthusiasm of these women, lighting up over the book. My mom then commented, “she stole your idea!”

This is why we love our mothers.

Indeed, author after author on Twitter has been reporting various family members contacting them, asking if they’ve hear of this book. Suddenly what a lot of us have been writing for some time has been catapulted into the public eye – and approval, even. Suddenly people have heard of what we write.

And people are working the angles.

Some writers are tearing out their hair that this particular book is the one to hit, analyzing its many flaws. Others are talking about how their genre is HOT now and how to capitalize on that. Mostly what everyone wants to do is figure out is the magic formula. Why THIS book??

Mostly, we are jealous.

I mean, I am jealous.

I know it’s low of me, an unflattering insight into my less than sterling character. But there it is. I want for my books what this book is getting. The love, the notice. Chocolate-covered heroin, doncha know. The money would be nice, too.

The thing is, though, I think this is an impossible question. A while back I posted about the interview between JK Rowling and Oprah Winfrey, where they discussed what it’s like to become a phenomenon and why it happened to them. They don’t know either. They were right there, creating the thing and they have no idea. If you watch the Fifty Shades Frenzy video to the end, you’ll see an interview with EL James. SHE has no idea either. You’ll see – this is not a woman who’s a sharp marketer or calculated her way to the hearts of the ladies in the video. She simply started writing her spin-off fantasy of Twilight and BOOM!

(It should be pointed out that, despite its apparent sudden advent into public awareness, this is not an overnight boom. I read the book over a year ago.)

So, even as I rummage in my desk drawer for chocolate, because there is no chocolate-covered heroin available, stewing because other people have what I want, I know it’s all the merry-go-round. It’s all lights, tinkling music and fake horses. Up and down, round and round. Until you’re vaguely queasy and wondering why the ride sounded so appealing in the first place.

Figuring out how to be a phenomenon is like figuring out how to win the lottery.

My friend from college who has a masters in statistics was posting some numbers the other day. She said that the odds of winning the Mega Millions lottery were 1:175,711,536. This compared to the odds of dying in a plane crash (1:29,400,000) or being hit by lightning (1:10,000). Looking only at the number of books published in the US in 2009 (the easiest number I could find), the odds of having the stand-0ut book of that year would be 1:288,355. I’m betting that number doesn’t include self-published books either, which is how Fifty Shades started out.

How we’d define phenomena like Fifty Shades, or empires from the Twilight or the Harry Potter books, I have no idea. This is why *I* don’t have a masters in statistics.

Suffice to say, stay inside during thunderstorms and don’t worry so much about flying.

We can write good books while doing both of these things.

How to Stay Young Forever

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

We just spend the weekend in Las Vegas, celebrating my mom’s birthday.

I may or may not be hungover still.

This was a big birthday for her, with a zero at the end. I’m not allowed to say how old she is, but I’m 45 and she was 24 when I was born. You do the math.

And, yes, feel free to be awed by how fabulous she looks.

The four of us, my Mom, Stepdad Dave, my David and I had the best time. We went to see a burlesque show that was amazing (Crazy Horse, at the MGM), drank pitchers of mojitos at the pool, walked all over, saw Phantom of the Opera, lunched at Sammy Hagar’s and walked all over some more. My David commented that we could hardly keep up with them.

Good times.

When my David said how full of energy they are, they said they just don’t feel old.

Amen.

And many, many happy returns, Mom.

Teaching Beauty

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

At one point during the Christmas weekend, my mom, my aunt and I were all in my bedroom. My Aunt Karen was borrowing a shirt so David could do a little work on her back and my mom tagged along.

My mom sat down on my side of the bed and commented on the amazing view. I told her to lie down so she could see the sky the way I do when I wake up in the morning. When it’s *ahem* not pitch dark out, that is. I know, I know – the light is coming back around.

Karen pulled off her shirt, took the one I gave her and said how much she hates the moles on her back. She turned around to show us, and there they were, large flat moles all over her back.

“Just like Grandmother’s!” I exclaimed.

Karen nodded. Yes, she’d gotten her mother’s moles, turning up later in life. My mom said she didn’t remember their mother having moles. Oh yes, I remembered, Grandmother would take a bath every evening before bed and, if I was spending the night, I would keep her company and wash her back for her. The moles made me think of a Dalmation’s coat, beautiful, unique and special. Only seeing Karen’s moles did I remember that sense of delight and admiration. On some level, I always thought I’d have them, too. That when I grew up to be a lady like Grandmother, I would gain Dalmation polka dots to grace my own skin.

It’s funny how time changes things. How I’ve since learned it’s not something to admire. How Karen wishes she didn’t have them.

So much of what we think of as beautiful is taught. Carefully, carefully taught.

Frosty the Snowmom

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

This is my mom, inside the Frosty costume, with one of my nephews. (Thanks to Hope for sending the pic!) And yes, that is a big dent in the side of the Frosty head. I asked my mom if she got in a tussle with a traffic cop and she said, no, it was from all the hugging.

See, my mom has been learning to be a docent at Tohono Chul Park in Tucson. This is no show-up-and-volunteer gig. She has to take classes for something like six months, to learn about the regional flora and fauna. This involves homework, even. It’s been so fun to hear her tell us the names of birds and how to distinguish the different types of cholla. David and I have always been the biologists/naturalists in the family, but now she’s far surpassed us, especially on the botany end.

So, when the Tohono Chul people decided the old Frosty costume was getting ratty (see aforementioned dentable head), they purchased a new one, which the director would wear for their Holiday Nights festival. Then they thought, hey, why not get more mileage out of the old one, too? This is how my mother ended up dressed as Frosty.

Because, of course she volunteered to do it. Just like she’s memorizing how to tell a cardinal from a  pyrrohuloxia. (I just asked her on IM what the false cardinal’s name is again. And she reminded me the main way to tell them apart is the beak.)

She’s always embracing life, learning and growing. I admire that so much.

Now she’s telling me about the phainopepla that eat mistletoe in the park and how mistletoe gets a bad rap.

Let me count the ways that I love her.

Who’s Your Audience?

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

On Saturday, my mom mentioned that they were heading out to a fun local bar to watch the Aggie’s football game. Now, this is the woman who advised me that I could find the perfect man by trolling the aisles at Tattered Cover bookstore during a Bronco‘s game. It used to drive her crazy that my stepfather, Leo, would loll around all weekend long watching football games. And basketball games. And baseball games. Leo passed away a few years back and now my mom is remarried – this time to, Dave, a Texas A&M graduate. When she told me about the plan for the game, I said, “I wonder if Leo ever realized that all he had to do to get you on board with football-watching was to take you to a fun bar?”

“Even if he had,” my mom replied, “he would never have paid to watch a football game.”

It occurred to me that Dave is a wise man, who knows his audience well.

I read an interesting review the other day of Margaret Atwood’s new essay collection, meant to be an examination of fantastic stories. (Caveat: I have not read the collection myself and am relying on the reviewer’s assessment here.) Margaret Atwood has always been a favorite author of mine and I’ve admired her ability to straddle genres. It’s always been my impression that people are somewhat bemused by her science fiction books (Handmaid’s Tale, Oryx & Crake, The Year of the Flood), sprinkled amidst the “literary” ones (Cat’s Eye, Robber Bride, Lady Oracle). The reviewer confessed disappointment that she really had little illuminating to say about the genre for anyone who is a dedicated SFF reader. He suggests that those who pick up the collection only as Atwood fans who otherwise don’t read much SFF might get something out of it. And I thought, yeah, but I bet most of the people who aren’t SFF readers won’t pick up this book.

Writers and, more to the point, publishers and marketers, often ponder who the audience for a particular work will be. As a newbie writer, I really hated that question. It was very difficult to imagine who my readers might be, besides “someone like me” (my standard answer) or people who already loved me and thought I was wonderful. I think this is something you get better at knowing, the more you publish. Meeting readers goes a long way towards this. You discover who these people are, who don’t know you but love your stories.

I’ll give you a hint: they’re not like me, either.

In many ways, I still believe that writing the story should be all internal, about what the story and I decide it should be. But there’s a point at which you have to bring your critical eye and think about who will be reading this. Will they understand that reference? Will they squick at some dark detail? Deciding what to do from there is part of the acquired skill of being a professional writer.

Sometimes it means paying out a little bit, in whatever currency that might be, a bit of sacrifice, a little pain, in order to achieve the greater goal.

Blog Comments and Worms

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

David took this picture. It might be my new favorite. Even my mom – the blonde behind the camera next to me – will like it because her glasses aren’t showing. She’s been having to wear glasses instead of contact lenses for the last couple of months, so her eyes will return to their natural state before her cataract surgery. Which is today.

Send good thoughts, please!

We had a lovely weekend in the mountains, up at Snowmass in Colorado. Friends have asked what we did and I don’t have much to tell them. We sat on the deck. I got to read a lot. We drank wine and hung out. There were presents – and then tech support for the presents. Mostly I just enjoyed being with my family.

My stepsister, Hope, and her hubs and boys called and sang me Happy Birthday. Then she explained that the fabulous iced-tea maker she sent me from Teavana is in homage to my blog post about there still being more summer. It’s funny that she mentioned that post in particular, because it was one of the ones that no one commented on. Now, I’ve said many times that I will never be one of those bloggers who begs for comments. I read a lot of blogs and I don’t always comment. Usually I just don’t have anything in particular to say. But – every once in a while – it’s because the blog post annoys me in some way. So, of course, when no one comments on one of mine, a little niggly voice starts suggesting that everyone hates me.

Which leads to the eating of worms. Never pretty.

When I learn, then, that someone did read and even better, took that thought away from her, I feel the opposite way. Like making iced tea and guzzling it so that sparkling drops fly everywhere.

Writing is funny that way. Even blogging, which is more interactive than most writing media. It often feels like talking to an empty room. When someone answers, it can be astonishing. My long time friend, Kev, sent me a birthday email, just to catch up his end of the conversation – because he can’t always think of snarky replies to my blog posts. A little while back, this gal, Rachel, said something very nice to me about my writing and we chatted a bit on Twitter. In an attempt to convince me that she’s not a stalker (much), she mentioned that the fact that she’d planted cactus in her Kansas garden and was wearing a Cat Woman costume meant nothing.

Yeah, she cracked me up.

But more – it made me realize that people do listen. Even when we think they don’t. When they’re off being too busy to think up clever comments.

It’s a good thing to know.

Now I’m going to make some iced tea.