Cathy Lamb's Blog, page 62

Julia’s Chocolates, published in 2007, was the first novel I ever sold. I cannot tell you how thrilled I was when my agent called and said he’d sold it to Kensington Books in NYC.

When I was taking writing classes and desperately trying to publish, I was told that you should “write what you know.” I thought then, and now, that that was terrible advice. What did I know about anything? Not much.

I had been a fourth grade teacher. I was an at – home, exhausted mommy with three kids who freelanced articles for The Oregonian on homes, decor, and people. I did a lot of laundry and tried to keep the house clean and my mind sane. I was a lousy cook and totally undomesticated.

I had a crazy imagination and had tried to write category romance and failed miserably. I slept about five to six hours a night as I regularly wrote from ten p.m. until two in the morning.

So I flipped the “write what you know” advice. I decided to write about what I didn’t know.

What I didn’t know a thing about was what it would be like to have a lousy mother. My mother, Bette Jean, was a kind, compassionate, smart woman. She was an English teacher at my middle school, then my high school.

Bette Jean was the daughter of a Texas southern belle who had lost both parents (one dead, one who ran off) by the time she was four years old, and a poor farmer’s son with an eighth grade education from Arkansas who went west to Los Angeles to build homes.

My mother moved eighteen times by the time she left home at seventeen, as her father was flipping houses. It built within her a life long understanding of what it felt like to be left out, to be the outsider.

She met my father, who had flown jets for the Navy, at UCLA, where he was majoring in engineering, specializing in nuclear engineering. They married when she was twenty one.

Bette Jean was lovely and my very best friend.

The mother in Julia’s Chocolates is exactly opposite from my mother in every single way. After I created the mother, I created Julia, her daughter, and gave her a wild, free thinking, fun Aunt Lydia. Aunt Lydia is the aunt I would have loved to have myself.

My parents, Bette and Jim

Aunt Lydia painted her house pink “like a vagina,” with a black door to “ward off seedy men.” Aunt Lydia had five concrete pigs in her front yard and she hung a sign on each one with the name of a man she couldn’t stand. She had a rainbow bridge on her front lawn and toilets overflowing with flowers.

I had my three main characters, then I added three more ladies, Lara, Katie, and Caroline. Lara was married to a loving, stud – man minister and had squashed herself into being the perfect minister’s wife, because that’s what she thought she should do. She was a closet artist and she was miserable.

Katie was a mother married to a raving alcoholic.

Caroline was psychic. I thought a magical element would be entertaining.

I had my story. I wrote my heart out.

If you read Julia’s Chocolates, I hope you love it, I really do.

 

 

Julia’s Chocolates

Chapter One

I left my wedding dress hanging in a tree somewhere in North Dakota.

I don’t know why that particular tree appealed to me. Perhaps it was because it looked as if it had given up and died years ago and was still standing because it didn’t know what else to do.  It was all by itself, the branches gnarled and rough, like the top of someone’s knuckles I knew.

I didn’t even bother to pull over as there were no other cars on that dusty tw0 – lane road, which was surely an example of what hell looked like: You came from nowhere; you’re going nowhere. And here is your only decoration: a dead tree.

Enjoy your punishment.

The radio died, and the silence rattled through my brain. I flipped up the trunk and was soon covered with the white fluff and lace and flounce of what was my wedding dress. I had hated it from the start, but he had loved it.

Loved it because it was high collared and demure and innocent. Lord, I looked like a stuffed white cake when I put it on.

The sun beat down on my head as I stumbled to the tree and peered through the branches to the blue sky tunneling down at me in triangular rays. The labyrinth of branches formed a maze that had no exit. If you were a bug that couldn’t fly, you’d be stuck.  You’d keep crawling and crawling, desperate to find your way out, but you never would. You’d gasp your last tortured breath in a state of utter confusion and frustration, and that would be that.

Yes, another representation of hell.

The first time I heaved the dress up in the air, it landed right back down on my head. And the second time, and the third, which simply increased my fury. I couldn’t even get rid of my own wedding dress.

My breath caught in my throat, my heart suddenly started to race, and it felt like the air had been sucked right out of the universe, a sensation I had become more and more familiar with in the last six months.

I was under the sneaking suspicion that I had some dreadful disease, but I was too scared to find out what it was, and too busy convincing myself I wasn’t suicidal to address something as pesky as that.

My arms were weakened from my Herculean efforts and the fact that I could hardly breathe.  My freezing cold hands started to shake.

I thought the dress was going to suffocate me, the silk cloying, clinging to my face. I finally gave up and lay face down in the dirt. Someone, years down the road, would stop their car and lift up the pile of white fluff and find my skeleton. That is, if the buzzards didn’t gnaw away at me first. Were there buzzards in North Dakota?

Fear of the buzzards, not of death, made me roll over. I shoved the dress aside and screamed at it, using all the creative swear words I knew.  Yes, I thought, my body shaking, I am losing my mind.

Correction: Mind already gone.

Sweat poured off my body as I slammed my dress repeatedly into the ground, maybe to punish it for not getting caught in one of the branches. Maybe to punish it for even existing. I finally slung the dress around my neck like a noose and started climbing the dead tree, sweat droplets teetering off my eyelashes.

The bark peeled and crumbled, but I managed to get up a few feet, and then I gave the white monstrosity a final toss. It hooked on a tiny branch sticking out like a witch’s finger.

The over sized bodice twisted and turned, the long train, now sporting famous North Dakota dirt, hung toward the parched earth like a snake.

I tried to catch my breath, my heart hammering on high speed as tears scalded my cheeks, no doubt trekking through lines of dirt.

I could still hear the dressmaker, “Why on earth do you want such a high neckline?” she had asked, her voice sharp. “With a chest like that, my dear, you should show it off, not cover up!”

I had looked at my big bosoms in her fancy workroom, mirrors all around. They heaved up and down under the white silk as if they wanted to run. The bosoms were as big as my buttocks, I knew, but at least the skirt would cover those.

Robert Stanfield III had been clear. “Make sure you get a wide skirt. I don’t want you in one of those slinky dresses that’ll show every curve. You don’t have the body for that, Turtle.”

He always called me Turtle. Or Possum. Or Ferret Eyes. If he was mad he called me Cannonball Butt.

Although I can understand the size of my butt – that came from chocolate eating binges – I had never understood my bosoms. They had spouted out, starting in fifth grade and had kept growing and growing. By eighth grade I had begged my mother for breast reduction surgery. She was actually all for it, but that was because all of her boyfriends kept starting at me. Or touching. Or worse.

The doctor, of course, was appalled and said no. And here I was, thirty four years old, with these heaving melons still on me. Note to self: One, get money. Two, get rid of the melons.

 

 

1) Jail is extremely unpleasant. (Don’t ever commit a crime, Cathy, I mean it! You won’t look good in blue scrubs marked JAIL, you don’t like being told what to do, which is going to be a real problem with your temper, and the lighting is poor.)

2. The FBI is very helpful. When agents call back to offer help, they do not give their last names. This is mysterious! I like mystery! I should have been an FBI agent. Then I could have worn a trench coat and dark glasses.

3. The US Attorneys office has serious (and very cool) employees who answer all questions seriously.

4. Case workers for foster care kids are overworked and underpaid. That we pay people who play basketball a thousand times more than we pay these people is asinine, and completely in line with ridiculous pay scales for certain jobs in this country.

5. Being homeless is degrading, humiliating, and soul crushing. Living in a car is dangerous. I would prefer not to do it.

5. Being an artist is fun! I want to be an artist! (Must learn how to draw more than stick figures and hearts.)

6. Tall, dark, and handsome still rocks it. (I’ll give you a hint, ladies, on THE MAN, in my next book: His name is Kade. He’s smokin’.)

7. When I write through the eyes of a scary person I scare myself. I would make a horrible horror writer.

8. Some story lines are enormous. One must not cut down story lines just because one would rather laze around and drink coffee and eat chocolate no matter how bad the temptation.

9. Being in pajamas until three in the afternoon is never glamorous, this I have known, but my problem with this book was how little I cared.

10. Daydreaming is so healthy. Dream on!

11. (Extra credit answer. I used to be a teacher.) I still love writing.

When I was about 15 years old, I read a book called Touch The Wind. It was by Janet Dailey, a romance writer, who died yesterday in Branson, Missouri.

Touch The Wind was a smokin’ hot love story, set in Mexico, and it about popped my young eyes out.

Perhaps I should write what is on the front cover page to show you what Touch The Wind was all about…

“HE WAS RAFAGA…Whose gun fed a hungry people…whose passion fed a woman’s hungering heart…A man as proud and fierce as the lions that roamed his mountain retreat.

SHE WAS SHEILA…As cool, beautiful, and unyielding as the modern towers that stood as bastions of the fortune that would one day be hers. Now she was Rafaga’s captive prize, held for a ransom in gold, struggling against the fire he set in her blood. She called her captor every name, and lived to take back all but one: Lover.”

I know, QUIT LAUGHING. It was bodice – ripping dramatic, but the drama hit me in my young, throbbing, hopeful heart. Rafaga was a sexy, strong stud. I was a tall, skinny, gangly, awkward girl and the thought of romance in my life, well, that dang near took my breath away. I lived through Sheila, Rafaga’s “woman.”

I remember every inch of this plot. Reading it today, I would see Rafaga as abusive, domineering, too controlling, and with a serious lack of humor. He would have to be in counseling for a long, long time. But I put reality aside a lot at fifteen, and I did it when I read Touch The Wind.

I am sure that this book had a huge impact on my wanting to be a writer. Other books, as a child and as a teenager, had a huge impact, too: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, Pippi Longstocking, the Beezus and Ramona books, and writing for my high school newspaper.

Being a daydreamer, playing outside all the time, and having a mother who encouraged a wild imagination were hugely helpful, too.

But this book set the ground work for romance in my books.

In March of 2013, I had a short story published called, “The Apple Orchard,” in an anthology titled, “You’re Still The One,” with Janet Dailey.

It was about an apple orchard, an abusive father, a trailer park, apple pies, a long lost love and two painful secrets.

I was thrilled to be in the same book as Janet. I wrote to her, never heard back, and was not offended. I am sure she received thousands of emails a week.

But if someone had told me when I was a rebellious, insecure fifteen year old that one day I would grow up and have a story in a book with Janet’s name on it, I would have laughed till I wet my pants.

That was out of the realm of my daydreaming.

And yet, it happened. I can’t tell you how surreal it was.

I was sorry to hear of her death yesterday and hope that she had a beautiful life. She certainly brought beauty, and romance, and a lot of fun, to mine.

Every book I write gets a journal. In fact, several of my books have had many journals.

I write in the journals, scribble, sketch, star the good ideas, cross out the lousy ideas, and glue in magazine photos for inspiration.

Before I write a book, I always have to figure out my gal’s occupation. That’s first. What does she do for a job? Does she like her job? Is it JUST a job, a stepping stone, or does she love it? Does she hate it? Why did she choose that occupation?

I find people’s choice of jobs in real life fascinating, and it carries over to my book writing.

I then start to build my character. What is she like? Does she have a talent? Does she know the talent yet? What are her flaws? Is she a loner? Social? Married? Divorced? Outspoken, shy, quiet, sarcastic, troubled, sane, quick to
fight, quick to cry?

What is her personal history? Where did she grow up? How? Bad childhood or solid and fun?

I give her family and friends. The family dynamic is endlessly interesting to me. Family relationships are a joy and, sometimes, a terror. They’re tricky, they’re beautiful, they may be the deepest relationships you’ll ever have, they may be the most treacherous and land – mine filled.

I also ask, where does she live now? What does her home look like? What does she look like? Frumpy? Stylish? Thin or curvy?

With IF YOU COULD SEE WHAT I SEE I was thinking about a few interesting elements before and during the writing process:

The sister relationship.

An off the wall mother. And sex. (I tied these two together.)

A grandma with a past. (Grandma’s were young, too. They may have secrets.)

Ireland. (Where I would like to travel to.)

Strawberries. (Tasty. I’d like some shortcake.)

Lingerie. (Too bad I don’t fit in the stuff I have anymore.)

Blood. (Bad.)

A family business. (Now that’s a ticking bomb.)

Making a documentary film. (Can I travel?)

Teenagers. (I have three of them.)

I also was thinking a lot about marriage. Having been married twenty years, I still don’t think I fully understand it.

Here’s what my main character, Meggie O’Rourke, says about marriage:

”There are many questions I have about marriage. Not that I will get married again.

When we take vows “until death do us part,” the implication is that the marriage will last until someone is residing in a coffin.

But is the death of a marriage, through affairs, abuse, neglect, addictions, personality disorders, or continual misery and loneliness, also death?

What if there were secrets you didn’t know before you married that you had a right to know? Isn’t your spouse breaking the vows before the vows are said? If so, does that mean we can walk out free and clear?

When we make a commitment, is that forever, regardless of new circumstances?

Is it immoral to leave a mean or neglectful spouse if he comes down with a disease because you can’t tolerate the thought of being both caretaker and punching bag?

Is it immoral to leave a mentally ill spouse who won’t agree to treatment? Even if the person agrees to get treatment, is it okay to leave?

What if by staying your health fails because you’re married to someone who will never be able to function as a spouse, who will always take and take and suck the life out of you? Is it fair to expect someone to give up their entire life to stay with a mentally ill spouse?

But isn’t staying when things get tough part of marriage? The good and the bad? The lucky times and the bad surprises? Rich and poor? What about the love you had for that person on your wedding day, the commitment you made? Wouldn’t you want that person to care for you, to love you, if your life fell apart?

How can you justify leaving a spouse who has an illness in his head that he did not bring on himself?

What role do children play in a divorce? If there’s no abuse, and the spouse is a good-enough parent but a lousy mate, should we stay married, and suck it up, until the kids are grown?

What do we owe our children? How much sacrifice is too much? Will a divorce simply cause a whole new set of problems, particularly for the children, and not solve anything?

What do we deserve in life, in marriage? Is it spoiled and entitled to even talk about “deserving more?” Is a good-enough marriage good enough? Do we expect too much?

I struggled with these questions years ago. The end result was staggeringly poor.

So. I threw all these thoughts together, plus a hundred more, daydreamed a ton, wrote a first draft, edited it eight times, sent it to my editor and agent, got their thoughts, edited it another four times during the edit/proofing/copyrighting part, had some very long and late nights, and it went out the door.

Hope you enjoy IF YOU COULD SEE WHAT I SEE.

Woman Magazine

Interview of Brianna O’Rourke, by Gabrielle Madeiro

Out in August, 2013

You have helped women all over the nation, even the world, get in touch with their sexuality. You write books, a popular column, and you’re a coveted guest on talk shows. Do you ever get tired of talking about sex?

Yes. Sometimes I never want to say “sex” or “sex toys” again in my life. But it’s not a twenty-four/seven occupation. I have a life. I have a mother, three daughters, and grandchildren. They are my priority. I also bake and I love to embroider. I sew and knit.

You knit?

Yes, I love knitting. Don’t you?

Uh, no. Do people come up to you in public and ask you about sex?

Yes, all the time. Happens in airports, restaurants, and cafés. For example, last night I was at a dinner and a man asked me what a clitoris was. He asked what he was supposed to do with it. I used two slices of lime, an olive, and half a cherry to explain it to him. I told him exactly what to do. He was so grateful he hugged me. I wrote instructions on the napkin. He took the napkin and ate the olive. I ate the cherry.

I also use bananas a lot—less intimidating. Apples come in handy, too, as do lemon quarters and chocolate fudge sickles.

Why do you think so many women reportedly lose interest in sex?

Many reasons. Oftentimes women are simply not attracted to their partners anymore. Their partners are boring in bed or self-centered, inane, ridiculous, abusive, or gross. It’s not what men want to hear. They want to blame their wives and girlfriends, but it’s the truth.

Sometimes women are flat-out exhausted. There can be medical issues, like thyroid problems or depression. There can be hormone issues, too. Who likes blowing up in bed with night sweats? Working too hard will kill a sex drive, too, as can motherhood and its demands.

There may be abuse in a woman’s background that needs to be addressed immediately.

Sometimes women don’t feel sexy anymore, too fat or frumpy, or they’re self-conscious performing. Let me tell you, ladies, dim the lights, light candles, put on a negligee, and your partner will be so glad he’s getting some, there should be no complaints. If there is, dump him and get a new partner.

You absolutely must get to the bottom of why you’re not interested in sex. There’s a reason, find it, attack it, get back in bed.

But does our society put too much emphasis on sex? Isn’t it okay to lose interest?

If you want to feel like you have a dried-up raisin living in the heart of your vagina, yes, it’s fine. If you want to lose that feeling of youth and vitality, sure, give it up. If you want to go to bed every night and simply sleep and give up your sexuality, go ahead. If you want to miss out on the rush of an orgasm, the intimacy with your lover, being in a close relationship, sure. Embrace the raisin.

You do sex counseling for couples. How does that work?

It words darn well, honey. First off, I listen to the husband and wife individually, then I work with them together. One of my clients, the wife, said that she doesn’t like sex because her husband treats her vagina like he’s holding a cattle prod and the cattle prod has to keep poking the vagina. It drove her bananas. He thought he was turning her on.

I was blunt and told him to knock it off. I had another husband complain because his wife made this singsong sound when they were having sex, like a tortured whale. I told her to make the sounds. It was awful. I told her to knock it off.

Those are easy fixes. Sex counseling can be painful because much of how a relationship is working or is completely dysfunctional comes out in a couple’s sex life. We get down to what’s going wrong between the two of them. Could be an affair, an addiction, the couple is not in love, or one person is gay or frigid or bored to death or a jerk.

Their sexual patterns could be at odds—one person wants it more than the other. It could be money issues, work issues, penis issues, vaginal dryness issues. We dig in and go.

Next I work with them about what they like during sex, and what they don’t. We talk boldly and honestly. When they leave, they’re usually pretty steamed up. My office overlooks the parking lot, and often they’re having sex in their car.

What should couples always do to have a happy sex life?

Have sex.

That simple?

Yes. Have it regularly. Have a Sex Night each week. Sex can be serious, passionate, fun, even funny. Try new things, new positions, new places. Try not to get arrested. That’s embarrassing.

Any other advice?

You must get to know your clitoris. You must figure out your orgasmic rhythm. You must figure out what you like and don’t like. You must ask your partner to do what you want to have done.

Also make a brutal assessment of yourself. Are you good in bed? Truly? Are you open to trying new things?

Adventurous? Exciting? Are you doing what you can to keep your partner in love with you? Are you a supportive, friendly, loving spouse or partner?

Anything else?

As my mother always says, “Live your life with love. When you die, that’s what you’re leaving behind.”

How I Write Full Time And Run A House

I have three teenagers, a husband, and an odd cat who is in love with my husband and lays on his chest every night. I’m also a women's fiction writer. Here’s a little cheat sheet on how I run my house while working full time.

1) I do not fold my family’s laundry. I remember listening to a mother many years ago, when my daughter was a baby, complaining that she had spent two hours folding laundry the day before. I looked at her and thought, “She is absolutely insane. I will never, ever be like that woman.”

I wash laundry, I put it in the dryer, and I plop it on the floor. My kids come and get their laundry – this started when they were two – and put it in their drawers/closets themselves. Life is precious. Do not waste time folding clothes.

2) I rarely dust. I cannot possibly picture drumming up enough energy to make sure every speck is off my surfaces. How dreary. It takes time away from my imagination. Another time saver? I don’t even sort my silverware, I just toss it altogether into a drawer after it’s cleaned.

3) I have streamlined my home. I am a huge thrower. The best way to a clean house is to throw unnecessary items out on a regular basis like a Tazmanian She - Devil. Do not hesitate here, an organized home is essential to sanity. Get bags and start hauling it out. (This does not apply to my garage. Clearly, a cyclone has hit in there)

4) I buy a lot of prepared meals to make my life easier. My kids say I don’t cook, I “heat up.” It makes me laugh. When I sit down at the dinner table, I’m not stressed out so we have a good ole’ time. A home baked meal is worthless if an exhausted mom is crying into the sauce.

5) I make my kids help. My son and daughters scrub toilets, vacuum, do dishes, clean bathrooms, help with meals, and wash floors. They always have. I will not do this housework alone. I. Will. Not. Spoiled children grow up to be spoiled adults. Make your children work.

6) When I have a deadline, everyone helps more. I insist. They don’t help, they incur my wrath. It’s not pretty.

7) I take time away from my characters, plotlines and household stress to rest. I have heard so many times, “Take ten minutes out of each day for yourself.” What a crock. Ten minutes is barely enough time to hide in the bathroom or dig into a pint of ice cream. Insist on more time for yourself. Plan time on the weekends. Put the kids to bed earlier and have them read a book. Take a bath in the dark and if any kid interrupts you and they’re
not bleeding through their ears, take their favorite show away from them for a week. They’ll change immediately. You are a better woman if you’re not living like your hair’s on fire all day.

8) We have family dinners, even when I know I’ll be up until three in the morning writing. I see articles saying, “Have Family Dinner Once a Week,” and I just want to cry. That is not enough. If your kids are all in sports late, then have a Family Dessert Time afterwards. Family movie night with brownies. Pizza Night on Sunday. Poker night. You MUST get your family together more than once a week. Your kids must internalize that family is the most important thing in their lives.

9) One more thing…I compete with no one. Do not compete with other women for the perfect house, clothes, family. Do not compete with your neighbors or family members. If people are competing with you, drop them, irritating people must hit the highway.

Never strive for household perfection. It’s a pointless exercise, and it's shallow and boring. Invite honest, fun, interesting people to your home for fettuccine alfredo and chocolate pie. Be happy about the little things in life, be grateful that you are still here and, most of all, enjoy your family and friends, every day.

Gotta go. Must write.

*** Out August 1, 2013

Chapter Two

My family sells lingerie.

Negligees, bras, panties, thongs, bustiers, pajamas, nightgowns, and robes.

My grandma, who is in her eighties, started Lace, Satin, and Baubles when she was sixteen. She said she arrived from Ireland after sliding off the curve of a rainbow with a dancing leprechaun and flew to America on the back of an owl.

I thought that was a magical story when I was younger. When I was older I found out that she had crisscross scars from repeated whippings on her back, so the rainbow, dancing leprechaun, and flying owl part definitely dimmed.

Grandma refuses to talk about the whippings, her childhood, or her family in Ireland. “It’s over. No use whining over it. Who likes a whiner? Not me. Everyone has the crap knocked out of them in life, why blab about it? Blah blah blah. Get me a cigar, will you? No, not that one. Get one from Cuba. Red box.”

What I do know is that by the time Regan O’Rourke was sixteen she was out on her own. It was summer and she picked strawberries for money here in Oregon and unofficially started her company. The woman who owned the farm had an obsession with collecting fabrics but never sewed. In exchange for two nightgowns, she gave Grandma stacks of fabric, lace, satin, and huge jam bottles full of buttons. Grandma worked at night in her room in a weathered boarding house until the early hours and sold her nightgowns door to door so she would have money for rent and food.

Lace, Satin, and Baubles was born. Our symbol is the strawberry.

My grandma still works at the company. So do my sisters, Lacey and Tory. I am back at home in Portland after years away working as a documentary filmmaker and more than a year of wandering. You could ask me where I wandered. I would tell you, “I took a skip and a dance into hell.” It would be appropriate to say I spent the time metaphorically screaming.

When I was seven, two of my little girlfriends died.

Joni was eight.

Danielle was six.

We lived on Deauville Drive, in Huntington Beach, California. Across Garfield Street there was an area that had a hill, and the hill and land next to it had been bulldozed to build houses. Joni and Danielle, and brothers from one of the families, and a couple of other kids, ran lickety split across the street to play one sunny day.

They told their mothers they were going to our elementary school, through the path between the houses, past the barking dogs and the honeysuckle that poured over a fence. They snuck to a place they weren’t supposed to be, looking for an adventure.

They dug a cave into the hillside. A neat cave. Kids like caves.

And when Joni and Danielle were in that neat cave, having lots of fun, the cave collapsed and they suffocated.

We realized something was wrong when our family was driving to church and Mr. Amato, whose family made great sandwiches in a shop at the mall, was half carrying Danielle’s mother up the street along with another man. She was crying, head back. There were mobs of people, fire engines, and police.

Joni and Danielle were there one day, and then they were not. We drew pictures at my house, then we didn’t.

Joni was darling. I wanted to look like her. Dark hair, page boy cut, lots of thick black lashes. Danielle was thin and quick with huge green eyes. They were fun.

As an adult, I realized the devastation that Joni and Danielle’s deaths caused. Their families were ruined, the community shocked and grieving. At the time, I simply went back outside to play under the blue sky, daydreaming under the pink bougainvillea in the backyard.

All the kids did. We didn’t know what else to do. I remember crying, though, and not quite understanding what had happened. Those were the days when children did not go to funerals, so it wasn’t final to me, wasn’t quite real.

At forty six, I’ve read a number of articles about “aging gracefully,” and “getting older,” and “the dreaded middle age,” which I suppose I am. I read about women who desperately want to look younger and go to great lengths to do so. Botox, surgery, laser peels, etc. I’m not criticizing, I’m just noting it.

Though it’s hard to believe I’m four years from fifty, and though I thought I would be smarter and wiser by now, the truth is that aging doesn’t bother me. I'm simply glad that I've been given the gift of aging.

I think it has something to do with the impact of death so early in my life with Joni and Danielle and with deaths following theirs. As a teenager, I watched my Grandpa die month by month of cancer. I lost my beloved Nana before him. My parents were both dead of cancer by the time I was forty, same with my parents in law.

A close friend’s husband died at 33. His daughter was three. Linda, my best friend’s mother, who I loved, died in her early fifties of ovarian cancer. I lost two friends to lung cancer. One of those friends, four days before she died, in bed, too weak to open her eyes told me, “I like soup.”

I will never forget that. Louise was dying way too young, I knew it, she knew it, but she could find something she still liked: Soup.

My other friend, Margie, who at one point studied to become a nun, patted her heart when I sat with her one afternoon a few weeks before her death and told me, “Cathy, God is right here. He’s right here.”

Perhaps I have learned one thing from these deaths: People should be more concerned with living life with love and compassion and understanding, with having adventures and new experiences, with travel and learning and reading, than their appearance.

I will never be a size six again. I may be a size eight if I’m lucky, but I doubt it. Today I’m hoping, mildly, for a 10. Those two lines between my brows ain’t goin’ nowhere. My eyelids look heavier to me and the poison oak on one of them is not helping.

I always want to look my best, for me. I like my kick ass boots. I like my heels. I like my bracelets and earrings. But I can’t possibly get caught up in the “don’t look your age” movement, with this vanity and self absorption. As if aging is a curse, something to hide. As if it makes you less important.

Who cares? Looks are external. They’re not your soul, they’re not who you are inside. They’re not your character or how you hug your family and friends and how you make other people’s lives a little easier.

I think of Joni and Danielle now and again. All they lost, all that their families lost.

Joni and Danielle’s families would have given anything, even their own lives, to have them around, aging gracefully or aging horribly.

I wasn’t with them that day in the cave. But they’ve been with me my whole life. I can still see them, and their smiles, like it was yesterday, as we played hide and seek in our yard by the jacaranda and magnolia trees.

I will, hopefully, grow old and wrinkly, my sight dimming, my hearing not so good. I might get cranky, my bones might creak, my knees might wobble.

They never will.

Quite honestly, I am simply grateful to be here still. Wrinkles, extra pounds, and all.

I am asked all the time how one should go about getting published.

Here is my answer.

You need to write something good. Really good. You need to write something that a publishing house believes will sell.

So work, work, work on that story of yours. Study writing. Go to writing classes. Study your favorite books and ask yourself why you like them.

Read Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. On Writing by Stephen King. Writing Out The Storm by Jessica Morrell. And read Julia Cameron and Natalie Goldberg's books. See my other articles titled, "For Writers" in this blog.

Study more. Write more. Read more. Begin again. Edit, edit, edit.

When you're ready to submit your work, you need to get yourself an agent.

Should you finish writing your book before you try to get an agent?

Probably anyone else, in any other writing forum, in any magazine article or in any speech about how - to - publish, here or on Jupiter, will tell you to write a full manuscript before sending the first chapter off to an agent for his review.

This is enormously good advice in many ways. Writing a full book before sending it to an agent makes you nail down those characters. It forces you into the writing process.

You learn about pacing, character arcs, character development, climaxes, word choice, descriptions, dialogue, narration, voice, and a hundred other things, including whether or not you are capable of sitting your butt down and finishing a book. All excellent points.

I, however, will not tell you to write a full book before sending the first chapter off to an agent to review.

Why? Because of my own personal and miserable history which involved piles of rejection slips. After months spending time writing full manuscripts, they would be rejected. Repeatedly.

I wanted to bash my head through a wall. All those months of work...trashed. For nothing.

Looking back, the writing was bad. The idea was bad. The characters were bad. The organization and dialogue and narration were bad. Bad, bad, bad. I'm surprised I got as far as I did in my first go - round of trying to publish with Mills and Boon/Silhouette.


On my LAST attempt at writing a book, and I completely changed genres to women's fiction, I wrote the first 40 -ish pages of my book, Julia's Chocolates, no more. I sent it to four agents and a famous editor. The famous editor never responded. All the agents, based on those first forty pages, requested the full manuscript.

I waited until my favorite agent - the one I have now - asked for the full manuscript, told him I needed to do "a little editing," and worked my butt off for about four months, writing from ten o'clock at night until two in the morning, while taking care of three young kids, a house, and working a freelance writing job.

I used to edit Julia's Chocolates while my kids were playing at Chuck E Cheese and McDonalds.

I sent the full manuscript to my favorite agent, blurry eyed and exhausted. He loved it and I signed with him in a couple of weeks. A few weeks after that he sold Julia's Chocolates as part of a two - book deal to the publishing house I'm with now. I was ecstatic and I still love both my agent and my editor.

My advice is to write a bang up 20 pages. Yes, I did say 20. Twenty.

Write a short cover letter describing the plot in the first two paragraphs, the ending paragraph should be about you. Get a book on how to write query letters. Loosely follow it. You can send a short synopsis of the book attached at the end of the first twenty pages.

So your packet out to agents, online or by snail mail, looks like this: Cover letter, one page. Twenty pages of your story. Synopsis, one page.

An agent will read the first paragraph, MAYBE the first page, of your book, before he tosses it if his attention is not grabbed. If he likes the first paragraph, he reads the first page, then the second page, then the third.

He knows QUICKLY if your book is something he can sell to a publishing house. They're experienced, they're smart, they're efficient. Never forget: They are BURIED in manuscripts.

Why only 20 pages? Because then you won't waste your time. If the subject matter/characters of your book are not appealing, if it is not going to sell, you have not wasted a year of your life writing a book that no publishing house wants. With twenty pages you have limited your loss of time and effort.

The brutal truth is - and here I will say something that will be offensive so put on your tough alligator skin - what you're writing may not be anything anyone wants. It could be the topic. Could be the market. Could be the wildly insane competition out there.

It could be the writing. It's just not good/intriguing/gripping/fun enough. Yet. It may never be for that particular idea.

If no agent wants to represent your work after repeated rejections move on to the next story in your head. You may have to eventually change genres, like I did, which worked splendidly.

You may have to edit that sucker four or ten times. I edit all my books eight times before I send it the first time to my agent and editor and I have been writing for years. Address the stuff I mentioned above about character arcs, word choice, description and PACING. Pacing is key. Too slow and you'll put people to sleep.

Many people will say that this approach, where only 20 - ish pages are actually done when you first send it to an agent, will result in a rushed, poor manuscript if it's requested by an agent.

Here's the key: Don't send in a rushed, poor manuscript. Duh. Send in an excellent manuscript. The very best you can do.

Yes, your manuscript arrives later than the agent wanted but, trust me on this one: If it's a heckuva manuscript, he won't give a rip. He'll lean back in his chair, throw up his arms, look to the ceiling as if in "Hallelujah," and try to sell your manuscript for as much as he can get.

Your cover letter when you are finished with the requested manuscript is simple: Dear so and so, thank you for requesting my full manuscript I LOVE VAMPIRES AND GOBLINS AND CHOCOLATE. The manuscript is enclosed. I will look forward to hearing from you. Sincerely, YOUR NAME.

His letter, where he requested the manuscript, goes below this to remind him that, yes, he did ask for your work.

Once your send in your full manuscript to the agent, if he likes it and thinks he can sell it, he will call or email you. It is unlikely that he will send a smoke signal.

If you still like that agent after that conversation, you will sign a contract with that agent. This means he will represent your book to the publishing houses, which basically means he will contact the editors he knows, either at lunch or a cocktail party or a meeting or a bar, and talk your book up. He will contact editors in houses who sell your type of genre.

Hopefully an editor is interested. If he is, the agent will send the editor your manuscript. If the editor believes his house can sell it and make money off it, he will then buy the book. This involves more contracts. All the contracts are in legalese and are quite long and detailed. They will bore you silly. Get an attorney to review it.

The contracts from the editor/publishing house will go through your agent. You will sign the contracts if you agree to the upfront money the publishing house is offering, and the royalties they offer after the book sells and your upfront money is paid off.

Please people. The number of writers who get upfront six figures - plus is tiny. Miniscule. Do not expect anywhere near this, especially for your first book. I know writers who get all the money they can upfront, because they know they will earn no royalties. Be aware that the vast majority of writers cannot make a living writing, that's why they keep their day jobs.

Remember, you will also give a portion of your earnings to your agent once you are under contract with a publishing house. All monies go from the publishing house, to the agent, then to you. Royalties are paid twice a year.

Once the contract is signed, you've sold your book. Hopefully there will be more contracts to come and you'll be on your merry way. I wish that for you, I truly do.

Do you need an agent? Unless you are writing category romance, like Silhouette or Harlequin, or you're self - publishing, more on that later, you need an agent. An agent acts as a screener. If you cannot get an agent to represent you, the general rule is that the publishing house won't look at your work. In other words, if an agent didn't like it, they won't either.

How do you contact an agent in the first place? If you're in writers' groups, agents' names will start floating around. Pay attention to those names. You might also meet agents at writing conferences or workshops. Your best friend's brother's half sister may be an agent.

Or, pick up this book, "http://www.amazon.com/2013-Writers-Market-Robert-Brewer/dp/1599635933/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368413571&sr=1-1&keywords=2013+writer%27s+market and find an agent in there under your genre. If you're writing romance, look for romance book agents, writing thrillers, go for agents representing thriller writers.

Everything you read/hear will tell you to send your partial manuscript to one agent at a time. Don't follow that rule either. As you can see, I don't really like rules. Too confining.

Many agents will never, ever respond to you or your pages. Other agents will take months to read it. With others, the rejection slips will come back so fast, you will think the agent didn't even read your book. And, he may not have. He may not be taking on clients. Or, he may have read the first page and thought it sucked.

People worry about mass mailing their partial manuscripts to agents.

I will be honest with you, if you get ONE reputable agent who is interested in your work, you should click your heels together in joy. I have heard unpublished authors say, hands wringing, all uptight, "What would I do if I send it to more than one agent at a time and they all want it?"

This happens so rarely, stop fretting.

If you are very fortunate and two agents ask for the full manuscript, send it to your favorite agent first, wait a month, send an email to see if they're interested, and if they don't respond in a timely manner, send the full to the second agent.

So, out with ten copies of your first twenty pages to ten agents. Wait a few weeks, send it out to another ten agents. Make sure you are sending your work to good, honest agents. Go to this website http://pred-ed.com/ to check.


You will probably be surprised at how fast the rejections come back. It is disheartening, I know it. I lived it. Bang my brain against the keyboard, this part is not fun.

But buck up on the rejections or get out of writing. Rejections are a part of being a writer. Cry. Throw a fit. Take thirty minutes then get over yourself and your pride and your belief that your book should be Number One on the NY Times bestseller list by Tuesday.

If your book keeps getting rejected, analyze it without emotion and figure out what's wrong with it. You must put your ego aside. Do not give it to your mother or wife to analyze it, they are too close to you and probably won't be honest.

Consider paying an editor, like I paid Jessica Morrell, a fab editor, to tell you the truth about your work. http://jessicamorrell.com/

(Side note: Do not hire Jessica if you want her to flatter you and tell you that your book is perfect. She is blunt and honest and knows her stuff. Most of the time she is polite, but not always. Only hire her if you want to hear the truth, you won't get defensive, you want her criticisms, you're okay with her shredding your prose, and you are mature enough and smart enough to turn around and use the criticisms to write a better book.)

A Few More Thoughts:

Reputable agents NEVER ask for up front money or reader's fees. If yours does, drop him and move on.

Don't pay someone to print your books in traditional book form, please, unless you like losing money. In almost all cases, this will not work out for you financially. Don't write to me and tell me about someone who printed their own books and made piles of money. There are a million people behind him who LOST money. Thousands of dollars. The ones who make money are just shouted out louder by the self publishing industry in the hopes of convincing you that you will be that lucky guy who will also make piles of money.

I have heard some interesting success stories about people who self published their work with Amazon. It's intriguing. Remember, though, you have to have a reader base to make money on this. There has to be people out there who want to read what you wrote. Be prepared to market and do PR work. For every one person who makes a lot of money on Amazon self publishing, there are thousands who don't make twenty bucks.

You must keep writing if you want to publish.

You must keep reading excellent books, and learning from them, if you want to publish. I am still learning. Still studying. Still critically analyzing my work, every word of it.

If you want to make a living at this, you almost always need to be with a big publishing house, not a small printing press who will pop off 3000 copies and hope you sell 1000.

If the same manuscript repeatedly gets rejected, it probably is not going to sell. Do not write to me and tell me about Harry Potter and Gone With The Wind and how often they were rejected before becoming best sellers. Once again, a huge hit getting rejected fifty times initially happens about the same amount of times that the moon turns pink.

If your manuscript has been rejected forty times, even thirty times, you have to face the harsh truth that it may never publish. There may be something inherently wrong with your work. Never fear! Start a new book. Change genres. Learn from it. Get back out there.

I recently listened to a woman, who I will call Dixie, read her book aloud at a book fair. I have known this woman for at least ten years. Ten - plus years ago she wrote her book. It has never sold. She is still hung up on it, still believes it will sell. It will never sell. She should have dropped it and moved on years ago. Do not be a Dixie.

Understand that this is an incredibly competitive industry. There are so many freakishly talented authors out there it makes me nauseous. You are competing against them. Never forget it. Bring your best to the table.

You must live a full life if you want to publish. Love. Laugh. Be with family and friends. Dance. Sing. Go have adventures. For heaven's sakes, travel. Listen to people. Think new thoughts. Open your brain up to new ideas. Read the newspaper. Take an art class. Try photography. Go to the mountains. Play in the waves. Make new friends. Be interested in others. Be interesting yourself. Be compassionate and kind. All this will fuel the writer in you.

The other day I gardened.

This is not my favorite thing to do, primarily because I always have to yank up miles of weeds, and declare war every spring on this annoying, clinging morning glory that seems to grow fifty feet a day. If I were to leave my home right now that morning glory would cover our house by the end of summer.

You'd drive down the street and all you would see is a mass of morning glory. It's not the pretty morning glory, either, that you imagine wrapped around a white picket fence with blue flowers.

No, this has, maybe, one white flower, as if to mock me. The rest of it is a living, sticky, green plant criminal.

After my fight with the morning glory, I headed over to a gray, ceramic pot my mother used to own. After she died, in 2002, and my dad died, in 2007, both of them from cancer, I took it home with me. I love that pot. Inside the pot, every year, my mother's mint grows, tall and wide.

In the pot, a small maple tree had the audacity to start growing. Also in the pot was another greenish plant that, like the morning glory, seems to grow everywhere in my yard. It's like a spreading green monster. I'm surprised I don't have any coming out of my ears.

With my pink gloved hand I tried to yank the maple tree out again and again. No go. It was in there tight. I had dirt and dust on my face from my fruitless fight with the maple tree when I decided to turn my attention to the green monster. Again, no go. The soil was dry and rock hard, the roots deep and stronger than me. I could hear them both laughing at me. I will win this battle, I told myself.

I tipped the heavy pot over my recycling bucket and tried to shake the tree and the green monster out while holding on to my mother's mint. More dirt and dust flew into my face, my hair, and all over my shirt. I started to swear, a usual activity I embark upon while gardening.

I have saved so many of my mother's precious things. Her old books from her mother. Her blue dancing shoes. Her china. A clematis vine in my backyard. A black purse. Her baby bracelet. Her blue bird pin. Her favorite chair.

And yet, there I was, covered in dirt and dust, almost in tears, fighting to keep her mint. A plant.

I shook that damn pot again over the recycling bin. I said one more bad word. The mint, maple tree, and pesky green monster finally fell out, a plume of more dirt covering my face.

I won, I thought. You can stop laughing at me now, you stupid plants.

I balanced myself on the recycling bin, tipped over, head first, butt up, and grabbed the mint, which had broken free.

I felt rather victorious.

I added fresh soil to the gray pot. I dug a hole for a purple petunia next to the mint and a pink geranium. I cleaned the pot off.

With dirt everywhere I stood back, the tears burning, and thought, will it ever end, this wanting to hold on to her things? Will it?

Then I thought: Should it?

If so, why? My life is full, I'm not held back by grief. I know I'll see her again. But I just can't let go of anything I have of hers. Nothing. I treasure it all. And every year when that mint pops up, in her gray ceramic pot, I think of her. And I smile. She loved gardening.

Bette Jean was a lovely lady.

She would understand how I feel.

And she would have laughed, seeing my butt in the air, head down in a dusty recycling bin, swearing at the green monster, scrambling for her mint. A plant.

I'm glad I saved it.

CathyLamb.org