The Heiress from the thrown has spoken!

I sat at my computer in shock as I looked at the picture posted by my grandson in California. The words under the picture said,  “My first tattoo went well.”

Facebook is our connection with our grandchildren’s world and with our son in the Philippines. I only know what they’re doing through Facebook.

I called My Sweet Al to the computer, “Come look at this.”

He bent down and looked, “Oh, my God, it’s permanent. It’s so big.”

“I know, it’s ugly, too. I wonder what it stands for.” I couldn’t let it go. “What’s with these kids writing all over themselves? When the kids were in the first grade, they wrote on their hands with magic markers. We scolded them and washed the marks off with Ajax. You can scrub all day, these tattoos aren’t coming off.”

I’m sure the tattoo artists don’t care what you wear on your arms, legs and body. It’s a job, a creative job at that. I should be into “Ink.” I understand in the Big House, the favorite pastime for inmates is tattooing. When they’re talking “Ink,” they’re not talking ballpoint pens.

I shot back a response on Facebook to our grandson.  “I hope it will be your first and last.”

Then our son, living in the Philippines, got into the action. He posted, “You know Spencer, Grandma Slade said she would disown me if I ever came home with a tattoo. My how things have changed. So as your proud uncle, I recommend you get about 10 more just to see grandma's reaction. She's fun when she goes crazy.

Our Grandson in Ft. Collins posted, “Hahahaha that's funny Uncle Stephen, miss you guys that's awesome.”

I wasn’t going to let this die. I posted another comment on Facebook, “I didn't like it when Creede got a tattoo, with a Bible verse no less. He said he had to do it, the verse meant so much to him. Then there is a rumor that Slade has three tattoos and I’m horrified what they are. Now you have this “Calling All Skaters” tattoo. My three grandsons stop it. Stop it, now. One day you're going to hate them. Yes, I'm fired up.”

Our son shot off a response, “The heiress to the thrown has spoken (nephews, do it again just for fun)

Our grandson in Ft. Collins posted, “I love you Grandma.”

Our grandson in Pueblo fired back a response, “That’s three grandchildren out of four. Tiffany, you need a tattoo. Laughing out loud. In class right now, sorry gramma.

One of our grandson’s called his mother, “I’ve got a surprise.”

She responded, “I hope it’s not a puppy or a tattoo.”

“No, Mom, it’s a new Jeep.”

I talked to our daughter whose son got the tattoo and announced it on Facebook. She said, “The deed is done. I wanted to post for the world to see that my silence doesn’t mean I like it. I’m just sick about it.”

She brought up a couple of good points. She said, “Maybe it’s conviction or preference. Older people are opposed to tattoos because of what it meant in their day. To them it meant “Trashy.” Our grandchildren are in their day and it means they have a right and it’s their preference. To them it means, “No big deal.”

Our daughter begged and begged her son not to do it. She told him, one day in your career you might be working with older people and you might miss a business opportunity, a job or whatever, because of their convictions against tattoos.

Everybody is doing it. A friend who is my age got a tattoo recently. Her grandson, no less, talked her into it.  I couldn’t believe it. You know how much cellulite a woman my age has?  I told my Sweet Al, “Don’t even think of getting a tattoo. If you do, you need to get a tattoo with your address so you know how to get home.”

Our grown children came by the house. It was all talk about Spencer’s tattoo. Allison said she wanted to post something on Facebook, but thought different. I told her maybe that was a good choice. I probably shouldn’t have posted either.

My Sweet Al said, “It’s painful. You shouldn’t write about it. Everyone will know about it.”

I responded, “It’s on Facebook, the world already knows about it.

Final Brushstroke! From the heiress to the thrown! I’m sitting at my throne typing this article and wondering if maybe keeping my mouth shut is the way to go. My son and grandkids are having a heyday with my reaction. They’ll probably have a few more tattoos just to see me go crazy. Apparently, “I’m fun when I go crazy.”

A Week with Writers – It’s how you pitch it!

Heaven help us all. I was with six hundred writers for five days, who were all telling their stories to anyone who would listen. What happened to the one-minute elevator speech?

At the beginning of the year, I knew it was going to be a year of change, but I didn’t realize I would be living in a new world of agents and publishers.

A month before, I was traveling from Denver with our daughter who had surgery and five open wounds. We stayed in the only available motel room in Pueblo due to the State Fair and Labor Day Weekend. We paid a high price for a room, which we were afraid to touch even the bed. Our window looked over the back alley.

This week I came from a five day writer’s conference in St. Louis, Missouri, where I slept between 300 count sheets, drank Starbucks coffee in the room, had a view of the arch and fountain, and dwelled among writers who all had a book to pitch.

Interestingly, the five-star and one-star rooms were the same price. I guess it’s all about supply and demand, the same with six hundred writers pitching their books to forty editors and agents.

My editor friend — who I call Inspector 12 — grilled me for weeks on how to act and what to say when I appeared before the agents, editors and publishers at the national writer’s conference. I practiced my one-minute elevator speak, only for her to say, “No. Use these key power words. Say it this way.”

Not all of the writers who came had the benefit of a person with the savvy of pitching an editor or a publisher. I explained my book as edgy. “No, No, No.” She came unglued. “Don’t use that word. It sounds trashy. They will think you’re writing a bedroom scene or they will be looking at a lawsuit. This is what you say. I’m writing a book for this generation. It’s relevant to right now.”

Everyone had to tell his or her whole story to anyone who would listen. My name tag told the writers I was a new attendee and a writer. I couldn’t do them any good, but for fifteen minutes, they cornered anyone who would listen, including myself.

One writer hemmed me in, and I backed out of the room, saying, “That’s nice. Yes, that’s nice, yes, you’ve got a great story.” At that point I knew how an agent must feel.

One editor had just learned of a death in her family, another editor was consoling her in the bathroom, both were crying. A writer came up and began pitching her book. The editor said to me, “Couldn’t she see my friend was crying?”

I responded with, “No, a writer sees a nametag that says, Editor. That’s all they see.”

My friend, who has written over seventy books, who was the keynote speaker this year, and who I’ve known for twenty years wanted to sit with me. We wanted to catch up with each other’s lives. A writer, who sat on the other side of her, was so impressed that she was actually sitting by Lauraine Snelling, she told her story from beginning to end.

I was very fortunate I was traveling with an editor friend who knew what was going on. I pitched two editors who said, “Send your manuscript,” and an agent who said, “I’m interested, revise these things, and send me your full manuscript and packet.”

What does that mean? I guess I got through the pickup line, the lunch date, and when they asked for my manuscript, that meant I was invited to dinner. I’ll keep you posted. I’ve got a lot of work to do, and I have a new book on my mind, which needs a concept and chapter summary to accompany “Under Heaven’s Rage.”

It’s a new world and an exciting challenge for me — a new language, a new goal, new powers-to-be, new demands and a very busy life. Why did it come now and not twenty years ago? My friends are all retired, they go out to lunch and coffee, and have time on their hands. I’m juggling deadlines, and I’m in another learning curve.

Final Brushstroke! When you re-invent yourself and start all over, maybe it’s the beginning of having something to say and to say it differently. It really doesn’t matter how old you are, your education or who you know. It’s what burns inside of you that needs to be told. Maybe, that’s why six hundred writers had to tell their stories.

On a need-to-know bases

I asked my Sweet Al a simple question. I wanted a simple answer. I only needed to know what I needed to know for my novel I’m writing.  After two hours of deliberation, with tongue-in-cheek, I said, “I just wanted to know where babies come from.”

He laughed, I know I got carried away, but you need to know these things if you’re going to write about them. Men know about guns. They will know you don’t know anything.

I added the only knowledge I had to this well-scripted-one-sided dialogue. Well, women know about guns, too. I have four close friends who carry guns. They’ve all gone to gun school. I never understood it. I thought it was a fear-driven-pre-occupation thing with them, but apparently it’s a new day and they feel they need to carry a gun for protection.

My Bible teacher totes a gun on his belt to class. He’s got a permit to carry it. I asked him why he carried a gun to Bible Study? I told him, we’re not going to attack him. He doesn’t have to be afraid of us, unless, of course, he speaks Greek.

He said there was three men stationed every Sunday morning at church with guns. I asked him why the church? Can’t we all be peace-loving citizens? I thought that’s where we sing peace like a river and Jesus loves me, this I know.

I’ve heard a few boring sermons that went on and on and on, and if I would ‘ve had a loaded gun, I would’ve used it on the preacher or turned it on myself.  I told my Sweet Al, this all sounds like Hell on Wheels. Now, the Church Lady has taken revenge and shot the bad guy.

Al had another shell in his barrel and another story to tell. “You’re right, take Hell on Wheels, Cullen Bohannon carried a Griswold, when he got arrested by the Union troops, he lost it, and he end up with a 1858 Remington 45-caliber. Jack Campbell, the Carpetbagger, is carrying a later model. It’s called a 45 hog leg.

My only response to My Sweet Al with all this information was, “Bohannon is so cute, I don’t care what kind of gun he carries.”

Al said, you asked me and I’m telling you. He pulled out his Winchester twelve-gauge shotgun. “I rode my bicycle down to Wing Pawn Shop in Albuquerque and bought it when I was in junior high. The Pawn Shop is still there. It’s my favorite gun.”

Al was in his glory days talking about guns. It was like when he was selling insurance. I had to listen to every story about every policy he sold and how he sold it.

I was exasperated. All I needed to know is when Libby pulls the shotgun from the ironing board cabinet, what does she do before she pumps it? I wanted to write about the crackling sound. I didn’t want to know anything else.

Al said, “It’s the most eerie noise when you hear that pump pulled back and the shell is pushed into the barrel, the crackling sound will cause someone to ruin his pants.

I don’t think I’ll go that far on this story. Maybe another story and another day.  I am on a need-to-know adventure. My character, Libby, a rancher’s wife in 1977 in Archuleta County pulls a shotgun on an unwanted guest and peppers the kitchen ceiling

 My editor friend said, “A rancher’s wife knows how to shoot a gun. When she takes a gun off the rack and aims it, she won’t miss. You might want to rethink your scene.”

Well, this country wife only wants to know how to write it. I might want to rethink the scene before I ask My Sweet Al about guns again.

Final Brushstroke: Can’t I just wing it? I feel like I have stepped into Charlie’s Gun Shop in Albuquerque and I’m trapped by an enthusiastic salesman who thinks he’s going to make a sale. He’s got a frozen stare, a live buyer, and he’s giving me the McCabe Nod. “You want it, don’t you?” He hands me his pen. “Just sign here!

Deadlines

I’m sitting here at my computer sweating deadlines and titles. Titles are negotiable, deadlines aren’t.

I’m under deadline for my Artist’s Lane Column, a blog for my website, and the biggest deadline of all, my trip to St. Louis, Missouri. I’ll be attending a National Writer’s Conference there and I leave tomorrow.

I’ve spent every minute from 5 in the morning until 9 at night getting ready for this conference. When presenting a book to a publisher I can’t just show up with a great idea. I have to have a completed manuscript on a flash stick and a proposal.

Also, I will need to be prepared with a high-concept pitch, a killer title and a wow one line with an emotional hook. I’ll need a four-color one sheet with the branding logline and a short synopsis. I’ll also need a short bio, a long bio, business cards, and a hardcopy of three chapters, clean and tight. They all have to be in a packet, and I’ll have fifteen minutes in an interview to deliver my idea to a publisher and an agent.

The title on my second novel has been changed so many times I can’t count them all. The title has been syrupy sweet, soft, or too provocative. I finally settled on one. The publishing world says the title and a one line will sell the book to a publisher. If those two things don’t hook them, I’ll miss my chance for now to get this book published.

They say your title and your one line is like a pickup line. If you hook the publisher with those two things, then he’ll invite you to lunch. Lunch being, he’ll listen to a one-paragraph synopsis of your book. If he likes what he hears and is interested, then it’s dinner, he’ll ask for the manuscript.

When my friend told me what he thought the title should be for my book, I said, “Wow, I like it. It’ll go from the pickup line to the bedroom. It’ll miss lunch and dinner.”

I thought, The Polygamist’s Lover would be a great title. It definitely has a hook.  Another friend said he would pick up the book in a minute with a title like that. My editor friend said, “You can’t deliver that title. You can’t produce the goods. You’ll either have to change your book or change the title. Do you want to be known with that title? It smacks of a Harlequin novel. They’ll be eating your lunch.”

I had to think about it, and then I agreed. So I was back to square one with the deadline only four days away. All my material, with that smoldering title had to be changed to something else. I didn’t have a title, not even a glimmer of one. I was told that a Christian Publisher would turn that title down immediately. I was sweating bullets. That’s the reason I was going to this very expensive writer’s conference with hotel and airfare in the first place.

Three days before conference, my editor friend came up with this title. Within one day, all the promotional material was changed.

As my readers, I want to run it passed you. What do you think? It’s got to hook the publisher and the reader.

I think it’s strong, but what do I know, I liked The Polygamist’s Lover. This novel will be called for now, Under Heaven’s Rage. My one line with an emotional hook will be, “A rancher’s wife rebels against her husband’s decision to take a second wife; if she loses this battle, she will lose everything.”

Final Brushstroke! I’ll let you know if I get invited to lunch and to dinner, and if this title and one line concept sells my novel. If not, I’ll be eating and paying for my own lunch.