Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

I am kicking into high gear, got to start the Thanksgiving preparations. This year we will have all five of our children, three of their spouses, and four grandchildren in attendance. Plus my brother and his daughter, and my daughter-in-law's mother and sister. If I'm counting right, that's eighteen. Whew.

This will be the first Thanksgiving without my dad. He passed away last December. I will be thinking of him as I set about putting things together. Dad was quite a cook, and he loved Thanksgiving. He always stood at the head of the table and made a toast and said a little prayer, peppered with Irish sayings.

I'll have lots of help in the kitchen. And after dinner we'll play games and make room for dessert.

I wish you all a wonderful holiday, full of good food and company. Much love, Elizabeth.

All Rights Reserved. © 2009 by Elizabeth Bradley.

DREAM

I love Thursdays. I know, what a odd day of the week to fall in love with. But I've always likened how Thursday feels (for me anyway) to the experience when you've crested the top of the roller coaster and are feeling the exhilaration of heading back down. Whoosh--doesn't that feel wonderful? Friday night is so close, and the weekend will soon be here. Anyway, Happy Thursday.

I have a few things on my mind. Number one, my wedding anniversary is coming up and I always forget about it because we got married right before Thanksgiving and I'm always so busy with the holiday preparations, I forget. It's reverse in our family, The Husband never forgets. This year I am going to remember. I'm so lucky to have him and I don't want the poor guy to get the impression that I don't love him with a capital L. Still haven't decided what to do for him yet. Any cool ideas out there bloggy friends?

Yesterday, out of the blue, I got the urge to paint. I used to be half-assed good at painting. Both my mother and father were artists, so I come by it honestly. I had the good sense to know that I was a better writer than I was a painter. I played piano for a while but stopped taking lessons so I might concentrate on writing classes. In my twenties I decided that if I was going to be raising kids and working in the design field, I had better choose between writerly ambitions, my true love and stronger talent, and painting, because God only knew, time for such pursuits was damn near impossible to come by . So I stopped painting. Gardening is another love of mine, but when I quit designing to write full time, and we sold our house with the garden it took me twenty years to cultivate, (52 rose bushes, I had a chocolate rose!) I stopped gardening as well. A girl can only spread herself so thin. Yesterday, when I got the urge to run out to the art store and stock up on paints and canvases, I stopped dead in my tracks and said, "Self. No way! Finish the story you're working on!" And I did.

What have you given up for your dream? Or, did you give up your dream?

Please note: I lost the name of the artist that painted "Cocktail Hour" posted above, isn't it exquisite? If I couldn't paint like that I wasn't having any of it!

All Rights Reserved. © 2009 by Elizabeth Bradley.

Call To Action

UPDATE: I woke up this morning with my right eye glued shut by icky goo. My throat's raw, my nose is a leaky red mess, and my head throbs, despite Tylenol cold tablets. I don't care if I'm sick, I'm back at work. No more lounging about for this girl!

So, how much thought do you give to verbs? I know, (is she really going there?) Yes, I am. Because, I caught myself using gurunds too often. For more info, check out, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerund. Now that you've refreshed your knowledge about what the heck a gerund is, you should do your best to avoid over-using them. Less ing, more action!

Verbs move the story along. Hattie didn't just FEEL ANGRY. Hattie ENGAGES IN BEHAVIOR TO SHOWCASE JUST HOW ANGRY SHE IS.

Always use strong verbs. Many editors recommend counting verbs, they suggest we go through our work and circle them. Check to see if you've used exactly the precise verb needed.

Matt walks briskly to make the bus because he always leaves the house late. SHOULD BE CHANGED TO: Matt often leaves the house late and is forced to sprint to catch the bus on time. (Sprint says in one stronger word what walks briskly says in two.) MO BETTER!

Think visually. It's fine to get inside a character's head, but you've heard this over and over, SHOW DON'T TELL. Us writer's (mere mortals that we are) fall into bad habits. Verbs propel the reader through the story. We need to increase our verb use, and we need to use the strongest verb to convey what's happening. Sounds easy, it's not. Careful editing is time consuming!

Oh crap. Just one more thing to worry about, right? If you do nothing else today, go through a few paragraphs you've written, and be brave and ditch those gerunds and adverbs. You won't be sorry.

All Rights Reserved. © 2009 by Elizabeth Bradley.

Under The Weather

Here to report, I am officially sick. I caught the flu. I tried my best not to, (washing hands and/or using hand sanitizer as if I were Howard Hughes's twin sister.) I caught the plain-old-ordinary-run-of-the-mill-garden-variety sort. But, I don't care what they say, the flu in any disguise is beyond miserable. Runny nose, sneezing, coughing, sore throat, scratchy ear canals, and on top of the bargain, my right eye is all red and swollen. I'm up and hobbling around today, but yesterday I only got out of bed to use the bathroom. The Husband has been extremely attentive. What a doll, he made chicken soup from scratch, kept me in Kleenex, brought me fizzy water and Tylenol cold capsules. Let's hope this doesn't last too long. It hurts to look at the computer screen. God forbid! I'll try to visit some of your blogs today, but if you don't see me, you'll know I succumbed to the siren call of my sleigh bed! I snapped a picture so you could see how irresistible that darn bed truly is. Why bother to make it when you're going to climb back in? See the pile of used tissues (ew, gross) and my Kindle? (Another illustration of my reluctance to put this house in order, I haven't hung a thing on the empty wall over the bed yet.) Got to curl up with a good book when you're sick, I'm reading, Pilgrims by Elizabeth Gilbert, a short story collection I highly recommend by the author of, Eat, Pray, Love.

All Rights Reserved. © 2009 by Elizabeth Bradley.

I Leap

~~ Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark. ~~ Agnes De Mille

I won’t say every single time I sit down to write I’m forced to bat away pesky insecurities (wouldn’t that sound puny?) but I will say this, on off days I am forced to confront out and out fear. Fear that I’ll make an idiot out of myself, fear that nobody will ever choose my book over another, fear that I will have forgotten how to string sentences together to make paragraphs that tell a story worthy of spent time and effort.

If we are not willing to risk doing something badly we will never produce anything worthwhile as artists. We procrastinate and find shelter when we attempt to avoid running the risk of failure, don’t we? In times gone by there was no such thing as the Internet to distract us, but there was always something, always something to temp us away from the typewriter or canvas. Not to mention all those tiresome responsibilities and chores. How might I ever overcome that self-doubting-Thomas-of-a-nagging-voice?

I always start with an idea. But, hasn’t this idea been used in one form or another, over and over again? My mother used to tell me, "Elizabeth, there's nothing new under the sun." She loathed the term old-fashioned, liked to point out how each new generation feels they have the market on sex/etc. cornered. When in fact, it’s all been done before. If you don’t agree, check out The Bible and the account of Sodom and Gomorrah. Debauchery is so passé, or is it?

Another quote of substance ~~ Two things make a story. The net and the air that falls through the net. ~~ Pablo Neruda

I aim to allow ideas and inspiration to fall through the figurative net, as they may. I’ll catch and gather those sparks and do my best to turn chaos into order. I aspire to direct them into place on the page in a fashion worthy of the reader’s time and attention. It’s all I can do at the moment.

I snapped this picture of my office this afternoon. We’ve lived here for six months and I haven’t bothered to put this room together, which is so unlike me. I sit amongst a willy-nilly mess, and it does not hinder me in the least. How very odd.




All Rights Reserved. © 2009 by Elizabeth Bradley.

18 Pounds of Beautiful Baby Flesh

I've been MIA from my blog the last couple of days. My daughter and her husband are moving so I'm baby sitting my six month old granddaughter. As I look after her, I'm wondering, how did I give birth naturally, (no drugs--no stitches), and raise five kids? The enormity of the thing hits me over the head and I marvel at my younger self. I truly do. I had boundless energy. All those children to care for, and I used to garden like a maniac, redecorate the house every third year or so--top to bottom, I managed to run several businesses, and still had time to romance The Husband. Raising children is a job for the younger set. I couldn't, or wouldn't want to do it now. My arm muscles are KILLING me, after one lousy day of carting eighteen pounds of beautiful baby flesh around, (she has a cold and isn't happy to be put down right now.) Wish me well, I only have about 10 hrs to go!

I snapped the above picture of her when I got her interested in a set of plastic measuring spoons yesterday.

All Rights Reserved. © 2009 by Elizabeth Bradley.

Who's Calling?

I sure would like to know who’s calling and hanging up on me! Last night, the first crank call came in just as I reached that pleasing limbo state between consciousness and sleep—I was so rattled! Then, this morning the shrill ring of the kitchen phone, right at the crucial moment when I went to flip my egg over-easy, causing me to break the yoke. I answered the phone, meantime the broken yolk cooked all hard in the hot pan, and I like them runny. On the third call, the culprit rang my BlackBerry. I was driving down Sunset Boulevard, and answered despite the new law, which forbids a person from talking in a car without a headset. I kept saying hello over and over, like an idiot, not realizing it was the same jerk. Nobody answered. Just air. From one of those restricted numbers—the worst. Good thing some diligent cop eager to write a ticket didn’t spot me holding that BlackBerry to my ear.

Could it be that guy I met at the party the other night? No way, we obviously hit it off. He said I was exactly what he was looking for, and then asked for my number. Why on earth would he go through all the trouble of calling, just to hang up?

It might be that ghastly Chelsea Topper. The woman I’ve repeatedly snubbed, the tub of lard that recently joined my power-walking group. Her cheery inquisitiveness is beyond annoying. I hate it when she asks if I’d like to tag along to charity functions that I could never be the least bit interested in, when she pesters me to tell her where I buy my clothes and rudely asks how much I paid. Tacky questions that I give the wrong answers to. I don’t want to show up and find that frumpy woman wearing the same outfit as me! Anyway, it’s not Chelsea’s style to keep her mouth shut. It can’t be her!

Maybe it’s Gloria Smythe from work. I’m sure she’s more than a little fed up with me because I continue to outshine her on a daily basis. Since she’s my boss with access to my file and telephone numbers—that would explain a lot. It hasn’t escaped my attention how totally jealous Gloria is about all the attention others in the office give me because they prefer my company to hers. I’m always invited out for lunch and for drinks after hours, while she sits alone at her computer doing God only knows what. It just might be her.

My big sister is perfectly capable of this kind of behavior. I shouldn’t rule her out either. Clare wouldn’t be above picking up the phone, dialing my number, and hanging up just for the heck of it. It’s her mission in life to poke holes through my supremacy in the sibling pecking order. I’ve always been a thorn in her side, since the day I was born. It’s not my fault that I’m Daddy’s little girl. That I turned out to be four inches taller and at least twenty-five pounds thinner than she is. It’s not anybody’s fault but her own, (my son’s an entertainment lawyer with a lovely high-rise condo in Century City), while her children are a pair of losers with a capital L. Her daughter’s practically a crack whore out in Yucca Valley, and her son mows lawns and trims trees for a living out in The Valley somewhere. No wonder she’s bitter.

I don’t know what I’m going to do if this keeps up, I really don’t. It’s a terrible thing when I answer that ring and meet dead silence on the other end of the line, a terrible, terrible thing. I’m barely able to tolerate this quiet house. Since my husband had a mid-life crisis, (I call it a nervous breakdown), and gave up his career as a TV commercial director to dump me for Jesus and move down to El Salvador to become some kind of goody-two-shoes missionary, I’ve been forced to live alone up here in the hills above the city. I leave the radio on at night. It’s just too damn scary without some kind of noise in the background besides crickets chirping and the furnace going on and off and water pipes banging and clanging. I think I’ll sell this drafty old house, (even though it's a perfect example of early Los Angeles glamor and was once owned by film actress Etta Dawson.) I'll buy a high-rise condo in my son’s building, where I can feel safe.

Whoever’s making these calls is diabolical, not a good person at all. They’re trying to throw me off, trying to scare me. It’ll take a lot more that a few hang up calls to freak me out, I can tell you that. A woman living alone is such a target, and I am getting older, but am still extremely attractive. This isn’t funny at all, the idea that someone is having a good old time at my expense. I suppose I could change my numbers. But that would be an inconvenience—so why should I? I don’t intend to give this prankster the satisfaction. I just won’t.

The next time the phone rings I’m going to scream BUG OFF ASSHOLE into the receiver at the top of my lungs. That ought to fix who’s calling!

(A work of fiction, based on a client from my past--not autobiographical by any means!)


All Rights Reserved. © 2009 by Elizabeth Bradley.