Garden Variety Adventures

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Twenty years ago when I purchased my house, I was thrilled with the idea of getting out of the apartments I’d lived in since college. But along with the house came a rather large back yard and a postage stamp-sized front yard. Most of my actual gardening experience to that point had come from watching my grandparents and parents plant and tend both vegetable and flower gardens. My role in their endeavors was reluctant “weed-puller” and “vegetable picker.”

My interest in gardening increased when I had my own patch of dirt. I approached gardening like I did writing; full steam ahead with the research coming later when things didn’t quite go as expected.

My backyard came with six trees – two peach, a plum, two apples, and one overgrown evergreen something. I cut the evergreen down within the first four months and added a deck in that location. Best decision I ever made – it really opened up my backyard and I was immediately able to enjoy “my” outdoors. The fruit trees were about ten feet tall when I moved in. I admit it – I really didn’t like the fruit trees. There were too many of them for the size of my yard and fruit trees take a lot of time and attention if you intend on eating the fruit. Webworms, molds, diseases – you name it, fruit trees are afflicted. I wanted those trees gone with a passion, but people gave me the “what, are you crazy?” look every time I mentioned it. I couldn’t just cut them down. It took a number of years, but God finally took the decision out of my hands via several storms. The last of the fruit trees toppled two years ago during one of Oklahoma’s worst ice storms. I don’t miss them at all. The neighbors’ trees provide all the shade I need and I have a very nice crepe myrtle (planted some ten years ago) left.

Another plant that came with my mortgage was a very healthy vine on the west side of my yard (full-sun location), running along the top and sides of a chain-length fence. Medium large green leaves, hard green berries, strong pencil thick vines, and no flowers. When clipped and controlled, it’s a great privacy feature. Leave it alone two weeks in the summer and the battle is on! I have no idea what this vine’s real name is. Anyone have any ideas? I call it my “monster vine.” It can grow five feet overnight, choking everything in its path.

My area of Oklahoma is known for its azaleas. Muskogee has an Azalea Festival every April. Most of the yards on my block are filled with glorious azalea blooms each spring. Not my yard though. I tried for five years to get azaleas to grow in my “dirt.” No go. After a month the azalea would turn rusty brown and I’d feel guilty for sacrificing another plant.

My success stories – and there are some – involve hydrangeas, a variety of Rose of Sharon species (Hibiscus syriacus), shrub roses, and lilies. I have at least three different types of Rose of Sharon in my yard today. One variety is more like a tree than a shrub (up to 8 feet tall) with pink, white or purple blooms from late spring through fall. They require no care other than pruning. One type has plate sized blooms, but it only blooms for about six weeks and bugs love to chew on the flowers.

If you’ve never tried shrub roses, you’re missing out. They have a wonderful fragrance and I’ve never had to use any pesticides or fertilizer on them. They’re very hardy plants having survived the worst of Oklahoma’s weather. Other hardy plants are hydrangeas. Mine are a brilliant blue when in full sun, paler in the more shaded areas.

I love lilies and usually plant new ones each year to replace some of the ones I lose to moles or hard freezes. Some of new varieties are just gorgeous.

Peonies, hollyhocks, and lilacs are great additions to most gardens but I’ve had problems with them. Peonies are beautiful but need perfect light for the blooms to last more than a couple of weeks. I haven’t found a good location for them yet. Hollyhocks, another of my favorites, need a protected area from the wind and insects are a problem. Lilacs need lots of room and light. If you crowd them, they won’t grow, won’t bloom, and develop all kinds of leaf molds etc. I’ve given up on them for my yard.

Do you have a flower garden? What are your favorites?

Evelyn David
www.evelyndavid.com

I Love Cemeteries

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The Stiletto Gang is delighted to welcome Casey Daniels, author of the spookily delightful, hysterically funny Pepper Martin mystery series.

I love cemeteries.

No, really. I’m serious.

Think about it: a cemetery—I mean a really old cemetery, not these new “memorial parks” where every headstone is flat to the ground and they all look the same—is really a museum without walls. Take a peek, and you’ll find interesting architecture, sculpture and art. There are stories, too, everywhere you look. One memorial can give you a glimpse into generations of family history. Another might suggest tragedy. Still others speak of undying love, precious memories, interesting lives and valorous deaths.

I’m lucky, I live near Cleveland, Ohio, and we’ve got some great old graveyards here. When I’m looking to hobnob with the city’s former movers and shakers, I head to Lake View Cemetery to visit the likes of President James A. Garfield, John D. Rockefeller and Eliot Ness. When I want something a little more down to earth (every pun intended), there are small country burial grounds that hold the remains of the settlers who tamed the lands of the Western Reserve.

In fact, I was in a cemetery when I got the idea for the Pepper Martin Mystery Series. Here’s the story: I began my publishing career back in 1992 with my first book, Twilight Secrets, a historical romance. I published somewhere around 15 historicals as well as a number of category romance, single-title contemporaries and even young adult horror novels. But the whole time I was writing romance, I was reading mysteries. And I was itching to write one. Trouble is, I never could find a hook that appealed to me. Interesting setting? Unusual protagonist? Fascinating time period? There are so many possibilities, it’s enough to make a writer’s head spin!

Then I got a job interview at a cemetery. They were looking for a part-time tour guide. I was looking to get away from my computer a couple days a week to remind myself there is life beyond writing (even in a place where just about everyone is dead).

I didn’t get the job, but I did get the idea for Pepper Martin, a cemetery tour guide whose enthusiasm for graveyards does not equal my own. Things really got interesting when I decided to add a little oomph to Pepper’s sleuthing resume—she just so happens to be able to see and talk to the “residents” of her cemetery.

Having ghosts and cemeteries in the mix adds an interesting dimension both to the writing and research. The book I’m plotting now (#5 in the series) involves the restoration of an old cemetery, so I’ve been in touch with a group that’s revitalizing Woodland Cemetery in Cleveland.

This dedicated group of volunteers gathers before Memorial Day to place flags on veterans’ graves. Sound easy? Not when old cemetery maps are inaccurate, records contain any number of misspellings, and tombstones are toppled, worn and hardly legible.

I had the time of my life, and it was gratifying to think that because we took the time to search and study and lay on our bellies to decipher just-about-unreadable gravestones, many veterans who’ve never had a flag before got one for the first time.

Thanks to Pepper, I’ve also taken classes in the paranormal, participated in ghost hunts and shot some amazing photographs at a “haunted” bed and breakfast, pictures that just might prove Pepper isn’t the only one who’s been in contact with the dearly not-quite departed.

Casey Daniels
www.caseydaniels.com

Now that I Know, What Should I Do?

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My mother used to say, “just because everyone is jumping off the bridge, you don’t have to.” Actually, my mom, the original Evelyn, never said that. She would just give me her patented stare, which was far more effective and conveyed the same sentiment. I always got the message loud and clear, or to put it another way, “my momma didn’t raise no fool.”

My point?

I plunged into despair when I read the Sisters in Crime report of the Publishers’ Summit (and btw, everyone, and I mean everyone, should join Sisters in Crime, whether you’re a writer or a female). Yes, I can be a drama queen, but I confess to a bit of a moment when I read that one publisher had firmly pronounced that the cozy mystery was dead (pun intended).

This same publisher also opined that thrillers and paranormal books were flying off the shelves.

So after I finished weeping and wailing, gnashing my teeth, and checking the wants ads to see if there were any jobs for cozy mystery writers, I took a deep breath and tried to figure out what to do next. And then I recalled a second adage. My mom didn’t say this one either, but I’m pretty sure she would have given me another of her Evelyn looks which translated to mean, “duh, of course that’s right.” (Needless to say, at no time in my mother’s life did she ever say, duh.). In any case this pithy bit of truth is from Christopher Columbus Kraft, NASA’s first flight director. He said, “If you don’t know what to do, don’t do anything.”

How does this apply to the current authors of Murder Off the Books, and the forthcoming Murder Takes the Cake (and hopefully even more in the Sullivan Investigation Series)? It means that just because someone believes that the cozy mystery has passed its expiration date doesn’t mean that I have to change what I write. Look, as I said, my momma didn’t raise no fools. So of course I think it’s important to understand the current marketing trends. But if I start writing to the fad, rather than writing what I do best, then it will please no one.

As it happens, the Southern half of Evelyn David and I have been kicking around a story for more than two years that features a sleuth who talks to ghosts. But, and here’s the kernel of truth that I’ve learned, it’s all about the characters. If they’re believable, you can capture an audience. If they’re not, then it doesn’t matter if they talk to your mother, you won’t buy the concept.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, “reports of the cozy mystery death have been greatly exaggerated.” I’m not ready to don any sackcloth and ashes just yet.

Evelyn David
www.evelyndavid.com

Being Green

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To borrow a line from my old friend, Kermit, “it’s not easy being green.” And it’s not easy going green. But dang it if we’re not giving it the good old college try in my house. I’ve been reading a lot about what it takes to have a greener household and I’m doing my best—as well as encouraging the rest of my family members—to join me in this pursuit. Here are a few of the things I’ve been doing that supposedly, if done en masse, will have an effect on the environment. And here are some of my musings about these suggestions.

1. Driving a more gas-efficient car. As you know, if you’ve been keeping up on our humble blog, I traded in my gas-guzzling station wagon for a hipper, more stylish, and way more gas-efficient Mini Cooper. I’m getting thirty miles to the gallon and loving it. And frankly, the kids and dog aren’t all that squeezed into the back seat. They’ve each got their own cup holders—the kids, not the dog—and that seems to mitigate any discomfort they feel in having their legs wedged up against the back of the seat when my husband, he of the long legs, is driving.

2. Using those new-fangled light bulbs. Can’t remember what they’re called because it’s so dark in here I can’t read the package. But I installed a few of them. I’ve noticed that they don’t turn on quite as quickly as regular old light bulbs and they definitely don’t throw as much light (which, if you are of a certain age like me, works beautifully—I look ten years younger in our living room). So, could I install lower-wattage light bulbs and get the same effect? Not sure. But my daughter informed me that although these new light bulbs last longer, there is now some evidence that there is not good way to dispose of them. Once again, you can’t win.

3. Walking instead of driving. This one sounds great in theory. But we’ve entered “cute sandal season” and that impacts the suggestion to walk instead of drive. You can’t walk any measurable distance in a three-inch wedge heel. Trust me. Instead, I’ve decided not to leave the house which is in its own way a reasonable sacrifice to make, don’t you think? And truth be told, I’m not a big fan of the outdoors in general.

4. Eating one non-meat meal a week. Try getting your kids to eat quinoa. Enough said.

5. Taking three minutes showers. Works for me because if you’ve read #3 and #4, I don’t really work up a sweat. Doesn’t really work for child #2 who plays lacrosse on muddy fields. But he’s a gamer. He’s given it a try. Suffice it say he’s just not that clean.

6. Turning off your computer. I’m going to use this excuse come December 31st when my next manuscript is due. (It’s late?! I was trying to save the planet!)

7. Growing your own food. See #3.

8. Buy a composting toiler. I discussed this several posts ago. It’s an idea that really hasn’t taken hold here at Chez Barbieri.

So, what are you doing to go green? We here at the Stiletto Gang offices would love to hear your suggestions for anything you’re doing to help the planet. Or walk in three-inch wedge heels.

We have our priorities, after all.

Honoring One’s Ancestors

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Years ago, my sis did our family genealogy–and was generous enough to make a book for all of us which included copies of old photos. While reading about the family line, immediately questions popped up. On my father’s side, my great-great grandfather John Crabtree at 17 married a 12 year-old-girl. This was after the Battle of New Orleans. From that time on they moved from one state to another, and having children in each one.

Finally they left Brownsville TX, and with several children aged 7 to 18, crossed the Rio Grande and from Monterrey they traveled across Mexico to Mazatlan. There they caught a steamship that took them up the coast to Monterey, CA. Because of a small pox outbreak on board ship, no one was allowed to go ashore, so in the middle of the night, the Crabtree family jumped overboard and swam ashore.

They lived in Monterey for two years, then they traveled across the San Joaquin Valley and finally settled where Springville is today. In the late 1800s they were awarded a 640 acre land grant from President Grant. I wrote an historical family saga about the family called Two Ways West which has sold wonderfully well, especially here in Springville.

Eventually, they ended up selling most of the land, thanks to being unable to pay their taxes–and the town of Springville came about.

The town park was recently redesigned and renovated by volunteers and Friday night a dedication ceremony was held. The idea was to have a Native American hand over the deed to me and my family (representing the Crabtrees)–unfortunately the Indian was there, but left when the ceremony didn’t take place on time, so the whole thing began with me. I then handed it over to the next family who actually owned the parcel the park is on today, and then to the next person who owned it, and so on, until finally the deed was given to the town.

I managed to convince different members of my family to show up for the occasion and stand up with me, my next oldest daughter, her oldest daughter and her daughter (four generations of us) and my son’s daughter along with my youngest daughter’s son who now lives with us. It only took a few minutes, but I was pretty proud of my family.

There was a huge crowd (for Springville) because they had a concert in the park immediately afterward with dancing. It was the first time anyone was allowed on the newly planted grass. Folks brought folding chairs, picnic suppers, etc. and made an evening of it.

That’s the kind of excitement that goes on in the little town I live in. Saturday night, hubby and I took tickets for Cellars and Chefs another outdoor event held in the parking lot of the local inn. Seven wineries and about the same number of restaurants were on hand with samples. Most people managed to make their evening meal out of the offerings. It’s an annual fund raiser for the Chamber of Commerce. I belong but don’t do a whole lot, so this was my contribution. Hubby just got roped in like he does for most everything–but had a good time anyway.

Marilyn
http://fictionforyou.com

Rescue Annie & Me

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Ten days ago I was in Omaha, Nebraska at Mayhem in the Midlands learning how to read murder crime scenes. Six days ago I was in Wagoner, Oklahoma at the Oklahoma Department of Mines learning how to save lives. The irony doesn’t escape this mystery writer.

I just completed my required annual First Aid refresher class for my “day” job. For each of the past 23 years I’ve variously enjoyed, endured, or multi-tasked my way through six hours of First Aid training. So far I haven’t had to use anything I’ve learned – other than advising friends, family, and co-workers about everyday bumps and sprains. Here’s where I knock on wood or spin in my chair three times or find some salt to toss over my shoulder.

For anyone who has taken CPR training, Annie is a well-known figure. A training mannequin used for teaching Cardiopulmonary resuscitation for more than 40 years, Annie has been around the block more than once.

Wikipedia lists two urban myths associated with the mannequin’s distinctive face: (1) Annie’s face is modeled on the death mask of a young woman who drowned in the Seine River in the 1880s; (2) She’s the deceased daughter of the doctor who invented her. Apparently neither really happened but adds a bit of mystery to the much-saved victim.

Annie and her offspring, Baby Annie, offer would-be rescuers an opportunity to practice rescue breathing, chest compressions, and abdominal thrusts (Heimlich maneuver) without worry of injuring a live person. In addition, now Annie is used to demonstrate the use of the increasingly popular, Automated External Defibrillator (AEDs).

As I found out last week, AEDs are easy enough for a typical grade-schooler to use and are fast becoming a staple of First Aid supplies in airports, schools, and public buildings.

I’d recommend that everyone take a First Aid class. It’s not the same information you received when you earned your Scout badge! It’s not the same as you received even a couple of years ago. For instance, rescue breathing is no longer recommended (unless you have protective mouth guards), just chest compressions. And forget checking for a pulse. Most people confused the pulse in their own thumb or fingers for the victim’s. Instead check for signs of breathing (look, listen, feel). Look for chest movement, listen for the sounds of air being taken in or let out, and feel with your hand or face next to the victim’s face for air movement. If the victim isn’t breathing, start chest compressions. 100 a minute. Do two sets of 30 compressions then check for signs of breathing again. Start CPR first, then call 911.

Another tip: what do you do if you’re alone and having a heart attack? Besides calling 911, you should start deep breathing and coughing – hard, deep coughs. Every two seconds. One deep breath. One deep cough. Keep going until you feel better or help arrives. Apparently the action of coughing squeezes the heart and keeps blood circulating. The squeezing pressure may also help the heart regain its rhythm.

Take time out this year to meet with Annie! Be prepared to save lives.

Evelyn David

Oh, My Goodness!

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No matter how hard you go over edits or galleys, mistakes creep into our books. I don’t even have the copies of my latest, Kindred Spirits yet and I’ve found a glaring error!

No, it’s not in the content of the book–this is worse. The person who actually gave me the first seed of an idea for the story is the one to whom I dedicated the book, Junie Mattice. Unfortunately, in the dedication, her name is printed as Junie Mahoney.

Of course I didn’t notice it when I went over the edits–because it wasn’t in them. What it was in, and I should have noticed then, was the dedication page in the galley.

Where did the name Mahoney come from? It’s the last name of one of the main characters in the Crescent City part of the book–one that was inspired by Junie. Junie has such a multi-faceted personality, I actually based two major characters on her. All I can think of is the spell-checker changed the name from Mattice and Mahoney. Of course I’m the one who is at fault for not noticing it.

In my defense, I was hard-pressed for time because I have to receive the copies of the book this week in order to have them to cart with us when we leave for Crescent City this week. I went over the content of the book carefully and obviously overlooked the dedication page.

What am I going to do about it? I’ve already apologized via email to Junie. I’ll hand correct the copies that I sell in Crescent City. It’ll certainly give me something else to talk about as I speak about Kindred Spirits–something I’d rather not have.

Do I have advice for other authors because of this? Sure, check out your dedication page when doing edits and going over the galley. Certainly from now on that’ll be the first place I check. Too late for 200 copies of this book. Hopefully it’ll be corrected for anymore that are sent out.

Will other mistakes slip by me and other authors? Unfortunately, that’s part of the process. Our eyes seem to correct mistakes and we don’t even notice them.

I hope Junie will forgive me–my intentions were to honor her. I have tremendous respect for this strong Tolowa woman who has for years stood up for what she believes in and continues to fight for the Tolowa people.

Kindred Spirits is available for order athttp://www.mundania.com/books-kindredspirits.html

Don’t go to Dayton in February and Other Lessons Learned on the Road

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The Stiletto Gang is delighted to welcome Rosemary Harris. Rosemary is the author of Pushing up Daisies, the first in the Dirty Business series. Visit her website at www.rosemaryharris.com

First off I should say that the folks in Dayton were wonderful. All four of them who showed up for my signing at Books and Company during an ice storm that had me crawling into my rental car on the passenger’s side because the driver’s side door was frozen shut.

When my debut mystery, Pushing Up Daisies, finally came out I was over the moon. It had been almost two years between that long-awaited phone call from my agent and my launch party. That night was almost as good as my wedding night (I said almost, honey…)

The next morning I flew to Phoenix. Through Dallas. Of course there was a delay so I arrived much later than I thought I would. Lesson two, try not to arrive in a strange city late at night, especially when it’s filled with still-hungover stragglers from the SuperBowl. Of course I was smart enough to have purchased a TomTom, a GPS device. But I wasn’t smart enough to test it out a few times before I left home. To this day, Tomasina, the voice of the Tom, thinks home is Phoenix. After checking in I settled in for a few hours of work against the backdrop of Law & Order. Lesson three, wherever you go, at any hour of the day or night some version of L&O will be on television. Embrace it. Theirs may be the only friendly voices you’ll hear for hours.

Lesson four – assuming you’re not Janet E and aren’t staying in five star hotels, pick a hotel that has a free breakfast buffet. Most of the time you’ll just want to grab a coffee and a little something, not wolf down a full lumberjack breakfast.

That day I learned to use the TomTom and “dropped in” to every bookstore that Joe Konrath had visited (see Newbie’s Guide to Publishing), did a live television interview – sandwiched in between the native dancers and a hurricane expert – and was I feeling pretty good. But it was still hours before my signing at Poisoned Pen.

Lesson five – if you find yourself with a few hours in an unfamiliar city and either don’t want to work or can’t – get a manicure. Or better still a blowdry. They’re generally inexpensive and like barbershops used to be for men, beauty salons are social centers filled with women who like to chat. That first day, it was a great warm-up for me. Everyone in the salon treated me like a celebrity, I handed out daisy seeds promoting the book and left feeling like a million bucks.

By that time the free mini-poppy seed muffin I’d had for breakfast was getting lonely in my stomach so I decided to stop for a bite. Except nothing near the store was open. I peeked into the darkened Café Monarch and saw three men cleaning up. I told them I had a signing at the bookstore in 20 minutes and didn’t have time to drive around looking for another place to eat, so they turned some of the lights on, lit a few candles, and whipped up a cold chicken pesto salad which was just delicious. It was like something out of a movie. All alone in this cute café looking across the street to where I’d be having my first signing. Later on I signed hundreds of books and had a lively conversation in the round with soon-to-be fans including the fab Lesa Holstine. It was great. I thought – I love my life!

The next weekend I flew to Dayton. What can I say? Sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn’t. The most difficult journey had to be my Philly-Chicago-Detroit-Denver-NY trip. On paper this seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. And it might have been if I hadn’t lost my drivers license somewhere between the hotel in Philly and the airport in Philly.

Somehow, without being subjected to a strip search, I talked my way onto the plane in Philadelphia. I felt pretty smug about that until I looked around the airport and wondered who else had talked themselves through security. Lesson six – always carry two forms of i.d.

Once in Detroit, I couldn’t pick up my rental car, because I had no driver’s license. But that was okay because there was a blizzard and I wouldn’t have been going anywhere anyway. No planes were going out either so instead of spending one night at the glamorous Hilton Garden Inn at the airport, I was there for three nights, with dozens of flight attendants who were clearly doing more than watching Law & Order in their rooms at night. The Hilton offered a full warm breakfast (not free, as I recall, but under the circumstances, I loved it.) Unfortunately there was no other food available during the day except for microwaveable burritos, and a spinner rack full of individual sized portions of dry cereals. Lesson six – bring food. I now pack envelopes of tuna, protein bars, and occasionally Cheerios, which I had never eaten before but learned to love at the Hilton Garden Inn.

My husband Fedexed my passport and I was eventually able to get out of Detroit. I thought I’d catch an earlier flight to Denver (I was getting cabin fever in my tiny room.) Lesson seven – always leave half an hour earlier, even if it’s five-thirty in the morning. Who knew so many people would be leaving Detroit at six fifteen? Was there an evacuation notice that I hadn’t heard about? No, just the vagaries of the flight schedules made the airport really busy at the ungodly hour.

I finally arrived in Denver, no lost luggage, no more drama and a few lessons learned. And I’m still learning. What lessons have you learned from the road?

Rosemary Harris
www.rosemaryharris.com

A Call to Arms: Parades Just Aren’t Enough

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Full Disclosure: Next month, For Service to Your Country, my book on veterans benefits, will be published. But this blog isn’t about selling books. Instead it’s about honoring those who have risked their lives to serve our country in the armed forces of the United States of America. This blog is a call to action in support of the Webb-Hagel-Lautenberg-Warner G.I. Bill, the “Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act.”

George Washington said: The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation.

Two weeks ago the Senate, in a bi-partisan effort, passed a bill to expand the educational benefits provided to veterans who served at least three years in the military following September 11, 2001. The bill closely resembles the educational benefits provided to veterans returning from World War II. President Bush has promised to veto the bill, warning that it’s too expensive and would affect the military’s retention rate, e.g., soldiers will opt out of the armed forces to go to college rather than re-enlist. Last week, Senator Webb added a provision to the bill that would permit servicemembers to transfer their educational benefits under the GI Bill to their spouses and/or their children. President Bush, in his State of the Union address, also insisted that any improvement in the GI Bill must include transferability of benefits.

Many of us have parents or grandparents who directly benefited from the original G.I. Bill (called the Serviceman’s Readjustment Act of 1944), signed by President Roosevelt just two weeks after D-Day. Historian Stephen Ambrose said of the G.I. Bill, it was “the best piece of legislation ever passed by the U.S. Congress, and it made modern America.” This comprehensive bill, besides providing healthcare for returning veterans, had a landmark feature that transformed this nation, socially and economically. As historian Doris Kearns Goodwin explained, the education component of the G.I. Bill meant that “a whole generation of blue collar workers were enabled to go to college, become doctors, lawyers, and engineers, and that their children would grow up in a middle class family…In 1940, the average GI was 26 years old and had an average of one year of high school as his only education, and now, suddenly, the college doors were open.” In its first year, the VA processed more than 83,000 applications for educational benefits. Eventually 7.8 million WWII vets used these benefits in some form.

Historian Michael Beschloss believes that the G.I Bill of 1944 “linked the idea of service to education. You serve your country; the government pays you back by allowing you educational opportunities you otherwise wouldn’t have had, and that in turn helps to improve this society.”

America got its money back. For every dollar invested in World War II veterans, seven dollars were generated.

Today’s vets receive benefits administered under the Montgomery G.I. Bill. It was a program designed for peacetime, not wartime, service. The current benefits often don’t even cover the cost of community college tuition. Because the benefits are so inadequate, many returning veterans take jobs to support their families, rather than pursue higher education.

But under Webb’s bill, veterans in an approved program of education would receive payments up to the cost of the most expensive in-state public school, plus a monthly stipend equivalent to housing costs in their area.

The Defense Department argues that the Webb bill will adversely affect retention rates, by as much as 16 percent. But another government study reveals that better benefits will attract new recruits, by about 16 percent.

Three former Presidents, a dozen U.S. Senators, three Supreme Court Justices, fourteen Nobel Prize winners went to school on the G.I. Bill. Don’t we owe it to the next generation of soldiers to provide them with the education they need to lead our nation?

For more information, visit Senator Webb’s website. You can also go to the American Legion web site to find out how you can help insure a brighter future for our nation’s veterans.

Marian Edelman Borden aka the Northern half of Evelyn David
www.forservicetoyourcountry.com
www.evelyndavid.com

Writer’s Block

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I’m dealing with an intense case of writer’s block. I am so fearful of putting pen to paper that I have started and stopped writing this week’s blog about fifty times. (Wait until I finish the first one I started on television shows…that will surely put you to sleep and make you hope that my writers’ block continues for a long, long time.) I have been reading Evelyn’s daily recaps of Mayhem and wondering how in the heck she’s going to seminars all day long and then coming back to write. (And actually making sense, to boot.) So instead of wallowing in my writer’s block haze, I’ll describe some of the things that I do to counteract writer’s block and see if any of them speak to you fellow writers out there.

1. I perform the “one-woman show.” It is performed by one woman—me—and viewed by one being—my dog. (Except for the time I didn’t realize the contractor had come back to sand the spackle that he had put on the walls. He is still talking about how much he enjoyed my rendition of “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue.”) It consists of dancing, some singing, and the occasional monologue, the general subject being “Why Can’t I Write Today?” Interpretative dance with lip-syncing usually opens the show—seen bi-weekly in my attic, or more frequently depending on when a manuscript is due—with Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman” being a personal favorite to get things rolling. The end of the show usually consists of a slightly out-of-breath blocked writer falling into her desk chair and turning off her computer with the one finger that she can still use after all of the gyrations that went on during the one-woman show.

2. I read every cookbook I have, cover to cover, searching for that perfect coq au vin recipe. I haven’t actually made coq au vin yet because I usually get so hungry reading the cookbooks that I end up walking into town for a chicken salad on rye.

3. I call every friend I have who I know will either be at their desk at work or at home. Most of them have caller ID now and don’t answer the phone when they see my number come up.

4. I read. But not anything that is similar to what I write because I fear that I will start sounding like someone else. So, I read the manuals that came with my stove, dishwasher, and dryer; the tags on my pillows (some of which I have ripped off, despite their warnings); the back of shampoo bottles (there’s a lot more on there besides ‘lather, rinse, and repeat,’ you know); and papers that I’ve already read. I know a lot about what happened last week, but sadly, not enough about what’s going on right now.

5. I shop online. And yes, I do realize that if my writer’s block continues, I won’t be able to shop online because I won’t have an income. Interesting conundrum, yes?

6. I watch television. Interestingly, I just took a break from writing this blog and turned on the Food Network where, much to my surprise and delight, Anthony Bourdain (who I love about as much as anyone can love a chef who eats gross things for a living) was talking about writer’s block. He was sitting in front of his computer typing the words “chicken and ribs…chicken and ribs…chicken and ribs…” over and over again while attempting to write an article on his trip to St. Martin. God bless you, Anthony Bourdain for letting me know that I am not alone.

So, what do you do? I know what Evelyn does and I know what the writers in my writers’ group do, but I’m interested to hear your coping mechanisms. And if anyone writes back with the advice to just “shut up and write,” I promise you will receive an unflattering characterization in my next book. It might be just the thing to end my writer’s block, though.

Maggie Barbieri