vacation!

The setting for my WIP needs to be a Spanish-speaking location, a small country with a recent civil war and a government rife with corruption.

So I set it in Central America. While I was writing, I based the scenery and general feel for the environment on my experiences in Mexico as a child. Now, I want to ground myself in more specifics, so . . . I’m going to Honduras and Guatemala this winter!

Also to Florida, Texas, Mexico, and Belize – but that’s (in the first two cases) family obligations and (in the last two) just plain vacation.

Leaving chilly New Hampshire the day after Christmas.

YAAAAAAAAAAY!

Ta-daaaah!

Peter Joseph Ciccarelli
born Tuesday October 11, 2011
9 lb. 3 oz.

So gorgeous!

sleeping, which he does quite well.

 awake and curious

 with his mom and big sister Nina - oblivious! (Peter, not Nina who is about to jump out of her skin)

my alter ego

I've had several questions lately about my sign-in name on forums. I generally use 'Greta Garbo' - why?
 
Short and un-illuminating answer: Greta Garbo is the name of our sailboat.

And why did we name her that, you ask?

First, there's Van Morrison's song Just Like Greta on the Magic Time album, the refrain of which goes like this. . . "Well I guess I'm going A.W.O.L/ Disconnect my telephone/Just like Greta Garbo/I want to be alone." It was a perfect name for a small boat with few amenities; when we go sailing we like to go off alone and stay out of touch.

Second, after naming her, we learned more about GG's personality. You can't approach her in a dinghy without her swaying back and forth, trying to decide which profile to show you - makes boarding her a bitch (can you say that in a blog?) Shes a prima donna, only goes in the direction she feels like traveling. She's beautiful and she knows it. Everyone admires her. All she has to do is show up and someone snaps her photograph. She's on the cover of the regatta advertising, in the newspaper. People come up to us and want to know who designed her.

She's a handful - beautiful, opinionated, contrary. I adopted the name a couple of years ago. It fits me fine.

a double-dip Sunday

From the NY Times Review of Books:

"A book itself threatens to kill its author repeatedly during its composition,” Michael Chabon writes in the margins of his unfinished novel “Fountain City” — a novel, he adds, that he could feel “erasing me, breaking me down, burying me alive, drowning me, kicking me down the stairs.” 

Yes, oh yes . . . too many distractions, too many overnight guests, too many 104-degree days to write convincingly. My WIP buried me alive and stomped on my shallow grave over the past few days.


On a totally different subject, here's what I'm missing by spending the summer in New England instead of the Bahamas. My friend and neighbor Marjolein (Abaco Artist) posted this on her blog. It's the sea out in front of our houses at Great Cistern. Oh, to be in a kayak . . .

quote for the day

Plutocracy too long tolerated leaves democracy on the auction block, subject to the highest bidder ~ Bill Moyers

 Politics has gotten awfully messy this week. Moyers has a way of cutting to the chase.

back from NYC

Back from ThrillerFest and SO delighted that I can hang around in my fuzzy robe and listen to birdsong over the marsh today

The highlight of the program was Ken Follett’s talk on Thursday morning. He was everything a good speaker should be: well-organized, clear, informative, and gently self-deprecating. He made a delightful contrast to some of the rather large egos wandering the halls.

But the absolute best part of ThrillerFest was the chance to talk to other writers. I keep saying that one of the reasons I love writing is that I really love solitude. I prefer sitting alone with my laptop and a story in my head to just about anything else. Just about. I guess it is nice to put on earrings and a nice dress occasionally, and it was wonderful to make new friends.

I garnered seven requests for material from the agent pitch sessions. And one very honest “I’m fried and have no idea if your project is right for me. Send me a query with ThrillerFest on the subject line. I need a Tylenol.” Me, too.

I’ll get back to work tomorrow, okay?

quote for thought

I read this in one of my morning blog-reads. It’s a quote from Toni Morrison’s novel LOVE:

“Love is the weather. Betrayal is the lightning that cleaves and reveals it.”

It reminds me that I ought to go back and dip into Toni Morrison again; it has been far too long.

change of plans

My WIP is proceeding in fits and starts. I had planned to drive to North Carolina in a few weeks to tune into the atmosphere where most of the story takes place. As I already hold a lot of that in my memory, I’ve changed my mind: That’s going to be my reward for a decent first draft. Instead, I’m heading to Thrillerfest in NYC next month.

It’s my birthday!

I was going to give myself the day off but the ‘another year older and what exactly have you done with your life?’ monkey jumped on my back. As I rehashed the early years, the bad years, the good ones . . . the recent bad ones, a quotation came to mind. I couldn’t quite remember the whole thing, but – thank God for google! – I found it.

. . . Years ago, when I was nearing the end of a painful divorce, I got away to Mexico for a week to stay with a friend of my mother. Unfortunately, our paths crossed at 30,000 feet as she had received news of the sudden death of her brother and was flying to New York while I was on my way to Oaxaca. She left another house guest to pick me up at the airport and show me around, a man about my age who had just become engaged to be married – for the first time. To make short and poignant story merely short, let’s say that we hit it off. The quotation comes from Michael Ventura, from a magazine article we read and then talked about until it was time for him to leave for the airport.

Here it is. Thank you, Randy, wherever you are.

We know now that our dreams are not going to come true. Are never going to come true. We have learned that our dreams are important not because they come true, but because they take you places you would never have otherwise gone, and teach you what you never guessed was there to learn.

love to see this

This would make a great cover for the dust jacket of The Black Desert - seashells in the Sahara.

ranting

I'm feeling a little angry today.

"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism." [Einstein] 

I'm with you, Al.

too cute!

Lili (10) and Nina (2) with me (noyb).

It reminds me a lot of this one, from our camping trip in Acadia National Park last summer. It was early morning, chilly; the girls were waiting for sausage and blueberry pancakes on the open fire.

Yay again!!!!!!

The quarter-finalist list was just published: I made it into the group of 250 -- out of 5,000 entrants. I'm psyched.

Paris is for lovers

We just watched Before Sunset for the zillionth time. I scrolled through some Paris scenes from our trip last year.

 from the tip of the Ile de la Cite.

 at the Jardin des Plantes

 my friends Juliana and Anne

 the Louvre pyramid during the Nuit Blanche celebration

 ah - Pere Lachaise - so lovely. got lots of Jim Morrison's grave, too, but they are so hokey that I won't share.

Yay!!!!!

I made it through the pitch round of the ABNA. Unfortunately, I was the only one of my group of friends who did -- and I know their books were just as good as mine. It is a great feeling nonetheless; I'm on Cloud Nine today and writing is going so well!

the Sea of Abaco

Here are more images of the incredible Sea of Abaco.It sure as hell beats posting pictures of the snowdrifts outside my door.

Hermit crab in a conch shell

tide pool in South Abaco

Tim and Elise at Treasure Cay

Lili steering Greta Garbo

on the foredeck of Toi et Moi