I hope you're following along with Tina, Jean, Krista, and Kat. If anyone else wants to play, just let me know and I'll stick you on the 30 Day Challenge blog roll. :) My list (with links to each post so far) is here.
I'm supposed to write a letter to someone who's hurt me recently, but, as I sit here, I keep coming up blank.
Sure, my friends, family, and acquaintances have had bad days and said or done cranky things - and so have I. It's human to occasionally become irritated, overwhelmed, angry, distracted, or oblivious. No one worth writing a letter to has done anything intentionally vindictive or purposely painful, in fact, pretty much everyone in my life has consistently been encouraging and supportive. Do we always agree? Nope, but that doesn't mean I've been hurt. As long as they're not nasty, I'm happy to let it go. Life is too short to bear grudges, especially against people we supposedly care about. That said, if someone is consistently an ass - regardless of who they are - I shrug, maybe fume for a moment or two, then I close that particular door and continue on my way. I am not good with bullshit or meanness or spite for spite's sake, and I do everything I can to simply keep it out of my life. There are a handful of people who used to be considered friends that we haven't seen in years because they're just not worth all the negativity.
From the people that actually matter, the last kind-of hurtful thing I can think of happened about 4 years ago, and the last really hurtful thing was almost a decade ago. I see no reason to write a letter about ancient history. I have long since moved on.
Maybe I'm lucky, maybe I'm too trusting, maybe I just believe in the mantra, All is forgiven, move on.
Except with myself. I'm horrid to myself. And I rarely, if ever, forgive my failings.
I really need to work on that.
Tomorrow is another picture day, and I don't know what I'll be able to find, or if anyone would actually want to see it.
13 January, 2012
12 January, 2012
January Challenge Day 12
I hope you're following along with Tina, Jean, Krista, and Kat. If anyone else wants to play, just let me know and I'll stick you on the 30 Day Challenge blog roll. :) My list (with links to each post so far) is here.
Whew. An easy one.
How I found out about blogging, and why I made one.
It's all Juliet's fault.
Juliet purchased Ghosts in the summer of 2003. When we discussed marketing - and what I could do to to help - Juliet suggested that I blog so folks could see how friendly and quirky I am.
So I did.
The original tamboblog is no more, but I'm obviously still writing, and still blogging. Despite being downsized in the Great Publishing Contraction of 2009, Juliet is still editing, mostly freelance now, and I cannot recommend her talent and precision enough, plus she's friendly, funny, and easy to work with. Check out her site at http://papertyger.net.
Whew. An easy one.
How I found out about blogging, and why I made one.
It's all Juliet's fault.
| The amazing, insightful, and always brilliant Juliet Ulman. Original photo and more info about Juliet at http://www.omnivoracious.com/ |
Juliet purchased Ghosts in the summer of 2003. When we discussed marketing - and what I could do to to help - Juliet suggested that I blog so folks could see how friendly and quirky I am.
So I did.
The original tamboblog is no more, but I'm obviously still writing, and still blogging. Despite being downsized in the Great Publishing Contraction of 2009, Juliet is still editing, mostly freelance now, and I cannot recommend her talent and precision enough, plus she's friendly, funny, and easy to work with. Check out her site at http://papertyger.net.
11 January, 2012
January Challenge - Day 11
I hope you're following along with Tina, Jean, Krista, and Kat. If anyone else wants to play, just let me know and I'll stick you on the 30 Day Challenge blog roll. :) My list (with links to each post so far) is here.
More pictures. Of me and friends.
Have I mentioned how much I really, truly hate having my pic taken? This is hard, but here goes.
This first pic has a rather long story to go with it.
It's Michele and me in major east coast city (that I won't name publicly), sitting on a curb at the bottom of a freeway off-ramp that was littered with used condoms and broken glass, across from a boarded up apartment building, beside a car with bashed in windows, in a really bad part of town, when were were just about to be left there lost and alone to be raped or killed or who knows what, because we're terrified women from Iowa who seriously thought we were gonna die. Unless we received angelic intervention.
We'd been picked up at the airport because I was a guest at a convention, one of my first. The person who picked us up, well, she didn't believe me when I told her her car was smoking as she drove down some freeway. She argued with both of us about it, even, said it was the guy ahead's exhaust (honey, growing up poor in rural Iowa, I know what a smoking car looks like) Finally, she could barely see the vehicle in front of us. So she pulled off, and stopped just past the bottom of the offramp in what has to be the scariest place I've ever been in my life.
Then she tells Michele and me to get out of the car. Now.
I think there were gunshots somewhere, far away but close enough to hear. Some guy that looked like a sterotypical drug dealer/gang member sauntered by and checked out the two pasty plump chicks in the smoking car and their crazy chauffeur.
Michele and I looked at each other, eyes wide, and said we'd rather stay in the car.
The gang member waved and continued on.
Our escort cussed at us, popped her trunk, threw our stuff on the curb, and pretty much forced us out of her vehicle. Which had stopped smoking. So we huddled on the sidewalk, freeway behind us, scary stuff everywhere else, while she got back in her car and made a phone call. She apparently called her mechanic and requested a tow because she rolled down the window to tell us that everything was fine because they hadn't closed yet and would send someone to get her car.
What about us? we asked.
She shrugged and pretty much refused to talk to us, other than occasionally fretting about how she was going to pay for her car. That she'd just gotten fixed or paid for or something, because that's all that mattered. Her car.
She wouldn't even call someone at the convention to come get us. And the locals started to peer at us, interested. Two plump blonde mommies. Look like they've eaten a lot of corn. Should be tasty!
The tow truck finally arrived, and our protector hopped right in the tow truck without even looking at us - the not-really-famous writer who was supposed to talk at the convention tonight, and her Super Porter Extraordinaire. Michele and I had no idea where we were since the street signs had been stolen. There were no open businesses within sight, only derelict buildings as far as the eye could see, and what could be kindly described as clumps of 'rough looking individuals' who chuckled among themselves and eyed our luggage. And us.
We asked her again what were we supposed to do. There wasn't room for all of us in the tow truck, and she told us she had no idea, and didn't care because she had to get her car out of there. It was our problem.
This was several years ago and I don't think Michele had her phone back then. I still don't have a cell phone so we were rightly and totally screwed. We pressed together and hoped our families would at least find out what happened to us.
Please note that none of the locals approached us at all because, frankly, if one would have come up and said, hey, I see you're in trouble here, I'll call you a cab, we would have hugged him and offered to cook supper. But, no, they just... waited.
As the tow truck guy strapped her car to the hoist, Michele and I dragged our stuff to the offramp and frantically tried to flag down cars. Some drivers barely glanced at us at all, most just sped right on through the stop sign because they, too, wanted to get the heck outta there before it got dark.
Finally, while our benevolent guardian dickered over the cost of the tow and the local vultures moved in for the final assessment, an off duty cab came down the off ramp and he probably messed himself when two terrified women leapt in front of his car, begging for help. He told us he'd just gotten off work, but once we explained our problem, sure, he'd take us wherever we needed to go. We all but threw ourselves into the cab and our hero/angel took us away from that mess.
En route to our hotel, we heard a few rather unsavory stories of rapes and murders in the neighborhood we'd nearly been abandoned in and, despite him saying there was no charge, I paid him double what we would have paid a cab from the airport. And I took a receipt and had the convention reimburse me.
That actually was an incredible convention, other than the 'getting to the convention' part, but it's the first, last, and only time Michele and I have allowed ourselves to be picked up by strangers at the airport. It's been cabs or hotel shuttles for us ever since.
My other picture is of me and Sammie when we met up in Las Vegas a couple of years ago.
I've known Sam since fall of 2001 and she was one of the first to critique an opening chapter of Ghosts in the Online Writer's Workshop. We've been friends ever since despite her living in Australia and me in Iowa, and she has pre-edited every one of the Dubric books (Valley is dedicated to her). She's amazingly insightful and thorough, and makes sure my tenses never let their slips show, and ensures I don't wimp out and take the easy way. We finally met for the very first time in Vegas when she and her husband took a vacation. There was much squeeing and jumping around, and it's a wonder her husband didn't leave us to giggle and talk the whole time.
He was awesome too, btw. :)
Sammie gets a quilt from me almost every year, and we've sent I don't know how many care packages back and forth. No one gets to read my fiction before Sammie. I absolutely could not be a professional writer without her assistance and insight.
And that has depleted my 'Tam with friends' picture options. Thank goodness there aren't any more on the list!
More pictures. Of me and friends.
Have I mentioned how much I really, truly hate having my pic taken? This is hard, but here goes.
This first pic has a rather long story to go with it.
It's Michele and me in major east coast city (that I won't name publicly), sitting on a curb at the bottom of a freeway off-ramp that was littered with used condoms and broken glass, across from a boarded up apartment building, beside a car with bashed in windows, in a really bad part of town, when were were just about to be left there lost and alone to be raped or killed or who knows what, because we're terrified women from Iowa who seriously thought we were gonna die. Unless we received angelic intervention.
 |
| Yep. We're doomed, but we're trying to make the best of it. |
Then she tells Michele and me to get out of the car. Now.
I think there were gunshots somewhere, far away but close enough to hear. Some guy that looked like a sterotypical drug dealer/gang member sauntered by and checked out the two pasty plump chicks in the smoking car and their crazy chauffeur.
Michele and I looked at each other, eyes wide, and said we'd rather stay in the car.
The gang member waved and continued on.
Our escort cussed at us, popped her trunk, threw our stuff on the curb, and pretty much forced us out of her vehicle. Which had stopped smoking. So we huddled on the sidewalk, freeway behind us, scary stuff everywhere else, while she got back in her car and made a phone call. She apparently called her mechanic and requested a tow because she rolled down the window to tell us that everything was fine because they hadn't closed yet and would send someone to get her car.
What about us? we asked.
She shrugged and pretty much refused to talk to us, other than occasionally fretting about how she was going to pay for her car. That she'd just gotten fixed or paid for or something, because that's all that mattered. Her car.
She wouldn't even call someone at the convention to come get us. And the locals started to peer at us, interested. Two plump blonde mommies. Look like they've eaten a lot of corn. Should be tasty!
The tow truck finally arrived, and our protector hopped right in the tow truck without even looking at us - the not-really-famous writer who was supposed to talk at the convention tonight, and her Super Porter Extraordinaire. Michele and I had no idea where we were since the street signs had been stolen. There were no open businesses within sight, only derelict buildings as far as the eye could see, and what could be kindly described as clumps of 'rough looking individuals' who chuckled among themselves and eyed our luggage. And us.
We asked her again what were we supposed to do. There wasn't room for all of us in the tow truck, and she told us she had no idea, and didn't care because she had to get her car out of there. It was our problem.
This was several years ago and I don't think Michele had her phone back then. I still don't have a cell phone so we were rightly and totally screwed. We pressed together and hoped our families would at least find out what happened to us.
Please note that none of the locals approached us at all because, frankly, if one would have come up and said, hey, I see you're in trouble here, I'll call you a cab, we would have hugged him and offered to cook supper. But, no, they just... waited.
As the tow truck guy strapped her car to the hoist, Michele and I dragged our stuff to the offramp and frantically tried to flag down cars. Some drivers barely glanced at us at all, most just sped right on through the stop sign because they, too, wanted to get the heck outta there before it got dark.
Finally, while our benevolent guardian dickered over the cost of the tow and the local vultures moved in for the final assessment, an off duty cab came down the off ramp and he probably messed himself when two terrified women leapt in front of his car, begging for help. He told us he'd just gotten off work, but once we explained our problem, sure, he'd take us wherever we needed to go. We all but threw ourselves into the cab and our hero/angel took us away from that mess.
En route to our hotel, we heard a few rather unsavory stories of rapes and murders in the neighborhood we'd nearly been abandoned in and, despite him saying there was no charge, I paid him double what we would have paid a cab from the airport. And I took a receipt and had the convention reimburse me.
That actually was an incredible convention, other than the 'getting to the convention' part, but it's the first, last, and only time Michele and I have allowed ourselves to be picked up by strangers at the airport. It's been cabs or hotel shuttles for us ever since.
My other picture is of me and Sammie when we met up in Las Vegas a couple of years ago.
 |
| She's really not that short. I was just closer to the camera. |
I've known Sam since fall of 2001 and she was one of the first to critique an opening chapter of Ghosts in the Online Writer's Workshop. We've been friends ever since despite her living in Australia and me in Iowa, and she has pre-edited every one of the Dubric books (Valley is dedicated to her). She's amazingly insightful and thorough, and makes sure my tenses never let their slips show, and ensures I don't wimp out and take the easy way. We finally met for the very first time in Vegas when she and her husband took a vacation. There was much squeeing and jumping around, and it's a wonder her husband didn't leave us to giggle and talk the whole time.
He was awesome too, btw. :)
Sammie gets a quilt from me almost every year, and we've sent I don't know how many care packages back and forth. No one gets to read my fiction before Sammie. I absolutely could not be a professional writer without her assistance and insight.
And that has depleted my 'Tam with friends' picture options. Thank goodness there aren't any more on the list!
10 January, 2012
January Challenge Day 10
I hope you're following along with Tina, Jean, Krista, and Kat. If anyone else wants to play, just let me know and I'll stick you on the 30 Day Challenge blog roll. :) My list (with links to each post so far) is here.
Today is about music, specifically songs I listen to when I'm happy, sad, bored, hyped and mad.
Whoa.
Music has been a vital part of my entire life. My dad was a professional musician and he played guitar all of my life until he died. We constantly had the radio on, or records or tapes, and, despite our low income, he was an early adopter of music technology. We were the first people I knew with cassettes, for example, and when lots of kids were dubbing music off the radio, we were copying songs from original to cassette in my dad's dual-cassette stereo monstrosity. I grew up with amplifiers and microphones and PA systems, mixers and guitars and whammy bars and lugging all that stuff to and from my dad's van.
So, yeah. Music and me go waaaaay back. lol
In an effort to limit my blabbering - I can go on all day about songs, song writers, and the various genres of music - I'll give one song for each topic. Just to warn you, there's no genre consistency to my choices, I like all kinds of music.
And, by the way, I sing every one of these songs. Belt them out even. Why listen if I'm not gonna sing along? ;)
Happy, I like to bop around the house to... Bootylicious
Sad is a whole other story and nothing gets me out of my funk like Guilty, as performed by the Blues Brothers
I'm usually cleaning something when I'm bored, and for that there's my Adele CD. My favorite track is Rumor Has it. For this song alone she should win a Grammy. lol It gets me motivated.
Now for hyped. Hmm. That's kinda tricky, because I mostly just put the iPod on 'tammy dance mix' and let 'er rip, but I think I'd have to put Red Hot Chili Peppers' Give It Away near the top of the list. (sorry about the ad but I wanted to link to the studio version, not live)
I don't get mad very often, in fact, it's one of my least-likely emotions. Getting mad means to push those emotions outward and I'm not very good at that. However, I've done a lot of walking - and singing aloud all the while - to this song when I've been ticked off. Especially when we fostered our nieces and dealing with the state was such a freaking joy.
So there you have it. My list of pivotal songs, but I wish I could have included something by P!nk, Bonnie Raitt, The Eagles, 3 Doors Down, Toad the Wet Sprocket, and Tracy Chapman. But maybe they're more middle of the road musicians for me. ;)
09 January, 2012
January Challenge Day 9
I hope you're following along with Tina, Jean, Krista, and Kat. If anyone else wants to play, just let me know and I'll stick you on the 30 Day Challenge blog roll. :) My list (with links to each post so far) is here.
Today it's about something I'm proud of in the past few days. Like so many other posts in this list it's hard to pick one topic.
I'm proud of my daughter for being more strong and capable than I'd dared to hope.
I'm proud of my husband getting up before dawn to carry mail when he doesn't know the route or the town they've randomly sent him to, and working 10-12 hour days to get it done despite inclement weather and cramping feet.
I'm proud of my sister for doing all that she does for so many other people.
I'm proud of our friends who've weathered health issues, employment issues, and personal issues, yet remain the wonderful, lovely, determined people they've always been.
I'm even proud of our cat, Echo, for figuring out that she's supposed to only pee outside or in the litter box. Finally.
And I'm proud of myself to face the uncertainty of writing and working to find ways to make it better.
There's a lot to be proud of and, so far, it's been a great year! {{huggs}}
Today it's about something I'm proud of in the past few days. Like so many other posts in this list it's hard to pick one topic.
I'm proud of my daughter for being more strong and capable than I'd dared to hope.
I'm proud of my husband getting up before dawn to carry mail when he doesn't know the route or the town they've randomly sent him to, and working 10-12 hour days to get it done despite inclement weather and cramping feet.
I'm proud of my sister for doing all that she does for so many other people.
I'm proud of our friends who've weathered health issues, employment issues, and personal issues, yet remain the wonderful, lovely, determined people they've always been.
I'm even proud of our cat, Echo, for figuring out that she's supposed to only pee outside or in the litter box. Finally.
And I'm proud of myself to face the uncertainty of writing and working to find ways to make it better.
There's a lot to be proud of and, so far, it's been a great year! {{huggs}}
08 January, 2012
January Challenge Day 8
I hope you're following along with Tina, Jean, Krista, and Kat. If anyone else wants to play, just let me know and I'll stick you on the 30 Day Challenge blog roll. :) My list (with links to each post so far) is here.
Today's topic is all about goals. My short term goals for this month.
Honestly, this month I have to read. A lot.
I used to be a voracious reader, roughly a book a day (about 5 books a week) through my teens and much of my twenties. My reading really fell off after I published - reading became an exercise in fighting against the urge to get out my red pen - and I've only really gotten back into reading since we moved up north.
Earlier this week, my agent and I talked quite a lot about M's struggles to sell (and the crappy condition of the print marketplace) and he wants me to spend a month reading a lot of current, popular fiction, across genres. Once I've done this, I'm supposed to analyze these books to see what makes them tick. Why are they popular? What similarities do they possess? What insights can I glean?
I've never worried about analyzing books before and while I definitely don't want to follow any trends - much rather start some, thanks anyway - this is an excellent exercise to improve the scope and structure of my fiction.
So that's what I'm doing. Better get back to it. ;)
Today's topic is all about goals. My short term goals for this month.
Honestly, this month I have to read. A lot.
I used to be a voracious reader, roughly a book a day (about 5 books a week) through my teens and much of my twenties. My reading really fell off after I published - reading became an exercise in fighting against the urge to get out my red pen - and I've only really gotten back into reading since we moved up north.
Earlier this week, my agent and I talked quite a lot about M's struggles to sell (and the crappy condition of the print marketplace) and he wants me to spend a month reading a lot of current, popular fiction, across genres. Once I've done this, I'm supposed to analyze these books to see what makes them tick. Why are they popular? What similarities do they possess? What insights can I glean?
I've never worried about analyzing books before and while I definitely don't want to follow any trends - much rather start some, thanks anyway - this is an excellent exercise to improve the scope and structure of my fiction.
So that's what I'm doing. Better get back to it. ;)
07 January, 2012
January Posting Challenge - Day 7
I hope you're following along with Tina, Jean, Krista, and Kat. If anyone else wants to play, just let me know and I'll stick you on the 30 Day Challenge blog roll. :) My list (with links to each post so far) is here.
Who or what as the biggest impact on me?
Easy. My daughter.
She is awesome, amazing, smart, funny, beautiful, creative, and it astounds me every day that Bill and I were given such a tremendous gift. I don't mention her much - once I became a pro author I decided that she, at least, would remain out of the spotlight and get to keep her privacy - and I don't think I've ever posted her picture before. Maybe when she graduated from high school? Maybe? She has my crooked nose, creativity, blue eyes and complexion, and her dad's ears, need to organize things, toughness, and sense of humor.
Love you, Punkin.
Who or what as the biggest impact on me?
Easy. My daughter.
 |
| Here she is. The often mentioned but rarely seen Original Issue Kid. |
She's all that we ever wished for and I couldn't do half of what I do without her influence, encouragement, and unwavering belief.
Love you, Punkin.
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