In which I wrangle a turkey....

I seem to have issues in getting the turkey from the wrapper to the table. Remember? I blogged about the merriment of it all...

Here

and

Here

Today, I decided to pop a turkey in the oven and let it take care of itself because I have edits due on the Book of Great Wonderfulness, aka my next novel.

Let's just stop on the word "pop." That didn't happen. This was the slitheriest turkey I've ever had the pleasure to wrangle. Rinsing it off was a freak show in and of itself.

First I had to do the body cavity invasion that, now let's be honest, is just gross. I got rid of all the surprise packages except for one which would not come out (and let me tell you, you do not know what fun really is until you've tried to pull some unidentifiable body part out of a turkey carcass). I tugged and I twisted and I wrenched and it wouldn't move. I left it in.

Plus I was aided by a cat who thought (well, I might be giving her too much credit on the thinking thing) that since I was in the kitchen, I was undoubtedly trying to find something for her to eat. I've never done that, but I guess hope springs eternal in her little feline mind.

She wrapped herself around my ankles and began to coil in an endless furry loop. I needed to move the turkey from the sink, where the rinsing wasn't going at all well, to the pan, which I'd left on the stove.

Under the best of circumstances, it's a drip-drip-drip across the floor and the turkey's plopped into the pan and shoved in the oven to finish.

These were not the best of circumstances. I turned, the cat didn't, and the next thing I knew, I was horrified to find that I was clutching this wet turkey to my chest!

I'll leave time for everyone to shudder.

Bearing in mind that I'm 95% vegetarian (the spare 5% is for bacon), this is nightmarish. Do you understand how awful this was? I was hugging a wet dead turkey!!!

I suppose it's better than hugging a dry live turkey, but in a perfect world, I wouldn't be hugging ANY turkeys.

I guess you could say that my cooking is close to my heart. Like about an inch away. Literally.

Hey, you! Remember me?

As you all know, I feel very fortunate to have married Mr. Spaeth and not the other fellows who came in and out of my life. And it's quite okay for me to be snarky about the Boys of Yesteryear, but now the majorest of the Boys of Yesteryear has posted something on HIS blog about the Girls of Yesteryear--and HE DID NOT MENTION ME! Not at all! HEY! YOU! We were engaged! As in going to be married!

We were totally smitten with each other for about a year. But then we were separated by college, where I met Mr. Spaeth, and, as luck would have it, at his college the Boy of Yesteryear met his Ms Future Wife, and that was that.

Things turned out the way they should have in the marriage department. I am perfectly okay with not spending my life with the BoY (cute acronym, isn't it?) and he is, I understand through my nefarious snooping skills, blissfully happy with his wife. That's good.

Still...ahem...WHY AREN'T I IN THE BLOG POST??? HUH???

I am stunned that I was omitted, but I've figured this out. He was so blasted by my breaking up with him that he suffered a dreadful bout of amnesia! (We writers like amnesia plot devices. Also secret babies, but trust me, if there were any babies in this, they were a secret from me, too.)

It works.

And, as we say in fiction circles, that's my story.

Saying something nice

Yesterday I had the chance to say THANK YOU to two people who had really helped me out. One was a woman who had shaped my life--thanks to her, I found a love of children's and YA books and libraries, all of which made me a reader, a writer, and a librarian. She and her family became my family, and I love her and her family dearly.

The other was a woman who had helped me through my recent surgery. I could have done it myself (well, not the surgery! HA!) but it would have been a frustrating, worrisome process. Thanks to her, it was smooth sailing through paperwork and phone calls. She encouraged me, and I am grateful for her support.

It felt extremely good to say, "Thank you," to these wonderful women. And I hope it made them feel good too.

When I lived in Albuquerque, I had a poster that said something along the lines of: "Not only to love, but to be told that I am loved. The realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave." The poster didn't make it through many moves (it was beautiful though--a true hippie poster) but I still carry it in my heart.

If you can't say something nice

My mom used to say, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."

That's not the reason I haven't posted for a month. Blame a book deadline and a second round of orthoscopy for that.

No, my mom was probably right. In the way of all moms, she usually was.

BUT--here's the deal.

We're talking about ME. I talk. A lot. And if something really cranks my cord, I'll say something to someone. My problem is that I tend not to tell the person who has me upset.

I'm nonconfrontational. Always have been. I'm a pacificist. A vegetarian (for the most part). A nod-and-smiler. If you disagree with me, I might state my case and move on, because I have never found that arguments in a bar or a living room or at work have produced effective change.

Yeah. In other words, I'm a wuss.

But I will talk to someone else about it. My poor friends, they've heard it all. One in particular has been getting emails from me, probably 10 a day, regarding something that has my knickers in a knot. It has nothing to do with her, mind you, except that she's my friend and, as such, is forced to listen to me.

So I try to keep it entertaining. I figure I owe it to her. And I've found that the angrier I am, the more hurt I am, the more frustrated I am, the funnier I am.

Who knew? Yes, out of these negative emotions come the redeeming quality of FUNNY. And she gets into it too, so that our emails are, honestly, going to be in a book of their own one day. She and I together are snort-your-white-zin-out-your-nose funny.

It heals, laughter does. It eases the fact that someone has dug in and injured your soul in a way that is desperately painful. It takes those slights and makes them slight. It forces ignorance and rudeness out into the light and pokes them with a stick.

If you can't say something nice, say something funny.

Go figure, huh, Mom?

Whack-a-mole editing

I got the manuscript done! Of course, right at the end, the worrywart part of my mind (which is actually a HUGE part of my mind) kicked in, and editing became whack-a-mole. You know what I mean, don't you?

Example: I was in the shower yesterday morning, feeling quite confident and good about the book, when this stray thought popped into this mess of chaos I call my brain: Wouldn't he have known she was a widow from her job application?

See? Simple little thing, right?

Oh, of course it wasn't. For one thing, I was in the shower. No computer in the shower (it's kind of bad for them). And I was in there because I was getting ready for work, and that's an uninterruptable process. So I had to wait until the afternoon to investigate.

So I asked a co-worker, who is a writer herself and understands odd manuscript questions, and she said, Sure. Then, Oh, maybe not.

She thought, and I thought, and together we put together a couple of brain cells, and then she said, That's one of those questions you're not supposed to ask--it's marital status.

Okay. Whew. But it led to another question: Wouldn't he have wondered, though? And Karlene looked up from her cross-stitch and said, Yup.

Now, bear in mind she had no idea what my story was about, but she understands whack-a-mole editing.

My heroine's marital status wasn't the mole: it was HIS knowledge of it. So, I had to whack that mole! And then all sorts of other little associated moles popped up, one in this chapter, one in that chapter, and I spent the evening doing whack-a-mole on that whole character line.

I was way over my word limit so I deleted an entire section, and you know what that meant. I had to play whack-a-mole on every piece of that thread leading up to and following it.

Whack. Whack. Whack.

Finally, I emailed the manuscript.

And then, just as I was falling asleep, guess what popped up. Yup, another mole. This one was: If you deleted that entire thread, then does this other thread have any support?

Well, oops. I'll email my editor and tell her I'm aware that on line edits I'll have to include some of that back in.

It goes like that in whack-a-mole editing. Luckily I have a team of editors to work with me who make me write the best book I am capable of. I can honestly say that by the time we're through, there is very little I'd change.

My book credits should read: By Janet, JoAnne, Rachel, and Margie...and a whole lot of moles.

Reader mail!

I'm back on my publisher's blog where a reader comment was posted. And it's a really good, humbling one!

Click on over to read it, and leave a comment yourself!

Now, back to writing another book that will be loved by someone--I hope!

(And Happy Mother's Day!)

I'm on Editcafe!

I'm talking about my Minnesota series on my publisher's blog, Editcafe. Stop by and say hello!