Cooking the Hook - NEW

I've waited a couple of days to write anything about the finale of Mad Men just so that I wouldn't be assassinated by some stalker for spilling any spoilers. Not here, btw. For now, I just want to say how much I loved the opening sequence - Don piloting this muscle car across the salt flats like nothing mattered (it was just dawning on him that it didn't), then him stepping out of the car and peeling off the snoopy flying helmet and the realization that he had bamboozled some fools into thinking he was a race car driver. Of course, he is. From the beginning, it's always been about the car. I watched the show in a celebratory manner, trying to go drink for drink with whoever was on screen drinking. I even watched the encore, another round, I think. Sleep was deep, but never dreamless. For some time now I've been wrestling with the realization that my female main character is weak. It's been tough writing her into things. So much wallpaper. Jack is rich...

There are no cobwebs here. Perhaps the only place in the house that's web free. Now that I've learned some trixie things that I can do with Scrivener and DragonSpeak, I've stopped dragging my heels about making sense and order out of some 130 thousand words that have materialized since this time  last year . Notice my new muse, St. Brad...I don't know if he's interested in the endeavor or he's looking down my shirt. I'm not sure I want to see "Fury." I tend to get emotionally involved with rage. I was feeling the need for some 70s color in the book and I found some useful source material on Ebay. This is where I got my cultural news. No TV, no internet. Remembering life before so much technology and connectivity is like spending time on a deserted island. So slow and delicious.

The sign read “the MONKEY BITES”.  Ace sat with his back to the room tearing out single pages from a small bible and eating them, chewing slowly while looking up at the ceiling of his cage as if he was memorizing the passages. Billy, the owner and bartender, said he only ate one or two pages a day – it was not as if he was hungry. Billy always fed Ace every time he fed himself. In fact, he fed the monkey first since he was worried about being poisoned, a fair concern because he treated the cook like dirt.

I came across this yesterday.  It's a theme that has always run through my writing and personal philosophy. I suppose I'll have to learn the process of asking for permission to use quotes from other authors hoping it could be as simple as an email.

I can't just drop in on the thing and visit. I wind up wasting time tinkering. Fixing nail holes with spackle, meanwhile the third story stairs are missing. I have to go there, be there, hang with the people and spend some time before I can really get anything substantive on the page.

Yeah..just look at her face for a second. The shit we used to hear! And yes dear, we listened in. Just for a second to make sure the connection was good. Way back in the day, I was a telephone operator for Ma Bell. It was just like that, right down to the equipment. I could write a book! The premise could go in two directions . Like her, it could easily happen that you accidentally overheard something that you wished to God you hadn't. Shit ensues. It happened to me more than once. And then there was my daily idle fantasy of establishing my own phone company called the ES&D network. That stood for "eat shit and die". A network for the burgeoning legion of creeps who liked being abused over the phone. I believe they have grown up to be fans of E.L. James. The customer would pay fifty bucks a month for the service (a lot back then for a phone) and could only call The Operator who would abuse  him (or the rare her) in a creative and deeply offensive manner ...

waiting until after midnight, waiting for the furnace to kick on so the sound would cover my movements, the muttering mechanicals breathing warmed air throughout the house, everyone deep into their dreams but me. Thick socks over thin, jeans and sweater pulled on over pajamas, I sat in a chair in the kitchen and pushed my feet into my skates and laced them tight, tight, my high heels, in just enough time to ease the back door open, slip out and close it before the furnace sighed and stilled. the ground was covered with brittle brown grass, frozen hard and unforgiving of the misstep. I picked my way carefully down across the yard to the edge of the lake where the ice had trapped little pockects of air that you wanted to avoid stepping on and cutting with the sound like ripping silk. keeping the blades flat and taking the first steps out onto the black ice..right foot left foot ..tock. tock, tock  then leaning and letting the glide take me further away from the house into deeper si...