Ashes - you MUST read this book

I had slogged through several so-so books last week, and then on Friday night, I picked up Ashes, intending to read for maybe an hour.

Four hours later, I was still reading. And on Saturday, instead of writing, I just gave in and finished the book.  And now I feel sad and empty, because the next one (it’s a trilogy) isn’t due out until September of 2012.

Ashes begins when an electromagnetic pulse wipes out all electronics, killing most adults in the process. Only a few people under the age of 25 and over the age of 65 are left, and most of the younger ones have been turned into flesh-eating monsters (like zombies only the bite of another zombie doesn't create a new zombie). The main character is 17-year-old Alex who was hiking when the pulse hit. She had just met an eight year old named Ellie and her grandfather, who drops dead during the pulse. Later they meet Tom, a young solider on leave, and the three of them are left to figure out if it’s possible to stay alive in this new world.

One of the best things the author does is fantastic cliff-hanger chapter endings, ie:

- No, she thought. No, please, Go, I’m not seeing this.


- Much later, she would think all that talk of food was to blame for what happened next.  


- Something slammed against her back as a bright orange flash erupted out of the dark, and a shotgun boomed.


- Alex and Tom both looked at Ellie and then at each other, and burst into laughter.  
That was the last good time.


- “Promise me that if I change,” Tom said, “you’ll kill me.”  


- The woman was sallow and pinched with a frizz of gray hair. Maybe in another life and before this nightmare, she’d baked chocolate chip cookies for the grandkids, but not now.
She sighted her rifle on Alex’s chest. “Don’t.”  

You can see why I couldn’t stop reading!

You can read more about the author and the book here.

Raise the stakes - I'm begging you!

I just put down a big YA bestseller with only 100 pages to go.  Why?  Because I realized I no longer cared.

Oddly enough, the reason I no longer cared is that none of the characters I loved were in danger.

You would think that such a situation would be ideal.  After all, I don’t enjoy it when characters are hurt or killed.  I actually cried when one of the characters in The Hunger Games died.  (Full on tears.)

And this book had plenty of scrapes.  The main character is kidnapped. She’s forced to fight in a ring.  (And if you lose three times, you are thrown to the crowd which rips you to pieces.) She falls into a river and nearly goes over a waterfall that would mean her certain death.  She and her friends fight off giant clawed worms.  (Those of you who have read this book will have guessed what it is by now.)

But you know what?  Not one important character had died at the point I stopped reading.  (Her father dies at the beginning, in the inciting incident, but you haven’t gotten to know him yet.)  Not even an important animal.  No character is even badly damaged. I started having a hard time paying attention to the latest adventure, because I knew they would find a way out a page or two later.

Life is precious because we know it is short.  If we could all live forever, would we care about life as much?  I think the very best books are willing to show us that it could all be on the line, and that sometimes the good guys lose (at least one battle, if not the war).

Takeaways on Life and Death

When I worked in the corporate world, we used to talk about what the “takeaway” would be from a meeting or an ad campaign - the main message that a people “would take” with them.

Spelled with a space in between, we all know what “take away” means.  To subtract. To snatch away.

Two of my lovely friends have been taken from me this year:  Lisa Wolfson (LK Madigan) and Bridget Zinn. They died just three months and two days apart.

So what are the takeaways from their deaths?
- Save more emails. Email storage is pretty much free these days. When I heard the news about Bridget, I tried to find my most recent emails with her, where we had talked about the lovely cherry tree in her yard and how considering the structure of The Princess Bride might help her as she worked on final edits for Poison.  I can find scattered emails back from the last two and a half years, but that’s it.  Which was so stupid of me. It’s not like I didn’t know Bridget would not be around forever. I remember doing the same thing after Lisa had died, wishing I had had more of her emails.


-Take more photos. Barrett took a photo of me and Bridget at a signing, but I can’t find it on my own hard drive.  I could only find it on her blog.  I don’t have any other pictures of Bridget, not ones that I took anyway.  The only photos I have of me and Lisa have other people in them.  I always feel silly posing for photos or asking others to smile. Silliness be damned!

-Get together more. How many times have I turned down an invitation because I was on deadline? I’m sure I would have met my deadline. But those events have come and gone and can never been recreated.  I need to honor life more than I honor my schedule.



- Talk about love. Lisa phoned a few days before her death. In the course of our conversation, I told her I loved her, and she said it back to me.  I told her I didn’t often say that to people outside my family, but I did love her. I still didn’t know how to say goodbye, because I knew it would be the last time I talked to her. How do you end it?  So I said "Talk to you later."  And that was that.  But I'm glad to have said “I love you” to her, even she already knew I did.

- Refocus. I will always remember a conversation I had with Bridget. She had been talking to someone who had been complaining about something small, but which she had let ruin her whole day.  Bridget said she had to bite her tongue, that she wanted to say, “Well, did someone tell you today that you are dying from cancer?  No?  Then you are having a good day.”

- Don’t waste time.  How much time do I waste?  Conversely, how often do I put off doing something I enjoy (like reading) because I haven’t “earned it” yet?

And what are the takeaways from their lives?

- Bridget and Barrett found excuses for parties. I still remember the “Fatten Bridget Up for Chemo Party.” They also got married several times and celebrated what they called “The Summer of Love.” 

- Lisa went to so many signings. If a YA author came to town, chances were good she was there and buying at least one book.



- Bridget and Barrett made even small things beautiful. Take this picnic they ate one of the last times she was hospitalized. If it were me, I would probably be staring at some bland institutional plate of food, not even considering how I could have something better.

- Lisa reached to other authors, especially new authors. She focused on them in her blog and spread her joy at finding a great new book.  She even called bookstores in other states when her online friends were having their launch parties and ordered a signed copy or two to be shipped back to her.

I was driving through Eastern Oregon over Memorial Day weekend. And I saw the rolling hills and rocks formations through my friend’s eyes. How much more beautiful they would be if you knew your days were numbered?  But I’m kidding myself.  We are all dying.  Our days are numbered, and we don’t know how long they will be.

Men's wingtips offer an iconic image - Dueling covers

I love Tom Perrotta (probably more than he loves me, as we have never met and I'm pretty sure he's unaware of my existence.)

I'm looking forward to reading The Leftovers, which is described thusly: "What if the Rapture happened and you got left behind? Or what if it wasn’t the Rapture at all, but something murkier, a burst of mysterious, apparently random disappearances that shattered the world in a single moment, dividing history into Before and After, leaving no one unscathed? How would you rebuild your life in the wake of such a devastating event?" 

I find it interesting that he's exploring a quasi-religious subject, as he did in the Abstinence Teacher.  Or, in a way, the flip side of religion.

I loved the World to Come by Dana Horn - and reviewed it for the Oregonian.

The only one of the bunch I haven't read:

And again, really liked Dan Chaon's You Remind Me of Me and was glad to see all his success last year with Await Your Reply.  I hung out with him at the green room at Wordstock, although I was probably too big a fan girl to be perceived as a peer.  

One step at a time

I have run the same route so many times that I can tell within the first 3 minutes how fast I'm going to run. Actually, the first 2 minutes 38 seconds. If I make it to the light on Multnomah at 2:37 or before, it's going to be a good run.

Today it was 2:37, so I decided to push myself.  But it's hard to keep up a sprint for five miles.  What I did today that worked really well was to pick something about 20 feet away - a leaf, a crack - and focus on running hard to that point.  Then once I got there, I picked another point, again about 20 feet away, and just repeated the process.  And I had the best time I had in months.  

I'm approaching my writing like that today.  Focusing on small goals, not being overwhelmed by my killer deadline, about how yesterday I worked for hours and only had a net 300 words to show for it.  Sure, on paper I should be writing between 1,000-2,000 words every day to make my deadline, but what I need to focus on now is going through my outline, step by step, and making sure it makes sense and that it keeps the tension high.  Today I need to concentrate on writing in 20-feet increments.

How NOT to get ready for your big day

Okay, so this morning I was on a TV show called AM Northwest. And in the evening I am going to be speaking at the Oregon Book Awards.  Anxious? Me? Why yes.

I spend most of my days in workout clothes.  I wear makeup about twice a year.  I never learned how to walk in heels.  (I think it's too late.)

So I've been nervously anticipating these events.  This weekend I started doing my prep work.  Learn from my mistakes:

- on Saturday, at Kajukenbo class get paired with 13-year-old boy known [by me] as "Devil Child."  When instructed to "harmonize" with gentle sparring, Devil Child windmills his arms, raining blows, and laughs at resulting wincing, cowering.  Instructor yells, "Hit him!" to no avail.
- resulting bruises are going to make sleeveless dress problematic.

- realizing no one wears stockings any more, go to Target and purchase "shapewear" and self-tanner.
- go home and don shapewear. Styled like shorts (shorts made by Satan), they immediately roll up thighs and down belly, creating scary slabs of flash.
- discard idea of wearing shapewear and instead vow to suck in stomach (for hours on end if need be).
- test self-tanner on upper thigh.  Nearly too late, note that long streak of self-tanner has run down to calf.  Wipe up frantically with wad of wet toilet paper.
- on Sunday, wake up and note that self-tanner has made test spot on upper thigh a pale orange. Still better than normal, vampire-like skin tone.
- as an alternate plan, purchase Sally Hansen Airbrush Legs, which people on the internet claim miraculously covers up imperfections.
- try Sally Hansen at home.  Legs are still scary and veiny and seem no darker.
- shower and shave.  (Scant body hair means shaving is a rare occasion).  Since self-tanner recommends exfoliating, scrub legs vigorously with loofah.
- spray on self-tanner.
- slip on floor on which self-tanner has drifted.
- after legs dry, try on four pairs of black pants. Four pairs! How is it possible to have four pairs of black pants (that are not athletic pants) and still not like any of them?
- one hour later, legs begin to burn and itch. And look bumpy.  Can you say razor burn?
- hope that razor burned/orange legs will look sort of tan.

Wish me luck!

A frank message to Kotex (men - avert your eyes)

I'm all for improvements in basic everyday products. Henry Ford's cars only came in one color - black - and now they are available in a rainbow of hues. Men can wear shirts that are other colors than white.  Etc.

But I can guarantee you this:  I have never looked at feminine hygiene pads and thought: "Damn, I wish they came with designs!"

It's like they've run through the basic additional features - leak-proof, scented, specially made for different kinds of panties - and they just couldn't think of anything else.

I mean, who needs a design in a spot that is never going to be seen by anyone but you?  In a spot that will immediately be obscured?  Even toilet paper with designs can be seen by anyone who walks into your bathroom, but this has an audience of one.

One who doesn't care.

Even designer Depends (new jeans style, perhaps, like Pampers) make more sense.