The thing is, no matter what people tell you, no matter what you do, you might not succeed.
Everyone out there telling you how to succeed–Just keep submitting to corporate publishers or agents! Persistence is the key! Stay in one lane! Write to market!–is either suffering from survivor’s bias or spouting what the survivors have told them because they do believe in fairies, they do believe in fairies, they do, they do, they do believe in fairies.
Well, I don’t.
So, I’ve decided to give up.
Hold your panties, there, I’m not giving up on writing. In fact, from your perspective, I’ll bet nothing is going to change at all.
What I’m giving up on is the nagging and the guilt and the frustration–all of these things are coming from inside of my own head and I’m sick of them. If I don’t feel like writing fiction, I’m not going to do it. That’s all there is to it. But lucky for me, I do often feel like it, so I’ll probably produce the same amount as usual. I’m just not going to beat myself up for sewing instead.
I made a list of all the things I want to do–the things that make me happy. Writing, Puzzle Books, Sewing, Photography, Cooking, Online Classes, & Crocheting/Knitting.
Those are the things I like to do. And I’m not going to push any of them aside anymore trying to make myself a successful author. I’m just going to be me.
You know what they say about best laid plans…
I must have been pretty open about my frustration with writing because this whole idea of just doing other stuff and not feeling guilty about it led to a pretty big fight with my husband. And we don’t really fight. We’re fumers. Fume and breathe, fume and breathe, and eventually everything goes back to normal.
But after several months of fuming and bickering and then a nice real fight, I have decided that I’m nuts.
When I said that from your perspective nothing would change, I meant that I had already been at a low point for at least a couple of years and I wasn’t really writing much, anyway. And that just wasn’t working for me. I’d decided to give up worrying about it.
Well, here it is July and giving up worrying wasn’t working for me, either. So, I’m going back to writing full time. I’m not completely sure I ever really wrote full time. Even when I had that office space downtown. But I’m determined to do it this time.
I watched the final episode of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season Five just before leaving for vacation. So I had plenty of time to think about it. When I got home, I binge-watched the entire season again. I have to say, it was much more funny and rewarding the second time through. On first viewing, the season felt rushed and lacking in the humor we’ve come to expect from the show. But the whole season makes much more sense, runs smoother, and had a lot more laughs when it can be viewed without having to wait a week between episodes.
Don’t ask me why.
Overall, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is some of the best programming on television right now. That being said, I’m probably going to write another blog post about all the problems with it. Silly things that don’t matter, like the scene in which we find Susie in her apartment with Jackie. Jackie’s in the bed and Susie can’t leave while the bed is down–it blocks the door. Jackie says he’ll get out of bed so she can leave, but he’s naked under the covers.
What the hell? How did Jackie get in the bed naked while Susie was in this tiny one-room apartment? Had Jackie already put a curtain or door (got to watch it again) on the bathroom entrance? We’re supposed to believe that while Susie went to the bathroom, Jackie pulled the bed down, stripped, and got between the sheets? How did he expect Susie to leave?
I know, I know. They played the scene for laughs. And it was funny. But it also made no sense. Stuff like that bugs the shit out of me and I’d like nothing more than to re-watch the entire series just to make note of all those nit picks and write about them.
But not this time.
This time I want to say that, while the final season was really good–maybe not as great as the rest of it because, well, it really was rushed just a bit–it missed one really big thing: closure. On two fronts.
Sure, we should have gotten a bit more about Ethan and Esther. The writers just threw us a few bits about their adulthoods as if that was enough. There should have been just a tad bit more. Just a bit, if you please.
And yes, we absolutely should have gotten a bit more on the whole Abe and Rose dying. Not to mention Lenny Bruce, whose death they passed over completely.
I can forgive those things.
What I can’t get over yet, though, is that the show, for some odd reason, brought back Midge’s one-night stand so he could explain and apologize only to disappear again, but didn’t bring back Benjamin. What the fuck?
This is insanity. Benjamin should have been in the final season in some capacity, if only somehow being in the audience for Midge’s big break on The Gordon Ford Show. Some closure between them would have been fabulous. And it was necessary!
The other bit of closure is with Sophie Lennon. How grand would it have been if, instead of Alfie showing up side-stage for Midge’s big break, it had been Sophie Lennon? Her look of shock, jealousy, and then, perhaps, a mature realization of, and respect for, Midge’s talent–if only a tiny bit–would have been splendid.
I wouldn’t have minded a scene in which Lenny Bruce somehow witnessed Midge’s big break, too. But I understand that would have been tricky. I assume the show was taped, not live. And the flashback following the show scene with Lenny and Midge was wonderful. Perhaps that was enough.
But none of that happened. No Benjamin. No Sophie (except for an unnecessary bit earlier on). No Closure.
I started a new class this morning with The Great Courses. I’d been trying to listen to a class on The Federalist Papers for a long time and, I’m sorry to say, it was just so boring! So I switched to a class on England, the Beatles, and the 1960s. The first lesson was a real winner.
I learned, for example, that George Harrison visited his sister in Benton, Illinois in 1963. At the time, the Beatles were all the rage in England, but pretty much unheard of in America. Certainly in Benton no one knew who George was.
But I also learned that before the Beatles ushered in the British “Invasion,” the top song on the charts in America, for five weeks no less, was Sugar Shack, by Jimmy Gilmer & the Fireballs. So, after my lesson, I headed over to YouTube for a listen.
I was unimpressed. But the worst part of it was that Jimmy sang the line “There’s this cute little girlie, she’s a-workin’ there; A-black leotards* and her feet are bare.”
*The official lyrics claim he’s singing it this way: “There’s this cute little girlie, she’s a-workin’ there. A black leotard and her feet are bare.” But in the song you can just make out a plural in “leotards” and when you hear the story of how this song was written, you know he’s saying “a-black” in the same way he said “a-workin’.”
Keith McCormack wrote the song with help from his aunt, Faye Voss, over coffee one morning. You can hear him talking about it in The Story of SUGAR SHACK – “We’ve given it a signature!” by Peter Beamish. He says, “I couldn’t remember what you call those tight pants girls wore at the time, so I asked my Aunt Faye and she said ‘leotards.'”
Before I get into it, did you know that the leotard is named after 19th-century French acrobat Jules Léotard?
Anyway, I listened to the entire video about the making of “Sugar Shack” and I’m sorry to say that not once was the error of “leotards” addressed. Leotards are bodysuits, mostly worn by dancers. I can assure you that the waitress in the Sugar Shack wasn’t wearing leotards. She was wearing tights, or more likely 1960’s style peddle pushers. Think Mary Tyler Moore in The Dick Van Dyke Show.
Oh, Rob!
I’m baffled as to why no one noticed that McCormack used the wrong word. Even Wikipedia doesn’t seem to realize it’s wrong.
What the hell is wrong with the world?
Anyway, another top song in 1963 was Sukiyaki by Kyu Sakamoto. A much better song than “Sugar Shack.” And luckily for me, it’s in Japanese, so I have no idea if it has any egregious errors in it.
Sakamoto was only twenty when he sang “Ue o Muite Arukō.” Naturally, the name was changed to “Sukiyaki” because English-speaking people are stupid. Why didn’t they change it to a translation? Like, “I Look Up As I Walk,” which is what it translates into? Why Sukiyaki? Do you know what sukiyaki is? It’s a meat dish and has absolutely nothing to do with the song.
Anyway, what a lovely morning of music and history.
I’m going to the Original Sewing & Quilting Expo in Lakeland this weekend! Three days of classes, demos, and shopping! I’m excited and anxious at the same time. Traveling is always anxiety producing for me. But I’m determined to do it.
I’ll be taking my newest creation: the placket tote.
I got the idea for this bag from Don Kim on YouTube. His is a little bit different, so you should check out his video if you’re interested in making one.
It’s made from plaid shirt plackets. I bought a bunch of men’s shirts at Goodwill and cut off the plackets. I trimmed them, pressed them, cut them to size and then figured out how I wanted them laid out. Then I sewed them onto cotton fabric.
I used fabric from one of the shirts, and denim, for the lining, thinking the denim would help stabilize the pocket zipper (which I had to do twice–the first time it was wonky and got wonkier the more I looked at it). And I used two of the shirt pockets for the other side of the lining.
I had to do the handles twice, too. The first time, I made them 1 1/2″ wide. I was sure that was the width I wanted. But that turned out to be too wide, so I made them about an inch wide.
Here are some more photos:
I was way too focused on bagging the lining and sewing it to the bottom of the bag, then turning it all right side out, that I didn’t take any photos or video. But if you want to see the process watch Don Kim’s video.
It’s a pretty weird-looking process, but somehow, it works.
I’m really happy with the final product.
It’s been a long time since I sewed regularly. We went through a couple of years of home renovations during which sewing was impossible. But now I have a really nice sewing space and I’m ready to get back into making garments.
My first two projects have been bags. The first one I did wasn’t too bad:
But the straps are too flimsy, the zipper pocket outside is too high, and I used velcro to close the inside pockets, which I’ve decided I hate. So, I’ll probably remake this bag. I’ve got plenty of the fabric leftover. It used to be curtains on our French doors.
So I’m off to the expo to get my sewing mojo back on!
This post contains a few videos and might take a few moments to load. Sorry about that.
We renewed our Brevard Zoo annual memberships after several years and decided to visit last weekend. Members get in early, so it was wonderfully quiet for a short time in the morning. We accidentally went into the aviary before they were open, though.
Here’s the video of us getting kicked out and me trying to get some more video before I had to leave.
That’s was fun.
Anyway, my photos didn’t turn out all that great. I managed to get some decent pics through glass and fencing, and the video was captured with my iPhone. My favorite moments were with the big cats, naturally.
We have lions in Brevard now! Their permanent exhibit is currently being built so they’re hanging out in the Florida section. They are gorgeous!
The best picture I got, and the only one I felt was good enough for a logo was this one of a single lion.
And it’s still not all that great.
I got 56 seconds of video of the jaguar licking a bone.
I think the jaguar is my favorite of the big cats.
The great thing about the zoo is that each time you go, you’ll find something different, even though it’s pretty much the same animals each time. Hopefully, next time I’ll get some video or pictures of the black bears.
We attended the Sunshine State Book Festival on Saturday in Gainesville. One hundred fifty authors inside a huge Methodist church. As the spaces for each author were small, we left the cooler in the car, leaving Hubs to run out to get me a yogurt, for example, when the mood hit.
At three o’clock, I was ready for a Diet Coke. Hubs had been sitting for a while, reading on his Kindle, so I told him to take his time fetching one for me. “Take a walk,” I said. “Stretch your legs.”
As I waited patiently for my afternoon jolt of caffeine, I received a series of messages on my phone. Alas, as I was hankering for some energy, my Diet Coke was enjoying a tour of the church grounds.
Here we have Diet and Hubs enjoying some of the crisp fresh air of Gainesville. The high was 65°, downright chilly for a Southerner, so I can’t imagine they sat very long.
Together they enjoyed some duck watching at the pond. It was nice of Hubs to give Diet the chance to feel some real nature under her…bottle.
I see they found another bench. Hubs must be doing the aforementioned stretching of the legs as Diet sits and watches patiently. Nice bench, though.
I’m sure there is some sort of ironic joke being made here.
Now they’re playing soccer? It was after 3:00 by this time and I’m waiting as patiently as I can. I don’t think Hubs should have teased me this way. Still, I was glad Diet was having some fun, considering where she would end up at the end of the day.
Hold the phone?! Now they’re playing baseball?
I’m not sure what’s going on here. Are they exercising? Or is it parkour? She better not fizz all over me when I open her.
Finally! They were on their way into the book festival.
They both made it back to me, but only Hubs left with me at the end of the day. Diet Coke was duly drunk and her bottle recycled…as it should be.
All in all, it was a good day. We met some great people and sold a few books. Hopefully this festival will grow into something really special in the future.
I’ve made some changes. And while, yes, I did decide on this momentous upheaval of “how things are going” late last year, it really has nothing to do with the whole New Year thing. But it does feel sort of like that.
Anyway, most people out there will tell you that if you want to be “successful” you need to brand yourself. Pick a lane, they say, and stay on it. Find your niche and remain laser focused.
For example, let’s say you like to write cowboy romances. Great! That’s your lane. Write the best cowboy romances you can, and keep writing them. Write them in series, too, because people love that. And maybe, once you’ve got three dozen cowboy romances under your belt and you’re a bestselling romance author (at least in the cowboy section) you can write something a little different.
See…I can’t even offer up a good example of how to succeed without going off the rails.
No! You write cowboy romances damnit and that’s your lane. Stay in the lane if you want to succeed.
There’s a reason I chose Wayward Cat for my imprint. Somewhere in my sad and lonely childhood, I decided I wasn’t going to take this crap anymore. Nobody was going to tell me what to do. And here I am, an old woman, trying to force myself to do things I don’t necessarily* want to do.
*It’s complicated.
I’ve written fourteen novels and one nonfiction book. I didn’t stay in my lane. I wrote the stories that were in my head, and I stand by that strategy. I couldn’t have done it any other way. I’m just not wired to stay in one lane.
I’ve also created four puzzle books so far, with one more on deck and lots to come. I’ve created three journals with one more almost finished. And looking at my output lately, some might think I’m just throwing stuff at the wall hoping something will stick, but that’s not it. Not at all.
I was fine writing fiction until I happened upon journals, which led me to puzzle books. I do them because I love to do them.
But, sure, I’d also love to be more successful. Who wouldn’t?
It’s not like I haven’t sold any books. Online sales trickle in. And I had a very successful weekend at the Miami Book Fair last year. My books do win awards when I bother to enter contests. But I don’t sell a lot of books regularly and I guess that was how I was measuring success.
The thing is, no matter what people tell you, no matter what you do, you might not succeed.
Everyone out there telling you how to succeed–Just keep submitting to corporate publishers or agents! Persistence is the key! Stay in one lane! Write to market!–is either suffering from survivor’s bias or spouting what the survivors have told them because they do believe in fairies, they do believe in fairies, they do, they do, they do believe in fairies.
Well, I don’t.
So, I’ve decided to give up.
Hold your panties, there, I’m not giving up on writing. In fact, from your perspective, I’ll bet nothing is going to change at all.
What I’m giving up on is the nagging and the guilt and the frustration–all of these things are coming from inside of my own head and I’m sick of them. If I don’t feel like writing fiction, I’m not going to do it. That’s all there is to it. But lucky for me, I do often feel like it, so I’ll probably produce the same amount as usual. I’m just not going to beat myself up for sewing instead.
I sort of remind myself of Andy Bernard, the Nard Dog, on The Office. When he left Dunder Mifflin, he wasn’t pursuing a singing career. No, any method of becoming rich and famous would suit him.
And that’s me. I made a list of all the things I want to do–the things that make me happy. I’m over sixty now and I’m allowed to be happy. So here it is: Writing, Puzzle Books, Sewing, Photography, Cooking, Online Classes, & Crocheting/Knitting.
Those are the things I like to do. And I’m not going to push any of them aside anymore trying to make myself a successful author. I’m just going to be me. I’m the brand. Again, this really is nothing new when I think about it. It’s just a recognition of the fact. And I made a chart to keep track of my progress on all of my projects.
So that’s what I wanted to tell you.
I made a chart!
How about you? Have you any plans or resolutions? I hope they’re as epic, or as minute, or as nonexistent as you want them to be.
It’s been a couple of years since we visited Epcot for the food & wine festival. The only reason was Covid. But we’ve been vaccinated over and over again, and we’ve likely already had it and were asymptomatic, so we decided to get back out there and stuff ourselves with super expensive, not all that epic, little plates of food.
You pay $25 to park now. And you have to pay for your tickets and make a reservation for whatever park(s) you want to visit on whichever day ahead of time. So we did that. For some reason, I thought the reservation meant that the park wouldn’t be too crowded. And you know, it probably wasn’t as crowded as it could have been.
We went to the Magic Kingdom once and the crowd was so thick we couldn’t handle it. We spent about an hour and half squeezing ourselves through the throng toward the exit and left.
Anyway, so the object is to go around the World Showcase and stand in lines to get samples of food that you have to pay for. I didn’t take any other pictures really. For one thing, the park isn’t as picturesque these days. The entrance area is under construction. And I was just uninspired while walking around the country area.
Here’s what we got:
Australia!
Grilled sweet & spicy bush berry shrimp with pineapple, pepper, onion, and snap peas.
Grilled sweet & spicy bush berry shrimp with pineapple, pepper, onion, and snap peas.
So, I don’t know what bush berry shrimp is, but it was delicious. Hubs didn’t like it. The snap peas had that frozen taste. By that I mean they tasted like the beans that I’ve gotten in a bag at Publix in the freezer section. That doesn’t necessarily mean they weren’t fresh. It just means I wasn’t all that into the taste. I like my beans with the bejeezus boiled out of them and greasy with bacon fat.
Anyway, this was one of the best things we ate.
Appleseed Orchard
Apple Crumble Tart
Appleseed Orchard, as you may have guessed, is not a country. It used to be that all the booths represented countries, but not anymore. They’ve got booths for all sorts of stuff now: Coastal Eats, Flavors From Fire, The Fry Basket, Mac & Eats, The Noodle Exchange, The Swanky Saucy Swine, etc.
Anyway, the best dessert we had was at Appleseed Orchard–the apple crumble tart. It was like apple pie, but not too sweet. I’d eat that again!
Brazil
Black beans with crispy pork belly, Brazil nut pesto and rice and Brazilian cheese bread
Black beans with crispy pork belly, Brazil nut pesto and rice and Brazilian cheese bread.
The black beans were fabulous! The second best thing we ate. I’d say it was the first best thing, but you really have to take the dish as a whole, and this dish had a chunk of tough pork belly on it. I chewed and chewed for five minutes. And it was bland, too. So, no thanks.
The cheese bread was rubbery and bland. Like…why? Why would I want to eat that? It was like eating a boiled rubber ball. As I was trying just one more bite in hopes that I’d missed something with the first, my thought was, “I’m just putting calories in my body without the pleasure you expect from cheese and bread.”
France!
Warm beignet filled with a 3-cheese blend
I usually get the escargot at the France booth, but I decided to do something different this year. Live and learn. I chose the “warm beignet filled with a 3-cheese blend.” It was warm. I’ll say that. There was so much cheese in and on it that I seriously doubt that any French person would eat it. This was American cheese bread. Except that it was, once again, bland. It’s as if the people in charge of the French booth tried to give Americans the ooey-gooey cheese bread they must want, but with some kind of mild French cheeses instead of good cheese. No thank you. I stood in that long and winding line to get mushy, tasteless (and a tad tough) bread. I’m scarred.
Greece
Spanakopita
Greece will make it all better. Am I right? No. No, I’m not. For one thing, there was no baklava this year. Granted, the baklava might have been at a different booth last time, but there wasn’t any to be had anywhere.
So I got spanakopita. I’ve had it before and was looking forward to it. The dough was excellent. Flaky and delicious. But there was very little spinach and it tasted mostly like cheese. Bland cheese. Are you seeing the pattern here? Ah well. I’ve decided that, in addition to making myself an ooey gooey fabulous grilled cheese sandwich this week, I’m going to make my own spanakopita and stuff it with spinach! Take that Greece booth.
Hops & Barley
Chesapeake crab slider with tangy coleslaw and Cajun remoulade and carrot cake
Chesapeake crab slider with tangy coleslaw and Cajun remoulade and carrot cake.
There was a ton of crab on the slider and it was tasty. The remoulade was lovely. Probably the third best thing we ate. We brought the carrot cake home with us. It was really good. It was more like a muffin this year and the icing was more of a glaze. And neither the cake nor the icing were super sweet like you often get with carrot cake. Overall, it was very good.
Ireland
Warm chocolate pudding cake with Irish cream liqueur custard
It’s always too hot to have the fisherman’s seafood pie at the Ireland booth. I may have had it the first year, but now we just get the warm chocolate pudding cake with Irish cream liqueur custard.
This year…I don’t know…maybe I’ve just fallen out of love with it. It was warm. And mushy, with some nubby-ness to it. But not as chocolatey as it looks. The custard was lovely though. Another thing I’m determined to make soon is a flourless chocolate cake. And maybe I’ll give this Irish cream liqueur custard a go.
Mexico
Tostada de barbacoa
Tostada de barbacoa: BBQ beef on a fried corn tortilla with chipotle black beans, pineapple, pickled onions and Queso fresco, and chives.
The tostada was flaky and tasty, the meat was tender, but bland. The bbq sauce was hot, but not much else. It was…okay.
Spain
Paella with rice, chorizo, and shrimp
Paella with rice, chorizo, and shrimp.
Okay, so I guess I don’t like chorizo, which is the sausage stuff. It had a weird taste to it. The shrimp was good and the rice and peas were okay. I don’t think this was real paella. In fact, I’m sure of it.
Brew-Wing at the Odyssey
Crispy Brussels sprouts with buffalo sauce
This was our last dish of the day and I was so looking forward to it. Brussels sprouts. I was promised “Crispy Brussels sprouts,” actually.
The catch was the buffalo sauce. Hubs said he didn’t like buffalo sauce. I was unfamiliar with it. I’m familiar with it now. It was disgusting. It rendered those fabulous Brussels sprout inedible. And not very crispy. I was so disappointed! And gaggy. I’m shivering just thinking about it.
We skipped a bunch of booths; we just can’t eat that much. And this year, we didn’t go on any rides. It was hot and crowded, and the food was just not that great. All in all, a rather disappointing trip to Epcot.
A $5 bottle of Diet Coke and we were out of there.
So, am I just an old lady now? Is that why everything tasted bland? Or is the Covid?! Nothing else tastes bland, just all the cheese and some of the meat at Epcot. I’m going to say it’s not my taste buds, but it could be that I’m just not that into the Epcot thing anymore.
Does Sea World still do a food & whine, er, wine festival?
Beautiful ear-tipped feral cat seen at a park on Lake Lanier in the Atlanta area. September 2022
We knew there was a hurricane headed toward the gulf. Honestly, I can’t recall where it was when we left for our week-long vacation to the Atlanta area and then on to Chattanooga. We left on a Friday and spent a wonderful weekend adoring our grandbaby. But, by Sunday, we realized that no matter where the hurricane hit, we’d be driving home the next Friday through its aftermath.
So, we forsook Chattanooga and returned home on Monday to prepare for a storm.
We live in a weird spot on Florida’s east coast. Now, I’m not saying we never get hit, but we rarely do. Most storms ride up along the coast and hit up north or head back out into the Atlantic. Those that come from the west typically veer off to poor New Orleans or cross the state exiting far north of us.
And those that do enter our county seem to like the northern half and leave us with just a tropical storm.
This time, Ian slammed into Florida’s west coast, devastating it, and then headed across north of us. We slept through whatever we got and awoke the next morning to a yard littered with bits of oak. One old branch broke. And that was it.
When I went out to survey the damage and check for squirrels (after the last hurricane they seemed to disappear for a long time), I found the plastic cover for a car headlamp up by the garage door. Then I found another in the side yard. I checked our cars and figured they must belong to someone on the cul de sac. I imagined that they weren’t attached to a car at the time of the storm, because, what are the odds both covers would be pried off by the wind?
I talked to our neighbor across the street and they weren’t hers, so I put them out on the sidewalk and waited for their owner to come for them. Several days later, my husband noted that they looked like they’d fit on one of our cars. Sure enough, they were ours all along. I felt a little silly picking them up off the sidewalk and taking them to the garage.
And then, the AC went out. Turned out to be a leaky coil, so probably not related to the hurricane. But, the thing is, the coil has to be ordered from the manufacturer and will take at least ten weeks.
If this were March through September, I’d be investing in a few of those portable air conditioners and trying to finagle a way to install them, fitting their venting tubes into our way-too-large windows that hubs loves so much.
But it’s October, thank gawd, and I’m finding that, so far, I’m not suffering. Not any more than usual, that is.
Yesterday, we went for our third Covid boosters and flu shots and my arms hurt. I think I’ll go sploof on the sofa for a while and watch some college football. I made my Scrumptious Earthquake Cake recipe for my weekend pity party, but today I don’t even feel like eating any. I’m sure it’ll pass.
But, you know what else I’ve been thinking about? And, this could be the emptiness I always feel leaving my son, DIL, and grandbaby; or anxiety leftover from the hurricane; leaked freon; or the results of my body currently building up a resistance against Covid and the flu….but I’ve been thinking about writing. And I’m not sure I want to push myself at it anymore.
I thought I was going to sell books and have a career. But it’s just a hobby. And when I pressure myself to work on the next book, it just makes me irritable. There’s a tad bit of “why bother rushing” to the exercise. If I’m just writing for me, basically, then why make such a fuss? I feel like I’d rather just make puzzle books all the time. I really enjoy that. And maybe I’d have a better chance at selling them than novels.
And my sewing table is set up in the back room and every time I walk by I regret that I have so much else to do. I’m getting old, people. Maybe it’s time to just do whatever the hell I want to do–not that I haven’t had that option all along.
Well, that’s enough brooding for today. May your days be cool and your storms pass quickly…
Some years ago, I was at a local author expo and over all the noise in the room, at some point, I realized someone was calling my name. But he wasn’t saying, “Dianna.” He was saying, “Dana.” When I finally heard it, I turned, wondering who there would be calling me by my childhood nickname? It was the author at the table next to mine.
I’d completely forgotten that I write books under the name Dana Trantham!
I was born Dianna Dann Trantham II. That’s right, I’m a “second.” My mother was the first. Dann is a feminized version of my grandfather’s name, Dan, and it’s pronounced the same way. But because my mother was Dianna, and I suppose my parents foresaw problems with the name Dann, they called me Dana, completely unaware of the problems that name would cause me. I hated it. Even when I learned there was another girl named Dana at my school–probably not until 6th or 7th grade–I felt Dana was a boy’s name. In fact, I was often teased because of it. I think Dana Andrews, the actor, might have been popular at the time. We’re talking mid to late 60s.
Anyway, I struggled for many years in school to get my teachers to call me Dianna. It only started working after elementary school when my mother no longer registered me or talked to my teachers.
When I was in early adulthood, I dropped the name Trantham and became Dianna Dann. I always knew I wanted to be a writer by that name. And no one could pronounce Trantham, anyway. I was Trant-HAM or Tranzam. Finally, I could just be Dianna Dann.
A couple of years later, though, I got married and became Dianna Narciso. Now I’m called Narcheeso, Narcoosee, and Nabisco. I’m not joking. For the record, it’s Nar-SIS-oh.
The first book I wrote was on atheism. And I wrote it under the name Narciso, because I knew I would be writing fiction at some point and I had to save the name Dann for it. So, basically, I married into the Catholic Narciso family and proceeded to, as far as they may very well be concerned, trash their name with the shame of nonbelief. (Not that I’m ashamed of it; I just recognize that I may not have been very kind in my choice there. But what could I do? I consider myself Dianna Narciso. And it’s not like my husband isn’t an atheist as well, though I’m not sure his mother knows it. –Uh, hi Mom!– Even so, the Narciso family is one of those “Let’s pretend this thing doesn’t exist and never speak of it” gang. And there I was, writing about book about it!)
When I did finally write fiction, it was under the Dianna Dann name. But after I wrote my mainstream (or women’s fiction) book, I wrote a fantasy trilogy. So I used Dana Trantham for those three books. And then I wrote Zombie Revolution. Well, I thought, I can’t use my fantasy or mainstream name for a paranormal humor book. So I created D.D. Charles.
D.D. for Dianna Dann and Charles because my brother’s name is Charles. He was a “second” too. But my dad was never called Charles, so my parents didn’t have to come up with an unlikeable, tease-worthy nickname for my brother. Still, nobody calls him Charles. He’s Charlie. (He writes books too, as C.E. Trantham.)
Anyway, then I wrote a couple of kids books and I was all, like, I need another name! And then I said to myself, “No way. I’m not adding another name!” Thank goodness I stopped the insanity. I wished I’d stopped it sooner. A lot sooner.
So I published the kids books under the Dana Trantham name with the fantasy books. And I’ve added the name Dianna Dann to Zombie Revolution. I’ll be publishing the next paranormal book, if I can ever get it written, under both names, too. I’m thinking that will help somewhat.
It’s still too many names. I’m too many people. It’s crowded in here.
