Sunday, September 24, 2006

Durham Fair et al

I have to start with the Durham Fair. (www.durhamfair.com) Biggest "country fair" in the state and probably in New England if you ignore the Big E (which is our shorthand for the Eastern States Exposition). I got to actually watch a woman use a drop spindle. Okay, it would take tons of practice in order to learn how to do it so easily and keep the yarn so smooth and regular, but I've only been spinning for a total of four days now. What? I expect to be an expert in just four days? Yeah, right. It never happened before, so I can't expect that to happen now...

Anyway, she had a drop spindle that she used to make little yarn bracelets for the kids who'd come up to her. But she spent most of her time relaxing with her Lendrum spinning wheel. Oh yeah, I could see me sitting for the evening in my living room and spinning the evening away. I still have that secret burning desire to open a yarn shop. I could see me spending my days, knitting and teaching others to enjoy the craft, and then coming home in the evenings to spin up some new yarn to knit into socks later.

Shawls, socks, hats, mittens, sweaters. Lots and lots of fiber to play with and then knit up into gorgeous projects. Hmm... definitely would be the life for me. My inspiration to get my business up and running. Use that to support my "habit". Be able to travel around to the biggest fiber and yarn fairs and try out new products. I could learn all kinds of new techniques and bring them back to Connecticut so I could run classes and teach new generations to enjoy the craft that I've done for the last thirty or so years.

Yup, what a goal.

Anyway, I promised the story about how I got in the acknowledgements of Laurell's books. Well, it begins because Eve Ackerman told me I simply had to read Laurell's books. I enjoy vampires and blood, guts and gore doesn't faze me in the least. So I tried her first couple books. (Laurell had only released 3 or 4 at the time.) And, at the same time, I was the section leader for the Horror Section in the Literary Forum because Gaby had gone off to college. And all anyone wanted to talk about was Stephen King. Okay, not exactly unknown, but there are other authors out there, folks. (This is also when Stephen King used to hang out in the LitForum, but that was discussed in a previous post.) Anyway, so I'm one of those weird people who actually read acknowledgements. And I saw the name Ricia Mainhardt. And I knew she was an agent.

So I wrote a letter to Laurell through Ricia. Sending "fan mail" to a publisher can get you lost in the fold, so I took an alternate route and wrote through Ricia. I invited Laurell to come online as a guest author in the Horror Section if she was connected to the Internet. I'd discussed it with the owner of the forum and we could have arranged a guest account and all that stuff. Well, Laurell was so surprised at the roundabout way that I'd written to her that she called me one night.

I was surprised, but we started chatting. About books and characters and why on Earth I would recognize an agent's name. (Because I was attempting to be a writer myself in those days and I'd actually submitted something to Ricia.) Well, one thing led to another and Laurell and I became friends of a sort. She'd call me every couple weeks and we'd chat. She was hoping to grab the romance audience for her books and asked me how far she could push the "envelope" in the sex department. So I recommended some authors that I knew were pushing the edge during those days (Anne Stuart and Linda Howard come to mind) and Laurell did her research for book six, The Killing Dance. Hence, she acknowledged me and we know for what scene if you've read the book.

Then, for book eight, Burnt Offerings, I sort of burst her bubble. She had her victim in a room with high oxygen content and she wanted to take a shot and have it blow up. I told her she had to be careful. Oxygen burns, but doesn't exactly explode. Also, if the environment is too rich with oxygen, it actually won't burn. So she had to reconfigure her scene, but gave me credit for helping her with it.

Lovely woman and I got her fan club off the ground with a newsletter sent via email. I did that for about a year before Darla took over because I'd begun Dreams Unlimited and that was sucking more and more time out of my schedule. But I adore Laurell and Darla in that they still give me credit on the fan site for getting it off the ground.

Okay, I'm off to finally get to that laundry. Hubby has underwear now, but I have to deal with the jeans and shirts and those uniforms I'd love to turn in. Hopefully I could get together with some friends today and plot some more world domination. I also have to drop a note to my cousin. She's pregnant with her first and I got her a gift catalog of baby stuff. I hope there's something she'd like that they haven't bought yet. I'd also like to get to know her better. She's lived in CT for about 10 years now and even teaches in the school system in my town, but we never really got the chance to get to know each other. Let's face it, I'm about 20 years older than she is. But she's a lovely girl and if I can help out, I'd love to. My family is so widespread and yet we never get together for anything. Having lost my Dad just a few short months ago, I've begun to realize that family is important. If I don't stay in touch, someday it'll be me and my brother and we'll be all each other has. There's more of us out there. Cousins we used to be close with whom I haven't seen in years. It just feels weird to pick up the phone and say, "hey!" after such a long time. OTOH, if I don't do it, who will? Why wait when my fingers ain't broke and I've never incurreed grave injury by dialing a number.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. They could reject the offer, but then we return to our respective lives and nothing is lost. If they agree to an evening chat, though, we could re-establish a relationship we once had.

Whatcha think?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

pinanskysole team devi jivandas partners politics tasksoutcome metre causal nutrients favorite
lolikneri havaqatsu