Well, it’s because I’m stressed. My work life kind of exploded some time last summer when I decided to escape the (dying) industry I’d been in for the previous seven years in favor of the formatting work that was falling on top of me. I kept thinking I could do less work for more money and spend time with my kids, but… That’s not the way it worked out.

Is it ever?

In January, my career took a sharp upward turn when I was presented with an offer it’s taken me four months to stop resisting. (Details later, when it’s all finalized.) The deciding factor was time, because, in a totally unrelated twist, I was suddenly presented with a project I won’t be able to resist at all.

On the formatting front, I’ve got a backlog of work and I’m behind. I’m stressed. My house, until two days ago, was a complete wreck (thank you GroupBuy for that cheap house deep-clean). I have to do my taxes. My kids are after me for attention (as is their right), but they’re somehow easier to put off. I was sick most of December and February. Dude’s been sick for the last two months. I have a book coming out on Easter (in case you hadn’t heard). I’m publishing a book for someone else this month. I have another huge project for another client. I’m in charge of producing an important work from Peculiar Pages coming out June 30 and working on edits for the Monsters & Mormons anthology coming out in October. And we come around again to people who come to me for formatting their ebooks.

It’s exciting and nerve-wracking and stress-inducing and I haven’t been able to sleep without some serious medication, which happens to give me a hangover. I like it. I like helping people self-publish. I feel…important. Like I’m accomplishing something with my meager little life. I love it.

But…

“Mommy, why don’t you smile anymore?”

So today I went to get the final item for the Magdalene Easter swag basket (spirit gum, if you must know) and it’s just down the street from Crown Center, across from which is a fountain.

(Well, in Kansas City, you can’t take two steps without falling into a fountain, so that’s not saying anything.) It’s 88F today, but the trees are still bare, which should give you an idea about how bizarre our weather has been.

I decided that, in spite of my backlog of late projects, I’d take the kids to lunch at Crown Center and then let them play in the fountain with about 40 other children. They didn’t have bathing suits on, but who cares? This is an issue of being spawntaneous.

They were happy. I was happy.

And I smiled.

We’re gonna do stuff like this more often.

Many projects on the table, most of which I’m behind on (oh, there’s a surprise):

• Re-doing my foyer and living room. What, you thought my DIY re publishing thing is a new development? No. I’ve been a DIYer at heart since I saw the first episode of This Old House when I was a wee bairn (as in, their first episode, too).
• Christmas chores. You all know what they are. But I’ve recently got a yen to quilt us a new tree skirt. That will have to wait until next year.
• Much cooking and cleaning in preparation for my family’s big Christmas Eve shindig. Moms, dads, inlaws, outlaws, aunts, uncles, cousins, and babies. Lots and lots of babies. Very fun having the biggest house in the family. Ah, but I love Christmas Eve, almost more than Christmas Day (you know, now that we are Santa). Also? I love my mom’s cookies. And I love my Christmas punch (see previous post).
• Probably some yard work. I really need to get out and mow my lawn.
• More weatherproofing.
• Fandamnily outing to see the Plaza Christmas lights. (Photos by Eric Bowers, KC Photographer extraordinaire who also does a lot of Manhattanscapes—you must visit his blog and galleries and message board. Really.)

(This one? 47th Street.  If you read The Proviso, you know what Giselle did near here.)

• And, last but not least, the Darling Day Job (feeling blessed at the moment).

My blue tree from the last two years turned red this year.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Mojo, Dude, XX and XY Tax Deductions!

Thank you for your continuing indulgence on the travails of designing a cover if you’re not a designer of covers. As I said last week, it took me almost a year and hundreds of hours of Photoshopping to come to the cover I did, which I affectionately call The Bewbies™. Originally, The Proviso was one book and it was enormous. I originally titled it Barefoot Through Fire. Then I figured I’d probably do better to split it out into 3 parts, 1 part per romance. This is the story of book 3.

As discussed, music really influenced me in the writing and designing of this book, both philosophically and thematically. The heroine in the third couple’s book, Justice, loves Rush (“Neil Peart writes my hymns and Rush is my choir.”)and her favorite song is “Freewill.” Since free will is one of the major themes in this couple’s relationship, I titled the book thusly. And Justice is very well aware how the song “New World Man” fits Knox. The clock, you will notice, is almost at midnight, which is also significant, but I’m not going to tell you how.

And Justice for All… was the original title to the Knox and Justice story that I began in 1995. I liked the duality of the theme and Justice’s name being encompassed in the title, but when I got to working on it again in the fall of 2007, I was uneasy with how trite it seemed, which was probably unnecessary insecurity on my part. But then I changed it back, leaving off the “and.” Trite or not, it still fit the story.

The courthouse image is that of Platte County, Missouri. It’s the real county on which I based Chouteau County. Chouteau County has a bad reputation for corruption, and its prosecutor, Knox, blatantly fulfills and spreads that reputation. This is the only made-up place in the whole series. I don’t know the Platte County prosecutor, but I’m sure he’s a nice guy and I’d really hate to be dragged all the way up there to account for myself for casting aspersions on him and his county.  And you know, it’s a really pretty courthouse and deserves to be on a book cover.

[Added November 6, 2009: The Platte County prosecutor's name is Eric. Eric Zahnd, actually. I had no idea when I was writing The Proviso and Stay. And...like Eric Cipriani, he leans libertarian. Freaky!]

The third cover seemed to cover all my bases thematically. Or at least, that’s what I was trying to do. Since Justice is a girl and the Goddess Justice is always depicted as a female, it fits that way, too. However, like the other 3 covers, this represented only a small part of structure of book 3, much less the structure of the series. The art is by Edwin Abbey for the Harrisburg, Pennsylvanian capitol building.

What’s different about book 3 is that its theme is not overtly sexual. The relationship of couple number 1 is based on sex and the “sinfulness” of sex; couple number 1 communicates through sex. The relationship of couple number 2, while not based on sex, is more sensual than sexual and has no “sin” component. The relationship of couple number 3 includes sex, but their issues are those of the mind: agency, trust, philosophy, and interdependence.

So I had a real problem in that the other 2 book covers were similar thematically and this book cover just…wasn’t. And it wasn’t ever going to be. When I put all 3 of these together, they were jarring, and I wasn’t fully satisfied with cover #3. I probably would have changed it 2 or 3 more times if I hadn’t finally decided to braid all 3 stories together. But I did, and that’s where my experimentation with the individual covers stopped.

Next week, the evolution of The Bewbies™.

Thank you for your continuing indulgence on the travails of designing a cover if you’re not a designer of covers. As I said last week, it took me almost a year and hundreds of hours of Photoshopping to come to the cover I did, which I affectionately call The Bewbies™. Originally, The Proviso was one book and it was enormous. I originally titled it Barefoot Through Fire. Then I figured I’d probably do better to split it out into 3 parts, 1 part per romance. This is the story of book 2.

Zoe commented that “Canned Heat” (the original title of book 1) is a favorite song of hers. Well, it’s a favorite of mine, too, and that’s how I came to name it that. It fit the couple. So in keeping with the song names theme, I originally named book 2 (couple #2—so Dating Game) “Dulcissime,” which is an aria from Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. Trust me, it fit. This cover, however, did not, so…you can see I abandoned that right quick. I remember doing that the same day I did the yellow one (the mostest ickiest one in my previous post).

Well, I hauled out a picture a friend of mine took, which I bought the licensing rights to a gazillion eons ago when I wanted to use it for a different project. (Ignore the purple blotches on the small one and pretend it’s got “Dulcissime” on the front, ’k?) Oh, that was a pretty cover. Showed it to Dude (who was in the midst of reading that particular couple) and he said, “Too girly.” I said, “Yeah, but isn’t it pretty?” He said, “Yeah. That’s my point.” Okay, got it.

Finally, I decided to ditch the “Dulcissime” (because I’m the only one in the world who’d understand it and once Dude said, “How do you pronounce it?” I knew it wouldn’t work) and went for the ORIGINAL original title of that novel’s concept (which had been a stand-alone bouncing around in my brain for years): Morning in Bed. Now, those of you who’ve read The Proviso will know what this refers to; for those of you who haven’t, I’ll not spoil you. Anyway, see above graphic and explanation.

Then I decided to go with a Kansas City theme. Naturally! I showed it to Dude, who said, “Mmmm, yeah, I like it” in a rather unenthusiastic tone of voice. I said, “Okay, what’s the problem?” He said, “It doesn’t stand out. I wouldn’t notice that in a bookstore.”

But this would! And it fits unbelievably well with the story. Problem: It was done in 2002 and is therefore under copyright and, while I was willing to pay whatever I had to pay to get that perfect man on my now-perfect cover with the now-perfect title, I couldn’t find the artist. Anywhere. I called freaking Canada. Twice. You should see my phone bill. Okay, so artist has disappeared off the face of the earth. I wept.

Then it didn’t matter. No matter how much I wanted that art, I couldn’t use it anyway once I decided to reassemble my story under one cover. Like Lilith, this image represented only one of the major characters and I needed something more inclusive. I’m still weeping.

Next week, the covers for couple #3.

If you’ll all indulge me, I though it’d be fun to do a little series on the evolution of a cover by a non-cover artist/designer. It took me almost a year and hundreds of hours of Photoshopping to come to the cover I did, which I affectionately call The Bewbies™. Originally, The Proviso was one book and it was enormous. I originally titled it Barefoot Through Fire. Then I figured I’d probably do better to split it out into 3 parts, 1 part per romance. This is where the cover journey begins.

Each couple has its own challenges within the context of the larger story arc and I wanted to capture each within the cover and title. So I started with something fairly simple:

Make no mistake. I really liked the flames, but over time it just wasn’t doing the trick for me, plus, you know, I’m really proud of Kansas City and wanted to feature it, particularly where the pivotal scene between the couple occurs, the Nelson-Atkins Gallery of Art. This was my next attempt, inarguably worse than the first.

Then the title started getting on my nerves. I came up with Righteous & Pure, but I still wanted to keep that KC connection. This was little better than the yellow one. It still wasn’t pushing my buttons.

I needed something dark. Something sinful. I found The Sin by Franz von Stuck and thought I’d hit pay dirt, but no, not really. It was too dark and I wanted something more tempting and less Nosferatu. And notice lack of KC. That would simply not do.

Inexplicably, I zigged to a straight KC cover for a little bit with the Nelson-Atkins gallery, but the photo resolution was AWFUL. No go.

Back to temptation. I remembered Lilith by the Honorable John Collier and knew I had it. Then a beta reader of that couple’s romance suggested a small change to the title, Righteous & imPure. It didn’t flow as well as righteous and pure, but it did capture the essence better. Note I squeezed the Nelson in there, too! I held onto that one for a long time, even using it as the original The Proviso cover once I’d reassembled the 3 romances under the same cover.

Next Friday, the cover process for couple #2.

Does ANYBODY remember the mechanized dolls in the display windows at Harzfeld’s at Christmastime? And if you do, do you have a decent picture or, better yet, a line on where I can get one of those dolls or six?

There is a Harzfeld’s page and a Harzfeld’s blog, both created by historians with a book in the works, but neither has a search feature, and as far as I can tell, this is the only mention of the dolls:

A couple years ago a Dresden Doll (right), said to be from Harzfeld’s, was sold at a Kansas City area auction. This was a mechanical doll that may have been part of a Christmas window display.

(I want want want one of these dolls, even if I have to build one. I’m good at DIY! Promise!)

As an aside, I remember these chairs:

But a trip to the Harzfeld’s blog yielded something fabulous: Elle Decor featured an article on Kansas City (worth the read, even for non-Kansas Citians), and the picture gallery features the usual suspects, but gorgeous as always.

However, the ugly-ass addition to the Nelson-Atkins was extolled briefly:

“The marriage of the original neoclassical building and the stunning addition by architect Steven Holl . . . ”

I will not be happy until somebody takes a wrecking ball to that abomination. I would PAY MONEY to attend its destruction.

A little while back, I posted on the sentimental value I hold of the 1960s ranch. Today, I’m rethinking 25 to 30 years’ worth of self-indoctrination.

Obviously the reason it holds so much appeal to me is that it was, in my teenage mind, the unattainable. I didn’t live in a house that nice, although I didn’t begrudge what I had. I liked it fine enough that I was proud to show it off to my friends, totally unable to see that what niceness I had was only that way because my mother worked so hard to make it nice with what little she had to work with. And on hindsight, I’m not sure my friends (from more chichi neighborhoods) were terribly impressed.

(You can tell my obvious slant toward the steep-roofed “French Provincial” style ranch.) Anyway, what I was doing when I was a teenager was aspiring up. That’s good to do. But somewhere, the adult me got lost in my teenage wants and conflated that to the end-all and be-all of existence.

Lately, Dude and I have been despairing over the state of our house and its issues, almost all structural, almost all of which will suck money right out of our bank account, with nothing aesthetic to show for it. Now, I’m all for infrastructure, but geez, that still doesn’t make my lawn dandelion-less. It also doesn’t account for the innumerable walls covered with crayon drawings that I would have to continually repaint to make the spaces halfway decent.

Thus, I have come to hate my house. This is a very difficult admission to make, especially when one considers how ecstatic I was over it in the beginning, and we moved in with the intention that we weren’t moving again. EVER.

A few days ago, a friend told me about a party she went to in a chichi neighborhood of L.A. and described the splendor to me. It shocked me that my first thought was, “Real people live like that?”

Today I saw a post over at The Red Brick Store about readying a house for sale. It was a gorgeous 4,000 square foot house, and the post led to pictures, which led me to search myself for flaws in my thinking. I didn’t covet the house, but it did make me wonder if I should dare to desire it at all.

Then I went to realtor.com and put in my favorite zip code (not telling which one it is) because it embodies my best childhood memories. Let’s just say it’s a rundown little village-size town in a rundown corner of a rundown state (not Missouri), and for the first time, I saw through my own little bubble of childhood memories and thought, “Am I aspiring to this? It’s 100 times worse than what I’ve got.”

Then I thought about the 1960s ranch across the street from me which inspired that other post. It’s beautiful, with lush lawn, kept immaculate at all times and with great care (care that it takes time and energy to spend, which we don’t have). You know what? Even aspiring to that is aspiring too low at this point in my life.

That gets me to thinking about my mother and what she did with what she had.

Which she hated.

Every day of the 18 years we lived there.

Knowing that we could have had something better if she and my father weren’t sacrificing a good chunk of money every month to send us to a private school.

After I revisited my childhood memories, I looked up properties in my own zip code, and thought, “THAT is what I should be aspiring to.”

We live in a neighborhood that retains its property values no matter what because A) Kansas City seems to weather recessions/depressions fairly well, even without Boss Tom, and B) the elementary school we have is one of the best in the state. People move into this neighborhood and within the school boundaries expressly for their children to attend that school. Believe me, we aren’t going to have to send our kids to private school for an excellent education, so there’s one obstacle conquered.

This has led me to some conclusions.

1) I’m far more happy with what I have right now. (That may wax and wane.)

2) We need to work on making it as good as it can be within our limitations.

3) We need to build a plan to get out of here and move up once we have accomplished #2. And I want a swimming pool.

Whether we attain #3 or not . . . well, I just don’t know. I’m still somewhat dubious of our ability to do that.

However, if we don’t make the attempt, it most assuredly will not happen at all.

Still, when I was a kid, I’d go to my grandma’s house and it was in what I thought was a chichi neighborhood (I don’t know, maybe it was, but now it’s a tad rundown). I would go sell my school wares around HER neighborhood cuz none of my neighbors had any money.

Now, I love architecture anyway. If I’d been more focused in school (ha!) and a little more in touch with my creative/analytical abilities, I’d have known to go to school for that, but, well, hindsight is 20/20.

Anyway, I’d go around my g’ma’s neighborhood and see all these NEAT houses of mostly the same style: 1960s ranch, with a mid-century modern (which I did NOT like as a kid, but have come to appreciate more as an adult) mixed in here and there. I wanted to live in that neighborhood so badly. To me, living in a 1960s ranch represented having “made it,” but I was 12 and didn’t dare dream any higher (even though I knew there were far more grand neighborhoods in existence and had drooled).

So fast forward a couple of years and here I am with husband and tax deductions and 2 cats, in want of a house and we moved into…a 1960s housing development with…1960s ranch types (albeit no mid-century moderns). Some are more georgian (which here means, ranch with a second story) and a couple are split ranch (of both types) and ours is a raised ranch (finished, walk-out basement).

Friday I did some yard work, which involved going outdoors. (Shocker, I know.) Once I collapsed on my front porch to rest, I looked out over my neighborhood with the old, well-kept houses, the pristine lawns, and somewhat 1960s-ish landscaping (well, hell, I planted arborvitae, so who am I to talk, right?).

This morning, my door is wide open and I can see one old 1960s ranch with the brick veneer facade and the diamond-mullioned windows and the immaculate emerald lawn. The only sound in the neighborhood are the birds and the 3-year-old Tax Deduction.

My inner 12-year-old is very happy right now.

But you know what?

I’m missing something, I think. I had a visitor yesterday, like, came to the door and rang the doorbell adult human type of visitor. The real deal. To visit. With me.

I’ve forgotten how to converse with people. My face feels all out of whack. My voice doesn’t seem to work very well. I’ve begun to stutter. I space out faster. I don’t smile much. My small talk is microscopic. Once I actually manage to pry my mouth open, I talk in longer monologues than I used to. I mean, I’ve always felt more comfortable with the written word than the spoken—but lately I’ve just gotten downright terrible.

It’s been my goal in life to become that old woman on the block, you know, the one with the muumuu and the orthopedic shoes and the orthopedic stockings rolled down to her ankles and the funky straw hat, the one all the neighborhood kids whisper about (“I heard she’s a witch”). Mmmm, I dunno.

Mebbe not.

Pardon me, dearie, while I go stir my cauldron.