The Good, The Bad, The Eastwood? by Alison Henderson

Like most of you, I'm sure, our movie blog theme this month - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly - instantly called to my mind the image of Clint Eastwood. I've never been a big Eastwood fan, nor am I a fan or spaghetti westerns, but I have spent the past year living in Clint's hometown of Carmel, CA. These days he might be a cranky old geezer with a questionable hold on his marbles, who is getting a divorce as a result of cheating on his much younger wife with an even younger woman, but around here he's royalty. He has done, and continues to do, a lot of tangible good for the local community.

Over the years Clint has owned a number of notable local establishments. One of his former properties is the Hog's Breath Inn, a colorful restaurant in downtown Carmel-by-the-Sea. We've never eaten there, but it doesn't matter because he sold it a few years back. However, he does still own one of my favorite properties on the coast, Mission Ranch.

Since it was a gorgeous day, I decided to pop over there and take some pictures to share with you. Mission Ranch is a serene collection of rustic cottages, along with a restaurant and tennis courts, right on the ocean. It's key attraction for me are the sheep grazing in the meadow. After all, what could possibly be more bucolic than this?

Here's one of the double cottages. Could you imagine yourself staying here, overlooking the sheep meadow and the bay?

And here's another one.

Word has it that Clint hangs out in the bar on Wednesday nights, but we've never checked. After all, now that we're locals, purposeful celebrity-spotting would probably be considered tacky. We'll just have to wait for the day we run into him on the street. In the meantime, we'll enjoy the sheep.

Alison
www.alisonhenderson.com
http://alisonhenderson.blogspot.com

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The Good:

There are only 32 days left until the school year ends! Can I get a “Yahoooo!” and a “Yipeeee!” please? Not that it hasn’t been a lovely adventure teaching this year’s classes, but I am cooked, fried, baked… well, not baked. I’m not into that. Bottom line, I am getting close to being no longer able to string words together into coherent sentences while teaching, therefore a summer vacation is the prescribed solution for this unfortunate condition.

I’m at that point where I don’t want to give homework anymore, because it’s finally nice outside. I want my students to forget staying inside and go explore the natural world. I want them to run around and breathe fresh air, even though it may bring about an allergy attack for like 75% of them, me included. Still, the four walls of the classroom are closing in while the sunshine beams on all sorts of things sprouting from the ground and from the trees.

The world is alive. I want to be alive with it. I want to toss the routine, kick off my shoes, and feel the warm earth beneath my feet. I want to sit in my Outdoor Writing Office and finish Book Three in the series I’m working on—my Maple Leaf Series. I plan to release Books One, Two, and Three in quick succession this summer, and I’m eager to give them to the reading masses.

I want to reunite with Summer Chris, the best version of myself. The one that doesn’t scowl or say things like, “If you were listening to the directions, you’d know what to do.” The one that doesn’t have that little crease between the brows due to the tiny frustrations that add up to a headache at the end of the day. The one that has time to paint her toenails and whip up great dinners and stay up late watching movies The Husband would never, never, never watch without a great deal of mockery and commentary.

The one who doesn’t care what time it is, because there is no schedule.

The one who is releasing the Maple Leaf Series. Book One is due out in June. It's called More Than Pancakes and is about a maple syrup company owner and a hotel designer. He loves the woods. She fears the woods. The woods will either stand between them or give them everything they ever needed.

Here's the cover:

This is my first dabble in series writing. I'm super excited. A maple syrup company actually taps trees on my Vermont property and that's how I got the notion to write this book. There's something very sexy about watching men trek into the snowy woods with sleds full of equipment.

Oh, I’m downright giddy just thinking of the goodness ahead in only 32 days.

The Bad:

There are still 32 days left until the school year ends. That’s three sets of ten plus two more. (I’m a math teacher. I like to break numbers down.) That’s more than a typical month. That’s about 208 hours of school still to go. That’s about 12,480 minutes of learning that still has to take place. Standards still need to be met. Lessons still need to happen. End-of-year assessments still loom ahead. A classroom the students and I have spent all year messing up has to be cleaned.

Ugh.

And you just know Mother Nature is going to swing the temperature dial to tropical so that it’s hot enough in my classroom to bake cookies on the students’ desks. Not that we can bake cookies in school without special parental permission anymore. Get ready for the permanent sweat mustache, frizzy hair, and trying to find lightweight clothing that is cool, yet professional. Meanwhile, my tank tops and shorts taunt me in the closet each morning before work.

“Wear us. Wear us. Wear us.”

Shut up. I’m not above covering you guys in peanut butter and giving you to the dog to shred.

My only hope is that time moves swiftly and that our journey to the last day of school is both productive and fun. If there is a way I can institute a Drink Lemonade-a-thon, we might all survive.

The Ugly:

Refer back to the line “Get ready for the permanent sweat mustache, frizzy hair…” above and add to that the fact that swimsuit shopping will have to be done. There’s your ugly, my friends.

There. It. Is.


What are you looking forward to? A vacation? A book release? Some new adventure you’ve got planned for yourself? Tell me all about it.

Oh, and I have a giveaway going on at my author Facebook page for a $10 Amazon gift card AND an Alex and Ani starfish bangle bracelet in honor of the release of my YA romance, Sail With Me. Today's the last day to enter, so scoot! Enter HERE.

Toodles,
Chris
www.christinedepetrillo.weebly.com     

Do Your Characters Have Horrible Bosses? by Jannine Gallant

I don't think I've ever had a horrible boss. Guess that makes me lucky. I've been a boss--hopefully not a horrible one! LOL Which led me to think about my characters and what sort of bosses I'd given them. Mentally going through my books, it suddenly occurred to me that NONE of them have had bosses! Self-employment seems to be a common denominator for my heroes and heroines. Creative self-employment.

For my Redemption cowboy books, I had a rancher (okay maybe not so creative in a cowboy story) and a woman starting her own catering business. Also, the owner of a daycare center and a man who carved animal sculptures with a chainsaw. (Now that's pretty creative!)

In my Secrets of Ravenswood series, my three heroes were a rescue dog trainer, a sports store mogul, and a contractor. The heroines were a disaster site relief worker (she was the majority shareholder for the charity), a genealogist, and the owner of a ballet school. No bosses in the bunch!

I could go on and on--okay, I will. Rock star, children's book illustrator, country inn owner, cosmetic queen turned dog treat entrepreneur, computer geek extraordinaire, and a commercial jingle writer. Those were the stars of my Class of '85 books.

Apparently I don't like having my characters work for people. Could be because I'm not very good at taking orders. I tend to be a tad bossy...just ask my kids. Obviously this has rubbed off on my heroes and heroines.

So, if you're a writer, what sort of careers have you given your characters? Do they have horrible bosses--or no bosses at all? If you're a reader, does it matter to you what the characters in a book do for a living? Do I wrack my brain to come up with creative and unusual jobs for no reason at all, or do I get kudos for going the extra mile to make my characters interesting?

For more information about my self-employed characters, check out my Website. Or, follow me on Facebook or Twitter.

My Neck and Other Things I Feel Bad About by Rolynn Anderson

It’s May at The Roses of Prose, and we’re talking about the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.  My neck comes to mind.  How is your neck looking these days?  Find yourself grimacing or edging your chin forward in order to smooth out the wrinkles?  Yup, I’ve got a turkey neck…hear me gobble.

It’s the wonderful Nora Ephron who brought up necks in her witty I FEEL BAD ABOUT MY NECK.  It’s a laugh-out-loud compendium of how we women feel as our bodies betray us.  The ding-dang neck problem has her pontificating: “You can’t have too many turtleneck sweaters.” 

She feels badly about her too-full purses, the roll around her tummy, tight shoes, the 2/3rds of her clothes in her closet she never wears.  I say ‘Amen.’  Nora Ephron has nailed the Bad and the Ugly. 

The Good?  About aging, Nora said, “Consider the Alternative.”  When she wrote the neck book she was cringing over an impending 65^th birthday.  We all know she made it to her 71^st celebration before the “alternative,” happened.  That’s the Good.  This talented director, screenwriter and producer, who gave gems such as “Sleepless in Seattle,” “Julia and Julia,” “You’ve got Mail,” "Silkwood," and “When Harry Met Sally,” lived a full life and gave us stories we’ll never forget. 

She also said: “There’s nothing wrong with ordering two desserts.”

Even if I don’t like my neck, it's definitely better than the alternative.  I’ll seize the day and keep writing stories like Nora did.  In the spirit of Nora’s witty look at life, what part of aging ticks you off?

P.S.  Speaking of aging, LIE CATCHERS, in worldwide release, is one month old.  In one more month I’ll be signing books in Petersburg, Alaska, the setting for my double murder mystery/romance.  Can’t wait!  Here’s LIE CATCHERS http://amzn.com/B00HJDS1LG

BLURB:

Two unsolved murders will tear apart an Alaska fishing town unless a writer and a government agent reveal their secret obsessions.

Treasury agent Parker Browne is working undercover in Petersburg, Alaska to investigate a money scam and a murder. His prime suspect, Liv Hanson, is a freelance writer struggling to save her family’s business. Free spirited, full of life, and with a talent for catching liars, she fascinates Parker.

Trying to prove she’s a legitimate writer who cares about Petersburg’s issues, Liv pens a series of newspaper articles about an old, unsolved murder. When her cold case ties in with Parker’s investigation, bullets start to fly.

Parker understands money trails, and Liv knows the town residents. But he gave up on love two years ago, and she trusts no one, especially with her carefully guarded secret. If they mesh their skills to find the killers, will they survive the fallout?

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