by J.T. Ellison

This is a truly misleading topic for me, because while I have an office, a beautiful, private, somewhat comfy office, I rarely use it to write. I’ve spent the past four years writing on a laptop, which means I’m basically a nomad. I can write anywhere in the house – upstairs, downstairs, in my office, in the bonus room. But 90% of the time I write in the living room. Which is a shame, because I do love this desk (and yes that is a bat dangling from my fan…)

Now we’ve gone and messed things up, because a few weeks ago we bought a new couch. I adore said couch. It’s big enough that both Randy and I can lay on it watch movies or read – it’s a rumpus couch, without a doubt. But we had to move everything around, and sell the end tables, and suddenly, my office away from office was gone. My chair which used to back to the bookshelves now backs to the front door – disconcerting, to say the least. I’ve tried writing on rumpus couch, and that worked, sort of, because of the lovely side table beside it, but I ended up sort of hunched over, and one day last week, I found myself back in my chair. Ahhh…

So I’m in transition. I’m making a concerted effort to actually work in my office – I’ve moved almost all my material up there. My Quo Vadis Equology planner, my 5 year diary (not doing so well with that – shame on me) the old Moleskine with all my notes from last year, my bible – the Levenger Circa notebook that houses my series’ cast lists, current research, notes and other necessities, all stay upstairs now, watched over by one of my blessings, the stone carving that says “DON’T PISS OFF THE FAIRIES” My idea box in there (that red box) and the files that I get into daily.

And my Owl, who watches over me and gives me wisdom…

And my whiteboard, with book stages and due dates, plus other projects. (I’m kind of ready for October, because September’s cat looks a bit psychotic to me.)

My laptop goes on the nifty lapdesk I picked up at Staples last year and immediately got addicted to – it has the laptop, a cushion for my wrist, my Rhodia notepad/mousepad for to dos, and my Clairefontaine notebook for the book I’m working on. (If you can’t tell, I’m addicted to Exaclair products – truly the highest quality materials for writers in the world.) I’ve been trailing this through the house, searching for the right spot to nestle in and work. We’re moving the chair in my office into Randy’s and moving another one into its place, so we’ll see if that’s better.

Why don’t I work at my desk? Well, I think the true answer is I don’t feel very productive there, and I think it’s because my back is to the door. The room we made my office is strangely shaped, with an offset, diagonal door. The door opens to the stairs, and down right out the front door. Anyone vaguely familiar with Feng Shui will recognize that all my creativity leaks straight out of the house through a clear, delineated path. I don’t like the keyboard either; I’ve gotten so used to the Apple keyboard on my laptop with the individual keys (I know, there’s a word for that) and I hate the clacking the joined keys make. I’ve talked about my boxes, which you can see in the picture below – most are stored away now, but the two books I’m working on now are still out.

And here’s the view. Right into my next door neighbor’s pool. Which, let me tell you, is a real treat.

We took steps to make that problem go away last night – we planted a row of Thuja Green Giants along the fence row. They should grow to about 40′ – 60′ and kill that awful view. And I also got to dedicate the very first tree we planted to the memory of our friend David Thompson, which makes me happy, knowing that eventually, when I look out my office window, I’ll see David’s tree instead of the pool.

We’re going to redo everything here before long – put wood down, paint, and I’ll make a decision about the desk. As gorgeous as that furniture is, it takes up a LOT of room space. Space that if I turned the room, faced the opposite wall, had the door to my left instead of at my back, might make me feel more settled. But there is something about working at a desk that feels like, well, work, to me. I don’t know if redecorating will change that.

Which brings us to process. That’s something else that seems to be in flux right now. I’ve been very unsettled for the past year from both personal issues and so much travel that I’ve lost my good habits. Which is B.A.D. For someone like me, to whom schedule and order and planning are paramount, losing my habits is a big freaking deal. I also switched computers, from Windows to Mac, switched writing programs, from Word to Scrivener, back to Word, to Pages, back to Word, and back to Scrivener again. These changes were monumental, and have wrecked my normalcy. The good news is that instead of doing a major tour for THE IMMORTALS, I’m relying on the Internet, so I get to stay home for a few months. This make me very, very happy. I plan to create new habits.

All that said – I still shoot for 1,000 words a day at the beginning of a book, and struggle through the first half for months until one day, almost by magic, the story comes together, and then the last half of the book gets written in a few weeks. I think my one day record is about 8,000 words, and that’s only happened once. But I was so close…strangely enough, that book is called SO CLOSE THE HAND OF DEATH, so I guess if you look at title as an allegory for deadline, it’s right on.

And here’s a random shot – my filing cabinet, so to speak. This is my daily workspace – my Dropbox. And yes, everything is filed (and subfiled, and so on) – I’m not good when it comes to chaos.

Thanks for letting me share my space with you! This has been a fun and illuminating process, and has proven one thing to me – I have severe office envy. And if you want to compare and contrast, here’s a piece I did on the subject two years ago. It’s goes into greater detail on what’s actually ON my desk…

Wine of the Week: Mirabile Nero D’Avola 2007 – Spectacular! Rich, fruity and ridiculously inexpensive. Would I steer you wrong?

by JT Ellison

My husband and I just celebrated our 15/18^th anniversary. Why the two dates? We married on the 3^rd anniversary of our first kiss. Which was one day after we met. We didn’t waste a lot of time falling in love, we sort of did it immediately. Honestly, he could have suggested that we run off to Bora Bora and get married a week later, and I’d have said, “Just hang on a moment, dear, while I grab my favorite bikini.”

As it happens, my sweetly practical husband wanted to wait until we graduated from grad school to get married. A wise, sage man he is – the allure of knowing our lives were already intertwined, that we would work and love together for years to come, was a heady aphrodisiac. Not that I’m competitive or anything, but the desire to impress him drove me to new heights with my schoolwork—not to mention my full time job—and it was a good couple of years.

We were heavy into the political scene at the time—it looked like he was going to be the candidate and I would be the campaign manager. This was a shock to our professors, who thought I’d make a decent candidate myself, until they tried filming me giving a speech and the wheels came off the wagon. Me and Public Speaking were not a marriage made in heaven.

Me and Randy? We are.

So there’s a place we always go to celebrate, and a bartender who’s a friend, and when we all raised out glasses to toast, she said,” Did you ever imagine you’d be where you are today when you got married?”

Which was hysterical, because Randy and I had just had that talk a few hours before.

The short answer is: “No.” The long answer is, “Um, no way.”

Now, Randy runs his own market research firm. That wasn’t a huge surprise, because he’s damn good at public opinion polling, and a natural leader, so I always pushed for him to get out from under the man and run his own shop. He’s been at it for a couple of years now, and it’s a lot of fun. A lot of work, but he loves it.

Me, an international author? Now, that’s a surprise. If you’ve been here from the beginning at Murderati, you’ve been able to track my career from its inception, literally. So you know I’m not kidding when I say this has rather fallen in my lap, and I’m doing my best to manage the ramifications. Two books a year is fun, but stressful, and I’m so committed to making each book better than the last that I sometimes lose the forest for the trees. But things are good, and we’re both doing what we love.

If I’d had any inkling that all this was going to happen, would that change the way I feel about it? Absolutely. I’m a huge fan of letting life unfold, of climbing the mountain, not appearing at the pinnacle. I don’t want to know what’s going to happen tomorrow. We’re at a completely blissful moment in our lives. All is well work wise. We love and respect each other. We have our parents. We have a roof over our heads and money set aside for later and the freedom to travel. We are blessed.

So when I had an opportunity to have a reading done on my future, I balked.

You see, the new book involves the occult. And through the media promotion, I’ve had the great pleasure of meeting a V.I.P.—Very Important Pagan—in the Nashville community. I interviewed a few Wiccans for the book, and did a ridiculous amount of research into their ways, and the ways of the Pagans, the Stregheria, Goths… hell, even Buddhists. Through all of that, I’ve seen many ways of predicting the future, learning the future, and altering the future.

And that, more than anything, frightens me.

I don’t want to know the future. I love that sense of uncertainty that permeates my life. Will the book do well? I don’t know. Could I ask one of my friends to look into the matter and tell me, or give me a spell or a blessing to alter its course? Yes, I could, but I’d never do it. I’m such a firm believer in what happens, happens for a reason, that the idea of actually knowing what’s going to go down freaks me out of a bit. Good, bad or indifferent, my life is unfolding in ways I could never expect. I don’t want to mess with that.

Now, all that said, I do believe in signs. Like the crazy fortune cookie I had once that said “The best advice comes from a child,” just a few days before Lee Child became my ITW mentor. Or the fact that lately, I’ve been besieged by grasshoppers. They land on me when I’m outside, they show up on my deck, I even had one in my cart at Target the other day. If I were a practicing Pagan, I would assume (and be utterly delighted) that I’d been chosen by the Goddess and that she was speaking to me – in this case, the Goddess Aurora, who asked Zeus to grant immortality to her lover, but neglected to ask for youth as well, and since Zeus was a right old bastard with a sick sense of humor, he granted her wish. Her lover, Tithonus, Prince of Troy, was made immortal, but continued to age. She finally turned him into a grasshopper.

The Gods and Goddesses love to send signs. They may appear in person, or as something else. They carry a message, or a blessing, or simply want to check on things. I like that.

Then again, I’m also working on a story about a grasshopper, so the non-believers could say I’m just finding them more often because they’re foremost in my mind…

I think that I prefer the former, for the research I’ve done into Aurora shows her as the Goddess of rebirth. Considering the tattoo on my ankle is two Chinese figures, strength and rebirth (which combines to be the Phoenix Rising) and I’ve reinvented myself to become an author, it’s not such a stretch that she’d be calling to me, now is it?

So my question for you today, folks, is this: If you could see into the future, would you? Do you want to know what’s coming down the pike, or would you rather sit back and let things unfold as they will? Have you ever had a reading done? I know our Pari is handy with the Tarot cards, and our Alex certainly treads through the otherworld with her novels, and I assume, her research. What about you?

Wine of the Week: Sadly, one of the Australian vineyards that we frequent (namely, through a yummy wine called Marquis Philips McLaren Vale Shiraz ) is going out of buisness. They has a lot of wine that needs to be purchased. So here’s a link to the story, in the hopes that a benefactor may be found.

P.S. The wonderful folks at Exaclair, makers of Clairfontaine and Quo Vadis, the notebooks and planners I use (and will talk more about in 2 weeks) did me the honor of a feature in their Writer’s Project. Click here to take a look.

JT Ellison

As promised, I’m going to talk about the epiphany I had during the Donald Maass lecture at RWA a few weeks ago. And with apologies in advance to Mr. Maass, if I get some of what he said wrong, it’s not because of his teaching – he’s a fantastic teacher, and I’d attend anything he wanted to talk about. Some teachers are like that, they can make you look at a grocery list a new way. No, if I get it wrong it’s because I had my wild epiphany during his lecture, one that affected both the real me and the JT me, and I had to stop and really give it some thought.

Ready?

Let’s go.

Maass’s workshop focused on the turning point of a scene. Now, I hate writing exercises. Really, truly, I rolled my eyes when he said we were going to do one. But I was already so rocked by my first day at RWA that I decided to quit being a snot about it and at least try to play along. So here are my notes.

Donald Maass RWA July 30

The topic is how to make a flat scene come to life. The block quotes are direction from Maass.

What makes a scene transitory and profound? Something changes from the beginning of the scene to the end – what’s the moment of actual change?

Action, words, emotions that identifies the shift.

Think about the Scene’s turning point ten minutes prior:

What’s happening?

Ask the character:

How, Who, What are you right now?

Stop and find out who the character is.

Then go to a moment 10 minutes ahead – ask the same questions:

What is up with you?

How are things?

How has what happened 10 minutes ago changed how you feel?

Do you know you’ve changed?

Do you feel any different?

Is there something you can identify that feels different?

What was the exact moment you knew something had altered in your landscape.

This creates an inner turning point for the scene

TRANSFORMATION

Unfolding journey of the character. Reader’s emotional journey – what does it mean for the character?

What is voice?

Sudden epiphany, a shout from inside my head that actually made me tremble. Our Alex was sitting next to me, she probably felt the earth shift.

VOICE IS YOUR SOUL COMING THROUGH ON THE PAGE

Soul=passion=truth=reality

What is voice? he asks again.

Elusive, we all know that. Sought after, as prized as diamonds. Somewhat like pornography, a little different for everyone, but you know it when you see it. When a story is told is a unique way, when the words sing, the pages turn themselves, and you’re taken to a completely new world, that’s when voice is working.

It’s what we all dream of creating, and how we can look back at our own work a few weeks, months, ever years later and recognize that yes, it’s us, but we don’t remember the exact moment we wrote this. We transcend. We go to another place, into a piece of our brains that not everyone can find, and bleed out onto the page. We tune out the naysayers, the resistance, the blackbirds, and bleed onto the page.

Bleed. Lifesblood. Heartsblood. Soulsblood.

Because what is voice, really? Why is it so elusive? Why do publishing houses pay millions of dollars when they find it?

Voice is simple. It’s your soul. It’s that innermost place, your most private thoughts, fears, joys and loves. It’s the place no one wants to go, consciously at least. But to make a good story great, to make a mediocre character come alive, you have to tap into your soul. You must be honest, and good and true. You must allow your sacrosanct thoughts to leave their writhing nests and spill onto the page.

It’s dangerous, I know. The idea that a stranger could sit down with your book and find a link directly into your greatest shame, or your deepest fear, or your most expectant hope. Your soul is what makes you unique, different from every other creature. Soul is why you can give ten writers the same picture and they’ll all weave you a different tale. Soul is what separates great writers from brilliant ones.

Then I drifted off for a bit, staring at what I wrote, thinking that perhaps, I’ve just cured cancer. Or at least finally, finally figured out how to explain to people why some artists are artists and some people try to be an artist and can’t be.

So I finally tuned back in, and Maass had moved to another exercise. I’m a bit of a convert at this point, so I decide to participate. He asks us to think about a scene we’re working on. I don’t know if y’all recall that I mentioned I’d started my new book a few weeks ago and came to a screeching halt because my opening line came out in first person? Anyway, I’ve finally figured out why that is, and in the construct of Maass’s class, used that opening as my example. Forgive me if this is a bit murky, I’m trying to explain without giving anything away.

The book opens with an email between my main character, Taylor Jackson, and her best friend, Dr. Sam Loughley. For the moment, email is the only way Taylor can truly communicate with the outside world. It’s her lifeline, and she hates that. The email is a reflection of her true self. The words that she and Sam write are much deeper, more meaningful, than she can truly express herself. She’s so good at hiding her emotions, so this incident has forced her to take a trip through her emotions: sorrow, fear, loss, love and remembrance. She can only write about what she’s experiencing at the time, can only write her feelings – obsession, the madness of her words as the emails go out. At the beginning, I can use this to show she’s having doubts about the decision she’s made…

Maass’s voice interrupts my thought process.

When should she throw gasoline on those feelings and light a match?

Voice is more than soul – it’s also intention, and vision. Taylor is afraid, and the readers will see that openly for the first time.

Maass again, his voice a hypnotic lull – and now I’m annoyed with him because he’s interrupting my really cool train of thought, but I stop and listen.

In the world of the story, ask yourself:

What makes me angry?

What are the rest of us not seeing?

What must they understand or see?

What is the question no one is asking?

What’s the puzzle/issue with no solution?

What’s the most dangerous thing?

And now?

Powerless, she’s powerless, and that creates a great conflict.

What pisses you off? What is not right?

Indignation! But does that work for Taylor?

Where is the unexpected grace?

That’s easy, the grounds she’s inhabiting, the setting. The colors, the weather, the animals, the walks, the farm, the garden, the deer – but the comfort is the antagonist as well.

What needs saving? Appreciated? Loved?

Daisies on the grass…Taylor’s peace is an escape from her prison

When can this be expressed the most dramatically?

At this I stop and giggle, pulled from my lull. Why, on page 150, of course, because we’ve hit the mid-point. I rub Alex’s elbow to share my cleverness and we share a knowing laugh. Every Murderati knows what the midpoint is by now…

Who can feel the opposite and challenge?

That’s Sam. Hurt by Taylor.

What about a bad day at the keyboard?

Fear. Self-loathing. Fear. But what exactly is the fear?

Can you experience what they’re experiencing?

And that’s when I’m yanked from my story and into my own head. Fear is what I face every day when I sit down to write. Fear, and I’m not good at allowing myself to experience it. And for this book to work I’m going to have to drop some of MY walls to allow Taylor to experience what she needs to in order for the story to unfold properly.

Cue a moment of sheer, unadulterated REAL fear – will I be able to do that? I don’t like experiencing extreme emotions. I must, must, must not let that stop me.

I have a feeling this book might be cathartic. It better be, or I’ll end up drooling in a corner because I’ve let in all the worry and scary stuff.

We’re done now, and I’m sorry to see the class end. I imagine a week at Donald Maass’s hands would be enlightening. Frightening. And so, so helpful.

Go through the block quotes above. Imagine a scene you’re having trouble with. Hear a soft, gentle voice asking you these questions, and see if you can have an epiphany of your own.

This may be second nature to many of you already, and I know I already do many of the pieces of this exercise unconsciously, but having the ideas presented in this way did result in a new way of thinking for me. I’m going to have to put Donald Maass in my acknowledgments, because he allowed me to see what I had to do to make my story work.

What about you? Am I even close? Or does this all sound nutso? And have you had any good epiphanies, internal or external, lately?

Wine of the Week: Cantina Calpantena Corvina Torre del Falasco 2008 (Super yummy, thick and meaty)

On a very happy side note, ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS releases in the UK today! Click here for more info.

JT Ellison

Last week I ventured down to Orlando for the RWA conference. For those of you unfamiliar with the acronym, RWA is Romance Writers of America. RWA is to romance writers what ITW eventually could be for thriller writers, and I say eventually because RWA has 10,000 writers on its rolls, 145 chapters, and a conference that quite simply smokes everything I’ve ever been to. That’s not a knock on ITW – I adore the organization, have bled, sweated and cried for them, and thought this year’s Thrillerfest was the best yet. Pretty impressive considering they’re only 5 years old.

But RWA is… different.

After the event was moved to Orlando from Nashville after the Flood™, I had my doubts about attending. A – I was terribly upset that they’d pulled out (*more on that later). I felt like if they’d given us a chance, we could have worked out the conference, and the hotels, etc. But I was doing a workshop with Allison, and didn’t want to shirk my obligations there. B – it was my husband’s birthday. Birthdays are a big deal in the Ellison household. We’d planned around RWA, with so many of our friends coming to town, we were going to have a lovely little party. Suddenly, all that went up in smoke. C – it’s been a BIG travel year. Another plane, another hotel, another five days away from work, just rang my bell (and my wallet. This is a pricey con, the most expensive out there. BUT ALL INCLUSIVE – so it really saves you money.)

If it had been anywhere but Orlando, I would have bailed. But we’ve got family in the central Florida region, so I planned to go ahead. Big mistake. One I won’t make again in the future. Traffic, driving unfamiliar roads, and being walloping sick with some sort of plague we caught in New York that necessitated two rounds of antibiotics (which I’m still on) made it a real pain in the ass. And I couldn’t do any of the big events, because driving 90 minutes at midnight seemed like a bad idea.

So I stuck to the days, and attended the lunches, and some workshops.

And found out that all my preconceived notions about RWA were wrong, wrong, wrong.

I’m honestly not sure where to begin.

Let’s start with the Literacy Signing. 600 authors. Lines of people that numbered in the thousands. $60,000+ raised for literacy. Holy Smokes, right?

I went in planning to watch and learn, and was shocked and surprised to find that several people knew me, came to see me, and were sharing me with their friends. Those are the finest, most uplifting words an author can hear – “I loved it so much I had to tell all my friends to read it.” Sharing is good. It makes us happy.

Or the Harlequin signing, where I signed for 90 minutes without a break (granted, I was next to Heather Graham) and came out just rocked with excitement – that’s a lot of new readers to touch in one sitting.

Revelation number one: Alex and Allison and Toni have been preaching it for a while now, but the literacy and HQN events proved it. Romance readers READ, and not just romance. They read everything. Ignore them at your own peril, I’ll tell you that. I think it sometimes takes seeing something with your own eyes for it to register fully. Well, if you have any trust in me whatsoever, listen to what I’m saying. If you’re a writer,  published or not, you should go to RWA at least once. It’s a magnificent display of publishing – still in its glorious hey dey, still reaching millions of people, still the coolest, craziest and most uplifting job in the world. Anyone who thinks books are dead needs to go to this conference.

And the girl power was unmistakable. Alex and I met a sweet girl from Germany who has the soul of a poet (you can read it in people’s eyes, truly) and when she asked how we knew each other, and Alex said we were probably burned together at the stake for being witches in a past life SHE GOT IT. Hoo-rah! Sometimes the boys look at us, well, strangely is the best term. It was fun to swim in the estrogen ocean for once.

Revelation number two: I learned that the umbrella of “romantic suspense” is much, much broader than I’d originally thought. I have an ongoing love story. It’s not predominant, and I’ve always heard that for RS the rule is the romance must predominate and the suspense must come second. Well, I figured out this weekend that that’s all a matter of very subjective taste. I’m a thriller writer, no doubt, but I’m probably just one orgasm away from being solid romantic suspense.

Therein lies the rub – the boy books have sex, and no one’s calling them romances. John Sandford has Lucas Davenport get it on with his wife (and in previous books, an indiscriminant amount of women) and no one would ever think to call him RS. So why does a woman writer have to be labeled that way? Because women won’t pick up a Sandford book knowing they’re going to get some hot sex? What about Barry Eisler? Lee Child? Vince Flynn?

Revelation number three: I guess it’s safe to say that though I read and enjoy romantic suspense and straight romance, I’ve always avoided the label so I could maintain a base of male readers. Which is kind of stupid thinking, but you know, I’m new, and I’m going to make mistakes. Coming out of RWA, I’m not even sure that the genre labels matter. I’m realizing we get ourselves pretty twerped out over exactly where we fit into the pie, and that’s just not as vital to know anymore, because the genres are melding anyway. Write the best damn story you can possibly come up with, and you’ll attract readers. Their gender doesn’t matter.

Revelation number four: What’s important is branding. I think the brand is the key. After a great deal of thinking, here’s what I came up with (with a major nod to Alex Kava for planting this thought…)

People know that if they pick up a novel by JT Ellison, they’ll get a strong female lead, a fast-paced story centering on a crime, and a glimpse into Nashville, Tennessee. Three little things that are very brand specific, and none have anything to do with genre labels.

I’ll tell you something else. I started reading JD Robb’s SEDUCTION IN DEATH on my way home. That book is as dark and nasty – possibly even more so – than any of mine. I’d always thought it was romance heavy, and boy was I wrong. I see how a master makes this work – you can have sex, and violence, and ruminations on love and relationships, all against the backdrop of a futuristic world, without it having to have a label. It’s simply a great story.

Lightbulb. Over. Head.

Revelation number five: RWA is what this is all about. There are so many different kinds of writers there. I walked away inspired, scared, confused and eventually inspired again. I am already making plans to go to #RWA11 in New York next June. And this time, I’m going to take in every little bit this conference has to offer, whether I’m feeling up for it or not.

I realize I haven’t even scratched the surface of what I took away from RWA. But I’ve detained you long enough. So next post, I’m going to talk about one of the workshops I attended, given by Donald Mass, and the bizarre revelation I had about what voice really is.

So let’s talk about labels today. I’d love to hear from some of our industry professionals on just how much they should matter to the writer as he/she are writing, or whether it’s a marketing tool for the publishers more than anything else. And for the readers: is there a genre you won’t pick up and read because you have a preconceived notion of what will lie therein? Any revelations you’ve had about different writers or genres?

Wine of the Week: Villa Pozzi Nero D’Avola – this wine was truly spectacular. Dark, jammy, smoky – one of the finest nero d’avolas I’ve ever had, and ridiculously inexpensive.

*A note about the RWA move from Nashville to Orlando. After seeing the massive scale that this conference covers, from all the attendees to incredible organizers and goodies and workshops and dinners and lunches and parties and awards and even the incredible conference program, I now completely understand WHY they had to move. And had to move they did – to be honest, that the conference ran as smoothly as it did was a feat of Herculean proportions, and my hat is off to RWA for pulling it off. I rescind any previous snark about pulling out of Nashville. But I do hope y’all will think about coming back. We have a lot to offer.

By JT 

I started writing my seventh Taylor Jackson novel this week. This is cause for great rejoicing on many levels, obviously, but the process of beginning a novel is only part of the fun. It’s not as simple as opening a Word file and starting to type. Oh, no. There are steps that must be taken, superstitions adhered to. Some would call this throat clearing, will admonish me to just get to work already. There’s something magical about this time, and I like to keep it sacred.

While the actual book writing started this week, the story has been brewing for quite a while. Since I heard this song on my radio September 14, 2009, to be exact.

I went home and downloaded it, wrote myself a note: “Welcome to London” Memphis Book. That was it. The page was turned and the idea went … not all the way away, but out of sight, into the wilds of my mind. It had a cozy home, obviously well nourished, because everything that happened in THE IMMORTALS and SO CLOSE THE HAND OF DEATH lead to this story. My mind did all the work, subconsciously driving the gossamer threads of my Muse into a cohesive form. In other words, the idea stewed.

Books are strange beasts, and the concept of ideas even more fantastical. Whatever process exists in the creative mind that allows an author to hear a song and almost a year later realize that song forced itself into the very psyche of the stories that were being created and developed into a story in its own right… well, I’ve never been one to sneeze at our minds’ capabilities, that’s for sure.

So back to the process. I revisited the idea several months ago as I was finishing SO CLOSE, knowing I’d have to do a bunch of research to make it work. That research involved going to England and Scotland if I had any hope of the book playing out the way I envisioned. Plus, the book is a Gothic, so it needed all the correct elements to come fully alive, elements that can’t be readily found in my leather chair in my living room in Nashville. I broached the idea to my better half, who is always up for an adventure, bless him. And then serendipity appeared in the form of my debut novel, ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS, which was slated for an August 20 release date in the UK. At BEA, I mentioned to my publisher that I needed to go to the UK to do research for book 7, and they thought it would be a super idea to combine that trip with media for the debut.

Which is how Randy and I found ourselves standing at the top of Edinburgh Castle last week.

We had a brilliant trip. Following Thrillerfest in New York, which was amazing (Stephen’s post captured the spirit quite well – I’m just glad there wasn’t a full moon over Manhattan, the energy in that crowd would have turned erotic – and this was without our Alex!) we headed to London, hopped the train to Scotland, spent two days touring the countryside – all of it, from Edinburgh to St. Andrews to Inverness to Loch Ness and back, taking page after page of notes, over 600 pictures and three hours of video – then headed to London for the launch party, signings and radio interviews. The trip was only marred by the bronchitis that felled Randy when we arrived in London and followed us home (yes, I’ve caught it and am on antibiotics too. Major bummer.)

The London media machine is a little different than what I’ve experienced thus far in the US. Mira UK threw a Launch Lunch for Paul Johnston (MAPS OF HELL, a fabulous book!) and I that would be more aptly named a party. Wine and champagne flowed freely. We talked about books and life and constitutional Britain and Viscounts and more books. Old friends Ali Karim and Mike Stotter were there, which added to the celebratory atmosphere. There was no expectation of performance that I so often feel here – we were there to celebrate, and celebrate we did. It was very, very cool. Top it all off, we were lunching at The Luxe, which was literally catty-corner from Ten Bells, a Jack the Ripper haunt. Slick! Then we headed to Cambridge, to sign at the legendary Heffers. That’s where Zoë and I found each other.

That’s Henry Sutton in the background, of The Mirror, and a novelist in his own right – GET ME OUT OF HERE releases in the US in February, plus he’s got several other titles in the UK. How fun is that?

Back home, marginally recovered, I set about putting all that I had in order – marking up the pictures, uploading the video, pulling togther the remainder of the research, and building my box.

Yes, the book officially exists, because it has a box. It’s labeled with the title (one I really hope stands, WHERE ALL THE DEAD LIE) I’m doing the Art Fact Sheet so we can have the perfect cover. Thanks to the fine folks at Exaclair, I have my purple Clairefontaine notebook, already full of notes, just waiting for more ideas. I pulled the stack of books that I need to read to get in the right frame of mind, I’ve started laying out the characters. I’m using Scrivener, and while I’m not outlining per se, I am doing a bit more planning, simply because I think I have 4 POV characters and I’m moving between countries again, and I find it easier to at least give myself a map if I’m going to do that.

I got so caught up in the excitement that I went so far as to take a quick try at an opening line – that’s when everything came to a screeching halt. It came out in first person. All stop. I don’t think I’m ready to conquer a Taylor novel from her POV in first. We’ll see what happens.

I’m keeping a book journal on this one, so I can see how I feel, what’s working and what isn’t. I’m curious to chart my course more fully than I have in the past – I look back on the previous six books in sheer wonderment. Did I really write them? Or was it some gremlin with blond hair who sits in my chair at night while I’m asleep and slings words onto the page? Sometimes that feels like a real possibility.

A few months ago, I also bought myself a Five Year journal so I can start keeping better track of what’s happening at any given time. I’m not good at journaling, but I think I owe it to myself. This blog has always been a journal of sorts for me, but I want to start keeping better track of what’s happening in my crazy life.

Do any of you journal? Book journal or regular daily journal? Do you have any tips to share that will help those of us lately come to the process?

Wine of the Week: Shared at a fine pub called The Queen’s Arms in Edinburgh – goes well with fish and chips – Perrin Cotes du Ventoux 2005

I have a confession to make. I love the Twilight books. I am a hopeless Stephenie Meyers junkie. I’ve read them multiple times, and I reread them when I want an escape. I wouldn’t mind a book tour stop in Forks. I have previously voiced my dilemma – Team Edward or Team Jacob?

All right now, if you’re shaking your head or rolling your eyes, go ahead and step away. Because honestly, making fun of the Twilight saga is as de rigueur as blaming the previous administration for, well, everything. I get it. It doesn’t appeal to everyone. But the nastiness some employ in making fun of those of us who are fans borders on rabid dog territory.

Why? Because the literary elite thinks the writing isn’t up to par? What, are you expecting to get Tolstoy when you pick up a book about teenage vampires? Really? Or is it the fact that it’s another vampire story? Or is it just plain jealousy because Meyers created a world that people want to escape into, and has gotten very, very rich in the process? James Cameron did that with AVATAR and the snickers were at least kept to a minimum. And his people were massive mystical smurfs.

Now that three of the Twilight movies are out, the franchise’s mythology grows even bigger. The young actors are thrust into a limelight that’s nearing epic proportions. The soundtracks are amazing, and have helped bolster the careers of a bunch of great new bands. The movies themselves have improved with each installment – ECLIPSE is by far the best of the three. It has a bit of everything you want in a good film: love, romance, sexual tension, humor and a battle scene. The special effects were cool, and the acting wasn’t half bad. The tent scene, with Jacob and Edward talking, was probably the best moment in the movie for sheer anguish.

That’s what this series is about, truly. Anguish. Some call it teenage angst with a roll of the eyes, but the truth of the matter is, we’ve all been in Bella’s position – in love with someone and wildly attracted to another, feeling unbelievable guilt and confusion. It’s human nature. As we grow older, we learn to recognize the differences between lust ad love, between a true affair of the heart and a passing crush, and most of us act accordingly. You can’t tell me it isn’t fun to revisit those old feelings.

Guys may not have the same reaction to the film as women, for a wide variety of reasons. Randy was so obviously bored and uncomfortable at times that it made me uncomfortable. But that’s par for the course for most men with heavy duty romantic chick flicks. Rom Coms, the bane of every male’s existence. You need to keep your woman happy, so that means sitting through some torturous moments, I know. But we love you when you do it! And aren’t the rewards worth it?

I don’t know what everyone’s problem is with these books and movies. They’re fun. It’s escapism. There are even a couple of good messages for young women if you stop to look at it. Chastity until marriage? Perish the thought! I actually read something today that called that a Mormon ideal – I nearly spit out my tea laughing. Has our society been so seduced by the perceived ideals of Sex and the City that the concept of a teenage girl waiting to have sex is seen as backwards and wrong?

Oh, Lord, don’t get me started… well, now that I’ve opened that can of worms, I’m going to say something. Yes, there’s a vein of morality that runs through these books. They are read by millions of young girls, girls who are finding themselves in love for the first time, or dreaming about what that might be like. And there’s no sex. In a reversal that’s nearly Herculean in its methods, sex isn’t a possibility between the characters. Bella is a virgin, and Edward is bound and determined to keep her that way. A boy who isn’t crazed for sex? More importantly, a boy who isn’t pressuring his girlfriend to put out?

Now think about the message the young girls who are reading this book are getting. Not only is it okay to forgo sex in a teen relationship, the man you respect, love and cherish wants you to remain pure. Maybe, just maybe, these books can have a real cultural impact on our younger generation. Maybe pregnancy rates will drop, STDs will become a thing of the past, and children, because I’m sorry, even if they are burgeoning into adulthood, they’re still children, could focus on their studies instead of their pants.

Can you imagine? I’m probably dreaming, but wow, if these movies had been around when I was growing up? I know I would have appreciated being in a relationship that wasn’t a constant test, how far can I go, how far will she let my hand stray, when is it right to go to first base, second base, third, fourth?

I can’t imagine a better time for girls to be getting the message that it’s cool not to have sex. Meyers has done that, with a female character who’s hopped up on her own hormones and wants things she can’t quite comprehend. Edward keeps telling her how dangerous it is, but she’s willing to throw caution to the wind anyway, just like we all did. But he’s strong, respectful, and understands the consequences, even if she doesn’t. He exercises great restraint, to her benefit. Now that’s romantic.

And poor Jacob, fighting for the girl he loves. His emotional growth, being hurt and overcoming it, is another huge message – you can survive a heartbreak. It will make you stronger, and will help you understand when the real love of your life comes along.

There’s really more to the Twilight books than meets the eye. It’s more than some crazy romantic fantasy of girl meets boy, falls in love, marries him, becomes a vampire and then gets all the benefits therein. But you’ll have to find that for yourself, in the pages of Meyers’s world.

Another quick thought. The actors themselves have been I the news cycle constantly over the past few years. Rob Pattinson and Taylor Lautner are being held to a ridiculous standard, and I really feel for Kristin Stewart. I remember when I was starting out in publishing, and getting interviewed for the first time. I said some pretty stupid things, because I didn’t know any better. I told the truth about what I was thinking and feeling, just like she has. Her misstep about equating fandom to rape (but every single person out there understood exactly what she meant, even if it wasn’t a perfect analogy) really hurt her reputation, and I wish she had a great publicist like I had to tell her what not to say. But it’s overwhelming, going from simply creating your art to being the artist in the limelight. Her latest comment about her fear of the massive crowds is something I can totally relate to. I hope they start listening to her concerns and let all three of them step back from the craziness for a bit.

Whether you like it or not, Twilight is enmeshed in the fabric of our culture just like Harry Potter. And heck, even the Vatican came around on Rowling…

So what say you ‘Rati? Are you a Twilight fan, or a hater? (I’ll check in when I can today, so pleasant self-policing is encouraged.)

Wine of the Week: 2005 Poliziano Vino Nobile di Montepulciano

 JT Ellison

I have a dilemma.

Thankfully, it is neither life threatening, nor particularly important. It’s really rather silly, truth be told. But it is a dilemma nonetheless, one that’s bothering me tremendously.

I have bought a ridiculous number of books over the past couple of years. Books of all shapes and sizes. Books that cover the spectrum of topics: crime fiction to theology, historical fiction to fantasy, productivity to ancient Roman wars. I’ve bought so many that my buying to reading ratio is in excess of about 20:1. And that’s being generous to the 1.

I have accumulated quite a beautiful library. It spills into four rooms. And that TBR pile, the one that I used to have panic attacks if it dropped below ten books, now numbers in the hundreds. So many that we were forced to buy three large floor-to-ceiling bookcases to hold them all. We jokingly call it the Ellison Family Lending Library. The term is more than applicable.

With so many books to choose from, I’ve suddenly lost the ability to make a choice. It’s like walking into a bookstore on any given Tuesday and being overwhelmed with the sheer numbers of books on the shelves. So many times, I end up buying something on coop or a wall because it’s face out. It’s easier. I take chances on new to me authors all the time, but it gets too distracting to wander the stacks (and disconcerting, now that I know so many of the people I read. Every time a familiar name comes up, up pops the last conversation we had, or the realization that it’s been too long since we’ve been in touch, or…)

You get the idea.

I’ve lost the love of browsing.

When I started writing, there was something like 170,000 books published per year. Now that number has doubled, what with digital and self-published books on top of the slew of traditionally published novels. (And they say reading is dead. I beg to differ.)

New books that I want to read are thrown at me daily. Blogs, magazines, Facebook, Twitter – I’m constantly finding material I must have. It’s gotten to the point that I find myself loading the bookshelves (which are now overflowing, the non-fiction double stacked and the fiction forced into face-out coop) and promising myself I WILL NOT BUY ANY MORE UNTIL I FINISH ALL THE BOOKS ON THE SHELVES.

So we’ve established I have a book fetish. Okay then. Here’s where you come in.

It’s gotten so bad that I don’t know where to start. With names I know and trust? Alphabetically, starting with the As and working my way through? Or should I start at the end and work backwards? Next in series? New to me? Fiction? Non-fiction?

(Ahhhhhhhhh – screw it. I’ll just reread Harry Potter.)

Told you this was a ridiculous problem.

I told Randy of my predicament, and he said “Paradox of Choice.”

“Huh?” I asked.

“There’s a marketing concept called the Paradox of Choice.”

Then he went on, using small words so I could follow. Sometimes, his marketing stuff, especially the complications of statistical sampling, are well beyond my tender abilities. But this, this I understood immediately.

At it’s most basic, here’s the definition of the paradox if choice: if consumers have too many choices, they’ll either get confused and pass on making a decision, or will revert to brands that they recognize. Say you’re going to the bookstore, and you’re assailed (as I often am) with a plethora of choices. Too many choices. You see a James Patterson novel, and seize on it. You recognize the name—you’ve read his books before, you were satisfied, so you buy that. No searching, no discovery. Just a mindless choice. An easy choice. Because who has the time to put into making a decision anymore?

This is me. This is my dilemma. I have too many options, so I’m just not bothering and returning to the books I know will transport me, instead of taking a chance on something new.

Turns out there’s a lot more to this. A guy named Barry Schwartz wrote a whole book entitled PARADOX OF CHOICE: Why More Is Less. Here’s a great quote from the book that sums it all up pretty well:

Autonomy and Freedom of choice are critical to our well-being, and choice is critical to freedom and autonomy. Nonetheless, though modern Americans have more choice than any group of people ever has before, and thus, presumably, more freedom and autonomy, we don’t seem to be benefiting from it psychologically.

Choice.

When I look at that quote, my life comes into sharp focus. Over the past year, I’ve been minimizing. Getting rid of the excess. Unitasking as much as possible. Trying to enjoy life, a moment at a time, rather than rushing forward into my future. We’ve given away half of our household.

We’ve cut our expenses, too. We only buy things that we need, and when we do buy something, it must replace an older version of itself. New shoes? Sure, but I have to get rid of at least two pairs first. iPad? As cool as it would be to have (and trust me, I LUST after it) I got a Nook instead. Cheaper, does what I need it to do, and gives me great pleasure, and no possibility of eye strain! iPhone 4.0? Absolute necessity – when my iPhone 3G dies or the Verizon rumors come true.

(Note on that last, I’m trying, very hard. I may cave, we’ll see. But why buy a new phone when mine is working fine??? )

We have been actively practicing the less is more mentality, so I find it ironic that I’m suffering from more is less with my reading material.

I long for the days when my reading order was determined by when the book was due back to the library. It was so simple. Or the days when I would not leave a book unfinished. I must have eight books lying around that I’ve started and lost interest in, or ran out of time, or simply couldn’t get into and put back on the shelf for another day. And that’s just in the living room.

So I ask you, if you had hundreds to choose from, and you were becoming paralyzed by your ability to actually commit and finish a book, where would you begin? Any and all coping mechanisms are welcome.

Wine of the Week: Heredad Ugarte Crianza 2005 Inexpensive and lovely.

by JT Ellison

Hello, New York.

I’m up here for BEA, a crazed two-day junket with nary a moment to spare. Lunches, dinners, signings, meetings galore, with the Big Apple as the backdrop—this is one of my favorite events of the year. There’s something so… so… writerly about flying to New York and meeting with your people. I’ve said it many times in the past, find a way to met the folks who are publishing and representing you. It’s a relatively small investment in your future that pays huge dividends in the end—not mention gets you fed. And fed well. I often wonder if my people assume I come to New York just to get them to take me to the fancy restaurants…

I digress. I’m on deadline, trying very hard to finish a book that’s proved quite difficult for me, simply because I always assumed it would be the last book in the series, and now it’s not, so I have to rethink the whole sub-story. This quick New York trip aside, I’m working every waking daytime minute on the end of the book (already written, just trying to bridge the mid-point to the climax properly.) I made a decision two weeks ago to take a real vacation from the distractions of the Internet while I’m finishing—especially no Facebook and no Twitter.

Ah. The bliss of silence. The time saved aside, the quietness in my head is so worth it. I’m thinking in massive creative bytes, totally absorbed in the work in front of me. It’s lovely. So lovely that I’m wishing there was a way to do this full-time. It’s something I think we are all struggling with—the necessity of self-promotion versus the horrid impact it was on our creative life.

Over the past week and a half, I’ve been participating in a psychological study on the genesis of creativity for a major university. They sent me nightly surveys, and I took them faithfully, answering the questions honestly. What I found didn’t surprise me too much: I often have major A-Ha! moments around 2:00 in the afternoon. I spend between 5-6 hours a day actively pursuing my creative endeavors. I am a basically happy person who gets very excited about perceived breakthroughs. I am utterly and completely OCD and most likely have a slight case of Asbergers. Cool stuff to know about yourself.

I enjoyed the endeavor so much that I bought a Levenger Five-Year Journal so I can start making a few notes on my creative day. My daily personal status updates.

But without the outlet a sheer randomness that Facebook and Twitter provide, I’ve had a few of those thoughts build up in my head. I started writing them down as they occurred to me, just as a test, just to see what my mind was really doing with its newfound freedom.

Here’s a partial listing. I’ve realized that out of context, I must sound mad, but there it is…

• I dreamt of bears… again. I’m starting to get worried that I’m about to meet a tall, dark, handsome grizzly.
• Listening to Depeche Mode’s Personal Jesus makes you ten times more likely to let people cut in traffic.
• It’s Purgatory, people. Stop overthinking it.
• When God created pigs, he did it for the sole purpose of making pancetta.
• It’s kind of sad when you get confused because the ear plugs have so many choices.
• You’re in a public bathroom. It’s the end of the roll. Do you change it?  Discuss.
• Face it. You can’t fix stupid.
• Kitchen porn. Two words.  Oh.  Yes. (Kidding… Williams Sonoma)
• Boys and their balls.

Randy found this experiment amusing enough to jump in with a few of his own. If you can imagine us, late-night dining in New York on the most perfect carbonara ever, rolling on the floor laughing, you’ve got a good idea of how this went.

• Who knew Larry King’s random column was so prescient—I like pie!

• Why can’t Hank Azaria get a series?

But the best one, my absolute favorite of the week?

• I’m holding the fifth novel I’ve written in my hands, and I’m feeling a wee bit verklempt.

Yes, the ARCs came for THE IMMORTALS the day I left for New York. I am so, so overwhelmed. They’re super pretty—it’s a Halloween book, so the colors are awesome. I’ll debut the cover here in a few more weeks, I need to stay focused on the prize, which is finishing the next one.

It’s been a great few days. Crazy, disjointed, insane, but great. So bear with me (heh-heh) for not having anything truly profound this week. (and double for give me, because half the list was lost because my hotel internet went AWOL, along with the boys from Fleet Week. I’m actually praying this goes up on time. Srysly.)

(And major thanks to everyone who’s asked about How Nashville Is this week – we’re recovering. Slowly, but surely. Your love, hugs, thoughts and prayers have been amazingly helpful!)

In the meantime, I’ll bid you adieu.

So tell me… in 140 characters or less (or 140 words…) what are you up to???

Stay classy, Murderati. : )

Wine of the Week: Santa Cristina Sangiovese

by JT Ellison

(After Cornelia’s loss on Friday, I took this post down so she could get the love and sympathy of our wonderful community unhindered. Because this is such a topical post, Pari very graciously offered to give me her Monday to help raise awareness for the victims of the Nashville flood. My deepest thanks to Pari for her generosity, and thanks to all of you for your support and donations – they’ve made a huge difference.)

I am a hypocrite.

I am a weather junkie. My husband calls me junior meteorologist. I live to watch the Weather Channel. I have four weather sites bookmarked in my Internet toolbar.

So how did I get caught short when one of the biggest natural disasters to hit the United States decided to drop in my backyard?

It started simply enough. Friday, April 30 was my birthday. We went to the symphony. Had elegant seats in one of the Founder’s box. Met the conductor, Giancarlo Geurrero. We had no idea that two days later, the symphony hall would suffer more than 2.5 million dollars in damage.

It began to storm overnight. I woke to thunder and driving rain. We were under a tornado watch. Despite this, a birthday breakfast was in order. We went to my favorite breakfast restaurant in Belle Meade. While we ate, I kept my iPhone app for Weatherbug open and watched the radar. The Flood Warnings started to pour in, four alerts in thirty minutes. I read one of the alerts and saw Memphis has already received 12 inches of rain. We decide to make a grocery run. Stock up. We didn’t think to get ice. We get ham and cheese, sandwich makings. Go home and watch the Weather Channel, read Twitter. Watch the local news. It is raining harder than I’ve ever seen.

The thunder and lightning continue for two days.

The mudline is 30 feet high. Trees are choked with brown goo. It looks like a fungus has uniformly climbed the bushes and fences, like something from the Matrix. 

The insides of people’s houses are on the outside. Pink insulation floats like discarded cotton candy at the curbs. Asphalt has turned to dirt roads, clouds of choking dust following the dump trucks barreling by. Debris, piles and piles of debris, clog the sidewalks and lawns. What haven’t they found?

By Sunday morning we knew we were in trouble. My husband woke me early—the culvert on the other side of our next-door neighbor’s house had become a raging river. We suited up and went to check it, video camera in tow. Trees were down. My neighbor’s driveway was a lake, one of his cars had water up to the door. My husband went under our house, where a rather simple yet sophisticated drainage system is in place because of the natural spring that runs beneath our subdivision. He returned jubilant, the drains were working. We had a fractional amount of standing water under the house. Mind, we’d already gotten ten inches of rain by this time, so that was the best possible news. The fact that we are about three feet higher than our neighbor helped too. Those three little feet made all the difference.

We were watching the radar when the power blew.

I dream of water. Swimming, boating, surfing. Long showers, mud puddles, then raging torrents pulling trees and cars into the current. A doll floats by, then a man’s head. I wake in a sweat.

We checked the phones, thrilled to hear a dial tone. I called my parents, knew they were worried. Hell, at this point, I was worried. It was still raining. Not a drizzle, or a soft patter. It was still coming down in what we like to call a gully washer, thick sheets of rain. I’ve seen it rain like that for an hour and get a flood warning. But two days? 

By Sunday afternoon, the phones were out too. We used Twitter on our cell phones to follow what was happening. Twitter proved to be our hero in all of this, Twitter and local radio host Steve Gill, who broadcast until he was hoarse.

By the afternoon, the cell towers had lost power and we had no way to know what was happening. Total isolation. Junior meteorologist realized she didn’t have the supplies she needs. A generator. Ice. A weather radio. A battery-powered television. A decent radio, period — that’s a fluke, by the way. We just cleaned out our storage area and gave away the televisions that don’t work on a digital signal, and got rid of three battery powered radios. We didn’t think we’d need them, and planned to replace the TV. Sometime. We eventually found a cheap plastic one that would run on batteries and tuned in. Static voices warned that hell had arrived in Bellevue.

We gathered flashlights and candles. Realized we were low on batteries too.

The water was still rising.

There is nothing eerier than being in a storm with no power. You are surrounded by a penetrating darkness that bleeds into your skin. Lightning is your only illumination, and it comes in brief, strobe-like bursts. The sound of rain becomes white noise, like crickets and cicadas in summer, a commotion you expect to hear.

At 7:00 p.m., knowing it wasn’t a good idea, we made the hard decision to leave the house. At the very least, we could find out what was happening firsthand.

And suddenly, the rain stopped. The silence was overwhelmingly loud.

We drove out and saw unbelievable amounts of brown, dead water. Realized that this was ten times worse than we could have ever imagined. Houses, neighborhoods, roads, all underwater. We heard there were water rescues going on less than a mile from us. The water was up to the stop lights. Not the stop signs, the stop lights. The roads into our part of the county were all closed, either washed out of blocked by mudslides and trees. We were literally an island.

We went to high ground by the Natchez Trace to make cell calls and let our folks know we’re still okay but unreachable at home. I gave thanks for my iPhone as it downloaded a few important emails that I was waiting on.

Publix was open, God bless them. They know how to handle a disaster from years of working in hurricane zones. That’s what this felt like, a hurricane’s aftermath. We stocked up on a few things that we needed. Oranges. Soup. Things we could cook on the grill that could stay on the counter. Water. Batteries. We only took what we needed, a few of each, so there was enough to go around. Hoarding would not do.

We hatched a grand plan to rescue the open package of hot dogs from the refrigerator, along with my birthday cake and a half-drunk bottle of wine.

It started to rain again. We cooked under umbrellas, realized we were low on propane. When will our shortcomings as survivors end? Remember when Zoë Sharp wrote the essay “Four Meals From Anarchy” which detailed how the world would fall apart without basic conveniences. I realize I’m living her thesis.

We ventured out again late Monday afternoon. Word was the road to the highway was open. It was. We went two exits up the highway, and it was another world. No mud. No standing water. People at Target and Best Buy. We bought chargers for the car so we could power the laptops. Ate at McDonalds. The woman behind the counter looked at me and said, “Oh my God, where did you come from? You look exhausted.” I suppose I did. And my house was still standing. I had no right to be exhausted. I accepted the free cheeseburger anyway.

I got to work on my manuscript by hand and quickly realized my mind doesn’t work that way anymore. I am so in tune with my keyboard that the words don’t flow out of my pen correctly. A strange realization, I am utterly dependent on electronics. This is sad. I changed tactics and outlined the remainder of the book. That works.

Tuesday night, as we were wrapping a cul-de-sac block party (one of our neighbors has a generator, so there was fresh food and lots of cheer) the power came back on. We’d all retreated into our individual darkness, candles were lit. I was just settling in to read and CRACK! the lights blared to life. What did we do? All of us, the whole street, ran outside, whooping and hollering. Back into the dark, to which we’d become so accustomed. The inky night greeted us, but the brilliant display of stars faded to pinpricks. The sky became small again.

Still no phones or cell, but sweet, blessed power.

We were saved.

I’m betting there will be a whole lot of babies born in January named Noah.

#

There will be rain tonight. And while the thought strikes fear in me, knowing that the storms will pass through at 40 miles an hour is heartening. It is temporary. I may park the truck in the driveway to let the rain wash away the mud caked on it from trying to drive around in the muck to get supplies.

Irony abounds. Take the sad story of the man from White’s Creek who has spent years advocating for his neighborhood because he was worried about the houses being flooded, who was turned down by the city time and again, swept away by the flood waters as he tried to save his house from the rising tide, found drowned in a field upstream. Our police chief, leaving in the middle of the crisis to take the police chief position in New Orleans. He leaves this week, practically before the body counts are finalized. Honestly? Good damn riddance. His manipulation of the crime figures to make it seem like crime has diminished are just one problem the new chief will have to undo. Morale in the rank and file has been dismal, the cops I’ve talked to, the very ones patrolling our neighborhoods and dragging bodies from cars, are giddy with relief.  Serpas even had a subconscious slip during his press conference, when he said his main concern wasn’t Nashville at this time. No kidding, chief. Sayonara.

We had so few reports of crime. Instead, all was turned upside down. Our inmate population saved the water supply for Davidson County. They, rightly so, busted their butts, sandbagging. In a true crisis, there comes a time when everything is transcended—class, race, desire, greed. All of that is supplanted with a yearning for survival. New York saw it during 9-11. Sadly, New Orleans didn’t see it the way they should have, as government agencies sniped and the Mayor of that city declined help. In a crisis of this magnitude, you need your infrastructure to work seamlessly. Nashville’s did.

There are stories of hope and darkness. The former head coach of the Vanderbilt Commodores was rescued from waist deep water in his River Plantation home by his ingenious son and a photographer from The Tennessean. Coach has MS. He’s confined to a hospital bed. They finally realized his mattress was inflatable and floated him out the front door on a raft, saving his life.

Can you imagine what it must feel like, strapped to a bed, unable to save yourself, watching the water rise, lying in the brown murk of the flood. Knowing that you’ve only got an hour left at most? Begging your wife to leave, to save herself, and knowing it’s too late, she’s too frail, there’s no way she could escape, she’d be swept away. Feeling your body begin to float.

Five days in and the power still flickers off and on. All but two of the bodies have been found. The sense of community is unrelenting—I was greeting with hugs at the grocery store. The ones with no damage to their life and property are suffering survivor’s guilt. The donations are being turned away, there are too many volunteers. How is that possible? Too many volunteers and donations? Unheard of.

But this is the south. That’s what we do.

We are Nashville.

And we still need your help. Please click here to see a list of Nashville charities and other ways you can donate. Thank you!

Wine of the Week: 2007 Castel Venus Nero D’Avola (When you’re stuck in the dark, it’s not a bad companion.)