Monday, March 3, 2014

Little House on the Prairie vs Church

When I was 12 I faced a dilemma. For years I LOVED—read and reread— the Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  And in my twelfth year the book series was going to become a television series! And here’s the problem—the television show conflicted with our Wednesday night church activity. I had to choose, Little House on the Prairie or church.
To be honest, my parents made that decision for me and I went to church. Looking back, it was a silly dilemma, but it was wrenching at the time. How could I know that for many LOOOONNNGGG years later I could watch my fill of Little House on the Prairie reruns? How could I know that in just three years at age 15 I would consider the TV series hokey and trite? How could a television show even compare to the experiences and relationship I shared with the young women at church?
A realization came to me yesterday while I was at church. (Yes, I still go, even though my mom, the driving force behind my choice between Little House and church, is gone.) Someday, maybe 40 years from now, will I look back at all my book-selling angst with same kind of head-shaking wonder as I now have for my Little House on the Prairie vs. church dilemma? Will I wonder why I watched my books’ rankings rise and fall so often and why I cared so very much? Will I remember the poor reviews and wonder why I let them hurt me?
This poem by William Martin is real life.



And this poem by e.e. cummings is real love and death. And in the end, I don’t think anything else really matters. We live, we love and we die. And if we happen to watch a TV show or sell a few books along the way—that’s nice—but it’s not why we live. We live to love and be loved. Period (or if you happen to e.e.—then no periods at all).
E. E. Cummings
anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain
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Friday, February 28, 2014

Hailey on Freebooksy!




I'm so honored to have Hailey featured on Freebooksy! (Don't forget, Hailey is free until Monday!)

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Thursday, February 27, 2014

Hailey is Free!

My novel, Hailey's Comments, a 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel quarter-finalist is free today. Please tell your friends. Use blow horns.
http://www.amazon.com/Haileys-Comments-Kristy-Tate-ebook/dp/B00AHH12HG/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1393512629&sr=8-8&keywords=kristy+tate
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Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Every Writer Needs a Dog


As a writer, it’s easy to let myself escape into my head. I consider this a really important part of my job. Some refer to this as being in the flow, in the moment, or in the zone as if it’s a physical place rather than a state of mind. Wikipedia describes “flow” as the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. And this immersion is a good thing. Mostly.

According to Wikipedia, when I’m not in the flow I am depressed. To be caught in the ennui of depression or the agitation of anxiety is to be barred from flow.

Here’s me when I’m not writing: Carol drops by with a pan of brownies. She looks like a teenager in that halter top. She says, “I brought these for your husband to thank him for helping me fix that broken window.” I say thank you, but inside I’m thinking I really wish she’d wear more clothes. I wonder what she was wearing when Larry was at her house, for how long was that? I can’t compare myself to her—I had six kids and she has a cat. Maybe my abs would look like that if I had countless hours to spend at the gym. Does she work out at the same gym as Larry? Why does she call him all the time? He doesn’t even like brownies. But I love them. I bet she knows that. She knows that I’m going to eat this entire pan of brownies because now I’m so depressed and one or two or five brownies isn’t going to matter because I’m going to be divorced, single and fat. I better call Larry, although I just talked to him, and he’ll be home for lunch in twenty minutes. I need to hear his voice.

Here’s me when I’m writing: the doorbell rings but I don’t hear it because I’m deep into my story. Somehow Mercy has to stop Eloise from going on a drive with horrid Mr. Steele. What can she do—should she confide in Eloise? In the real world, my dog is pawing at me. No. Eloise is a blabber mouth. She can’t be trusted. My dog knows someone has come to the door and she pulls at my sock with her teeth. I shake her off, but she’s so annoying that I have to investigate. Someone has left brownies on my front porch with a thank you note. It’s from Carol, that darling girl from across the street. I consider the brownies and inspiration hits—Mercy will bake Eloise a pie laced with a draught that will make her sleep through her rendezvous with Steele. I put the brownies on the counter and save them for when Larry comes home for lunch. I hurry back to Mercy, Eloise and Mr. Steele, wondering how to make a sleeping draught.
 (FYI- Neighbor Carol is fictional, used to make a point about my own lunacy and not a commentary on my highly respectable, modestly clothed and admirable neighbors or my good husband who always lets me eat more than my fair share of brownies.)

Being a writer isn’t an excuse for poor citizenship. Just because you’re thinking about your book and not about the road doesn’t mean you get to run red lights. Once while writing at the Mission Viejo library, I turned off my laptop, stood up, only to suddenly realize that a person on the other side of the glass partition, not more than eight feet away, must have had some sort of collapse. The room was filled with paramedics, a gurney, and a crowd of about forty people. As I left the library, I passed an ambulance pulled up to the curb, lights flashing. I don’t know how I missed all of this, but I’ve since taken it as a life lesson. I never want to be so caught up in my own private world that I can’t recognize and help someone in need.
This is why I need a dog. Sometimes I need someone, preferably someone furry, someone willing to tug on my socks with their teeth, to drag me out of the flow. And Grendel needs me to feed her, clean up after her, and take her for walks. I also need her for other things, like chasing the bunnies out of my yard and letting me know when the Girl Scouts are at my door to sell cookies.

Is it possible to become so immersed in the flow that I can’t get out? Sure. We all know the very real, gritty stories of the writers who lost their minds. It’s happened to the best of us. A flow so strong can carry us away and before we know it, we’re drowning. Hemmingway had cats, but cats won’t tug on your socks with their teeth. They just won’t.


That’s why every writer needs a dog.
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Saturday, February 8, 2014

Romance is in the Air Blog Hop!

Hi everyone! Welcome to my blog hop where I'm giving away a $20. Sees Candy gift certificate and my the first two novels of my Beyond Series.
When Petra Baron goes into the fortuneteller’s tent at a Renaissance fair, she expects to leave with a date to prom. Instead, she walks out into Elizabethan England, where she meets gypsies, a demon dog and a kindred spirit in Emory Ravenswood. 

Emory must thwart the plans of religious zealots. His mission is dangerous, his enemies are fanatical, and Petra Baron is a complication that Heaven only knows he does not need. Or does he? Although Emory is on Heaven’s errand, he learned long ago that Heaven does not always play fair. 

As Petra slowly falls for Emory, she wonders if he really is who he seems, or if he is just as lost as she is. How can they have a future while trapped in the past? Or is anything possible Beyond the Fortuneteller’s Tent?
Petra Baron and her immortal boyfriend, Emory Ravenswood, are living their happily ever after in modern day Orange County, California until Dane, a heart-stoppingly handsome man from Petra's past shows up. Petra can't remember Dane, or anything else about her time in Tarrytown, New York two hundred years ago, but Emory does, and he knows she's lucky to have forgotten all about Dane and the nightmarish episode in the fall of 1810. 
When Emory disappears so suddenly after Dane’s appearance, Petra doesn’t know whether Dane can lead her to Emory or to the nightmare she can’t remember. But what she does know is that once upon a time really means two hundred years ago, and that if she wants to find Emory the first place to look is Sleepy Hollow, 1810. 
With a collection of Washington Irving's writings in her hand and a prayer that the same nine-pin playing ghosts that gave carried away Rip Van Winkle will give her a drink of their ale, Petra heads into another time defying adventure. 
Beyond the Hollow is the second book in the Beyond series, where Petra is reminded that love is always timeless. 

 Here's how you can win, one entry each:
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Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.

I picked it up at the library. It was on the corner aisle and I liked the title, flipped it open and fell in love with the prose, so I brought it home. And now, a few hours later, I think I’m done with it. Why?

I love the premise, the small town on the coast setting. I like Violet—the way she repeatedly uses the word “damn” and the way she describes her world. I’m even okay with the furry-toothed creature living in a tunnel.

And I love the prose. “Our town was small enough that I never developed a healthy fear of strangers. To me, they were exciting things, gift-wrapped and full of possibilities, the sweet smell of somewhere else wafting from them like perfume. And so River West, stranger, didn’t stir in me any sort of fear, only a rush of excitement, like how I felt right before a really big storm hit, when the air crackled with expectation.”
And, “I was beginning to feel stupid, like some dumb girl who opens her mouth and lets all her thoughts fall out.” Who hasn’t felt like that?

So, why did I put it down on page 63? Because Violet did something that no heterosexual, seventeen year old girl could ever do. She took a NAP with a boy that she just met that morning. A boy she likes. A “strong, lean” brown-eyed boy with “been-in-the-summer-sun-every-day skin.” She lies down on a sofa, her back pressed into his torso, and falls asleep for hours.

So not happening.
 I’ve been napping for more than half a century and I can tell you that if a boy I liked asked me to lay next to him for a nap—it wouldn’t happen. I might pretend to sleep. And maybe if I hadn’t slept in days and days it could happen, but more than likely, I’d be thinking about my knees and how they bump together, and wondering where to put my hands, and worried that my hair would tickle his nose. My mind would race and so would my blood and sleep just wouldn’t happen.

So, even though April Genevieve Tucholke writes sentences as beautiful and mysterious as her name, I’m pretty sure I’m done with this book.


I actually went to the library to pick up two books, Kathryn Harrison’s Enchantments: A novel of Rasputin's daughter and the Romanovs and Robert Alexander’s Rasputin’s Daughter, because the story brewing in my head—the book that I know how it ends and how it starts but haven’t a clue what happens in between—will have something to do with Rasputin…and the Pre-Raphaelites…even though their glory days happened decades apart…and on different continents.



Maybe falling asleep beside a boy with a straight nose, a crooked smile and panther hips isn’t as improbable as Rasputin meeting the Pre-Raphaelites…

But no. It totally is.
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Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Hailey's New Cover

What do you think?
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