Sheila Boneham's Blog: Writing on Wednesday Guest Denise Hartman on Raisi...

If you've got a longing to write, check out my guest blog on raising the tension in your writing.


Sheila Boneham's Blog: Writing on Wednesday Guest Denise Hartman on Raisi...: My guest today is mystery author Denise Hartman, who helps us raise the tension -- useful in many types of writing, not just mysteries a...

A compelling exploration of consciousness

A while ago I blogged about finding books. This is an off shoot of that discussion. I'm traveling again and I thought I'd look for a book set in Portugal. I still don't have a great way of finding books, but I started trolling through a Good Reads list.

The title of this blog was a phrase in a review, a glowing review I might add. For me, this phrase tells me it's probably not what I'm looking for at the moment. I don't want to explore anyone's consciousness -- I've got plenty of work with my own, thanks.

I generally avoid overly popular books unless someone I know I share reading interests tells me it's worth the journey.

It doesn't seem quite fair that I complain about not finding books I enjoy and yet don't want to read the "experiemental and unique" or highly literary. Those are phrases that make feel the ponderous emotional baggage of the book before I open the cover.

I totally get that this is a category of highly acclaimed books that many, many people enjoy. It's just generally not for me.

In a similar way, the phrase love triangle, undying, unbounding, forsaken, forbidden, or any other adjective followed by the word love, isn't in my scope right now either. I had a phase of that and for the moment and as far as I can tell I've left it behind.

So do you have certain catch phrases or descriptors that as soon as you see them you know a book is or is not for you? Am I guilty of stereotyping?

Impressions in Switzerland + video

I attended a conference in Switzerland and at first had no intention of blogging about it because really when you go to these conferences you mostly see the inside of a hotel, right? In the end, I had a few interesting observations that I thought I would share.

The first piece of advice I'm going to give is: learn how to pronounce your destination before you leave home. I was in the throes of video production and left home in rather a frenzy. I had no idea how to pronounce the town I was trying to find.

I made eye contact in customs with the thought of asking where the train station was located. Bad idea. Never make eye contact in customs. I looked away thinking this wasn't the place to ask and for my courtesy I got to have my undies inspected. It was all very fast and efficient, but part of the challenge was trying to say where I was going. He couldn't understand me and I had no idea how to pronounce it which made me suspect.

I made it out of customs and was struck that everyone in Zurich airport seemed to be speaking French, so I incorrectly came to the conclusion that French dominated. In Switzerland, they have four official languages: German, French, Italian, and Rumantch (or Romanch). I did hear the cleaning guys in the train station in Zurich all laughing and carrying on in Italian. I think I heard Rumantch on the bus. Not sure what I'd liken it to - something with a touch of Slavic influence but still a romance sounding language.

The bus driver with the name of the town I was going to on the front of his bus (Oberägeri) could not understand my pronunciation of the town. His English was perfect but my enunciation of the town lacked something. I had trouble getting a ticket.

After the brown and dry summer of Madrid, I found the lush greenness of Switzerland soothing if somewhat chilly.  It was the second day before the clouds lifted enough to realize there was a mountain range of serious mountains tucked between the two grand hills by the lake I could see from my hotel room.

Once in the German speaking section of Switzerland, there was no longer a whisper of another language. Our conference was at a convalescence/retreat/convent type place, but it was protestant and the nuns had rather a Mennonite look and spoke only German. As you can imagine, this was not the main tourist area and not everyone spoke English like in the city. No English signs or helpful hints in the hotel. Luckily there were no fire drills, so I didn't have to try to understand the instructions.

One elderly lady from the convalescence center decided to find out what our group was about and cornered someone by the water cooler/wifi nook. She seemed disappointed that we were a film making group. She'd made up her mind that we were a psychology group.

I ducked out of a session when the sun came out to sit for a minute on the terrace overlooking the lake. A large convalescing lady with canes came and sat with me and her husband proceeded to bring chairs and place them all around.  (Them: Something German. Me: Smile and nod.) Eventually a  family reunion took place and I decided to skedaddle.

After Madrid, I had the impression that everything was very orderly and efficient. Not trying to take up the Swiss stereotypes but they are apparently stereotypes for a reason. We were to check off our choices for dinner and lunch at breakfast and the wait staff didn't speak English so at times you just decided it was easier to take what they offered than to explain.

I thought perhaps it was just me but one of the British members of the conference commented that it all seemed very clean and orderly. When we were catching the train back to the airport (after two buses to get to the train), we were sort of watching to see if it left on time due to Swiss efficiency. The train left two minutes late. Our droll Romanian companion from the conference proclaimed, "We must make a report of this," and we all died laughing.

The conference did have an outing to a nearby park area on top of one of the mountains and I saw Swiss cows and heard their cowbells!

 We also had a bit of Alphorn playing our last night (a la Riccola commercial) which was interesting to see. I'm not making this up: one of the Alphorn players was named Heidi. I was trying to see it as a cultural moment but several of my companions were getting tickled. The Alphorn players said they'd play a really different song later, but despite having a wide tonal range they only had so many actual notes. (I'm not musical so excuse that description.) The songs started to sound similar at which point the chuckling became hard to hold in. It was a lovely taste of Switzerland, even if mostly from buses, trains, and hotels.

Koolaid lips...at your age?

Do you remember vigorous days of running around with neighborhood kids and all of you having red mouths? My house was not a Koolaid house. That was strictly a luxury that was experienced at others' homes. All that sugar being poured into a pitcher - wow! And always the red flavors were my favorite.

Another red mouth treat was a bomb pop. Do you remember those? Frozen rockets of red,  white and blue sugar water. The top was red and that's where the red lips came from. Then they would turn purple when you ate the bottom row of blue goodness.

So what makes me think about Koolaid lips? I have to restrict my caffeine intake, thus my soda intake (which is good for me I know...blah,blah) So when I want something that isn't water or decaf tea --- I turn to Crystal Lite or the generic equivalent from your favorite big store.

I looked in the mirror at work the other day and realized I had Koolaid lips because my favorite flavors are still the red ones and they just tend to stick to your lips somehow. Now according to the urban dictionary  Koolaid lips are the mustache that you get if you don't wipe your mouth from these tasty colorful treats. I call that Koolaid mustache. Granted, I do not get the Koolaid mustache -- at least I'm able to keep that from happening at my age.


It's just funny, harking back to the previous blog, at a certain age, to recognize Koolaid lips on yourself, but I'm not giving up the cherry, fruit punch, strawberry daiquiri flavors just because of Koolaid lips. I need to remember to use my lip balm before I imbibe the red stuff that's suppose to help the color not sink in so much.

Everyone raise your glass and drink with me -- here's to Koolaid lips, no matter your age.

Glasses: Life Undeniable

I have a birthday creeping up on me in October. No, I'm not telling if you don't already know. All my life I've looked younger than my age, so I don't necessarily mind claiming any random year I happen to be in, but there is one thing about this aging gig that is bothering me which will give away my age a bit.

It's the glasses. I have never had to wear glasses for sight before now. While I don't necessarily look my age, and mostly feel like that number on my driver's license is an alien compared to how I feel, when I can't read the page there's no denying it.

It is truly the only thing that makes me feel my age. When I was in college, I always felt like I should have glasses when I sat down to write a paper. It just seemed like it would add some intellectual edge to the paper writing if I used glasses at that moment.

Now I am at the beginning of this glasses journey, and I often still sneak by without them. I'm generally okay on the computer and in good light down to about 10 point type. Poor light or small type and all bets are off.  I'm getting good at sort of estimating the shape of words when I have forgotten my, uh, limitations. The beauty of digital reading devices is that you can adjust the letters to your needs and voila, no glasses needed.

My significant other is four years older than I am and has been using the cheater glasses for several years. Sometimes I look across my glasses at him across the room in his glasses and I think, "Holy crap, we're getting old! How the heck did that happen?" We both have good genes that have given us a semblance of youth for many years which has been a mixed blessing. Yes it's nice to not look your age as the numbers pile up, but for many years we were assumed to be not really qualified because we were too young (this is when I wished they could ask your age on job apps.)

It's sort of a weird thing to go from looking too young for any given job to needing glasses to read the application. I'm also noticing in addition to the need for a little glass to enlarge and focus the letters, the younger people are assuming my age a little higher than they used to in the guessing age games. The trick to that is stick to asking the older people how old they think I am, as they guess decades younger than I am and I can exult that at least someone thinks I'm still that young. Sadly I don't play the game myself, so it's usually some friend saying to a random person, how old do you think they are?  With the glasses, it's getting easier to peg us.

How do you decide what to read?

This has not been my best year on finding amazing books to read. To be sure I've read some good ones this year, but feel like I've been disappointed more than normal.

As I've ventured out into the world of independent publishing, I've of course explored many marketing sites. This has led to me downloading a lot of book that are on sale or being publicized for a free day.

I can honestly say I've been disappointed this year by as many "big six publisher" books as I have by independents. So this is not a trash the independent book blog. I think I've come to the realization that the way we find books is changing just like the industry is changing.

I used to go into book stores or the library, go to my favorite area of mysteries, and browse. I stopped to pull books off the shelf by interesting titles or authors I'd knew. Once the book was off the shelf, I read the cover copy or "book blurb" and looked at the cover. If I was intrigued but not sold, I'd start reading the first page. If I was at the library, I'd of course take something I was less certain of than I might at the store. I also found books by word of mouth from my friends and family. My grandmother, aunt, and mother have all had a pass around the books thing going since I was a teenager.

In the last two years, I have started buying digitally. That has meant less sharing though that is beginning to be remedied too. I also have, excuse the cliche, started to judge a book by it's cover.

Since I used to work in design, I can often sense a self made cover. I don't mean to be a cover snob, but there's a je ne sais quoi about a well done cover that's hard to put your finger on but it's real and it's there. (I can use that phrase because I did study and tried to speak French for four years.) That's not necessarily a fair way to judge the book content. Could be very well written with no money for a cover.

I live in a foreign country and so my word of mouth way of finding a book doesn't work like it used to. I've joined a few reader's pages on Facebook and found some nice recommendations from that but so far they've been pricier options so I'm waiting for something more in my range or a sale.

I'm on Good Reads and have used some of their reviews to make decisions about buying a book. If someone says they needed hankies, well that book is out. I don't need tears while I'm relaxing. If it says literary masterpiece, I'm probably out too. I like light or action to keep my mind off the realities of life while I read and literary is usually code for trying to turn tragic bits of life into thoughtful novels. Call me shallow but that's not my reading taste - at least at the moment. So sometimes a review says something wonderful, but I know by the description it's not for me.

Now, I'm looking for a book set in Switzerland. I love to read something from the region while I travel and since I'm headed there in a couple weeks I'm shopping. Price I'm discovering is key for me. Nothing I've seen recommended is under $8 and one I liked the sound of was $12. A price point for me is the paperback novel price. I never buy hardbacks unless they're gifts for others, so when a digital book is more than a paperback I start flinching.

So any recommendations anyone? Switzerland settings or otherwise? How do you find books?

How will I know?

Sorry for all of you who automatically get a Whitney Houston song in your head with that title, me included. I tweeted an article about letting your writing ripen and since I just finished the rough draft of my Work In Progress about a month ago this is on my mind a lot.

I eschew an unripe book. I've been delving into the world of cheap ebooks this year and while there have been some gems I've had several that I was underwhelmed with and with all of my soul I do not want to release a half baked book.

In thinking about the idea of finishing in general though, many fields have a hard time knowing when something is "done." A lot of things have a certain art or a level of taste that makes it hard to know what done will look like. Something the creator hopes they will feel. If it was a cake a timer would go off to tell you it's ready for the world at large.

Another example: corporate reports -- not necessarily the height of creativity but then they are likely finished by deadline not by a boss who has finessed it to his or her heart's content. Seems like the deadline comes and you give it in as good as you can get it. Working in newspaper was a lot like that. My articles were not fine art, but they were as good as I could get in the time allowed.

What else is hard to know when it's done? Wine? I'm not a connoisseur, but I know if it goes the wrong way you get something more akin to vinegar. Timing is appropriate. Obviously paintings -- it's in the eye of the creator, right? Who has ever been to a modern art gallery and thought: wonder if that was all they meant to put up there? Home decor - a favorite of mine, but have you ever been in someone's house who seemed to go a little too far with say baby photos or ducks or (fill in the blank)? For them it seemed just right. For the visitor, a bit much.

An infamous George Lucas quote goes: A movie is never finished only abandoned. It's hard for a producer, a director, or an editor to find something done and beyond one more tweak. Never mind getting all three to agree it's 100 percent perfect. At some point you gotta stick a fork in it and call it done.

So how will I know my book Nosy Neighbors is ready for the world? I did a lot of prep work that was new for me, plotting my book before I wrote it as well as modifying this structure while I wrote during the last year. I will follow all the good advice I know and have test readers, editors etc and hope someone stops me if I'm not there yet. But I will stick a fork in it and let it come to the world.

I am related to computer programmers. I know they hate, hate having to fix or find code problems, but what I do envy them is that they know when they run the test - either the program works or it doesn't -- but then there's the "bugs." Maybe no one is safe.

The Country Game - where are they from?

So when I'm in a tourist destination city or even somewhere rather common but I hear accents, I play a game. It's the guess-where-people-are-from game. I look at their clothing and shoes. I look at the way they are communicating with the people around them and the game is afoot.

When we were in San Sebastian, the northern beach town in Spain, we ran into so many U.S. Americans it was uncanny. I rarely hear that many in Madrid and I never did figure out what could be such a draw to a city that isn't famous. The famous Pamplona running of the bulls was going on, so possibly that brought more people to a nearby place too. It seemed a more, uh, middle aged crowd which I don't think of as the bull run people, but maybe it's on a lot of people's bucket list.

In Madrid last week, the tourist crowds were in evidence in a big way. It's August after all and that seems to be a big time they come in waves, while all the Spanish leave the city. I love when I have someone pegged and then I sidle up close to them to hear what language they are speaking. I saw a man that made me think South America or Central America but then I noticed the clothes -- sure enough good ole USA accent. Or sometimes I totally have a person pegged as and fellow Estado Unidense and turns out they are German or Dutch.

I'm not judging people. It's just fun to try to spot the country from external clues and what I've found is there is little rhyme or reason. It seems like I spot the U.S. A. residents easier likely because they are my fellow Americans. I can't put my finger on it. Sometimes it's a little too sporty, or sometimes just too well put together, or shoes. Chunky birkenstock type sandals are a sure sign of what the Spanish call guiris (foreign white folks). Those from the US often talk loud so obviously I spot the accent, but Spanish people speak loud too. Weight isn't always a good indicator of the "fat American." I've run into some larger Spanish folks lately and some of our Eastern European neighbors can get to a substantial size. Taller people I tend to guess as being from the Netherlands (the tallest in Europe) or possibly German or American. It's an interesting accumulation of clues that make me guess and I'd say half the time I'm wrong! Am I the only one who does this?

Weekend at the Beach: San Sebastian, Spain

In Spain, where I live, people go on vacation in August. The whole month is not unusual depending on their resources. It's either the beach or  traditionally families have a place from their original village and many  go spend time there during the brutal heat of August.

We thought we'd get a jump on that mass exodus of Madrid and went to the beach for a 3 day weekend in July. We'd heard from Spanish friends that San Sebastian is one of the prettiest cities in Spain and it has one of the Spanish people's favorite beaches - La Concha.

We almost pulled the plug on the trip because we couldn't find a reasonable hotel. Prices were crazy high even for Europe. We still paid what is a lot for us --  and we stayed in a dormitory/hotel on the university campus there. It was a decent, basic room with our own bath and only a 10 minute walk from Ondaretta Beach. I was a little disappointed because I was afraid it was too far away for us to get a chance to visit La Concha. Turned out my fears were in vain.

The whole city was quite walkable and had tons of bicycle paths too. It's a flat little carving out of city right before the mountains start. It hadn't been damaged by the civil wars and had a lovely mix of architecture. Art nouveau, 18th Century and revival styles. As one friend put it, it has lots of beautiful little squares and neighborhoods, not just one main plaza for tourists.

You could easily walk down Ondaretta Beach, climb some rocks with the aid of steps and be on the La Concha Beach. It was pretty. I don't know if I know why it is a favorite for Spaniards or not, but the city lines the beach and some of it with the nice historic architecture. Some lovely victorian glass pavilions right on the beach have been converted into restaurants where you can have a sandwich or a coffee and look right out over the water. Prices were reasonable too -- maybe cheaper than Madrid.

We would drive in the evenings from the hotel to the main downtown area. About a 5 minute drive and the paid parking was cheaper than Madrid too. Evening meals tended to be more expensive of course and the seafood area by the bay had really high prices which we decided not to try, but we still ate good just exploring the city. We had our seafood at the Chinese pick your own food to grill place.

The weather in the north is much cooler and we needed a light sweater and jeans at night and even had the chilly temps drive us off the beach with clouds one afternoon. But that part of the country is known for rain and cooler weather so we were fortunate.

Always remember when you go to the beach in Spain that you'll see some skin, but some beaches are more family friendly than others. These seemed to be the family friendly variety. Some topless bathing or changing into your swimsuit on the beach but no big exhibitions. So that's either really good or disappointing -- depending on your perspective. ha!

It was glorious to be out of the heat of Madrid, but one drawback we faced was that Madrileños had indeed already started going on vacation. The result of all these city dwellers going to the beach or to the old family homestead for the weekend is huge traffic jams getting back into the city on Sunday night (or leaving on Fridays). We spent one hour in a crawl as the autopista approached the city ring highways. In July! So much for beating the vacation traffic of August. But those traffic jams jump up to 5 and six hours when August comes, so maybe it wasn't so bad. Next time we'll ask for Monday off and come back without traffic.

Ode to Sam

In 2005, we were preparing to move to Spain. We had this group of people we hung out with a lot. We were part of several of the same groups at our church and several of us lived in the same neighborhood too, so walks would inevitable end up saying hello at someone's house. When our departure approached, Forrest, as he called himself in his original blog, pushed and pushed for us all to start blogs. That way when my hubby and I moved away, we could all still know what was going on in each other's lives.

I resisted at first, honestly. I always felt that I should be working on my books if I was writing, not frittering away at blogs. But Forrest won out. This blog is due to him. The first few years it was just stories between our friends about life using our nom de plumes. It was a private and entertaining circle.

I discovered that blogging was therapeutic in that I could get a good or bad story off my chest. I also discovered it was a good thing to prime the writing pump and get me going. It was also good writing practice I could do in moments rather than hours.

Well, Facebook came along and many of us drifted away from our blogs. By then, I'd found the benefits and still posted things in a haphazard way. Like I do now, but now I'm working vigorously on my work in progress so I'm not pressuring myself on the blog.

Forrest, whose "real" name was Sam (at least that's what we all called him) one time taught a class at our church that challenged people of faith to participate in the arts - be it movies, fine art, music etc. It was a delight to my soul as an author to find someone inside the walls of a church encouraging art for art's sake. It's a movement that has grown through the years and seems to have it's own place in the world now, but at the time it was unique to me.

Sam had quit blogging in our small group but in 2009 started an art blog. He challenged himself to do a piece of artwork a week for one year. Sam was by day an architect and a by night a creative soul.

I was fascinated watching the year progress as Sam did his art work and posted it on Facebook and his blog. Here's his art blog. It was so much work and so interesting to see. I was so inspired, in fact, the following year in 2010 I decided to blog 52 times. A much easier task, really, than producing 52 paintings, but a commitment for me none the less. My writing was in a slump again and this was a great opportunity to get it rolling again.

One thing has led to another and now I have a book and short stories for sale online with plans for print books this fall. I can credit some of that to Sam for pushing and inspiring. He would always ask me about my writing and we could always have conversations comparing writing as and art and painting and the discipline of art.

He loved art and music and had STRONG opinions on them. Actually Sam had strong opinions on everything and while there were moments, he could drive me crazy with that, I totally learned to be more willing to offer my own opinions and to listen to others even if I didn't agree.

Sam and some of the guys would hang out at a coffee shop on Thursdays and one of his projects was taking music he'd discovered and creating seasonal themed CDs. Seasonal in that these songs made him feel or think of summer, fall, winter, or spring. While I wasn't necessarily in this crowd of hombres, I got the advantage of discovering new music from these music CDs. In fact, I found some of my favorite bands because of Sam and his insatiable search for new or edgy music.

It's amazing how one person can seep into you without you really knowing. We had to say goodbye to Sam last week. Mesothelioma (a vicious kind of cancer) took him suddenly from our circle of friends and his family.  Absence is hard to take.

RIP GF "Sam" Wagner 1974-2012.