Adventures in Fiction Writing! Part One: Characters

Afternoon Darlings!

If you follow me on twitter (and you should! Click here to join my adoring following) you probably already know that last year I wrote the first draft of a YA (that's Young Adult for you non-literary readers) novel called Road to Nowhere. I wrote the first words of the story on June 7th, and the last passage on Christmas Day. Romantic, huh?

The novel grew out of a writing prompt that my boyfriend Brandon picked out for me from a book that's literally FULL of them. He gave me the prompt: Newspaper headline ROAD TO NOWHERE SET FOR REPAVING and I sat down to write on it for 30 minutes. I reported on my initial efforts here. (Check it out!)

I've taken the month of January off from the WIP (that's Work-In_Progress for you non-literary readers. What a vocabulary lesson this is becoming for you!) to clear my head so I can dive into the dreaded Suicidal Second Draft with what I hope will be fresh eyes and a clear perspective. I've also decided, because I love you all so much and because misery loves company (mostly because misery loves company), that I will make the revise/rewrite/edit process a public one, here on my blog. So come along, friends! This should be an interesting ride!! 

My Adventures in Fiction Writing series kicks off with a post about CHARACTERS. What about  characters? We love characters, we hate characters. We write characters, we kill characters. Characters whisper scenes in our heads and yell at us when we write their voices wrong and sometimes change appearances halfway through a story.

Gah. I've turned into one of those annoying writers who talks about characters not only as if they're alive, but as if they're sentient and control me. ...
dsofjsdnfs;ljdkn;jdsgndjfsgn;dfjytuygbjhdbsjhbdfs
*Sounds of a scuffle*

This is Cobalt, star of ROAD TO NOWHERE. You will ignore everything Shana wrote about characters above.
poijojnlnljnibweASSDfzsfgfdbfdm   sd;fnsdlkfnsdljfnsfSd...../////
*Thud* *THUMP*

AHEM! This is me again. Cobalt's back where he belongs. Now where was I? Oh yeah: CHARACTERS.

Look, this isn't going to be a writing lesson. I'm not your fucking teacher. I don't have an MFA in creative writing. (That's Masters of Fine Arts. Pay attention please.) I am an educated woman, but everything I know about writing I've learned the hard way, and all of it is probably only true for me.

My truth is my truth and your truth is yours. But MY truth becomes clear when you share YOUR truth with me, and vice versa. That's equally true in fiction as in life. Entiende?

Here's a character chart I drew up when I was about halfway through my novel's first draft.

Notice how sparse it is. See how in the box for Mayor Orange there's only one descriptive term: FAT. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Mayor Orange is fat. Below him , in the box I intended to fill with adjectives that describe Cobalt (introduced above), is one phrase: TOO-LONG BANGS. So, Mayor Orange (first name Princeton) is fat and Cobalt has bangs that fall into his eyes.

What's the deal with this? The thing is, I'm not a visual reader. Therefore, I'm not a visual writer. When I read your characters I don't tend to pay much attention to your description of their appearances, because I almost never remember it, anyway. I'm way more interested in how your characters speak and what they say and especially how they behave.


Of course, there are exceptions. If your character's appearance is an integral part of his/her, well, character, and if you repeat descriptions of it enough times I will remember it. Or if there's an aspect of your character's physical appearance that is an integral part of his/her personhood I'll remember that. For example, Rose the Hat's jaunty top hat in King's Doctor Sleep. Nearly every single time he mentioned Rose he described her hat, perched saucily atop her head at a gravity-defying angle. But you know what? The description never felt overdone. Moreover, it served to describe Rose herself, perched as she was at the top of the True Knot's society, which in turn perched saucily on top of our own society, at a gravity-defying angle.

Pretty deep, huh?

What else did Mr. King say about Rose? She was hot. Was she blonde? Don't think so. What color were her eyes? Don't remember. Don't care. But I'll always remember the hat.

And really I'm that flaky with my own characters, as well. I remember who the badasses are, and the villains. I can tell you which characters start out meek and discover their own strength during the journey. But who's the redhead? Which of the boys has freckles? Are you seriously asking me? I'm supposed to remember? So I made a chart.

I try to give each of my characters some physical trait that describes who they are in the story. I don't know that I'll get around to everyone, but so far I think I've touched each of the main characters.

Mayor (Princeton) Orange is fat, because he represents comfort and plenty. I mean this in both a nice, homey way as well as a selfish way.

Mayor Blue is skeletal and has the parched skin of a mummy because he is Want, and the death of hope.

Fern Viridian has brilliant green eyes and spiky red hair because she is all go, go, go! She has so much curiosity and energy that no one can stop her.

Midnight wears a John Cena tee shirt because she, too, will never give up. She wears a sparkly beaded headband to bring some light into Nowhere. During the story, she is scarred in a very meaningful way.

Navy's head was once shaved. Now his hair is growing back in patches. He wears a hoodie that's way too big for him. His shoes maybe fit two years ago. He cut the toes of the shoes open so his own toes would have some more room. Clearly, this is a neglected young man.

Amarillo Saffron has big, bouncy blonde curls, yellow-green eyes, and a winning smile. She also has spent much of her life trying to please others at the expense of herself. She thinks of herself as a pretty, delicate figurine to be perched someplace: pleasing to the eye but without any inherent strength. She discovers her strength during the story.

Cerulean Saffron has waist-length two-toned hair that she wears in her trademark blonde-and-blue braid that typically hangs over her shoulder. Why the two-toned hair? Duality. She is both of Somewhere and Nowhere. Like her older sister Amarillo, Cerulean is pretty, but in a sturdier, more matronly way.

Azure has blue eyes and strawberry blonde curls and a tiny body. She's 14, but looks more like 11. And that's all I have for her right now. Actually, I don't think this physical description really matches her character. Hmmm...I think I have some work to do with this one.

Denim is large and muscular. DEFINITELY need to work on this guy's physical appearance.

Mr. Scarlet is a main character without much in the way of physical description in the WIP. He doesn't even appear on my character chart. WTF is up with that?

(Yeah, I have a looooong way to go with this WIP. That much is clear.)

There are, of course, more characters than that in ROAD TO NOWHERE. But I think you get the idea. Even better, I've learned some more about my characters during this exercise. So it's a win-win!

And this concludes part one of my ongoing series this year, Adventures in Fiction Writing! Be sure to tune in next time when I write all about the Suicidal Second Draft!

AND REMEMBER:

TOO HOT FOR AMAZON!! Sasha Sparks Author Talks About Smut

Hey y'all. It's Shana. Just wanted to introduce my guest blogger, erotica author Sasha Sparks. Play nice everyone! If you play nice she will. If you don't...watch out! Here's Sasha:

Hi there sexy!
Can I ask you a question? Do you think I look like a nice girl? You think so, right? Well apparently, Amazon doesn't agree. Amazon thinks I'm naughty. Too naughty for them, anyway!

Can you believe it?

A couple of weeks ago, Amazon took down my best-selling sexy story, Baby Learns to Beg. All I got in return was a form email telling me that the book violates their terms of service. That was that. Not even a sorry. Just banned from Amazon!

Well Amazon's loss is the Nook's gain because that's exactly where I took my too hot for Amazon book!

Go here to buy it!

You can also buy my other steamy book: Me & Colette and the Epic Shower. 

Amazon still sells this story, and if you're a kindle whore reader like me ;-) you can buy it here. For some reason the Big Bosses at Amazon don't find this story to be too naughty for their site, although it starts: I'm a slut in the shower, and just gets hotter from there! 

So go on, you sexy beasts! Read and enjoy! Hope you have as much fun reading my smutty stories as I had writing them! ;-)

My Top Ten Reads of 2013

If you couldn't tell by this blog's name, I'm a literary sort of gal. I'm a reading and writing fool. Now that I'm a grown-up and bound by such inane grown-up responsibilities as working and paying bills, I don't read as much as I used to when I was a carefree child. Back in "the day" I'd read 2 to 3 books a week regularly and had a wallet full of the library cards of all the cities I'd lived in. Now I read at breakfast (when I'm not writing my own fiction, that is) and on my lunch break and in bed at night and...sadly that's about it. I carry my kindle on me at all times, though, for stolen moments of literary pleasure. I don't devour books like I used to, that's for sure. But reading will always be one of my main pleasures.

I read a bunch of books in 2013. Some were traditionally published and some were self-published. Some were new and some were even older than me. Some were written by big names and others by authors you should know but probably don't. Most were good, some were not-so-good. A select few were AMAZING. Here are the top ten!

This Grrrl's Top Ten Reads of 2013

Number 10: Transfection by David Gaughran

Transfection is a science fiction short, available only for the kindle (click here for a copy of your own!). I don't always read science fiction, but when I do I like it to be topical, socially relevant, and to pull no punches. Transfection delivers on all fronts. It deals with the hot-button issue of genetically modified food and, well...I don't really want to say much more for fear of spoiling the shocking ending for you. Just read it. It costs 99 cents and delivers MUCH MORE than the price tag would suggest.

Number 9: The Clue of the Tapping Heels by Carolyn Keene

In 2013 I rediscovered my childhood love of Nancy Drew mysteries and began collecting them. In doing so, I discovered something that was totally new to me: at one point the series had been rewritten and "modernized." Some of the titles, though, have been reprinted in their original form. I've found a couple of these. The Clue of the Tapping Heels was the first. I reviewed it back in June of last year. (Read my review here). 

It may seem silly to include such a juvenile book on my top ten list, but the original version of The Clue of the Tapping Heels allowed me to read a beloved classic like it was the first time. How many of us get such a chance? If you can do it, go for it!

Number 8: The ABACUS Protocol: Sanity Vacuum by Thea Gregory

Funny that earlier I said "I don't always read science fiction" because here's another scifi title. Ha-ha. Life is funny like that. Anyhow...

This is another book that I reviewed on its own, you can read the review here. This book was one of those I read last year that I would say are AMAZING. It's classic space opera but more subtle than most others I have encountered in this genre. And the author has a knack of creating very nuanced characters. Give it a read!

Number 7: John Dies at the End by David Wong

This book was weird. 

That almost seems like a "duh" statement, doesn't it? But it's also the truest statement I could come up with. John Dies at the End is weird. It also lies, a lot. Or changes its mind. Or whatever. For example, John doesn't die at the end. He dies about one-third of the way through. But he remains an active character throughout. So is he really dead? I don't know. I read the whole damned book, and I'm just not sure. The only thing I am sure about is that I enjoyed the book. It gives me a headache to think about it, but it's worth it!

Number 6: Chronic Fear by Scott Nicholson

This book is a follow-up to Nicholson's break-away hit Liquid Fear, which I also loved. The story deals with unethical scientists, deadly drug trials and unscrupulous politicians who aren't hesitant to dope the masses. What's not to like? The novels suck you right in and keep you turning pages 'til the end. I highly recommend them. 

Number 5: Gasher Creek by J. Birch

I downloaded my kindle copy of this book when the author had a free promotion going on. I do that a lot as a poor reader. And if you're a poor reader, too, I suggest you do the same. How else are we to be expected to feed our habits?

But after I read it I wished I hadn't. I wished I had paid the author for his efforts because Gasher Creek was just so good. I feel like I somehow cheated by getting a free copy. Last April I reviewed the book. You can read the review here. 

Do you like Westerns? Read Gasher Creek. Do you hate Westerns but love 3-dimensional characters and settings so real you forget where you are while you're reading? Read Gasher Creek. Trust me on this.

Number 4: The Long Walk by Richard Bachman

The first of you who says "Hey wasn't that really written by Stephen King?" please refer to my original review of this book (right here) and then either shut up or go away.

Thank you.

I'm a HUGE Stephen King fan. But sometimes, when I'm in certain moods, I'm an almost bigger Richard Bachman fan. Richard Bachman's books are nearly obsessed with the darker aspects of the human psyche. You can see it in The Running Man, and in Rage, but I think it's especially present in The Long Walk. They're cynical stories. And while you're reading them, you can forget sometimes that we generally expect the good guy to win in the end. Because why would he? 

The world that Richard Bachman writes about is harsh. And it's one that we recognize. You don't read Richard Bachman to escape. You read Richard Bachman to find a friend who can laugh at the darkness with you.

Number 3: I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak

I am just going to have to be honest. When I read this, I had already read The Book Thief and I'd already fallen in love with Markus Zusak. So I'm more than a little biased.

No, not I'm-gonna-move-to-Australia-and-become-his-stalker love. But definitely I'm-gonna-read-everything-this-brilliant-author-ever-writes love. Without a doubt. Here, see what other fans have said about I Am the Messenger on amazon: comments! 

Because I feel like the only thing I can possibly contribute to this discussion is fangirly squealing. READ MARKUS ZUSAK! READ MARKUS ZUSAK!

Number 2: The Collection by Bentley Little

I might sort of be cheating with the number 2 and number 1 spots on my list but I don't care.

The Collection by Bentley Little is exactly that: a collection of short stories. I thought at first I should try to find just one or two stories from it to include on this list but I can't. There are just too many good ones to pick from. 

I found this book in my boyfriend Brandon's personal library. (You think I'm exaggerating? I'm not. The man owns thousands of books!) Brandon has a lot of Little's titles, but the author has written many more that he doesn't have. I had never heard of Little before, which surprised me. I like to consider myself well-read and horror is one of my favorite genres. Not sure how he escaped my notice all my life but I'm glad that's over now. The Collection made me a fan.

Stand-out shorts include:

The Sanctuary

The Washingtonians

Roommates

Full  Moon on Death Row

Confessions of a Corporate Man

The Murmurous Haunt of Flies

Number 1: The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins

Do you see now how I cheated with the number 2 and number 1 spots?

Number 2 was an entire collection and number 1 is a trilogy, so there are well over 10 titles on my top ten reads of 2013 list.

Oh well! If you can't cheat on your own list, whose can you cheat on?

My daughter (who is 17) read the Hunger Games trilogy years ago, as they were being published. And she loved them. My boyfriend, Brandon, read them last year in a weekend. And loved them. I've been meaning to get to them forever it seems, and just kept putting it off. As soon as I started the first book of the trilogy I couldn't believe I had waited for so long. And when I finished the third book, less than a month later (fast for me!), I sobbed like a baby.

Seriously. The last book to make me cry that hard was Push by Sapphire. 

Do I need to tell you what The Hunger Games is about? I doubt it. The books are smash hits, the movies maybe even more so. But I do want to tell you that exciting as the plot is, that wouldn't be enough to land this trilogy on the top spot of my list. What made The Hunger Games my number one read of 2013 was its brutal beauty. Katniss Everdeen, the heroine of the tale, is no Pollyanna. She's selfish. She's not even that nice to the people who love her the most. But she's so real everyone will identify with her. 

And kudos to the author, Suzanne Collins! She managed to write young adult novels that cover such adult themes as political revolution, genocide, and sex slavery with a tactful finesse that was astonishing to behold. Bravo! 

Adventures in Bartending: Christmas Edition!!

What says Merry Christmas better than festive shots? NOTHING.

On that note, I give you the Christmas edition of my periodic blogging adventure through the liquor cabinet that I affectionately call ADVENTURES IN BARTENDING!!

HERE WE GO!

Santa Shot

Ingredients:
3/4 oz. grenadine
3/4 oz. green crème de menthe
3/4 oz. peppermint schnapps

Preparation:
(1) Pour grenadine in a shot glass
(2) Float green crème de menthe on top
(3) Float pepperminet schnapps on top

Watch out!
The Santa Shot is a layered shot. I first talked about layered shots in an earlier bartending adventure. Making layered shots can be tricky. The steps are simple: pour the first layer into the glass, then place a spoon into the glass upside down, the tip of the spoon just barely touching the top of the liquid. Then slowly, sl-o-o-o-w-l-y trickle the liquid for the second (or third) layer over the back of the spoon.

Sounds easy, but it's painstaking work.

The Santa Shot tasted like a cold, extra-sweet, boozy candy cane. Yummy! A good shot for the women in your alcoholic life.



Santa's Breath

Ingredients:
1 part whisky
1 part Sambuca

Preparation:
(1) pour whisky into shot glass
(2) float Sambuca on top

As mentioned in my earlier bartending adventure about layered shots, this shot was a special lesson for me in density. Although I poured the whisky into the glass first, then oh-so-carefully layered the Sambuca on top, when I was done the whisky was the top layer. Oh the chemistry! Where's Mr. Wizard when you need him?

Santa's Breath is STRONG and vaguely medicinal. It'll put hair on your Christmas-loving chest.





Merry Christmas everyone! And DRINK UP!

BOOK REVIEW: Nancy Drew Mystery Stories The Clue in the Diary

Back in June I posted my first review of a Nancy Drew book. (You can read about it here.) My review compared the original, unabridged version of The Clue of the Tapping heels with the much more widely recognized--and abridged--version, the one with the familiar yellow cover.

I was pretty intrigued with the differences between the two books--which I felt went far beyond what was strictly necessary to update the story. But I was even more intrigued to discover that ALL of the familiar yellow cover Nancy Drews are abridged versions of the original stories. Being a collector, I vowed to keep searching for more unabridged versions of the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories.

And well...

I FOUND ONE!!!

 

 

 

Here it is:

 

 

I was thrilled with my find. Having already read the Yellow Cover version of the book, I couldn't wait to dive in. What changes would I find? Would there be entirely new subplots and characters that had been removed from the Yellow Cover version, as was the case with the original Clue of the Tapping Heels? Would I come across any uncomfortably racist remarks? Anything was possible.

 

 

(That's the Yellow Cover version)

 

 

I'll give you a summary of the plot in a moment, but first the numbers:

 

 

The Original Version of The Clue in the Diary has 202 pages and 25 chapters

The Yellow Cover version of The Clue in the Diary has 174 pages and 20 chapters--so it's 28 pages and 5 chapters shorter.

 

 

The story starts out with Nancy and her friends Bess and George enjoying a picnic after a long day at a carnival. They're tired but happy, because it's been a fun day. At the carnival they met a poor woman with an adorable daughter named Honey who they befriended. They intend to keep in touch with them.

 

On the drive home Nancy and the gang come across a fabulous mansion on fire. They stop to help (though what kind of assistance they could possibly lend escapes me) and learn the mansion belongs to a wealthy but unscrupulous man named Felix Raybolt ("Foxy Felix") and his wife. Fortunately, the couple isn't at home, though Nancy does see an unidentified man fleeing the scene. She fails to stop him, but recovers a diary he dropped in his haste to leave.

 





Both versions of the book begin this way. In fact, as I read further into the Original Version I was struck by just how closely it resembled the Yellow Cover book. I had had a decidedly different experience with The Clue of the Tapping Heels. The two versions of that book diverged greatly right from the get-go. I decided to do a close comparison of the first fifty pages of both books, just to see what I could see.

 

In the first 50 pages of the Original Version Nancy and the gang go to a carnival, meet Honey and her mom, stumble upon a fire, find the fateful diary, have a fender bender, meet Ned Nickerson and come to learn that "Foxy" Felix Raybolt made his fortune by swindling investors--and that poor Honey's dad was likely one such victim.

 

The same goes for the Yellow Cover book.

 

So how do the first 50 pages of the two books differ? As it turns out, in mostly aesthetic ways. For example, in the Yellow Cover version of the story, George Fayne, friend to Nancy Drew and cousin to Bess Marvin, was described as slim and short-haired. It's also said that she "enjoyed her boy's name." The Original Version of the book described George this way:

 

She gloried in her athletic prowess, scoffed at anything feminine, and went to great lengths to explain to strangers that George was really her name and not a nickname.

 

Further:

 

George had cropped her straight hair as short as the style would permit, and combed and brushed it as infrequently as possible.

 

 

 





(an artist's rendition of George from the Nancy Drew computer games)

 

 

As an aside can I just say that George is a woefully underused character in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories? I always found her to be a delightfully subversive character for the time. Imagine a young woman named--of all things--George in the 1930s loudly and boisterously eschewing all things feminine? I LOVE THIS.

 



Anyhow, back to the comparison. Do you see what I mean about the differences being merely aesthetic? It almost begs the question: why change anything at all?

 

And how about this?

At the scene of the fire, Nancy's car is hit by a careless driver. Ned Nickerson, ever the helpful young man, accompanied the gang to a mechanic and stuck around long enough to be sure that they'd be able to get back home safely. Just before the girls depart, Ned says:

 

In the Original Version:

"You girls haven't seen the last of me," the young man called gaily after them. "I know the road to River Heights and you musn't be surprised if  I follow it one of these days!"

 

In the Yellow Cover book:

"You girls haven't seen the last of me," the young man called gaily after them. "I know the road to River Heights. Don't be surprised if I follow it one of these days!"

 

The first passage contains 35 words, the second 33. Clearly that selection wasn't edited for length. So, then, what was it edited for? Style? The Original Version of the book was published in 1932. The Yellow Cover came out in 1962. I don't think grammar conventions had changed in those thirty years to such an extent that the term "musn't was deemed to antiquated. Or had it? It's still recognizable today.

 

But there was one other change in the first 50 pages of the novel that I can only conclude was done to make Nancy Drew look better. Or at least, look less like an over-privileged lawyer's daughter.

 

The diary that the young sleuth recovered from the scene of the fire was written mostly in Swedish. Nancy discovered this late one night in bed when she tried in vain to read it. But how, do you ask, was Nancy able to identify the particular language that it was written in? Well that depends on which version of the book you're reading!

 

In the Original Version Nancy recognized the language because she used to have a Swedish maid.

 

"I wish  now that I had kept that Swedish maid. She couldn't cook but she might have been able to read this for me."

 

In the Yellow Cover book Nancy knew the foreign language was Swedish because she had an old Swedish friend.

 

"I'll have to find someone who can read Swedish," she said to herself. "If only Karen were here!" But Nancy's former schoolmate had returned to her native country with her family.

 

Wow...ummm...wow. I love Nancy Drew but even I have to admit that the flippant statement she made in the Original Version came across very bratty. Spoiled bratty.

 

Ahem. Well. In either event, both versions of The Clue in the Diary finished well. Nancy and the gang successfully proved that Honey's father hadn't set fire to the Raybolt mansion and Foxy Felix was convinced it was in his best interest to pay the impoverished inventor for the patent he stole from him. Best of all Ned and Nancy hit it off!

 



 

(I think this scene happens in a later book!)

 

 

 



THIS WILL HAPPEN GODDAMMIT!!

So I'm writing a novel: a YA dystopian novel.
And for the first time since I began self-pubbing short stories a couple of years ago I'm feeling like I would actually like to try to traditionally publish this one.

HAVE I LOST MY MIND?!?

I don't know. Maybe?

But I'd like to! I really feel like I've got something worthwhile going on here, you know?

But that, of course, means I have to finish the damn thing. SO I'M MAKING A DECLARATION!!

I hereby promise to you, to myself, to the NSA, and to any and all deities listening that I WILL HAVE THE FIRST DRAFT DONE BY NY 2014!!!


And here's a little taste, just for stopping by:

(The following is an excerpt from ROAD TO NOWHERE)

Cerulean met the little girl at Gruesome Point. That was where she met all the newcomers. The girl wore fuzzy pink slippers, pink bows in her hair, and a cheery nightgown that looked out of place with her gray surroundings and was all quivering lips, trembling hands, and wide, staring eyes. She looked like she had woken up to discover her nightmare was real. Which was pretty much exactly what had happened.

Meeting kids like this always made Cerulean want to cry, but she couldn't, at least not now. Now she had to put on a smile and be brave for the girl—assure her that life goes on, even in Nowhere.

She had to lie, in other words.

Cerulean smiled and approached the terrified child. “Hi,” she said in her most soothing voice, “I'm Cerulean. What's your name?”

“Where am I?” The little girl asked.

“This place doesn't really have a name,” Cerulean said. “We call it Nowhere. What can I call you?”

“I'm Indigo,” the girl said. “This place is scary. I don't want to be here. Where's my mommy?”

“Your mom's at home,” Cerulean said, knowing what question came next, and hating herself for how she was going to have to answer it.

“Can I go home?”

“I'm afraid not. At least not yet. We haven't figured out a way to leave this place.”

Indigo burst into tears. Cerulean wrapped her tiny body in a hug.

“Sshh,” she said. “You'll be OK. I'll take care of you. You can stay with my while you're here.”

Indigo just kept sobbing. “I...I want...my...mommy!”

“I'll be your mommy here,” Cerulean said. “I'll take care of you.”

She picked the distraught child up and walked toward home.

A short while later, after Cerulean's footsteps and Indigo's cries faded into the black night, Mayor Blue came prancing up the street toward Gruesome Point. He wore a pointy hat atop his head and a shirt five sizes too big that flapped around his bony frame like a sail in the wind. His skin was cracked and the yellowy-gray of old parchment and it was stretched across his skull so tight it pulled his mouth into a mean, tight-lipped grimace.

He paused at the spot where Indigo stood and bent over, examining something on the ground.

Presently he stood up and laughed. He held aloft a stoppered glass bottle. Its contents swirled and sparkled in the pale moonlight. A label on the bottle identified the substance as Tears.

“Girl's tears always taste the sweetest,” the mayor said in a voice like the rustling of leaves on a cold night.

And he skipped away into the night.

BOOK REVIEW: The Tree House Mystery

Ah, nostalgia.

Ladies and gentlemen and readers of all ages, today I review the VERY FIRST BOOK I EVER READ: The Tree House Mystery by Carol Beach York.

I read this book for the first time when I was five. And I read it to spite my older sister Tonya. Tonya was seven and in second grade and could already read. I was in kindergarten and couldn't yet read on my own and that fucking killed me. And then one day I found her copy of this book on the floor of the bedroom the two of us shared with our little sister Melissa and I decided then and there that I was going to read it. All by myself. Come hell or high water.

So I hid the book where Tonya wouldn't look and every day when I got home from school, after lunch and The Monkees (back then kindergarten was only half a day guys), I would go upstairs to our bedroom and sit in my bed and stare at the pages.

And stare and stare.

And then stare some more.

Until one day the words made sense. I mean, not all of the words. Some words I had to sort of figure out by using context clues from the rest of the sentence. And other words I couldn't fathom at all and I just skipped over them. But I could read most of the words! Enough to puzzle out the story.

The book is about a family--the Mayfairs. There's mom and dad Mayfair and Roger and Annabelle. They sell their house in the city and buy a bigger house with a huge amount of property out in the country. They get 23 acres, which includes a wooded area and a creek. In the wooded area is--can you guess? A big old tree with a tree house. At first Roger and Annabelle are excited about the tree house. But then they started noticing things--scary things--about it. Like the huge footprints in the dirt at the base of the tree. And the note tucked into the floor boards that warned them away and mentioned that "The Thing" would be back.

SPOILER ALERT!!

There was no "Thing." It turned out that two little boys who lived on an adjacent property had been using the tree house for a clubhouse while nobody owned it and just didn't want to give it up when the Mayfairs moved in. But Roger was glad to have a couple little boys his age to play with so they all got along and lived happily ever after.

Guys this book is just good fun. It's a short, easy read: a small chapter book appropriate for kids 5 to 9 or 10. There are 90 pages, big type and lots of sketches to accompany the text. Reading it again now I'm reminded of The Magic Tree House series. I wonder if Mary Pope Osborne read the Tree House Mystery when she was little?