Author Archives

MissMelisshttp://www.missmeliss.com

Magazines

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I’m primarily a reader of books but there are times when a magazine is the best thing ever, and other times when there is no other reading material available.

I like all kinds of magazines, but am especially partial to literary zines filled with short stories, and home decor / lifestyle publications like Real Simple and Mary Englebreitt’s Home Companion, and sometimes, I confess, I do read good old Martha, even if the fact that her hair is always in her eyes constantly annoys me.

At the salon, I indulge in my guilty pleasure: fashion magazines filled with everything from diet pill reviews to runway fashion shoots, and dishy celebrity gossip. These are the magazines I refuse to actually buy, but enjoy in small doses.

At home, we accept delivery of only three or four magazines: The Writer, Writer’s Digest, Discover and National Geographic.

Everything else, we only pick up as the mood suits.

Your turn: What magazines do you read? Which ones do you avoid at all costs?

Do You Remember…?

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I have a long memory that is at some times vague and at others very specific.

My earliest specific memory is from when I was two or younger, and involves my grandmother’s back door, with the gauzy translucent curtain that veiled (but did not completely obstruct) the view through the heavy glass of the door, and their black dog, Misty. There are no details, beyond the presence of the dog, the fact that the door was closed. I think she may have wanted to go out, but I was far too little to even reach the doorknob.

It is somehow appropriate that I remember this dog in soft focus, as she was to fade from life before I really had memories of interaction before.

I wonder if I was born a “dog person” or made one, later. I’ve always responded more to canine pets, even before cats began to make me sneeze.

The Fiction Fund

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This is a solicitation.

Writers, by and large, do not have cushy offices or corporate benefits like paid vacations or medical benefits. While I’m fortunate enough to be married to a man who is supportive of my aspirations (and gives me access to his employee health plan), taking a week off to attend a writers conference/workshop in San Francisco means I don’t work for a week, and that impacts my income.

I’ve got generous parents who gifted me with the price of the conference itself, because they believe in my talent and my dream, but San Francisco is not an inexpensive city, and I’m a little bit stressed about expenses, because I still have to offset airfare, hotel bills, and food while I’m there.

That’s why I’m asking you, my friends and readers, to help out, by donating to The Fiction Fund. This isn’t a charity. Your donation is not tax deductible. I had to do a lot of soul-searching to even ask, but if you don’t ask, you don’t get.

Here’s how it works:
– I’ve got a PayPal “donation” button in my sidebar.
– If you donate anything between $1 and $5, I’ll write a 100-word “verbal snapshot” or “distilled moment” based on a keyword you provide (keep it clean, please). At the bottom of the post there will be a line reading, “This post inspired by YourName.”
– If you donate more than $5, the attribution line at the bottom of your post will include a link to your website or blog.
– If you’d prefer to be an anonymous donor, that’s fine with me.

Posts will appear at:
Itinerant Imagination dot Com

Please don’t:
– tell me this is tacky
– offer criticism that isn’t constructive

Please do:
– Offer supportive notes, even if you can’t contribute cash.
– Tell me your favorite places in San Francisco
– Wish me lots of luck. My goal is not to come home without an agent.















Writing Vacation

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While there’s still a big part of me yearning for time and money to indulge in one of those cushy Hilton Head rental houses, I’m even more excited about my upcoming visit to San Francisco.

Today, I’ve narrowed my hotel choices down to two. One of them, the Halcyon, is really inexpensive, but funky and interesting, if not quite in the neighborhood I wanted. The other is reasonably priced, though more expensive, and in a better neighborhood, closer to my conference site, and also comes with a complimentary gourmet breakfast, discounts at the day spa next door, and an English Pub with beer and games.

The first would mean buying breakfast, and a longer travel time. I’m cool with MUNI, of course, but the other is in a much more upscale locale, and as a woman traveling alone, would probably be the smarter bet.

If you’re reading this, please tell me, when you choose a hotel, do you go for price, location, amenities, or a bit of everything?

Blood Noir Not So Squicky, After All

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It didn’t quite require the donning of tactical gear, but a couple of days ago I ventured into the latest Anita Blake book from Laurell K. Hamilton with more than a little trepidation. After all, her last few books in this series were so packed full of monster-sex that, while I wasn’t exactly squicked, I did feel as if a shower was in order, and not for healthy reasons, but because I felt unclean.

Books shouldn’t make you feel that way.

Happily, however, after about the first fifty pages, Blood Noir had an actual plot, actual character development, setup for a really really big upcoming big-bad, and, oh yes, a sex scene that took place off-camera.

I’ll be doing a real review of it over on Bibliotica.com later this week.

No, really.

Of course, even with a plot it’s still monster-porn.

Fickle

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Sometimes I can be really fickle. Not with friendships or anything like that, but when it comes to hair color I really need an option that says “varies” or “subject to change,” and when it comes to domain names and webhosts I’m almost as bad.

I mean, I like Dreamhost, for the most part, but sometimes I see what other services offer and think about changing, and while I will eventually do something with the 23 (no I am not exaggerating that number) domains I own, sometimes I wish I could just turn them into one of those i4 sites, that are just link portals, and not worry about them any more.

I’ve come close. I’ve temporarily parked a few, but then I decide to revive them, or worse, I buy NEW ONES to replace those I no longer need.

Yes, I know, I’m a sick, sick person.

But I’m never boring.

Hairy Situations

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The term “flat iron” always brings two images into my mind. The first is a scene from one of the Little House books, where Laura mentions that Ma put flat irons in the bed to warm the sheets on cold nights. Those, of course, were actually regular irons, not the flat irons we all know of, that are for hair.

The other scene is one from Little Women, and it’s the one where Jo is doing Meg’s hair before the ball, and she burns her sisters bangs because the iron tongs are too hot. I can’t imagine doing my hair with iron tongs, but I’ve done enough curling, crimping, and straightening to know that the best thing one can possibly use is something like the ceramic flat irons shown here: http://www.misikko.com/flat-irons.html

Unlike the painted metal hair appliances I grew up with, the Misikko irons won’t stick to your hair – at least, not when used correctly. They don’t mention what may happen if you curl hair that’s already been gelled or sprayed the way we used to in high school (hey, it was the eighties. Space monkey hair was de rigeur). I suspect they wouldn’t be horribly impacted, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Even so, if ceramic hair irons are anything like ceramic cookware, they radiate more intensely at a lower temperature, and work way better than any alternative.

Flat irons are meant for straightening hair, anyway, so spray probably isn’t an issue. As someone who’s always had bone-straight hair, I’ve never had the pleasure of trying to iron mine, only attempts to curl it (which never works well, because my hair is heavy and fine, and the curls fall out), but it’s the rule of life isn’t it, that we who have straight hair always want curls, and the curly girls want their hair straight.

While I’m now an expert on how to care for color treated hair, especially funky colors, and have done every possible thing to my own hair (short of extensions) from cutting my own bangs (not recently, mind you) to having it spiral permed (I think I wanted to iron it when my perms were growing out), to sleeping in cornrows so I could have wild ripply hair the next morning, I can honestly say that I’ve never singed my hair so badly it came off on the curling iron.

I suspect if Jo March had used a ceramic flat iron for Meg, she wouldn’t have had that issue, either.

Media Monday: Bend and Snap

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My muse isn’t speaking to me, and all I want to do is sleep, read, and watch endless episodes of the early seasons of ER, so, in an effort to inject a bit of spirit into the day, I’m sharing a clip from MTV’s airing (last fall) of Legally Blonde: the Musical that I found on YouTube.

It’s quite possibly the pinkest musical ever.

It may be a cliche…

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…but it’s completely true that at least a piece of my heart was left in San Francisco. As I told a friend over a lovely sushi lunch today, it’s my favorite city in the world, and if I ever had the opportunity to move back, even if it meant trading my writing life for one of many San Francisco jobs with far less autonomy, I would.

Sadly, however, Fuzzy’s career is the one that dictates where we live, and unless we want to trade our house here in Texas for a condo in Boca Raton, we’re not moving.

Still, I’m two months away from my writing conference, which will mean a whole week in the city by the bay and I’m getting more and more excited, even though it’ll also mean a week of no Fuzzy and no dogs, and funky pillows.

And probably losing another piece of my heart.

Come Saturday Morning

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My rhythm is completely off with Fuzzy away, and I hate to admit that, because it makes me feel like I don’t have a life without his presence. It’s not true, of course. We have separate interests anyway, and we don’t spend every moment of the weekend together even when he’s home, but the bed is too big at night, and the house is too quiet.

I spent Thursday night, working far later than I usually do, working, writing about such topics as California auto insurance, and staying up later than I should have, but the end result was that I didn’t have to work on Friday.

Here’s my thing about Fridays and work: In the mortgage industry, the loan officers all leave by two on Friday, leaving admins, processors and underwriters to close out the day. Inevitably there would be a crisis at 4:30 PM on Friday afternoon, and we’d end up cleaning up other people’s messes at six or seven, and really resenting having to be there so late. As a result, I like to have my Friday’s clear, so that if something comes up, I can handle it and be DONE. I’m not always able to do so – but I try pretty hard.

Come Saturday morning, I’m in a much better mood than I would have been if I’d been racing to complete tasks the day before.