Shut the bedroom door. Please.

Since Halloween is drawing near, I chose a scary topic this week.

Let’s talk about sex in books.

 

Coming from the viewpoint of someone born in the previous century, I’m fine with it. A little spice is fine. But like garlic and tequila, a little goes a long way. 

 

We’ve never been further from the social constraints of our Victorian predecessors who were scandalized by the accidental reveal of a booted ankle. Sex is pretty much everywhere, and we’re pretty much blasé about it. Things that would have given my grandparents heart attacks barely earn a raised eyebrow in today’s society.

 

But I am a graduate of the School of Less Is More. 

 

As I sat at my keyboard, telling the story of two old-enough-to-know-better, young-enough-to-do-it-anyway, slightly messed-up people who fall into friendship before realizing they want to be more than friends, I drank a lot of coffee while trying to decide how much more-than-friendly they were going to get on the page. I concluded that I enjoyed developing their relationship more than spying on them while they consummated it. Click. That's the bedroom door closing.

 

Avid readers encounter couples coupling in genres from romance to mystery. Good for them (the characters). They can do whatever they want to one another, as many times as they want, in as many places as they want. But after they make their intention clear, please, someone shut the door. I’m perfectly happy knowing they are enjoying one another to their mutual satisfaction without explicit descriptions of things that are bulging, throbbing, thrusting, or doing anything else that ends with -ing. I wonder if those authors’ grandmothers read their books. I am this many years old, but the thought of writing explicit, intimate scenes that my family members would read gives me the heebie-jeebies. Christmas dinner would never be the same.

 

 Color me old-fashioned. Romances, by their very nature, are about two people falling in love and a natural extension of that means they end up in the bedroom (or shower or on the kitchen counter or beach or whatever surface is handy). I don’t care where they go. But I’m over having it described in detail. Page after page. Multiple times. We’re all adults here. We understand the mechanics. 

 

I chose this topic because I’ve encountered a run of audiobooks lately that had well-developed characters and interesting storylines but waaaaaaaaay too much shagging. There was so much sex in one book, I was like, “We’re doing this again? I thought we just did this. Can't you keep it in your pants?”

 

No judgement, honestly (she said, while judging). A little consensual something-something can create a whole lot of conflict between characters who something-something’d with the wrong person and now their lives are total chaos OR took a tumble with the right person and now their lives are a different kind of chaos.

 

There’s a market for stories that embrace, well, embracing and a whole lot more. I just felt a little blindsided by all the panting, moaning, grinding, etc. that have popped up, unsuspected, in a couple of books marketed generically as romances. These are not the sort of thing you want to be listening to when your husband is in the car with you. After a few of those, I’ve wised up and started avoiding books described as steamy, spicy or sizzling. That translates to “clothes are coming off and body parts are going to do things that I suspect are not physically possible in real life but the author is determined to prove me wrong.” It's just not my gig. If it's yours, you're welcome to it.

 

Sometimes those R rated scenes are important to the story’s progress but hey, I heard you the first time. I also nearly drove into a ditch so please, you’ve made your point. Can we move on? How many times are you going to describe decadent cupcakes in a book that isn’t about cupcakes? 

 

 As I wrote “Ghost,” I struggled constantly to juggle character development, plot advancement, conflict building and all those other writerly priorities. There were lots of scenes (not involving sex) that I wrote just because they were fun—until I realized they did nothing to move the story forward, and they got cut in the name of word count. 

 

With that in mind, when I read/listen to a book with a seemingly gratuitous amount of time spent getting nekkid, I wonder if the author felt it was really necessary or just word candy? Done well, intimate scenes are, um, well done. Diana Gabaldon’s “Outlander” series is a five-star example of putting sex on the page and making it an integral part of the storyline. Done badly, the cringe potential is staggering and makes me avoid that author in the future. 

 

IN OTHER NEWS

 

My designer sent me the initial cover mock-up for “Ghost” this week! It’s still a work in progress, but I’m excited to have a foundation to build from as he and I fine-tune art concepts. 

Cover design is not for the faint of heart. Think about a favorite book—now think about what you’d want on the cover if you’d written that book—then think about how you’d convey those ideas to an artist who hasn’t read the book. That’s kinda where we are right now.

 

As always, I invite you to follow me at my author’s page: https://www.facebook.com/melinda.wichmann.author. 

Casseroles and farm wife GPS

I’ve spent the last two weeks as chief cook and bottle washer, farm Uber driver, agrarian Door Dasher, vehicle ferry pilot, meteorological consultant and occasional finder-of-lost things (the Gator wasn’t actually lost, it just wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Or maybe I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. It’s hard to tell sometimes.) In other words, harvest in the Midwest is in full swing.

Finding the Gator is a popular activity. 
It is usually followed by the four-legged passenger screaming 
all the way home because Gator rides are the Most. Fun. Thing. Ever.
(Photo by Melinda Wichmann)

 

My job is simple: keep everyone fed and drive things from Point A to Point B, with or without passengers. This is no small undertaking since farmers and their partners often operate in different dimensions of time and space.

 

Me: Do you need any help this morning?

 

Farmer: Yeah, but first I have to unload the semi at the other farm, then I’ve got to move the grain cart to that other field and fix a tire on the combine, and I’ll need a ride back to get the other pickup, but I have to check the dryer first.

 

Me: 

 

Farmer:

 

Me: Just call me.

Moving from one field to another.
Iowa Township, Iowa County, Iowa.
(Photo by Melinda Wichmann)

 Food is a big deal this time of year. The bucolic scene of a harvest meal in the field is one of the iconic images of the American farm family. Everyone is clean and smiling while they enjoy a spread that looks like it was catered by a five-star chef. The combine in the background is polished to a high gloss and the pickups parked strategically to accommodate the photo shoot could have just rolled off the showroom floor.

 

The reality of field meals is trying to park the pickup upwind of the moving dustball that is the combine chewing through dry stalks and releasing a choking cloud of field dust, grain dust, bugs and chaff so thick you can’t see through it. 

Sometimes, the first reality of meal delivery is finding the right place, but once I get in the general vicinity, it’s easy to locate the field crew by the dust cloud. And just forget about anything being clean or shiny. It’s not. Get over it. I call it a success if the paper plates don’t blow away and I remember to bring a serving spoon for the sloppy joes.

 

When the Farmer and I were first married, I lived in terror of delivering food to the wrong farm. It took several seasons to cement in my mind exactly where he meant when tossed out the farm and section names that he’d grown up with but had no meaning to me. There were a few initial hiccups, but we reached an agreement that directions like “east of the pond at the Maas farm” or “west past Immanuel Church and south at the first stop sign” was more likely to yield good results than “down by the creek” or “north of Dad’s 80.” Figuring those locations out was a skill that came with time. By the way, there are multiple fields “down by the creek.” They are in no way, shape, or form close to one another. Ask me how I know. We’re still married.

 

Ditto when it comes to needing a ride. The problem isn’t so much poor directions by either the giver or the receiver, it’s that trying to locate farmers can be like herding cats. Plans change, paths get diverted, and “be there in ten minutes” is a rather liquid interpretation of time. The sense of relief I feel when a rig pops over the hill is palpable, especially when I’ve started second-guessing whether I was supposed to go to the north gate on the east road or the east gate on the north road. Farm wives develop their own GPS after years on the job.

(Photo by Melinda Wichmann)

 

In terms of food, I’m not of the generation that delivered fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, homemade dinner rolls and pie to the field. (I know ya’ll are out there and I’m seriously awed by the magnitude of your skill, but that’s not me.) Field dining is about convenience and speed for both cook and diner. The food has to taste good and be transportable in a way that ensures it’s still hot when it gets where it's going, or if it has to wait a while when it gets there. My Crockpots are still my go-to favorite kitchen gadget.

 

Best case scenario: hot casserole. The skinny end of things: cold meat sandwiches. Dessert: always. I love this time of year because I get to bake some favorite recipes I’ve put on the back shelf because they’re too much for just the Farmer and I, but work great for field meals. It’s amazing how fast a big pan of brownies or an entire sheet cake disappears.

 

IN OTHER NEWS

 

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, things ARE moving forward with “Ghost.” The text is in the hands of the second-to-last proofreader, and my cover designer said he’d have an initial design concept for me this week. I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve!

 

And I’ve had some great authors who were generous enough to write blurbs for me—those little marketing devices on the cover of books that say delicious things like, “This stunning debut novel is a haunting, sensual blend of friendship, love and danger.” Well, okay, none of mine actually say that, but you get the idea.

Thanks for reading!

Time, OCD and waiting for Christmas

Salvador Dali's "The Persistence of Memory"
I think we've all felt like this once or twice.

 

It my six decades on this spinning galactic dust ball, I’ve experienced time in multiple dimensions. Before you suggest I step away from the coffee and whatever I’m splashing into it, let me explain. 

Time is an established measure, right? Sixty seconds in a minute, sixty minutes in an hour, twenty-four fours in a day, etc. You can’t change it or control it. Some folks are really good at managing chronometry. Others take a different approach. For thirty-five years, I worked with both in a job that lived and died on coffee and deadlines. There was real time and there was reporter time, which is kinda like farmer time. Example—Reporter, “I’ll have that story done by noon.” Um . . . you do mean noon today, right? Farmer, “I’ll be in for supper by 7.” Um . . . is that Central or Pacific Time?

 

When you retire, time takes on a whole new meaning. At first, it feels like there’s more of it than you know what to do with as you explore the concept of having at least forty more hours a week to call your own.

 

As you relax and pursue the interests that you previously had to carve out of barely existent spare time while you worked, you start to wonder, “How did I do all of that—hobbies, volunteering, housework, family stuff—when I was working full time?” It’s a mystery. Perhaps the space/time continuum shifts to accommodate those years so we don’t go completely insane.

 

Time stretches and contracts like a rubber band. Remember when you were seven years old and waiting for Christmas? For many of us "old folks," it wasn’t even mentioned until the Thanksgiving leftovers were cleared away, then December lasted at least three months. Now, Mariah Carey starts singing “All I Want for Christmas” three weeks before Halloween. You can buy trick-or-treat candy and candy canes at the same time. 

 

Everyone knows time goes super fast when you’re working through a training problem with your performance dog and you've entered a bunch of upcoming trials. Three weeks off from the show ring seems like a reasonable amount of time to get back on track, except it sails past in a snap, and suddenly you’re back in the ring with that troublesome exercise that may or may not be new and improved. Where did the time go?

 

Privately, I think people who train and show dogs possess the ability to manipulate some aspects of time in a way normal people don’t. Don’t be offended if you consider yourself normal. If you’re one of my “dog friends,” you’re not, so don’t worry about it.

 

Dog people can look at a judging schedule and immediately start doing math in their head that would escape them if presented in any other way: if I’m the fifth dog in the ring at 9 a.m. and I need to get there by 8 a.m. at the absolute latest, it’s an hour and a half drive to the show site, plus a ten minute stop to grab drive-through breakfast, then factor in construction zones, add a cushion of fifteen minutes so I can get out of the garage and off the farm ahead of the morning implement-moving, grain-hauling, cattle chores mayhem going up and down the lane, how many aliens does it take to make pancakes? This is why sometimes I consider just arriving at a show reason enough to raise the win flag.

 

A number of years ago, I traveled to an out-of-state dog show with a friend. We each planned to drive separately but would go together. I arrived at her house on the day we were to leave, very pleased to be early. I was excited because we were already ahead of the game and winning at the eternal human vs. time battle. I anticipated my friend ready to go, her vehicle idling at the curb in front of her house, and we would sweep out of town like warriors riding into battle.

 

My friend did not share my world view. For some folks, leaving at a specific time means actually leaving at that time. For others, it means it’s time to start getting ready to go. These two types of people should never, under any circumstances, ever travel together.

 

At the appointed time to leave, my travel partner began packing her cooler in the kitchen. This was followed by loading her van with crates, chair, gear bags, article bags, food bags, extra bags, bags containing mystery items, and finally, dogs. Then we had to drive through town to the bank so she could stop at the ATM, followed by a side trip to buy gas. We were an hour late before we ever started.

 

Being the slightly (ahem—cough, cough) OCD person I am, I had done all those things the night before. Well, except for packing the dogs and the cooler. Any obedience exhibitor will tell you the latter takes a stupid amount of time because it’s vital to get the proper balance of water, soda, dog treats and human lunch with ice or freezer packs because nobody wants food poisoning from warm tuna salad. Coolers are always too small or too big to accommodate our needs, but that is a topic for another day.

 

So yeah. OCD me. 

 

A number of years ago, I was hospitalized with a wildly racing heartbeat. Apparently a heart rate of nearly two hundred beats per minute is only acceptable if you are a lumberjack or a fetus. I was neither.

 

The attending ER physician lacked any kind of empathy, along with medical training. He informed me there was nothing wrong with me and I was a Type A personality having a panic attack. (He was partly right – after being hauled to the ER in ambulance complete with lights and sirens and my heart going whacko, I admitted to feeling just a tiny bit panicky.) It turned out I have a form of atrial fibrillation that is hard to detect on a traditional EKG but can accelerate my heart rate and knock it out of rhythm like nobody’s business. In any event, the doctor didn’t believe me when I told him I wasn’t a Type A personality and I’d never had a panic attack in my life.

 

But . . . I am often frighteningly well organized because being organized is my ticket to getting things done on time. We OCD folks are like that. When I plan to leave for a dog show at six a.m., that means the dogs and I are in the car, going down the lane at 5:59 p.m. Not everyone else works that way. I have friends whose approach to most things in life is “I’ll get there when I get there.” And you know what, that’s absolutely fine. I kinda envy them. There’s a lot to be said for refusing to play by the universe’s demands.

 

I’m telling you all this because I’m anxiously waiting the final proof copy of “How to Live with a Ghost,” which is the next-to-the-last step in production before it becomes a real live book. I’m also waiting on cover art, and let me tell you, it is like being a seven-year-old waiting for Christmas.