Amanda Helms

(I trust my readers are title-readers, but if not, go back and read it.

Done? Okay.)

I had a cold and was traveling to Abilene, TX, for my five year college reunion. That’s why.

The following came about while waiting in the airport Friday morning (I was supposed to arrive in Abilene Thursday night, but circumstances beyond my control as I do not have godlike powers, or even Superman-like powers that would enable me to fly around the world and turn back time, caused me to miss my connecting flight from DFW to Abilene Thursday night). On a second read, it more or less makes sense, and this way I won’t have to worry about getting in a Monday Miscellany post once I’m back home and concerned about things like buying groceries for the week and laundry. Yes, I am lazy.

So. Here it is.

Notes from airport 10/16/09

Sitting in the airport after missing my flight into Abilene last night. Issues with the flight out from Denver to DFW–wound up leaving about an hour and ten minutes later than we were supposed to, and though the flight made up about forty minutes en route, it wasn’t enough for me to make my connecting flight. At least American Airlines cashed out for a hotel room, though my stay at the Days Inn and Suites was hardly what I would call primo conditions. Also I am spending more money than I would have otherwise, just from tipping the shuttle drivers. Not like it’s their fault my flight was delayed and then missed, and of course they have those “Tips constitute majority of drivers compensation and are greatly appreciated thank you” signs.

I can forgive the run-on and lack of plural possessive apostrophe. I have reached the point of frustration where it actually shifts from frustration to a sort of benign neglect/nascent zen-like benevolence toward the world at large. So I tipped the drivers a couple of bucks going from and to the airport.

Shuttle was named RC Express. Maybe it was the tiredness kicking in, but last night as I waited forty minutes for my shuttle to arrive (though the American Airlines desk worker who handled my missed-flight issues had assured me it would be fifteen) I found myself wondering what the “RC” stands for. Royal Crown? Royal Crest? No, I think those are the names of dairies back home.

Righteous… something. Righteous Custard.

It was then I realized the missed flight had addled me more than I thought. “Righteous Custard.” What would that even be? Supercilious ice cream treats?

Shuttle itself looked run-down. “RC Express” in blue lettering across a white van. Dusty all over, minor dents in the door, and a few rust spots. Shuttle driver popped out and asked me where I was going. I knew this and told him.

“North or South?”

“Ummm…” Vaguely remembered seeing on my room voucher one of those directions, but couldn’t remember which, spent several seconds scanning my voucher and wondering why my hotel name with the crucial directional designation had faded from my voucher in the 35 minutes since I’d last looked at it.

Driver came to peer at the voucher with me, and eventually found it. “North. Good. Because sometimes it’s South and we don’t service South.”

I also discovered that the Righteous Custard Express serviced several hotels in the area aside from the Days Inn. This was because we picked up other people who had missed their flight and were also put up in a hotel by American. I tend to externalize my problems and assume that others are dealing with the same difficulties I am–maybe because it makes me feel less alone in the world, I don’t know. There’s likely a philosophical take on it that would reveal the depths of my psyche, but I’m running on around five hours of sleep and still fighting a head cold, so I’m disinclined to spend much time pondering things that may give me headaches.

So yeah, maybe not everyone on that shuttle–six of us all told once we finished hitting up every terminal, during which time my driver found it necessary to pull over to the curb and get out to ask people where they were going. I guess he suspected that, unlike me, his potential passengers took a lackadaisical attitude as to their hotel transport. “What was my shuttle called? Ringling Circus Express? Ranger Cowboy Express? Oh well; I’ll just assume that rather than having to watch for the shuttle myself, the driver will pop out and ask me where I want to go.”

Just realized I never truly finished the first sentence of that paragraph. Maybe not everyone on that shuttle had missed their flight and was relegated to spending the night in a Dallas-area airport. But at least one other was, because I noticed the familiar logo on his voucher. And I noticed the way the shuttle driver also peered at this guy’s voucher, much as he had mine, and I recognized the “North or South?” confusion on the passenger’s face that must have graced my own just ten minutes prior.

Only this guy’s voucher turned out to be for Wyndham Hotel, which, from the outside, looked much nicer than what I knew to expect from Days Inn. Which made me wonder if American had blacklisted me for having bought my tickets off Priceline rather than directly through American’s site. Maybe-fellow flight-misser was even a first-class passenger.

Oh well, thought I, it’s only one night.

And it was only one night, with a complimentary breakfast. Breakfast also required a voucher, procured simply by showing my card at the front desk, otherwise it would’ve been $5.95. Which made me wonder–people who stay at the hotel get the breakfast for free. Do the fine folks of Days Inn truly expect outsiders to come in for their breakfast? “You know, honey, I have a hankering for the tasty reconstituted eggs, dubious sausage, and toast made from Every Day Value bread* from Days Inn. Totally worth the $5.95. Whaddya think?”

The whole spread reminded me of a post by Cheeseslave on what makes real food in America. This wasn’t it.

Because I like to know exactly what I’m putting into my body, while obtaining my “foodstuffs” from the breakfast, I read the ingredients of the little Country Crock spread tubs.

“That’s water,” I thought I heard the waitperson–whose job it was to ask me if I wanted coffee (“Do you have tea?”) and stir the gravy at regular intervals to keep it from forming a skin–say.

“Pardon?” I asked. Surely he wasn’t telling me that if I wanted water, I should open up several of those little tablespoon-sized containers of Country Crock and toss ’em back, like trans-fatty shots.

“That’s water.”

I went for the neutral “Oh.”

It took me another few seconds to realize he was truly saying “That’s butter,” as if I were too stupid to identify what was in the Country Crock tub. Which I’m not, because it’s clearly not butter. Real butter has one ingredient: Cream. And salt if it’s salted butter. Real butter doesn’t have an ingredient list so long I haven’t finished reading it before gravy-stirring waitpeople observe me staring at the packet, think, “Poor lady is unfamiliar with the breakfast stylings of Days Inn and must be informed of what she is looking at,” and so kindly enlighten me.

Anyway.

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*I saw the bag. And I judged. I get judgy when I’m tired.

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From there, my babblings segue into semicoherent rambles about NaNoWriMo and stuff that is theoretically helpful in plot development and character building, but which, if I do post here, I’ll save for my Thursday 300, since it’s more writing-related rather than complaints about missed flights and fake food and musings on the potential meaning of an initialism. Next week’s Miscellany Monday should be more put-together. I hope.

As I’m currently fighting off a cold/potential bronchial infection and therefore find myself disinclined to pursue nonsedentary activities, I’ve been reading that vampire book set in WWII that I mentioned buying my last Miscellany Monday post. So far I’m wishing I’d gone for Keri Arthur or Kelley Armstrong. Or that I’d even decided to spend a bit more money and headed over to the humor section for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

It’s not just the egregious typos, though the copy editor in me experiences a minor brain aneurysm each time I spot another one (at least once every twenty pages–one of which was “aa” for “as.” Seriously. “In” for “it” and “that” for “than” I can understand, but a proper spell check should’ve caught the “aa”). And I love the premise of it–that’s why I bought the book in the first place, why I passed over Keri Arthur and Kelley Armstrong for something that struck me as more original.

But the characterization is flat. Not just pancake-flat, because pancakes, I mean good, made-from-scratch pancakes, have some flavor. The characters in this book are cardboard-flat.

Okay, maybe that’s a bit harsh. Cardboard with a dash of cinnamon. And for what it’s worth, cinnamon is my favorite spice.

Still.

I’ll finish the book, if only for a reminder of what I don’t want to write. And I will grant that this book contains multiple viewpoints–not just three or four, but–at a quick flip-through–nine. So due to space constraints, it’s that much more difficult to fully flesh out POV characters. It is possible, of course. Stephen King is excellent at this. The Stand comes to mind. Granted, The Stand is far longer than this book, but at the same time, the challenge of a short story is to develop characters in the space of 4,000 words or less. Using my math powers, 4,000 words times 9 equals 36,000 words, which is close to half the length of this book. So there still ought to be room for decent characterization.

The character that bothers me the most is a vampire named Eiche who, as far as I can tell, serves as the book’s main antagonist. The basic premise of the book is that Germany has enlisted the aid of German vampires to subdue the bloody English and make way for the Third Reich to take over. The vampires plan to betray rebel against the Germans, but it seems initially they’re willing to appear subservient for the sake of easy meals.

So Eiche and a team of other vampires have been sent to the town of Brytewood as a sort of advance guard/recon group. Honestly, I have to say that Eiche is starting to irritate me more and more. The scenes from his point of view consists largely of “How dare the mere mortal question him!” and “If only the puny human knew what Eiche really was…” Eiche’s arrogance is heavy-handed, and it seems that’s his only personality trait.

I don’t have to like the antagonist in a book. With urban fantasy, and most genre literature from The Lord of the Rings to–well, this book, you don’t go in expecting to sympathize with The Enemy. I don’t need it to be like the Dexter series, where the lines between Good Guy and Bad Guy get seriously blurred. But one of the first things writers learn, or should learn, about characters is that antagonists consider themselves the hero of their own story. They don’t see themselves as evil. And therefore, a good writer should carefully consider the antagonist’s goals and motivations, because it should be more complicated than “to beat the good guy” and “because he/she is evil.”

I’m not getting the sense that any more thought went into Eiche than what I put in that last sentence.

Some might say that I expect too much of my vampires. The fantasy world is full of monsters that are de facto evil: vampires, of course, and demons, incubi, succubi, werewolves, and all manner of beasties whose sole purpose, in their mythological roots, was to wreak havoc upon humans simply because they were evil. That the complicated, tortured vampire, didn’t come into vogue until Anne Rice, and since then, we’ve been slowly altering our monsters until they actually became figures of romance. But the root is pure evil.

Well, fine; it’s a writer’s prerogative to take a monster the pure-evil route–but in that case, don’t stick me in their POV for page after dreary page. I’d argue that the one-dimensional “this character is evil and that’s why they’re opposing the protagonist” characterization is more akin to a man (or woman) vs. nature plot–and when you get those, you don’t cut to the storm or hurricane’s POV, because there isn’t one, even if you personify it. It’s a force of nature, and it’s doing what it’s supposed to. No, instead of the storm, you stick with your protagonists. Because they have goals and motivations and thoughts and relationships with other characters and they’re interesting.

Or least, one would hope so.

I have more to write about–I thought about going into how I would’ve liked to have seen interactions among English vampires (mentioned in Eiche’s POV as being “effete” but have yet to make an appearance) and how the “vampires are superior to humans” and “Germans/the Aryan race are superior to everyone else” aspects would’ve played out in that respect. Would an English vampire be “better” to Eiche’s mind than a German human?

And I’d also thought how I could also better understand Eiche if he were to serve as a comparison to Hitler and Nazi Germany’s ethnocentrism and xenophobia. Because while I’d say that (if I may be permitted to compare historical and fictional persons) Hitler was more complicated than Eiche, I would put him firmly in the “evil” category. No shades of gray on that one; just evil. But the book certainly makes no sort of allusion that Eiche is to serve as an allegory for Hitler.

But that’s my English major resurfacing, five years after my graduation. I probably don’t need to go that deep an analysis for my historical urban fantasy.

And I have some sort of illness to fight, and a book to finish. I’ll try to save my energy and not throw the book against the wall when I get to Eiche’s scenes.

Or maybe I’ll just skip them. I doubt I’d miss much.

Saturday afternoon I bounded from my car and to my local Borders with my $5 Borders Bucks print-out folded semi-neatly in my purse. I always have a sense of when joy purchasing a new mass market paperback for a total of $2–3 and change.

A sign in the window drew my attention just as I was about to pass through the entryway: Bargain Books $1.

Well, thought I, I’m not likely to find anything I’d want for just $1, but it never hurts to lo– Zadie Smith! On Beauty! In hardback! SCORE!

There were several copies remaining, so I snagged one with death grip–no one, but no one, would wrest my copy of On Beauty from me should they be overcome with the awesomeness of the $1 price, so much so that they were unwilling to head over to the entryway to procure their own copy from the remaining five or so. Which would surely depart the shelves quickly, because it’s Zadie Smith for $1. One freaking dollar.

As a prepublished writer, perhaps I should have winced a bit at poor Zadie losing out quite a bit on her royalties, but honestly it never occurred to me. Clearly I’ll have to reorganize my reader vs. writer priorities.

Nevertheless, I headed into the store and back toward the SF/Fantasy section with a certain bounce in my step. The soundtrack of my life, if anyone could hear it but me, would have been playing a jouncy tune à la a 1960s comedy starring Doris Day.

I think. It’s been awhile since I watched AMC.

Anyway, I navigated myself to the A’s of SF/Fantasy. I did think I wanted to get that book about werewolves and/or vampires in WWII England, but it never hurt to browse, did it, just in case I changed my mind.

I glanced at Kelley Armstrong and Keri Arthur, neither of whom I’ve yet read. After scanning a couple of their books, I realized I’d forgotten my tradition of heading over to the H’s to see where my book will be placed upon publication, which is what I’ve taken to doing every time I head into a brick and mortar bookstore. Positive mental conditioning, you know. So I strolled over to the H’s, pausing to note how Charlaine Harris took up a whole case plus a shelf and a half, found my spot snug between Hendee and someone whose name now escapes me, and glanced at Faith Hunter’s books. Oh yeah, been meaning to try her, too.

But after some dithering, I still went for the vampires in WWII England.

Then, still clutching my $1 Zadie and my going-to-be$2-and-change-with-my-Borders-Bucks vamps in England, I set out for the cash registers, pausing to look at the various display tables.

“That’s a wonderful price on the Zadie Smith, isn’t it?” I looked up from my book browsing to see a Borders employee with a shaved head smiling at me. I smiled back.

“Oh yes, it is!”

“I was kind of upset to see the price go down like that–I mean, I could’ve gotten it pretty cheap if I’d waited!” Chuckle, chuckle.

“Mm-hmm.”

But I also wondered if I was being judged for purchasing my vampires in WWII England book as well. And I wondered that again when my cashier also commented on my fabulous Zadie Smith deal.

I like Zadie Smith. I’ve read The Autograph Man and White Teeth. She’s a funny writer with a deft, and I mean deft, hand for characterization. She’s good. And I was an English major; I do appreciate good literature. I just also happen to think that urban fantasy can be good, too.

Which brings me, more than 600 words into this post (maybe I should work on shortening my anecdotes) to the reason of why I don’t write stuff that will be shelved in the Fiction & Literature section of my local borders. Why it’s Charlaine Harris I pass when seeing who my book neighbors will be, rather than Thomas Hardy or Alex Haley.

And I don’t know. I can say that escapism is part of it, and it is, I suppose. Or maybe it’s because I thrived on fairy tales and myths when growing up. My bedroom sported unicorn wallpaper, for the love of God. And I don’t know where my mom found them, but for a couple of years my calendars unicorn calendars. Not drawings, mind you, but photographs of white horses that had had horns attached to their heads. These calendars engendered talks with my mom about how “unicorns aren’t really real, you know. Someone just glued horns to those horses’ heads.”

Yes, I knew. But I loved those calendars all the same. And the first story I clearly remember writing featured a unicorn. I don’t write about unicorns now, but maybe fantasy is just ingrained in me.

Others more eloquent than I have written on fantasy’s worth, and I don’t feel compelled to defend the genre, as it were. I will say that character is paramount for me. If I can’t get on the character’s side or believe the character’s actions, then I’m done. And since much of genre literature (forgetting for the moment that “fiction and literature” is itself a genre) is plot-based, it’s perhaps not uncommon for characterization to fall by the wayside.

But I also don’t go for pretty language at the expense of character. And that’s where much “literary fiction” loses my interest.

I don’t have much point with this post, other than to note I don’t like that I still cringe a little at not going the literary erudite route. But what does it matter, really? I like to write. I like to tell stories. And every story, I think, is an escape from something.

So yes. I am an escapist.

I have a love/hate relationship with fall.

Actually, “hate” is too strong. Even “dislike” is a little too far on the negative end of the shades of meaning scale. It’s more accurate to say I have a love/mild regret relationship with fall.

Fall brings pumpkins. Pumpkins means pumpkin pancakes (try the ones here*), pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin chili**, pumpkin soup**, pumpkin beer**, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin bread, pumpkin butter, pumpkin pie, and the pumpkin spice latte from a certain ubiquitous coffee shop chain***.

I would love fall for the tastiness of pumpkin alone. But fall also brings the cool, crisp weather that’s perfect for snuggling up with a cup of chai tea†, a blanket††, and my current book of choice. Yes, yes, it’s sedentary, and I whined about being sedentary in my previous Miscellany Monday post, but still. There is that within me that likes to stay still. I embrace it on occasion.  And if I embrace it not with chai, then with cider.

Oh, brainstorm: Pumpkin cider! Pause with me a moment to consider that taste sensation.

pausepausepausepausepause

(happy sigh)

Lest you think that my love of fall stems solely from the squash and imbibeables, let me note also that I love the colors of the changing leaves†††. Maybe it’s because I’m what the fashion industry would call an autumn and the pastel blues and pinks of spring aren’t meant for my skin tone, but one of my favorite fall pastimes, when I’m not quaffing my chai or cider with my book in hand, is to walk outside and admire the trees. I’ve often thought that when/if I get married, I’d like to do it in fall when the leaves are changing. And that’s as far as I’ve gotten in planning my wedding‡.

The there’s Halloween. Halloween actually isn’t my favorite holiday, but (and here’s another sedentary activity) I derive much enjoyment from watching, and mocking, the cheesy B-movies that abound on basic cable and base satellite packages‡‡. Brings back fond memories of movies mocked and degraded with my dear college roommates.

And, of course, fall is the season of NaNoWriMo‡‡‡.

And so, dear readers,  you are likely now asking yourselves, assuming you didn’t abandon me after sighting the symbol for footnote 6, just what it is about fall that might cause my slight regret, as I have just discoursed on its virtues.

Well. And this likely isn’t wholly fall’s fault, since I’m sure Colorado’s dry clime plays a large roll. But come fall, I am often subject to dry skin, forcing me to slather lotion on my hands and feet in a (mostly futile) effort to prevent my skin from developing rough patches. But worse yet is the facial eczema I develop, since it can get fairly widespread and painful and unsightly and make me think that I might as well try out to be the hideous monster in one of those Halloween-season B-movies, because then at least my misery would result in some monetary compensation rather than just making me wish I really could just wear a bag over my head and be done with it.

I don’t like thinking about that bit. I’m not sure why I even included it.

Lucky for fall that it gives me pumpkins.

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*Considering that two of my three real posts now include links to that Ben Starr guy’s recipe, he should be pretty happy with me.

**Okay, rightly speaking I haven’t yet tried any of these. But I still suspect I’d like them. Well, maybe not the beer, but since I’m not much of a beer fan, that wouldn’t be the pumpkin’s fault.

***And rightly speaking redux, I don’t particularly like this chain’s pumpkin spice latte. But since I don’t much like espresso or any latte, I also know that’s not the pumpkin’s fault. If there is any real pumpkin involved, that is.

†If anyone knows where I could get pumpkin chai tea–or just pumpkin tea–let me know. Really. I’m serious.

††So help me, I actually own one of these thanks to my mother.

††† Comments about how the changing of the leaves lasts a month, tops, leaving behind piles of leaves to rake (which aren’t my responsibility anyway as I have no yard–but I would trade away the convenience for the chance to grow pie pumpkins) and barren branches are unwanted and unnecessary. This is my idyll.

‡ Okay, okay. I’ve also thought that a ballroom-style wedding dress is out and I’d prefer a trumpet or maybe mermaid. But that’s truly it.

‡‡ABC Family’s 13 Nights of Halloween is often a good starting point.

‡‡‡I’d say that Chris Baty must love me more than that Ben Starr guy as I’ve linked to or mentioned NaNoWriMo at least twice as much as the pumpkin gingerbread pancake recipe, but I rather doubt NaNo requires as much advertising.

Some might consider it counterproductive for my first real post (I don’t count my last one) to contain a confession that I haven’t been writing for the past, hmm, eight months or so when my site is ostensibly devoted to promoting my writing career. What can I say? I live dangerously. As dangerously as one can live in the electronic medium, that is.

All right, here it is: I haven’t been writing for the past eight months. I do believe that writers write, period, and that the only way to get through writer’s block is to write through it. There are various reasons why I didn’t, one among them being that I was focused on my health and taking off the ten pounds I’d put on following a trip to Disney World in May 2008. One of my tools, aside from the fabulous Leigh Peele’s work, was my GoWear Fit. I love this little device. I don’t plan to use it forever, and I know it isn’t 100% accurate, but. It first convinced me that I was, initially, eating too little for my activity level. Now that I have that straightened out, it’s shown me to me how few calories I burn while sitting. Pretty much the same as sleep. And no, that one hour of exercise really doesn’t make up for those eight hours working as a desk jockey.

So I have mixed feelings about choosing a sedentary activity as my favored hobby when the majority of my day already consists of sitting. Because honestly, that writer’s mantra “butt in chair [or in my case, butt on exercise ball], hands on keyboard” is at odds with my GoWear Fit–induced awareness of nonexercise activity thermogenesis, or NEAT, which is simply all the calories we burn by living life rather than formal exercise. And that’s where the bulk of our caloric burn comes from. In terms of getting to eat more food, I’d be much better off spending that hour or two cleaning my apartment or walking while reading or biking or pretty much anything besides sitting. And despite my history as an undereater, I like food. It tastes good. It makes me happy.

But writing makes me happy, too.* I’m more content when I’m writing consistently. I have a sense of benevolence toward the whole world, including those whom I normally consider irritants. I suppose it’s rather how mothers feel when holding their newborns for the first time. Or at least it makes me feel deep and philosophical to think so, at any rate.

So yes, I plan to get back to writing regularly. I’ll likely hitch my star to NaNoWriMo for the sixth time out and use its momentum to get me going again. Though I have to admit that as Wrimos all over scramble to get their 50k done and chant to themselves, “butt in chair, hands on keyboard,” a tiny part of me will sigh wistfully: Guess I don’t get my pumpkin pancake today.**

And then I will get my butt on my exercise ball and my hands on my keyboard, and I will write. (Though I might also wish I had a treadmill and treadmill desk, but that, too, is another post.)

*Well, for the most part. There are the days when I want to pull my hair out over characters running amok and plot points that won’t come together, but that’s another post.

**I love pumpkin pancakes. Found a wonderful recipe last year for pumpkin gingerbread pancakes. Just thinking about them now makes me all tingly.