How My Week Went

To say this week has been horrible is like saying the ocean has some water in it. A total understatement. And every time I thought it couldn’t get worse, it did. Maybe I should’ve stopped thinking it couldn’t get worse. (Honestly, I’m aware that it could always be worse, but you know what I mean.)

First of all, about a week ago, while showering, I noticed a smell. No, not me. After all, I was in the shower. It smelled, I don’t know, bad. I thought it was the drain. The next time I showered, same thing only slightly worse. Then, I noticed as I brushed my teeth that I smelled it at the sink too. So now the cogs were turning (nothing gets by me, does it?) and I started to think that maybe – just maybe – it was the water that smelled. So I went through the house, turning on faucets and sticking my nose to the running water. It definitely smelled. So I told my husband, ‘Hey, the water stinks.’ As usual, his response came swiftly, ‘I don’t smell nothing.’ (Yeah, he’s good with words.) Well I can’t take his word for it because he never smells any of the stinky things my super-sniffer smells. So I ignore him and tell him something’s wrong. A day or two later, I went to get a drink of water and the water tasted exactly how it smelled. Nasty. We’re water drinkers. We drink a lot of water between the 3 of us. So now we had a problem.

In the days since I had to spit out the nasty tasting water, I’ve had our water tested twice, we’ve poured bleach into our well and flushed our pipes, and we’ve gone through a lot of bottled water. On the bright side, our water smells like chlorine now. The first test showed E.Coli in the water, but 8 out of 10 wells contain E.Coli so that isn’t surprising. The 2nd test results haven’t came in yet. Tomorrow, I have to buy more bottled water and hopefully I can do some laundry without it bleaching my clothes.

Meanwhile, as we’re struggling to figure out the water situation, the night before last my son suddenly says, “Laya’s limping.” I jump up and go take a look at my Himalayan cat, who turns 8 years old in a couple of weeks. She’s just woken from a nap, and what my son called limping wasn’t right. Her leg simply wasn’t working. At all. She tried to walk on it, but the top of her paw hit the floor and slid back behind her. Poor kitty. She was crying loudly and becoming more and more agitated. Then she did something she’s never, ever done before. She pooped in the floor.

I called the vet. Now keep in mind that I live in a small town (population 996) in the country. I’m an hour away from anywhere. There was a vet 2 miles from my house, but he recently shut down. So it’s 5 minutes till 7 pm. I call the vet. They say they’re closing in 5 minutes. It’s an extra $98 to have them stay or I can choose to wait until morning to bring her. One look at my kitty and I said, ‘Wait for me.’ We rushed my beloved fur face the hour to the vet, scared to death of what could be wrong with her and that we weren’t going to make it in time. After an examination, a pain shot, and some x-rays, the diagnosis was in. My little Laya Louise had had a stroke. Who knew cats had strokes, right? And furthermore, she has fluid built up around her lungs and heart. She’d thrown out a blood clot which was why her leg went lame.

That was Tuesday. It’s now Thursday evening, and my cat is still at the vet’s office. I absolutely hate her being there without me, but what can I do? I call twice a day and ask about her. I’m told she’s doing better. Her leg is still lame and her heart rate and breathing accelerates when they let her walk around. The pain has passed, but just like in humans, it takes time to get over a stroke. We’re hoping she’ll get to come home tomorrow, but I don’t think it’ll happen. I’m going to call in the morning and see how she’s doing. I’ll go see her tomorrow or Saturday if I’m not going to be able to bring her home. I’d love to spend every minute there with her, but I’m aware that that’s not feasible.

And on top of all of that, I had a job to do last Saturday night. I had to record a band’s performance and make it into a movie. Then I had to burn 18 dvds of it, and a cd of photos. THEN I had to cut it down to specific songs and upload them to youtube. A simple enough job, right? Wrong. My computer has been slow for the past week (the week I needed it to not be) and it took 4 days to get all that done. Not too mention that on Sunday I had to prepare a guest blog post, and Monday had to put it up and pimp it. AND Monday was the deadline for an anthology submission, so Sunday evening I prepared and sent that. All this in the midst of the water and cat problems.

I’m a realist. I realize that though these things are horrible for me, they’re not that bad. I know it could be worse and I’m happy that it’s not. But it’s just so much all at once. But that’s how life goes. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. BAM! Everything. Anyway, this was my week. Maybe next week will be better.

The Research Behind Fulano by Benjamin X. Wretlind’s

It’s an honor for me to host this, the second stop on the amazing Benjamin X. Wretlind’s Sketches from the Spanish Mustang blog tour (Be sure to check out Day One over at Michael K. Rose’s blog). Whether you’re an established fan of Benjamin’s work or a potential fan, you’ll find enjoyment in both his post here and his books, the newest of which will be available July 1st. I’ll step aside and let Benjamin get to it now. Enjoy!

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THE RESEARCH BEHIND FULANO

First of all, I want to thank Kimberly for hosting Day 2 of the Sketches from the Spanish Mustang Blog Tour. This early in the game of writing 14 blog entries in a row, I’m not tired yet. 🙂

I grew up in the desert Southwest, on the northeast side of Phoenix. In that environment, you can’t avoid hearing news of illegal immigration, of border patrol or how many people were found dead  during any given summer. So I’ve always kept a journal of sorts in my head, full of notes I might someday use. That journal has given rise (so far) to two different stories of immigration through my life.

The first was a tale of two boys who crossed with their pollero–another name for the guide who is paid to help people navigate the desert to some unknown destination. That story, “A Tooth for Miguel,” won an award in a 2007 short story contest in Hawaii. It was both allegorical and magical, and it was based off an article in the Arizona Republic about border deaths.

I decided to return to that desert in one of the Sketches from the Spanish Mustang novellas.  Originally titled The Five Fortunes of Fulano, the novella started off after I learned about winning large sums of money.

I have yet to actually win large sums of money in a gambling hall, but I do know what happens when you do.  Like so many things in life, there is paperwork.

You can thank the IRS for that.

So this story was going to be about an immigrant who worked the fields in Pueblo, Colorado and happened to be in Cripple Creek as a sort of thank-you from his employer.  Told to be quiet and not be seen, he could gamble a little, walk the town, see the sights and then they could go home.

The conflict arose when the immigrant won $2,500 at a slot machine in the Spanish Mustang. Because anything over $1,250 requires paperwork–and a social security number–the immigrant can’t collect.  Naturally, some nice con artist offers to take his place at the machine so Fulano could collect.

The novella wasn’t going to end well, that’s for sure.

When I started writing the story, however, it took on a different direction.  All of a sudden those notes in that “brain journal” I kept while growing up headed to the surface. I had to find out more. What possesses people to cross a deadly border anyway? Who are they? Where do they come from? What do they go through?

I’m not a political person so I stayed as far from immigration issues as possible.  I only wanted to write about what it took Fulano to cross and why he did it in the first place. Working fields in Pueblo isn’t that much fun and it certainly doesn’t pay well. You’d have to be pretty desperate.

Because I needed to know more, I picked up a book from the local library called Crossing with the Virgin: Stories from the Migrant Trail by Kathryn Ferguson, Norma A. Price and Ted Parks and published by the University of Arizona Press.  This book is amazing, completely unbiased, and does nothing more than relate stories from three Samaritans.

Samaritans is the name of a group of people based in Tucson, Arizona. They hold no united political stance on the matter of immigration into the United States. Rather, they exist solely to prevent death in the deserts.

In the 1950s, the American government decided the land in Arizona that borders Mexico is, of itself, a “natural border.” That natural border, however, resulted in thousands of deaths. Between October 1, 1999 and September 30, 2007 a cartographer from Humane Borders plotted 1,138 known deaths in southern Arizona.

As I wrote the story of Fulano’s crossing and read up on what really happens to people, the story took shape.  All of a sudden there was a brujo (witch) and a promise made at the moment of death.  In addition, I divided the story into two distinct renderings: an English only version which would include only those Spanish words that are important to the story, and a mixed-language version where the dialogue of the migrant workers would be left intact. While my Spanish isn’t good, I had thought I could separate the journey of Fulano across the border from the rest of the story by telling it in Spanish only. However, the translation of such a large amount of text was too difficult for this novice speaker and I didn’t have the time to become fluent.

The research behind Fulano took a while–almost two months of study. I wanted to be authentic and, at the same time, put in a little of that “speculation” I spoke of on Michael K. Rose’s blog yesterday. What I ended up with was a novella I feel is the strongest of the six. It’s not politically charged, either; it just tells a story.

On Wednesday, June 20th and Thursday, June 21st, The Five Fortunes of Fulano will be free on Amazon.com. I encourage you to download the story and find out what those months of research turned into. In addition, there’s a preview of Sketches from the Spanish Mustang in the back. Check it out at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006WO37GC/

BIOGRAPHY

Benjamin X. Wretlind, the author of Castles: A Fictional Memoir of a Girl with Scissors and Sketches from the Spanish Mustang, has been called “a Pulitzer-caliber writer” with “a unique American voice.” Aside from novels, he has been published in many magazines throughout the past 10 years.

SKETCHES FROM THE SPANISH MUSTANG

In Sketches from the Spanish Mustang, a haunting, heart-warming and often brutally direct exploration of the lives of seven people in the mining town of Cripple Creek, Colorado, a woman must come to grips with the failings that cost the lives of her husband and child. Bestselling author Michael K. Rose says: “Mr. Wretlind has penned a tale of such emotional and literary depth it will haunt the reader long after the last page is turned.”

With a pencil, a sketchbook and a keen eye for the details of the soul, the woman’s lines and smudges, curves and tone reveal the stories behind her subjects. Life emerges on the page — vengeance, salvation, love and death. The artist’s subjects fight for survival, only to be saved in the sketches of a woman with a gift . . . and a curse.

International Book Award winner Gregory G. Allen calls the book a “unique journey that rips away the outer layers of people allowing us to stare into their souls where humanity is universal: no matter the genre of writing.”

Sketches from the Spanish Mustang will be available at all major online retailers for $14.95 on July 1st, 2012.  It will also be presented in an electronic format (e.g. Kindle, nook) for $5.95.

To Blog or Not to Blog

I’m aware that as writers, we’re encouraged to write at least one or two blog posts a week. In fact, if you have an agent or publisher, it’s demanded that you do. And while I used to make it a strong habit to write a new post on Wednesday of every week, I’ve fallen off that routine and hit the ground hard. Why? Well to put it plainly, I just don’t know what to say once a week. I mean, do I like to talk? Sure I do! Do I have plenty of stuff to ramble on about? Of course! But those things just don’t seem fitting for blog posts. Writers are expected to write about writing, which is both appropriate and odd. I mean, mechanics don’t want to talk about cars on their time off, and doctors don’t want to get phone calls at home asking medical questions. But who else do you ask? So while I understand that new writers look to writer’s blogs for knowledge about the craft, it does seem a little odd to expect writers to ONLY talk about writing. And I’m a humble person who feels that I’m in no position to dole out advice about writing anyway. If I were of Stephen King’s status, sure. I’d give out advice all day long and feel just in doing so. But I’m not. At least not yet. *fingers crossed*

There are several blogs I follow. (Note: I do NOT blindly follow blogs. If I follow one, it’s because every post either teaches me something or entertains me. Usually, both.) I’ve noticed that some of them post once a day (or so it seems). To me, that’s overkill. How could you have something to say every day? As I write that, I realize that’s probably jealousy rearing its ugly head. I wish I had something to blog about every day. But alas, I do not. I do have a lot of great blog post ideas come to me, but it’s always when I’m an hour away from my laptop. By the time I return, it’s either gone or I’ve convinced myself that it’s ridiculous and no one will want to read it. Clearly, I have issues.

So if you don’t get a blog post out of me every week, don’t think I’ve forgotten you. I just don’t want to bore you, and I don’t want to write something that makes me come across as a haughty know-it-all. I’m here, banging my head against the wall, waiting for the right post to come along and find me AT MY LAPTOP. (Do you hear me, Blog Post Idea Gods? Find me at my laptop, not an hour away. Thanks!)

In the future, I think I’ll try posting about whatever comes to mind. Funny things that have happened to me, things I’ve learned about writing or life or whatever, just general things. I don’t want to be one of the blogs that you tire of because I post too much, but I also don’t want to drive you away by not posting enough. So I hope you stick around while I tightrope walk my way through the blogisphere. Feel free to slap me around a bit if I get too far off track. Because I just might.