Darlings, our guest Miss Lois Greiman will be here tomorrow. Ah’m sure you all want to come and welcome her. The Fillies are ready and waiting to entertain this wonderful lady. But, we need your help. Get on your best Sunday-go-to-meetin’ clothes and join us. We’ll have a good time.

I couldn’t let this day pass without a word about Leap Day!

It it said that in the past, women had the option of chosing their mate during a leap year, but the MENFOLK decided that wouldn’t do.  Afraid of being trapped into a marriage not to their liking, they changed the tradition to one day, February 29th, every fourth year!   Babies born on leap day, have few birthdays. Most opt to celebrate their birthdays either on February 28th or March 1st, depending on what calendar they used and how close their birth was to one or another day. So ladies, today is the day … hone up your wedding proposals!

Since I’m deep in the throes of planning our daughter’s wedding in October, I’ve been thinking a whole lot about how weddings have changed over the years.  I can’t imagine planning this wedding without the help of the trusted Bride’s book, Modern Bride Magazine among others and the Internet. How else would I find the photo galleries of recommended photographers?   How else could I view new cake creations and floral bouquets?   And how  in the world could I help my daughter find the “perfect” wedding gown?

I can tell you, I’m almost an expert now, having gone to 8 bridal salons in one weekend.  I now know the difference between a mermaid dress, a ballroom dress, an A-line gown and a Cinderella gown.   Oh … it was fun, but exhausting.   The personal attention and gorgeous dressing rooms were great on the surface and surely seeing my baby, Nikki, dressed in full veil and delicate Swaroski crystal tiara brought tears of joy to my eyes until I realized, heavens … I’m paying for the fancy three-mirror private dressing room with tea and coffee served and very attentive  wedding gown consultant … all in the price of the gown.  I wonder if they made such a hoopla over the wedding dress back in the Old West?

Here’s a cream colored 1880’s wedding gown, made with ruching (gatherings) encircling the neckline and 12 bones in the bodice.  The back is tied with wide moire ribbon.  This dress is considered an A-line, made with delicate fabrics which flow freely and a slight bustle in the back.

 This is a 2008 blue Maggie Sattero Estella dress made of satin and lace.  It’s what’s known as a ballroom wedding gown. See the ruching in the bodice?  Certainly a more sophisticated look, but there’s a slight bustle in the back as well.    I’ll let you in on a secret, picture this in ivory white and it’s my daughter’s wedding gown!  Do you like it?

What kinds of weddings do you love to read about?  Is there one wedding scene that stands out in your mind?  And what was your wedding like?   Any special rituals or traditions that you’d like to share? 

Happy Trails and Happy Reading!

Taming the Texan - Harlequin Historical available NOW!

     Is it my imagination, or is there an epidemic of deadline fever going around?  I’ve caught the bug myself.  Twenty pages to go on a WIP that’s due March 1, two books to finish judging for the RWA Rita contest, and, uh-oh, my turn to blog at P & P. So I’m looking around my office wondering what to write about.  Hmmm.  Thinking, every person who reads, writes or otherwise contributes to this page is sitting at a computer.  The setting for that computer is unique to each of us—and tells a lot about us.  So, for what it’s worth, here’s a peek into my working space.           

I live alone, so finding a quiet place to work’s no problem.  My office is in a spare bedroom.  Because I spend so much time here, I surround myself with things that make me happy.  My computer is a year old, but the desk it sits on could tell stories.  I bought it decades ago for $10 at a yard sale and paid my daughter’s friend $25 to strip the varnish for me.  It looks like it might have been in a school–big and solid with dovetailed drawers and a patina of scratches.  I love every inch of it, and wouldn’t get a new one even if I could afford it.

On the wall above my desk is a large (3 by 5 foot) painting done by an Australian Aboriginal woman, made up of thousands of tiny clustered dots on a black background.  Looking at it is like looking into space.  I never get tired of it.   Most of the other pictures in my office, including another large painting behind me, are early works by my daughter, a fine professional artist.  There’s also a photo of  Powder Puff, the cat I had for 23 years.

I have a bookshelf crammed with books and a wooden rack crammed with cd’s that I play on an ancient boom box (currently playing the sound track from Whale Rider).  On top of the shelf there’s a live plant, and a beautiful Pueblo storyteller figure that I bought at Acoma for my mother and got back when she passed away.  Also a small photo taken at the last Thanksgiving dinner I celebrated with my parents.

Under the high window on my right is a big, ugly “cat condo” that I bought on ebay for my current kitties Walter and Sadie.  It lets them watch the birds in the backyard and keeps them off my desk—at least some of the time.  I could shut them out when I’m working, but I enjoy their company.  After all, this is their office, too.

What is your space like?  Is it a kitchen table surrounded by kids?  A quiet corner?  A laptop in your briefcase?  An elegant studio?  When you look around what do you see? 

Miss Lois Greiman, author and horsewoman, is on her way to Wildflower Junction and will arrive Saturday. She’s going to give a talk about inspiration. Now, we all can use a dose or two of inspiration. Shoot, maybe she’ll tell us how to get some! In any account, please do come and help us show her some good ol’ fashioned hospitality. Don’t forget now, you hear?

I just attended a baby shower and, being a writer, I came up with books as gifts. So they’re in my head right now. I gave her the mother-to-be four favorite books that I read to my daughters when they were little.

Tootle

I think Tootle is THE book for a young mom to read to her children. It’s a Little Golden Book. The moral of the story is: There are nothing but red flags for little trains who get off the tracks. 

Now it might take a bit of considering because that moral is pretty well buried in the silliness of little Tootle frolicking in a field of wildflowers when he’s supposed to be practicing being a locomotive. But this is a deep truth. There truly are nothing but red flags for little trains who get off the tracks. 

I have a day job working with people who are off the tracks in a major way. And there are NOTHING but red flags in these people’s lives. Read your babies and grandbabies Tootle and make sure they get the point. 

The Big Orange Splot

To go with Tootle I loved The Big Orange Splot by D. Manus Pinkwater. Some people mistake Tootle as a call to live a life of conformity. But there is a difference between following your dreams and being off the tracks. The Big Orange Splot is all about loving what is special about you. Plus, it’s a book long poem and it’s a joy to read. 

My house is me

And I am it

And it looks like all my dreams. 

A Child’s Garden of Verses

Next is ‘A Child’s Garden of Verses’ by Robert Louis Stevenson. This is the classic best book for children in my humble opinion. 

The Swing

 How do you like to go up in a swing?

Up in the air so blue?

Oh, I do think it’s the pleasantest thing,

Ever a child can do. 

There are a whole collect of these beautiful, child centered classic poems. I used to recite that poem while I’d push my daughters on the swing and they learned to say it along with me. 

I think this one is hilarious, so how far have we come from this?

The Whole Duty of Children

A child should always say what’s true

And speak when he is spoken to

And behave mannerly at table

At least as far as he is able.

Maude and Claude Go Abroad

The final one is “Maude and Claude Go Abroad” by Susan Meddaugh. This again is a book length poem. Susan Meddaugh is simply a genius. The way she twists the word to create her poem full of humor and whimsy is just a delight.

My favorite of many lines:

And then we laid eyes on

Land on the horizon. 

I just love that the woman rhymed ‘eyes on’ with ‘horizon’. That’s just creative and funny and the book is full of smart, sharp language like this.

So what’s your favorite book from childhood? Yours and/or your childrens’? Do you read books to children? Do you read for fun, to teach, to quiet the little monsters down so they’ll go to sleep?Let’s talk about books that bring out the kid in us. 

Good Morning!

Soon, within a few weeks, my latest effort, THE LAST WARRIOR, will be hitting the stands (early March 2008).   Because this book is the last in a series that is set not only within historical times, but within the framework of Native American Mythology, I thought it might be fitting to talk about some of the legends of Native America.

The Thunder Being (or sometimes referred to as the Thunder Bird or Thunder God or Thunderer) is one of the main characters in this latest series of my books.   His anger has been stirred by acts of violence against himself and his children by a clan that is part of the Blackfoot Indians – The Lost Clan as they are called in these stories.  Interestingly, the Thunder Being plays a dominant role in most Native American tribes — perhaps because when one is living so closely to nature, the Thunderer, who can produce so much damage, would be a subject of much legend.  In this series of books, the Lost Clan has been  relegated into the “mist” by the Creator, who intervened on the people’s behalf when the Thunderer was bent on destroying every single member of the clan.  Imprisoned within that mist, each band within the clan is given a chance within every new generation to choose a boy to go out into the real world, who is charged with the task of undoing the curse, thus freeing his people from what would be an everlasting punishment (they are neither real, nor dead).  But, not only must the boy be brave and intelligent (there are puzzles to solve within every book), he must also show kindness to the enemy.

Let’s have a look at the Thunderer and some of the different lord about this being.  In Blackfeet lore, the Thunderer often steals women.  He also will often take the image of a very large bird — his wings creating the thunder and his eyes shooting out the lightning.  In Lakota lore, if one dreams about the Thunder god, he becomes a backwards person.   He must do everything backwards.  He washes in sand, become dirty in water, walks backwards, says exactly what he doesn’t mean, etc., etc.  The dream is so powerful that it is thought that if one fails to do these things, he courts certain death.  In THE LAST WARRIOR, because the last warrior has been adopted by the Lakota,  he believes this last to be true.  And so when our heroine dreams of the Thunderer, our hero is at once worried and seeks to protect her all the more.

There is also a legend of the Thunder Being in the Iroquois Nation.  In this legend, a young woman becomes the bride of the Thunderer and through him saves her village from a huge snake that burrows under her village, thus endangering the lives of everyone in her village.  There is still another legend about the Thunder which you can watch on the Movie called Dream Makers — well, I think that’s the name of the movie (if I am wrong about that name, please do correct me).   In this legend, which is also an Eastern Indian tribe, a young woman marries the Thunderer and goes to live with him in the above world, only to be returned to her own world when she becomes pregnant with his child.

What is very, very interesting to me is how many and how vast are the lores of Native America.  Though we often hear or even study the ancient lore of the Greeks, seldom do we read much our own lore — the mythology that belongs intimately with this land we call America — which by the way, to the Native Americans on the East Coast, it is what we know as America is Turtle Island.   Fascinatingly, there is a story for almost every creature on this continent, from the crow to the sparrow to the coyote (the trickster), the wolf and bear.  There are legends about the stars, the Big Dipper hosts legends about the Great Bear (Iroquois) and the Seven Brothers and their sister (Cheyenne and Blackfeet).  There are still other stories about the Morning Star and the Evening Star and marriages between the Gods and mortals.

So what I thought I’d ask, and what I thought I’d open up the discussion to, is not only what you think about myths (do you think they are stories about a past time or do you think, like many scientists of our day, that they are the works of imagination), but I’d love to know what is your favorite myth?  Do you like best the stories about the stars,  or the heavens, or the creation of human kind, or of love, or adventure?  So come on in, and let’s see if we can tell some of these wonderful stories from our not-too-distant past.

I spent the weekend in San Diego at a Brides Against Breast Cancer wedding gown sale surrounded by two thousand wedding gowns, so as I flew home last night and starting thinking about today’s blog, my mind naturally went to weddings.   Weddings have long played a big part in my fictional world.

And that’s just some of them.  <g>

I’ve written a lot of weddings, and as I’m writing this blog I’m trying to decide just which of my fictional weddings I enjoyed the most.  I guess it’s a tie between Trace and Jenny McBride’s wedding in THE BAD LUCK WEDDING DRESS and the wedding I wrote in my upcoming THE LONER. 

I know that ending with a wedding isn’t necessarily the popular trend in romance novels today, but I guess I’m more traditional.  I love weddings in the books I read.  I love the promise of Happily Ever After.  I know that real life doesn’t work that way, but romance novels aren’t real life, they’re fantasy, and my fantasy is traditional–so call me old fashioned.

Probably my all time favorite great-weddings-in-her-books author is Julie Garwood.   It’s hard to beat a Julie Garwood wedding.   What about you, P&P readers?  What fictional weddings have you most enjoyed?  I need to make a book store run, and I’m in the mood to read some wonderful weddings…

Story of my life.  Will have today’s blog up soon….

Land sakes, the fun times just keep happenin’ here in Wildflower Junction, don’t they?  You never knowwho’s going to be getting autographed copies of these great books the western ladies are writin’.

Well, this weekend, we have THREE winners, count ‘em, three, and each one will get a copy of FRONTIER COURTSHIP.

Without further ado, here are the winning names:

JEANNE SHEETS

CAROL

PATRICIA COCHRAN

If this is you, please send me your address at: SaintJohn@aol.com and Valerie will mail your book out to you.

Congratulations and happy reading!