Finally getting settled back in at home.  Though “settled” is relative, I guess, since there are still half-filled suitcases in the house and laundry to be done and mail to be sorted . . . and on and on.

I’ve been greeted with such wonderful emails from so many friends and readers since the award and I’m so incredibly grateful for everyone’s support.  These celebrations–starting with the one Bella had the night of the awards and still going on with contacts from friends I haven’t talked to in a very LOOOOOOONG time–have been as fabulous as the award itself!

Here’s a shot from the screen when it was announced!

It was a great evening even before this announcement.  Bella author Karin Kallmaker won two awards–it was a great night for Bella.

Bonus:  the award for best mystery was presented by none other than Kate Clinton, so I got to meet her (or at least hug her and say thanks).

Double bonus, the incomparable Mark Doty, who has been a great inspiration to me for years because of the beauty of his writing, also won a Lambda for poetry, and it was a huge honor for me to follow him to the podium.

Triple bonus:  I have to admit, I found the clutch to be most serviceable for the evening.  Thanks to YOSista for loaning it to me.

ADAM LAMBERT WAS HERE TODAY!!

My informant was wrong–he was on the Today Show today, which I found out when I woke up and turned on the t.v. at 9:30 this morning.  I dressed and pretty much ran to Rockefeller Center.  Missed the outside singing.

Sad.

BUT!  Adam and Kris were on the Kathie Lee and Hoda show at 10, and though I didn’t hear them sing live or really even see them through the window (because the KLG and Hoda show is upstairs) I could see the studio lights and I knew they were there.  Plus, we could see them on the outside monitors.  Therefore, I can faithfully claim I was within 50 feet of Adam and Kris.  So that’s a grand thing.

I ate in Rockefeller Center and took the B train uptown to St. John the Divine.  Wonderful.  I could spend a whole day there.  Grabbed wonderful food to go from an Amish Market and found a free place to post and check the internet (none in my hotel!  In NYC!  Can you believe it?) So now it’s back at the hotel to shower, rest, change and GO to the Lammy event!!!

What a day it’s been already. 

Won’t be able to update until sometime tomorrow when this little free internet spot reopens!

 Left the midwest in an astonishing downpour–the kind where it rains so hard it sounds like rocks are hitting your car.  Also a damp spirit as I heard from a friend that ADAM LAMBERT was on the Today Show this morning and I’d miss him by just a few hours.

 New York is drier, but overcast and foggy.  I walked down to the Empire State Building (which is right across the street from where the Lammy Awards Ceremony will be tomorrow night) and couldn’t see anywhere near the top.

I had a bagel with Nova lox for breakfast in Grand Central Station, so I feel like I’ve arrived.   Then I went straight to the New York Public Library, where I’d never been before.  They have many treasures, including a Declaration of Independence in Jefferson’s handwriting, and a  great collection of 20th century dime novels and comic books.  On the third floor, in the hall outside the great reading room, was a great timeline display of the gay rights movement, particularly focusing on Stonewall and the Liberation of Christopher Street.  Reading the weeklies, the fliers, and the letters from folks fighting the good fight in 1969 and 1970 was quite moving, especially in light of the horrible Supreme Court decision in California yesterday.   Topped the visit off with a visit to the Children’s Reading Room, where the original toys that inspired A. A. Milne to write Winnie the Pooh are housed.  That was a lovely surprise for me!

I also walked by the Episcopal Center, home base of the national church offices and checked out their little bookstore. 

Ate at Don Giovanni’s–great home-cooked Italian food, huge portions, relatively cheap.  It’s on 44th near 9th–one restaurant I always visit whenever I’m in NYC.

Walked up Broadway and down 5th in the evening–including time in the brand new Times Square pedestrian mall.  The city has put lawn chairs in the middle of the former street.  It’s a blast to sit an watch people and signs and traffic and everything.

Tomorrow will be fun!

The luggage is all packed and sitting in the hallway, causing earth-shattering consternation to the household pets.  One of the cats even stole my wallet this morning, but I found it before he dispersed the credit cards all over the back porch.  They love their sitter, but the luggage still freaks them out.

Flying freaks me out, but I’m promising myself not to expend the energy tomorrow when I leave the house at 3 a.m. (!) to get to the airport on time.  I’ll need all my focus just to get in the right lines and not wind up in Maui.  Which wouldn’t be bad, but it isn’t where the award shindig is happening.

Last night I put on my ceremony clothes and made sure I would be comfortable and functional.  Why in God’s name are women’s dress clothes never both?  The clutch I borrowed will barely serve–it’ll hold a lip gloss (my fancy make-up for the evening) and maybe a phone, but not a phone and camera.  And of course, the clothes have no pockets.  I won’t get started on my fashion rant here.  It’s only one evening.  I’ll survive.  In fact, I’ll enjoy it–I’m really looking forward to the whole to-do.  What an experience it will all be!  Cocktails at 6, awards at 7, after party at 9:30.   More social life than I usually have in a month.

And I’m spending an extra two days in New York City, which I’m really looking forward to.  I hope to walk a lot, shop, eat cheap city food, and visit some Episcopal sights (always researching for Lonnie’s future adventures!).

I’ll update from there if I can, otherwise, check back in a few days!

Writers need their sleep.  And so do we all, especially if we’re learning new things. 

I feel vindicated.  I’ve always been a 9-hour-minimum sleeper, at least, if I want to be alert and functional.  In college, I told people sleep was my Number One priority.  Then studying.  Then social life.  I was a real charmer then, as now!  Still, I stay healthy and mostly on top of things, even if I always felt guilty about being lazy.

But I just go my hands on a new book, Brain Rules:  12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School by John Medina.  And it has a handy and fun website you can check out to get a taste for the book.

Anyhow, he explains that we need sleep time for our brains to process what we learned during the day.  “Sleep well, think well,” he says.  He says naps are a good thing!  Love him!  Can’t wait to read the book.

It’s about a teddy bear who has willed himself to live only to be arrested for being the most heinous terrorist mastermind.   Yes, really.  As the official website says:

Emotionally gripping and intellectually compelling, Winkie introduces the most memorable protagonist since the Velveteen Rabbit, and—with the help of a lesbian Moslem cleaning woman, a stuttering attorney, and a Lacan-spewing bear cub—brilliantly exposes the cruel absurdities of our age and explores what it means to be human in an increasingly barbaric world.

It’s a strange book.  I loved it.  Mostly I wondered what sort of creative bravery it took to write it and to believe that it had a chance in hell of getting published.  If I had an idea like this I would never, ever believe it would see the light of day at a publishing house.

I would love to have seen the face of the agents/editors who first saw this thing.  How many times (if any?) was it rejected?  Who had the guts to buy it and what made the risk worth taking?  Kudos to those visionaries.

This, of course, reveals a great deal about my own writing life–particularly the stuff I don’t write.  I’ve often thought that’s a problem.  Now that I see it written out like this, I feel that more strongly than ever.  I need to write my winkies too!  Even if I don’t think there’s a chance they’ll ever get published.  I should let the world decide that, not me.

Hm.  Quite a little pep talk for myself.  What do you think?  Do you guys give yourselves pep talks?  Do you writers out there write your winkies?

I rather like that phrase, that call to arms:  WRITE YOUR WINKIES!

I wonder if Chase would mind?

It’s a little ritual I have:  to take a day near the end of April of beginning of May, stock up on chocolate and skim milk and read a mystery from start to finish.  I started the practice decades ago during college.  I’d finish my last exam but because I worked with housing, I couldn’t leave until everyone else went home.  So I’d take a new pack of Oreos and a gallon of milk to my room and crawl into bed and read.  Sometimes I’d read several books in as many days.  These days, I’m lucky to get in one.  But it’s a treat.

So this year I read Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.  I never plan ahead what I will read on the magic day–I just go to my shelf and pick the book that calls to me from my “I’ll Read This Someday” shelf.   I knew only my mother liked it (she’s a pretty good book recommender), that the author had died young just after delivering the manuscript to his publisher, and that it is the first of a trilogy (evidently he delivered all three to his publisher before he died).  Oh, and it’s been an international sensation.

Well, I certainly liked it well enough to read the whole thing in one day.  It’s written as many popular thrillers are–with quirky characters cast into a strange land, with cliffhanger endings at the end of most chapters, with private troubles and local social troubles and humanity-level troubles all intermingling.  That’s all stuff I strive to do in my own books.  I’m alway happy to see how someone else does it.  And I loved his characterization–such a varied group of people, each depicted in strong ways.  I don’t want to give too much away by talking about it–but studying how he brought people to life as quickly as he did was useful to me.

***  Mild spoiler alert.  I don’t tell you anything about the mystery plot but I do mention some of the events of the book, so if you don’t want to know anything, don’t read any more.

***

*** 

The only thing I didn’t like was the level of sexual violence against women in it–the graphically represented stuff.  Now take that with a grain of salt, oh readers!  I’ll just remind you all–I’m a terrific wimp.  I have a very strong reaction against this sort of thing.  Even network television flips me out.  I know bad things happen and it’s even okay with me if they happen in books and movies and television.  But I’m the sort who like to have suspense built and then suggestions made.  Probably because I grew up watching Alfred Hitchcock movies which still are some of the scariest things ever made.  Suggestion engages my imagination.  Graphic representation just freaks me out.

But that’s me and not most everyone else on the planet, I know.  And as that sort of thing goes, this novel is mild.  I will read his next book one day, but I wouldn’t move it to the top of my list.

A lot of folks haven’t heard about this yet and a lot of others are looking for good sources to find out more about what’s going on with Amazon’s exclusion of adult titles from the sales rankings and its effect on gay and lesbian books.  Here’s some of the best I’ve found so far, so I thought I’d share (source:  the Lambda Literary Foundation website).

LLF Statement on Amazon Controversy

April 13, 2009–In response to the recent uproar over Amazon’s deranking of “adult” titles and its effect on LGBT books, Board President Christopher Rice has released this statement:

“Lambda Literary Foundation applauds the diligent work of writers, bloggers and activists in calling attention to this deeply distressing turn of events. I have seen my first novel stripped of its sale ranking by this apparent computer glitch so I join other writers who are baffled to the point of anger. I take great solace in the quick mobilization of our community in response to this apparent marginalization of LGBT books; the grassroots power of the Internet has been placed on glorious display for all to see. Over the next few days, we at Lambda Literary will be monitoring the situation very closely. Amazon is one of our nation’s largest general book retailers. In their commitment to creating and sustaining technological advances in the publishing industry, they have laid claim to the future of book distribution. As such, they have a pressing responsibility to create an unfettered exchange of stories and ideas. If a quick and decisive response to this problem is not forthcoming within the next few days, we at Lambda Literary look forward to leading a sustained and impassioned dialogue on this issue, which will seek to harness the energies that have been released by our community’s admirable response.”

Hear Christopher Rice discuss Amazon on NPR’s All Things Considered.

See related articles at The Advocate’s website.

I like to read more than one book at a time.  Unless it’s fiction.  I can only read one novel at a time, but I can have several nonfiction books, art books, books on creativity going at once.  They all mix in my head in terrific ways.  And for the last several weeks, even as I’ve been looking at my other Spring Breezes books on writing, I’ve had the great pleasure of looking at Lynda Barry’s What It Is (Drawn and Quarterly 2008).

“Looking at” describes the experience more than “reading.”  Perhaps “absorbing” is an even better word for my relationship with this book.  It’s almost indescribable.  Barry does with images–collage, painting, lettering–what we normally see people trying to do with words.  She wonders about things like memory and creativity and what images are and where it all comes from within us.  She gives terrific lessons for how to write in more effective and meaningful ways.  And she gives it to you through your right brain.

I felt the book moved through three basic parts:  her musings on the big ideas behind creativity of all kinds, her writing instruction, and a section reproducing some of her notes from her own writing process. 

Some years ago (how many?  I can’t remember!) I had the great experience of taking a one-day workshop with her and it changed my writing forever.  I use a technique or two I learned from her at some point in nearly every workshop I lead.  If you ever have a chance to take a class with her,  do it!  In the meantime, check out this book.