International paraphernalia

I'm not exactly a novice at mailing things, but I've had an interesting lesson about the workings of the United States Postal Service when it comes to mailing parcels to other countries:  The written word, which is supposed to be the law of the land, means absolutely nothing in the United States any more.

Let me start at the beginning....

I have a friend in Australia who is interested in getting a copy of "The Tiger's Cub" to place on her bookshelf next to her copy of "Night of the Tiger'.  When I sent her "Night" in 2010, I listened to the person at the post office that I took my package to when it came to which forms to fill out, which services I should consider adding on, etc.  The book went from my hands at the office closest to my job in Scarborough, to the sorting center for all of Maine, then to the International Office in New York where I had been informed that the Customs for the United States would check it, mark it as processed, and send it on.  I was able to watch this from my living room via my computer, which showed the beginning scan that had been performed in front of me, the "processing" and "departure" scans at the sorting office - and a two week span between the "processing" and "departure" scan before it was placed on an airplane and Kennedy International Airport.  When "Night" got to Australia, it was scanned as "processing" in THEIR Customs office, then "departed" and got "processed" at her postal station before it went "out for delivery".  The final scan happened at her door and was noted as "successful delivery".

This time, on December 4th, using the same methods of relying on the local postal clerk for what would be the best way to proceed - because rules change all the time, so he would be more up to date than I on what was now the best way to go - all went to Hell in a Handbasket (or so the saying goes).  As with "Night", the edition of "The Tiger's Cub" was scanned in front of me at the desk, then went to the sorting center, where it was "processed" and "departed" within a couple of hours, so it was on it's way to New York less than 24 hours from my mailing time, and then it went to Customs, where it was "processed" on the morning of December 7th.

Then, nothing.

No departure scan.

No arrival scan at Australian Customs.

No departure to the Postal Station.

No processing, no "out for delivery" and no happy camper at the far end.

So I proceed to try to find out what to do next.

Automated systems at the post office customer service line make it impossible for me to just phone my local post office, so I answer the necessary questions for the automated voice about my "missing package" when it's been gone a month, but has no departure scan to show it ever made it to the airplane.  I'm told by the automated voice that I need "a live operator", which is a good thing, because I really want to speak to a human, and I'm connected to the International Operator.  While waiting on hold - over an hour and very close to two hours before I'm connected "because of a very high call volume", I find the page on the USPS web site about Lost International Mail and How to File a Claim.

When the operator comes on, I explain the situation, give her my Customs number, and ask if she needs the information the web site says she needs to start a claim and begin the investigation.  She tracks the package, informs me that the least expensive way of mailing needs for me to file a form with the office where I mailed it, so I go back to where I started the process with all my paperwork about how much it will cost to replace the book, the receipt from the mailing, and tell him what the International Operator said.  He tracks the package, tells me it's "stuck in Customs", and warns that there are no rules that Customs have to follow about sending things off right away.  They DON'T have to scan the package, they DON'T have to send it on in a prompt manner, and if they think it's any kind of threat, they DON'T have to send it on at all.  I remind him it's nothing but a book.  A book I wrote myself in a plain brown envelope without even any packing material.  He WATCHED me put it into the envelope and tape it shut, even to having me put packing tape around the edge in case it got torn.  And the threat would be????

He defers and tells me that I need to call the International Operator and have her start the claim, as they have no way to start the process in the local office.

This "pass it back and forth" game has gone on for THREE MORE WEEKS, with each postal employee giving me a different version of the rules than what is on the web site in black and white.  As time has gone on, I come to realize what the rest of the world already saw when our House of Representatives and Senate couldn't stop arguing long enough to balance the budget and "shut down the government".  When the people in power have to deal with the kind of things the rest of the American public has to deal with on a daily basis, they can't take it.  They behave like three-year-olds.  They tell you someone else is to blame, then they take their toys and go home to pout.

Suffice to say, it's now been 7 1/2 weeks since I sent my book to a friend in Australia.  The latest missive from my Postal System tells me that they AREN'T going to look around the office where it was last scanned and see if it might still be there.  They AREN'T going to honor the insurance that everyone except the International Contingent says "comes with every First Class Mailing" with up to $50 coverage in case of loss or damage.  The only thing they WILL do is tell me that I need to spend LOTS more money to get a $15 book to Australia - to the tune of $50 and up, depending on what method I chose - but that they STILL won't 100% guarantee a delivery date because, after all, Customs can randomly decide that my book is a threat to National Security and confiscate it.  Basically, my option right now is to eat the $16.75 I've already spent and to spend a small fortune for all kinds of tracking, insurance, delivery confirmation, etc. for them to maybe lose it again and be out THAT amount as well........

Um, yeah.

I wish right now that I was as popular as Stephen King, even though I'm kind of liking NOT having people coming and gawking at my house and trying to climb through my bathroom window for an autograph, because THEN this dumb-as-a-post government agency might stop with the political double speak and get something done for me.

As far as I'm concerned, if I'm going to cough up the kind of money they want, I'll look into UPS or FEDEX or some other company that offers International Shipping and see if there's someone out there that has a better reputation for actually following through on lost packages.

In the meantime, I'd love to hear from people from other countries about whether or not I should get away from this land of stupidity and double talk.  What do you think of the country where YOU live?  Can I come and see if I like it???

Back into research mode......

I always love it when I'm humming along, writing a new tale, and my characters show me a scene that I have to question before I can include it....

Here's the scene that I was shown - and the question about it.....

A brief intro to the characters, then the scene:

Stefan Savoldi is an Italian male model, and very popular in his home country.  Kelly Starbird, visiting Italy and used to being around the handsome Benton men, thinks he is paranoid, conceited, and irritating - but she doesn't realize that part of the problem is Stefan's use of cocaine, which he feels is necessary to make him a better model.  But there is something about him that makes her feel that he needs a friend, and, as annoying as it is, she opts to befriend him.

Stefan, in order to show Kelly what a great life he leads, invites her to a photo shoot, where she witnesses the way his agent talks down to him, telling him he's getting too fat and wrinkled to continue modeling.  When the models step into another room to change for the next part of the shoot, Kelly speaks to the agent about his treatment of Stefan and the fact that the man hasn't eaten in the several days that he's been joining her for breakfasts and dinners.

The agent, upset that this American is interfering with his model, tells one of the bodyguards that she has threatened him and needs to be sent to her hotel.  Kelly, reading the agents emotions, knows that there is something WAY wrong here and is arguing with the bodyguard - who has her by the arm and is forcing her to go with him to a taxi.  It's while they are crossing the parking lot that Stefan, coming out to speak to Kelly, is told "she is just getting some fresh air", but sees what's really going on through the big window two stories up and starts to bang on the window, yelling at the bodyguard to let her go and ignoring the cracking noises that indicate there is something wrong with the window he's pounding on.  (Long term cocaine use sometimes causes "ghost sounds", so Stefan, after a couple of decades of cocaine abuse, has become used to hearing such things.)  One final thump, and the window gives way.  Stefan, leaning against the window as he's raging, finds himself in a two story free-fall, landing in broken glass on concrete to permanently end his modeling career because of the numerous cuts he sustains as well as several broken bones that need surgery to fix.....

So this is where my inquiring mind comes into play.

As a scene, it's simple enough, but the question is:  Would the kind of safety glass used in a hotel window on the second floor, not intended to ever be opened, shatter from a human fist pounding on it repeatedly, even if the glass is a couple of decades old?  Would a scene like this actually happen in the real world?

Naturally, my first source of information is search engines.  No help there, as there are stories of people who have died while proving the strength of such windows (http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/window.asp), but there are also many videos showing people bouncing on such glass in which it took four healthy sized men bouncing up and down to shatter it (http://boringly.com/how-not-to-test-shatterproof-glass-fail-video_898658a2a.html).  A discussion with one of the techno-geeks I work with resulted in being told that it takes 500 pounds to break the tensile strength of such a piece of glass.....but what about the seal that keeps the pane of glass in the window?  Might it weaken enough over time to allow the whole pane of glass to fall out of the frame?   (Here's another take on the Snopes report about that, in which it was the frame and not the glass itself that caused the Toronto professor to fall to his death: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Hoy)

Since this is a dramatic changing point for Stefan - and, as a result, his relationship with Kelly - I want to include the scene in the book, but want the facts correct as well.  My mentor from high school reminded me that it's such little details that make or break a story, so the research into this scene will continue until I know how it's going to go.....

In the meantime, feel free to contact me about doing a talk in your area, if you can get anyone interested.  I'll gladly consider discussing such things in an open forum....

*smile*

Photographs and memories......

The winter months around Maine are hard on a lot of people.

There's the snow, that blocks those who don't get around as well inside whenever the big, beautiful flakes like we're having today come falling down.  Those who can't shovel themselves out or don't have family or friends who will come and do it sit inside and get depressed.

There's freezing rain, when Mother Nature decides we're having precipitation even though it's not cold enough to snow, but the ground is still cold, so the rain turns the whole world into a giant ice rink.  People who don't know enough to slow down when the ground looks glassy end up sliding off the road, sometimes just feeling foolish because they need help getting pulled back onto the road, but sometimes they end up injured - or dead - because other cars or other things on the sides of the road ended up being involved in the mistake.

For me, winter tends to get depressing because, in quiet times, I think of the friends and family I've lost over the winter months.

There's the friend who was working for a company that rents moving trailers who was crushed between two trailers he was picking up to return to the office when his equipment malfunctioned.

There's the friend with Cerebral Palsy who had survived two rounds of cancer only to have his muscles jump at just the wrong time as his aide was helping him get dressed, snapping his neck and killing him instantly.

There's the friend who was in a lot of pain from slipped discs who accidentally overdosed on his pain medication.

A recent addition to this group is my aunt, who passed away just a couple of weeks ago at the ripe age of 101.

And although the veil between this world and the next is traditionally said to be the thinnest on Halloween night, I feel all of the other friends and relatives who passed at other times of the year just on the other side, some of whom are encouraging me to use this period when I can't go out into my garden or go for long walks in the sunshine to feel close to the Great Spirit to put all of the images that my latest characters are showing me into my computer to be included in the next great novel.

Sometimes, in the darkest hours of night, when I'm too tired to be able to pay attention to what's coming off my finger tips and adding itself to the computer page, but I'm too awake to be able to go to sleep, the spirits of those who weren't exactly my cheerleaders on this side of the veil come with their nasty commentary on whether or not I actually have the talent to "pull this off".  If I'm trying to read something I've written when these demon voices from my past come to call, I have to force myself to walk away and come back to edit another time.

The demon voices have come often as I'm trying to prepare what I want to say to anyone coming to the Local Author Series talk that I have coming up next month.

As I learned in speech classes I took in college, I wrote out what I wanted to say in a moment of clarity, including stage direction on when to pause for a moment for a joke to sink in.  I have been using a small voice recorder, so old that it adds it's own little sound effects now and again to the speech, but working well enough that I can't see spending the additional $30 - 40 for a replacement with a newer digital model that won't have the odd little cassette tapes that I have to keep replacing because they wear through after a point.  I read the speech aloud, pausing at all the right points, then play it back.  As I listen to my own voice, complete with the odd little scraping noises and pops and crackles that the machine adds in, these "anti-cheerleaders" whisper in my ear.....

"That sounds stupid."  says one voice.  "Clearly no one cares about THAT."

I rework that part of the speech and try again.

"Even worse." says another voice.  "Now you sound like you should have been on the short bus to school."

In the middle of all of this unconstructive criticism, my little voice recorder, which is about 20 years old now and owes me nothing, suddenly stops dead.  Thinking the batteries have gone, I go to my stash of batteries (because, as a former Den Mother for the Webelos Cub Scouts, I have taken that "Be Prepared" motto to heart) and put in a fresh set.  No go.  Another old friend whose death in January should be mourned......

(I jest.  The voice recorder will get an honorary "funeral" as befitting something that has helped me with my work numerous times, but it's voice won't be added to the clamour of those who have gone to the next world before me.  It really has never had anything critical to say about my work.)

So while the voices of my deceased friends who supported me and the voices of those who wanted to break my spirit fight it out in the back of my head today, keeping my mind working in the background even as I go to work to stock shelves and perhaps chose a new recorder to help me in my work, my speech for the Local Authors talk sits in limbo until my day off tomorrow.  Perhaps when I read it to my new recorder tomorrow, all will settle into place and it will be ready to be put onto index cards in preparation for the speech.  Perhaps it will need a little more help here and there to make it sound better.

In the meantime, Kelly Starbird is showing me little bits of her story, which has been getting worked on between loads of dishes and laundry, between shifts at the store, and between forays into the search engines as I still search for the perfect face and body to represent Stefan Savoldi, a man who has been modeling since the age of 11, who lifts weights every day to keep his muscles sharply defined, but whose agent keeps bringing him down by telling him he's getting fat and wrinkled and needs to consider retiring from modeling.

Have you ever noticed that, when you put in a specific description of what you want (i.e. Italian male model brown eyes thin) that you can sometimes get everything BUT what you were looking for?

I'm still trying to figure out what that black rhino had to do with my search for Stefan a few days ago.......

(And the voice of one of my anti-cheerleaders says "MAYBE it's because you haven't a clue what you're doing.......")

*shrugs and pushes the voice off an imaginary cliff*

Creativity on Parade

I have marvelous ideas on what I want to do for flyers, book covers, etc., but I don't always have the talent to get what I want to appear before me in my computer programs.  That's why I like being connected to creative people who have the knowledge I lack.

Case in point:  I needed a flyer to put around the towns around Valentine's Day to announce my Local Author's Series talk at the Portland Public Library.  I had an image of the words, large toward the front of the flyer and getting smaller toward the back, kind of like the Star Wars opening storyline in reverse, with my covers and characters to the sides.  I couldn't make it happen, but my marvelous co-worker at the Staples Copy Center has the power.  She made the following flyer, and when I posted it on Facebook, the shares across the social media began:

If you wish to come, it's an open invitation.  If you can't come but are willing to share the flyer with your friends and family who might wish to come, thank you for doing so.

I would love to meet you all, and hope you have creative people like this in YOUR life who can make your dreams happen......

What's in a name?

I've been writing down bits and pieces of a new story in The Tiger Series (as my publisher has dubbed "Night of the Tiger" and "The Tiger's Cub") while trying to come up with a title for the new book so that I can begin writing it in earnest.  I have three rules when it comes to getting a title for this next book:

1) I don't want it to begin with the word "The" (as I had originally named the first one "The Night of the Tiger" and my publisher dropped "The" because there are WAY too many books out there beginning with that word)

2) It should have the word "Tiger" in it somewhere to tie it into the other two books in the series

3) It has to be a unique title that comes up all alone when typed into search engines.  (I neglected this for the first book, and there were three other books that would come up when people wanting to buy my book typed in the title.  There was only a movie from 1920 using "The Tiger's Cub" when I first titled the second book, but I waited two years before letting myself write that one, and others had caught on to that title in the delay and, if not for some aggressive media marketing, I would have been buried AGAIN in the search engine results.  I want to get this title set and the media marketing started even as I'm writing this time.....)

Friends on Facebook have been trying to help, but have now given me too many choices, so I'm asking for opinions on the title.  Of course, if you have one you think would work better that no one else is using, let me know that, as well:

A) Deeply Beats A Tiger's Heart
B) Wild Tiger's Heart
C) Tamed Tiger's Heart (alternate:  Taming the Tiger's Heart)
D) Tiger's Only One
E) Catching The Tiger's Heart (alternate: Catching the Tiger's Eye)
F) Understanding Tigers
G) Outlaw Tiger

Now, if you've read the books, Kyle Benton and his lovely tiger lady from the first book, Teresanna, come back and visit again.  Their son, Chase, and his lovely lady, Aloriah (aka Ree) from the second book are also heavily involved, as the third tale involves Aloriah's mother, Kelly.

A brief synopsis of the new tale (as it's been introduced to me so far by the characters) is that Kelly, unhappy with living 2 hours from her daughter and the people she cares about, sells her home on Indian Island in Old Town, Maine to buy a large piece of property outside of Greenville.  Because it has no buildings on the property, she makes the choice to cross some items off her bucket list while Kyle takes charge of putting up a main house for Kelly to live in as well as a couple of guest houses for visitors to use.  One of the places she wants to see is Italy, and while she's visiting Capri, she meets an Italian male model named Stefan Savoldi, who is eight years younger than Kelly, but when she refuses to treat him like the superstar that everyone else treats him as, he is intrigued by her and does everything in his power to capture her heart......

Suffice to say that this isn't one of those situations where they fall madly in love in the first chapter and everything falls into place for them......  :)

So, do any of the titles I've listed above float your boat?  Do you have another suggestion for me?  Am I being a total nerd in asking such a thing of my Fearless Readers?

Thank you, as always, for reading my blog - and for putting me over 800 hits for a blog that's been online less than a year!

How did it get so late so soon? (Dr. Seuss)

I've been giving myself minor heart attacks all week.  This is because I suddenly realized that we're almost half-way through January, I have a Local Writer's Series talk booked for February 28th, which will be here in no time at the rate time is passing - and I'm not even CLOSE to being ready for it!

I have to take the rough draft of the speech I've written, read it aloud while recording to make sure it doesn't sound stupid or go beyond the time I've been allowed, and tweak it if need be.

I have to put together fliers announcing the event, get them printed, and post them on the spaces provided around downtown Portland for such things for people who don't have internet access, but might want to come.

I have to pick up either a cash box (that can be locked during the talk) or one of the locking tote boxes we sell at Staples (which would also be handy for carrying the books, as the tote boxes have wheels and a retractable handle) so that I have some means of having change for anyone purchasing a book after the talk who doesn't have a credit card.

I have to decide what form of a receipt I'm going to provide and purchase a receipt book.

I have to inventory my books and decide whether I'm going to purchase more copies and/or come up with some means of being able to do a prepaid order should I run out for those who want to purchase the autographed copy on the day of the event.  (Perhaps use the receipt book for the orders and just make sure to get a shipping address on the receipt?)

And, of course, I'm in my normal "post Christmas cleaning mode", in which I'm trying to go through the house and eradicate all the spiders who've been cheerfully building webs that involved my Christmas decorations, as I always get disgusted when I'm taking down the tinsel and have fresh webbing that I've put my hands into......

They say "Time flies while you're having fun", but it obviously also flies when you're just keeping up with the day to day grind.  Those of you who read my blog and who believe in the power of prayer, please say a prayer that I get everything done in time.....

Blessed be, and I sincerely hope you all have a very prosperous 2014!

Just when you thought it was safe to go back.......

This morning's title may bring back memories of "Jaws 2" to some of you.  The reason I left of "into the water" is because, in my case, I'm having issues with going back into my writing files, as a different character than I was hoping for is talking to me louder than the rest - and I was hoping to get some of the other stories out of my desk drawer first.

I was expecting someone from the science fiction/fantasy tale to be speaking up, as I've been busily editing the story (taking out some of the harsher scenes) since finishing "The Tiger's Cub".  I was hoping that, if any other characters were going to talk to me, it would be the characters from the historical romance who started fighting just before I let Chase Benton take the reins....

But NO!

None of the characters I was expecting to be hearing from want to say anything right now.

However, Kelly Starbird is showing me scenes - some of which are very funny - involving where her life goes after she's won the lottery.....

*sigh*

So, whenever I open my "writing file" and listen for a moment to hear whose voice is going to speak out, it isn't a character from "Rhawneth" (although I have been shown a couple of minor scenes).  It isn't a character from "Fireblossom and the Dream Weaver" (although some research into my family tree has brought out a few scenes there).  It's another go at the Tiger Series with a character I thought was just going to stay in the background and vegetate.....

*shrug*

I guess I'll move on into the third of a series, then, since no one else is in a rush to have their story finished.....