Honey, I'm Sorry I Killed Your Aquasaurs

It's a great time to be a writer. We have so many more opportunities available to us. I love the fact that we can traditionally publish or self-publish on Amazon, for example. I self-published a book that's a compilation of my newspaper columns—Honey, I'm Sorry I Killed Your Aquasaurs (and other short essays on the parenting life). Thought I'd share the title essay from that book.  Enjoy!

Killjoy Mama—or Honey, I'm Sorry I killed the Aquasaurs

Thank goodness things are back to normal after the holidays. Well, almost—how normal can your life be when you have small children? We muddled through the holidays this year with a sense of foreboding, knowing we would get inundated with toys and we would be left wondering what to do with them. And we did. One of the worst things we received this year was the gift of Aquasaurs.

If you don't know what Aquasaurs are, consider yourself lucky.

The kit comes with eggs that hatch--but they must hatch in spring water that is a certain temperature and you must be careful that you don't bump them around too much. All this fuss tickled my husband. "If they are prehistoric creatures, why do you have to be so gentle with them?"

The girls and I followed to directions to perfection and soon we saw teeny, tiny Aquasaurs emerge in the murky waters. The only place I could safely put the plastic tank was on the kitchen table. After awhile, I wished I would have placed it somewhere else. No matter how much I cleaned it (every TWO DAYS) the tank looked filthy and the bigger the creatures became, the more they resembled some kind of bug. And I had them in my kitchen.

After about two weeks the girls lost complete interest. I found myself crushing the tiny bits of food for the three that survived. Of course, it was also me that cleaned the tank— much the same way that it is I who cleans the cat box and feeds the cat. As if I needed anything thing else to do in my life.

If I had toddlers in diapers, the care of the Aquasaurs would have driven me to madness.

I admitted to some friends that I really could not wait for the Aquasaur life cycle to end—they were disgusting little creatures, taking my time, and invading my kitchen. They only live 90 days or so. But I resolved to let nature takes its course, even though I had briefly thought of flushing them down the toilet.

This presented a moral dilemma for me, a vegetarian who strongly believes in the dignity of all life. I could not quite appreciate the dignity of the Aquasaurs.

Then something strange happened. I thought it was my imagination, at first.

When I cleaned the tank one day, I noticed that one of the little creatures would come to the top and look at me and do little flips. The more I talked to it, the more it flipped around. It seemed happy to see me.

This began to happen every time I cleaned the tank. My husband stopped and watched my cleaning the tank one night and said, "Look, that one likes you." And so I knew it was true. We had bonded, this little Aquasaur and me. Woe be unto me.

A few weeks later, as I was cleaning the tank (again), as I poured a clear liquid into the tank, suddenly I smelled something weird. I realized that it was vinegar. The plastic vinegar bottle was sitting next to the plastic spring water bottle and in my harried state I poured it in, instead of the water. All I could do was stand there and watch them die, hideously, but quickly.

We buried the creatures under the apple tree in our backyard, along with any thoughts of getting any more pets.

Author’s Note: I still feel like crying when I think about this.

An Experiment and an Invitation

I've had a busy week. On Thursday, I finished my rewrite of Death of a Schoolgirl: The Jane Eyre Chronicles, and sent it to my editor at Berkley.

It's a big baby at 98,264 words. The release date is August, 2012. The editor's corrections should come to me on Monday (tomorrow) and I plan to have them back to her within the week. I think the cover is absolutely out of this world! I've been working on the second book in the series Death of a Dowager Lady by doing my research reading at night. That book is due in March.

On Friday, the galleys for Ready, Scrap, Shoot arrived.

They are due to Midnight Ink in January. I'm a third of the way through reading those. I'm dedicating that book to a bookclub that meets at the Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Fenton, Missouri. Those ladies are really excited about the dedication--and we plan to have a big book launch at that store when the book is out in May, 2012.

On Saturday, I got a wild and crazy idea: what if I wrote a Kiki Lowenstein short story every month for a year and made it available to my readers for 99 cents on Kindle? I noodled around a story idea with my sister, Jane. Saturday night, I created a cover for Kiki Lowenstein and the Secret Santa. I hope to have it available on Kindle later this week.

Today (Sunday) we loaded onto Kindle the new Ink, Red, Dead: A Kiki Lowenstein Mystery that features two novellas, one a Kiki Lowenstein mystery and the other the progressive story that my blog sisters and I wrote. It should be available for sale within the next 48 hours. I priced it at 99 cents. I plan to keep the 99 cent price point for everything I offer on Kindle for a while.

I'm curious to see how this works. Here's my hunch: Readers who love my characters will want to have a monthly "fix." I know that I love tuning into my favorite TV shows. And basically, we're in the entertainment business, right?

Will it work? Or will I drop dead trying? We'll see!

MARK YOUR CALENDARS

On December 22 from 9 p.m EST to Midnight EST, I'm hosting an online Holiday Party on my Facebook page http://www.Facebook.com/JoannaCampbellSlan   There will be fabulous handmade prizes, signed books given away, and the chance to chat with your favorite authors including Diane Orgain (The Maternal Instincts Mysteries); Betty Hechtman (you know her! and she's giving away a crocheted scarf!); and Monica Ferris. More to come...

Will it work? I dunno. Here's hoping.

Zentangled Up and Kiki Is #49 on Amazon

On Saturday I took a beginning class in Zentangle. It's loosely defined as a method of using patterns to focus the mind and make art. While it looks a lot like doodling, there are key differences:

1. It's purposeful. You don't just let your pen or pencil meander.
2. It's focused. Because the strokes are often repetitive, you get this "zen-like" thing going.
3. It develops a finished product, so it's productive.

Actually, I was introduced to Zentangle by my pal Ann Farnen, owner of Scrapbook Factory Super Store, O'Fallon, Illinois. I walked into her store and saw this display case with all sorts of cool art and said, "Wow, I want to do that." So Ann showed me the basics. You start with a tile, a 3.5" square piece of paper. Using a pencil, put four dots on it, one in each corner. Connect the dots to make a border or frame.

Now here's the tricky part...make a "string," or a design in the middle of the tile. For example, you could draw a tic-tac-toe board, or your initials, or divide the tile into quarters. The purpose of the "string" is to break the tile into sections. This, in turn, makes approaching the patterns (or "tangles") easier because you have a small, defined space to conquer.

After you finish creating a "string," switch to ink. Sakura's Micron Pens are perfect. Find a pattern you like and start filling in sections of your tile. A tile can take an hour to do, or less, so it's a great craft to carry around in your purse. You can find a neat-o guide to patterns at the TanglePatterns website. Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts are the originators of this art form. It was designed to do in black and white, but I've seen colored zentangles that are gorgeous.

I hope to get certified to teach this! Last night I did the turtle above. I still have a little work to do, but gee, I had a great time doing it! This morning I woke up totally focused and ready to get to work on my Work-In-Progress, and I think that my zentangle experience helped clear my head.

KIKI NEWS

Need a great summer read? PAPER, SCISSORS, DEATH is now available for only 99 cents at Amazon. This last week, PSD climbed to #49 on the list of all Amazon Kindle books. Wow! I guess a lot of you are telling your friends. Kiki and I say, THANKS!

Me and My ER

For anybody who tuned in late, my blogsisters and I are writing about e-readers this week.

Due to the subject matter, I made a real effort to find my Kindle. The fact that I didn’t know where it was kind of clues you in to how much I like it. I did find it – buried under some stuff in a basket. I couldn’t believe how clunky it looked compared to the ones they’re advertising on TV now and it’s maybe two years old.

If I had realized, and I should have since that’s how it seems to go with all electronic stuff, that it was going to be outdated in a few months, I never would have bought it. But Oprah did a show raving about Kindles and had a special offer that if you ordered one within the next 24 hours and put in some code, you got a bunch of money off.

So far I have two books on it. One I read and one I only read a little of. Someone I met in a bookstore told me that once I had a book I really wanted to read on the device, I would forget it was a device and get lost in the book. That did happen with the book I read, which was Stephanie Meyer’s Breaking Dawn. I was going to Chicago and faced with lugging the hardcover version (which I’d already begun) or taking along the much smaller Kindle, the device won. I admit to getting caught up in vampires - enough so that there’s vampire who crochets in You Better Knot Die.

The other book on my Kindle is The Friday Night Knitting Club. I don’t know if it was the book or the device, but I had to force myself to read fifty pages. While trying to get into the book, I noticed things I didn’t like about the Kindle (though to be fair some of those issues have since been worked out). There were no page numbers, just position numbers and I felt somehow lost, like I couldn’t tell where I was in the book. I don’t recall a book cover. (I’d check, but I’m charging it now since the battery was deader than dead), or if there was one, it was in black and white and not memorable. Despite the old saying about not judging a book by its cover, we do. When you’re browsing, they clue you in on what kind of book it is. Covers help sell books.

For both the book I liked and the one I didn’t, I found the page turning tabs annoying. I kept hitting them by mistake. And since the big plus is supposed to be for travel, I didn’t care for having to turn it off and stow it for both take-off and landing. Particularly landing. Reading is a good distraction from my ears closing and sometime hurting, the bumps as we go down through the clouds and that wait for the big bump when we hit the ground. Luckily, they don’t make you stow your crochet hooks.


Who knows what will happen with e-readers. Ten years ago, I heard a very big New York agent give a talk on e-readers and he virtually said paper books were done for. But they weren’t. There were a bunch of e-readers that came out then and then went away.

I am all for being open minded. I’m going out of town next week and I’ll take my outdated clunky reader with me. I certainly am not going to be fooled into upgrading to another version, only to find out that its out of date in a few months. The one I have does the main job its supposed to do, which is you an download books and read them on it.
Wouldn’t you know just when I’m going away there’s going to be excitement on my street. A TV location person came by the other night to tell me that they’re going to be filming a crime scene investigation for Criminal Minds down the street. There’s going to be yellow tape, emergency vehicles with flashing lights but no sirens, and of course a body.

What do you think of E-Readers?

The Shocking, True Story behind my Russian Supper Club Performing Career

Note: Our guest blogger today is the multi-talented Michelle Gagnon. Michelle is a former modern dancer, bartender, dog walker, model, personal trainer, and Russian supper club performer. Her debut thriller The Tunnels was an IMBA bestseller. Her next book, Boneyard, depicts a cat and mouse game between dueling serial killers. In her spare time she wonders what happened to Miami Sound Machine.

I confess, this doesn’t really count as a hobby since I was paid to perform (not well paid, but money was involved). But the item on my resume that elicits the most attention is always the bit about how I was once a performer in a Russian Supper Club. This generally provokes questions running along the theme, “Were you naked?” (I wasn’t, I swear).

So let’s clear up any misconceptions. I got the job through a friend from one of my dance classes who knew I was between gigs (which is a nice way of saying I was out of work at the time). I usually filled those interims with bartending jobs, but had a bad experience recently and wasn’t eager to continue slinging drinks. Rent was coming due and my bank account hovered around zero. My friend approached me after class one day and said, “I know how you can make decent money for a half-hour show three nights a week.”

Sounds sketchy, right? But my friend assured me that there was no nudity involved, in fact the costumes were elaborate to the point of being ridiculous. I tentatively agreed to come to rehearsal that afternoon. If all went well, I’d be onstage the following night. I walked in and met the seven other performers (six dancers, two singers). Over the space of two hours they taught me six dance numbers. I found it curious that everything was set to early-eighties tunes like “Beat It” and “Turn the Beat Around,” (this was the mid-nineties), but figured it could be worse.

I was still reluctant, but agreed to try it out for the weekend. I left the club address with my boyfriend just in case I arrived home with one less kidney (or didn’t turn up at all) and headed to Times Square. A van shuttled us from there to Brighton Beach, where a huge neon sign announced “Club Versailles” on a building that looked like a storage warehouse plastered with fake Doric columns. We went in the back way. I followed my friend down a narrow staircase that opened into the kitchen. The room was filled by men in ragged tank tops, most with a cigarette dangling out of their mouths (and dropping ash into the food, at which point I made a mental note not to eat the free dinner). They all leered as we passed, following the snaking corridor to a tiny room at the end of the hall where we were meant to change. A rickety screen in front was supposed to shield us from prying eyes, but let’s just say that it was fairly ineffective.

As for the show itself, let me give you the backstory (yes, there was a running plot):

Aliens have landed in Brooklyn (this was illustrated by the descent of a miniature spaceship from the ceiling, accompanied by clouds of fake smoke. I was actually fairly impressed by the recent immigrants metaphor). The singers (aka the aliens) learn all about American culture via a series of songs and dances. These included, paradoxically:

1. a disco routine where we wore towering French powdered wigs, lacey bodices, and hoop skirts.


2. a Michael Jackson number complete with Jerri-curl wigs and black spandex outfits, and


3. a flapper-style tap routine featuring the Charleston.
   Confused? I was. The modern day equivalent would be teaching people about American History by showing them Youtube clips.

The dining room was packed with families seated at long tables (I was told most of these were local mobsters). Vodka flowed freely, and kids ran around the room despite the late hour. We closed the show every night by grabbing people from the crowd, dragging them onstage, and forcing them to perform the Macarena with us. I’m not kidding.

And here’s the funny thing: in retrospect, it was the most fun I ever had dancing. Up until then I’d worked with a series of very serious modern dance companies doing “important” pieces. So I’d be rolling around the stage in a black leotard simulating the situation in Rwanda, or wallowing in pieces called “Disconnected” that were supposed to illustrate the dehumanizing effect of machinery on modern existence (mind you, this was pre-internet). And the Club Versailles job was just pure fun, the dance equivalent of a summer blockbuster film. I had a blast doing it for the three months the gig lasted. Then one night, we were all abruptly terminated. Apparently the owner suddenly realized she could hire Russian dancers for a quarter of what she was paying us, and wouldn’t have to provide van service.

So I bid the mobsters a forlorn dasvidania and returned to the bar scene. A few months later, in the face in worsening knee injuries, I hung up my dance shoes and moved west in search of a new life. So in the end, Club Versailles closed out my dance career. I’ll admit it, I still get a little teary whenever “Beat It” comes on the radio...

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