Mizwrite’s Blog

… you must visit Palm Springs! For Chris’ birthday, we took a quick road trip to P.S. and had an awesome time. Here’s how we experienced the four things I wanted to give him for his birthday:

1950s tiki culture: We experienced this at our hotel! We stayed at the very-retro Caliente Tropics (at the end of East Palm Canyon Drive), which was originally built in 1964  in classic Polynesian and tiki style (which was very cool and postwar-exotic at the time). The motel-style digs have since been redone and brought into the modern era with things like marble tubs and in-room fridges, but the motor-car-style place still retains its uber-vintage vibe, with tiki torches, bamboo plants, lots of palm trees, and even private cabana “huts” for two. There was a family-friendly pool surrounded by green lawn and barbecues. You half expected some pearl-wearing housewife and a bowling-shirt-clad daddy-o to step out with a tray of grillin’s and Jell-O.

Midcentury-modern architecture. Well, Palm Springs is the epicenter of midcentury-modern everything now. Embracing its roots, which sprung forth in the middle years of the century with the unique “desert modernism,” the town has turned its attention to renovating its modern-movement buildings. The deep overhangs, flat rooflines, great use of glass, and desert landscaping create an environment that looks right out of a vintage postcard. (more…)

Wow – great weekend! It was Superman’s birthday, so I thought I’d treat him to the four things he loves best:

• Tiki culture
• Frank Sinatra stuff
• Summer
• Midcentury modern architecture

Can you guess where I covered all this?

Whew! Busy week! I’ve been kind of M.I.A. — but just busy with work and writing and editing and such. …

Today I’m over at Health Bistro, giving more parenting tips for the start of school. This one is about making kids’ school lunches every day and keeping it to a reasonable amount of time. I’d looooooove to hear others’ tips and ideas on this, so please come over and visit, and share your strategies. Do you make lunches in the morning or evening? Do your kids help? Do you have a “lunch station”? I’m here: Mom Tip 2: Making School Lunches.

I changed my masthead last week! Did you notice? Do you like the bougainvillea?

It’s a picture I took at a skatepark one afternoon recently, and suddenly I thought it would be perfect for the blog. First of all, because I love the colors. : )  Second of all, because bougainvillea grows all over Southern California and will always remind me of home. Third, because it’s so very “California” — and I think represents what I’d like my writing to be.

I decided that, if I can, I’d like to set all of my romances in California, since there are so many nooks and crannies to explore. Most people only think of the beach, or of L.A., or of San Francisco when they think of California, but there are so many other areas to this enormous state. I thought it would be fun to have books set in wine country, balloon-riding country (Kat?), along old Highway 49 (“Gold Rush” country), some of the islands off the coast, at a national park or two, and maybe even on a houseboat in one of the harbors. The Adam/Simone book was set in a California mountain resort, because that was a place I always wanted to write about. I’m not sure people think of “mountaintops” when they think of California, but we have a lot of them! And I wanted to write about how it feels to be “stuck” in a resort on a hilltop.

There are also lots of dairy farms, ranches and agriculture here. The state is just so rich with land and stories — I feel I could write about it for at least 70 books. : )

Let me know if you like my new masthead, and if you have other favorite California settings you’d love to read about. … If you’ve lived here or visited here (or live here now), what area left an impression on you and why? Was any place completely different than you expected?

I also updated my static pages: about me, currently writing and currently reading. (What’s everyone reading these days?).

Exhibit A: Successful project

Well, we can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way, ya see? …

Our D.I.Y. projects are picking up speed, but — just like all D.I.Y. projects (as many of you probably know) — one leads to another. For one reason or another.

We started with an easy one recently. See Exhibit A (above) — cute, easy project: I bought a chair! I’d always wanted a “reading chair” like this, and finally got one. This is in our teeny-weeny little den, and hardly fits, but I don’t care. I love this chair. It’s right behind my writing desk, so it’s great for anyone who wants to come visit me. (!) Mostly one of the younger kids sits here with the laptop in the evenings, even though they have a full desk right next to mine.

So we were on a roll.

And that one was soooooo easy.

So maybe we were getting cocky, but we actually thought we could handle something bigger. This one would involve a hammer.

I wanted to put up a white board in the kids’ “homework/paper center.” Now, the first irony is that I took a picture of the homework/paper center earlier this week for a blog post I was doing over at Health Bistro. The post (and original photo) is right here. I was writing about how organized I was, you know, and how I was giving tips, for God’s sake, on how to be organized. Like me. [*rolls eyes*] …

But don’t take me too seriously. Because just two days later, the “homework/paper center” looked like this:

Exhibit B: Um ... fail!

It’s now become D.I.Y. project 214. …

What happened is that I bought this very cool white board that I wanted the kids to use.  With two teens, now, we’re having a harder time keeping track of everyone. (Because, you know, when they’re older they often forget to tell you there’s a dance, or there’s a thing after the football game, or there’s a Saturday football practice, or whatever. …)

Anyway, this cool white board was going to go up on the wall right among the plastic bins that hold their school stuff, so I asked Superman (God bless him) to nail it up there for me. He was being all great and honey-do-ish and did it for me while I was at work so I’d come home and be surprised. (Yay.) But I came home and … heard … water? or a whishing? … hmmm … Of course, I was mostly happy that the white board was up! The white board is up! Hoorah! We’re more organized! And I got all sidetracked being happy about the white board being up that I didn’t even investigate that weird water noise. (I guess I just thought it was a toilet running, which we can sometimes hear in our very-thin, cheap-housing, not-even-made-of-brick Southern California homes.) (more…)

This is Petey, our rabbit. He belongs to Rene. On really hot days, she freezes giant 2-liter bottles of ice for him, and puts them in his cage. He just sits here, like this, with his paws up on the bottle, cooling himself off and looking at me through the kitchen window. … I’m sure he wishes he had A/C. …

Hi, all! I’m blogging over at popculturedivas today! Come visit me and stop by for a chat … Grab a cup of coffee and settle in. …

I’m chatting about food in fiction today. Remember Jenny Crusie’s Krispy Kreme scene in “Bet Me”? (Debi, didn’t you mention that one?!?!) Or do you know of Edward X’s messy sandwiches in Lawrence Sanders’ detective series? Or what about some of those interesting meals they eat in the Medieval romances (like the oranges and almonds and “sugar sticks” that Melanthe ate for lunch in “For My Lady’s Heart”), or in the historical Regencies?

Come share the most memorable food you remember in fiction! … The link is here.

So now I’m in the next stage of writing a book — the one that comes after … well … writing the book. That part only took me three years [insert eye-roll here]. So I guess I’m hoping the next phase goes a bit more smoothly. But I hear war stories. I’m not counting on it.

Instead of counting on anything, or just sitting around and wishing, Superman and I trekked to Barnes and Noble, and I bought this gargantuan book with a bunch of agents’ names. Then I bought some of those cute little Post-It flag thingies to start marking agents that seem like a good match for me. I was pleased that many of the names were already familiar (because of reading all the writer blogs, and because of hearing people talk on Twitter). But I’m really at ground zero, here. So if anyone has any advice or tips, feel free to pass them along …

I also bought Writer’s Digest magazine, because I heard (again, on Twitter! How did we survive without Twitter again?) that last month’s Digest was the “Get an Agent” issue. And I heard it featured a cover story on “24 Agents Looking for New Writers.” Hmmm. That’s me.

So here we go … Onward. … Advice welcome. … Especially from writers who target Harlequin — are there certain agents who like to work with Harlequin? Any recommendations?

"Someday ..." - Photo by L. Sanchez, 2009

We’re in full “football mode” already. Nate watches his older brother’s varsity scrimmage, and you can just see the wheels churning … What will I play when I go here? Will I run like that? Will I be that big? …

Do you remember watching the “big kids” like that?

I always feel melancholy on the anniversary of 9/11. In addition to feeling so bad for all the families who are going on eight years without their loved ones, it makes me remember how alone we can feel.

On 9/11/01, I had just started staying home with my children as a stay-at-home mom, and I walked them to the elementary school, then walked the baby home in the stroller, and when I got home I had the strangest urge to turn on the television. And when I saw what was happening, I felt strangely, oddly, alone. Because I didn’t know. The nation was in chaos and scared, and I had no idea. And I was alone. And no one said anything to me as I was walking the baby home! And I just left my children at school.

It was very scary to feel so clueless, and not to have another adult there to talk to. I felt so terrible for all those people, and their families, and so unsure about what was happening, and I just wanted to talk to someone about it. And I thought, wow, people must have been listening to this on their car radios and thinking gee, that poor woman walking with the stroller over there, she has no idea. And I would have continued to have no idea if I hadn’t had that odd urge to turn on the television when I got home. It was a strange realization of how isolated you can be as a SAHM. Needless to say, I always turned on the morning news after that.

I blogged about our nation’s collective memories of 9/11 over at Health Bistro today. I’d love to hear your comments (over there). Where were you when you realized what was happening? Did you have someone to talk to? Do your memories help you on these remembrance days? Please visit the post here and let me know. I’d really love to hear your story.