Dear Aunt Ruth

Dear Aunt Ruth,

Thank you so much for the $20 check you sent me for Christmas. I haven’t decided what I’ll spend it on yet, but I guarantee it’ll go to a good place. That’s one New Year’s resolution that’s impossible for me to break. I’m well on my way to recovering from the flu I picked up earlier this month, so that means I’ll actually be able to go out and have a good time for a change. Or maybe I can spend it online and enjoy my snuggle time with my kitty daughter Piper. Since you’re always asking about the weather, it’s just rainy enough here in Washington State that I’ll have lots of opportunities to hunker down with one of my creative outlets. Writing you this letter is one of them.

Speaking of creative outlets, the year 2022 was a very slow one for me in terms of productivity. I can’t promise 2023 will be any different, but for the time being, I’ve got plenty to keep me busy on the days when I have even a modicum of energy. I only have two more character sheets to create before I’m ready to rewrite and edit Beautiful Monster for the fourth time. The two characters in question are the Savage twins: Christian and Kody (in case their redneck roots were ever in doubt). They’re both employees of the far-right mercenary group Shadow Asylum and they wouldn’t be out of place at the Crawford County Fare (which is still not progressive enough for my tastes as Cousin Liesl can attest to). They may be minor role characters, but they still deserve to have their back-stories fleshed out so that they won’t come across as cardboard cutouts to whoever’s reading about them. That’s the ultimate goal of my character sheets and world-building: to actually figure out what the hell I’m doing instead of writing from the seat of my pants. Wish me luck!

Reading has also been a slowly, but surely endeavor of mine, so much so that I consider it to be part of my creative work since it’s training me how to write. I’m currently 98 pages into Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover’s Soul, which is every bit as sweet and cuddly as one could expect from a book about animals. There’s a story about transporting an old doggy named Snoopy back to her family in Ohio via the “puppy express”. There’s a story about a three-legged cheetah inspiring a physically disabled former baseball player that there’s more to life than sulking around. There’s a story about giving a homeless man and his doggies some food to make it through another night on the streets. I’m only a quarter of the way through the book and already I’ve got aww’s to last me for a lifetime. But just like with most media published in the 1990’s, there are a few stories that haven’t aged very well, particularly ones about pet stores, selling horses to the circus, and a dog “purposefully” eating rat poison so that Gene Wilder will finally marry the dog’s owner. I still plan on reading through until the end to get my fill of otherwise lovable moments. I need those lovey-dovey moments now more than ever in the 2020’s.

And of course, I can’t stay barricaded in Piper’s Queendom forever, because later in March, I’m going to a Soulfly concert with James. It’ll be my fifth time seeing them and James’s second time. I’ve been listening to them since 2006 and I have all twelve of their albums. If they make a thirteenth, fourteenth, or fifteenth album, I’ll buy those too. Heavy metal has always been my go-to music whenever I need to get hyped up. I’ll have to stay outside the concert’s mosh pit, however, since those are notoriously rough during Soulfly shows. The event will take place at El Corazon, a nightclub in Seattle that has hosted Soulfly before as well as other bands like Hellyeah, Pop Evil, and Starset. Four bands that have very little in common and they’ve all passed through El Corazon’s doors. What will be my next show after this one? I don’t know yet, but hopefully it’ll be just as fun as seeing Soulfly for a fifth time. Rock concerts are therapy for me. I’ve also referred to them as holy pilgrimages, with the venue being the metaphorical temple. Seems accurate.

I’d love to tell you more about my 2023, but one novel is enough. I’ve also got a series of multi-chapter short stories to write, some movies to watch and review, Lego sets to build, characters to draw, I’ve got a lot on my plate and I’m glad that I do. Life would be pretty dull if all I did was work on one thing through it all. The best characters in fiction are the ones that have multiple interests, hobbies, and dreams instead of just one. The same could be said for real life people as well. We are all three-dimensional characters in this life with our own back-stories and original thoughts. Hopefully, this novel will have a happy ending for all of us.

Love,

Garrison

Hawaiian Vacation

This coming Monday morning, I’m headed to the Sea-Tac Airport for a week-long vacation to Hawaii with my aunt Ruth, my step-dad Dale, and my mom. The last time I’ve been to Hawaii was around this time in 2010. Beautiful sunshine, beautiful beaches, beautiful women, and cute cuddly chickens: that’s what Hawaii is all about. I couldn’t ask for a better way to kick back and relax. Because I’ll be busy soaking up the sunshine and petting chickens, my internet time will be limited to short bursts on the hotel computer. That means for the week I’ll be gone, I won’t compete in the corresponding contest at the WSS. But that’s next week. I still have a few more days to submit a story for this week’s contest, which I haven’t decided what I’m going to do just yet. The prompt is “Energy” and lord knows I have a lot of magical story ideas in my archives, but nothing definitive. Before I get too far off track, if you want the exact dates I’ll be gone, the vacation lasts from October 3^rd to October 10^th. Again, this means minimal internet contact and zero creative output, which means the WSS, Demon Axe, Dark Fantasy Warriors, and reading commitments to Marie Krepps will have to wait. But do you know what the best part about vacations is? Coming home to sleep in your own bed with your own kitty while using your own computer. I’ll be back, no doubt about it.

"A Pedigree To Die For" by Laurien Berenson

BOOK TITLE: A Pedigree To Die For: A Melanie Travis Mystery

AUTHOR: Laurien Berenson

YEAR: 1995

GENRE: Fiction

SUBGENRE: Cozy Mystery

GRADE: Pass

Melanie Travis is a single mother who tries to balance getting her life back in order with solving the murder of her uncle Max Turnbull. The Turnbulls made their living by breeding poodles and showing them off at dog competitions. Their most prized stud, Beau, is missing from his kennel after Max’s aggravated heart attack. With her firebrand Aunt Peg coaching her along the way, Melanie shows up at the dog contests looking for evidence as to who might be in possession of the kidnapped Beau. She starts off with a bunch of hopeless dead ends, but as the mystery progresses, blackmail, corruption, and murder become much stronger themes in analyzing the clues.

When I first started reading this, I had my doubts as to whether this would be a realistic mystery due to all of the dead ends Melanie hits along the way. And then I realized that trial and error have always been a part of the mystery genre. Narrowing the suspects down to one is hard and tiring work, especially with as many enthusiastic dog show competitors as there are. Sometimes the pieces don’t click together right away. Sometimes Aunt Peg seems more like a pain in the butt than a true detective. However, if you continue reading, the plot will thicken near the middle of the book. The further you delve into this mystery, the more you want to know until the search hits its climax. That is the true nature of mystery stories and my doubts have been blasted out of the water by Laurien Berenson’s masterful storytelling techniques.

Another thing I love about this book is how realistic Melanie’s parenting skills are and how they make her into a sympathetic and likeable character right away. She’s recently divorced from her husband Bob and is left to take care of four-year-old Davey. The little guy is a bundle of energy that can keep on going like the dynamo he is. Even though Melanie is driven nuts by his ballistic behavior, she handles it like a champ and shows infinite patience for her special little guy. She knows when to tell him no and knows when to let him play and discover. She also takes him to McDonald’s every once and a while for yummy food. The fact that she can balance raising Davey by herself while solving her uncle’s murder will make any reader believe in girl power all over again.

Where would I be without mentioning the cuteness of the puppy-duppies being displayed in the pages of this wonderfully-written novel? They’re just as energetic as little Davey and show undying loyalty and love to whoever is around them. They sit on laps, they stick their wet noses into people, they smile like they’re actually capable of saying cheese, and they play around like innocent little cherubs. I wouldn’t mind scooping up some of these puppy-dups and bringing them home with me. One thing I would like to clarify is that you’ll hear the words “stud” and “bitch” quite liberally in this book. They’re not meant to refer to sexually active men and nasty women respectively, but rather to the gender of the dogs and whether or not they’ll be used for breeding. Try not to laugh when you hear about a “stud servicing many bitches.” It doesn’t mean what you think it means. You can laugh a little bit, but do try to contain yourself. It’s a cozy mystery, after all, not an erotic romance.

The pacing of this book is smooth and steady. As a reader, you can get inside Melanie Travis’ head, process the clues she picks up, and sense the body language of others while maintaining a reasonable speed. No purple prose here, which is probably the wisest option if you’re going to write a mystery novel. It also helps that the clues are easy to put together and that the explanations don’t take too many lines of text. Many avid readers could probably blow through this book in twenty-four hours. Even with its slick reading pace, it doesn’t feel over too soon and it’s a complete story with no stone left unturned. That’s the best kind of mystery you could ask for from an author like Laurien Berenson.

Maybe this isn’t the most life-changing book you’ll ever read, but it’s definitely a fun-filled, well-thought-out story that will keep you entertained from cover to cover. If you like dogs, strong female characters, or murder mysteries, I’m sure this book will have something to your liking. I happen to like all three of those qualities, so I enjoyed the book very much. A passing grade goes to an author I’ll definitely want to read another book from. Congratulations on a successful debut of Melanie Travis!