See the lovely bride? Isn’t her dress perfect? And the groom, such a handsome young man. The bridesmaids all look elegant in their charming formal gowns. And the flowers are just the final touch of perfection. NOT!!

After spending about twenty years  coordinating weddings, creating bridal and formal wear, and waltzing well over a thousand brides down every kind of aisle from cathedral to beach, I tell all comers, there is no such thing as a perfect wedding. Never will be. Plan though you will, double check as if the fate of nations depended on it, something will smash, fall apart, or fail to appear.

Let me give you a few examples. Lisa, who is the authority on what’s what in social events, went with her sister Belle, who admits she has no more social expertise than a barn owl, to make sure Belle’s gown was sugar-sprinkled, pink and white perfection. That’s what they chose. But the shop had a slight mix-up and somehow Belle went down the aisle of that little country church wearing a red suede cowgirl suit with a skirt as tight as paint on a pencil and slit just about holster high.  Belle survived, the marriage has lasted more than twenty years, but Lisa still ducks and runs every time somebody brings up Belle’s rodeo wedding.

And then there was Susie, sweet, shy little Susie. Never a more ladylike bride trod the scattered petals to Lohengrin and the Bridal Chorus. Just don’t ask about the butterfly tattoo concealed by her shimmering satin skirts. Or how every bridesmaid, all nine of them, wound up with a butterfly tat to match under their apricot chiffon. I think we blamed the margaritas.

Of course, we might discuss Chrissie, who could have walked out of a Rembrandt painting.  Didn’t want a full scale, three act wedding. Just a quiet gathering in the park, a few friends, and no big fuss.  She planned a simple event and chose a sheer white voile sundress and a wreath of daisies in her hair. MOTHER thought otherwise, and the voile sundress and daisies became white satin, a tiered veil, and seven attendants in blue lace. Imagine Mom’s surprise when Chrissie and her beloved sent regrets–from Las Vegas!

Pretty little Angela was a country girl raised in a family of brothers. When she and Sid announced their wedding date, all the brothers wanted to contribute to the event. Oldest brother Harv owned a little pool hall cum tavern on the outskirts of town and offered his place for the reception.  What a warm gathering; what a loving gift. And no one had the nerve to suggest that he might have closed the pool hall to the public the day of the reception. Perhaps someone thought the family punchbowl might have been put to better use holding the pink lemonade rather than the potato salad, but not a soul said so.

Every wedding is special and most of them are graced with love and good wishes from family and friends. But every one of them has a little quirk that makes it special and unique. In my newest book, CRY AGAINST THE WIND, fifth in the Santa Rita Series, there is a wedding, something of a spur-of-the-moment wedding. The bride has lived through grief, disappointment, and years of pain. She’s come to realize the man she loves has endured the same disillusion and despair. When they at last overcome the obstacles and choose to share their lives, there appears to be no way to celebrate the event with loved ones. But this young lady has–if not a fairy godmother–at least a pretty good substitute who makes it her mission to give a girl a day to remember. A display that’s over the top? Yes!  A Victorian fantasy? Why not? And while the representative godmother is whipping up  miracles, how about tossing in a blessing from the mother who wouldn’t let even death keep her from smiling on her daughter’s wedding day.

I love weddings, small and informal or cathedral-sized and elegant. But  I always tell my brides, be prepared. Something, some little thing that no one can imagine going wrong, will slip. When it does, I tell them, keep smiling. “Remember it’s all going to be just fine. And chances are, that one little slip will be the best memory. You’ll laugh about it when you tell your kids and grandkids that this was the best day of your life.”

Have any wedding surprises you’d like to share? I’ll tell you mine–an hour before the sit-down dinner, one of the busboys bumped into the table holding the wedding cake. Down came three tiers of raspberry filled lemon cake and across the floor spattered about seven pounds of white chocolate icing, as well as the shards of all three dozen blown glass swans that had supported the tiers and crashed with the fall. As a result, our ‘wedding cake’ was a hundred and fifty hastily purchased cupcakes dipped in whipped cream and decorated with a fat strawberry. Yes, I laughed about it–on our tenth wedding anniversary.  Not so much at the time.

Fleeta Cunningham

fgcunningham@yahoo.com

www.fleetacunningham.com

DON’T CALL ME DARLIN’

BLACK RAIN RISING

ELOPEMENT FOR ONE

HALF PAST MOURNING

CRY AGAINST THE WIND  (released 6/14/13)

When my number one daughter was very small, I was bitten by the quilting bug. Now all the women in my family quilted to some extent by necessity. I had grown up watching ‘nine-patch’ squares turn into bed-sized blankets. I’d been fascinated by the colors and the optical illusions that came together in their skillful hands. Somehow I’d not quite come to the realization that I could make that happen, too, though I’d been sewing since I was a child. Then the bug bit me. I had all the scraps left from making toddler pinafores and summer play clothes. I had tons of remnants from stitching up garments for myself. A good many scraps had gone into miniature gowns I created for a museum display when I copied the gowns worn by figures in a collection of portraits. Somehow I hadn’t latched on to the idea of turning those varied scraps into a crib-sized quilt. But the moment came. And it came with a little family history that my beloved Little Grandmother shared. When she was a young thing, and a number of suitors came to call, one in particular caught her eye. As he nudged out the competition and she began to think of making that relationship permanent, she also began to think about a wedding dress. White satin and orange blossoms didn’t come easily to hand in the dusty small town in the Panhandle of Texas where she lived. Young ladies, for the most part, made their wedding dresses out of the prettiest and most durable fabric available. In Little Grandmother’s case, it was a bolt of cherry red gingham. The young man proposed, was accepted, and the date set. Little Grandmother cut and stitched, hemmed and tucked, and finished her red gingham dress in time for the early spring wedding. And so she and her handsome cowboy were married.

In due time, of course, the couple became a family, first a boy, then another boy, and at last, the girl Little Grandmother had hoped for. Baby Girl grew from tiny baby to toddler, and Little Grandmother wanted to dress up her little girl in something special for Easter. Times were hard, the market had crashed, and banks were failing. Not much money for buying pretty dresses. But Little Grandmother didn’t give up easily. She looked through her own things and saw the red gingham dress in her wardrobe. She’d worn it a lot, and the durable cotton had begun to show a bit of age. But the wide skirt had good fabric in it. With careful snipping, there would be enough yardage to make a new Easter Dress for Baby Girl. And so the second generation wore that cherry red gingham.

Years passed and Baby Girl grew to adulthood, and as is wont to happen, she married and produced a Darlin Girl of her own. It was war time and fabric was scarce, especially something suitable for a tiny child. The young wife looked through the things she’d had in her early life and found the little red gingham dress her mother had made for her. There wasn’t a lot of fabric there, but there was enough to make a nice skirt. With a bit of solid red to make a top, Darlin Girl would have something pretty to wear when Daddy came back from the war. And so a third generation wore that soft bit of gingham.

You know what happened. Darlin Girl grew up and what do you think? Into her life came Angel Girl. And there I was, a young mother trying to juggle college, a house, a husband, and a baby. We counted pennies from pay check to pay check. But I wanted to make my angel child a quilt. Little Grandmother was visiting, and she offered to help me over the hard spots. So I pulled out all the scraps, put this and that together, and somewhere turned up the red gingham skirt my mother made for me when we were waiting for Daddy to come home. When Little Grandmother told me the history of that bit of red gingham, I knew it was meant to be. What could be more appropriate? I snipped and stitched and created that first-ever quilt for the little girl in my life, the fourth generation to share the dress that Little Grandmother made so many years before. Now Angel Girl has a Precious Girl of her own. And I’m glad to say the quilt, and its red gingham squares, has gone to one more generation.

I treasure the story of the red gingham dress and the cowboy who loved the girl who wore it. And I understand the longing and uncertainty of the young wife waiting for her husband to come back from the war. I like to think that some of their dreams and hopes linger in the bits of faded red stitched into that quilt. Like putting together the patches for a quilt, using the bits and pieces left from other projects, when I write a story I’m using the bits and pieces, the hope and dreams, of those who came before me. Maybe somewhere in time to come, someone will read something I wrote, faded and worn thin by time, and hear an echo of the cowboy, the war bride, or the college wife, and be comforted by the story as my special granddaughter was comforted by her quilt and the memories it held.

Fleeta Cunningham

DON’T CALL ME DARLIN’

BLACK RAIN RISING

ELOPEMENT FOR ONE

HALF PAST MOURNING

CRY AGAINST THE WIND (to be released in June, 2013)

www.fleetacunningham.com

fgcunningham@yahoo.com

I was having lunch with my significant other, Herbie, at our favorite old-time diner on Main Street of our little town today. We’re not exactly of the twenty-, thirty-, or even forty-something set. There’s a good reason I write about the 50′s. I don’t have to do much research, just open a diary or high school annual, and ‘remember when’. We were waiting for our lunch–old fashioned meatloaf, green beans, and mashed potatoes–and chuckling over the displays of Coca-Cola memorabilia that decorate the place. I pointed out a sign that advertised fountain Cokes at five cents and remembered the shock waves that went through my family when our favorite soft drink DOUBLED in price. My gosh, how could our family afford to pay ten cents for a six ounce bottle? Somehow that comment led us back along the old ‘Did You Ever” road. Remember playing out in the evening with about fourteen cousins, running under brush and behind fences for hide-and-seek? When no one worried if you were safe? You were okay and they knew it. Remember Saturday afternoons, having a quarter for the movie? A movie that included a cartoon, a newsreel, a thrill-packed serial, and a double feature–one of which would be a hard-riding Western starring Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, or Hopalong Cassidy. And if you had saved your allowance, you might have a spare quarter for a hamburger and a drink at the Hi-De-Ho afterward. I remember when Grandmother got a new refrigerator and I was given the box it came in. That box became Sky King’s airplane, Sargent Preston’s Yukon sled, an Indian canoe, and the Green Hornet’s speedy car Black Beauty. It was the greatest toy ever and cost my parents nothing.

Mentioning the Green Hornet of course led us to a quick review of all our favorite radio shows. We both listened avidly to The Shadow, Inner Sanctum (with the eery creaking door), Fibber McGee and Mollie, and The Great Gildersleeve. Sunday afternoon always meant a sack of apples and peanuts and a session with Bulldog Drummond, Gang Busters and the Lone Ranger. It took a moment to recall the radio actor who was the voice of Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke. I’d almost forgotten it wasn’t always James Arness who played that role. The original sheriff was William Conrad. I still think he was more impressive.

Life, at least in retrospect, was simple. You ate your vegetables, said ‘Yes, ma’am’ and ‘No, sir’, came home when you said you would, and remembered to do your homework before you went out to play. And no one had to tell you to go outside and play. Unless it was raining cats and kittens, or the snow was too thick to see the house across the street, or (in our case) the wind and sand would flatten you if you stepped off the porch, you were already outside. Your friends’ parents knew yours; your sisters, brothers, and cousins were your first friends; and heaven help you if you sassed the teacher. Mom would hear about it before you got home and there would be consequences.

So Herbie and I were thinking back, how blessed our young years were. How lucky to have extended family that lived within walking distance. To have had granddaddies who were our refuge, friend, and mentor. To have grandmothers who introduced us to the pleasure of tomatoes filched from the garden, the mysteries of homemade biscuits, and the wealth of stories handed down generation to generation. I know my grandchildren are blessed with great parents–after all I raised those parents, how could they be less than perfect? The kids have good health, sensible diets, cultural exposure, and diverse friends. They’re smart, beautiful, well mannered, and greatly loved. But did they ever play hide and seek in the moonlight or float down an imaginary river in an Indian canoe made of a refrigerator box and paddled by a discarded broom handle? No? Well, maybe it’s not too late.

Fleeta Cunningham

DON’T CALL ME DARLIN’

BLACK RAIN RISING

ELOPEMENT FOR ONE

HALF PAST MOURNING

CRY AGAINST THE WIND (available for Kindle, hard copy in June)

www.fleetacunningham.com

fgcunningham@yahoo.com

I am so excited to introduce to ABM a new author with a great debut novel. Lael Neill now lives in Central Texas but her roots are in the Northwest. Her book, STONE DREAMING WOMAN,  from Wild Rose Press, has already received high praise on the Amazon.com reader review. It is available as an ebook now and will be out in hard copy in March. I asked Lael to tell ABM readers about her book and how a Texas gal wound up writing about Mounties and medicine women of the early Twentieth Century. This is how our visit went.

FC:  Your story STONE DREAMING WOMAN is set in the period just before WWI in Canada. What inspired you to use that time and setting? Do you have a strong personal interest that suggested the story?

LN: The very first romance that ever caught hold of my imagination and my heart was MRS. MIKE, by Benedict and Nancy Mars Freedman.  I fell in love with the hero, so I wove a story of my own about a Royal Northwest Mounted Police officer and a woman whose background was about as far removed from his as I could imagine.

I grew up in Tacoma, Washington, only about an hour and a half from the British Columbia border.  I am very familiar with western Canada, and I originally imagined setting the story there.  However, the Mounted Police did not have jurisdiction over British Columbia until much later, so I was faced with a choice.  I either had to move the timeline up or I had to reset the story in a different area.  Moving the timeline would have reduced the impact of the basic theme of the story (gender bias), so changing the setting seemed the more logical course to take.

The period before WWI was a real watershed concerning the role of women in society.  They had fought for and won the right to vote, and were crusading for reproductive rights and gender equality.  The resistance at that time was much greater than during or after the war.  In Jenny’s case, the lack of physicians stateside and the demands of the Spanish Flu epidemic created a vacuum that would have sucked her into a medical practice somewhere out of people’s sheer need and desperation, hence the necessity of setting the story before the war heated up.

FC:  Your heroine Jennifer is a medical doctor in a time when few women, certainly not women with social stature, dared enter the medical profession. And your story shows a lot of medical knowledge. Do you have a medical background? Or did you build the character based on research? The details in your story are impressive.

LN: I do not have a medical background, but my education included detailed a five semester hour honors course in human anatomy.  It both fascinated me and provided enough basic grounding that I could expand my knowledge and understanding on my own.  I also have a trick memory for trivia.  If it’s something I’ll absolutely never have any possible use for, I’ll remember it.  For instance, the little bony bumps we sit on are called ischial tuberosities.

I did have to conduct a boatload of research for the story, though.  Most of it had to do with the state of medical practices and knowledge of the time and if, how, and when things like surgical gloves and stethoscopes changed over the years.  I also had to research firearms of the period and, of course, fashions, though I had some expert help in that regard.

FC:  What led you to set the story in Canada? Surely that made heavy demands on you as an author. The setting is a major feature of the book and contributes to the conflicts the characters face. You weave it seamlessly into prose. Did you know when you started the story that the place would influence the story so much?

LN: The story had to be set in Canada because you don’t find Mounties anywhere else.  And yes, I did know that the setting would influence the story.  Local color is one of the best ways to achieve realism.  Until I moved to Texas I was an outdoors girl, which included fishing, camping, hiking, scuba diving, target shooting, and skiing, so describing the woods, the mountains, the rivers, the salt water, and the seasons comes very naturally.

FC:  I’ve heard it said that one good story opens the door to many more. Will there be more stories with this location and time? Maybe centering on characters we meet in STONE DREAMING WOMAN?

LN: I ’m working on a sequel right now involving Jenny’s younger cousin Elizabeth.  Without giving away too much, the hero is Sergeant Paul Weller, the best friend and sidekick of Jenny’s love interest in STONE DREAMING WOMAN.  Elizabeth and Paul are coming through as a well defined characters in their own right and their story is clamoring to be told.  At this point the working title is SAND ISLAND DIARIES.

FC:  Your first book is a vintage romance. Do you write about other times and places? Can you give us a hint where we might find you next? What audience will you be writing for?

LN: I have a story all but finished, but since I did it as a point of view exercise, it needs a complete rewrite before it goes anywhere.  It takes place in and around New Orleans during the period between the Louisiana Purchase and the War of 1812, the sunset of the age of Caribbean piracy.  The heroine is the daughter of a British naval officer and an aristocratic lady from New Orleans.  Marianne has the temerity to fall in love with her father’s worst enemy, a privateer sailing under Letters of Marque from France.  The target audience for MAGNIFICENT PIRATE is, of course, the same audience who will enjoy STONE DREAMING WOMAN and SAND ISLAND DIARIES.

Even though I am exploring the world of romance writing now, I have always had an abiding love of fantasy.  A huge and very different “swords and sorcery” trilogy lurks in my computer, hopefully to find a publisher someday.  In it, two powerful and very different men on opposite sides of a rebellion forge an unlikely friendship to bring peace to their war-torn country.

FC:  What book/books first inspired you to tell stories?  What story elements did they have in common? All romances? Adventure? Strong and unconventional heroines? Do you remember the first story you created?

LN: The book that first inspired me to tell stories came my way when I was eight years old.  Those of us “of a certain age” remember the WEEKLY READER and JUNIOR SCHOLASTIC magazines we purchased through our schools.  I had never found it easy to go to sleep, so when I read one of the letters to the editor from a little girl who said when she could not sleep she told herself a fairy tale, I decided to try her tactic.  After going through CINDERELLA and SNOW WHITE ad nauseam, I thought, “Well, how boring is this?  Why don’t I tell myself MY OWN stories?”  Thus a writer was born.

I played with writing until I started high school, and when I had a little maturity under my belt the bug bit seriously.  Then at Central Washington University I had the rare privilege of studying creative writing under Dr. Harold L. Anschutz, a totally brilliant professor who loved his subject and loved his students.  He was also my faculty advisor, so after worshiping at his feet for four years, writing was so deeply ingrained in me I knew, like Lady MacBeth, I would never be able to wash it from my hands or out of my soul.

I became deeply involved in skiing and alpine racing then, so naturally my main characters were skiers.  The stories were both romances and adventures, with brave heroes and strong heroines who knew their own minds and were not afraid to go for broke.  Some of those characters from way back when have survived and cropped up in a Vietnam-era romance I have tentatively called GOING PRO.  It concerns a sheltered young man who retires from the Austrian Olympic team, comes to the United States to manage a ski school, and encounters American culture.  It is a very long and very complex story that may or may not see the light of day.  Writing is like that.

FC:  Will you give us a short scene from STONE DREAMING WOMAN? Something to whet our appetites.

They finished their food, and he helped her clear the table.  She discovered they made as good a team doing something as mundane as picking up dishes as they did saving a life.  She rinsed the bean pot and the bowls, then put all the dishes in the pot and covered them with water.  Then she dried her hands on the flour sack towel and anointed them with her favorite Honey Almond Cream.

“There.  That’s good enough.  We’ll do them with the breakfast dishes in the morning,” she said.  He had moved behind her to return the butter to the cooler, and when she turned she bumped into him.

“Sergeant!  Excuse me!”  A toucher, she laid her palms above the breast pockets of his tunic by way of apology.  Impulsively he covered her hands with his.

“Miss Weston, I can’t thank you enough for what you did today, for being kind enough to come to North Village with me, and for saving Jimmy’s life.  He’d have been in dire trouble without you, Miss Weston…”  He paused awkwardly, stumbling over her name.  “No, I… Doctor Weston?  I’m not certain how I should address you now.  After today, ‘Miss Weston’ sounds so frivolous…”

“ ‘Jenny’ will do quite nicely, Sergeant.”

His gaze leveled on her, and he gave her a deeply searching look that was all grey eyes and hugely long lashes.  “I have a first name too, you know,” he said softly.

“Touché.  Shane.”  She smiled and felt her cheeks flush.  “Then have a good night.”

“You too.”  Her hands lay trapped against his Red Serge.  She turned them beneath his and held them palm to palm for a moment.

“Until tomorrow, then…Shane,” she said awkwardly.

“I look forward to it.”  Then he reluctantly let her hands go, drawing a deep, nervous breath.

“Jenny?  May I call on you, then?  With Richard’s permission, of course.”

“It would be my honor entirely.”  His hands went slowly to the points of her shoulders, and he drew her to him.  She closed her eyes and tipped her head back.  All her senses were full of him, from his warmth to the masculine scent of soap, sunshine, and the wool of his Red Serge.  She let her hands travel to his muscular shoulders, and as he gathered her into his arms, her left hand slipped over the standing collar of his tunic to the slightly long hair at the nape of his neck.  It felt soft, satiny, and much finer than her own.  Then his lips met hers, gently and tenderly, the stimulating touch of warm velvet.  As she flowed up against him, the night turned to fireworks.

The kiss was exactly what she would have expected from Shane: undemanding, powerful, and thoroughly exciting.  Then he held her close and pressed his cheek against her hair and she let her arms encircle his back.  He was a big armful for her.  His lips traveled across her cheek and he nuzzled into her hair.

“Oh, Jenny,” he whispered, sending a shiver from her heels to the top of her head.  Then they kissed again.  This time his red-clad arms engulfed her and she was lost in the incredible power that was Shane Adair.  She went weak all over and plastered herself against his chest.  She wanted to blurt out that she loved him madly, but that was a frightening idea.  She laid her hand against his cheek and backed up a few inches.  His face held high color and he was breathing hard through flushed, slightly parted lips.

“Do I owe you an apology now?” he whispered.  Her arms tightened about him.  Then she raised her head just enough to look up into his eyes.

“No.  That was just as much my idea as yours.  Don’t apologize to me unless it was just a one-time impulse and you intend never to repeat yourself.

He proved to her that he was up to her one-line stingers.  “Chèrie, I’ll kiss you goodnight every night for the next eighty years if you’ll have it,” he said softly.

“In eighty years I’ll be a hundred and five!  Who in their right mind would want to kiss a hundred-and-five-year-old woman?”  The grey eyes tilted again.

“A totally smitten one-hundred-eight-year-old man,” he whispered, holding her hands against his chest.  She laughed softly.

“I swear, one of your ancestors had to have kissed the Blarney Stone!”

“Just wait eighty years and you’ll know that I’ve never meant anything more.”

“I’ll check again tomorrow, thank you.”

“Tomorrow, gladly.”  He raised her hands to his lips.

“Then good night, Shane.”

“Good night, Jenny.”  He leaned down and bestowed a chaste peck on her forehead.

“Sleep well.”

“I don’t think I’ll sleep at all, after this,” he sighed.

“I’ll see you in the morning.”  She backed away from him, letting her hands run softly through his.  Then she was gone, leaving behind an aura of Honey Almond Cream.

I had the fun of reading STONE DREAMING WOMAN while it was still in draft form and know first hand what a great tale it is. I’m really looking forward to the sequel and keep urging Lael to write fast so I can see how it all comes out. Thanks for sharing your time and your ideas with us, Lael. Come back soon and keep us informed about your projects.

Fleeta Cunningham

DON’T CALL ME DARLIN

BLACK RAIN RISING

ELOPEMENT FOR ONE’

HALF PAST MOURNING

CRY AGAINST THE WIND (forthcoming)

I am in labor with a new book. You know what that’s like. Seems as if the idea that was brilliant at midnight loses all its shine in the cold light of a winter morning. As I was struggling with the WIP, I was struck by the ‘bad elf’ gifts a romance writer might receive on Christmas Morning. So for all my fellow sufferers I give you. . . . .

The Twelve Days of Christmas

(for writers)

On the first day of Christmas my muse gave to me

A writer’s block as thick as Santa’s list.

On the second day of Christmas my muse gave to me

Two cardboard characters,

And

A writer’s block as thick as Santa’s list.

On the third day of Christmas my muse gave to me

Three diverging plot lines,

Two cardboard characters,

And

A writer’s block as thick as Santa’s list.

On the fourth day of Christmas my muse gave to me

Four shifting points of view,

Three diverging plot lines,

Two cardboard characters,

And

A writer’s block as thick as Santa’s list.

On the fifth day of Christmas my muse gave to me

FIVE COWBOY HEROES WEARING STETSONS AND SPEEDOS!

Four shifting points of view,

Three diverging plot lines,

Two cardboard characters,

And

A writer’s block as thick as Santa’s list.

On the sixth day of Christmas my muse gave to me

Six long lost heiresses,

FIVE COWBOY HEROES WEARING STETSONS AND SPEEDOS!

Four shifting points of view,

Three diverging plot lines,

Two cardboard characters,

And

A writer’s block as thick as Santa’s list.

On the seventh day of Christmas my muse gave to me

Seven secret babies,

Six long lost heiresses,

FIVE COWBOY HEROES WEARING STETSONS AND SPEEDOS!

Four shifting points of view,

Three diverging plot lines,

Two cardboard characters,

And

A writer’s block as thick as Santa’s list.

On the eighth day of Christmas my muse gave to me

Eight seafaring pirates,

Seven secret babies,

Six long lost heiresses,

FIVE COWBOY HEROES WEARING STETSONS AND SPEEDOS!

Four shifting points of view,

Three diverging plot lines,

Two cardboard characters,

And

A writer’s block as thick as Santa’s list.

On the ninth day of Christmas my muse gave to me

Nine kidnapped brides,

Eight seafaring pirates,

Seven secret babies,

Six long lost heiresses,

FIVE COWBOY HEROES WEARING STETSONS AND SPEEDOS!

Four shifting points of view,

Three diverging plot lines,

Two cardboard characters,

And

A writer’s block as thick as Santa’s list.

On the tenth day of Christmas my muse gave to me

Ten conniving courtesans,

Nine kidnapped brides,

Eight seafaring pirates,

Seven secret babies,

Six long lost heiresses,

FIVE COWBOY HEROES WEARING STETSONS AND SPEEDOS!

Four shifting points of view,

Three diverging plot lines,

Two cardboard characters,

And

A writer’s block as thick as Santa’s list.

On the eleventh day of Christmas my muse gave to me

Eleven evil uncles,

Ten conniving courtesans,

Nine kidnapped brides,

Eight seafaring pirates,

Seven secret babies,

Six long lost heiresses,

FIVE COWBOY HEROES WEARING STETSONS AND SPEEDOS!

Four shifting points of view,

Three diverging plot lines,

Two cardboard characters,

And

A writer’s block as thick as Santa’s list.

On the twelfth day of Christmas my muse gave to me

Twelve torturous re-writes,

Eleven evil uncles,

Ten conniving courtesans,

Nine kidnapped brides,

Eight seafaring pirates,

Seven secret babies,

Six long lost heiresses,

FIVE COWBOY HEROES WEARING STETSONS AND SPEEDOS!

Four shifting points of view,

Three diverging plot lines,

Two cardboard characters,

And

A writer’s block as thick as Santa’s list.

Fleeta Cunningham

fleetacunningham.com

Don’t Call Me Darlin’

Black Rain Rising

Elopement for One

Half Past Mourning

Cry Against the Wind (forthcoming)

Among the questionable pleasures of family life are the moments when one must deal with the detritus of either aging or late relatives. My children and I have had first hand experience with far too many of those moments this year. Most recently, after moving my parents–who are in their nineties–into a retirement home, we found ourselves with stacks of fading photographs, most of which were unidentified.  As I looked over the faded images, I felt both exasperated and amused. Someone had gone to so much trouble to pose, photograph, and save those moments in family life when the brothers, sisters, cousins, grandparents were briefly all together. And they are precious. In the mix are glimpses into life long past and faces to go with names that are now only ‘remember when’ legends. That dashing cowboy roping a steer–that’s Uncle Francis who worked on the XIT. I never knew him, but I know this is his picture because I remember Granddaddy told me about him. Wish somebody had written a note on the picture that said where it was taken and when.

Set to one side is a studio portrait of a lovely young girl, all in white lace, with a wide brimmed hat and a cat in her lap. I’m just about the oldest of the family now, so there’s no one to tell me who she was and what the occasion was for the portrait. She has dark hair and beautiful eyes. She looks like someone I’d like to know, but no one left a clue to her identity.

Tucked together in an old envelope marked 1928 I find a collection of family pictures all made at the same time on the front porch of a farm house. I suspect even the tiny baby the young mother in the porch swing is holding may well have passed on by now. It’s been more than eighty years if the date on the envelope is correct. Who was this family? Three generations stopped their visiting and working and playing together long enough to let the camera record six different shots of the event. Wish I knew what family it was. Were they related to me? Are the parents of one of my grandparents  sitting in that long ago afternoon surrounded by children now grown old or gone altogether? Can I see a family resemblance to my children and grandchildren? I think so but it may be wishful thinking.

After hours of sorting and comparing the curling and brittle pictures, I take a stack to my mother who probably has a better memory than I do and maybe recalls the people in them. Some she can put names to, but many came to her from my grandmother. “Why,” I ask, “didn’t somebody identify these folks? Put names and dates on these pictures?” Mom smiles, in her perfectly sensible way and tells me, “We didn’t need to, then. We knew who they were.”

Hours later, recounting this story to a friend, I realize that I, too, have stacks of photos from my school years, from the early years of my marriage, from adventures and visits, that I’ve never identified, because I KNOW who those people are. But one day my children and grandchildren will be doing what I am now. They’ll be looking at fading snapshots and curling, brittle pictures and saying, “Well, I think that’s Uncle Mike; he was the career army man. And this could be Aunt Joy’; she was the one who lived in the funky house.” I’d like my precious memories to pass on to my offspring of however many generations may come. I think I’ll invest in some albums and spend some time putting names and dates on those pictures.  Who knows, I might find material for another book in some of those old prints. At least I can make sure the kids can put faces to the family legends and keep some of the history alive.

Fleeta Cunningham

DON’T CALL ME DARLIN’

BLACK RAIN RISING

ELOPEMENT FOR ONE

HALF PAST MOURNING

CRY AGAINST THE WIND (Forthcoming)

Just over a year ago, as I watched my little town tremble in the wake of the worst wildfire Texas has ever recorded, I wrote that I prefer my drama in book form, not up close and in my own backyard. In the twelve months and a few days since the fire was officially declared ‘out’, we’ve moved on. We had to–there was no way to go back. For instance, within three months the first pile of debris and soot gave way to a rebuilt home and a family was moving in! Celebration time. Of the uncountable trees that fell in flames, more than two million are being replaced by seedlings. The Lost Pines will rise again. It will take time, probably more time than I have left on earth and I won’t be here to see it, but my grandchildren’s children will play in the woods, hear the mockingbirds, and see the land I love bloom again.

Last Sunday at my church we solemnly gave thanks for the recovery effort. One of the most touching things in that service was a small bowl set aside to collect house keys, car keys, pet collars, and tiny remembrances of the things we lost. A single key–an insignificant item in itself–is now the only tangible thing left of a home and the memories it housed. A pet collar–the symbol of a memory that haunts one dear friend who devoted her life to the rescue and rehabilitation of abandoned cats. She saved as many as she could but thirty-eight of her beloved fur-friends died in the fire. She moved away because the pain of rebuilding was too much.One pet collar spoke more eloquently than words of her loss.That little bowl held a sea of tears shed in twelve months and an ocean of memories.

The Sunday service sifted through the ashes of our remembrances. It brought us across the dark moments to the other side, the side where new homes are beginning to fill the gaps left in the wake of the fire. It reminded us that while we suffered a traumatic shock, we could have lost more than homes and possessions. We lost pets but we lost no children. Collections and photographs and heirlooms burned, but no one lost a parent or a grandparent. We survived more than one hundred days of temperatures above one hundred degrees and the worst drought we could imagine, but this year has been cooler and wetter. We are grateful for the relief that winter rains brought us. So we sifted the ashes, we gave thanks for what we salvaged and for the arms stretched across the country offering help, and we turned away from the destruction. This little town, part of Stephen F. Austin’s Little Colony, has been here since 1832. We survived the Texas Revolution, we endured the Civil War, and by golly, we made it through three attempts to burn the town to cinders. I think we can admit to a quiet sense of accomplishment. Texans are known to brag a bit, but I think we’ll just nod, give thanks, and go on about our business this time around. Like that mythological Phoenix bird, we’re rising up and starting over. And that’s all right, too.

Fleeta Cunningham

DON’T CALL ME DARLIN’

BLACK RAIN RISING

ELOPEMENT FOR ONE

HALF PAST MOURNING

CRY AGAINST THE WIND (forthcoming)

I suppose as long as we have people who write, we will have readers who ask, “Where do you get the ideas for your stories?” and some of us will make a stab at answering. This is my version: Some of my best story ideas come from that social no-no EAVESDROPPING. Yes, I know it’s rude. And I was taught not to do it. But what can a storyteller do? You’re having a quiet lunch, the people at the table behind you–total strangers–mention the excitement at a recent wedding when the bride suddenly refused to say “I do’ . Well,I don’t know about you but when it happened to me, the next thing I did was dash home and make notes for ELOPEMENT FOR ONE before I forgot the details. I had a lot of fun finding out why the bride ran away and who she ran to.

Another great place for story ideas to take root is off-beat little feature stories in the local newspaper. I think small town newspapers are the best for this kind of inspiration because they print personal stories that aren’t news-worthy in the metropolitan press. Small town newspapers will give the reader the total guest list of a recent party or a button-by-button description of the gown Mrs. Hoopenlooper wore to the Knights of Columbus ball. The reader gets intimate tours of the engagement parties, baby showers, and small celebrations that are part of daily life. From a small town paper I learned about a valiant librarian who was defying civic leaders and refusing to remove a popular book from the shelves. Outraged mothers were insisting the book was endangering the moral fiber of the young people who might read it and discover–mercy on us–sex, sin and rock-a-billy music. In that librarian’s stand I found the basis of the story that became DON’T CALL ME DARLIN’. I’ve always been grateful to librarians for broadening my world.

One place I’ve found to be a gold mine of possible story ideas is the much maligned family reunion. Just get a group of older aunties together and listen. Sitting quietly in a corner, forgotten and ignored, I’ve heard enough family scandal to supply the cornerstone of a ten book series. By the time I’ve figured out why Aunt M doesn’t speak to Uncle J or how it was that Cousin BB had a baby that looked just like Cousin DB’s husband, whole plots, subplots and sequels are falling into place. The bits and pieces of one such reunion gave me the underlying story for the new book CRY AGAINST THE WIND coming out next year. Hope the dear old aunties don’t recognize the source of that one.

Don’t overlook personal experience as a source worth developing. When I was a small girl I spent a lot of time with my grandparents. Granddaddy had a little country band and a radio show on Saturday morning. One of my great treats was to go to the radio station with him and watch the ‘fellers’ do their show. While searching for a way to connect Evie and Dallas, the heroine and hero of BLACK RAIN RISING, I remembered my early trips to that tiny radio station and made it the center location of the book. Thanks for the memories, Granddad.  Writing the book gave me a chance to borrow back a treasured moment from my childhood.

Finally I find that my own hobbies and interests offer a hook that will support a story. I’ve been a classic car enthusiast since I fell in love with a TR-3–the boy who drove it was secondary. I attend car events, belong to a club that puts on classic car shows, and find myself avidly listening to people who own those pieces of engineering art. Out of that fascination I built the story about the disappearing groom and his 55 T-bird that became HALF PAST MOURNING.  I owe a lot of people many thanks for taking the time to help me understand the finer points of driving and how a road rally is planned. Hobbies or passions are ripe for harvesting for story ideas. I’d bet any organization devoted to a collective interest is full of quirky characters just waiting to be plugged into a story.

Where do story ideas come from? Well, perhaps they wait to rain down out of the atmosphere. They may lurk in high school annuals. Some can be overheard in elevators between floors. Possibly they are picked up from  casual encounters in the grocery store. Now I’ve told the absolute truth about where my ideas come from, but I’ve only told it to other writers. Needless to say, when a reader asks, I’m never going to admit my inspiration is anything as mundane as a family reunion or an old newspaper. What do you tell people when they ask the inevitable question?

Fleeta Cunningham

Don’t Call Me Darlin’

Black Rain Rising

Elopement for One

Half Past Mourning

Cry Against the Wind (forthcoming)

Why is it that, even when one feels bright and alive and full of anticipation, something can suddenly pop out and announce, “You aren’t sixteen–or twenty-six–or even thirty-six–anymore”? It could be a favorite song that’s suddenly become ‘classic’. Or the scent of a long-forgotten cologne. Or it could be that beloved granddaughter coming over with a special request–”I want to wear something vintage to the school dance so could I borrow that dress you have in the cedar closet, Grandmother?”

Any one of those instances would probably have called up a memory for me, one that would have given me a quick smile, a moment of nostalgia, and then passed out of memory as the next project took my attention. All of them? All on the same day? That might give me goose bumps but nothing more. First it was that song, Misty, that was playing in the background. Just a couple of bars of music seeping out of the lounge next to the restaurant where I intended to have lunch, just a few notes, and I was seventeen and hunting for the perfect party dress for the junior-senior mixer. The ‘seventeen again’ moment was still with me as the hostess guided me to my table and a drift of lilac cologne followed us for a few steps. I glanced aside, somehow expecting my little grandmother, gone for almost thirty years now, to be standing right beside me. And I was a young girl again for just a second before I remembered now I am  the grandmother. Still those little inklings that time had flown weren’t enough to make me feel, well, old–maybe just a bit older. Even when my delightful Katie-Rabbit called later that day to ask about borrowing the dress I put away long before her mother was born, that wasn’t enough to focus my mind on the years slipping away. No, it took my mailman to do that!

Once my young angel had tried on, modeled and giggled a bit over the beaded bodice, sweeping skirts, and mounds of crinoline petticoats of my ‘vintage’ dress, I settled back to read the snail mail that had accumulated in my box the last few days. Most of my communications, like everyone else these days, comes through my computer. I venture down to the mail box every other day, or sometimes less. The only paper mail I get these days seems to be offers for cremation, reverse mortgages, or anti-aging cosmetics. So it was with some excitement I pulled out the thick, cream-colored square envelope that usually announces an invitation. Yes, it was an invitation–one I couldn’t decline but one I had mixed feelings about accepting.

YOU ARE INVITED TO JOIN US, YOUR  CLASSMATES, IN CELEBRATING THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF OUR GRADUATION !!

Now hearing the song of my youth, catching the sweet lilac perfume of my childhood, even listening to my granddaughter make quips about my ‘old-timey’ dress hadn’t made me feel anything but a bit of nostalgia. But a reminder that it’s been fifty years since my high school graduation??? That made me feel ancient. Can it be? Have fifty years, half a century, passed since I was that misty-eyed, ever-hopeful young girl about to tackle the world armed with four years of French, all the good manners the sisters at St. Elizabeth could instill, and a firm belief that I could do anything I was big enough to try?

Truth is, yes, it has been fifty years. And I guess, technically, that makes me one of the older generation. But I refuse to accept that other word, o-l-d. Not as long as I can still giggle with Katie-Rabbit or dance the twist with my number one daughter. Not as long as I can walk in the moonlight with a handsome–albeit white-haired–Courtly Knight. Or as long as I can play in the rain, dream a new dream, or plan another adventure. Grandmother could touch her toes a hundred times when she was eighty-five. Mom at eighty-eight is still a force to be reckoned with in local politics. I’m just a green kid compared to them. So it’s been fifty years! So what? Fifty is only a number. I’m still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. Meanwhile, there’s a world out there to see, a host of stories just waiting to be told, and–oh, yes, I need a new dress for the dance Saturday night. Come along, you young things of fifty, sixty, seventy-whatever. We’re just now old enough to have some fun. Pop the popcorn, get the music going. Party’s at my place!

Fleeta Cunningham

www.fleetacunningham.com

DON’T CALL ME DARLIN’

BLACK RAIN RISING

ELOPEMENT FOR ONE

HALF PAST MOURNING

CRY AGAINST THE WIND  (forthcoming)

I am a die-hard baseball fan. Have been since I was a small girl listening to the Saturday afternoon game on the radio. The shady back porch was reasonably cool and we didn’t have air conditioning, so lemonade or iced tea, the back porch swing, and the radio offered some relief from the blazing heat of a summer afternoon. Before air conditioning, the porch was about the only place in summer where my father and I found a common meeting ground. We weren’t close when I was growing up. I was too much my mother’s daughter, a drama queen in the making, and he was a retiring man with not much to say for himself. Still we had two shared  interests–classical music and baseball. In the winter we’d sit by the radio and listen to the Sunday afternoon concert, but summer belonged to baseball. We had our favorite teams, of course. Somehow he never could understand how a kid from the Texas Panhandle could develop a passion for the New York Yankees. His favorite team was whatever group was playing against the Yankees. He swore I rooted for them just to be contrary.

Television came to our part of the world in the mid 50′s and we had a set as soon as Monkey Ward, as it was designated at our house, could get one in the front door. The thing was enormous by today’s standards–a three foot square cabinet with a teeny, fourteen inch screen. Programming sometimes lasted three or four hours in the evening. But on Saturday from May to October, we had BASEBALL! It was live, we saw the plays, and even though the pitcher appeared to be about three feet from the batter, we could actually see the moves, yell at the ump, and count the balls and strikes. So that we could stay inside and watch the games, air conditioning came to our house as well. My early teens were spent in the comfort of the den, surrounded by whispering cool breezes, glued to every move on the screen. I got to see my heroes–Whitey Ford, Yogi, Dimaggio, Mantle, Maris–actually play. And my father, well, he applauded every strike out, every error, and every muffed play they made. I grew older, so did my dad, and our lives took different paths. The last summer visit I had with him before he passed away, we spent the afternoons in front of the big color TV, watching the game, spending the little time we had making memories.

Memories–how they come back now that it’s baseball season again. The first beer I ever tried was a sneaky sip from the one sitting at my dad’s elbow. Later on, I’d bring the beer and we’d have one each to toast the seventh inning stretch. My first serious boyfriend had to wait while my team played out an eleventh inning tie–and he was rooting against them, siding with my dad. The first cocktail I ever tasted, on my twenty-first birthday, was one of dad’s rum collins drinks, mixed on the back porch, sipped with home-grilled hot dogs and burgers, before adjourning to the den for the first pitch. We weren’t close, my father and I, and some of the memories we shared are better forgotten. But let me near a ball park or see the teams run onto the field on my wide screen TV, hear the cheers and shouts and a chorus of  ‘Umpire’s got to be blind!’ and for a couple of seconds, I’m back home, sitting in the den, sneaking a sip of beer, and arguing with that stubborn man who sired me that the Yankees will show his team how the game is played. Can I borrow back one of those afternoons, please? Could I have just an hour to tell him that we were closer in those moments than any other time in my life? In our relationship, those were really the only times that counted when I add it all up. Thanks for the memories, E. E. Smith, and for the minutes that made up the fabric of childhood. I miss you. Hope to see you at the game.

Fleeta Cunningham

www.fleetacunningham.com

DON’T CALL ME DARLIN’

BLACK RAIN RISING

ELOPEMENT FOR ONE

HALF PAST MOURNING

CRY AGAINST THE WIND (forthcoming)