July 2007 Archives

I've been dreadfully remiss about posting. My apologies. It's just that I'm in the throes of finishing THE BLOODIEST QUEEN (aka THE MEDICI QUEEN).

I'm crazed, and will continue to be crazed for the next two months or so. Let's just say that Donna Giovanna has vacated the Palazzo Kalogridis kitchen, and she and poor Ser Giorgio are reduced to living on take-out.

My eyes are constantly pin-wheeling with eyestrain. I know I've said it before, but I really do feel like Kathleen Turner in the opening scenes of ROMANCING THE STONE -- you know, where she's at her typewriter in her bathrobe, unbathed, hair a mess, sobbing her eyes out and blowing her nose as she writes the final scenes of her lusty romance novel?

Well, that's me. That's me, for the next two months, except that the typewriter is actually an Apple. Powerbook. 17". And there are crumbs all over my keyboard. When I click the touchpad mouse, it goes crunch. And Sweetie Pie the Labrador is glaring balefully at me because she didn't get her hour-long walk this morning.

But I promise not to forget you, gentle reader, in the midst of it all. I will post. I will bravely blog.

That is all.

Witty essay by seventeen-year-old writer! Such tender years, yet such control of prose, such a brilliant concept: sound of us applauding.

Gerunds okay, apparently. And, thank God, articles. No need for sounding like Yakov Smirnoff on a bad day.

But then, the appearance of doubt: Seventeen-year-old genius -- or Hollywood hack, perhaps dialogue-writer for Yoda?

Possible. Even so, our approval of concept. Consideration: production of entire verbless chapter possible?

If so, maybe not much of an audience. Opinions?

For your enlightenment and pleasure, George Orwell's Six Rules of Effective Writing:*

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.

3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.

5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

6. Break any of these rules sooner than saying anything outright barbarous.

Oh, my. Shall we all grab copies of my books and count the millions of times I have broken these over the years?

*Okay, his name really wasn't George Orwell. It was Eric Blair. And most people ignore the last rule and refer to "George Orwell's Five Rules of Effective Writing."

Sure, everyone has a to-do list.

But over at 52 Projects, they have something even better: a NOT-to-do list.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have now entered the phase known as the 2007 Writing Olympics, where Jeanne gets up at 5 a.m. every morning, seven days a week, and just keeps writing and writing until the damned book is done.

And the only way to do that? My not-to-do list. Ix-nay on the New York Times' ossword-cray uzzle-pay and udoku-say.

No, this isn't turning into a dog blog... at least, not until I get the new puppy. But after re-reading and re-thinking the post about Hershey the wonder Lab, I wanted to make things clear about my attitude on dog training sooner rather than later.

First, about the "take-down" Hershey endured: I do not, I repeat, I DO NOT condone the use of "alpha rolls" or take-downs. My point was that Hershey learned on the first go-round because he was so intelligent and he communicated the fact poignantly. The *method* Bethany and I used, however, was unforgivably harsh and unnecessary, and in that sense, the story is very sad; Bethany and I just didn't know a better way at the time. For about a decade, we've known that Hersh could have learned not to attack Sweetie Pie in the presence of toys if we humans had used a clicker and some food or other positive reinforcement. (Also, I should not have used the word "bribe" with "food." Food is a perfectly legitimate reinforcement for training, and no one should ever shrink from using it for that purpose.) It was the clicker (reinforced by Hersh's favorite treat) that allowed him to learn the really cool golly-gee-whiz tricks like turning the light switch on and off.

So for Hershey's sake, don't use negative training methods on your dog. Instead, go read about the magic of clicker training at Karen Pryor's website. (Her book DON'T SHOOT THE DOG, on reinforcement-based conditioning, has become a classic.) Be sure to watch the amazing short video of the mule.

The great thing about reinforcement-based training? You can use it on anyone: a dog, a cat, a chicken. Even your spouse...

Okay, everyone straight on that? Don't ever punish your dog for something he's done wrong. Or your spouse, for that matter. Instead, reinforce them for what they're doing right. You, and they, will be a lot happier for it.

Hershey was the canine love of my life. He came to me back-yard bred and sickly, stubborn and independent, terrified of loud noises but certainly nothing or no one else.

He started out as dog-dog aggressive; when he was eighteen months old and I brought Sweetie Pie home as a puppy, he tore her face off when she went near one of his toys. I immediately recruited a local trainer. We set up a little sting: The trainer sat next to Hershey, her hand on his leash; I sat on his other side, my hand on the innocent ten-week-old Sweetie Pie's leash. Enter the jealously-guarded toy. We set it in front of the ninety-pound Hershey's nose, then coaxed Sweetie over to it. Of course he went for her, fangs slavering -- but Bethany, the marvelous trainer, took him down in the blink of an eye. He yelped, not because it hurt, but to signal his submission.

We set the trap up again. This time, when Sweetie wandered over to Hershey's favorite toy and began to play with it, Hersh looked up at the trainer, looked up at me, and buried his face in my lap while Sweetie played happily. From that instant on, he was a perfect gentleman with her. He had just needed to be informed of our pack's rules. And I was in love.

Hersh learned to heel off-leash and walk past barking dogs without blinking an eye; he retrieved the newspaper and the mail like a pro, whispered on command, and in the end, wasn't quite able to perfect his ability to turn lights on and off, because his crippling arthritis made it difficult to reach the switch. And as for being terrified of loud noises -- well, because I always praised him to the skies every time I turned the vacuum cleaner on (no food bribes, just praise), he eventually decided he got a blast out of walking up to the vacuum cleaner and lying down in front of it until I pushed the vacuum up against him. I guess he enjoyed watching me laugh.

He died in January at the age of 13. I grieve him as I would a person.

I thought perhaps that I was the only person to love a dog so deeply, and feel that love returned. That's until I began to read Patricia McConnell's beautiful, amazing books about her relationships with her dogs -- specifically, a border collie named Luke (who also died at 13).

McConnell is an ethologist (student of animal behavior), and her books are fascinating, educational, and poignant -- not to mention elegantly written. Please, pick up copies of THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH and FOR THE LOVE OF A DOG. And if you have an interest in dog training (or like me, a passion for it), please visit her website, www.patriciamcconnell.com.

A portrait of her father, Lorenzo II de' Medici, by Raphael, sold last week for almost $40 million. Not bad, considering the owner had paid $325 for it.

Go on over to Renaissance Weblog and read all about it.

Swing by Blogging for a Good Book, which gives you a suggestion for a good read every single day.

I chose to focus on the historical fiction archive -- which you can see was recently updated with Philippa Gregory's EARTHLY JOYS. It also contains Connie Willis' marvelous novel, DOOMSDAY BOOK, a must-read.

A little multiple-choice test for you about Catherine de' Medici, the protagonist of THE BLOODIEST QUEEN (aka THE MEDICI QUEEN), the novel I'm currently writing:

Question: Which innovation did Italian-born Catherine de' Medici bring to the sixteenth-century French court?

Answer:
a) High-heeled shoes. In fact, she invented them for her wedding ceremony because she was very short and her groom very tall.
b) Tobacco. She experimented with it medicinally, to cure her migraines, but the French loved the snuff for its own sake, and soon began smoking the weed.
c) Pantaloons, or "panties." Up to that time, French women wore no underwear. (Let us all begin to hum "There's a place in France...")
d) The side-saddle. French women were confined to a throne-like contraption which did not allow them to ride alongside the men. Catherine liked to hunt at full canter and jump hedges and had no patience for such silliness.
e) Handkerchiefs, the lacier the better. Before Catherine, folks used their fingers or their sleeves.
f) The Borgias' infamous poison, known as the cantarella.

And the answer is....

Dracula's Castle is for sale. At least, if you believe the headlines.

Since I'm a stickler for this sort of thing, I have to point out that the castle in question never belonged to Dracula. Its claim to historical fame is the probability that Dracula spent a couple of nights in its dungeon.

Fact is, the Impaler's real castle, the keep at Poienari, isn't even in Transylvania, but in Wallachia, now southern Romania. Sadly, it was already in ruins in the 1880s, when a landslide inflicted major damage. All that's standing now are some stone walls and a couple of towers.

Which makes the Castle Bran -- even if it isn't the real deal -- look like a pretty good bargain for a mere $78 million. Nice courtyard, no?

Every blog must have its mascot, and mine is no exception. She is my muse, Miss Sweetie Pie. It is a terrible responsibility, but one she bears well, even though now, at the venerable age of twelve, she must bear it alone (her live-in lover, Hershey the chocolate wonder Lab, shuffled off to the happy hunting grounds this past January).

At least until we get a new puppy.

While it's true I have an office -- quite a lovely one -- in fact I almost never work there. You see, Sweetie is far more comfortable up on our king-sized bed, either curled upon Ser Giorgio's pillow (which he kindly presents to her every morning when he leaves for work) or upon my feet. I am therefore obliged to work on said bed, with a laptop in my lap and a dog's chin resting upon my instep.

Writer's block? Let Miss Sweetie settle her sleepy head upon your ankles and commence to snore. I guarantee you'll remain at your post until the day's work is done.