Sam’s Dot Publishing actually came out with this anthology last year, but it took me a while to be able to get a copy. I just fell in love with the title and the cover. So, I finally picked up a copy and had a chance to read it recently and it was a lot of fun.

The stories in this anthology are supposed to be “outre” tales, similar to something you might watch on Twilight Zone or Outer Limits back when they were in black and white. Because of the title and the cover, I was hoping for a packet of stories where a purse (or a handbag – as we all know that one purses one’s lips, one carries a handbag) was a central part of the story. As it is, in most of the stories, the “purse” in question is simply a prop, used early in the story and then forgotten; but that’s okay, for the most part. The tales are funny, witty, bizarre, action packed and definitely able to take you out of this world and into another.

You can find the hard copy of the anthology here for $10: http://sdpbookstore.com/anthologies.htm#itcamefromherpurse

Or, if you like using ereaders, you can find an ebook version on Smashwords here for $1.59: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/82065http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/82065

Out now through iUniverse is George Rumanes’ novel, The Man With the Black Worry Beads. It’s World War II. Greece has been overtaken by the Germans; men, women and children are starving in the streets while soldiers of the Third Reich live on their bounty. In the port of Pireaus, resistance fighters, British and German soldiers and people who will do anything to survive interact to perform their own version of a Greek tragedy. Based on a true events. Proofread and copy edited by Rachel V. Olivier, Putt Putt Productions.

Late night idea while I’m still up at the computer. You – whoever you are reading this because I will post it as public – probably have at least 10% of your friends and/or family who make their living creatively or via a small business idea. You might even know more than that, but I’m guessing 10% because of unemployment rates. You might know them in real life or on line. Think of that – at least 10%, maybe more in this economy where people have lost jobs and are trying to think outside the box and piece together part time work with freelancing with selling DVDs and CDs through eBay and Amazon. So, here’s an idea, if you need a good or service, instead of going to Home Depot or Craigslist or Target or wherever, why not turn to those friends or family members or ask them about any friends or colleagues who could help you with something.

Need a gift for someone for a wedding, anniversary or birthday? If you know people trying to make a living as a photographer, why not hire them. They may or may not be in your price range, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. Or get a group of people together to pitch in for the gift.

I know someone who will reorganize your life for you. She’s really good at coming into someone else’s home and cleaning out the stuff that needs to go and making it work better. I know someone else who has a really cool website that sells jewelry and sometimes has really good deals. I know a couple of people with really interesting eBay shops.

Your company needs help with advertising graphics, refer one of the many graphic designers you know (and there are a TON on Facebook). Why not? Again, you may or may not be able to afford their rate, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. And maybe you can work something out. Who knows.

How about highly original works of art? Some of those friends might be willing to sell a piece of art to you for that wedding or anniversary gift. Know anyone who’s written a book lately? Well, check it out. Get a copy. You know the author, get it signed. Give it as a gift. It’s nifty. (If you don’t like my books, by the way, I could point you to AT LEAST 10-20 other authors I know who would be MORE THAN HAPPY to sell you their books).

I have over 244 friends on Facebook and know more people in other online venues and then there are high school and college alumni venues as well. That’s potentially 500 people or more? I think I’ve maybe sold my books to about 10-20 people. Maybe.

There is a saying, I’m told it’s an old Russian saying – If everyone gives a thread the naked man will have a shirt. That is kind of what our safety net system is based on. But it’s also what this idea is based on, but it’s not giving. It’s buying. It’s an exchange of goods and services.

If I sold JUST my poetry book to all (assumed) 500 people, I’d be able to pay down bills, pay rent for the next few months and maybe have enough left over to visit my mom at the end of the summer AND go to my high school reunion in the same town at the same time. (For any of you who do that “sphere of influence” thing – that’s many small spheres of influence coming together for one huge sphere of influence – and we can all do that FOR EACH OTHER.)

Now, I’m just as guilty. I have at least two friends who came out with books since January and a few others before that and I have yet to purchase those books (though, they are on the list). And I have yet to hire the friend who is a photographer to do my head shot, or my friends who are designers to do a website or company branding and logos or book covers for me. But, they are all on the list for the “some day when I have money.”

I guess, I’m kind of frustrated. We lob our words and ideas back and forth between people – liberal and conservative, republican, democrat, libertarian, socialist, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Atheist, Wiccan, Pagan and WHATEVER – but we all have need of each other. We all need to pay rent or the mortgage and to live up to our obligations, buy groceries, etc. It just seems as if it would work better if we all helped each other out instead of arguing with each other while the shit circles the bowl.

If you need your lawn mowed and you hate doing it after work or on the weekend and have the extra income, then hire the person who’s struggling to pay rent and has the time because s/he no longer has a full time job. If 10 people or 20 or even more, hired that person to mow the lawn or trim the hedges or rake the leaves, then that person is closer to paying rent or their phone bill and being able to have expendable income for groceries, clothes, shoes, etc. and not a drop of government money was spent.

Or you have kids who need to be tutored in math or English or Spanish or science – you know how many out of work teachers there are out there? Hire them to tutor your kids.

Need a singer for your next wedding or Quinceañera or Bar/Bat Mitzvah? Hire a friend. You know people who are singers and musicians! You know people who know people who are singers and musicians.

And don’t expect them to do it for free. The worker is worth their wage. They’re giving you a service and deserve to be paid for it. They are trying to make a living honorably by doing work that they know they can do in a time when it is very hard to find any work at all.

So, just help each other, would you? And stop all this other crap. Stop pointing fingers about people with entitlement issues or people with fat cat salaries. Quit giving each other the eye. Just, work with each other. Help each other. The people who have money should hire the people who have talent, skill, knowledge and/or fortitude (or more time and energy than you have anyway) to get the job done. And you already know these people. You already know each other. So, help each other out.

And buy my books. Or their books. Or their pictures and cards, jewelry, music, photographs…

I’ve been keeping my head down, working. Or, sometimes not working. I had a long weekend of no access to the internet when my “old” modem died (since when is 2002/2003 considered old? I know – in the world of technology 10 years is ancient). So, now with a brand new modem, I’ve been able to reconnect and get back to work. On the writing front, things have been rather dull.

Until today.

Today I found out about a review that is in the March/April 2012 issue of the Small Press Review of Rae’s Bar & Bistro! On page four of this issue, under “Soul Food” – Angela Consolo Mankiewicz writes: “Olivier’s work often has a deep strain of sadness, of wounds trying
to heal; there are also romantic leaps of faith and hope tempered by everyday realities…”

Find the link to the complete review on my website here.

Since it is now April, and the official opening of Poetry Month, why not take a look and see if you might not enjoy spending some time at Rae’s Bar & Bistro.

I took last week off, sorta. I tried to unhook from the interwebs a little, and tried really hard not to get pulled into online dramas, let my clients know I’d be unavailable for a while, let my family know, etc. I wanted to take the week off and just write and be me, write in my journal, and go ahead and feel things and write things and say things (to the cat) unapologetically, without having to explain myself or soften it or defend it. Be as liberal as I wanted without nodding and smiling and saying, “you have a point” without really meaning it.

This last week was about me reassessing my life and regaining my priorities (and cleaning off my desk and doing my taxes). It was about me regaining my voice. So, I kind of had to take a look at my priorities, since that is what is at the heart of many of those things.

If you’re not in the mood for a long read, than the above is the gist of this blog entry and the rest is just an exploration of how it happened. You don’t need to read further. But, if you’re in the mood for reading about the journey, then by all means, continue on.

When I was thirteen, my grandparents sold the house we lived in and retired to a mobile home in a smaller town (Sedro Woolley) than we already lived in (Wenatchee), and my mom and sister and I moved to a duplex on the other side of town. It was in a different school district than the junior high I had been going to, but close to a lot of friends I’d known in grade school and still hung out with. It was when we lived here that I learned about “priorities”.

The first time I remember learning a lesson about priorities was when we were going for a walk with my mom. After we moved, mom used to take my sister and I for walks after dinner. I think part of the reason for the walks was to get to know the neighborhood, since we’d grown up in another ‘hood. The other part was exercise. I’m sure getting two squirrely kids to do their homework and then go to bed after dinner wasn’t easy for her and exercise helped us all.

Anyway, we’d moved from a neighborhood that was all single-family residences to a mixed neighborhood of single-family homes and apartments or duplexes. In the old ‘hood, the SFRs had all been pretty well cared for and the cars ranged from old to new, but mostly good solid family cars. Nothing fancy.

In the new ‘hood, there were lots of duplexes inhabited by small families or young families, like us. But a lot of them were also inhabited by young singles out of high school or college, with or without roommates. As a young teenager (13) I was really curious about the duplex with the cute 20-year-old boy who had a snazzy 280Z in his parking spot. Or what about the pretty girl and her roommate with their convertibles who laid out on their lawns every weekend and talked to said cute guy while I helped mom with chores.

On one of our walks I made the vague connection that those people probably paid about the same rent we did, but they had brand new cars and we just had a “yucky” red 1964 Plymouth Valiant sedan (that ran for YEARS). I asked my mom why we couldn’t have a new car like those guys did.

She gave two answers. The first was that if she spent the money on the new car then she wouldn’t be able to pay for our music lessons, send us to camp, or other things we liked to do (dues for Campfire, etc.). Would I want to give that up? It was a close call. I really liked the idea of my mom having a new car.

The second answer was that these kids were putting a lot of their money into a new car that depreciated over time, as well as using it for things they were getting right now rather than saving the money to put into a owning a home or getting more education later on (I guess there are mixed feelings on that these days).

That was the first lesson that stuck with me when it came to priorities: You have a choice where to spend your resources so choose carefully.

The next came when I fell in love with a coat. It was a glorious winter coat. Winters in Wenatchee can be cold and dry or cold and snowy, but cold and wet is not typical. The coats at the time that seemed to be big deals were brushed wool. The one I liked was a creamy brushed wool that came down to my knees and had a burgundy and blue design worked into it. It was lined with this burgundy silky polyester material. I loved it. I wanted it so bad. It was $95, which was a huge amount in 1978/79. Mom said I could have it if I saved for it. So I took every babysitting job I could find. I also substituted delivering the paper for a friend down the street. I just wanted that coat so bad.

Finally, the day came, I had the money, and we went across the Columbia River to East Wenatchee to pick it up at the “fancy” store where I’d tried it on. I was in Seventh Heaven. I just KNEW that when I went to school in this coat or ice-skated in this coat that boys would see me as all grown up and ask me out.

Well, I got the coat home, wore it a few times to church and school, felt overdressed and embarrassed in it, put it in the closet and then never wore it again, especially after we moved to Bellingham where winters ARE cold and wet so such a coat is just not practical. I kept hoping I’d “grow into it” emotionally.  I still loved it. But every time I wore it, I felt overdressed. It was beautiful, but it wasn’t me. And I’d saved all that money for it. Eventually I donated it somewhere.

It was a tough lesson to learn. Sometimes even after you work hard and save your pennies like you’re supposed to, the shiny new thing is not all you thought it was and eventually you have to figure out what to do with it – live with it or get rid of it.  Sometimes what you choose to spend your resources on is not what you thought it would be.

This week I kind of had to go back to those basics. I began by digging in and catching up on my bookkeeping and check balancing and taxes on the one hand, including cleaning off the office shelves and going through the bookwork and minutes for the Miracle Mile Writers Club and organizing and tossing things and taking the time to teach myself how to make an omelet (instead of scrambled eggs), really take the time to make a good chicken soup and the really good cookies I like to make and cleaning up parts of the kitchen that haven’t been cleaned in a while on the other hand. I also read books – paper and ink – books that made me feel good like The Night Circus and A Year in Provence that are about taste, smell, feel, sound and sight and how they all create the ever pervading sense of being.

I also was trying not to go online, or at least not to do email or Facebook. I knew that one of the reasons I was so exhausted, inside and out, is that there are so many voices online that demand to be listened to and believed and accepted, whether or not you want to. You must live this way or you must write that senator or you must demand these things or have to eat this, you should not eat this, you have to drink this, DON’T DRINK THIS (just like Alice in Wonderland) or you must not do this when you write or must do this when you write or you can’t write about ______ – because you’re not _________.

Insert anything in those blanks, trading them out, and after awhile you’ll realize how ridiculous that is. At first it sounds almost okay. “You can’t write female because you’re not female and don’t know what it’s about.” Okay, now try this: “You can’t write about a murderer because you’re not a murderer and don’t know what it’s about.” “You can’t write about a Vampire because you’re not a Vampire and don’t know what it’s about.” (It’s FICTION!)

I kept reading and hearing how basically the only characters I was “allowed” to write about were white females, preferably middle-aged cuz wtf would I know about being a teenager or a young adult in our current society? Apparently nothing. WTF would I know about being poor or having money or being a guy or being not white or not human?

Right. Sociology and political correctness have no place in creativity. What counts – the ONLY thing that counts – is doing the work. Hearing your Voice and being true to it. The rest of that other stuff is just crap. Just garbage. And I knew that, but it was hard to hold onto with all the “Thou Shalt Nots” running around in my head.

As I told some friends earlier today, creating is like fingerpainting. And when you’re fingerpainting, you don’t control things. You dip your hands in the paint and GO! You mix the red and the blue and the orange and the black and do swirls and drips and knuckle prints and turkey handprints all over the place, without planning ahead. You just do it for fun. For the joy of it.

Later, after you’re done, you might look at it and decide to edit it, whatever it is. But in the moment? It’s all about the joy of the creation.

I had to get my self back and find that joy. I had to get back to my priorities. What should I spend my limited resources on? Was it worth it to spend those resources (time, money, energy) on those things, people, items, what have you? Or was I going to regret the expenditure later? Have to live with making a hasty decision on something that ends up not giving a return in some way in use or energy or JOY.

I have to admit, it was touch and go for a while last week, as to whether or not my time off was worth the expenditure in time and resources. I clutched onto some friends and family for dear life with long talks either face to face or on the phone. I probably annoyed the hell out of Pye. Had some good long cries. Did some research. Did a lot of revising of one story and some editing and new writing on another story.

In the end I finally had an idea of who I was again. And I also have an idea of where I do and do not want to spend my resources. My mantra in fighting for my self this last week was that the oxygen mask has to go over my face before I can even began to help someone else. It’s all about priorities.

I’ll be unavailable from March 4 to March 11/12. If you need any proofreading or copyediting services, then you can order in the next couple of days for rush orders or wait until after March 12. Thank you for your business!

I might, during that time, post a couple of blogs, as I’ve been playing with some ideas to write about, but I will not be available for proofreading or copyediting work.

Again, thank you!

Here’s wishing everyone out there Love, Peace, Hope and Joy in the New Year, and as much success and prosperity as is good for us!

And now for an announcement:

My friend Robert Szeles just released his full length novel, Jack and Dora Do L.A. today. Jack and Dora are 21st century L.A.’s equivalent to Nick and Nora Charles. Take the witty repartee and charm of Nick and Nora, add a little more sex (Okay, a lot more sex), a little more alcohol, some old world magic, and a lot of hip action (literally). Check it out at the link, watch the book trailer (and if you dig the music, you can download at iTunes or CD Baby – it’s from Kiss the Girl’s Get With It album. If you’re not sure about reading the entire novel in one go or read the novel and want more of Jack and Dora, never fear! He’s also got a series of short stories out about Jack and Dora to download and enjoy – coming soon (scroll down on the Jack and Dora page to read more about them).

People often complain about the sending and receiving of Christmas or holiday cards. If someone gets a card from a person not on their “sent” list, they’re liable to go into a little bit of a panic and try to send one before it looks like it was only sent in receipt. Or they might hate that feeling of obligation, that now they “owe” someone a Christmas card.

But I love getting Christmas cards, and I love sending them, too. The intent of Christmas card sending has always been to simply send a note of Christmas cheer to help celebrate the season. Or, in some cases (as in the very first Christmas cards ever sent: http://www.emotionscards.com/museum/xmas.html), to ask for donations for the poor and needy.

Since the very beginning, however, the idea that the card should be a small work of art has been part of the tradition.

“Holiday cards designed by Kate Greenaway, the Victorian children’s writer and illustrator and Frances Brundage and Ellen H. Clapsaddle, were favorites in the late 1800′s and early 1900′s.  Most were elaborate , decorated with fringe, silk and satin.  Some were shaped liked fans and crescents; others were cut into the shapes of bells, birds, candles and even plum puddings.  Some folded like maps or fitted together as puzzles; other squealed or squeaked.  Pop-up Cards reveled tiny mangers or skaters with flying scarves gliding around a mirrored pond.” - Juddi Morris, Vivian Hotchkiss http://www.emotionscards.com/museum/xmas.html

I am just as bad as everyone else. I get into a frenzy; I think I need to have the perfect cards, but not spend too much money. And then I need to buy enough cards. And if I don’t buy enough and the others aren’t available? What then? Get different “make up” cards. But then I have to decide who gets the original ones and who gets the second set? Jolly Santa? Christmas tree? Art Deco Christmas? And then what if the addresses are wrong. And then there’s postage, which is almost  ¢.50 per card these days. And you can choose from a variety of stamps. Who gets Mary and Jesus? Who gets the lovely pine branch? Who gets an ornament? What if they’re out of Christmas stamps? Which stamps to get then? And again, who gets what?

It’s as full of decision making energy as shopping for gifts!

I had part of the stress taken away a couple of years ago when I ordered 8 1/2 x 14 paper by mistake and didn’t know what to do with it. And decided since I had already spent money on paper and ink and was short on what I needed to buy cards, that that would be my card. So, that’s how my newsletter was born.

But the whole Christmas card thing becomes a bit of a stressor for everyone. And then we forget why we do it all in the first place. The other evening I had a reminder when I finally slowed down (was forced to slow down, actually, by this cold) enough to clean up my bureau and go through and put up my Christmas cards. I spent the evening going through each one. I read them, enjoyed the pictures, looked at the photographs, read the newsy letters enclosed in the cards.

Everyone had done it differently. And each card represented someone in a unique way. Some had children’s and family pictures. One of my friends admitted to at least 10 takes to get their family photo right. Then there are the newsy letters – jobs gained and lost, children growing up, people moving, new things happening.

Then the art of the cards. They can range anywhere from the free cards my dad and stepmom send me from their past donations to animal groups to handmade creations with drawings and ribbon and homemade paper. Even with the “free” cards, my dad chose that polar in the bear in the snow cuz he thought it was cute. The friend who sent her handmade card used creams and reds in her homemade paper to represent her. Someone else sent a teal card with red ribbon. Another person sent a card of blues and whites. Another a card of reds and grays. Each card uniquely different from the other, representing one person sending greetings to another in a time honored tradition that goes back 150 years.

E-cards are beginning to replace regular greeting cards. I received at least three this year so far. And they have their own qualities. You can add motion and sound to an ecard that you can’t to a regular card. The colors are brighter and there’s more going on.

Each card is a little ambassador from a friend or relative’s house to yours and represents time and energy, probably love, as well as effort. I found when I took the time to actually read and appreciate the cards that it helped me enjoy this time of the year a little more. If one of the functions of a winter holiday is about bringing light into the middle of the darkness, then each of these cards can represent a small light being sent your way during a time that could otherwise be dark for you.

So, Merry Christmas from my house to yours. And here’s my little light I’m sending out to you.

Merry Christmas

Here are a couple of videos from Christmases past in case you’re in the need of something jolly with holly and other things that end in olly… (to paraphrase Susan from the Hogfather).

She Lit the Candle: A short holiday story

City Sidewalks: A holiday poem

Today I stopped by our neighborhood newsstand to pick up some bridal magazines to do some research for a story I’m working on. I know people go on and on about how online is it these days, but Google and Bing assume you want to see certain things when you punch in your search terms, and the newsstand doesn’t assume anything. You have these magazines all there before – and you can choose whichever one you want without one of them shouting at you in loud font and colors or blinking across the screen. The artistry of the pics is different, the point of view, the perspective. It’s just better if what you’re looking for is a variety of styles or bits of information that haven’t been fed to you based on assumptions made by the cookies planted on your computer.

So, I pick up three of the bridal magazines (one says it’s the Fashion Issue! Oooh!), marginally wondering what the guy at the register will think of me as I buy them, when I stop short because I see the January/February double issue of Analog. Not only that, but hidden a couple of tiers back is the MARCH issue of Analog. It’s hard to find SF/F mags out on the newsstands these days. Not like the old days when you could find Omni just out and about on your way to the coffeeshop. *sigh* I miss Omni.

So, then I start to wonder what the guy at the register will think of some middle-aged, overweight chick buying bridal fashion mags and and scifi mags both in one go. I figure he probably figures (if he figures at all) that it’s for my kids. People always assume I have kids, and I let them.

But then I get distracted again because I’m actually looking at the Analogs in hand. They’re much more thin than they used to be, even the double issue. It’s sad. They used to be nice, thick mags that you knew were packed with stories, articles, reviews all having to do with science fiction. Analog was one of the heavyweights, along with Asimov’s and Fantasy & Science Fiction. In many ways, they still are the heavyweights and the diehards. It’s hard to get a story published by them unless you’re a name already. (I have tried several times, and I know others have as well. For the record, all three magazines rejected The G.O.D. Factor.)

But something else I noticed, besides how thin and shoddy they felt, was that neither issue had female authors listed on the front covers. I don’t know if this means they aren’t getting any good submissions from women or if women just aren’t submitting to them, but it was discouraging and started punching all my old buttons where I wonder if I should start submitting stories under R.V. Olivier instead of Rachel V. Olivier because the scifi/fantasy world, no matter how much the insiders talk about how it’s come a long way, still seems to be ruled by the OWGs (old white guys).

I know, that’s not really true. The scifi/fantasy world has come a long way. I mean, we might have Stephenie Meyers as an ongoing embarrassment, but we also have Octavia Butler and Elizabeth Moon and Marion Zimmer Bradley and Joanna Russ, etc., etc., etc.

And, since I haven’t looked at an Analog in a long time, it could be these are just “one ofs”. So, I keep staring at them, wondering if it would be worth it to get them, these two issues of Analog. Do I really want to read a magazine that doesn’t want me? But who knows? Things change. I could enjoy the stories, even if Robert J. Sawyer (one of the listed authors) does normally give me a headache. I could learn something. It’s research. It keeps me abreast of my field. And it’s not like the bridal mags want me either. I mean, I’m not seeing any plus size brides on those magazine covers.

I shrug. I add the Analogs to the pile of bridal mags and plunk down the money and ask for the receipt. After all, it is research.

Once upon a time, I would have been embarrassed to even be found looking at a bridal mag. That’s so much fooffera that I have no need of and think is absolutely unnecessary. However, I would have rushed out to not only get the Analog, but go to the back of the mag and find the subscription form so I could look forward to a new issue every month.

These days, though, I’m thinkin’ the bridal research will be the more fun of the two.