Sunday, September 14, 2014

Zelda's Back

Sometimes I wish for the days of Nick and Nora, Fred and Irene, Miss Piggy and Miss Peel.

The Real thing  (6/28/14)

She arrives as usual in a fur coat
Sable I think
Tosses it to the hat check girl
Along with her Tiparillos, which are no longer acceptable
She stops
Pulls a lipstick from her tiny clutch
Presses it to her carmine lips
Pouts
And follows Germaine to her usual table.
At least this is how I remember it.
Zelda is no longer the center of attention. But
Only because the attention is on lesser things.
When did we wobble away from the diamond?
Why have we settled for the simulated topaz?
How could Georges not be there
Dancing in attendance?
Where is the music
The white tie
The tails
The rhythm?
Zelda settles gracefully at my table.
You're mouldering little one.
The world has not changed.
Elegance is in the mind.
The little people have never acquired the knack and will never
Be able to strip us of it.
Elegance isn't a matter of giving but of receiving.
It is a generosity of spirit that embraces the outliers, the undertakers, the fishmongers
Even the plumbers
And knows them to be interesting because they are human.
Elegance even allows the poor blighters who wave the banner of elegance in defiance of the truth
To exist.
So said Zelda
Before her first sip.

You can imagine what she had to say after the second.

Monday, July 7, 2014

Zelda ReTurns


She arrives as usual in a fur coat
Sable I think
Tosses it to the hat check girl
Along with her Tiparillos, which are no longer acceptable
She stops
Pulls a lipstick from her tiny clutch
Presses it to her carmine lips
Pouts
And follows Germaine to her usual table.
At least this is how I remember it.
Zelda is no longer the center of attention. But
Only because the attention is on lesser things.
When did we wobble away from the diamond?
Why have we settled for the simulated topaz?
How could Georges not be there
Dancing in attendance?
Where is the music
The white tie
The tails
The rhythm?
Zelda settles gracefully at my table.
You're mouldering little one.
The world has not changed.
Elegance is in the mind.
The little people have never acquired the knack and will never
Be able to strip us of it.
Elegance isn't a matter of giving but of receiving.
It is a generosity of spirit that embraces the outliers, the undertakers, the fishmongers
Even the plumbers
And knows them to be interesting because they are human.
Elegance even allows the poor blighters who wave the banner of elegance in defiance of the truth
To exist.
So said Zelda
Before her first sip.

You can imagine what she had to say after the second.

Thursday, June 5, 2014

What do you do with a life uninterrupted? A life filled with adventure but never broken up by love? A life full of events, awards, adventures, but no reason to appreciate them? No one waiting at the door after the last interview to say, I missed you.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Embarrassing Moments and How To Avoid Them

Today at Romance Books 4 Us I’ll be discussing how to use your personal memories wisely and effectively in your prose—without getting in major
trouble with a friend or relative. I even confess one of my most embarrassing moments! Check it out here:
http://www.romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/2013/10/guest-blog-ms-spencer-relax-memories.html

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Notes from a writer's weird world


Does this ever happen to other writers? I'm working on my new work-in-progress set on Chincoteague, and my heroine decided to call herself Addison Steele. So, in the spirit of the thing, I began to name everyone else after 18th-century British writers. Thus the hero is Hugh Radcliffe, others are Smollett, Swift--well you get the picture. At that point I had to come up with a name for the hero's brother. I wanted the hero to have a tattoo signifying
brotherly love, which brought me to Elton John's Daniel My Brother. Yay--perfect, until I realized what the brother's name would be....