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PEGGY
FIELDING'S NEWSLETTER
 Vol.
4 Number 12 November 2004 ALMOST 2005 Yeah, I know. Im just up to the wire but I made it. I've been enjoying the holidays way too much! GO TO THE ARCHIVES If you're reading the Peggy Fielding newsletter amongst your e-mailed correspondence, I suggest you quit that right now and go to the newsletter archive to finish the job. Dan does such a good job for the archive on my website. The e-mail is readable, but the well-designed illustrated version is so much more pleasant to read. He chooses large print, uses good design, and he adds photographs and drawings at times... and he uses color. ChickenWriter TSUNAMI REMEMBERED I knew what fear was the Saturday I was on my way to graduate school classes at UST driving my sweet little red Mustang along the road next to the sea wall in Manila. I looked to my left and saw people running up toward the road, then behind them, a wall of water, rising ever higher, maybe forty or fifty feet high (I don't know how to judge anything that requires math) and in seconds, I understood the phrase, "Fear gripped me." I kept driving, on automatic pilot, the valiant little fastback had been through many a flooded Filipino street, so it kept driving also. Scared. I don't even like to get into a bathtub that is too full. That wall of water, rising and clawing kept moving nearer and nearer to the paved street I was driving on. I could no longer see the stone sea wall that edged the beach. My car was the only automobile I could see on the city street. As I looked at the fearsome water a whole sheet of corrugated iron fell out of the rising horror and aimed at my head. "Well, I'm dead." I remember saying inwardly. The sheet of tin fell and fell in slow motion. I just kept my foot on the accelerator and watched it descend. It hit my hood and windshield a glancing blow but the little red Ford kept moving. Soon I regained enough thought to turn the car to get away from the beach area and that scary towering wall of water with foam and debris whirling at the top. I hadn't been killed. I was dry inside my car. I headed away from the Bayside Drive more or less coming back to consciousness, seeing the sight of the rising waters receding in the rearview mirrors on my now speeding Mustang. I had to get out of Manila. I drove home to San Miguel, praying all the way but appreciating the dirt, mud, vegetation and buildings that whizzed by my windows as I drove. "God keep me from a watery grave," I prayed through every kilometer, still frightened out of my mind but beginning to realize I was not going to die, not on that Saturday morning. And you know something, friends, when I arrived home, my elegant little car parked in under our house, I examined it carefully. I was never able to find a scratch, a break or a sign that a sheet of metal had struck at the place where I would have been decapitated if I had really been riding a Mustang. My little red baby was a brave and protective little horse. She still lives in the Philippines. "Minor Tsunami" was next day's news and perhaps the shanty town dwellers who lived outside the sea wall and my pony and I were the only ones who felt threatened by nature's minor" uprising. The recent news of a Southeast Asian Tsunami killing 300,000 or more people has frightened the hell out of me and reawakened my prayer. "God keep me from a watery grave" CONTEST CONTINUES Those of you who did not get around to guessing my finish date for MAKE BELIEVE CURATE, can still throw your hats in the ring. Those of you who have already guessed may take a second stab at the date if you wish. I have gone through the manuscript for the second time and now I'm on the third and last go 'round. This is the beautification trip and it is imminent, so go ahead, try for a finish date. Readers who send in guesses should also enclose postal addresses and choice of book just in case they are the ones who win. The Regency novel is going to Avalon at the moment I finish. Pray for success, all you folks who have a direct pipeline to God. I do so want my very own hardback from Avalon. DECEMBER BOOKS Good and bad have passed through my reading loupes (Some people call them spectacles) and I must admit the most pleasing ones for the period were Regencies. Uh huh, I know. Youall don't want to hear about them so, never mind.
Old Elmore didn't even know women existed when he wrote his short westerns but I'm loving them. His book is out now in hardback from Harper Collins. Nicely bound and the dust cover and endpapers were beautifully done. Someone put a lot of thought into the design of this book of reprints. CHRISTMAS GIFTS THAT PASSED IN THE NIGHT Because I'm such an old crock these days I bought few gifts, Dale Whisman's new mystery for Jackie King and some books for cousins, flowers for my only living Aunt. My cousin and my uncle died at Christmas time last year so I gave my Aunt Maxine ten red roses interspersed with two white roses. This holiday must be sad for her and a bit for me as well, so I hoped she'd like the symbolism of the dozen roses. Roses signified "Love" during the Regency and Victorian eras. However, the gift exchange that made me laugh aloud was that between my niece Monette and me. She has five children to care for. I sent a tower of candy from Harry & David, plus a personalized, handwritten letter and a card to each of the six. I enclosed a check in every envelope with the "Old Crock" explanation for enclosing checks rather than sending toys. Two days after my checks winged their way to Texas I was thrilled to get a Christmas card from Monette. Each of the kids had signed with her. Oh yes, one more thing. There was a check in the envelope as well, my gift from them. I had to laugh. TNW PLEASURES Another fun thing I did in December had nothing to do with sex. It was the Tulsa NightWriter Christmas party. So great to see and talk to old friends. My pal, Donna Le, who is TNW librarian/greeter, let us all dig in and take as many books as we wanted and all for FREE. Dan Case came up from Texas to present Vickie McDonough, one of my special "chicks" with the Tulsa NightWriter of the year 2004 award, and my longtime friend, Alma Barnes installed the TNW officers with her usual wit and panache, with a compliment to me thrown in. Jackie King was the hostess for our party, the TNW version of our own Perle Mesta. All of this was just as good as, if not better than, SEX.
ADIOS MIS AMORES December was sad and fun and full of joy and sorrow. There is only one lie embedded in the paragraph above... not a big lie, only a tiny one. See you next month. I'll try to refrain from lying in 2005. Love Peggy | ||
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I have also been reading
a collection of Elmore Leonard's Western short stories from the forties and
fifties. This is a new book I bought at Steves. Most of the stories were
printed in Western pulp magazines originally. I've bragged on Dusty Richards
collection of short stories which offered an almost female sensitivity. Elmore is different.
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