PEGGY FIELDING'S NEWSLETTER
Vol. 6 Number 2 February 2006

LATE

Excuse? The month was just too short!

TO THE ARCHIVES PLEASE

Go to the newsletter page on my website where you can see pictures and drawings along with the words. Prettier, I think. And this time you get to see one of Dan's cartoons.

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A GREAT WAY TO BEGIN

My day started really well even though my personal bathroom is now a mess. (Luckily I have a bath in my office.) The mess is there because I’ve asked my handyman, Joe Casey, to redo the place. He came at a ghastly hour, 10:00 in the morning. All of that sounds bad, right?

Joe redeemed himself from the mess he'd created with his first words as he started carting wood and tools into the house.

"I was looking at a real pretty lady this morning, or at her picture. She was hanging around my workshop at home." He grinned widely.

"Was she naked, Joe?" I asked.

"Yep, and still pretty as a picture." He chuckled and went on with his work.

I turned to my breakfast with a happy heart. My thirty five year old self is still safe and well treasured in my handyman's workshop and he was letting me know all was well with the gift I'd given him at his softspoken request.

Too bad that the lusty thirty five year old woman in the picture never met up with the testosterone laden sixteen year old boy...or maybe not. Would I have been arrested for molesting a minor? Anyway, it's nice to know I' m still appreciated for what I once was.

JOE IS IN IT

Yeah, my Joe is the same lovely handyman in "Giving Up Pantyhose<" my novella in our CHIK~LIT FOR FOXY HENS. Get your copy from your local bookstore or from Amazon.com or from my publisher, AWOC.com. You can read about what really happened with my marriage and what I imagined could have happened with Joe Casey, the handyman, had I not been so much older and had he not been happily married! It's called FICTION folks.

HEADING TO THE OZARKS

We HENS are on our way to Dusty Richard's free writers conference in Arkansas. Romney Nesbitt did so well introducing us at Tulsa NightWriters that we've asked her to travel along with us to do her thing once again.

DUSTY'S DO

Dusty is our-of-his-mind with worry. He is afraid that too many people will come to his affair in Springdale. It got way too much publicity, he says, but he is determined to seat them all.

Jackie and Paula and I are kinda thrilled by the whole thing. All the people who attend a writers conference are interested in books, mostly their own, but they're interested in other books as well, we hope. We didn't sell a ton of books at the Women's Expo, because only about 10 percent of those participants wee readers. The participants at Dusty's Do are 100 percent readers. Much better odds, right? I'll let you know what happens.

About the Expo...I did meet one lovely big beautifully dressed moneyman at the Woman's Expo. He was at a neighboring booth, his gray hair cut and combed quite well. I told him that if I could delete 30 pounds and 30 years, I'd have him for lunch. He flinched, then laughed, then chatted with me every day we were there. Nothing like a little flirtation to break the ice, especially if the moves are from a really harmless old woman. If I had been 40 he might have run for the hills each time he saw me. As it was he felt perfectly at ease chatting me up, hoping for a bit more outrageous conversation, perhaps.

NOW ABOUT SOULMATES

Paula Gorgas did let me know that her cat could not have been in my soulmate group because she was not a human soul. Darn.

Here is what my editor, Dan Case, says: If you're a widow your husband who was your soulmate may return in a dream and tell you who is to be your next soulmate.

Well, the guy who came to my house to visit, the ED guy, who may be my soulmate, told me something shocking when he was here and I promised to reveal it after I'd thought it over. Here it is:

When I told him why I finally left Ray for good, he said, "Well, why didn't you object to that girl he rented a house for inside your compound?"

"What girl?"

Apparently I was a bit late in discovering that Ray Fielding had set up housekeeping with a Filipino girl right in my neighborhood, etc. etc. My proclaimed soulmate then told me that Ray had had a number 2 inside our walled compound for a year. Marco thought I knew. I didn't and that was shocking news even though it took place in the long dead past. That Ray paid rent for a second household right under my nose, still shocks me. I've checked with Suzy. She didn't know about household number 2 either.

The number 2's name was Jing Jing.

A BOOBOO IN A BOOK

I rather liked WYOMING WILDFIRE by Elizabeth Llane but her little booboo put me off track completely for a while.

Our heroine, Jessie, dressed as a boy to win a race. That included binding her breasts. The race was a huge success and within a couple of pages the hero Matt and our heroine Jessie were ready to get it on. She was wearing overalls and a flannel shirt as well as the chest binding. I'm going to quote from the book on Page 214 after they reached home.

"Tugging her shirt open, he buried his face between her breasts... 'I want you Jessie,' he muttered, his chapped lips moving against her skin."

So what happened? Bindings broke? Slipped down? Or were they stolen by a supernatural force?

My pal Jackie suggested that the writer, in her hurry to get to the love scene, missed a real opportunity to have him discover bindings, remove them, etc., and I agree. Don't let little booboos like this slip into your story, you writers out there. That love scene was ruined for me. I kept thinking of the cloth strips hanging from her overalled leg, or spread across the cabin floor, or perhaps in the privy.

I'm such a nag.

CONTEST

First person to write a review of CHIK~LIT FOR FOXY HENS for Amazon.com need only send me name and mailing address and I'll send you a copy of BARBARA or SALLY (your choice.) The same goes for BARNESandNOBLE.COM. Yeah, two prizes available. Get after that review soon as you’ve read our book.

STONER NESBITT BOOKMAN

Romney's husband, Stoner (Don't they have romantic names?) is in the book business and I'm giving the sexy sounding Stoner all my cast off books, including Wyoming Wildfire. Maybe other readers won't even care that the binding was missing from Jessie's breasts.

Have I told you that Stoner has a voice to die for? Sex in sound. And yes, I've told Romney. She laughs at my foibles.

SEE YOU IN MARCH (which it already is)

We HENS will talk to the local clubs RWI (Romance Writers Ink) and OMW (Oklahoma Mystery Writers) next. That should be fun. Come hear us if you're in the area.

CRAIG

Craig Ferguson still comes to my kitchen every night.

Love Peggy