My cool online friend, Martha O’Connor, has a cool new book available, The Bitch Posse. Martha is one of those open, friendly, honest people who also happen to be incredibly talented. Go Martha. She even played along with my silly “ten questions” game. I love asking the questions. The recipients may not love answering them, but hey, you all love them, right? Right? RIGHT?

Sheesh.

Anyway, here’s the questions and Martha’s answers follow. By the way, in keeping with her title, I am attempting to use the word bitch a lot. So, I decided to add my own comment to each question. This is a promotion for her book. Might as well get that word–BITCH–in there as often as possible.

Question: What book do you wish you had written and why?

Answer: I wish I had written the one I am working on now, because then it would be done.

Natalie’s comment: Damn you, you bitch. Good answer. How come I didn’t come up with it?

Question: Should the FCC ban Paris Hilton from speaking on live television?

Answer: Absolutely not! She livens things up and has such a sexy voice. She should do the evening news.

Natalie’s comment: Damn you, you bitch, don’t you realize that Paris is the anti-Christ? Why MUST I keep explaining this. Mutter mutter.

Question: How did you come up with the idea for The Bitch Posse, and how long did it take you to write it?

Answer: A former agent was submitting a mystery novel of mine all around New York. We had received a lot of nice comments, but no offers, and we were starting to run out of options. Angry, frustrated, and disheartened, I decided the only thing to do was throw myself into a new project. To my surprise, three characters jumped me in a dark alley, hurled me to the ground, and wouldn’t let me up until I had told their story. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth… in their own words.

Fifty pages into the novel, I showed it to my husband, also a writer and my first and best reader. He said, “This is the most wonderful thing you’ve ever written. Keep writing.” Wanting some “industry feedback,” I showed it to my then-agent. A few days later, she wrote back and said, “Martha, this is just too dark. I wouldn’t have any idea how to market this and can’t imagine who’d want to read it. You had a good thing going there with those mysteries. Why not write another one?”

I was shocked. How could I abandon Amy, Rennie, and Cherry, who were in so much trouble? They’d become my friends. It was out of the question. Convinced no one would want read the novel anyway because of what my agent had said, I turned off all the censors and wrote my heart out. It was actually really liberating. I was able to look carefully at moments that I’d previously brushed over in fiction.

The first draft spilled out of me in six weeks. I spent several months revising it, then broke ties with my old agent and had several agent offers within two weeks. I signed with Mary Evans, who is brilliant, sensitive, and funny~an all-around great human being. More revisions followed, and Mary sent the novel out for auction in November 2003. It sold in four days, with four publishers bidding.

I’m tossing around the idea of sending that former agent an inscribed copy!

Natalie’s comment: That’s brilliant, Bitch! (Okay, at this point, how do you call Martha a bitch? Come on! She’s telling the great American novel story. She didn’t take no for an answer. She knew her novel had legs. She knew that this story HAD to be told. How do you argue with that? Well, bitch, ya don’t.)

Question: Is Donald Trump’s mutant hair going to turn on him and attack? (It really reminds me of a wild animal.)

Answer: Shhh!!! Don’t spoil the grand finale!

Natalie’s comment: Well, all I have to say here is “the bitch is back in town.”

Question: What are you working on now?

Answer: I’m working on a new novel, but am very superstitious about discussing unfinished work. I’m enjoying it, though.

Natalie’s comment: It occurs to me now that maybe this whole “bitch” comment thing was not a good idea. Of course, I thought I was being incredibly pithy and funny, and all that, but what the hell am I supposed to say now? I don’t respect superstition? Of COURSE I do. So I’m abandoning BITCH. Sorry, Martha.

Question: If you had to come up with an idea for a reality television show, what would it be?

Answer: It would be called “Think Like a Pancreas” and would follow around children and adults with Type 1 Diabetes. (I already know 600+ families who’d be up for a casting call via my Children with Diabetes support group!) The show would dispel all the myths and misconceptions about Type 1 Diabetes (i.e., that is was caused by eating too much sugar, that people with Type 1 Diabetes cannot have sugar, that it can be reversed with diet, that it is the same as Type 2 Diabetes). It would inform people of the warning signs so that children do not have to get so sick at diagnosis. (My son was diagnosed near coma; I know children who were diagnosed IN comas, and I also know stories that have tragic endings.) The show would also portray what our children’s lives are like every day (4-5 insulin shots, 8-10 blood sugar tests, frightening low blood sugars, mood swings with high blood sugars, nighttime testing, etc). I’d watch it!

Natalie’s comment: No bitch references here. People, Martha is supporting an important cause,that of Juvenile Diabetes Research and funding for it. All I have to say here is watch a child, any child, test their blood sugar, and then give themselves a shot three, four, five or more times a day. Listen to them cry because their blood sugar is too high, repeatedly, and they don’t qualify for the “pump,” that will regulate it without shots. I have someone in my life who is struggling with this, and I ask her every day, “How is your blood sugar?” Every day, her blood sugar is too high. Oh, how does she control it? She’s sure trying. My heart goes out to her. Unless you are a hard-hearted SOB, your’s should too. Anyway, moving on.

Question: What is your favorite part about being a writer, and what is your least favorite thing?

Answer: My favorite thing is the way I get to sit down and just fall into another world. The writing part of this job is great! It’s the details that annoy me. The whole “publishing” thing. I try to let my agent, editor, and publicists handle all that, but now I’m so swamped with book promotion stuff, it’s hard (I mean impossible) to find time to write.

Question: What is on your TBR pile?

Answer: I am really looking forward to reading a book called A SON CALLED GABRIEL by Damian McNicholl. It was a finalist for the Lambda Awards and is a coming-of-age tale about a young man growing up in Northern Ireland during the tumultuous 60s and 70s. In the midst of all this outer struggle, the main character has the inner struggle of coming to terms with his sexuality. It’s supposed to be great!

Natalie’s Comment: Okay, this bitch comment was a really STOOPID idea.

Question: If you were marooned on a desert island, and could only take five things, what would you take?

Answer:A cellphone
A lighter
One of those fresh water-makers
A journal
A Bible

Question: What one piece of advice would you give an aspiring writer?

Answer: Write like no one is watching.

Back of Beyond Books is a very cool name for a bookstore. Especially a book store located in Moab, Utah, which, if you didn’t know, is the same place where you can find the magnificent Arches National Park.

Back of Beyond got its name from the Edward Abbey novel, The Monkeywrench Gang, which I admit to reading back in college a, ahem, few years ago. The fellow newspaper colleague who pressed it upon me was Rod Pressley, and he smoked a lot of the ganja. I knew this. Therefore, I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to get the book. At 21, freshly out of Mormonism and newly de-virginized, Abbey was still a bit much to comprehend. I’d barely learned to drink BEER, for hell’s sake. How was I supposed to comprehend Edward Abbey? My world view had been fairly small up until that point. I knew more was out there. I knew others had seen it. I just had a hard time finding it myself.

Of course, after I read Tom Robbins’ Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, another book recommend by Rod, I was right in line with Abbey. At least there were no big-thumbed hitchhiking women in it. I think. Did I mention I learned to drink BEER at this point?

Back to Back of Beyond. I’ll be there on Wednesday, May 11, at 7:00 p.m., for a reading and a signing, and a discussion, should anyone want to discuss Wives and Sisters. Moab is a fairly small town with a fairly liberal population, despite the fact it is STILL located in Utah, so it should be interesting.

Hope to see you there.

I have lots of writer friends. It sort of happens when you write. You form friendships with other people who understand the strange insanity that drives you to write.

One of those friends who is even MORE nutty than me, and luckily for her, Southern, which means she can get away with it and I can’t, is Joshilyn Jackson. Joshilyn is the author of gods in Alabama. This is a very COOL book. Very cool. I reviewed it here. Now, that said, do not call her Josh. Shortened, if you must, her name should be JOSS. Not JOSH. I regrettably made that mistake many times, mostly in email. In fact, entirely in email. She’s not a Josh. That’s a guy’s name. We all know that. And yet, I KEPT shortening her name to JOSH. Even after she asked me not to. Nicely, kindly, and very Southern-ly.

You might think that every time she gently corrected me, her Southern accent coming through, even in email, that despite her kindness, I might be offended. After all, I wasn’t TRYING to piss her off. Blame her mother. She’s the one that named her JoSHilyn. See that SH together? Wouldn’t you automatically shorten that to JOSH?

But, of course, what right do we have to shorten anyone’s name? What right, say, would you have to call someone Nat, which most people associate with a small, annoying, very pesty bug? What sort of genteel person would do THAT?

I, of the name Natalie, have been called Nat, G-Nat, Squito, Skeet, Bug, Buggy, and some other names that I’d rather not repeat, because they had nothing to do with the actual “Natalie” name.

I hated them for most of my life. I took great offense when someone called me Nat. “I….am…..not…..a……bug.”

I don’t blame Joshilyn for not wanting to be Josh.

So JOSS, I just have to say…..

WHERE are the answers to those questions I sent you??? Hmmm???? Notice I wrote JOSS.

Stay tuned, as we find out where Joss is in her tour (yes, Joss got a SLIGHTLY larger promotion budget than mine, ha ha) and why she should even WORRY about taking the time to answer my silly questions.

Bro. Barker turned tail and ran after my last post rebutting HIS comments to me. Not another word. Just ran like the wind. Pretty odd behavior for a man who claims to have cowed ENTIRE CONGREGATIONS OF LUNKHEAD former Mormons into submission. (Yes, he really did call ex-Mormons lunkheads. Apparently, he lurks on the Ex-Mormon mailing list, and emails people privately, on good days, when his meds have kicked in and he’s feeling spunky. SOMEONE please find me the email address of the LDS General authorities. Particularly, Gordon B. Hinckley. Gordo has been trying to mainstream the Mo Church for years. Perhaps the address is profit@ldsinc.com? If they figure out what Bro. Barker is doing, they are going to MUZZLE him and MUZZLE him fast.)

Please allow me, again, just for my own fun, to post the last part of his bio which is posted on the SHIELDS Web site.

Although most acquaintances consider Stan to be a pretty good guy, few critics like him. He has no patience for dishonesty and deception and is often blunt in expressing his feelings about this. When Stan has pointed out weaknesses in critics arguments and their apparent unwillingness to correct those errors, they have often pulled out of conversations with him. Three such cases involved Sandra Tanner, Dick Baer, and Ed Decker. This demonstrated dishonesty bothers Stan. He wishes they would repent so that they too might enjoy the glorious blessings of the Lord’s Kingdom.

This shit cracks me up. I could read it six times a day and STILL not tire of it. I’ve never MET an “apologist” who runs as fast as Barker. He should try out for the Olympics.

The reason I bring Bro. Barker up again is that he apparently is badmouthing me in private email posts to another exmo, my friend Andrew. It’s the same email where he calls the many members of the ex-Mormon recovery board “lunkheads.” What a sweet spirit Bro. Barker has.

While I won’t bore you with the entire email exchange between Andrew and Bro. Barker, where he keeps referring to me, because I’m guessing I am REALLY bothering him by my mere existence, he did say this.

Somehow you people seem to think that such language should intimidate; that it somewho give you power. It is the lowest form of yelling in order to win an argument. I’m not interested in such childish tactics and for that reason will not respond to the rantings of Collins.

Uh huh. Sissy.

Today I heard another “Faith Promoting Story” about wearing garments, remarkably similar to the one I recounted a while back. You remember, where the soldier in the foxhole got blown up but his garments–and the body parts covered by them–were saved.

This one was about sharks.

Apparently, a Mormon had fallen into the ocean off the side of a fishing boat. He was attacked by sharks before he could be pulled in, and the only parts left uneaten were those covered by his temple garments.

So the guy lost both arms, both legs, and his head but the garments protected his torso.

I will never understand how that could possibly promote faith….

Those things should carry a warning label.