G: Good Advice, Guns N Roses, Green Mamba

#atozchallenge G: Good advice. Best advice my mother gave me was "everything in moderation" and that's how we were raised. Dessert at every meal, but portions were small. Avoid gluttony.

So here's some useful quotes from my Good Advice book

Generosity - When you have nothing, ask for nothing - Albanian proverb.

Gift Giving - Give all thou canst;high Heaven rejects the lore Of nicely calculated less or more - William Wordsworth

Goals - It's not enough to be busy ... the question is: What are we busy about? Henry David Thoreau (way too true in today's world)

Good Humor - We are all here for a spell;get all the good laughs you can - Will Rogers

Speaking of sheer raucous joy - Gun N Roses Greatest Hits is a perfect Saturday CD to blast on our patio. Whatever the chore, you'll be doing it quicker with Welcome to the Jungle. Sweet Child 'O Mine soars. Paradise City is hardcore rock. Slash on guitar - absolute gumption to galvanize your soul.

Our deadly dose today is courtesy of the cobra family - the Green Mamba can grow to nine feet and is "less" aggressive than the black mamba or some other cobras. No matter what, the venom can paralyze the nervous system and cause death within two hours. Try to avoid crossing its path.

F: F*&K, First Base, and Foxglove

F: F*#k. I'm not necessarily a huge fan of unnecessary profanity. However, I think this book is brilliant. I read it in the book store, then asked for my own copy for Christmas. I love it. Just funny as hell. Lovely illustrations. So, for regular fiction, my personal opinion is that the f-word should be used judiciously, not sprayed about on every page. But it serves a purpose, and when used at the right time, I understand the scene, the character's emotions, etc. It should be its own exclamation mark and when read, the reader says, "Okay, this is some serious sh*t right here.


On the other hand, I loved The Sopranos on HBO - I loved every f-ing word spoken, however casual or extreme. It was a barrage of potty mouth and it worked for me.

First base - oh wait, were you expecting a romance move of some sort? Nope - Good Friday this year is the Texas Rangers home opener. I'm talking baseball, peanuts, fried something, and beer. Maybe this is the year for the World Series WIN. It's our field of dreams.........


Aaah - deadly dose today a la the Medicis of Italy - Foxglove was a favorite. All parts of this plant, cultivated in gardens, is poisonous. Flowers are purple and bloom midsummer. The leaves, etc. do not lose their toxicity in cooking. Reaction time is twenty to thirty minutes and the heart just goes berserk.

E: Easter, Epiphany, Elmer, and Ergot

E is for Easter. Unfortunately, I've eaten all of my jellybeans. I can remember Easters in PA with sunshine,tulips, and shiny Maryjane shoes. I can also remember wearing a winter coat over my new Easter duds.

Here's my epiphany on e-books - I don't think they'll eliminate paper. I was reluctant to climb aboard the e-train, but once I published my own book (My Zoo World) I decided I should see my format and how it works out on an e-reader. Santa brought me a Kindle and I'm hooked. I've downloaded free books, 99 cent specials,etc - books I would not have considered otherwise. It's opened new horizons. I still go to the library. I still buy hardbacks. AND I enjoy my e-reads.

Elmer was my maternal grandfather. He's long gone, and I think so is the name. What's Elmer say to you? He was a kindly farmer originally from Indiana, wore suspenders, held my hand as we ambled to the five and dime in Quakertown, PA. Think about your characters' names and the time period of your story. Could Elmer, the name, make a comeback?

And now, your deadly e-dose of the day: Ergot, aka St.Anthony's fire, is a fungus parasite that infests cereal grain, especially rye. Seldom seen today thanks to cereal screening. Whew! In the Middle Ages, death by ergot was epidemic (unless you prayed to St.Anthony). Antidote - gastric lavage followed by activated charcoal. Ewww!

D: Despair, Depression, Dumbells, & Daphne

D: Human life begins on the other side of despair - Jean-Paul Sartre

Characters need some despair in their lives, something to work through and ultimately overcome. The reader can feel his or her pain and wants to keep reading and rooting for that person.

In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day- F.Scott Fitzgerald.

Depression can torment your character. But again the writer can have him or her fight through it (pill taking, psychiatric visits), wallow in it, and use it to create a strong, albeit flawed, individual.

Hand dumbells - I just wanted to use the word and picture to honor the letter D. Often I despair of exercise, and am depressed by my Wii Fitness score. Minor setbacks to be sure, but I'm deluded in thinking I'll achieve Olympian skills.

Finally - Daphne, a female name, an ornamental flower with a deadly berry fruit. Baked in a pie and eaten, death can occur in a few hours. It is one of the oldest plants recognized as poisonous.

C: Caterwaul, Cacaphony, and Castor Beans

C - Imagine this cat emitting a high pitched howling shriek outside your window at night- that's a caterwaul or wail.


Or during the day, you sit at your desk about to write a genius line, and mockingbirds out on the back fence are chastizing a squirrel. Natter, natter, natter - it's a cacophony of sound.


I'm guilty of writing scenes lacking noise. Life contains a background din, if you think about it. Clock ticks, dryer or washer churns, electronic devices hum. Car engines rev or a fire siren in
the distance. Characters aren't in a bubble, and need some distractions sometimes. Blast 'em at a crucial moment with a cry, a clank, or a clink.


And part of my alphabet of Death -from Deadly Doses by Serita Deborah Stevens w/Anne Klarner:
Swallowing six to eight castor beans (product of the castor oil plant from Africa) can induce a cough, convulsions, and coma. Extremely fatal after a week or quicker if chewed. Sounds like a noisy death to me, if you are contemplating a murder mystery.

B: Bluebonnets and Belladonna

A to Z Blog Challenge. B. I have to feature Bluebonnets - the Texas flower. This time of year they are plentiful on every roadside and byway, thanks to the late Lady Bird Johnson and her wildflower initiative. For some reason, this past week on I35 we drove ve....rrrr....yyyy slowly and I was late to work every day. No crashes, no bodies strewn on the freeway. I didn't get to gawk at anything horrible. However, there was time to notice the bluebonnets.





Belladonna - I decided to check out my book on Deadly Doses - a writer's guide to poisons. Belladonna, also known as nightshade, is a plant from Southern Eurasia. It's useful in writing a murder mystery because it paralyzes the nervous system. It can induce fever, convulsions, and death. All very dramatic for a story. I don't even write murder mysteries (yet), but I decided to explore the theme during the A to Z challenge.

A: April, Fool Me

I'm doing the A to Z Blog Challenge. It's appropriate that April begins with an A. Every April God rewrites the Book of Genesis - Austin O'Malley. Indeed - with Easter in a week, it's a time of rebirth, tulips, chocolate bunnies, and jellybeans. In Texas, it's sunshine and crazy rainstorms. It's Rangers baseball opener on Good Friday. April is tricky - it embraces spring, harkens to a final winter blast, or hurries into heat.

April is the cruelest month - T.S. Eliot

Characters named April seem jovial with a delicate prettiness. However, look deeper and there's a darkness lurking. The month of April sheds dead live oak tree leaves, it blasts us with pollen, and can lash us with pelting cold raindrops. A girl named April could be sweet, or maybe she's planning a murder. That's the fun of being a writer - you can play with names, fill an April with opposite expected tendencies, and trick your reader.

April the month, or April a girl - fool us all