Camelot Where You Are #26, Margaret

"What says Camelot more than Legos, a girl, and an imagination?"

So says Margaret of her daughter Mary's latest castle.

I agree. I built my Camelot with different materials, but the girl and the imagination were indispensable parts.

Thank you, Margaret (and Mary!).


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Thanks for playing this week, everyone! Here's the latest poop:

Be sure to vote this weekend for your favorite Camelot Where You Are entry from this week. The poll will appear at the upper left side of the blog tonight (as late as I can manage to stay up) and will remain there until midnight Sunday night.

I have two more entries for the contest so far, so while we await a full complement we'll have a regular blog week next week. Is there a bit of Camelot where you are? Take a photo and enter it! The details are here. Each weekly winner receives a free copy of my new novel, Camelot & Vine, IF AND WHEN I EVER GET THE THING PUBLISHED.

And I will! It's just taking a little longer than I'd hoped. That, my friends, simply means more winners and more free books. So send in your entry!

Musical Driveway

Its Art Weekend in Pasadena, so a musical driveway is appropriate. There's a lot going on in town, most of it free, so click the link and take advantage.

I'm in the middle of:
putting finishing touches on the audiobook of Belinda's Birthday (to be uploaded to Amazon next week);
having the inside of Camelot & Vine designed and created by the soon-to-be-famous Kate Wong;
figuring out the outside of Camelot & Vine, which I finally have in my head, and now must translate to the book cover;
editing a short story, on deadline;
proofreading every little thing;
and a bunch of other things I've decided not to bore you with.

I actually got one thing finished: I hope you'll check out (or, you know, just read) my review of Margaret Finnegan's The Goddess Lounge on Hometown Pasadena. While you're there you can tweet it, Facebook it, comment on it, or Like it with a capital L. Or, like I said, you can read it.

Before you click away, do vote for your favorite contest entry from this week's Camelot Where You Are contest (rules here). The poll is at the upper left.

The Dena is My Village

Yesterday morning I went to South Pasadena to meet with writer, blogger and successful entrepreneur Margaret Finnegan. Her luscious new book, The Goddess Lounge, is selling very well. I had a long list of questions to ask her about publishing as I move forward with my plans for Camelot & Vine.

Pictured is the old Meridian Iron Works building, which houses the South Pasadena Historical Museum. It's right by the Mission Metro Rail Station. South Pas is the closest thing to Mayberry around here. You can ride your bike to the station and take the train to downtown Los Angeles; it takes about 15 minutes. The big white square is for movies on the lawn.

Some may argue that Altadena is our closest thing to Mayberry, but Altadena is more like the Dena's version of Berkeley. In about 1976. Or Idlewild in the off-season.

South Pasadena is Margaret's turf. It's also Laurie's turf. Thank you, Laurie, for allowing me the border-crossing. Laurie would say it's my turf, too. We are sooo not territorial around here.

Margaret and I sat upstairs at Buster's (cash only), just across the street from the Iron Works. The heat has finally arrived on the west coast so we drank iced drinks. I had too much caffeine. Margaret generously answered every question on my typed list, and waited patiently while I jotted notes. (We are sooo not territorial around here.)

My biggest question was, now that I've done all this research, what's my next step?

There are about five first steps.

Hello ground, I have hit you running. Thank you, Margaret.

And thank you, Buster's, for the caffeine.

Goddesses

I could have shown you Margaret Finnegan signing books for her fans. She signed a lot of books yesterday.

I could have shown you the people. SPACE Arts Center in South Pasadena was packed.

I could have shown you Margaret reading from her book. She read brilliantly, and now everyone is begging for the audiobook.

I could have shown you the crowd either noshing, laughing, or applauding.

But this is my favorite shot: two readers, absorbed in the blurbs on the back of The Goddess Lounge. They're about to buy a couple of copies and have them signed by the author.

Margaret Finnegan's novel, The Goddess Lounge, is on sale everywhere. If you're not sure you want to make an investment, you can read Margaret's blog for a while or check out her stories on Smashwords. Once you've done that, I think you'll be as proud to know her as I am.

Guest Author Margaret Finnegan and "The Goddess Lounge"

In my novel The Goddess Lounge, an Altadena mom attends a "goddess consultation" at a notorious LA coffee house/knitting salon/menstrual palace called The Goddess Lounge, and from there on out madcap adventures ensue. On my blog, FinneganBeginAgain, readers ask me to find goddesses to help them with issues as diverse as career advancement to leaky plumbing.

You might wonder: Margaret, what's up with all the goddesses?

I'm glad you asked! I believe we live in a world that lacks historical memory.  We throw out the past like it's old Kleenex. The problem is that if you only have your own personal past to provide context for your experiences, then whenever some new tragedy strikes you can't help but gnash your teeth and wonder how you of all people became so particularly and cruelly ill fated. Your partner leaves you and you gnash.  Your career falls apart and you gnash. Your child/parent/best friend/self becomes painfully ill and you gnash, gnash, gnash.

You know what helps with the gnashing? Stories, ancient stories that remind us that loss, pain and hardship are timeless and universal. The only problem is that, in the old stories, hardship turns men into heroes and it turns women into crazy ladies or dead crazy ladies. Which is why women need better stories. Enter goddesses.

Being a goddess was no cake walk. Husbands cheated on you. Children died and betrayed you. You encountered humiliation, sadness, sorrow.  But you didn't go all cat lady and die. You muddled through. And you didn't get a boob job to please a man or feel guilty for wanting something just for yourself. You knew your invaluable worth, and you expected others to know it too. You were better than a hero. You were a goddess.

Want to be a goddess? Here's what you do: Look around, and in the places of your life where you find disrespect and ingratitude, say: "I am a goddess. I will not put up with this shit." And in the places of your life where you find hurt and pain, say: "You poor little thing, come hide under my wings. I am a goddess, and you are safe."

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Meet Margaret at a book signing and reception for The Goddess Lounge:

Saturday, July 21

Three o'clock to four-thirty in the afternoon

SPACE Arts Center

1508 Mission Street

South Pasadena, CA 91030

A portion of all proceeds will go to SPACE art scholarships.

Watch a trailer for TheGoddess Lounge (narrated by Pasadena Daily Photo's own Petrea Burchard).

Buy The Goddess Lounge.

Read Margaret's blog and request agoddess of your own.

Belinda's Birthday

I am going boldly forward into the self-publishing world! So boldly, in fact, that I'm following in Margaret Finnegan's footsteps. It's like when you walk behind someone in deep snow and place your feet in the footprints they made. Bold! Forging behind!

One of these days I swear I'll come up with ideas of my own, but right now I'm thanking Margaret for the courage, and for this sentence: "Just start with a short story." So I've started with Belinda's Birthday on Smashwords. I first published the story on Paula Johnson's The Rose City Sisters (now at its fancy new WordPress location). Belinda's Birthday was a runner-up for story of the year on that site in 2009. Perhaps you've already guessed the winner.

Finnegan's a damned marketing genius. How can I compete with that? I can't. She makes cake with cocoa frosting. I make lentils. We do what we can with what we have.

I hope you'll download Belinda's Birthday for FREE, and maybe even give me a 900-star review. (Or whatever. I don't think  Smashwords will let you give me 900 stars, but I'll take as many as they'll allow.)

This is the first step, of course, to publishing my novel, Camelot & Vine. Camelot, here we come!

Margaret Finnegan: Goddess of Inspiration

Today is release day! You can now buy a brand spankin' new copy of the brand spankin' new novel, The Goddess Lounge (paperback here), by South Pasadena's Margaret Finnegan. That is a beautiful thing, partly because I love Margaret and partly because I love The Goddess Lounge (ebook here). Also partly because Margaret inspires me.

Margaret's blog, Finnegan Begin Again, would be inspiration enough to read her novel because one always wants more of her unique writer's voice. But she's gone further by involving her readers in the processes of publication and promotion. We've been reading about goddesses, we voted on the book cover, and when it was time to make book trailers we contributed photos of ourselves being goddesses.

Margaret has created two (two!) book trailers. Here's one:


Here's the other:


I'm in the second one twice! The first photo you see is one John took of me. Plus, that's my voice, reading from Chapter Two. I'm honored to be included.

The publishing industry has changed so much in the past few years that publishing the book yourself has become the way to go, or it's certainly at least as viable as the traditional way.  I love what Margaret's doing. Her energy and innovative ideas inspire me, and I can't wait to get my copy of The Goddess Lounge.

Local Literary Lights

Before I moved here I didn't know many published authors. But in Pasadena you can practically see at night by the literary lights.

First I'll tell you about Roberta Martinez so you can immediately mark your calendar for an event at Vroman's Bookstore tomorrow evening. Roberta and her friend Patrick Conyers will present and sign their books. Roberta's book, Latinos in Pasadena, "chronicles the legacies of Mexican Americans and other Latino men and women who lived and worked in Pasadena. The Latino community has been an integral part of the San Gabriel Valley, and here is a book that gives it its rich due."

Full disclosure: I've met and enjoyed a lively email exchange with Roberta Martinez. I haven't read her book (yet), but with over 200 vintage photos it's just my thing and it's on my Christmas wish list. Roberta's got about six brains. And I know and she knows and you know that Latinos in Pasadena are people whose time has come.

I don't know Roberta's co-presenter Patrick Conyers, nor have I read his book, Pasadena 1940-2008. However he co-authored the book with Cedar Phillips, who wrote Early Pasadena. (Gotta love Arcadia Publishing for going with a good idea.) John gave me Early Pasadena for my birthday this year and I devoured it. (That's a figure of speech. I didn't actually eat it. I read it voraciously.) I'm a happy reader when you give me archival photos and accompany them with historical information.

And if you do those things with style you might just be Michele Zack, who recently published Southern California Story: Seeking the Better Life in Sierra Madre. Disclosure again: I know Michele. I haven't read her latest book (yet) but I read her previous one, Altadena: Between Wilderness and City (published by the Altadena Historical Society). I loved that one, too. Michele has a knack for digging up juicy little (or big) secrets a town might want to forget but really, really, ought to remember.

I think I could feature a local author every week and never repeat myself. Pasadena's crawling with 'em. Someday I'll even feature myself.
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Hey, why not today? Full disclosure: here comes a plug! My story, Belinda's Birthday, is in the running to be Story of the Year at the Rose City Sisters Flash Fiction blog. The story with the most unique page views wins, so go take a look. In fact, three other local bloggers--Susan Carrier, Desiree Zamorano and Margaret Finnegan--have published wonderful stories at Rose City Sisters. All are bright literary lights with whom I'm proud to share a similar flash fiction url.

Leave a comment if you've got something to say. And thanks for supporting your local literati.