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C. Lee McKenzie

Young Adult and Middle Grade Author

Meet Bouhaki, and then Let Me Tell You A Story

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Amazon

I had this short piece on my computer, and decided to publish it. The weather (hot), the wine (chilled). the day (long) all contributed to my decision.

Also I was just edged out of first place in the August WEP by this cat person named Hatt (rhymes with cat), so I thought I’d better ramp up my cat game a bit. Congrats to him and to Hilary as well. Applause to you both.

Thanks to Denise and Yolanda for the fun and the great themes. [Read more…] about Meet Bouhaki, and then Let Me Tell You A Story

Let Me Tell You a Story About Enid

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In my middle grade story, Sign of the Green Dragon, I finally had a chance to write about Chinese mythology. It fascinates me because I fell in love with China and her ancient stories a long time ago. 
When I was about six, a woman named Enid Mihilov took me under her literary wing. She had an amazing library with many books from all over the world, but the Chinese ones were distinct. I didn’t realize it at the time, but those books, which she allowed me to hold, were very old, one-of-a-kind, and in retrospect, must have been printed on handmade paper in a long-ago century. Enid read them to me in Chinese while I looked at the pictures. Misty mountains. Dragons streaming through the sky on important business for an emperor. Exotic silk gowns and palaces of gold.
Dragon on a Canal Barge

This person opened a lot of things about the world to me. In the center of her library was a globe in a wooden cradle that was bigger than I was. I still remember her turning that globe, tracing the Yangtze River across China and telling me about the beauty of the Three Gorges. When I was older, I understood how much this Russian woman had traveled, that she spoke several languages, and knew more first-hand about geography than my teachers. 

When I finally did land in the Far East, I was primed to absorb as much about that culture as possible. I climbed the Great Wall, explored palaces and finally went up the Yangtze through the Three Gorges before the dam was completed and closed off one of the most beautiful areas in the world.

At the Top of the Great Wall with Two Friends

Enid and I kept in touch for years, even after my family moved. Unfortunately, when we returned to see her, she had died, so I never had a chance to tell her how important our time together had been to me. Someday I’m going to write what I remember of my afternoons with Enid Mihilov. And having written that, I think I have a title already.

This month I’m featuring another writer who loves to travel. J.H. Moncrieff jets off to far away places to soak up the settings and get ready to write her next story of suspense or horror. She has several out and I’ve read one so far. I’ll be reading more in the future. 

Here’s my review of The Bear Who Wouldn’t Leave.

AMAZON

“. . .a web of conspiracy, betrayal, and murder.”

Don’t forget that SUBMISSION are open for the next #ISWG Anthology. You have until July 31 to submit.
Title: Writing for Profit
Word Limit: 500-1000 words
Submission: admin AT insecurewriterssupportgroup DOT com


Quote of the Week: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” 
 ― Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad/Roughing It

Let Me Tell You A Story about The Goose and Black Coffee

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When Memorial Day arrives, I think of my dad and his stories of WWII. He didn’t tell me many until the last days of his life, but I have a collection of them in my head and remembering them is a way for me to remember him and celebrate him along with the others who’ve fought for our freedom.

The Goose and Black Coffee is one of my favorites, so I’m sharing it here today for my dad and all those others. Most of what I’m sharing is correct, but this is a story from an old memory, passed on to me some years ago and from sketchy notes in his photo album. The essence of the story is the best I can do.

France May, 1944

It was a gray day and the four dogfaces were tired and cold, in need of a place to sleep out of the weather. Their stomachs growled for something to eat. As they drove down a country road, they spotted a spiral of smoke. There was nothing unusual in seeing smoke, but even from a distance it didn’t look like a house was on fire. And it wasn’t a field. As they came nearer, they saw that it was a fireplace. That meant they might find something to eat and a place to take shelter before joining up with their unit. They were recon, so they often were ahead of the others and more frequently across enemy lines than behind them.

At the farmhouse gate, they pulled their Jeep to a stop. This place had escaped the bombs. The barn was still standing, and one lonely goose wandered out, then flapped its way around the side of the house, which was also untouched by the war. They might have driven off, my dad said, but they couldn’t resist the aroma of freshly brewed coffee coming from that house.

When they entered the kitchen, it was clear that the family had been there moments before my dad and the others got out of the Jeep. They poured themselves some coffee, and as my dad recalled, he’d never tasted anything quite a wonderful. 

Now their stomachs really cried out for something to eat and that goose was out there and this might be the last real meal any of the men would have for weeks. The goose gave its life for the U.S. Army that day, and my dad, who was always handy in the kitchen, seasoned it and put it into the oven. Now all they had to do was wait. They were dry. They were warm for the first time in weeks. They’d soon have enough goose to last until D-Day, they joked.

They kicked back and savored the scent of sizzling goose and were debating about a quick nap when the bombs started raining down on them. Like my dad said, “We were not leaving that goose or that coffee behind.” 

They grabbed the partially cooked goose from the oven, the coffee from the stove and jumped into the Jeep. With the goose and coffee secured between two of them in the back, they drove off, barely escaping the bombs. 

It took them three days to find another house with a workable stove and oven, but when they did, they also found several unbroken bottles of wine. They stuffed that goose back into the oven, reheated the coffee and uncorked a little wine–maybe a lot of wine. 

Above this picture my dad wrote, “Photo below brings back memories. Had a goose in oven of home with all veggies and big post of coffee going. 10 minutes after photo we were under heavy fire. Carried that goose for 3 days with that coffee before we could do it justice.”

Dad’s looking kind of serious second from the left. Not the best shot of him.

Here’s the “Recon Fox” that Disney presented to the 93rd Reconnaissance Squadron Mechanized that my dad was part of. I love looking through his collection of photos and notes. I find something I didn’t know about each time.


Quote of the Week: “A man’s country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers and woods, it is a principle and patriotism is loyalty to that principle.” George William Curtis 

Let Me Tell You A Story & My UnTomato Report

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My mother-in-law spent her early years in a small town called New Pine Creek. It straddles the border between Oregon and California, and it can see some heavy winters. She often told the story about the winter Goose Lake froze so quickly that it trapped geese–froze their feet to the surface before they could escape.

Every time she told that story, people laughed.
“Not possible.”

I have to admit I was skeptical, but she was an honest person, so I accepted her story as the truth. Well, and she was my husband’s mother. 

When I found this video about geese who were frozen in a pond and held it up as evidence, that still wasn’t enough for some naysayers. 

“Ponds are shallow and it’s possible for them to freeze quickly. Lakes are deep, and that couldn’t happen on one of them.”

Ah ah, research to the rescue! I discovered that Goose Lake has a very shallow edge, so my mother-in-law’s story from her childhood, was quite possibly true.

Want a little heart-warming video about a very cold goose? Here you go!

The UnTomato Report


Tomatoes in May? Not Quite, but my roses aren’t too shabby this year. One reason is that we mended the fence and the deer haven’t feasted on them. 1 for the gardener. 0 for the deer.

Are you a member of The Insecure Writers Group Book Club? No? I’m shocked. 200 of us are. Join up and get in on the discussion of our first book this month,


Chapter After Chapter: Discover the Dedication & Focus You Need to Write the Book of Your Dreams
Chapter After Chapter: Discover the Dedication & Focus You Need to Write the Book of Your Dreams




Quote of the Week: “The Earth laughs in flowers.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Let Me Tell You A Story & #AtoZChallenge 2017 & Tomatoes On The Way!

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Let me Tell You A Story about my movie cast for Double Negative. This is my last post about this movie cast, so here’s one more character from the story, and I loved casting him.

Mathew McConaughey

Jimmy, Hutch’s dad, isn’t a bad guy, he’s just disillusioned by the cards he’s been dealt. When he realizes he can actually do something to help his son, he does. 

Meet Jimmy!

So what’re we gonna do about this school thing, Hutch?” Dad’s “thing” still comes out “thang” even after twenty years living away from Texas.

When I answer him, I’ve already picked up that sound and Texas is in my voice, too. “I guess I’ll have to stop ditching?”
“You get to Kranski’s office and talk over the problem. If he wants a conversation, you best give him one, son.” 

Double Negative

I’m really enjoying stopping in at different blogs and seeing what they’re posting for this year’s A to Z. Here’s one that caught my attention, 55 Word Crime Stories. It’s very clever. Take a look. And if you like movies as well as the alphabet, by all means, visit BB Creations.



Tomato Report: It’s happening. Just look at all that potential. There’s a metaphor circling my cerebral cortex and I’m oh so tempted to break into metaphor right now. But I’ll spare you that. . .for today.


Quote of the Week: “Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian; wine and tarragon make it French. Sour cream makes it Russian; lemon and cinnamon make it Greek. Soy sauce makes it Chinese; garlic makes it good.” – Alice May Brock (I confess I know her not at all.)


In Double Negative some people get a second chance. Do you believe in giving second chances? Are you stopping by some A to Z bloggers and saying hi? Do I have you primed for a tomato feast? And who is Alice May Brock? 

 

Let Me Tell You A Story & #AtoZChallenge 2017 & Those Tomatoes!

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Let me Tell You A Story about. . .my movie cast for Double Negative. For a few weeks I’ll be sharing my cast and a bit about them.

Amy Schumer

Casting Nyla and Maggie was challenging. I imagined them as strong, unique females characters.  

Here’s a Nyla line after one of the “mean girls” tries to embarrass her in class: 
“I would take the time to tell you exactly how inane, how deplorably bad your taste and sense of propriety are, but since you do not have the capacity for processing more than a single syllable or a single idea at a time, I won’t waste my breath.”

 Yay for Nyla!
Maggie was a joy to create. Smart, feisty, 70, and now facing a final challenge in her life. While writing this story I wondered who was saving whom. Was Maggie saving Hutch or Hutch saving Maggie? Here’s Maggie as I imagined her, and one short scene where she’s describing her appointment with a psychiatrist. 
“Oh, he meant well, but that last question made me snap. ‘Who’s the president?’” 
“Uh oh.” The priest leans back in his chair, his hands behind his head. “And you told him, right?”
“You bet. A tax and spend liberal who shouldn’t be licensed to drive a car let alone run a country. That’s who.” 
Heather’s rubbing her eyes.
“Of course, then I backed up because I realized this kid had voted for him.” She turns to her daughter. “I gave him the answer, Heather.”
One Reviewer Says: “I really loved Nyla and Maggie. They’re very different, but both brilliant and—in Maggie’s case—hysterical, and I am literally sitting here at my computer grinning just thinking about them.”


Double Negative

Here are a couple more #AtoZ Challengers that I’m enjoying from the sidelines this year. Give them a visit, and you won’t be disappointed. The theme here is Materials in Mythology and Speculative Fiction, so if you’re a sci-fi reader, this one’s for you! And if you want some Speculative Fiction with a Telepathic twist, visit J. Lennie Dorner on his daily post from A to Z.

Tomato Report: They’ve been moved to the sunnier greenhouse and soaking up the rays of this April.


Quote of the Week: This meme says it all!



Do you like to read about feisty female characters regardless of their age? Are you visiting some interesting A to Z blogs this year? Are you at all passionate about garden-fresh tomatoes?

Let Me Tell You A Story & #AtoZChallenge 2017 & Tomatoes?

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Let me Tell You A Story about. . .after the fun of seeing Double Negative in print, I decided to have some more fun and create a movie cast for my characters. For a few weeks I’ll be sharing my cast and bit about them. 

Brant Daugherty


The MC was easy. Brant Daugherty’s the perfect Hutchison McQueen. He’s a bright kid who’s virtually illiterate and living in home where he’s either abused or ignored. 

Here’s the first time you meet Hutch.

 Kranski’s office might as well be home. I spend more time with him than I do with Dee Dee, and for good reason: the principal’s friendlier than my mom. 

Double Negative

AND 

I have Winners to Announce: 
Rachel, Cassey, Laurel, Katy, Katie, Theresa
Their books are on the way!

While I didn’t take the challenge this year, I have been visiting some bloggers who did. Here’s someone I just discovered and enjoyed a lot. You might want to give Chris Votey a visit. His theme is great fun. Don’t miss Hilary’s posts. As always they’re the best and D will have you in stitches. Ducks do that!

And about those tomatoes! I’m going to start my Monday Tomato Report. I never plot my books, but each year I plot how I’m going to have the juciest, the freshest, the most amazing tomatoes on the planet. And this year, I’m going to share that progress with you.

SEEDS from Tomato Bob! 

Yes, there is a Tomato Bob, and each year I order my hybrid seeds from him. He sends me a cheery note and these delicate little packets of potential. Then in February I plant all of that potential in loamy soil and set them in the greenhouse.

Here are my little greenhouse darlings in March!

Quote of the Week: “Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.” Brian O’Driscoll, Irish Athlete

Does Hutch get to you with this beginning? Are you doing or following others on the A to Z Challenge? Do you wait all year for the perfect tomato? 

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Embarrassed and Near Death, Not in that Order

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Let Me Tell You A Story

Over the years I’ve heard or read stories about other people’s lives. I’ve also had a few experiences that have entered into my “Let me tell you about the time” category. Some of these stories have crept into my books. Others are waiting in the wings. Here’s one about the time I was sure I was going to die–either of a particularly evil stomach complaint or embarrassment.

Havana grocery shopping.

In Cuba a couple of years ago seven friends and I hired a bus and a guide for a couple of weeks to take us from Havana around the island. One morning I felt lousy, and when we hit a rough and endless road, I went from lousy to miserable. There’s nothing like a Cuban backroad to churn your stomach into a slushy volcano. I took over the back seat and stretched out. At least I wouldn’t die sitting up. When we did find a small town, there were no restrooms for weary tourists with engorged bladders and, in my case, a Vesuvius stomach. 

Bougainvillea and Moorish Architecture
A Never-Fail Combination

Juni, our guide who had been a professor at the university and became a guide so she could support her family (bless Castro), turned out to be one resourceful and spirited girl. She had the bus driver stop in town, found a house and negotiated with the owner until her eight tourists could use the bathroom. Yay, Juni!

Inside the house the living room was small and pink with a large TV, a couch and tons of doilies. If I didn’t get into that bathroom immediately, I was going hurl all over that pink room and those doilies, so I dashed in, and barely noticing that this room was a baby blue, hurled into the porcelain bowl. Problem solved. But not quite. When I pushed the lever, nothing happened. Being mechanically inclined (cue laughter) I removed the doily and miscellaneous objects from the back of the toilet, lifted the lid and discovered. . . this water closet had no water. 

Havana Open Book Market (double entendre fun)

I stuck my head out the door, avoiding the glares from the engorged seven, and yelled, “Juni, I need a bucket of water!” Being a Cubana, she immediately translated that to mean, el baño no funciona and came to my rescue. 

Moral of this story: hire a university professor as a tour guide.

Did You Know. . .

The average wage for Cubans was $17/month in 2015. It rose to $25/month in 2016. 

Quote of the Week: “The most poetical thing in the world is not being sick.” 
G.K. Chesterton, author

Oh Shoot! It’s the Tunnel Chute & #IWSG News

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Let Me Tell You A Story

Over the years I’ve heard or read stories about other people’s lives. I’ve also had a few experiences that have entered into my “Let me tell you about the time” category. Some of these stories have crept into my books. Others are waiting in the wings. Here’s one about the time I ran the Tunnel Chute.

This is the North Fork on a different rafting adventure. My son’s to my right. My husband’s down in front and almost under water. Nobody filmed my Tunnel Chute experience. My family said they were glad they missed that trip.

I’d rafted the North and South Fork of the American River, but not the Middle, so when a friend asked if I wanted to go on one of his rafting trips, I jumped at the chance. We’d had a wet year, and the river was boasting a lot of Class V rapids.

I wound up with a group of about five other rafters plus the guide who were all surfers from Santa Cruz. They were also about twenty years younger than I was and were still immortal. I didn’t know that until after I stepped into the raft, so common sense had no part in my decision to go along.

When we came to the Tunnel Chute, the river guide made us hike up to the top of the gorge and “study” the rapid. He told us we had to have our paddles in when he called for them, and we had to hit the boulder on the far bank with our raft at an exact spot. If we did it right, we’d bounce back, into the rapid and be on our way down river. If we missed. . .well, let’s just say, we didn’t want that to happen. A lot of the others on the river that day portaged around the Chute, others capsized and swam. 


They save the Tunnel Chute for the last. It’s worth the wait! 

As I stepped into the raft, I eyed the trail, thinking portaging sounded darned good, but I grabbed my paddle, said a prayer to the river god and pushed off. 

I was aft with the guide, so when we hit the rapid, and he yelled paddles in, then flew off the back of the raft, I was the only one who knew the six of us were on our own. I didn’t have time to shout, “guide overboard” before our raft “folded” and I flew up and out. The river god must have heard my prayer because before I had a chance to go under water a second time, the water threw me back into my seat, paddle and all.

We shot that rapid and, of course, celebrated our success by jumping into the icy water. Why not. We were already soaked and blue. The guide met us. He swam the rapid faster than we rafted it.  



An interesting fact about the American River: The river is known for the 1848 discovery of gold at Coloma which started the California Gold Rush and contributed to the initial large-scale settlement of California by European immigrants. 

Quote of the Week: The danger sensation is exciting. The challenge is to find new dangers. Ayrton Senna, Brazilian Celeb.

Here’s a special Announcement from #IWSG!
Not on Goodreads?
The IWSG book club is a good reason to join.
Hope to see you there

Some Stories and the Women of that Chalki Summer

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Let Me Tell You A Story


Over the years I’ve heard or read stories about other people’s lives. I’ve also had a few experiences that have entered into my “Let me tell you about the time” category. Some of these stories have crept into my books. Others are waiting in the wings. 

Last week I told you a bit about the island of Halki/Chalki, and I promised to tell you about the war hero who’s commemorated there. His statue is famous, but when I tried to find more specific history I couldn’t. Fortunately, while I was on the island, I met his sister. She was visiting her home that week, so it was only by chance that we connected and that she told our women’s group the story.

It was 1944 and her brother was a member of the resistance. When the Italians came hunting for him, he hid–with the help of the locals–in one of the village cisterns. When the searchers failed to locate him, they gathered all of the men, women and children into the place where we sat that night. The sister pointed at the beautiful beach in front of us, and in spite of the many years between her loss and that night, her eyes glistened with tears when she said, “Just there they stood with guns aimed at them.”

The Italians sent the fugitive a message which was simple. Either he surrender before nightfall or the villagers would be shot.

Her brother saved his village that day and the woman expressed her pride as well as her sorrow with such dignity that I envied her her noble brother and her tragedy.

I didn’t take a picture of the statue. There are many of those online, but I did take of picture of the sister. She had a wonderful face.


I keep mentioning the women’s group, and there are so many stories about the seminars we participated in, the trips we took together, the women themselves. Many of them had written and presented papers on women’s issues in the post USSR Russia, so our seminars focused on topics like: Feminism East and West, Can Russian Women Create Themselves as Citizens of a Democratic,Capitalist State?, Soviet Women at the Crossroads of Perestoika, The Role of Women in Rebuilding the Russian Economy.

These women were from Russia, UK, Greece, US and Italy. I could spend a year telling those stories. I have notes from our conversations that reveal the humanity of each person on this adventure. However, I think, instead, I’ll just show you a few of the women with a quick blurb about each. 

Here we are together by the harbor. We have seminars all morning, take a break for lunch and some fun, then back to our seminar. At four we were done and it was party time.

Their fields or occupations: Farmer, Biologist, International Education, Health Care Provider (she’d worked with Mother Teresa in India with lepers) University Professors (there were 5) , Inter-Cultural Communication, Political Activist. You can see how different we all were. 

On our way across to another small island for a picnic.

The university women from Russia: Valentina, Olga, Natasha and Natalia (daughter).
Soula was a feminine activist in the Communist party in Greece. The word was you didn’t mess with Soula.


Did you know that the Greek army beat back the Italian invasion in 1940 and that Germany had to step in. The occupation of Greece destroyed 80% of its industry and 90% of it’s bridges, railways and ports. 

Quote of the Week: “All war is a symptom of man’s failure as a thinking animal.” John Steinbeck


This is it for the month of January, and I’m taking a break during February. See everyone again in March with some more stories.