EarWorms and Alarms

So, I wake up every morning to a song. I always hated the old alarm clocks that blared sirens and bells and whistles at me, so I bless the smart phone and the ability to load up a nice tune to sing me awake.

What do I have for my wake up song? Martin Sexton's "Over My Head". It is gentle, tuneful, and perhaps one of my most favorite songs, ever. Waking up to it just about guarantees I'll have it on my brain -- or in my ear -- for the rest of the day, and so far I'm okay with that.

But last week I was prescribed some medication that has a very specific window of time I have to take it in. It has to be taken between 4:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m., and then I can't eat for 30-60 minutes after taking it. Now, anyone who knows me knows that 4:00 a.m. is out of the question, unless I haven't been to bed, yet.

See, here's the way my day works. "Over My Head" starts playing at 8:00, and I lie in bed doing some social media work -- and yes, it IS work for me -- until about 8:45, which is when I have to get up and check and report the rain gauge. By the time I do that, enough time has passed that I can eat before I go to the gym. Then I do some gardening, more social media and research, and if I'm really "on", some writing before Hubby gets home, and then when he goes to bed, I really knuckle down with the writing.

But I know myself. If I don't have a special reminder while this pill-taking business is so new, I might forget. So I set another alarm. And this one may crack you up. It does me. I have it set for 8:05 a.m. -- so far I've remembered to take the pill when the first alarm goes off every day except one, but that one day the second alarm saved the day. I'm hopeless.

What is the second alarm, though? It wouldn't work to have the same song, would it? So I have Melissa Etheridge's "The Letting Go" for the second song. 

Problem is, this song is also a favorite, and an earworm that has potential to last all day. So what happens? I get the confused earworm that goes a little something like this:

"I came here to let you know, the letting go has taken place...this boy in a boat that I am, through the haze I can catch a glimpse of the damage that's been done. Isn't that what we wanted, all along? Freedom like a stone, and my pockets full of sand...I'm over my head!"

I don't mind it, so far. Soon I'll feel confident enough in taking the pill on the first alarm that I won't need to have the second, and these pleasant earworms are antidote against other songs that invade my ears during the day.

Does this ever happen to you? What is your best earworm? (Please don't tell me your worst!)




    

New Facebook group = What makes a Strong Woman?

I had something of an epiphany while I was at my sister’s house, after the Writer’s Conference. At the conference, I learned that I need to interact with people in my genre more, but I didn’t want it to be just about me, you know? I was trying to figure out how to encourage more interactions with people who, like me, enjoy a good suspenseful read with a strong female lead. Then it hit me: I could start a Facebook group for and about Strong Women in Suspense. 

It’s off to a pretty good start. We’re already up above 25 members (which was my 3 month goal) and having some lively discussions about what makes a strong woman, in life and in fiction. We’ve shared some inspiring stories of current and historical strong women. We’ve shared inspirational memes and held each other up to the light.

We’ve even shared a blog post from a man who is suggesting tips for dating strong women. After all, the group shouldn’t just be limited to women. There are men out there who encourage, support, and inspire strong women, and it was never my intention to be a hen party of women bashing men. (So by all means, if you know a man who wouldn’t be threatened by this group and would, in fact, contribute, invite him!)

I like to write my female characters as strong women. Maybe they won’t always start out as strong women, but by the end of their story arc, they will be. My stories may even have more strong women than weak, or I like the word undeveloped better. 

In my latest novel, I had two beta readers (out of four) say the teenage girls didn’t react realistically to the situation they were in. Part of me rebelled. How was the story supposed to move forward if all they did was scream and huddle together? Then I realized I was having a knee-jerk reaction to the perceived suggestion that my females were too strong, and I took a step back to look at it objectively.

I knew my girls were strong, especially the heroine, so what the beta readers were really telling me was that I hadn’t convinced them by showing why and how they could be so strong. Which led me to consider the kinds of things that make us strong.

First and foremost, education. In my book, Kylie is the daughter of a veterinarian, and her (single) mother brought her along when she’d go to special trainings, like disaster preparedness. In a small town where there isn’t a big hospital and most of the emergency crews are volunteer, it made sense to me that a vet, who has a base of medical training anyway, would want to be ready in the event of a tornado or a wreck on the highway. Janie isn’t the sort to just let Kylie sit in the car and wait. She was exposed to these clinics, and learned alongside her mother how to handle a crisis.

Second, I think, would be a loving and supportive family. Kylie’s dad only recently came back on the scene, but her mother was always there for her, as were her grandparents. She always had someone to look up to and receive love from. They encouraged her to be her own person, and even let her make her mistakes, but they were always there to love her.

This third element isn’t something every woman has access to, but Kylie grew up around animals that were larger than her. She learned to respect that size, but also not to let her fear of it control her. She gained confidence through the knowledge that she could work with a creature who outweighed her by hundreds of pounds, and bend it to her will. She learned that to give in to fear was to get trampled, hurt, thrown, and broken, and she learned to control her fear—not to say she never felt it, she just never let it control her.

I guess that could break down to learning about fear in general. I had a friend once who told me there are two kinds of people in the world. Those who are afraid and shut down, and those who are afraid and do it anyway. She and I were in the latter category, and so is Kylie.

What do you think makes women—or anyone—strong? What experiences have made you strong?

Writer’s Conference = Productivity!

It’s a beautiful day outside the window of my writing cave. I wish I had gone for a bike ride instead of driving to the gym to work out, but let’s face it. It wasn’t this nice when my schedule dictated I head to the gym. 

What? you say. Kristi with a schedule? How bizarre. Tell me about it.

Last weekend I went to the 21^st Annual South Coast Writer’s Conference in Gold Beach. As usual. (I’ve only missed 5 of the 21, I think.) This year I got a lot of bang for my buck. Not that I don’t normally, but this year they had some great speakers on topics I really needed to hear about if I am going to take a proper crack at writing full time.

Managed to get SOME time on the beach!

I spent Friday in an all-day intensive workshop about the serious business of writing, facilitated by Jason Brick. One of many things he taught that really resonated with me is, “The more you don’t want to have a schedule, the more you need one.”

Sigh. So, here I am. Writing a blog post because it is on my newly developed schedule. But you know what, instead of resenting it and fighting it, I’m actually enjoying the process. This is coming off as more “stream of consciousness” writing, but that is part of the plan, too. 

Another presenter, Eric Witchey, taught that there are no wrong ideas. Or more precisely, the only wrong idea in writing is the one that never gets written down.

I came away with so many wonderful tools. Like how to use a Pomodoro timer to focus on my writing. To me it is comparable to what I learned in a 12 Step program: You can do for 30 minutes what you can’t imagine doing all day. Then you take a break and start the timer again. In this way you train yourself to focus and cut out the distractions.

Another tool is also courtesy of Mr. Witchey. Use a metronome to trigger ideas. Train yourself that with every tock of the metronome you come up with one idea – this is great for the brainstorming stage of writing. Each idea may be more wild and outrageous than the last, but something in that maelstrom of ideas will be the perfect torture to put my characters through. 

I anticipate not spending quite so long pondering plot points, but rather coming up with more gut wrenching plots for your entertainment. My goal for the future is to not just entertain you with my stories, but really affect you with them. It’s time to move beyond the fluff, the mind-candy, and make some seriously memorable fiction you’ll want to read again and again.

Part of my new schedule is a promise to myself, and to anyone who does me the honor of following me, to faithfully write a blog post every Wednesday, and to post a newsletter on the first Saturday of each month. I tend to worry about producing content that people will find interesting, but with these new tools, I’m confident I can entertain you. Yes. Confident. Really.

And what do you know—now it's raining! This is all I have for today, but I will surely expand on it for the Newsletter, so keep your eyes open for it. You can sign up on my website - or visit the page to see it posted. I will also post a link to it here in the Bounded in a Nutshell blog.

Until then... Thrive, my friends.

New Release Coming on Leap Day

I'm so excited that I'm in the final stages of preparing my latest book for release!

I've just got to finish edits from the lovely Kim Young, then let my beta readers have it. After that, final edits and read through(s) - okay, so there's still a lot to do! But I'm sure I'll have a near-final draft ready for ARC readers by February 1st.

But what's the story about, you ask?

Kylie and Jax have been snatched from the fair's karaoke tent by human traffickers. Now they're being taken to a new life as sex workers, or worse, unless they can escape their fate.

One Last Song is a fast-paced race through the New Mexican desert. Can two friends from Syracuse put together a plan to get away before they cross the border into certain disaster.

In the meantime, it is up for pre-order on Amazon for the special price of 99 cents. Reserve your copy before the price goes up!

Also, if you are on Goodreads, head over and sign up to win a paperback and put One Last Song on your To Read List.

                                                               

Influences and Inspirations - A Tribute to Leonard Nimoy

Live Long and Prosper
(Image credit surely goes back to the Studio...)

Woke up to the news this morning that Leonard Nimoy has died. After the initial check to make sure this wasn't one of those "Morgan Freeman died" spoofs, it got me thinking about influences. 

Like many from my generation, Star Trek was one of the shows I watched as a kid (in reruns, thank you very much – I'm not quite old enough to have seen the first runs) that had an impact on the way I think. On my creativity, on my imagination and my logic.

I remember watching and discussing episodes with my best friend Shelly, and having a ball with the subtle, cynical and often sarcastic humor that Spock's character embodied. Spock was anything but cold and clinical, he was warm and full of life. At least to me.

Thinking fondly about it now, I realize that some of my best humorous writing happens in that same understated way. The best stuff sneaks in while I'm not even aware, and it isn't until I read it back that I think, "Oh, that's funny!"

Sometimes I think the things that crack me up are so abstruse that no one will get it, so it often surprises me when people comment that something in my book made them laugh out loud. It always makes me smile to know I brought laughter to someone's day.

It's all good. Days like today, when I'm reminded that my style didn't come out of a vacuum, I read back and see my wry humor showing through and bless the books and shows that influenced me.

I have tried on more than one occasion to write a "logic scene" in classic Star Trek style. I've even had success to varying degrees. Well, success in my eyes. I have yet to publish any of them. In one of my earliest novels, a hero character is trying to confuse an android using circuitous logic. The android predictably gets all boggled, but when the hero turns away, the android smirks and the reader realizes it was just going along to make the hero feel better.

Lately I have been revisiting some of my older work, looking to see if any of it is salvageable (as if I don't have enough new material clamoring in my head to get out!) and I see how strong these early influences were—and still are, if I'm honest about it.

Today, so many shows and movies seem to be regurgitating the stories I grew up with—from Red Dawn and Footloose to Total Recall and 12 Monkeys—that it seems like there's nothing new in Hollywood. It's sad to see, but then there are other shows that reassure me that there are artists who are still pioneers, who still stretch the limits of creativity to bring fresh new stories to eager viewers.

I look back to my childhood with fondness for those writers, directors, and actors who challenged me to become a writer. Who, all unknowing, shaped my style with a master's touch—like Michelangelo's marble with the statue waiting to be uncovered. I like to think I've taken over the art, and I'm still chipping away bits at a time, uncovering the greatest works I still have inside.

Thank you, Mr. Spock/Nimoy. Thank you Mr. Roddenberry, and yes, Mr. Shatner, and countless others who inspire and inspired me. You each have made the world a better place to live. And we have all prospered.

On the Question of Re-Releasing a Book with a New Title

When I wrote Blinding Justice, I wrote it as a standalone novel. It wasn't until after I had published that people began to ask me if there would be any more stories, particularly about Blue's family. 

That got my creative juices flowing, and here I am nearly two years later with a whole slew of ideas for books, and Book 2 just about ready to release. (Valentine's Day 2015!)

I started to consider a title for the series, and I couldn't let go of the idea of "The Boys of Syracuse, Kansas" as a nod to The Bard. (Not that my works are necessarily Shakespearean, more that I respect his work, and the moniker struck a chord.)  But what about each individual book? Should I link the titles in some clever way, à la Evanovich or Robb?

When I began to consider names for Book 2, the title "Last Second Chance" really resonated for me. Tim, the hero, is nearly at the end of his rope, and all he can hope for is one last 'second chance' to get his life right. My heart went out to this brooding ex-con with a newly minted heart of gold.

With no small measure of consideration, I decided that each book would feature the word "Last" in the title, and that meant I needed to change Blinding Justice—which I kind of had to stretch to make work in the first place. Eventually, with Dana's help, I landed on "Last Shot at Justice", and we redesigned the cover to fit the series concept.

I hope you find this glimpse into my decision-making process interesting. It is by no means a small thing to make such a change as the marketing ramifications are far reaching, but I hope the record will show that the new concept is a solid step in the right direction.

Thanks for reading!

On My Point of View (POV) Preference

I want to chime in on something that has turned into a trend in books that I really don't care for. That being the 1st Person (Present or Past tense) narrative.

I don't know how it came to be that so many writers are choosing 1st person. Back when I was trying to sell my first book to a publisher, back in the late 1980s, I was told that they wouldn't touch 1st Person unless it was exceptional. Now, with so many mediocre reads out there, I see why.

I find both of these (present and past tense) boring, most of the time. It appears to be a challenge to show rather than tell in 1st person, which increases the yawn factor and the sense of disconnect for me.

I spent some time after reading one book that I felt I should have enjoyed more, trying to figure out exactly what it is, since I know a lot of people really like this POV. I came to the conclusion that it is like sitting at a table listening to someone--if it is really good, maybe a friend, otherwise just some random person--tell me what happened to them. I may connect with what they're saying, feel some emotion, but I don't feel like I was there.

For some reason, I can feel like I'm part of the action when it is third person and the author has mastered showing. Maybe that just means I think of myself in third person? I haven't started referring to myself in third person in conversation (at least Kristi doesn't think so....) but maybe because I have spent so long writing stories from the characters' perspectives and trying to show their stories by putting myself in their shoes, that I've thrown a switch in my brain....

I can't stress enough the importance of showing a scene rather than telling about it. Little details that one can work into a sentence will show what is happening, and draw a reader in more than telling. Going to the bathroom, washing hands, brushing teeth...becomes tedious over-telling in the hands of an unskilled or hurried writer.

For instance, a 1st person POV might read:
I went to the restroom to wash my face, picked up a towel to dry my hands, and looked at my reflection in the mirror. Brown hair, blue eyes, button nose; my usual good looks marred by the darkening bruise on my cheek.

But I like this better:
She ducked into the restroom to splash some water on her face. The woman in the mirror, wringing her hands around the paper towel, stared back at her with haunted eyes, just a shadow of their usual breezy blue. She patted her brown curls into place, pulling a few strands down to artfully cover the darkening bruise on her cheek.

It could be done in 1st person:
I ducked into the restroom to splash some water on my face. The woman in the mirror, wringing her hands around the paper towel, stared back at me with haunted eyes, just a shadow of their usual breezy blue. I patted my brown curls into place, pulling a few strands down to artfully cover the darkening bruise on my cheek.

But too often scenes I've read get the former treatment. Instead of putting a little work into it -- I literally took 5 minutes to compose all three of those examples (imagine if I put some polish on it!) -- the writer just gives a laundry list of actions and descriptions, which puts me to sleep.

So, take what you will from my little rant/pet peeve.

I guess if I ever get around to publishing my epic 1st Person narrative novel, it will have to be totally spectacular after this, right?

On Being a Truck Driver Who Writes

(Or: On Being Tired and Out of Touch)

So I've been on the road for three weeks, now, and we have been back and forth across the USA -- not quite coast to coast.

Let's see: Mill City, OR to Sisseton, SD to Watertown, SD to Mason City, IA to Faribault MN to Seattle, WA to Ferndale, WA to Clearfield, UT to Spanish Fork, UT to Blaine, MN to Stewartville, MN to Spokane, WA to Swedesboro, NJ to Fonda, NY to Chino, CA.... Well, we'll deliver in Chino tomorrow morning. You get the picture.

That's over 13,000 (yes thousand!) miles.

I won't say I'd forgotten how tiring non-stop travel can be. But I had forgotten the reality of feeling that tired.

But it is funny because I've actually written more out here than I expected I would. Feels like more than I wrote all winter. Almost. I think the reason for that is because I can't get online at a moment's whim like I could at home. So when I'm not driving or sleeping, when I crank up the laptop, there's really not much else to do except write. Not much signal across Montana and South Dakota, never mind Wyoming. At least not a quality signal that doesn't have me pulling out my hair.

Oh, there is the never-ending receipts that have to be entered in the computer, and the husband who wants to implement a 5 year plan so we can go back to being local, which requires budgeting, which I can geek out on for hours.

But I'm getting the writing done, too. Plus, there's not much to do other than think of plot lines and conflicts and back story while driving. Inspiration is surprisingly abundant while I'm watching what little traffic is out there in Big Sky Country.

And you know what? The Google Keep app has pretty good voice recognition quality, so I can dictate notes into my phone hands free, at least well enough to know what idea I was trying to impart.

So, surprisingly, it is working. Which is what I should be doing now. Except I wanted to update folks on what it is like out here.

My Writing Process - Blog Tour

My friend V.L. Dreyer invited me to contribute to the Writing Process Blog Tour. This is my first blog tour. I hope I am doing it right! I am using it as a means of procrastinating on working on my next projects. I'm sure that is not at all how this is meant to be used, but what can I say...?  

The purpose of this blog tour is to tell readers about our writing process by answering four questions.
Click here to read V.L.'s post about her writing process. My answers follow.

Question One: What Am I Working On?

I have two projects in the works right now. One is a sequel to Blinding Justice called Last Second Chance, in which an ex-con struggles for a fresh start in a small Kansas town. Here is the blurb: 

Tim Reardon made a real mess of his life, and he spent the last seven years paying for it in a Federal Penitentiary. Now he is out and trying to put his life together. Thanks to his sister Mitzi, he has a chance at working in small town Syracuse, Kansas, where no one knows his past and he can start fresh. Except that his past is hell bent on finding him.

All Janie Thomas ever wanted was to live a simple life as a veterinarian, taking care of her daughter and the pets and livestock in Syracuse. She had enough drama bringing Kylie into the world after getting pregnant at 17. Kylie's father, the town's rich heartthrob, Cody Buford, couldn't be bothered to raise a child and ran off to the big city.

Seventeen years later, Cody is back, trying to insinuate himself back into Janie's life, and she can't for the life of her reason why. On top of that, the new ranch hand out at the Lazy J is bringing up emotions she thought she had put to bed long ago.

This is different from Blinding Justice in that it takes place over a couple months, instead of the mere 36 hours of Blinding Justice. Tim is a man with a history, and that history is trying to catch up with him, even while he thinks he is making a clean break. Janie has her own history as the fallen woman who bore a child out of wedlock in a small conservative town. When Tim’s past shows up in the form of the woman he went to prison for, he finds there are very few places for him to hide and he must make a stand out in the sand hills of Kansas. Will he be able to survive denying his past?

The other project is a murder mystery set in the future, against the backdrop of the trucking industry in the year 2025. It is more a suspense than a mystery, but has elements of the cozy mystery with two truck drivers as the amateur sleuths trying to find out who killed their friend and fellow trucker, and why. I’m challenged to get this done before the future gets here. Some of the elements I have touted as futuristic in the trucking industry are already starting to come to pass. My husband and I are working on this together. While my suspenseful romances have elements of a mystery to them, this is my first attempt at a more traditional mystery, and I am working hard to get it right.

Question Two: How Does My Work Differ From Others Of My Genre?

My stories tend to be very character driven, and the conflict stems from outside sources. A lot of romance stories have conflicts based in misunderstandings and a failure to communicate. Not so much in my stories. If Mitzi and Blue are attracted to each other (Blinding Justice), it is gunfire keeping them from exploring that attraction. Conversely, while the danger is keeping them apart, it is also teaching them more about each other, stripping away the everyday trappings that get in the way of a ‘normal’ courtship, so they can see the meat of what the other is made of. Or, if Cassie doesn’t know if she can trust Nick (Knight Before Dawn), it isn’t until he gets knifed while trying to chase down one of her abductors that she realizes he really is on her side.

Last Second Chance is a bit more introspective. Tim doesn’t want to pursue his interest in Janie because he doesn’t believe she could want his kind of trouble in her life. If he tells her he is an ex-con, how can he expect her to love him in return? If he tells her, how can he protect her from the stigma that comes with the label of ‘ex-con?’ Janie doesn’t want to see Tim judge her for having a child out of wedlock, like nearly everyone in Syracuse has done, so she avoids saying it point blank.

The common thread in all my stories is that the conflict grows each character, pushes them to discover just how far they will go to protect the ones they love. But there is always a line my characters will not cross. I believe a hero is a hero as much for the things they won’t do as for the lengths they will go to.

Another difference is that my characters are a bit older than a lot of the romances I have read. In their late twenties and early thirties, they have already lived quite a bit of real life. They have already loved and lost, made mistakes, learned from them, and have confidence in the things they know they can do. They are more apt to speak the truth in their hearts in good part because they know life is finite, and they don’t have time to fuck around. They are (in general) blue collar workers, who earn every dime they spend; they live ordinary lives—except for the danger, of course—and hopefully my readers can easily relate to the way my characters live.

Question Three: Why do I Write What I Write? 

I’m something of a hopeless romantic with a lightning rod. I’m pretty happy with my life the way it is, with the possible exception that there aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do. But I like to explore what makes people do the things they do, how far someone will go when pushed. If someone snatched me and set me down in the middle of an intense situation, what would I do? How would I handle it? Lord knows I don’t really want to get in a firefight with drug dealers or corrupt cops, but I can imagine it, and I can write myself into a situation I would be terrified to experience in real life. It is similar to reading a good book that transports me to the world I’m reading, except I get to direct the outcome. I get to throw the curve balls, jam the monkey wrench in the works, and let my characters work their way out of it.

It drives me crazy when characters I read repeatedly fail to communicate with each other, and the conflict comes solely from their inability to share their feelings with each other. So, as I mentioned above, I deliberately create characters who are brave enough to speak their minds and their hearts. Maybe not right off the bat, especially if the level of trust hasn’t had time to build. Knee-jerk reactions aren’t unheard of in my stories: Cassie runs off into the Alaskan wilderness because she discovers a frightening truth; Nick flies off to a confrontation before he thinks everything through. But they do have the courage to admit when they are wrong, and move ever forward without rehashing the same argument or fear again and again and again.

Question Four: How Does My Writing Process Work? 

Ideas come to me from all kinds of places. Often a vignette of some scene I witness in life. Sometimes even a dream will inspire a story idea. I see something that results in me asking: "What would happen if...."

Sometimes—like with the mystery—I have to do some plotting to make sure I get the pacing right, but for the most part, I let the characters tell me their story. That may sound a little crazy, but often I will sit down with the keyboard in my lap without a clue what I am going to write, and the words just start flowing. Like I’m channeling the characters and they are dictating the story to me.

If I have a scene I’m not sure is working, or one that is complex, I will share it with one or two people to get feedback. Last Second Chance is set on a ranch, and Janie is a veterinarian. I have a scene where she is treating a horse with laminitis. I consulted with a man who is a horse handler, and two friends who own horses have read the scene to make sure I have it right—and who make sure I haven’t just written an info-dump scene (also known as an ‘As you know, Bob’ scene.)

As I write, I continually go back through and tweak what I have written. Adding clarity if something is murky, cleaning up grammar and spelling, inserting or deleting scenes.... Once I have a complete draft, I go through it multiple times, cutting, adding, cleaning, analyzing, making sure I have the best, most complete story I can write. Then I have one or two people read it, to get a baseline reaction. Of course at this point, I’m pretty confident I have a story worth telling, but these people help confirm that. For Blinding Justice, I had a friend who worked in law enforcement read it to make sure I had the police mindset accurate. For Last Second Chance, I will likely have one of my horse friends read through it.

After that, I send it off to my editor and wait breathlessly until she sends it back. This step is so important. Even though I proofread for others, and I am very good at spotting problems in someone else’s work, I am too close to my own work to see the problems. And there are always problems. My editor helps spot holes in the story, catches my grammar errors, cleans up punctuation, etc. She puts a polish on the story that I simply can’t produce myself.

After that, I have beta readers go through it. By this time, I am getting twitchy to publish, but beta readers are also an important step. Fresh eyes to catch mistakes that have managed to slip through until that point. Or errors I created when I fixed the problems my editor pointed out. I had five beta readers for Blinding Justice, and each one found different problems. Just a few by each, but enough that I would have been embarrassed to find after publication.

And I can’t help but read through one more time (okay, two or three more times) before I start uploading for publication. As you can see, for me, writing the story is the easy part. The polishing, editing, polishing, and proofing process is exacting. I don’t hate it—I actually enjoy it, which is good since I do it professionally, too. The worst part about the post-production work is that is does take time, time that I would rather spend selling the book, or more importantly writing the next book. But because I want to put out the best work I can, I pull the reins in on my impatience, and go through every step even when I want to start sharing my story with the world. I learn more and more about crafting a great story with everything I do, and patience is the greatest lesson of them all.

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