What is Family?

The Pens are thrilled to welcome Lorraine Heath today! No one is better qualified to write about family -- she's written the book(s) already!

What is Family?

Family. As I write this following the holidays, family is on my mind quite a bit. My older son decided not to travel from Portland to Dallas during the holiday rush. Considering more than 6,000 flights were cancelled due to weather that was a wise decision. My younger son spent the holidays with his girlfriend’s family. So hubby and I had a very quiet Christmas. We went out for a nice dinner and took in a movie.

Someone I know is fond of saying that family is who you spend the holidays with. I prefer to think of it as family is who you *make* a holiday with. My boys will be here in the middle of January and we’ll unwrap gifts then, eat lots of food, and enjoy each other’s company. That it didn’t happen on Christmas day is inconsequential to me. What matters to me is that we find time to be together when we can and when we are together we make the most of it.

My recent series, London's Greatest Lovers, is about family. A widow—the Duchess of Ainsley—with three strong-minded sons, each determined to be known as London’s greatest lover, is what ties these stories together. The duchess has her own story woven through those of her sons. What I liked about these characters was that while they were from the same family, they were all so very different. They had different strengths, weaknesses, and personalities. But at the core of each of them was a dedication to family. So often in romances, the characters are orphans so the writer doesn’t have to deal with parents, but the duchess and her meddling lover were fun to include. Even the duchess had her faults that were delightful to work with.

I’m thinking about the series now because I just wrote the epilogue for the final book and I brought all the family members back together to give the reader one final peek at how they’re all doing. It’s Christmas. It’s family.

The series I wrote before this one—The Scoundrels of St. James—was also about family, even though none of the characters were related by blood. What tied them together was that they all grew up on the streets and they formed an unbreakable bond. They would lie, cheat, steal, kill, and die for each other. Perhaps not the best attributes for family members, but the lengths they would go to for each other were indicative of their love for each other. As one of the characters told another, “I would gladly follow you into hell and not even bother to ask why we were going.”
It’s that sort of devotion that I love. Not all families have it of course. Not all family members are close. Not all family members are related by blood. Not all families have been with us since we were born.

I’m fortunate to have a family of friends. These ladies are the ones that I share the highs and lows of publishing with. I share with them my good news before I share it with anyone else. It helps that they are all writers and they understand the publishing world. Like my scoundrels, we have a common background and that bonds us.

I recently saw a quote: “Friends are the family we choose.” I think that’s so true.

During my life, I’ve never had a great many friends but those I have are so very precious to me.
As I mentioned earlier, I think family are the ones that we *make* holidays with. The holiday doesn’t have to be on the calendar. It can be a celebration. A retreat. A getting together over a glass of wine and knowing that whines may flow as well and that they are safe. Whether it’s the family of blood or the family of friendships, a safe harbor is provided—a place where you can ride out the storm.

And in the end, perhaps that is the true identifier of family: it is always the safe harbor.

Lorraine Heath, the bestselling author of historical romances, relishes the importance of family in all its forms.

I Love That You Love It

--Adrienne Miller

My family has an obsession with trains. My parents have it, my kids too. And, as if to prove that it’s not tied to some quirky Miller family gene, my husband has it as well. Everybody, it seems, but me. 

Look, a lovely family picture.
Taken, of course, on a train.

Big trains. Little ones. Toy trains or real trains, it doesn’t matter. They love them all. And when I say love, I mean *Love* them. My boys have buckets--no, really, buckets--of them. The whole family has annual memberships to not one or two, but three local train museums. And it’s not just the engines that they love. My father has a collection of antique railway china that’s worth a small fortune. 

They all have their own favorite railroading periods. They know the names and numbers of famous engines and cars. They know what line went where and when it stopped running.

Pretend trains count too.

I love that they have it, this shared joy, but for the life of me, I just don’t see the beauty there. I know it exists. I’ve seen it shining in their eyes every time we take a big family trip out to the Sacramento and the state railroad museum. All I can see is a molded mass of metal, pistons and whistles and domes, a hunk of iron and steel that was useful a hundred years ago if you needed to get yourself to Chicago and back. No matter how hard I try, I just can’t see the poetry in it.

There are few constants in life, but I can guarantee if we pass by anything that is even vaguely train shaped one of my children will be plopped on top of it and their picture will be taken.

Of course, I have my own loves. Some of which my family and I share, but some of the others, not so much. I get that not everybody is keen to wander around cities on foot for hours on end with no particular destination in mind. I can also understand that everyone might not be as stirred by the subject of religious symbology as I am. 

But then there are the ones I just can’t understand. I gave my mother a copy of Pride and Prejudice once. She returned it a few days later, saying that she couldn’t get past the beginning. It was boring, she said.

Boring. Pride and Prejudice. I shook my head. She just couldn’t see the poetry in it. Just like I can’t with the trains. 

Which is fine. There are we love and things we don’t. It’ll have to be enough that I love that they love it. 

And they do love it.

All Our Kin

My mom was the youngest of eleven children from the South, which meant that my sisters and I grew up hearing stories about "Family" all our lives. This was Family with a capital "F": Kin were obligated to help one other, provide for one another, look after one another.

But my sisters and I were raised in California, far from our twenty-eight Texan cousins, and a few others scattered here and there. We did just fine, but as a girl I always longed for more. It wasn't until I hit college, and took my first anthropology course, that I realized there was an alternative...and it even had a nifty name: Fictive Kinship.

In many Latino cultures, fictive kinship is formalized through the system of compadrazgo, in which you ask your friends to be your comadres and compadres (literally, “co-parents”). In English we translate this into Godparents, but with comadres the bond between the godmother and mother is often more important than that between the child and the godparent. It is assumed the adults will care for the children, but it is the link between the *adults* that is crucial. In fact, really good friends often refer to each other as compadre and comadre, whether or not there are any children (or any religious ceremonies) involved.

Essentially, this is your family of choice, the folks who might be even closer to you than blood kin.

Historically – and still in many parts of the world – family is a powerful survival mechanism. Darwin would say that we have a special interest in keeping alive those who share our DNA. Religion and society then step in and dictate that we are beholden to our blood kin to help them through the tough times. Tightly bonded families help their members to survive and flourish.

But there’s a dark side to such interdependence. What happens when there is no family, or when a member is forced, or chooses, to step away? At many points in our past, and still now in many parts of the world, women, in particular, without family are left unprotected and unprovided-for.

When I was researching witchcraft for my novels, I found that many of the women who became “witches” – that is to say, “healers”—in European society had no family, or had committed the sin of refusing (or failing) to marry. As outcasts, they had a choice of heading to the urban centers to work as prostitutes…or to become powerful women, healers who inspired respect and fear. In a word: Witches.

And what then did most witches do? They formed covens. They taught each other, helped and supported one another, and socialized. Covens (a word which refers to an “assembly” and is related to convent and covenant) provided these women with a kind of family, through fictive kinship.

(Many people think warlock is the term for a male witch, but it actually means “oathbreaker”, and refers to the men who knew about --and sometimes previously protected-- the coven, but who named names during the witch-hunts, breaking the covenant in order to save themselves. )

Some time ago I was invited to attend a modern coven meeting in Berkeley. Contemporary covens (at least in the Bay Area!) are typically less about survival than they are about socializing and practicing rituals and devotion, but the fictive bonds amongst members are still important, especially for us modern folk without a lot of blood kin around.
At the coven meeting was a woman who was eight months pregnant. She was feeling anxious about the upcoming birth and asked each of us, while we formed the traditional closed circle, to lay our hands upon her belly and to bless her and her child.

In the process of creating a blood family, she was reaching out for fictive kin. Comadres. And in that assembly of like-minded women, she found it.

Family is Code

Family. It's a word that, no matter what, means something to all of us. At its utterance, some pale and cover their mouths while running from the room. Me, I'm a lucky one. I have a great family, albeit smaller than some -- no oceans of cousins, aunts, great-uncles. Just the normal sisters, nephew, Dad, and some etc.

But there's an interesting usage of the word Family that you might not be aware of.

Years ago, I was at a training class for dispatchers in Sacramento. One of the men in the class was awesome. Really handsome, rugged, dreamy eyes, he let me bum cigarettes and we made dirty jokes out in the courtyard. Something...though.

"Are you family?" I asked out of the blue.

His eyes narrowed. "Why?" Then he paused. "Are you?"

I laughed while nodding and he whooped.

It's code, see. Are you family? means Are you gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered/queer? But it's special, because it also means the person asking is some flavor of queer.

What if a gay person asks this of a straight one? Normally, they don't know the code. And we know that. If we ask and the person looks puzzled -- "Huh? Do I have family?" -- we backtrack and change the wording quickly, "No, I mean, are your parents still alive? Where do they live?" and the chat goes on, that question answered.

I realize as I type this that it's been YEARS since I've used it this way. Perhaps it's gone the way of "Are you a friend of Dorothy?" Usually, it's just a shorthand between people. If a woman in clogs and Stanford sweatshirt walking a tiny dog in a sweater walks by, Lala will mutter, "Family?"

"Duh," I say.

It's interesting, though, how this arose from necessity. Gays and lesbians needed a safe way to bluntly ask each other, back when it wasn't as safe as it is now (the phrase is said to have been used as far back as 1930). And the word itself -- Family -- implies both what gay people sometimes had to leave behind in order to find their real, accepting one. And it made the answer at the hospital a true one: "Are you family?" "Yes." (Even today, domestic partners have horror stories of not being able to be at their loved ones' bedsides.)

I'm glad I'm living NOW. I don't know how brave I'd be in other times, I really don't. I hope I would be strong, though.

And I'm so glad to have all KINDS of family (Pens included).

Quick Trip to the ALA

by Sophie

ALA Winter Meeting - I Was There! (With Martha!)

The topic this week is family, and I do have one, and I love them deeply, but I'm just back from the American Library Association meeting and I'm bubbling over with enthusiasm for everything I saw and read and experienced in the last two days and I want to share - okay with you?

First wonderful thing about the weekend is that I got to room with Martha. Of all the Pens, she and I probably live the furthest apart, and we don't get to see each other as often as I would like. Yeah yeah yeah, she knows all kinds of fascinating people and is scary-smart and all, but mostly I just enjoy her company, even/especially when she's not feeling great so we just watch hotel TV. (I had never in my life watched The Bachelor and last night we watched a rerun with Martha's running commentary and I nearly fell out of the bed laughing, despite the fact that I have never seen a more insipid gathering of doltish people anywhere.)

the view from our hotel room - amazing!

But to stay on-topic - on the topic which isn't on-topic - let's talk about librarians: they LOVE books. They talk about books with reverence. They handle them with great care. They light up when they meet new authors, they roam the show floor tirelessly looking for new things to read, they talk about their collections with obvious pride. I ADORE THEM. Everywhere I went - whether to get a soda from the hotel shop, or lunch, or strolling along the marina, there were clusters of librarians talking about books, carrying books in their bags, buying books, sharing books.

It's not like I never met a librarian before. I've written before about how much I adored my college library (fun fact - Lisa and I went to the same university at the same time and never knew each other!) and someday I will share what my hometime library meant to me, though that will take many many words....but I have never seen so many in one place before.

I was at the convention to sign ARCS of my spring release, A BAD DAY FOR SCANDAL (ThomasDunne/St. Martin's/Minotaur, June), and my friends Hank and Rosemary invited me to participate in a series of mystery panels. Now I've done panels where three people showed up, all of them my friends, their sole purpose to hurry me along so we could go to the bar, and I've learned to keep my expectations...moderate, shall we say. But at our early morning panel yesterday, hordes (okay, maybe exaggerating a TINY bit) of eager librarians showed up to listen and discuss mystery novels. It was a delightful experience.

One other thing I'd like to tell you about before I stagger off to bed (it's well after midnight, and I only got home from the airport an hour ago) - I attended some panels of high school librarians who were in the process of creating a list of recommended novels for their kids. I was blown away by the enthusiasm, professionalism, conviviality, and focus of this group. Simply put, they care very deeply about bringing the best books to their readers. At one point they invited a panel of teen readers to address them, and it was the best-attended session I saw. Every librarian and audience member listened with great care to the teens who shared their reviews of '10 reads. It was truly awe-inspiring.

Christmas, the Musical! (Or, How I Learned to Work with My Inner Grinch)

The Pens are thrilled to welcome guest blogger Jami Alden! Jami Alden is the author of sexy romantic suspense. Her next book, BEG FOR MERCY
will be available in June from Grand Central Press. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her socially well adjusted alpha male husband, her sons, and a german shepherd who patiently listens to dialog and help her work out plot points. You can find out more about Jami and her books at www.JamiAlden.com, www.facebook.com/jamialden, or by following her on Twitter @jamialden.



When I was little the holidays were an awesome time, full of tree decorating, cookie making, and most importantly, vacation from school.

It wasn't until I was older – my late twenties, in fact, that I realized what a freaking production Christmas is. By that time, I'd handled Thanksgiving on my own for several years – I had the turkey, the mashed potatoes, the gravy, the whole package down to a science, and had even managed to get the entire meal, appropriately hot or cool to the table more or less on schedule.

Then, a few years after my husband and I got married, we hosted Christmas for the first time. My in laws (including husband's 7 siblings) were flying in and staying through the new year. I scoured the stores for gifts for the whole group and had them wrapped and ready to go well before the big day. Excited at the prospect of “our” first Christmas, my husband and I went out in search of a tree. Only problem: no lights, no ornaments, no nothing.

No problem! I dutifully went to Target and got enough stuff to deck two trees worth.

Then, tree appropriately twinkling, I looked around the rest of our little rented house and realized... it was bare.

Now, in my house we jokingly refer to my mom as “Patty Christmas.” Every year, she not only does the tree, she also swaps out all the towels for holiday themed linens and gets out all the Christmas themed drinkware. From December 1 – 31st, from your first sip of coffee to your last sip of wine, you are reminded 'tis the season. There are red velvet bows on nearly every doorknob and a faux pine garland winding up the staircase.

My house, in comparison, was sparse, minimalistic even. It wouldn't do. So, having no job or children at the time, I put aside my not yet off the ground writing career and did another wave of Christmas shopping. Candlesticks, towels, glassware, candles, vases in the shape of Santa's boots. I was set. No way Christmas would ever get me down again.

Fast forward 5 years. Let me tell you, nothing brings out my inner grinch like a crushing deadline. Add in 2 kids ages 2 and 5 months, about a thousand people to shop for a and a husband who worked 80 hours a week, and I was ready to cancel Christmas.

We managed to get a tree. It stood in its stand for a week while I circled it resentfully. “I am so not in the mood to decorate you.”

“This sucks!” I muttered. “It's all a bunch of BS and it's not like I don't have enough going on. F the tree. The kids won't give a crap, and they'll break the ornaments anyway.”

Someone must have been listening. Because one Saturday in December while I was out, no doubt doing something very self indulgent like going to Trader Joe's ALL BY MYSELF, some little Christmas Elves came to visit.

When I returned, the tree was decorated. The little holiday knick knacks were strewn around the house. Holy crap, who knew Christmas could happen in our house without me?

The little twinge of guilt I felt at having been such a scrooge disappeared in the wave of love and gratitude for my husband, for seeing that I needed a little help getting into the Christmas spirit, for taking a bunch of stuff off my plate, and doing it all without acting like it was a big deal or a burden or an imposition.

My own Alpha Christmas Elf :)

Do you ever need help getting into the Holiday spirit? Who are your helpers? Are you sad to season end or, like me, do you feel like you'll need the next 12 months to gear up for the next one?

Pass the Grog

by Gigi

I'm a celebrator. Just to be clear: not the kind with a party hat and noisemaker, screaming at the top of her lungs at the strike of midnight on new year's eve. Can you see me doing that? I didn't think so. I'm the kind who seizes an opportunity to let myself celebrate--having fun with a new reason to enjoy life, enticing those around me to join in, then siting back with a smile on my face to take it all in.

When the Pens came over to my house for dinner a few months ago, we hadn't gotten together as a group in a while, so I wanted to do something a little special. Since we conceived of this enterprise as a "Grog" (group blog) I designed a Pens Fatales label for some Grog for us to imbibe that evening. (OK, it was vodka, since who really wants to drink Grog?) It made the whole thing seem more festive. More like a celebration.

A small experience sticks with me that sums up this feeling. On a miserably freezing, wet day, I ducked into The Cafe in the Crypt for a cup of coffee to warm up. The person I was with snagged a table while I waited in line. I returned to the table with not only coffee but also a luscious bread and butter pudding to share. I was soaking wet, and the crypt was more crowded than atmospheric, but I had good company and a warm, buttery treat, so what more could I ask for? The person I was with could see it on my face. She turned to me and said "You really enjoy life, don't you?" That's exactly how I was feeling on that cold winter day.

I think one of the reasons I'm so bad at establishing celebratory holiday traditions is because I always want to try some new experience. Until a few years ago, I bounced around from place to place a lot, and was rarely "home" for the holidays.

Instead of having a specific tradition, to me celebrating is about the people you're with and the experience you're having together. I remember the Christmas Eve dinner at a cozy little pub in London with tiny little booths and a huge roast, getting to know a new friend a little better who has since turned out to be one of my closest friends. And the New Year's Eve in Cornwall, in a b&b whose owner wore a reindeer hat while serving rich treats and hosting silly games. And of course there are the times I made it home to visit my parents, wherever they happened to be living at the time, for wonderful visits surrounded by Christmas ornaments placed on all of the cultural artifacts throughout the house.

For me, those visits are most worth celebrating because they're not a given. I've always been of the opinion that I don't know what adventures life has in store for me, or what the future holds. So I'll celebrate with my friends and family as I go along each step of the path.

Martha Practices Celebration

I remember back in high school a friend invited me to her graduation party.

Me: What is it?
Friend: A graduation party.
Me: For what?
Friend: Graduating.
Me: Weren't you supposed to graduate?

Ditto college acceptance party. First job party.

I didn't have a crazy strict upbringing but I definitely remember there was no tolerance for resting on your laurels.

No point getting excited about A's until you had straight A's. Straight A's don't matter - do you have the 4.0? Why freak out over the 4.0 until you're in college? College is just a gateway situation until you have the job. Do you have it? DO YOU?

Okay, great, a job ,but is it secure? Have your benefits kicked in? Did you get your first review? What about a raise?

Then at my first job, I met my friend E.

E likes a little celebration in everything.

She had me over for a dinner. Beforehand, I received a hand written invitation. At the event, she had typed up cute menus. Everything was beautifully plated. We said cheers. Cheers! We celebrated the fact that we were having dinner. BIZARRE! And addicting.

Next thing I knew, I would throw out cheers for anything.

Now we've already established from previous posts that I'm not modest and if I do say so myself, I'm intelligent, and I'm also a fast learner. So I took to celebrating like a fish to water.

I ROCKED IT.

Was it 5pm? Cheers.
Did I get mail? Cheers.
Good TV shows on tonight? Cheers and cheers.

I couldn't have learned it at a better time because writers need to celebrate, like Lisa said. There's too much rejection. Too much angst. Too much repeated beatings on your self esteem.

So finished manuscript? Cheers. Who cares if you have the agent.
Agent? Cheers! Who cares if you have the deal.
Book Deal? Cheers!!!! Screw your sales numbers.
Sales numbers? Cheeeeeers! Eff your next book contract.

Cheers to me, cheers to us, and cheers to you!

Lisa is a Celebration Junkie

I love to celebrate. Give me a reason and I’m there. You finished your first manuscript. Hooray, break out the champagne! You took the plunge and started exercising. Let’s take a walk! Your kid passed his driver’s test. Let’s have a glass of wine! You passed your first class. Yippee, here’s a great big hug.

I really do think it’s important to celebrate the small things. Because life throws us so many curves and unexpected roadblocks that when we hit a high, it needs to be catalogued and acknowledged and well, celebrated.

So one of the things that happens once you become a writer is that there are milestones along the way that perhaps really only seem like milestones to other writers. (Or at least that’s what we like to tell ourselves). Seemingly little things that deserve a check mark on a list of actions that make us REAL writers.

Each of these moments are little triumphs in their own right.

Having a plotting breakthrough.








Pens plotting and query reading






Finishing a draft. Crafting a query letter. Hitting send on a manuscript.

Your first rejection.



A good reminder card given to me after a series of rejections

Tackling the revision letter. Re-sending your manuscript.

Your first book signing.



Rachael's first signing

Your first meeting with your editor, agent, publicist. Starting a blog. Starting a grog. Building a website. Your first interview.

Finding your book in a store.





A night of bookspotting (which is NOTHING like trainspotting)







Your first release. Your first award. Your first mention in the NYT Book Review. Your first list.

You celebrate for yourself and you celebrate for your friends. :)

I’ve hit some of these and I’m still waiting on others. But one thing remains constant...each time I hit one, the Pens will be there to celebrate with me.

Happy New Year! May 2011 be the year for you.


xoxoxo,
Lisa

We Can Celebrate -- Yes, We Can!

L.G.C. Smith

When I told my mother that we’re writing about celebration on the blog this week, her eyes filled with tears. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I wish I’d known how to celebrate and taught you kids how to.”

Sigh. It’s the holidays. Melodrama comes easily.

But it’s also true that my mom and her sisters have a strongly Puritanical streak that makes them suspicious of anything smacking of celebration. Their idea of a good time is pitching in to help clean up after a healthy, low-fat, low-sodium, sugar-free, high fiber dinner. You know. Raw broccoli and cauliflower. Non-fat plain yogurt dip. Boneless skinless chicken breast grilled with one of those unsavory No Salt Herb Blends. Six low-carb vegetables cooked without a single drop of butter or olive oil (or flavor). Unsweetened pumpkin pie in a whole grain crust with no butter, lard, or even organic palm shortening (transfat free!), and the custard made with acorn squash (hubbards are too sweet, don’t you think?) and two drops of blackstrap molasses instead of sugar, tofu for the milk and eggs, and whipped powdered non-fat milk on top.

Okay, that’s not entirely fair. My mom never cooked that grimly. There were a few supposedly celebratory meals in my youth that bad, but they weren’t my mother’s fault. Completely. She once talked one of my aunts into using real whipped cream on the pumpkin pie–unsweetened, of course.

A celebratory teeth-baring at Mom's last birthday.

When there was no threat of encroachment by her sisters, my mom cooked normal fat and sugar-laden celebratory vittles. Fried chicken. Chocolate cake with real chocolate (not carob or some other crap substitute). Mashed potatoes loaded with butter and rich gravy. As my sisters and I got older, we made the celebration food better and better. For a while there it was fondue on Christmas Eve, standing rib roast or filet mignon on Christmas day, gluts of champagne, homemade eggnog and lovely snacks on New Year’s Eve, and turkey and all the fixings on New Year’s Day. It all felt very subversive.

Then my dad got diabetes, my niece arrived allergic to beef, I realized I was poisoning myself with gluten, and various other health concerns cropped up. We’re more measured in our celebratory feasts these days, but we always have a few areas of hedonistic excess. Usually these involve champagne, wine, and chocolate. Imported cheese. Sometimes a bûche de Noel.

My sister spent several hundred dollars on fine chocolates this holiday season, and my mother made a few comments. Unsupportive comments. This occasioned further extravagant chocolate purchases and more comments, culminating in the tears over the Pens Celebration theme. My mother has great remorse that we don’t know what to do with a celebration aside from throwing food at it.

At which point I reminded her that her mother hadn’t exactly taught her how to celebrate owing to being certifiably crazy for most of my mother’s childhood. Mom grew up viewing celebrations as potential messes that would need cleaning up, literally and figuratively. Better to ignore the whole business if possible.

My parents whooping it up at a grandchild's bithday last year.

While I will admit to not being much good at celebrating, I have learned that gratitude offers a reliable path in. I’m good at gratitude. I would never take a proper pumpkin pie with lightly sweetened whipped cream for granted, even if I’d rather have half a gluten-free bûche.

Celebration, for me, comes down to letting gratitude gladden my heart. Sometimes it’s the sort of thing Juliet talked about last week, the angle of sunlight in midwinter, or the big changes that Rachael marked this year. It can be a joyful song, even if not always from Kool and the Gang. It might be a party to which I’m grateful to be invited, even if all I can do is quietly panic while I’m there. It might be the small diligence of having written every day for four years, and starting the fifth.

It might be making a gingerbread house with the Leezlet.

As long as there is something for which to be grateful, there is cause to celebrate. Loudly. Quietly. With snacks or without. Alone. With family. With friends. With strangers. It doesn’t matter how.

I’m off to polish off my sister’s Recchiuti Fleur de Sel caramels with my grumpy-gus mother -- with a handkerchief in my pocket and celebration in my heart.