But I digress. Apparently, a lot.

The good news is that Rachelle has read my book and loves it! However, she’s got a few “ish,” ones she and I will clear up together before she starts submitting my manuscript in earnest.

“You go off on bunny trails,” she says.

“But did you see my post about going downtown to see American Idol’s David Cook?”

I KNOW she and her daughters are huge David Cook fans. She will want to talk about David Cook, right?

“Yeah, I did. Very cool, Katy. Now about the bunny trails...it happens most often during dialogue.”

“We TOTALLY got on the wrong bus leaving downtown. Ended up in kind of a scary part of town. There was a guy on the bus saying stuff into his cell phone like, ‘You’re my Tasmanian Devil, baby.’ Can you imagine?”

“No, honestly, I can’t,” Rachelle says. “Now, about your book, which--please remember--I really, really love. Sometimes, you have two lines of dialogue, followed by a bunny trail, and then another two lines, followed by another bunny trail.”

“We live on acreage, you know. TONS of bunnies,” I say. “I am not kidding, Rachelle. I can sit here near the window and count literally hundreds of bunnies in, like, an HOUR. You would not BELIEVE the bunnies!”

“I’m thinking we could do a bit of an edit on your book and deal with the bunny trails. It needs to happen.”

So she wasn’t calling about David Cook or taking the wrong bus or fear of killing my Mother’s Day orchid? This was sobering, indeed.

“Katy, the bunny trails have to go.”

“But...what about the bunnies?”

“We’ll build a hutch.”

Congrats, and Happy Reading!!

Before appearing in a parade in his honor and then singing to a stadium full of fans, David took the stage outdoors in the new Kansas City Power & Light entertainment district downtown. With a canopy overhead to shield the audience from sprinkles and multi-levels for great views, the venue proved a perfect one, especially since it’s directly across the street from the acclaimed Sprint Center arena where the top ten Idols will be performing in August.

David opened by seeming genuinely shocked by the turn-out, saying to the crowd, “Why are you all HERE?” I’ve got to think it’s such a different thing to be in the “Idol Bubble” for all these many weeks and then to suddenly be out with the rest of everyone--the regular people who are rooting for you and proud of their hometown boy. He sang Living on a Prayer and Always Be My Baby.

Speaking of pride, I could not be prouder of my husband Doug, who practically got arrested (okay, that might be a small exaggeration, but not much of one at all considering how excited I am!) by positioning himself and his camera within one foot of the limousine door through which David Cook eventually entered to leave the area.

My son Kevin, our friend Rocky and I stood across the street and watched Doug’s boldness increase moment by moment. He was not deterred by officers of the law (who tried to push him out of the way!), by bodyguards (who gave him threatening looks!), or by Kansas City Chiefs cheerleaders (who honestly had on almost no clothing!) from fulfilling his mission of getting THE BEST POSSIBLE close-ups of David that he could.

“There’s Katy! Make sure you read her book when it comes out.”

The pic of David pointing? He was looking RIGHT AT ME. I mean, we locked eyes. Read the caption to get the full impact. You will be amazed!

Here’s the whole set of photos from my flickr photostream.

After Doug took the close-ups, by the way, he crossed the street to where the three of us stood cheering and said, “Wow. David seems like such a humble guy.”

See, THAT’S how we should feel when we get to know someone as closely as Doug now knows David.

Today, I’m thrilled to present BJ to you right here on fallible. If you haven’t had the occasion to enjoy her blog, allow me to recommend it to you! You will find a wealth of information there about books, music, mac computers, culture, faith, and writing. And I’m blessed to have two copies of her latest release, Song of Erin, to give away to a couple of very fortunate commenters. So don’t hold back, fallible readers!

Katy: BJ, you had me completely hooked when you opened Song of Erin with a character attempting to survive the devastating 1839 hurricane on the island of Inishmore, off the west coast of Ireland. As I read closer, I realized that the fort in which Terese finds herself trapped (Dun Aengus) is one Doug and I visited in 2000! (I’m posting two photos to prove it…)

BJ: Katy, you should know that you’re the first person I’ve heard from who’s actually seen the old fort up close.

Katy: I’m telling you, once I climbed to the top of the hill (click on the pic to the left to see me huffing up the path) on which the fort was built supposedly around 1000 B.C., I didn’t have ANY strength left to cling to a rock for survival like Terese did!

BJ: Isn’t it a wild and formidable sight? Can’t you just imagine a hurricane blowing through there? Oops—I forgot that you’re supposed to be the one asking the questions!

Katy: Ha! Okay, here’s a question: Can you tell fallible readers how you choose such fascinating bits of history around which to build your novels?

BJ: So much of what turns into story ideas originally comes from my own leisure reading (and, of course, my own family tree!). I tend to incorporate pieces of history that captured my interest and intrigued me when I was reading not for research, but simply for my own interest.

Katy: My own family is new to this country. My father came directly to Kansas City, sponsored by his Irish immigrant uncle. So somehow I’ve missed out on the Irish/New York story as it unfolded in the 1800s. How my family in County Monaghan avoided starvation during the potato famine, I’m still discovering…

BJ: Before I ever wrote my first historical novel, I spent years reading about the Irish potato famine (the “Great Hunger”) of the mid-1800s that resulted in the near devastation of Ireland and in the mass immigration of the Irish to America. It seemed that every book or journal I read caused me to go searching for more. 

Katy: Before reading Song of Erin (a re-release of two novels—Cloth of Heaven and Ashes and Lace—in one volume), I devoured all five books of your Emerald Ballad series. I couldn’t read them fast enough—or slowly enough, either—to make me happy. I loved (and hated) learning about the notorious slums of New York (such as Five Points), in which the Irish immigrants often found themselves subsisting.

BJ: By the time I decided to write the first book of my Emerald Ballad series, I had more ideas waiting to be developed than I knew what to do with! In Song of Erin, I deal again with aspects of the Irish making America their new home.

Katy: Tell us a bit about your writing process. Does the setting occur to you first or an inciting incident, perhaps? Or do characters appear and dictate what situations you place them in?

BJ: Every book I’ve ever written has begun with my anchor character. I’ve been asked time and again where my characters “come from,” but I’ve no idea. They simply … happen. First comes the main character, then the others. The story evolves from the people. Always. That’s been the way of it from the first book, and it’s never changed.

Katy: I love the way you say, “That’s been the way of it.” Sounds very Irish to my well-trained ear.

BJ: Well, I don’t mean to make the process sound at all “mystical,” but I truly have no real explanation for the way my stories develop.

Katy: Speaking of main characters, I think you’ve said that if a movie were ever made of Song of Erin, your choice for the dashing character, Jack Kane, would have been a young Sean Connery. (Be still my heart.)

BJ: You would not believe how many readers have sent ideas to me about the casting for some of my novels! And out of all the suggestions I’ve seen for Jack Kane, a young Sean Connery is the one most often posed. Well, we can’t roll back the years for Sir Sean, so if the need ever presents itself, I’m not sure where we’ll look.

Katy: Will anyone else do? I don’t suppose Pierce Brosnan could fill in?

BJ: Sorry, Katy. Not Pierce.

Katy: Give me one good reason! I would be perfectly happy with Pierce.

BJ: He just wouldn’t do, not at all. Maybe Clive Owen or Gerard Butler?

Katy: Pierce Brosnan! Perfectly. Happy. Oh, wait. This isn’t about me…

BJ: I understand, Katy. These things happen.

Katy: I’ve read somewhere (perhaps on your blog?) that you attach particular importance to infusing your stories with hope. Toward the end of Song of Erin, I could not see how you could possibly pull off such a feat!

BJ: I honestly don’t believe I could write a book that’s without hope. Our God is a God of hope, and if we genuinely believe in Him, we have to believe in that hope.

Katy: But everything conspired at once to almost guarantee your characters would fail in their quests, and that their dreams would die a morose Irish death complete with old ladies keening at the wake.

BJ: Ah—but that’s only how it seemed, right? Seriously, the most miserable people (and characters) in the world must be those who don’t believe in hope or who have never come to know the God who makes it possible to hope.

Katy: Of course, not all of your characters meet a happy ending, but somehow the reader is left sighing with satisfaction that there is indeed hope for man and womankind. Tell us about the redemptive nature of hope and why it’s important to you to impart it through fiction.

BJ: This isn’t the kind of hope that “wishes for the best” or some fluffy mist of self-deceit we try to impose upon ourselves and others, but a gift. A God-gift that enables us, even in the midst of suffering and struggle and sorrow, to believe that He’s still in control, still guiding our lives, and still working His best will for each of us. So if hope truly does permeate my fiction, it’s because I believe this … because I believe Him.

Katy: It’s been a true joy to have you with us here on fallible, BJ! Thank you for coming.

BJ: This has been fun, Katy. Thanks for inviting me. 

Leave your comments, one and all! I’ll give away two copies of Song of Erin sometime on Friday.

If you’re anticipating the type of “deep and dreamless sleep” that would do a Christmas carol justice, think again. I haven’t had a full night’s sleep since Scott Douglas Raymond, soon to turn 29 years old, took three days to be born.

“How can that be?” you might ask. “Three whole days?” Yeah, and three whole nights, too. OK, technically, they charted my labor at 26 hours. Scott was born at 2 a.m., which means that whole night was lost, sleepwise. However, I was in mild labor the entire night before that one, and after enjoying him during the day after his birth, I was too excited to sleep the NEXT night.

It was like REALLY bad jet lag, but with a darling baby and a sitz bath for scenery.

Scotty was a wakeful child. Day and night, from birth. I once complained (while pregnant with Carrie) to his pediatrician that I was desperate to find a cure for his naplessness. Hoping to connect on an intellectual basis, the doctor turned to two-year-old Scott and said, “You need to take a nap in the afternoon because your mother is very tired.”

It’s safe to say I haven’t slept more than three hours at a time for all these years. And if, during those three hours, so much as a faint shadow passes in front of my closed eyes (indicating someone standing near me in the room), I’m SO awake it’s pathetic.

Once all the babies are born and getting older, you might think things settle down. You only think this if you’ve never heard of ear infections. Or throwing up. You don’t think these illnesses strike during daylight, do you? Where have you been all your life??

The nocturnal sicknesses begin to die down when the first child gets his driving permit. You will lie wide awake, your eyes fixated on the ceiling, just imagining the day your podunk backward state grants a license to your obviously terrible driver of a child. You will pray the age to drive is raised to at least 35, quick. You might even circulate petitions to that effect.

Then, when the inevitable happens and your incompetent license bureau grants permission for your kid to wreak havoc on interstate highways at a speed that may very well be faster than guardian angels are able to fly, your eyes won’t close for upwards of four years. Per child. This is where having twins would come in very handy.

During this time, your prayer life will experience a remarkable resurgence. The main thing you will pray about, besides the safety of your driving children and every vehicle with which they come into contact, is that you will be able to function for a much longer time than you ever thought possible on no sleep. None whatsoever.

About the time your youngest child has been driving for four years, and you are catching a cat nap of fifteen minutes or so every now and then, your oldest child will decide on backpacking across some very iffy countries in Asia--alone--for several weeks. He will email you that he is staying in hole-in-the-wall dives to the tune of $1 per night. He will even email you a picture of the so-called room.

You will discover that most of your children’s traveling passions--whether for missions or personal fulfillment--involve countries with epidemics of malaria, non-existent legitimate governments, and State Department warnings urging Americans to STAY AWAY. (Waving to Carrie and Kevin!)

You will be scared, very scared. Jesus will soothe your fears, but will you sleep? Try it and let me know how it works for you.

Mixed up with all this kid stuff, there will probably be a few parent things going on, too. In 2008 alone, I have spent five nights thus far with my mother in the ER. I’m talking all-nighters, people! I used to get sick if I stayed up all night at a slumber party, and I was only fourteen at the time. My body wasn’t made to stay up for 24 hours at a time, and yet--I do.

A good night for me is now one during which I’ve got a kid galavanting around a country in which a ton of travelers end up caught dead while also dealing with Mom and her seriously infectious bacterial infection of the intestine. (Please don’t ask for a list of symptoms.) When you ain’t sleeping anyway, you might as well double dip. You know what I’m sayin’?

Just when you think things are settling down a bit, your daughter will get married to a terrific guy. A really stable guy, you know? But the weather isn’t stable, and that’s when he comes to life. For you see, he’s a meteorologist.

Kansas City, as you may know, is in the thick of what’s known as Tornado Alley. I have spent fourteen years in this house, and I can count on a few hands how many times I’ve visited my own basement--and none of them have been during a storm. But now? I’ve got my darling daughter Carrie calling me at 1 a.m. saying, “Mom, Marc says you and Dad HAVE to go to the basement! NOW!!”

“Carrie,” I say, “honestly, we’ve just now gotten to sleep. Can’t this wait till morning?”

“Mom! Tornado! Promise me you’ll go to the basement!”

And so I promise her. Because that’s the kind of mom I am. And I’ll just bet you’re that kind of mom, too.

The kind of mom who goes from staying awake worrying about others to staying awake while others worry about you.

That, fallible ones, is the Sleepless Circle of Life. I’m not sure it lasts forever, but you might as well know that I’m at 29 years and counting.

But, oh, the beautiful people over whom I’ve lost all that sleep.

I’m actually shocked by how close your answer was. You guessed Americans spent $4.5 billion on ATM fees in 2007. According to this article in the New York Times, we spent $4.2 billion.

Isn’t that just the craziest amount of money to blow on something so nutty?

Marc, I trust you to handle your extra five bucks with the utmost wisdom!!!  :)

I’ll tell you right now that I’ve never used an ATM machine, except for a few times in Europe and man, did we pay for the privilege. But this isn’t about the Old Country. This is about the good old U.S.A.

The reason I’ve never used an ATM machine is simple. It costs money, and it’s no more convenient for me (perhaps even less) than getting cash when I use my debit card at WalMart or Target or the grocery store. ALL of those places---and a gazillion more--routinely ask upon checkout if I want “cash back.” If I realize that I need a bit of green for walking about, I ask for a $20 or whatever. It’s a free service. FREE.

Here we are, calling into Idol Gives Back and contributing millions of dollars out the goodness of our hearts, helping the disadvantaged both in our own country and in Africa. Here we are, planning how to spend our rebate checks, or even planning how to get out of debt with that money or start a much needed emergency fund.

I’ve got an emergency fund for you, fallible ones! I just read how much Americans spent on ATM fees in 2007. I’m not going to link to the article just yet, but let’s just say the amount could pay off the national debt of a few small countries.

For the commenter who guesses the closest (and I’m trusting you not to search for the answer before commenting), I’ll send you a $5 bill via the US Postal Service. That should cover your next cash withdrawal, assuming you use an ATM not associated with your own bank, and get charged twice for the so-called convenience.

While I’m at the USPS, I’ll probably ask for a $50, just in case you’re wondering.

Check it out! You may win your choice of a $20 Amazon gift certificate or a 5-page critique of your writing from Rachelle.

As of this writing, 89 people have entered the contest, and I’m thinking it stopped being about the $20 forever ago.

This could be your break, O ye fallible ones!

I BELIEVE that the tube of mascara, the tube of lipstick, and the tube of toothpaste are veritable bottomless pits, but in a good way. Upon awakening from a deep and dreamless sleep on the morrow, I shall be blessed with the daily manna of one more portion from each of these tubes, for such is the strength of my belief. If upon arising I am unable to squeeze, extract, or dip one additional measure from one of my beloved tubes, I shall allow such a tube to lie fallow for a period of a week, at which time I shall give it another whirl.

I BELIEVE that emory boards that have lost the power of their emory shall, after reproof, be put to rest inside the linen closet, lo, even mixed in among those quality emory boards of which it could be rightly said that “iron sharpens iron.” Upon blindly reaching in to lay hold of a random emory board with my set of ragged fingernails in a fortnight or so, I believe that the smoothness of the affected emory board shall have been restored to the glory of its former abrasiveness.

I BELIEVE that an item for retail sale with a slogan emblazoned on the packaging in the upper corner bearing the fortuitous words “As Seen On TV” is verily 99.94% more likely to be effective. Therefore, I believe I shall buy it.

I BELIEVE that if I compose a fresh to-do list, all the items on my previous to-do list must have obviously been accomplished heartily, as unto the Lord, even if they weren’t exactly checked off. I believe I do not need to look back at the old list ever, ever again.

I BELIEVE that if I am faithful to apprehend a cumbersome piece of exercise equipment and drag it home, that I will have burned so many calories and built so much strength, it won’t much matter if I use it a second time. Kind of like Samson knocking down those huge pillars, but with a better haircut.

I BELIEVE that sour milk, if returned to the fridge from which it came, will thusly smell miraculously better the next day.

I BELIEVE that vengeance is not mine, but the Lord’s, and therefore that a multitude of ballpoint pens--no matter how poorly they produce ink--shall be saved by grace. Of course, if they fail to work after experiencing a merciful junk-drawer salvation quite a few times, I reserve the right to banish them into the abyss forever.

I love the guy. LOVE. I think he can be credited for getting more regular folks on track with their finances than maybe anyone out there.

But here’s the deal: He regularly advises those who are serious about getting out of debt to get “gazelle intense,” to start delivering pizzas in the evenings for extra money, and to go on a diet of “beans and rice, and rice and beans.”

Hello! Word is that the economy’s gotten so stinkin’ bad that Americans will be spending their so-called stimulus checks not on something exciting like electronic gadgets or Alaskan cruises, but on gasoline and FOOD.

It’s just that the food they buy might not be beans and rice, if stores keep up the trend of rationing these supplies. The food purchased with a stimulus check might not be flour, oil, or corn, either. And if you think you can rely on your old cheap standby for great protein--eggs--check that price tag!

So I’m proposing that Dave change his motto to “Rib-Eye and Cheesecake, Cheesecake and Ribeye.” If we’re all going to the Poorer House anyway, why not go in culinary style?

Now, THAT’S a stimulating financial plan!