Lori Tiron-Pandit posted an interview she conducted with yours truly today. You can read it on her website.

While you’re there, you should check out her poetry. Amazing stuff.

This one – and I’m not kidding – made me cry. But in the good way.

I read this book, all the way amazed by the vitality of the writing, all the way trying to label it, to encase it in some sort of genre. I have decided to call this realist idealism. No, they are not mutually exclusive in my book, and believe me, when realism and idealism meet, spectacular ensues.

The protagonist (Tess) “looks like shit” most of the time and works as a cleaning lady and her love interest (Brian) has a construction company. They are working class, real people with even more real problems that make our real lives look absurdly fictional. They deal with abuse, drugs, absent parents, abortions, beatings and death. Still, although they live in a seemingly endless ”cold, cruel, frigid winter” nobody ever stops waiting for spring.

Tess drinks a bit too much, without apologizing or trying to make it look cute. But Tess is also an artist who sees the world in crayon and paint colors.

“I still can’t remember his name, but his hair was Goldenrod and his eyes were Sky Blue.”

For me this sentence was convincing enough. If it isn’t for you, then read further.

With her self-worth crushed to nothingness from childhood, Tess finds the strength to defend aggressively the ones she loves. She fights with God for them. Because Tess remains pure and beautiful all throughout a life in which she obsessively cleans offices, her past, bathrooms, sins, kitchens, a path for the future.

“The next day I cleaned, all day long. First my apartment, scrubbed every inch of it, from ceiling to floor. Then Brian’s. I called Laura at work, begged her to let me watch Cassidy at her house after school instead of mine so I could please clean something there,[…]”

I needed to do a lot of re-reading, a lot of going back to the same passage to understand exactly what was that about, because this author assumes her readers are of the intelligent sort. And I love it when somebody thinks of me like that.

This is the kind of book that I like: not a fast read because it is too thought provoking, multi-layered and simply beautifully written. And besides being beautifully written, the story flows seamlessly like a good movie, pulling the reader in that universe for a good amount of time, much longer than it takes to only read the book.

I could write more about the leitmotif of flying, falling, landing hard, the symbolism of the hard soil and the spring, the counting, or the the repetitive phrases of internal dialogue that  torture Tess. But I’m gonna stop now, because I just finished reading the book and I am too overwhelmed and because I want to let you find the scattered beauty in this novel on your own. It’s a good book, if you don’t mind reading through a haze of half-shed tears. Just until the last fifty pages or so. Those you read shaking through an overflow. It’s a good book to read while we’re all waiting for a spring of our own.

Read it HERE.

Thank you Lori.

We’ve got all your ice fishing and Valentine’s Day supplies…

I’ve had three takers so far in the “Whoo hoo, I’d love to be in a commercial trailer for Waiting For Spring!” offer. It would be awesome if I had a few more.

Just to ease your mind:

• It doesn’t require you to dress up in a costume (unless that’s your thing. Just please wear pants. Unless you look like Brian LaChance.)
• It will consist of reading two lines, and (if you’d like) a brief mention of why you enjoyed reading WFS.
• If you’re super shy, or if you’re in the Witness Protection program, I can pixelize your face if you want. I have the technology. (Come to think of it, I guess that means you don’t have to wear pants if you don’t want to.)

If it’s something you might even be REMOTELY interested in, please let me know, either here in the comments box or by emailing me at rjkeller.wfs@gmail.com

Also, today is Wednesday…my day for waxing poetic at Publishing Renaissance. Check it out.

Have you read Waiting For Spring?

Did you like it?

Do you have a digital video camera?

Would you like to appear in a new commercial trailer for the book, have fun while doing it, and garner worldwide fame*?

Simply shoot me over an email for details!

           rjkeller.wfs@gmail.com

* Worldwide fame very unlikely.

Zoe Winters‘ story – called A Safer Life –  has made it to the semi-final rounds in the Better Sex Erotic Fiction Contest after making it through the first round of voting back in November. I read it again this afternoon and dang! I’d forgotten just how hot it is.

Head on over and give her your vote.

Even though potpourri triggers my asthma

* I’m still recovering from my soujourn to Migraineville. Unfortunately, I travel there quite frequently, but this week’s visit was my worst evah. The pain went away yesterday evening, but I’m still feeling a bit…ugh-y. Thanks for all of your comments of concern and support, as well as for your medicinal suggestions. I’ve got an appointment with my doctor next week, and Imitrex will be on the top o’ my Things To Discuss list.

* Next week I’ll be picking up an extra shift at the store, a graveyard shift. This is bad news for my sleep patterns, but good news for my blog readers, as I should start having more stories of local flavor to relate. (Second shift doesn’t seem to attract the same caliber of customers as third. Go figure.)

* Quite possibly the coolest part of living in my particular neck of the boonies of Maine is that I have access to WKIT 100.3 – Stephen King’s Rock n’ roll Station. Every Thursday night between 11-12 they air Homemade Jam, an hour of programming dedicated to local bands. Last night’s songs included “Slow Motion Michelle” by a guy named Joshua Madore. It is seriously the coolest song I’ve heard in a long time. You can hear it here (and buy it) along with his other stuff.  This is the dude’s MySpace page. (I am not affiliated with the guy in any way. I just have a serious crush on his voice and predict that you will soon, too.) 

* Superbowl Sunday is this weekend, which means it’s time for my annual Superbowl prediction. This year, my beloved Patriots aren’t in the show, and since I don’t really know a whole lot about the actual game of football other than that Tom Brady is hot – and since he didn’t play this year anyway – I’m forced to use my “Whose uniform is best?”  method of prediction. So here goes:

Cardinals 829 – Steelers 2

Or something like that.

UPDATE: My friend, Crystal Lynn, says:

IT WILL BE THE STEELERS WHO WIN!!!!
 
WHY????? 
If I stand out in a blizzard to cheer the team on at a rally, they had better darn well win!!!

Mayo Clinic definition of migraine:

A migraine can be disabling — with symptoms so severe, all you can think about is finding a dark, quiet place to lie down. Up to 17 percent of women and 6 percent of men have experienced a migraine.

In some cases, these painful headaches are preceded or accompanied by a sensory warning sign (aura), such as flashes of light, blind spots or tingling in your arm or leg. A migraine is also often accompanied by other signs and symptoms, such as nausea, vomiting, and extreme sensitivity to light and sound. Migraine pain can be excruciating and may incapacitate you for hours or even days.

Kel’s definition of migraine:

Satan let loose a particularly perverse band of demons from the dark recesses of hell with a rusty saw to slowly cut open my skull and shove ten pounds of shattered glass directly into my brain. I’ll be honest…it hurt so badly that I cried. A lot. That just made it hurt worse.

As a result, I did not make my usual Wednesday post over at Publishing Renaissance. The worst seems to be over, though, so hopefully soon. Maybe.

We’ll see…

Looking for a good book? I know you are. How ’bout a good deal on a good book? Well, here you go. Check out the trailer, then check out the deal on the link below it.

The deal.

EDITED TO ADD (because I’m a pinhead and forgot to add this earlier):

Check out my review here.

And it’s not wordless. (You didn’t actually think I could do a post with no words, did you?)

“Pay no attention to the cat behind the curtain…”

Starring Kel’s cat, Hazel.