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Posted By : Angeline Hawkes - 11/29/2007 11:09 PM

HI!!!

Popped in and saw you had an author forum...hope you've been well [well, you know, well is a relative term...lol...as good as can be expected...lol...we need bionic bodies!]

Happy Holidays! ~Angie

www.angelinehawkes.com
ww.fulbrightandhawkes.com

Posted By : cussedness - 12/5/2007 4:49 PM

Sorry to be replying so late. I keep having radical fluctuations in my energy levels. The doctors are trying to get it all stablized.

I post and read in spurts on my good days.

Janrae Frank
I have no skeletons in my closet, they are all hanging from the yardarm.

Once there were three brothers, Brandrahoon the vampire, Isranon called the Dawnhand, speaker to spirits, and Waejonan the Accursed, first of sa’necari. Isranon defied his brothers and was destroyed, his descendants forced into the darkness.

Blood Rites
www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/eBook29989.htm
website
www.janraefrank.com
Darkzone
www.janraefrank.com/Vanilla.1.0.1/

Posted By : Angeline Hawkes - 12/5/2007 5:38 PM

I completely understand...I don't really function well til about 6 pm...which sucks as by then the day is over...too bad kids can't go to night school lol

www.angelinehawkes.com
ww.fulbrightandhawkes.com

Posted By : cussedness - 12/6/2007 8:34 AM

yesterday i had energy and now today I have very little, but I'm still hoping it will improve. Somedays the coffee gets me past it and other days it doesn't.

Posted By : Angeline Hawkes - 12/6/2007 2:14 PM

Oh, I know! I have to have one cup of coffee in the morning [1/2 caf or my heart protests] and then a coke mid-day...then I'm usually okay for a while...I tried to go caffeine free and failed miserably...I couldn't even walk around the room I'd get so tired...I think my body has come to rely on the drug too much...I've been drinking tea and coffee since I was 4 yrs old...no turning back now!

www.angelinehawkes.com
ww.fulbrightandhawkes.com

Posted By : cussedness - 12/6/2007 4:01 PM

That's extremely young to get used to caffiene. I started drinking iced tea around thirteen and countless sodas. these days I drink two cups of coffee a day, but i make it extra strong. I know I'm dependant upon it, but life would be a sad place without it.

One time I overindulged in coffee and could not sleep. I was wired tired. then I got the clever notion of drinking a couple of screwdrivers to kill the coffee. I did not realize how much I had drunk until I staggered into the filing cabinet and broke my toe. To add insult to injury, this frightened my dog. Levy jumped into the middle of the bed snarling at me. I surrendered the bed to the dog that night and slept on the floor.

Posted By : Angeline Hawkes - 12/6/2007 4:12 PM

OMG, your poor toe! lol.

I suspect the tea thing was due to my father having been raised in merry ole England...the coffee was from a dr who told my mother it had the reverse effect on me [still does if I drink coffee late at night, makes me sleepy]....I was a bit hyper until she started giving me the coffee [more milk than coffee I suspect]...and it, strangely, calmed me down.

www.angelinehawkes.com
ww.fulbrightandhawkes.com

Posted By : cussedness - 12/6/2007 5:39 PM

Sounds like you had a genuine hyperactive state as a child.

Posted By : Angeline Hawkes - 12/6/2007 6:00 PM

I'm probably still that way...just found a way during my teen years to channel all the energy into something productive. lol.

www.angelinehawkes.com
ww.fulbrightandhawkes.com

Posted By : cussedness - 12/6/2007 6:08 PM

That's a big help. You ought to stop by here more often. there are some great threads going on. We can always use some more voices so that the guys don't run it all. LOL

Check out the one in the fantasy forum about fantasy and horror.

Posted By : Angeline Hawkes - 12/6/2007 6:32 PM

I'll try to pop in tonight...have some submissions to get out after the kids scoot off to their dad's house. :)

www.angelinehawkes.com
ww.fulbrightandhawkes.com

Posted By : cussedness - 12/7/2007 1:53 PM

It's a good place to be, Angie.

Posted By : Angeline Hawkes - 12/7/2007 2:01 PM

Alas, no late night poppage! lol....I did get 13 submissions out...holding one novella for a publisher who wants to look at it toward the end of this month. Busy night. Also made cookies to use up the leftover cranberries I stuck in the freezer on Thanksgiving...so very productive overall.

www.angelinehawkes.com
ww.fulbrightandhawkes.com

Posted By : cussedness - 12/7/2007 2:10 PM

Cookies sound wonderful. I was telling Steven about the Great Cookie Raids when I was a kid. At fourteen I took over all the cooking for weekdays and every Friday I baked. I would usually produce about three dozen cookies, two pies, and a cake. Then the relatives would show up on the weekends and eat it all, except what Mama held back for lunches the next week.

I have two half brothers, four step-brothers, and we had eight males cousins living on the same block. All of them younger than I am. They launched many schemes to steal the cookies, some successful and some not.

One day they staged a riot on the front lawn. Fists were flying and I could see it from the kitchen window. So I rushed out to break it up. Just then, my cousin David, ran past us yelling "I got them!"

The fighting and arguing stopped instantly and all the boys raced after David.

The fight had been a ploy to lure me out so he could steal the cookies. He made off with the entire three dozen.

Posted By : crystalwizard - 12/7/2007 2:47 PM

cussedness said...

The fight had been a ploy to lure me out so he could steal the cookies. He made off with the entire three dozen.

I would have made the next weeks batch with heavy salt, no sugar and something vile tasting. Then baked a second batch when they were busy being ill.

Never meddle in the affairs of a wizard unless you are soggy and hard to light!

Managing Editor of Flashing Swords

Visit my art gallery on art wanted
All my books in print

Posted By : cussedness - 12/7/2007 3:23 PM

That would have cured them. I did something similar to Papa one time. He was a weekend alcoholic until he retired and then he became a fulltime one. He was so drunk at my birthday party when I turned 17, that it embarrassed me.

He had hidden his bottle in the garage where Mama could not find it, so I watched out my bedroom window until I saw him and my Uncle Joe (also an alkie) go in and get it. once I knew where it was, I went out to the garage and replaced the whiskey with cod liver oil. They were so drunk they had no idea what they were drinking, but had the following discussion that has stuck in my mind.

Papa "tastes like someone poisoned it."
Joe "tastes fine to me. if you don't drink it, I will."

And they drank it all up. The next day, in addition to having hangovers, they had diarrhea. My aunt Mable, Joe's wife, had an uncanny gift for spotting when the villian in the situation was me. She asked me straight out what i had done to the guys. Cornered, I admitted my guilt. They were tickled by it, but I was still grounded.

Posted By : Angeline Hawkes - 12/7/2007 3:37 PM

I'm with Crystalwizard! lol...some sort of vengeance would have been in order!

OMG on the bottle episode...you were a guttsy one! Ah, the sweet memories of childhood...lol!

www.angelinehawkes.com
ww.fulbrightandhawkes.com

Posted By : cussedness - 12/7/2007 5:29 PM

i have sometimes identified with the thinking of Bilbo Baggins after the adventure with the giant spiders. It was the time that he felt the most dread, and yet later it was the time he most like to talk about.

Kind of sums up my peculiar childhood. LOL

Posted By : Angeline Hawkes - 12/7/2007 5:30 PM

Hell is the word that sums up mine. lol!

www.angelinehawkes.com
ww.fulbrightandhawkes.com

Posted By : cussedness - 12/7/2007 5:53 PM

I had heaven and hell intermittantly. As long as I was with my grandparents, who I refer to as mama and papa, it was mostly heaven. Despite their flaws, they gave me love, understanding, tolerance, and encouragement. Every time my mother moved back in with us it was hell. Hell became permanent when she married my second step-father and lived close to us.

There are things I can't talk about until I'm certain that the people involved are dead and gone. For instance, i can't say who it was that cut the breaklines on my car and nearly killed me. He admitted it to me, gave me a naughty boy smile, and shrugged. There was nothing I could do about it, and he knew it.

Then there was the time when, in an attempt to break my grandmother's will that left me everything, relatives got me locked up in the loony bin for being crazy. John Steakley and Robert Adams (horseclans novels) got a bunch of other writers and editors to ride to my rescue, and I was sprung on a writ of habeas corpus. John and his friends went everywhere with me as bodyguards until I was finally able to flee to California. That's the main reason I will not return to Texas until i know the people involved are either dead or living in another state.

I have only recently stopped being afraid that certain members of my family would find me again.

Posted By : Angeline Hawkes - 12/7/2007 7:03 PM

Hey! I know John...he might not know me by name, lol...he tried to pick me up in the bar at a local con, lol. He probably remembers the leather pants. We were also on numerous monster/vampire panels together over the course of a few years. He's always been nice. Do you know how he is? He's been AWOL from about 3 cons with no one knowing where or how he is...rumor has it that he's sick...but you know rumors.

Well, you know some of my past, and I share the same posting situation.

www.angelinehawkes.com
ww.fulbrightandhawkes.com

Posted By : cussedness - 12/7/2007 7:39 PM

I deliberately fell out of touch with John and the rest of the authors i was close to. You see, even though my books regularly make the best seller lists, they are still just ebooks. Small potatoes. I did not want to seem like a beggar on their doorstep.

If I were ever able to get a print deal, then i would start to look people up again.

But John was magnificent. A real hero in John Wayne style when he rescued me. i had to face those same family members who had done that to me several times as the legal actions proceeded and John was there every step of the way. John and his friends would not let those monsters get near me. The year was 1984.

The only ones that made any large sums out of the battle were the attorneys and there was basically nothing left of what Mama had left me within a year of fighting, but at least I got away to California with Sovay who was a year old at the time and had enough to make a modest start over.

My Journey of the Sacred King novels contain metaphorical versions of what happened to me in 1984. It was how I came to terms with it.

Posted By : Angeline Hawkes - 12/8/2007 2:12 PM

That's awful. I'm glad you had such good friends to help. You shouldn't feel that way about your books. I see the sales numbers on Fictionwise AND the great ratings...you should be very proud. You're an amazing writer who is SO underestimated. This biz will drain the freakin' soul right out of you if you let it...but you know that. I admire your pluck and stamina in this industry.

1984. I was a Freshman in high school, published for 3 yrs...I had been submitting since age 10...why the hell am I still doing this? lol...We're all mf-ing insane, that's why! "Rejection? Sure, may I have another?" lol. Funny how one little success can give you the strength to coast over all those slapdowns until the next success comes along. Sigh. Writing is a hard life.

I'm glad you were able to start over and save your baby from the monsters. You have an amazing story, Janrae. A true inspiration!

www.angelinehawkes.com
ww.fulbrightandhawkes.com

Posted By : cussedness - 12/8/2007 2:34 PM

thanks, Angie. It was a complicated situation. Mickey, my bio mom (Mama's daughter), kept telling me i owed her a child and made several attempts to snatch Sovay with male relatives to back her up. One of them slammed my bad leg into a table so hard that it crumpled. They had come for Sovay and a bunch of Mama's papers. My ex was a slender wuss and could not fight to save his life, but he grabbed Sovay and fled out the back while i was attempting to hold them off. A baptist minister hid them for a day and then helped Hank book a flight to California. Before he could get back to Texas after getting Sovay to safety, they had locked me up. Bjo Trimble watched over Sovay while Hank contacted Robert Adams for advice. Adams suggested getting in touch with John while he made a bunch of phone calls to rally the troops. Then Hank flew back to Texas.

I was not allowed phone calls while i was locked up in the loony bin. My first clue was when the shrink my mother had persuaded to lock me up got nervous, smelling a possible lawsuit, because editors and authors were phoning and faxing and jumping on him. I should have sued. But I was in bad shape from everything that had happened to me and just grateful to go into hiding in California.

Posted By : Angeline Hawkes - 12/8/2007 8:55 PM

Wow, that's terrible. A fictionalized account would make for a scary story. A lot of my "scaries" have found their way into my work here or there. One thing I've found in my life: Blood might be thicker than water...but there's a whole lot more water out there than blood. lol.

www.angelinehawkes.com
ww.fulbrightandhawkes.com

Posted By : cussedness - 12/8/2007 9:07 PM

truth can be a lot stranger than fiction at times. At least i escaped and that is what counts. When it comes right down to it, the heroes of the situation were John and Bob.

there are still patchy places in my memory and events that i can't place in perfect order leading up to my incarceration. The trauma left me numb for several years and contributed to my developing writers block where fiction was concerned for fifteen years.

I married Hank at 24. he was 34. i had never touched alcohol. Robert Adams delighted in playing a few pranks on me because of it. one day he handed me a little glass and told me to drink it all right down. I asked him what was in it and he would not say, but kept grinning at me. So i drank it, choked and gasped and felt as if my throat would be permanently scarred. It was Tulamore Dew. Bob loved Tully. He taught me to drink it. LOL.

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