As they say in the market, it was rather “flat.” That being, some good, some bad, all balances out. Certainly business for Valdata Services declined as I saw three clients close their doors, one being my largest long-term customer. Sad, indeed, and I will miss these great people I interacted with on a daily basis. I wish them all much success (and stability) in the coming year.

Another downer was my inability to get any writing done; that is, if you don’t count the nineteen essays I wrote for school. After a negative experience with a neurotic and overtly rude correspondent, I lost some ambition which is finally beginning to return.

I probably gained 13 pounds this year, and my school obligations discouraged me from getting to the gym, which I subtly abandoned in August. (They actually called to see where I was!)

On the upside, school was great and I’m 9 units away from my degree. The tutoring job I took at the college was rewarding and enlightening. I met lots of wonderful people this year, writers, teachers, high school alumnus, cancer warriors, mountain dwellers, and a few brave souls still working in escrow. I moved to Android this year, and my 6 year old Highlander is still running like new. My brother survived a life-threatening illness. My sons are both working, my grandson is happy and healthy, my daughter is a beautiful, talented and resourceful teen, and my husband realized his dream of building a mountain home. I am incredibly blessed and thankful.

What for 2012?

I have plans, nothing earth-shattering. I need to get back to the Y. I’ll return to my tutoring job in the spring, along with taking 6 units. I’ll complete at least one novel—hopefully the third lighthouse mystery set in Los Angeles. I’m going to try to re-release a couple of my backlist novels soon. Will continue to work with both the SCV Education Foundation and the Circle of Hope*. I hope to do some public presentations similar to one I did on California lighthouses for the library this past January. Three more units in the fall will finish my degree in English.

Pam & Kwei

To lighten the tone after my last cranky post, here’s a snapshot taken yesterday at Barnes & Noble, Valencia, California. Kwei Quartey is the author of the Inspector Darko Dawson Mystery series, the most recent of which is CHILDREN OF THE STREET. Kwei is a delightful guy and I’m always glad to see him. He periodically sends me lighthouse photos he snaps while traveling, most often from Ghana, his home country.

Big thanks to Jackie Vick and Sisters in Crime/Los Angeles for setting up our panel discussion. Also to Lori Christian of Barnes and Noble, a most gracious and knowledgeable hostess! We’re hoping to put together a lighthouse discussion in the future.

If you missed this event, all of our books are available at Barnes and Noble, as well as that other big online bookseller you might know about.

January 12, 2011 – Santa Paula, CA – The earliest of California’s 35+ lighthouses have protected its coastal waters for over 160 years, and are thus a big part of the state’s history. According to local So. Cal. author Pam Ripling (who also writes as Anne Carter), these iconic symbols of protection, guidance and times past evoke a variety of thoughts and emotions. In recognition of Blanchard Community Library’s Centennial Celebration of California History, Ms. Ripling will share her knowledge of our West Coast beacons, relating how they came to be and where they are now.

Beginning with an overview of the multitude and variety of light stations constructed statewide, Ripling with focus on a few of her favorites, relating rich historical detail and anecdotal background. Ms. Ripling will also explain how, as a mystery author, she is inspired by lighthouses and works with them as aura-enhanced settings for her novels. Throughout her travels, Ripling has visited many of these lighthouses and will offer an entertaining PowerPoint slideshow to augment her presentation.

Also included in Ms. Ripling’s talk will be a discussion for fiction readers and aspiring authors about the fascinating process of researching her subjects. She will explain why an abandoned lighthouse six miles off the California coast might be the perfect setting for romance…and possibly murder. Using the real-life St. George Reef Lighthouse as her inspiration, Ripling (as Anne Carter) penned her second paranormal lighthouse mystery, CAPE SEDUCTION, (Echelon Press, 288 pp., $13.99), released in the fall of September, 2010.

Extensive research included interviewing one of the last keepers from St. George Reef Lighthouse. While the station in Ripling’s book is entirely fictional, the Coast Guardsman’s memories were invaluable in helping the author create a believable setting for CAPE SEDUCTION. “He described in great detail what it took to keep the lighthouse working—without electricity—in the 1940′s, and what one would have to do to survive locked away in a tower entrapped by treacherous seas.”

Born in the Midwest, Pam Ripling is the author of six published novels, a variety of fictional shorts and non-fiction articles. The married mother of three is a member of Sisters in Crime/Los Angeles and her short story Just Like Jay appears in their newest anthology, MURDER IN LA LA LAND.

Ms. Ripling will be signing a limited number of her books for attendees.

Blanchard Community Library is located at 119 North 8th Street, Santa Paula, CA 93060-2709. For more info on the library’s Centennial Celebration, contact District Librarian Daniel Robles at (805) 525-3615.

Our Lovely Tree

Happy New Year.

Have been thinking about what to say, but I’m so late I’m afraid all the good topics have already been written. And it’s already the 4^th; folks are probably DONE hearing about how bad the ending of LOST was, how sad it was when so-and-so passed away, how shocking it was to see Miley sucking on a bong. Okay, maybe not so shocking, that.

And the year to come? My plans? I have plenty. In the writing arena, I’ve made some decisions concerning my backlist, which has been just sort of sitting without much support from me. These three books are going to get a minor makeover and be re-released under my own publishing byline by this spring. New edits, new covers, new prices. I mean, why not?

Becoming a publisher means I can publish some other things, too, experimental works and some shorts for a couple of

Great Room Ready for Drywall

new authors just wanting to dip a toe in the water. I’ll need an editor or two, and some help with the cover art. Cover art must be first rate, it’s the very first impression and if it’s shoddy or amateur, no level of quality in the book will make a difference.

That being said, my books with Echelon (CAPE SEDUCTION, POINT SURRENDER) will stay with Echelon. I have no desire to move them, and will continue to promote them alongside my newly released backlist work. If I’m right, all will benefit. I will focus heavily on ebooks this year (as if I haven’t for twelve years already!), although with the help of sites like Amazon’s CreateSpace I can re-release my older books in paperback as well. I’m glad for that, for those people still digging in about paper.

Once I reach a level of completion with this project, I’ll be able to resume work on my next lighthouse mystery. ANGEL’S GATE is started, but I felt it was heading toward a proverbial cul-de-sac and I need to back up and take a turn. I’m hoping to be able to convince the PTB to let me inside the real Angel’s Gate Lighthouse in Los Angeles Harbor. I just need to meet the right person!

Upcoming:

On January 22^nd, I’ll be speaking at the Blanchard Community Library in Santa Paula, California. The topic? Lighthouses, of course! Specifically, California’s lighthouses, and how they helped shape our history (it is California history month, after all.) I will focus on a few specific beacons, then segue into those that inspired my work. Really looking forward to this event.

Considering Romantic Times Convention on April 8 at the Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles. Pricy, but lots of fun. Will advise.

April 30/May 1, in addition to my yearly stint signing with Sisters in Crime/LA, I’m joining a small consortium of authors in a booth at the L.A. Times Festival of Books, this year being held at the University of Southern California. I hope UCLA fans won’t stay away!

The cabin in the mountains is coming along nicely! Should be done late February. I can’t wait to hunker down with my books and hot toddy before a roaring fire…

Outgoing:

Over the holidays, my niece and I took a day off and drove up to Santa Barbara for lunch. To our astonishment, both Barnes and Noble and Border’s were selling out their inventories, both closing their doors on December 31^st. These stores are across the street from each other. I guess Santa Barbara book buyers will have to turn to the web. And ebooks?

Speaking of those minute miracles, I am rapidly filling up the new COLOR NOOK my husband bought me for Christmas! Man, do I love this device. I’ve always been somewhat of a gadget person, but this thing is fab. Does almost all that an iPad does – for half the money. I’ve loaded it up with songs, photos, books – I can do a crossword puzzle, check Facebook, write an email and edit my latest manuscript – and I can do it in the dark!

Follow up:

Further to my “Long Lost Relatives” post, I was contacted by my newly discovered cousin’s ex-wife. I wrote her back, giving her all the info I had and the one photo from my website. She has yet to respond, but I can wait. It’s been my whole life, after all.

St. George Reef Lighthouse

High points (and pun slightly intended) were the lighthouses. Sigh. First, Point Cabrillo, just north of Mendocino, California. Darlingest little beacon. No tours (the tower was chained off) and the main floor is now a gift shop. DD and I romped around taking photos and complained because I’d left my wallet with DH, down the road.

Next was Battery Point in Crescent City. We stayed at (where else?) The Lighthouse Inn. Lovely people, and a lobbyful

The Glamorous, Success Author at Battery Point

of lighthouse pictures and artifacts. INCLUDING a huge wall mural of St. George Reef Lighthouse, which figures prominently in my new book, CAPE SEDUCTION! How hauntingly apropos. Staff was lovely. They agreed to display my rack cards!

Battery Point is a beautiful lighthouse, accessed only at low tide. DD and I took a tour. The docents were volunteers who get a month of lighthouse keeping at a time, and the waiting list is LONG. I passed out bookmarks and postcards to two very giddy lighthouse loving ladies.

Last was one of my favorites, Heceta Head Lighthouse in Yachats, Oregon. One of the most photographed beacons in the U.S. Another tour, lots of good info.

The Astonishing Heceta Head

Great gift shop (had my wallet this time!!) Could have stayed here all day. This lighthouse is on the cover of POINT SURRENDER. Heceta Head, by the way, is on tap for a major facelift next year. Needs it, badly.

Couldn’t see them all. Passed several up on the way, hopefully to be visited another time. I’ll be traveling back to my brother’s house in late August, at which time we’ll visit Point No Point Lighthouse. Can’t wait!

St. George Reef inside The Lighthouse Inn!

Evidence of decay. Still beautiful

Hollywood was wooing back the public with blockbusters like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Key Largo and The Three Musketeers. The beautiful people were “seen” at the Brown Derby and held their not-so-secret trysts at Chateau Marmont. They drove fishtail-finned Caddies and flew in the luxurious Douglas DC-6.

Darla Foster wanted to be in pictures. Just 21, she worked the circles, attached herself to the arm of any available actor with connections. On this night, March 20, 1948, one of her dreams came true as she sat at Sid Grauman’s Chinese Theatre watching Hollywood’s brightest accept their coveted Oscar statuettes. Later, at the Derby with her date, she met one of Tinsel Town’s favorite sons: the suave, slick headliner, Jordan Kent.

Darla’s life was about to take a sudden left turn as she found herself cast in Jordan’s next big film, about star-crossed lovers, a lighthouse and murder. Exciting fantasy, or true life?

CAPE SEDUCTION… available now for your reading pleasure!  BUY IT HERE:

But what drives those gears? In classic clocks and watches, a coiled spring produces tension and must be re-wound in order to keep the timepiece running. In tall, free-standing “grandfather” clocks, it is a weight mechanism that provides the clock’s movement. Basic gravity swings the grandfather clock pendulum, making the weights drop at fixed paces. The falling weights drive the grandfather clock’s functions.

Before the introduction of electricity in lighthouses, this same clockwork mechanism was used to operate the gears that turned the lens. While a clock’s chain might be thirty-six inches or less, the rope attached to the weight in a lighthouse was several feet long and hung down the center of the lighthouse tower. When the weight reached as far as it could go (presumably to the bottom floor of the lighthouse), the keeper had to wind the clockwork mechanism again to raise the heavy weight and start the whole process over. The taller the lighthouse, the longer the rope might be. Many lighthouses had to have the mechanism wound every few hours.

An early lighthouse keeper in Minnesota is said to have slept beneath the hanging weight in order not to sleep through the onerous task of rewinding the mechanism! Can you imagine being awakened several times a night, with a hanging, 170 pound weight brushing your belly?

And we think our jobs are hard.

Watch more cool animation and creative cartoons at Aniboom

Thanks to New England Lighthouses for finding this little chuckle!