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Yesterday I spoke (bragged) about Mona’s new book, “Just Pick the Least Worst.” To some this may be obvious – of COURSE I am
going to brag about it, not because she’s my wife (and I really do like
sleeping in the same bed instead of the closet), but because she is the writer
in the family. Yes, I write, and have
written, but she WRITES.
I mean, she’s the real
talent. I’m just a hack.
I did a lot of freelancing in the 90s. Was published in a variety of places,
including a number of gaming-related magazines.
Made a couple of airline mags.
Wrote a regular column and features for a long-dead Boise weekly
newspaper. Had fun and made some money,
but not a lot, so I went back to a real job.
At the same time, Mona tried her hand at writing, and sold a few
articles, and then a short story that became a serial and then an actual
book. A popular book, that sadly is no
longer in print (but copies remain in the resale market on Amazon and others).
So when she set out to write another book, I had all the
confidence that she’d get that one published, too. “Just Pick the Least Worst” is a
humor book, because that’s what she really wanted to write, and she’d a very,
very funny person. She’d have to be to
be married to me (stop it right there – having a sense of humor is not the same
as being funny, although both are needed to be married to me). We’ve read lots of so-called humor novels and
frankly, they mostly leave us wanting in that the story might be OK, but it’s
not funny. At all. Hence, her desire to write something that makes
you giggle at times, guffaw in spots, and occasionally spit something out your
nose.
Yeah, THAT funny. And
where does she get the material for such funniness?
From life, and that crazy head of hers. Is buying a house that difficult? Perhaps.
Is it as crazy (and hilarious) as she describes it? Whaddaya,
nuts? You bet it is.
She wrote her first book, Home on the Trail, as a fictional historical novel. It’s a tale of a couple that flees a life of
hardship in Michigan and tackles with Oregon Trail with a group, only to stop
short of the goal and settle near Fort Boise.
And even though we’re from Michigan and lived in Boise it’s not about
US. It’s fiction, even though the couple
had two kids, a boy and a girl, and we had two dogs, a boy and a girl, and…OK,
there are a few more “coincidences.” But
it’s fiction.
So is “Just Pick the Least Worst” – a story
about a couple on the move and fiction. Really.
No, YOU ARE NOT IN THIS STORY and MARILLA AND FORELOCK ARE NOT US.
It’s the story of a young couple who, after making several
moves around the country decide to move from their last rental and buy a home
which is a real fixer-upper and the trial and tribulations they suffer at the
hands of realtors and bankers and family and movers and even the stupid people
at the title company but it’s NOT about US.
Sure, we’ve moved 13 times in five cities and owned four homes and two
were fixer-uppers and Christmas with our extended families means four huge
meals PLUS snacks in less than 24 hours but this is a work of FICTION. Any names, characters, businesses, places,
events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or
used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
or actual events is dumb luck.
Fiction. And it’s
funnier than hell, because truth is stranger
than fiction.
And no doubt there will be further adventures of Marilla
Parabola, because we’re lived a very full and funny life, and we’re not
finished just yet.
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