ROSEMARY HARRIS: Today Jungle Red welcomes one of the terrific writers and teachers from MWA University and she claims that despite the calm, efficient, brilliant demeanor she displays at those events - she's really a little crazy.


I am a catastrophic thinker. I'm not saying I'm a worrier, or that I have an overactive imagination. I’m saying I’m crazy. Here’s an example:

My kids and I attend Tae Kwon Do classes every Tuesday and Thursday, and every Tuesday and Thursday, we return to our little house in small-town Minnesota at 8:30 pm. This particular Thursday in early April, we’d arrived home to find a potted begonia on our back step. The temperature was hovering around 12 degrees above zero, but that begonia was green and fresh in its brown paper bag. Somebody knew exactly when we were returning home and had timed their flower-leaving accordingly. Five more minutes, and it would have been frozen solid.

My kids thought it was a nice gesture, and I encouraged that. In my head, though, I was thinking: We've recently moved to town. We don't know anyone here. All my friends and family live at least 30 minutes away. No one I know would leave a flower on my back step without a note. Clearly, a serial killer has been tracking me and my babies for weeks, he has learned when we come and go, and he's leaving his calling card--the orange begonia--right before he murders us in our sleep.

That night, I slept on the couch with a knife. It was my chef's knife without the tip, which I had broken off a couple years earlier in a pound of frozen ground turkey that wasn't thawing fast enough. It was the sharpest one I had, but that's hardly the point, is it? SOMEBODY LEFT ME A FLOWER AND IT MADE ME SLEEP WITH A KNIFE.

And there's something about having kids that super-revs the powers of catastrophic thinking. I have to travel to conferences and out-of-state signings about seven times a year, and I leave my kids, ages 10 and 13, with my parents. Every time I go, I say the same thing to my mom: "Don't forget you're watching them."

And she always says the same thing back. "Don't worry. I raised you, remember?"

I might not be her best reference. I remember how many times she let me walk to the store alone when I was five, or how she encouraged me to miss two weeks of 5th grade because we didn't like the politics of the long-term sub. But I get her point. I survived, and my kids will too.

Still, when my plane leaves the ground or my wheels cross the state line, my catastrophic thinking kicks in. What if one of my children was kidnapped? Would I be able to find them? Could I go on living if I didn't find them? Or if they were in the hospital, how long would it take me to get back to them? What do you even think about when you're waiting to catch a flight back to your children in a hospital? Should I call and make sure they're okay? Or should I wait until I've been gone five minutes?

Ack. And don't even get me started on public speaking. You know how people say, "It was an honor just to be nominated?" I mean it. I like staying in the audience. I'm pretty sure that if I ever had to stand and speak in front of a crowd of people I respected in any capacity other than teaching, I'd start bleating like a sheep right before my bowels relaxed. (Ro's note...so hard to believe as Jess is a wonderful speaker!)

So there you have it. The true confessions of a catastrophic thinker. I imagine there’s a medication for it, but I think the same part of my brain that takes these wicked spirals is the part that loves reading and spinning stories. All it takes is a spark, and I can run with it. Also, the superstitious part of me is sure that thinking about all the bad stuff that could happen is protection AGAINST it happening. Sorry, author of the The Secret.

p.s. An old college friend who lived 35 miles away and had heard I'd moved back to town was the one who left the begonia. She was dropping it off on a whim and didn't leave a note because she didn't have a pen. See? All my worrying scared off the serial killer.


Jess Lourey writes the Lefty-nominated Murder-by-Month Mysteries.

In a starred review of November Hunt, her latest, Booklist writes, "It's not easy to make people laugh while they're on the edge of their seats, but Lourey pulls it off!"

Jess’ first in a young adult fantasy series, The Toadhouse Trilogy, Book One, hits bookshelves in early July. The Toadhouse aims to do for classic literature what Rick Riordan did for Greek mythology. You can visit her at www.jesslourey.com (mysteries) or www.thetoadhousetrilogy.com (YA).

Read an excerpt of The Toadhouse Trilogy here http://www.jesslourey.com/toadhouse/ToadhouseIntro.pdf