Horrors! Will you be seeing IT?

Some of you early risers saw this post on Monday... then Las Vegas happened, its own kind of horror and we pulled it. 

HALLIE EPHRON: The big movie this fall is "IT," an adaptation of Stephen King's 1986 novel with a terrifying clown with red balloons as the bogeyman. The reviews are raves, with comparisons to one of my all-time favorite, "Stand by Me." But the trailer (which is all that I have the courage to watch) is terrifying. 

It ends with the question: What are you afraid of? 

Which got me thinking about the scary movies I've seen and the fears they embedded in me. 

"Repulsion" (1965) I'll never forget the scene in this Roman Polanski film with Catherine Deneuve in her nightgown, terrorized by arms breaking through the walls and trying to molest her. Hold the dark hallways with no exit and disembodied limbs. 

"Rosemary's Baby" (1967) I lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan when I saw Rosemary's Baby, filmed at the nearby Dakota. I still remember poor pregnant Mia Farrow eating raw meat, growing more and more hollow-eyed, and falling into the demented hands of Ruth Gordon. Yes, babies can be scary

"Les Diaboliques" (1955) I probably saw it at the Thalia in New York where they ran classic films. Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, it's the story of a man's wife and mistress who drown him in the bathtub and dump the body in a murky swimming pool. Then the corpse disappears and strange things start happening. Best surprise ending ever and it stars the sublime Simon Signoret. Good for decades of murky water and bathtub nightmares.

What are the horror films that are, for better or for worse, embedded in your memory, and will you be seeing "IT"? 

JENN McKINLAY: Not only did I see "IT," but IT has turned into an epic prank war in my house. 

After my people dragged me to IT, I thought it would be hilarious to hide red balloons all over the house. I did not expect the joke to turn on me and now life-size cutouts of Pennywise (Stephen King's terrifying clown in IT) are randomly hidden all over my house by the Hub, the Hooligans and me. There are a lot of jump scares and profanity happening here! 

Truthfully, we're all having a grand time scaring ourselves and while IT the movie was terrifying, it was also funny, and the young actors were all brilliant. I highly recommend IT! 

As for what scares me, the scariest movie I've seen by far was Disturbia (2007) with Shia LaBeouf, playing a teen under house arrest who starts spying on his neighbors and thinks one of them is a serial killer. It was brilliant and almost excruciating (the suspense!) to watch.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I adore Stephen King, but there's no way on the planet I'm going to see IT.  Adore "Rosemary's Baby," one of my all-time favorite movies.

Three horror things. I did see "Scream," which was silly of me and I hardly remember it. BUT the guy who played the crazed psycho killer (Matt Lillard) is one of my stepson's best friends and was the best man at his wedding. That was disturbing.

Also. Years ago, Jonathan and I saw "The Game." It's one of those nothing-is-what-it-seems-some-things-are-tricks-but-what-if-they-aren't movies. We came home, and thought we were alone--when the living room curtains began to twitch. From inside, BEHIND the curtains.  I almost fainted, seriously. (A squirrel had gotten in, and it turned out to be hilarious.)

But my most un-favorite horror movie, so unfavorite that I truly wish I could un-see it, is "The Vanishing." (Not the Keifer Sutherland version, the real one, it's Dutch). You all, it is awful. AWFUL. SO disturbing that it haunts me to this day, and when one of us can't find each other in the grocery for instance, when we see each other we say--oh, I thought you had vanished. And then we shake our heads and shiver. 

Have you seen it? Do  NOT see it.

INGRID THOFT:  Chief Fraidy Cat reporting for duty!  I have no capacity for watching scary movies.  None.  I was recently subjected to the “IT” preview in the movie theater, and it scared the daylights out of me.  

I think it all begin during a fifth-grade sleepover during which, “Poltergeist” was shown.  Between the creepy little girl, maggots in the face, the creepy older lady, and tombstones bobbing in the swimming pool, I didn’t stand a chance.  I remember sleeping on the floor of my parent’s bedroom that night.

There’s an ongoing joke in my house about my inability to watch “Alien,” which is one of my husband’s favorite movies.  I’ve made it five minutes in on two occasions, but as soon as I hear the theme music of the Queen, I chicken out.  Keep in mind, I’ve never made it as far as seeing the Queen (the revolting character who terrorizes Sigourney Weaver), I’ve just heard her theme music and fled from the room.

So, no.  I won’t be going to see “IT.”

RHYS BOWEN: I am Ingrid's equal when it comes to fraidy-cats. I cannot take horror movies, apart from the ones where giant ants/ tomatoes swallow New York. But anything demonic, possessed.... count me out. 

I would never allow the light to be turned off at night again. I'm still a teeny bit afraid of the dark. When I go downstairs to our bottom floor and I have to switch on the light across the hall I always sprint to do it. Silly but true. 

Too much imagination, and maybe growing up in a house that my brother and I swear was haunted. Windows opened by themselves at night. Rugs flapped on the floor and I had this recurring dream of a hooded procession coming up the stairs to my room. So I think that's a good excuse. 

I have read some Stephen King novels but no movies. A publisher once offered me a very tempting sum to write some teenage horror novels. Uh, no thank you, I said.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I can watch old-fashioned horror movies from the days before they were filled with gushing blood and eyeballs popping off the screen into your lap (in glorious 3-D.) Rosemary's Baby, The Omen, ("Look, Damien! It's all for you!"), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the 1970s version with Donald Sutherland was so subtly creepy.) 

One that has always lingered is the TV miniseries "Salem's Lot," from the Stephen King novel of the same name. It was, as I recall, shown on two nights. I can remember sitting between my mother and my sister, all of us clutching each other as one after another of the residents in the small Maine town disappear...and then come back. 

The scene with the teenage hero's friend tapping on his bedroom window, two stories up, gives me shivers to this day. I think it still stands as one of the best adaptations of a King novel ever. 

Oh, and another wonderful one from those days: "The Fog." Again, no gore or violence; just the creeping sense of characters being closed in and trapped. Plus it has Adrienne Barbeau, who makes everything better.

LUCY BURDETTE: No, no, no on horror for me! I'm with Ingrid and Rhys--I can't bear to be scared! 

My family was trained early on to vet scary movies and TV and steer me away. I still have nightmares about a few Ray Bradbury short stories that will not leave my head. And I did see "The Exorcist" when it came out, but that's it! 

Give me a romantic comedy any day...


DEBORAH CROMBIE: Can you believe I've never seen Psycho? Never WANTED to see it--couldn't imagine why anyone would. Nor have I seen The Shining. Rosemary's Baby gave me nightmares for years. So I'd say you can count me in the "no horror" group, except that I have seen Alien (and liked it). Maybe alien monsters are not as scary as human ones? Rick and I watched parts of Invasion of the Body Snatchers not too long ago. Hysterical! But still creepy. And he's made me watch John Carptenter's The Thing, which is really really scary, but good. Still, I won't be lining up to watch IT. Maybe once it comes out on video and I can leave the room if it gets too scary!

HALLIE: What are the horrors that revisit you from the movies, and are you going to see "IT"? I confess, after hearing Jenn's comments, I'm going! But not alone...

Take the Jungle Red Seatmate Quiz!

Hank over Chicago without Steven Spielberg

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Yeah well, traveling.  It can be wonderful, it really can. A fun window seat over a cool recognizable city like Chicago. Sitting by, say, Steven Spielberg. I mean, it could happen. It didn't, though. Yet. 
Oh, now, this isn’t what I was going to write, but hmm. Who would I love to sit by, more than anyone?  Not counting any of you, of course,  because that might really happen. But what if you got on the plane, sat in the widow seat, got organized and say (because this is a fun thing), you looked really great. And as you settle in,  you hear a little rustle. And you look up. And about to take the empty seat beside you is—WHO?

While you contemplate, say hi to our Jungle Red stalwart pal, the fab David Burnsworth! He travels. A lot.  And he can take the seatmate quiz, too. Right after he gets his luggage back.

DAVID BURNWORTH:  I travel for both my day job and my writing. And, as I’m sure with most of you who travel, I have some stories. Some of them good. Some of them not so good. I happen to be on a trip to South America as I write this, so the challenge of travel is fresh on my mind.

My first trip outside of North America, I was to meet a friend in Customs in the Brussels Airport. My departure was from Knoxville and he was flying standby from Atlanta. A problem for him, and soon for me, was this was the same time that the World Cup was being played. In France. And he was flying standby. See the problem here? So, my first time out of the country I had no idea what I was doing. As the first hour and then the second ticked by while sitting in the airport in another country waiting and he didn’t show up, I started to wonder that there might be something wrong. And there was. He was still in Atlanta. I had to figure out the phone system and make a few calls back to the states. Long story short, it was my first trial in travel and I had to figure it out on my own.

David's actual finicky toiletries

Fast forward twenty years to my current travel challenge. I thought I had everything covered: a four-hour layover in ATL before the long flight, a spare set of underwear in my carry on. Only, and this isn’t the first time I’ve experienced this, Atlanta shuts down all ground activity because of lighting and heavy rain. Apparently they value the ground crews’ lives. (Kudos to you, ATL!) So, my fifty-minute flight from GSP (Greenville Spartanburg) took four hours thanks to a few loops over Atlanta and a two-hour stopover in Chattanooga for more fuel. Lucky for me, I walked off that flight, stopped for a quick restroom break, and walked right on my flight to Chile.

The challenge this time was while I made it, my bag didn’t. Turns out I can buy most of my finicky toiletry choices (ed. note: see above) in Santiago which is great. But transferring clothing sizes from US English measurements to metric isn’t so easy. My waist didn’t really just add fourteen units of measurement? Was it that extra pastry on the flight?

I love to travel. But I find that it requires patience and a willingness to be flexible.

My best experience? There’s two: Five years ago, my wife and I got a free upgrade to a suite in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The downside? She likes suites now.

The second great experience? Stuttgart to Atlanta, I got a first class upgrade.

The latest book in my Brack Pelton series, Big City Heat, Brack travels from Charleston to Atlanta to help a friend find a missing woman. He also faces some challenges, some of them a little bit more involved than missing luggage.

Do you like to travel? If so, what are some of your stories?

HANK: Or hey, Reds and readers—tell me your answer to the seatmate quiz! Only one choice.  I’d pick—Stephen King!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

David Burnsworth became fascinated with the Deep South at a young age. After a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Tennessee and fifteen years in the corporate world, he made the decision to write a novel. Big City Heat (April 2017, Henery Press) is the third title in his Brack Pelton series. In It For The Money (September 2017, Henery Press) continues the story of Private Eye Blu Carraway from the cross-over novella, Blu Heat (March 2017, Henery Press). Having lived in Charleston on Sullivan’s Island for five years, the setting was a foregone conclusion. He and his wife call South Carolina home.

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Pen names, Pseudonyms, or Nom de Plumes.

Jenn McKinlay: There are probably as many reasons to have a pen name as there are pen names in use. So why do some authors write under different names?

     A quick study of famous authors and their pseudonyms reveals that Stephen King wrote under the name Richard Bachman so that he wasn’t constrained by the publishing belief at the time that an author was limited to one book per year. He also wanted to discover for himself if his success was due to talent or luck. Unfortunately, he was outed as Bachman fairly early on and never did satisfy that question to his liking, much like another famous author J.K. Rowling.

     Rowling used her initials instead of her first name Joanne, because her publisher felt that her reader demographic (tween boys) wouldn’t respond to a female author. In fact, Rowling didn’t have a middle name and had to borrow the K from her grandmother’s name Kathleen. After the success of Harry Potter, she wanted to try her hand at mysteries and wrote under the name Robert Galbraith to take the new work as far away from herself as possible. Like King, her true identity was revealed too soon for her to discover how her books would have fared had readers not discovered Galbraith’s true identity.

     Other authors have used pseudonyms to allow them to try out different genres. Dame Agatha Christie wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott. She said the mysteries were her day job but the romances were for fun! In a flip on this, romance author Nora Roberts writes futuristic police procedurals under the name J.D. Robb. Ann Rice, also used a penname when she wrote two erotic novels under the name Anne Rampling. Of course, Ann Rice is actually a nom de plume with her maiden name being Howard Allen Frances O’Brien. And then, there is Dean Koontz who is said to have as many as ten pen names, because like Stephen King, he wrote so many books that his publisher couldn’t keep up. Also, in an interview he said there was no way he could earn a livable wage writing just one book per year. Some of his names include David Axton, Richard Paige, Anthony North, and his gothic-romance pseudonym Deanna Dwyer.

     There are other reasons that authors use pen names, for me, it was because my first mystery was actually a writer for hire work. Having had FISH FOOD -- my dead strip club owner found being eaten by the fish in his saltwater tank mystery -- soundly rejected, I was willing to give it a go when a publisher asked my agent to ask me if I’d consider writing one of their in house ideas. Because while they weren’t keen on my book -- at all -- they did like my voice. Um…thanks?

     Turned out, they wanted a mystery series about decoupage. Decou-what? Yeah, whatever. Of course, I said yes! Suspecting this would be a short-lived series, I made up a pen name that consisted of my dog (Lucy) and my grandmother (Lawrence). And then an interesting thing happened, I discovered I liked writing under a pen name. It was liberating in ways I hadn’t expected so when the opportunity arose to take on another series while maintaining the two series I’d begun since the decoupage books tanked (shocker!), I took the job and wrote a bargain hunters series under the name Josie Belle (another grandmother name mash-up).

     Would I ever write under a pen name again? In a heartbeat. Truly, there was something very freeing about writing as someone else. Although, next time, I’m going to be a dude.

     How about you, Reds? Any nom de plumes in action out there? If not, what is the pen name you would write under if you had the chance?

For Fun:

 QUIZ: Match the author to the pen name 
(I scored 8 out of 10, if we’re sharing!)

Greg Iles--Mississippi Blood

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I am such a fan of sense of place in novels, and of writers who can transport you to their particular corner of the world and make you feel it so strongly that you might have been born to it. 

GREG ILES is one of those authors, and it's a huge treat to have him here today to talk about the long-awaited final installment in his NATCHES BURNING trilogy, MISSISSIPPI BLOOD, out today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's what Publishers Weekly has to say--


“[The] terrific conclusion to his Natchez Burning trilogy is a sweeping story that remains intimate… Relentless pacing keeps the story churning… The trial scenes are among the most exciting ever written in the genre.”
   — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

And just to put our Q&A in the frame, here's a bit about MISSISSIPPI BLOOD.

The endgame is at hand for Penn Cage, his family, and the enemies bent on destroying them in this revelatory volume in the epic trilogy set in modern-day Natchez, Mississippi—Greg Iles’s epic tale of love and honor, hatred and revenge that explores how the sins of the past continue to haunt the present.

Shattered by grief and dreaming of vengeance, Penn Cage sees his family and his world collapsing around him. The woman he loves is gone, his principles have been irrevocably compromised, and his father, once a paragon of the community that Penn leads as mayor, is about to be tried for the murder of a former lover. Most terrifying of all, Dr. Cage seems bent on self-destruction. Despite Penn's experience as a prosecutor in major murder trials, his father has frozen him out of the trial preparations--preferring to risk dying in prison to revealing the truth of the crime to his son.

During forty years practicing medicine, Tom Cage made himself the most respected and beloved physician in Natchez, Mississippi. But this revered Southern figure has secrets known only to himself and a handful of others.  Among them, Tom has a second son, the product of an 1960s affair with his devoted African American nurse, Viola Turner.  It is Viola who has been murdered, and her bitter son--Penn's half-brother--who sets in motion the murder case against his father.  The resulting investigation exhumes dangerous ghosts from Mississippi's violent past. In some way that Penn cannot fathom, Viola Turner was a nexus point between his father and the Double Eagles, a savage splinter cell of the KKK. More troubling still, the long-buried secrets shared by Dr. Cage and the former Klansmen may hold the key to the most devastating assassinations of the 1960s. The surviving Double Eagles will stop at nothing to keep their past crimes buried, and with the help of some of the most influential men in the state, they seek to ensure that Dr. Cage either takes the fall for them, or takes his secrets to an early grave. 

Tom Cage's murder trial sets a terrible clock in motion, and unless Penn can pierce the veil of the past and exonerate his father, his family will be destroyed. Unable to trust anyone around him--not even his own mother--Penn joins forces with Serenity Butler, a famous young black author who has come to Natchez to write about his father's case. Together, Penn and Serenity--a former soldier--battle to crack the Double Eagles and discover the secret history of the Cage family and the South itself, a desperate move that risks the only thing they have left to gamble: their lives.

DEBS: In Mississippi Blood, you introduce a new character, Serenity Butler, why did you feel she was necessary to this book?

GREG: Penn Cage has always been more of an observer than an action-hero character. He has been forced to resort to violence on occasion, but it's not his basic nature. With the loss of his partner, he needed a new "other half" to replace her, and Serenity came into my mind fully formed.
 
DEBS: And even though she’s a writer when we meet her, she has a military background, what was the purpose of her having that experience?

GREG: A very large number of African American women serve in the military, and there are increasing numbers of black female writers reaching a wide audience today--some from Mississippi, as I am.  These two things suggested a character who would be more aggressive and confrontational than Penn when faced with the kind of threat posed by the Double Eagles--which is a KKK splinter cell. Serenity's combat experience gives her a good skill set and allows her to function in circumstances that would paralyze normal people.

DEBS: Did you find it hard introducing this new character into a story that had such an established group of main characters?  She takes on quite a role in this last book in the trilogy. What does Serenity symbolize in Mississippi Blood?

GREG: Since Serenity is originally from Mississippi herself, she slipped right into the complex fabric of Natchez, where that can be very difficult for people in real life, or even in a book. Anyone who lives in an insular small town knows how closed they can be to any newcomer, even after decades.
 
DEBS: Were there any real-life inspirations for Serenity’s character? Do you think we’ll see her again in Penn’s life?

GREG: I don't like to reveal the true inspirations for my characters, as a rule except for my own father inspiring Tom Cage.  As for seeing Serenity again, without spoilers, I'll just say that she and Penn made a deep connection, and she acted quite heroically to help his daughter.  She may well reappear someday soon.

DEBS: And here's more about Greg.

Greg Iles was born in Germany in 1960, where his father ran the US Embassy Medical Clinic during the height of the Cold War.  Iles spent his youth in Natchez, Mississippi, and graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1983.  While attending Ole Miss, Greg lived in the cabin where William Faulkner and his brothers listened to countless stories told by “Mammy Callie,” their beloved nanny, who had been born a slave.

Iles wrote his first novel in 1993, a thriller about Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hess, which became the first of twelve New York Times bestsellers.  His novels have been made into films, translated into more than twenty languages, and published in more than thirty-five countries worldwide.  His new epic trilogy continues the story of Penn Cage, protagonist of The Quiet Game, Turning Angel, and New York Times #1 bestseller The Devil’s Punchbowl.

Iles is a member of the legendary lit-rock group “The Rock Bottom Remainders.”  Like bandmate Stephen King, Greg returned to the musical stage after recovering from his injuries, and joined the band for their final two shows in Los Angeles in 2012.  A nonfiction memoir by the band, titled Hard Listening, was published this past summer.  Hard Listening also contains a short story Greg wrote as an homage to King.

Iles lives in Natchez, Mississippi, with his wife and has two children, both of whom aspire to literary and film endeavors.
 
Greg is on book tour--happy launch day, Greg!--but will be checking in to answer questions and comments!




    

"I Must Decline for Secret Reasons"

Think The Shawshank Redemption, 

only it's me planning a way out of a dinner party. 

— Amanda Kyle Williams

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: I made a few flights last month and one of the things the flight attendants always say during the safety talk is something along the lines of, "In the case of an emergency, put on your own air mask first. Then, when you're set, help those around you."

It's a good metaphor for taking care of yourself before taking care of others. Without enough oxygen, you'll just pass out and be no use to anyone — even a burden on others.

It's a hard lesson to learn, though. I think as women (or, OK, I'll just speak for myself, because I do know some men who have the same knee-jerk reaction) we're conditioned to put others first. We have trouble saying no, in order to carve out time and space for our own health, our own needs. I know from hard-won experience that if I don't get enough sleep, eat right, and exercise, I will get sick. Last year I battled four bouts of pneumonia. This year I'm healthier, but recently was diagnosed with extreme anemia and had to have a blood transfusion. The sad thing is, I was so used to being tired that I didn't even realize that anything was wrong before I had a blood test.

Since I'm already taking care of my health (see above), it's now time to cut some non-essential things from my schedule. I'm taking time off from volunteering at my son's school. (He knows why and is fine with it.) I'm saying no to writing most blurbs. We used to entertain a lot — but I've just stopped. There's too much shopping, cooking, and cleaning involved. Now, that's not forever — but until I start to feel better.

I was having a discussion with some other author friends about how to decline things politely, and we found an example that made us laugh. It's from writer E.B. White, known for the writing style guide, The Elements of Style (aka Strunk and White) as well as the children's classics Charlotte's Web and Stewart Little.

He writes:

September 28, 1956

Dear Mr. Adams:

Thank you for your letter inviting me to join the Committee of the Arts and Sciences for Eisenhower. 

I must decline, for secret reasons.

Sincerely, 

E.B. White

We were thinking that as mystery authors, we could start declining things "for mysterious reasons." So now if you ever see me use this phrase, you'll know why!

Dear Reds, how do you say no? Do you find it hard? (Or not?)

LUCY BURDETTE: Oh I love love love declining for secret reasons. Because who would have the nerve to push that? Since being diagnosed with Meniere's disease last fall, I've had to pare back too. I look at other authors flitting here and there and rounding up tons of new readers, and I do feel sad about what I'm missing. (Malice, for example.)

But like you Susan, if I don't sleep enough and eat my low-sodium food, and try to keep stress low, my symptoms get worse. It's like learning a new language--that I never signed on for! It does help to remind myself what's most important--keep writing, stay in touch with family and friends, and yes, the world won't come to an end if I'm not cooking and baking for big parties the way I enjoyed in the past. 

Here's hoping we all rebound with great energy, having learned some important lessons!

HALLIE EPHRON: I have a really hard time saying no, too, and I don't have little kids at home or anemia or Meniere's, just a busy life, deadlines, and it feels as if the finish lines keep moving further away and the bars keep rising. I remind myself to be grateful for this fantastic writing life, and to thank my lucky stars for all the lovely people who have said "yes" to me. 

RHYS BOWEN: Oh Susan, this struck a nerve. I'm the original for the song "I'm just a girl who can't say no."  When I've been invited to speak I always think they'll never ask me again if I say no. I'm flattered. I say yes. And then months later it hits me: I'm going to Dallas to speak at a luncheon! What was I thinking? But I am gradually trying to pace myself, to leave some space in life for just enjoying friends and activities.

However.....This year I have said yes to fabulous gigs that were just too good to turn down: right now I'm off to Europe to conduct a 10-day workshop in Tuscany. And in August I'm speaking on Mackinac Island, staying at the grand old hotel. And two visits to Sisters in Crime chapters, also fun. And conventions....Sigh. 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: For me, the problem isn't so much saying no as not volunteering to do something that I'd LIKE to do, such as having people over to dinner. Most recently, I offered to help my friend out with the high school musical - she was two weeks behind in rehearsals and needed someone with a whip hand to get the actors into shape. I'm okay with saying no to requests, but if it's, "We must have someone to do X" and no one steps forward...there's something in me that raises my hand and volunteers. How can you not? That, of course, is the $10,000 question.

I've also been dealing with hypothyroidism and  severe anemia since this winter (it's the health issue of choice among discerning writers everywhere!) which has forced me to go into me-first mode. I haven't been accepting any appearance offers, I'm not doing blurbs (I know I let some deadlines just pass right by me while I've been ill) and for the first time in years, I haven't taken on any work at my church. For me, it's the family related stuff that's impossible to say no to...like you, Susan, I still have one minor child and my two older kids are (for now, sigh) living at home. 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Oh, Susan, I'd love to decline things for "secret reasons." Being a life-long pleaser, I am terrible at saying no. I think it would be rude, or people will be disappointed, or that whatever it is is expected of me. And then I end up committed to things I not only don't want to do and don't have time to do, but that exhaust me and keep me from getting real work (writing books!) done. I am getting a little better at it, by absolute necessity. I've had to cut way down on conferences and speaking events, and I'm trying to be a little less demanding on myself on the personal front. Of course that doesn't mean I'm willing to give up sweeping the mounds of dog hair off my floors...

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  We all seem to have the exact same problem. But really, it's a good thing. I love that people want me to do things, and the only thing worse than being over-scheduled is being NON-scheduled.  But like Rhys, some days I wake up and realize: I said yes to WHAT??  (I have already had to turn down things in 2017 because my schedule is filling. Yeesh.) And you are so right, Debs. I HAVE to write, and saying yes to an event is very writing-avoidance enabling.

Susan, with kids, and Julia--I do NOT know how you possibly do it. I can barely do laundry for two.

I had an event (so happy I said yes) with Wally Lamb, and he and I 

were discussing exactly t the same thing .He told me he has an index card taped to his desk phone. On it, in black magic marker, is a one-word reminder: NO. 

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Lovely Readers, are you yes-sayers? Do you find it easy or hard to say no? When you do decline, what do you say? Are you tempted to start saying, "I must decline for secret reasons?" Tell us in the comments!