Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

GILA MONSTER
05/10/20140 Comments

The coati came back with an injured paw. I don’t know whether he was caught in a trap or stepped on a thorn or was stung by a scorpion. Whatever happened, he is permanently disabled. The foot has withered. He comes to the door looking pitiful, and I give him two handfuls of raisins and two handfuls of peanuts. But he is getting fat and rejects food not up to his standards. I discovered that he walks a mile in one direction to get fed at one house and a mile in the opposite direction to a bed-and-breakfast. And probably to all stops in between. Smart animal.

We came home from a shopping trip yesterday to find a Gila monster on the front porch. He was two feet long and barely moved when Harold came out to photograph him. I know it’s a male because it is Gila monster mating season right now and the males taste the trail of a female with their tongues. If the female isn’t in the mood she bites him and walks off. Simple courting procedure, unlike the javelinas that put on a show on the front porch last week. I can only provide one picture of that because the rest are unsuitable for ages 8 to 12. To see pictures please go to my website: NancyFarmerwebsite.com

Last night a bear murdered the bird feeders I forgot to take in. She (I think it’s a female) got the feeders outside the town library, too. This morning Harold was watering a flowerbed when a five-foot-long snake slithered between his legs. It took a few seconds to tell whether it was a rattlesnake or not, and a few minutes to get his heart rate down. It was a gopher snake drawn by the smell (or taste, because snakes hunt with their tongues) of water. It lay under the water sprinkler drinking happily. Harold came inside and had a drink, too.

The movie option for The House of the Scorpion was renewed for a further 18 months. This means there is some interest, but they don’t have the money yet.

The coati came back with an injured paw.  I don’t know whether he was caught in a trap or stepped on a thorn or was stung by a scorpion.  Whatever happened, he is permanently disabled.  The foot has withered.  He comes to the door looking pitiful, and I give him two handfuls of raisins and two handfuls of peanuts.  But he is getting fat and rejects food not up to his standards.  I discovered that he walks a mile in one direction to get fed at one house and a mile in the opposite direction to a bed-and-breakfast.  And probably to all stops in between.  Smart animal.

We came home from a shopping trip yesterday to find a Gila monster on the front porch.  He was two feet long and barely moved when Harold came out to photograph him.  I know it’s a male because it is Gila monster mating season right now and the males taste the trail of a female with their tongues.  If the female isn’t in the mood she bites him and walks off.  Simple courting procedure, unlike the javelinas that put on a show on the front porch last week.  I can only provide one picture because the rest are unsuitable for ages 8 to 12.

Last night a bear murdered the bird feeders I forgot to take in.  She (I think it’s a female) got the feeders outside the town library, too.  This morning Harold was watering a flowerbed when a five-foot-long snake slithered between his legs.  It took a few seconds to tell whether it was a rattlesnake or not, and a few minutes to get his heart rate down.  It was a gopher snake drawn by the smell (or taste, because snakes hunt with their tongues) of water.  It lay under the water sprinkler drinking happily.  Harold came inside and had a drink, too.

The movie option for The House of the Scorpion was renewed for a further 18 months.  This means there is some interest, but they don’t have the money yet.

The photo of the gila monster tongue is from the internet.

Coati Visit
03/01/2014

(The pictures are really good, but I don't know how to add them to the Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ site. Please look at Nancyfarmerwebsite.com to see them.)

I won’t know the situation with the possible movie for The House of the Scorpion until the middle of March. It’s possible that the company will simply drop the option if they haven’t found anyone who is interested.

Right now I am working on a middle-grade book called Fifteen Miles to Snockum Town. It is a contemporary novel placed in the Bootheel area of New Mexico, a place where there are more ghost towns than live people towns. The title is based on a game my brother used to play on long car trips when we were kids. Our car only went 30 miles an hour which, in 110 degree heat in Arizona, was unbearable. My sister would get ratty and my brother would entertain her with stories of Snockum Town where there was ice cream and cold drinks and a swimming pool with a waterfall, etc. He would keep it up until she was almost rabid with the desire to get there. Unfortunately Snockum Town was ALWAYS fifteen miles away no matter how fast you traveled.

The most interesting event recently was the appearance of a coati on the front porch. (see pictures) He is supposed to be a wild animal, but sure doesn’t act like it. Coatis are intelligent like raccoons. They figure out quickly who is a threat and who isn’t. He was trying to climb the ramada outside to get a suet block I put out for the birds. He could smell it. I threw a handful of shelled sunflower seeds outside and voila! Instant friend. I had to close the door to keep him out. Harold and I left the house to interview a professional rattlesnake milker for the new book. I expected the coati to be gone by the time we returned, but no. He came running up to us. I got him an apple. The apple didn’t go over well. It was sour.

I didn’t feed him anything else because I didn’t want him lurking outside. Coatis have very sharp teeth. He wandered off and I assumed he was hunting a mate, which is what coatis do this time of year. The females live in groups and the males are solitary. Most of the males I’ve seen look like they’ve been in a bar room brawl and are nearly hairless and scarred. This coati was fluffy and fat. He came by a few days later and looked in the window. I got him a slice of bread and a handful of sunflower seeds. Harold took more photos, and he said that when I went inside the coati put his paws against the door and tried to open it. He came by a third time and I gave him some stale raisin bran cereal. Not popular. This animal has fancy tastes, which leads me to believe he makes the rounds of houses.

The javelinas showed up later and fought over the stale raisin bran. They aren’t a bit fussy and will eat prickly pear cactuses and deadly nightshade.

Our son Daniel (in the Navy) was up in Eureka, California, to see whether his ship was seaworthy (it isn’t). The captain wouldn’t let anyone off the ship in groups less than four because of the big, dangerous homeless encampment next to the dock. What kind of homeless encampment WAS this?

We used to live in Arcata, next door to Eureka, at a time when we were desperately poor. The high point of the month was when we got a 2-for-one hamburger coupon from Toni’s Restaurant. It was a big event. We got the two hamburgers and divided them into three parts. It was the only place we could afford to eat out, except for (I’d better not name it because it’s still there) where we got the cha-chas after eating the bargain burrito. Well, Toni found out that Daniel was in Eureka. She drove out to the dock and fed him and his friends a huge dinner. There are really nice people out there.

Here is a Christmas card someone sent me of patriotic bugs that live in Arizona.

I won’t know the situation with the possible movie for The House of the Scorpion until the middle of March.  It’s possible that the company will simply drop the option if they haven’t found anyone who is interested.

Right now I am working on a middle-grade book called Fifteen Miles to Snockum Town.  It is a contemporary novel  placed in the Bootheel area of New Mexico, a place where there are more ghost towns than live people towns.  The title is based on a game my brother used to play on long car trips when we were kids.  Our car only went 30 miles an hour which, in 110 degree heat in Arizona, was unbearable.  My sister would get ratty and my brother would entertain her with stories of Snockum Town where there was ice cream and cold drinks and a swimming pool with a waterfall, etc.  He would keep it up until she was almost rabid with the desire to get there.  Unfortunately Snockum Town was ALWAYS fifteen miles away no matter how fast you traveled.

The most interesting event recently was the appearance of a coati on the front porch.  (see pictures)  He is supposed to be a wild animal, but sure doesn’t act like it.  Coatis are intelligent like raccoons.  They figure out quickly who is a threat and who isn’t.  He was trying to climb the ramada outside to get a suet block I put out for the birds.  He could smell it.  I threw a handful of shelled sunflower seeds outside and voila!  Instant friend.  I had to close the door to keep him out.  Harold and I left the house to interview a professional rattlesnake milker for the new book.  I expected the coati to be gone by the time we returned, but no.  He came running up to us.   I got him an apple.  The apple didn’t go over well.  It was sour.

I didn’t feed him anything else because I didn’t want him lurking outside.  Coatis have very sharp teeth.  He wandered off and I assumed he was hunting a mate, which is what coatis do this time of year.  The females live in groups and the males are solitary.  Most of the males I’ve seen look like they’ve been in a bar room brawl and are nearly hairless and scarred.  This coati was fluffy and fat.  He came by a few days later and looked in the window. I got him a slice of bread and a handful of sunflower seeds.  Harold took more photos, and he said that when I went inside the coati put his paws against the door and tried to open it.  He came by a third time and I gave him some stale raisin bran cereal.  Not popular.  This animal has fancy tastes, which leads me to believe he makes the rounds of houses.

The javelinas showed up later and fought over the stale raisin bran.  They aren’t a bit fussy and will eat prickly pear cactuses and deadly nightshade.

Our son Daniel (in the Navy) was up in Eureka, California, to see whether his ship was seaworthy (it isn’t).  The captain wouldn’t let anyone off the ship in groups less than four because of the big, dangerous homeless encampment next to the dock.  What kind of homeless encampment WAS this?

We used to live in Arcata, next door to Eureka, at a time when we were desperately poor.  The high point of the month was when we got a 2-for-one hamburger coupon from Toni’s Restaurant.  It was a big event.  We got the two hamburgers and divided them into three parts.  It was the only place we could afford to eat out, except for (I’d better not name it because it’s still there) where we got the cha-chas after eating the bargain burrito.  Well, Toni found out that Daniel was in Eureka.  She drove out to the dock and fed him and his friends a huge dinner.  There are really nice people out there.

Here is a Christmas card someone sent me of patriotic bugs that live in Arizona.

GRAVEYARD

To Emilia:  I will be in Tucson for the Book Fair, signing on March 15 and being on two panels March 16.  I don’t have any plans to go to Phoenix.  These days I tend to hide out in Portal (also known as the Bubble by residents) where it’s still 1951.  To Maddie:  Thank you for responding to my note on the dire situation in Mexico.  There are many charities out there, but I don’t know them well enough to recommend one.  What the Mexicans need is a stable government that protects its own citizens and only they can achieve it.  There was a big shoot-out in Agua Prieta a few days ago.  That is on the Arizona/Mexico border just south of Douglas, and about sixty miles south of us.  We think it was a battle for control of the plaza between the Sinaloa and possibly the Zeta cartels.  This is bad news because our part of the border was quiet so long as the Sinaloas ran the show.  “Control of a plaza� means control of a town.  If the residents resist the cartels have been known to literally destroy a town to put fear into everyone else.



On to my main topic, GRAVEYARD.  I am writing a new book for ages 9 to 12+ called Fifteen Miles to Snockum Town.  The title is based on a game my brother used to play when we were young and stuck on a long car trip.  All cars then were black and had no air conditioning.  In the Arizona sun they heated up like ovens.  Our car had a top speed of 50 mph, but usually went 30.  The water in the radiator used to boil every few miles, slowing us down even further.

We kids would go nuts after the first few hours.  My brother and sister were a lot older than I was, so the game involved them.  Lee invented a place called Snockum Town.  It had ice cream and cold drinks.  It had a swimming pool with a waterfall you could sit under, and so forth.  He built up this place until my sister was almost rabid with the desire to get there, but unfortunately Snockum Town was always fifteen miles away.  No matter how fast you travelled, you never got there.

My book is placed in a valley between the Peloncillo and Chiricahua Mountains.  Harold and I went out to explore the Peloncillos to describe them, but unfortunately there are almost no roads there.  The roads that do exist are somewhat dangerous.  We went through a small cemetery to get close and were stopped cold by a grave site.  It was for a baby girl called Angelica Gomez who only lived for eleven days seventeen years ago.  Most parents grieve for a while when this happens and go on with life, but not these parents.  The grave had a stone angel, flowers, a bookcase full of toys, a tricycle, a wheelbarrow and a wagon for the child to play with.  There was a tiny Christmas tree and a cell phone to call home because this angel is now seventeen years old and would want a cell phone.  The photos were taken last year by a friend of mine, Alice Newton.  This year statues of three children reading a book have been added to provide, I would guess, playmates.  Someone visits this grave regularly.

When we saw it, all thoughts of exploring the Peloncillos went out of our heads.  The grave is now included in the new book.

This is an answer for Lalin.  Mexico is indeed dangerous and that’s why people leave.  Please read BorderlandBeat.com.  The country has been carved up by drug cartels and the government is no longer capable of protecting its own citizens.  This has lead Mexican citizens to form vigilante armies, and who can blame them?  The cartels demand bribes from school teachers, from nurses and doctors, from ordinary workers.  They have destroyed entire towns.  Thousands of people have “disappeared� (i.e. been murdered) and the police don’t ask questions.  The families are too frightened to even identify the unclaimed dead.  You are lucky to live in safe, sleepy Phoenix.  Harassment?  I used to live in a country where you got five years in prison for making a joke about the president and where the secret police showed up at midnight to beat up political enemies.  Harassment is nothing.  Many who cross the U.S. border are not poor people trying to feed their families back home.  They are drug mules and armed halcones.  They are members of the Zetas or the MS-13.  Groups of them prey on coyotes and their groups.  They rob and kill the very people you are sorry for.  They rape the women and hang the women’s clothes on “rape trees� to brag about what they have done.  I have seen these trees.  Your anger should be directed at them.

This entry is in particular aimed at Jessica Fleming, who very kindly offered to help publicize my new book, The Lord of Opium. Thank you very much. I’m not sure anyone can do much after all the effort the publisher has put into advertising me. Few authors get as much support as I did.

I was amazed at some of the angry reviews I got, mostly on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ. Where was this hostility coming from? I thought about it a lot and decided to address the situation here. I feel strongly about freedom of speech. People are entitled to their opinions and I don’t want to censor them. I do want to understand them.

Why were readers so upset? First of all, I think tastes have changed since I wrote The House of the Scorpion. Along with Twitter, Facebook and movies with nonstop action and special effects has come a desire for instant gratification. Plot and character are not as important. In fact, these slow the action down. My books develop slowly and don’t contain nonstop action. This is how I write and I am unable to change it.

Readers become fond of a novel and want the same experience repeated in a sequel. I felt quite sorry for J. K. Rowling stuck with producing EIGHT Harry Potter books. I admire Rowling and thank her for making the publishing world safe for long children’s books. But EIGHT books on the same topic? It would have killed me. And readers were horrible to her when she dared to write for adults. The same problem befell Jean Auel. She had six novels to slog through and was clearly fed up half way through. I think readers wanted a clone of The House of the Scorpion and got something else. It had to be. Matt was a helpless pawn in the first book and master of his own fate in the second. Of course it couldn’t be a rerun. One reader was outraged because I wrote a sequel at all. She said I had been seduced into doing a trilogy for money and that it would all turn out badly. Gentle reader, there will be no trilogy. There is no law that says books have to come in threes.

One of the most astonishing criticisms was about Matt kissing Mirasol when she was asleep. This was deemed sexual harassment of the worst sort. If you examine the book you will see that I was using the symbol of Sleeping Beauty. Mirasol is compared to a statue at the bottom of a lake that becomes visible for only a few short minutes. It has nothing to do with sex. In the first book Matt talks to Rosa, his sadistic caretaker, after she has been turned into an eejit. He is trying to wake her up. Mr. Ortega tries to wake up Eusebio with music and gives this idea to Matt. The relationship between Matt and Mirasol is one of pity mixed with love. And love is not the same as sex.

I write books for people to enjoy and think about. If you don’t like my books don’t read them. Problem solved. For the rest of you (and thanks again to Jessica Fleming) let’s all hope for a movie of The House of the Scorpion to pep things up.

This entry is in particular aimed at Jessica Fleming, who very kindly offered to help publicize my new book, The Lord of Opium.  Thank you very much.  I’m not sure anyone can do much after all the effort the publisher has put into advertising me.  Few authors get as much support as I did.

I was amazed at some of the angry reviews I got, mostly on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ.  Where was this hostility coming from?  I thought about it a lot and decided to address the situation here.  I feel strongly about freedom of speech.  People are entitled to their opinions and I don’t want to censor them.  I do want to understand them.

Why were readers so upset?  First of all, I think tastes have changed since I wrote The House of the Scorpion.  Along with Twitter, Facebook and movies with nonstop action and special effects has come a desire for instant gratification.  Plot and character are not as important.  In fact, these slow the action down.  My books develop slowly and don’t contain nonstop action.  This is how I write and I am unable to change it.

Readers become fond of a novel and want the same experience repeated in a sequel.  I felt quite sorry for J. K. Rowling stuck with producing EIGHT Harry Potter books.  I admire Rowling and thank her for making the publishing world safe for long children’s books.  But EIGHT books on the same topic?  It would have killed me.  And readers were horrible to her when she dared to write for adults.  The same problem befell Jean Auel.  She had six novels to slog through and was clearly fed up half way through.  I think readers wanted a clone of The House of the Scorpion and got something else.  It had to be.  Matt was a helpless pawn in the first book and master of his own fate in the second.  Of course it couldn’t be a rerun.  One reader was outraged because I wrote a sequel at all.  She said I had been seduced into doing a trilogy for money and that it would all turn out badly.  Gentle reader, there will be no trilogy.  There is no law that says books have to come in threes.

One of the most astonishing criticisms was about Matt kissing Mirasol when she was asleep.  This was deemed sexual harassment of the worst sort.  If you examine the book you will see that I was using the symbol of Sleeping Beauty.  Mirasol is compared to a statue at the bottom of a lake that becomes visible for only a few short minutes.  It has nothing to do with sex.  In the first book Matt talks to Rosa, his sadistic caretaker, after she has been turned into an eejit.  He is trying to wake her up.  Mr. Ortega tries to wake up Eusebio with music and gives this idea to Matt.  The relationship between Matt and Mirasol is one of pity mixed with love.  And love is not the same as sex.

I write books for people to enjoy and think about.  If you don’t like my books don’t read them.  Problem solved.  For the rest of you (and thanks again to Jessica Fleming) let’s all hope for a movie of The House of the Scorpion to pep things up.

This is a quick note to tell everyone that I have a movie option for The House of the Scorpion. This is how an option works: A company pays for the right to market the book to a film company. If they are successful, the film company takes over and raises money, picks a director, screen writer and actors. It's a very complicated process involving many people, as you can see by looking at the credits at the end of a movie. Most of the time the option fails.

My book, The Ear, the Eye and the Arm, failed because no one believed that people would watch a movie about African children. I had the same trouble when I sold the book. A very highly placed editor in New York turned it down because she didn't think white kids would read about African kids. And she was convinced that African American children didn't read books. Nuts to her.

The chances for a House of the Scorpion movie seem very good to me. First, because the company really understands the book, and second because they made a beautiful presentation. The contract was far better than I expected, too. Keep your fingers crossed. It's about time Hollywood did something beside rerun old comic books and 1960's TV shows.