LIFE IN THE SLOW LANE

For a change of pace and to bring some excitement into my blog I'm posting below the first page and half of my romantic suspense novel, TOO YOUNG TO DIE. If you want to read more, leave a comment and I'll add a few more pages hoping you will be hooked and will order my book. It has had excellent reviews. Check my web site, www.anitabirt.com for an excerpt and excerpts of my five books e-published by Cerridwen Press.

(Information on this blog is copyright by Anita Birt and cannot be used without permission of the author)

TOO YOUNG TO DIE.

Chapter One (partial)


"Keep singing, lady."
The armed man sitting across from Ellie in the nursery casually pointed his assault rifle at her. She cuddled the whimpering baby and tried, unsuccessfully, to stay cool and remember the words of the old nursery rhyme.
"Rock-a-Bye baby, on the..."
Her voice cracked on the first line.
"Sing."
"Can't sing. Can't breathe. Throat's too dry. Can I get a drink of water from the bathroom?"
He shambled to his feet. "Don't move. I don't hurt ladies and babies."
"Then what the hell are you doing here?" Ellie shifted Nicki from one arm to the other and gulped air into her oxygen-deprived lungs.
"Don't give me that crap. You're up to your neck in this same as the rest." He slung the weapon under his arm. "Sing to the kid while I get you a drink."
"I can't."
"Do it and keep the kid quiet." He lowered his brows. His eyes sank into folds of scar tissue. "Sing about the mocking bird. You sang it before."
Ellie cleared her tense throat. "Hush little baby, don't say a word...that one?"
He nodded and propped his beefy shoulder against the door. "My old lady used to sing it to my little sister."
The gorilla had a human mother. Hard to believe he hadn't come fully formed from the lab of a mad scientist.
"Please get me some water. I'll sing it and a couple more."
If she escaped from the house alive, she'd never answer another advertisement for a nanny. Magda and Stefan Blesnicoff had seemed such a nice couple. They'd sent their chauffeur to drive her from Seattle to their estate in the Cascades. She'd been with them a week and tonight she might die, blown away in a hail of bullets.
She choked back a sob. She was too young to die. So was Nicki. He squirmed and screwed up his face. "It's all right, Sweetie." She fought back her panic. Stay calm. Stick to a routine. She held him against her shoulder and patted his back. "You're hungry aren't you?"

Want more. Please leave a comment. It's painless.

www.anitabirt.com

LIFE IN THE SLOW LANE

I am so sad. No one comments on my brilliant blogs and I am trying hard to lure you in. Where are you? Having got that off my chest and taking a deep breath I have decided to please myself and if you care to join in and comment, be my guest.

Yesterday, the back page of the front section of The Globe and Mail featured an advertisement for the "iPhone 3G." The head line read: "16 new ways to make life a little easier." Each new way was listed down the sides of the iphone 3G with lines leading to each icon on the phone. "Wine Ph.D" "Local Concerts" "ESPN sore Center" "Epicurious." This one is Free. " Can't decide on dinner? Get Epicurious recipes right now on your iPhone..." And on they go. And to tempt you further to buy the phone. "...there are over 90,000 apps for just about anything, only on the iPhone." My head hurts thinking about 90,000 apps.

As I studied the advertisement I wondered about choices and how 16 new choices made life easier. New gadget after new gadget appears in the market distracting everyone from paying attention to being alive. When did iPhones and Blackberries and the like swamp the senses of the users so they have no time to turn off the gadgets, step outside the door, breathe the air and look around.

Human bodies need exercise if they are to remain healthy. People need people. We need others to pay attention to us - not via the gadgets or the Internet but in person, in real time.

An iPhone 3G can't give me a hug nor can a Blackberry cheer me if I'm sad or laugh with me over the antics of squirrels cavorting on a tree or take time to listen to the birds or studying shiny new cars in a showroom.

Choices. How do I choose to live my life? How do you? Would 16 new choices make you feel better? Comment if you dare.

Anita
www.anitabirt.com

LIFE IN THE SLOW LANE

Seems to me that Life In The Slow Lane does not live up to its name. I try to slow down but something comes along that sets me thinking and off I go on a tangent to see what's going on. I won't touch the Tiger Woods debacle, that's for the gossip columnists (I read every word in The Globe and Mail to-day! How could I resist? It is too delicious)

I got thinking about phobias after meeting a new acquaintance who has a phobia about elevators. She cannot step into an elevator on her own. Another person has to be with her. It's the fear of the elevator getting stuck and feeling trapped.

As for me, my phobia is earth worms! I cannot touch a worm or a snake. Goes back to when I was a little girl and a nasty boy dropped a big fat dew worm down my neck. I don't remember the incident, my mother told me. When my daughter was thirteen she was out playing in a field and brought home a garter snake in a glass jar. I locked myself in the bathroom and threatened to do her grievous harm if she did not get rid of the damned snake.

Another friend is afraid of open water. She has never learned to swim. Won't even try. The idea terrifies her.

Then there are SPIDERS. Big, hairy ones, little ones, nasty ones that bite. A common phobia. Arachnophobia (I had to look it up in my Oxford dictionary)

Are women more prone to phobias than men? Who would like to weigh in on this topic? How about a bridge phobia? I mean the structure not the game! I know of someone who simply cannot drive across a bridge.

All this has nothing to do with LIFE IN THE SLOW LANE but it may arouse some interest.

I think I tempted you (whoever you are) with an offer back on my first LITSL No one replied so I try again. The second person who comments on this blog, December 3, 2009, to you I will send a copy of my historical romance, A Very Difficult Man.

Anita
www.anitabirt.com

LIFE IN THE SLOW LANE - continued, I hope

Sas to say, my last brilliant post did not appear on my blog. There must have been a gremlin hanging around that day determined to do me in, so to speak

I waxed eloquently about my travel to Britain during late August and early September, 1944. With several other Canadian war brides we were allowed to travel to the UK because the war in the Atlantic was winding down. However, no one had informed a German U-boat commander of that fact and I nearly ended up in a watery grave off the north coast of Ireland when the convoy was attacked at dawn. Five ships were torpedoed, including the one directly aft of the Ariguani, the small ship on which I was a passenger.

But that was then and this is now. Have any of you a childhood tale to tell? A magical moment you remember as if it was yesterday. Or do you have a rant or a strong opinion about what is happening in Canada or the wide world.

Because many of us are in our eighties and lived through the "dirty thirties" - a depression like no other - and lived through World War II and the Korean War, we tend to gaze with jaundiced eyes at the fuss entrancing Ottawa about the treatment of Taliban prisoners in Afghanistan. The jails in that medieval country are not pleasant. I'm not sure where captured insurgents are to go or how to monitor their day to day treatment in primitive prisons while our soldiers are fighting a bloody war. Let the Afghans care for the prisoners. Enough said. That is my little rant for to-day.

A scam warning. A friend of mine in her eighties had a phone call two days ago from a man who told my friend her son had been jailed and needed money to bribe the guards to free him. Her son and his wife happened to be travelling in a far eastern country so my friend was terrified something bad had happened to him. The caller suggested she send $4600, cash, to a lawyer in Montreal who would take care of the problem. That didn't make sense to my friend. Cash? She hung up the phone. However, she was so shaken she couldn't eat for two days. Not nice.

And to jog your memories about what I do, I'm putting up the covers of my "Isabelle" books. Not to weary you with a sales pitch, you can read excerpts of both books at: www.anitabirt.com Leave comment below so I'll know someone out there is reading my blog or I might cast a spell!

Anita

LIFE IN THE SLOW LANE

To all of you folks over sixty, come on over and share some of your life experiences. For the oldest among you, what was it like growing up during the depression years? We lived in a small town close to Lake Ontario. Those were the days when men criss-crossed Canada seeking work. Because our rented house (not many ordinary people owned houses back then) was situated by a fairly busy highway, tramps would come knocking on our kitchen door seeking handouts.

They never asked for money. "Missus, could you spare a bit of tea. I have some milk?" One asked my mother. Others would have tea and milk and asked for some bread and butter/ My mother was sure there was a hidden mark on our back door because we were the only house on the street to attract the tramps.

They were not tramps, really. They were men desperately in search of work not sitting on street corners begging for coins.

I was fortunate most of the time as I grew up. My father was employed and my family was considered "well off," until I was thirteen years old and my father foolishly lost his job. My world turned upside down. After high school my hopes to attend university fell by the wayside and I took a business course. My first job, as a stenographer with Canadian General Electric paid me $15.00 a week! That was above the minimum wage. The minimum wage in 1939 for females was $12.50 a week.

Forget the depression, have you a childhood memory to share? Happy. Sad. Devilish fun. My brother, Harry and I, got into some scrapes and lived to tell the tale.

Check my website for information about my published books and how to purchase them. That's my sales pitch for to-day.

Anita
www.anitabirt.com

Cape Dorset Stone cut print

When I moved from my large home to a small apartment I did not have room for all the art work I brought with me. One item of interest is a Cape Dorset Stone Cut for which I do not have all space. The print is called:

Kikgavik and The Hunter. The artist is Kiakshuk. I purchased the print in Calgary, Alberta in 1962. My print is 46/50. Three years ago one of the prints sold for close to $4000.00 US.

If anyone is interested in seeing my print, please check my web site, www.anitabirt.com for information about me, my writing, excerpts from my books, the covers and how to reach me if you are interested in seeing a photo of the print.

Having said all that. Back to my WIP. I am preparing a short gothic story for an anthology sponsored by Gothicwriters, a chapter of Romance Writers of America. My story is called The Listeners. It takes place in the present time in Cornwall, England. Cornwall is awash in stories, ghostly and real.

My American heroine, Julia Denning, traveled to England expecting to attend a conference on the experience of time slowing. What happens to her is the stuff of nightmares or dreams - take your pick.

And just to keep my books on your mind, I'm posting the cover of my historical romance, A Very Difficult Man. It's available as an e-book and in trade paperback. The print version is available at Amazon.com and the e-book and print version can be ordered from www.Jasmine-Jade.com

Thanks for visiting

Anita

Inspiration

Where do your ideas come from? Authors are asked this question many times. Here is what started a new story inside my head.

Years ago, my husband and I were on a hiking holiday in mid-Wales and stopped for a morning coffee in a small cafe on the main street of Llandrindod Wells. I noticed a young woman sitting alone at a window table. She was dressed in black. She was drinking a Coke and kept glancing out the window as if waiting for a friend.

Immediately a story came to me. My heroine is sitting in the cafe having a morning coffee and notices a young woman dressed in Victorian black sitting alone at a window table. She is turning the pages of a diary and weeping over it.

That is how I began writing Isabelle's Diary and followed it with Isabelle's Story. To read excerpts of both books, go to my web site, www.anitabirt.com

Ordering information for my books is on my web site.

The books are available in e-format and soon, I hope, will be available in trade paper back.

If you want to know what inspired me to write, A Very Difficult Man, please leave a comment below and I shall write about it on my blog.

Thanks for dropping by.

Anita