The Scent of Violets

The Scent of Violets

My palms form a tent

over distant cities as I pray

and I want violets to rain down,

and to smell healing oils

instead of sulfur,

and see angels pour the waters of peace

from their place of mythic origin,

no angels on backs of apocalyptic horses,

no plagues, nor rumors of war,

no masquerades of death,

and to hear that myths of sacrifice

are no longer allowed by the laws of Heaven,

the testing of Abraham eased from human memory,

of Isaac in peaceful slumber, no vengeful Lord

waiting to see how far a father will go,

no knife raised above any altar.

no offering of children to slaughter,

no cruel jokes of a jealous god,

not even a scapegoat desired,

and for prayers to rise to Heaven

on the scent of violets and answers given

as rain falls silently to a quiet Earth.

From my chapbook Threshold, Meeting of the Minds Publications

Les Eason, My Dad Aug. 30, 1906- Aug. 3, 1978

Stars Falling in August

Daddy, the stars fell when you died, skidding across the night

Like chips pealed from chrome, carried by burnished wind across the sky.

The creosote was drunk in the dry desert air.

And though I wasn’t there, I’ve imagined how you flew from your soul,

Leaving your daughters like thistles blown over the chaparral,

Our breath thin as the stems of the palo verde that grew stunted in the yard.

The house filled up with uncles.  My boyfriend and I slept on a cot out back,

As we made love, the stars became silver nighthawks,

Fish tails swimming through the blinding air.

I was numb like the space between stars that are too stable,

Refusing to stray from the safety of their paths.  I didn’t  feel the meteors

Of broken glass falling to earth in silent breaths.

Daddy, thousands of stars have tumbled since then,

Streaking through the heat of a hundred nights. Each second

They have been in the sky, these variegated strands of burning air

Have burned open the portion in me that closed

More than twenty years ago.

Now nights stay sober save for the drink of starlight,

And the odor of yarrow and summer grass.

But the sky will never be shorn of star flakes,

Nor the earth of burning sand. The stars fell

When you died, carried by the wind luminous across the sky.

Review of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power

Jeff Sharlet‘s book THE FAMILY: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power is a frightening examination of how conservative “Christianity” has made inroads into the American Political System in the last seventy or so years. This is not a conspiracy book. Sharlet is a legitimate journalist, writing for the New York Times. If interested in why the conservative agenda has gained so much power, how closely related to fascism it has become, and why so many “average” Americans are under its thrall, this book is a necessary read. I think the message deserves five stars, however the book is slow reading and it’s easy to get lost in all the details and personalities. For history buffs, the first part of The Family that examines why America is still influenced by Jonathan Edwards and the Great Awakening, how this chapter in history set a default state in our national consciousness, making us vulnerable to born again rhetoric to this day, is worth reading for its own sake.

Interview: Janet Riehl, Artist, Writer, and Storyteller

Our interview about our creative lives and the internet (and marking the sixth anniversary for Riehlife).

Janet Riehl helped to shepherd me through the release of my middle grade novel HUNGRY in 2007.  She explained blogs, web pages, and podcasts to me one day as we walked the paths of Anderson Marsh State Park in Lake County, California.  Janet now lives in St. Louis where she takes care of her 96 year-old father Erwin A. Thompson. Janet is a multifaceted artist, musician, and storyteller. She maintains her lively blog-magazine Riehl Life: Village Wisdom for the 21st Century, writes for Story Circle Network , and creates doodle art on her smart phone that is causing a sensation at her Facebook page.

Janet traveled across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where she initiated and directed development projects, provided training, and taught. Her cross-cultural focus continued upon her return to the U.S. in her work with Native American pueblos, inner-city African Americans, Latinos, and—perhaps most foreign of all—the California computer industry. Janet was also the recipient of a three-year leadership fellowship in international development from the Kellogg Foundation.

Janet is probably best known for her poetry book Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary and the audio book Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry and Music. Sightlines is a memoir told in story poems of the year following her sister’s death when Janet returned to her childhood home on the bluffs above the Mississippi River. It’s a frank portrait of her family coming to terms with its grief, while celebrating its past and difficult present.

Janet’s essays and poems have been published in numerous national literary magazines and her work appears in several anthologies. She was twice selected as finalist for Poet Laureate of Lake County, California.

The following is from a conversation Janet and I had via both Skype and cell phones on July 8, 2012.  We discussed the effort it takes to maintain an active Internet presence, the advantages of “micro-blogging,” and her new passion of Doodles made on her smart phone. I interviewed Janet previously in 2009 for Suite 101: Part 1: http://suite101.com/article/janet-rhiel-healing-grief-with-poetry-a234962, Part 2: http://suite101.com/article/janet-riehl-creativity-and-community-a235067

You started to build your website after Sightlines was published in 2006. Tell us how you began and how that grew in the six years since.

First, I set up a website geared completely to Sightlines. I’ve had several web designers and tech people help me on my sites as they’ve morphed over the years. This first one was put up very inexpensively by my internet service provider near where I lived in Northern California. We met face-to-face. Later in 2006 I signed up for a promotional package from Author Marketing Experts (AME). The cost was a real stretch for me. And, frankly, I’m not sure what concrete results were achieved from the promotional campaign. But, I did learn a heck of a lot, made connections, and started my blog Riehlife at the moment blogging was going mainstream. This one was also designed inexpensively by a man in Florida whom I never met. I’ve learned that site techies come and go. From first internet site to the current one, I’ve worked with five. At that time, too, I’d become one of Amazon’s star book reviewers.

Rather quickly these various contacts, a supportive network started to grow around the country and even internationally. Some of these blogging and internet buddies—most of whom I’ve yet to meet–remain strong colleagues six years later.

Gradually other vehicles opened up on the internet and I followed the trends as best I could. I tend to hit these at medium maturity.

What are the top tips you could give someone starting a blog or website?

Approach it like any project. No matter who you hire to help you, remember that you remain the project manager in charge of goal, budget, and timeline. Know what you want to get out of it. Keep in touch with your family and friends? Teach, help, and change the world? Promote and make money? Personal expression and having fun?

Everything else flows from your purpose: name, mission statement, look and feel, audience, and how intense your relationship is with your blog. As you name your blog and formulate your mission, bounce these off people you trust.

Download and study the 4^th edition of “Blogging for Dummies,” by Susannah Gardner and Shane Birley. This handbook demystifies all the seemingly arcane stuff like “trackback links.”

http://www.freedownloadsebook.com/Blogging-For-Dummies_212.html

Blogs must be fed to continue to engage readers, and generate reasonable traffic. If you want to try it out to see how you like it, go on a group blogging site like My Opera, Typepad, WordPress and so many others. Don’t jump into creating your blog as a standalone website. Then, you’re like the dog that caught the car, and you have to keep ahead of it.

How did you come up with the name for your blog-website?

My last name is Riehl, of course, and I liked the play on words of Riehlife. The tagline “Village wisdom for the 21^st Century” came from a testimonial for Sightlines by Clive Matson (whom I like to refer to as my “writing mother).

Your mission for Riehl Life is to create connections through the arts and across cultures. What does that mean for you?

Over the period of my professional career(s) I’ve done so many different types of things that I’ve discovered that it’s my job to make sense of it all. The through-line has always been “creating,” “connecting,” “cross cultural communication,” and working in every branch of the arts. Gradually it became clearer to me that this was as good a mission statement for my life and work (and therefore my blog) that I was likely to come up with.

One of my biggest concerns was having a large enough playing field to express the range and depth of my interests and my penchant for synthesis. That’s worked well over the life of the blog and drawn many fascinating and nurturing colleagues to me. Offhand I’d guess that at least 300 writers and artists have been guests on Riehlife—through interviews, stand alone posts of essays and commentary, blog duets (a tem I coined), having their creative work appear on the site.

I ran across a comment by Susan Tweit, the author of Walking Nature Home, who wrote that Riehl Life is a journal “where the sense of thought provokes imagination.”

I couldn’t be more thrilled by Susan’s comment. That’s precisely what I’ve sought to create: a place where I could both express my personal views, work, and life while reaching beyond that. I wanted to create a “Riehlife Village” and I’ve done that.

You’ve mentioned your changing relationship with your blog—and, indeed, with the internet in general. Can you trace that?

As a creative person I’m a “Generator”—someone who’s good with ideas, motivation, and enthusiasm—towards the beginning of a project. I work best with “Realizers” who help me bridge ideas into action, keep focus, and sustain my energy level. I learned this from Carol Lloyd’s book Creating a Life Worth Living. It’s by far one of the best books on creativity and life design I’ve ever read. As a generator it can be hard for things to hold my attention, and I’m more of a sprinter rather than a marathon runner. I typically stay with a project between 1-5 years. So, around 2010 (the fourth year), my energy flagged as I became disillusioned with what I was getting back from the site.

Spending three to five years on any project seems like a big commitment to me.  I’ve always been amazed at your versatility and the depth of feeling you put into both your writing and your art.  

Thanks, Alethea. That means a lot to me. My pay-off has been affecting lives and having that come back to me as affection. I need to feel that I’m making a difference in the world. Responsiveness and energy coming back from my readers feeds me which in turn feeds my work.

My audio book based on the Sightlines book came out in 2009, and I ran an extensive blog tour. In 9 weeks I visited 30 blogs—drawing on the network I’d created up to that point. I ran all of the logistics, and wrote original posts for each site. Usually on a blog tour there are several boiler plate choices with perhaps a minimum of customization for your site. My web mistress sent out messages to my readers promoting the tour—along with my activity on Twitter and Facebook and referral sites like Digg.

The big disappointment here was that after all that work, I gained lots of accolades, but hardly any book sales—way short of paying for the time, effort, and money I’d invested. The practical results I’d hoped for were pretty wan. My intense focus in the blog started waning after the tour. Rather than being the home room for my creative life, I began drifting towards Facebook. I gradually posted less. In 2011 I stopped my monthly Riehlife email messages for blog subscribers. I just didn’t have the energy, and these can be seen in the number of posts and the traffic stats. Here’s the report card for 2006-2007 that gives you an idea of where I’d built it to that point. There were over 400 posts, I had good traffic, good response rates, and—most rewarding to me—Google ranked Riehlife with a number 4 in importance on a scale of 10 (with, of course, Google being 10). The strongest sites by regular people typically don’t go over a 5. http://www.riehlife.com/2008/01/13/riehlife-report-card-year-one/ By 2010 I’d gone down to 220 posts. By 2011 there were only 80 posts. And in 2012 so far? Maybe only 30. Naturally my traffic stats have dropped dramatically. I can’t get Google Analytics to give me a yearly report, but clearly my readership is down. Energy in = Energy out

Like so many of my creative endeavors, Riehlife has been a labor of love. Love in = Love out. It’s given me a lot and also given those who wrote for it and read it a lot. It feels odd to be so detached from it. In these Labor of Love projects the artist must receive some form of pay. If not money, then emotional, intellectual, social, and creative satisfaction. For many years Riehlife did all that. It was enough to make something beautiful for God.

I don’t want to let go of the blog, or completely park it. So much of my life’s work is there. I’ll do my best to sustain and maintain it. Will I be doing it into my 70s or for that rest of my life? Likely not. My attention is turning to harvesting my work and bringing it together. We’ll see where that leads.

As a multi-talented person you have the luxury of choice. I’ve seen you slip from poetry and writing projects to visual art exhibitions to community theater during your time in Lake County. As you step back from so many of the activities that used to absorb you—like blogging and presenting at conferences—what’s the current leading edge in your creative life?

Quite by happenstance (happy accidents are a staple in determining direction) I started making digital art on my smart phone using an app called “Doodler,” and then immediately post them on Facebook. That has given me a built-in audience with encouraging feedback beyond my wildest dreams. I now have close to 700 Doodles as I build a body of art work. As you said in your introduction the Doodles are getting great response on Facebook—I would go so far as to say I have a Doodle Fan Club. This audience keeps pointing out that the Doodles are legitimate art and also have commercial possibilities. Right now I love having them in this free-open-play space. They bring joy to me and those who see them. Commercial?  Maybe, down the line.

I’m working to get my music back—claiming it as my own. In spite of coaxing myself, I’m still dragging on practicing my violin. Luckily a friend and I are now playing together once a week with a modest goal to hold a recital for friends at her place. Stay tuned!

I’m part of a blogging consortium for Story Circle Network’s “Telling Her Stories.” My monthly Creative Catalyst column draws comments which lead to satisfying dialogue.

As my focus shifts away from Riehlife, these three projects keep me in touch with visual art, music, and writing. Having completed every conceivable practical preparation for my father’s death, I’m now working at getting back on my creative horse. No hope of riding like the wind, but just ambling along is okay with me right now.

Ah! The creative connection!  I enjoyed reading about the process of making your Doodles on your last posts in Story Circle Network .

Underlying what we’ve been discussing is “What is success?” I feel each of us defines and accesses that in different ways. Perhaps the idea of what success is shifts during our lives. What are your thoughts on this?

Ah yes, success. America is so results-oriented that our culture sees success in any field equated with what can be quantified. For instance how many books have you sold? How much money have you made. In Europe, it’s not like that. When I’ve met Europeans and told them I was an artist and writer, they were very interested and immediately jumped to the content and form of the work itself. In America the first questions are: “Would I have heard your name or the title of your book?” Or, the old stand-by: “Can you make money doing that?”

In art school a speaker framed the question nicely: “Do you want your art to support you? Or, do you want to support your art?” Your entire creative practice will flow from your answer. I decided that I wanted to support my art. That meant—as it means for most people in the arts—that I needed a day job. Carol Lloyd’s “Creating a Life Worth Living” is tremendously helpful on figuring out some combination that will work for you. I found myself consulting, substitute teaching, running after-school art classes, coaching writers, and directly a family literacy program for migrant farm workers.

I’ve made little money from my years of creative production. But I have made meaning for myself and others. Meaning, love, and adding to the life of the world—these have been my rewards. When I suffer from a meaning crisis (see Eric Maisel’s work for more on this term), then everything takes a dive. My job is to keep focused on what my work means to me—to affirm that “I matter, and my work matters.” This is a tough job, and only we can do it.

Monsters and Mysteries: Interview with Author Candy Korman

Candy Korman is a free lance-writer and mystery novelist whose books have classic monster motifs.  She lives in New York City.  This week we discussed THE MARY SHELLY GAME, a who-done-it that combines the elegance of Agatha Cristie’s style with themes taken from Mary Shelley‘s FRANKENSTEIN, her love of Tango, and her new release BRAM STOKER’S SUMMER SUBLET.

The Mary Shelley Game is witty and contemporary, yet it successfully relies on classic motifs on drawing-room who-done-its. I thought it was clever of you to have Amanda, your protagonist, mention Agatha Christie mysteries, and then have the plot unfold like one: the country house, the quirky guests, a twist about whom the murderer was.

I gave my nod to the master of the classic English country house murder mysteries in my own house party story. I couldn’t resist. My mother is a huge mystery fan, so I started reading Agatha Christie very early on. She may not be part of my DNA, but Christie is definitely part of my early education.

There are many layers in the novel. Amanda tells the main story, but we also get into the heads of other characters, especially the two stalkers. There is also the added layer of the stories the guests wrote for the weekend entertainment. Would you mind discussing how you planned the novel. Did you start with a master outline? Write the main story separately from the stories? Or did you just start at the beginning and write to the end and develop each piece as you came to it?

The Mary Shelley Game actually started as a longer work. A number of years back, I realized that I’d seen at least a hundred Frankenstein movies, but had never read the book and it was time to give it a try. I was surprised. It was a sophisticated, non-linear story told from multiple points-of-view. Around that time, I was invited to a weekend house in upstate New York. The setting, Mary Shelley’s original and the story behind her creation sparked something in my imagination. I wrote a very arty, out-of-sequence, literary novel about friends telling their own Frankenstein stories while the monster (made by the choices of people in power) stalked them.

No one wanted to publish it, so it sat around for a long time, until a very wise woman suggested that I transform it into a shorter, straight ahead, thriller ebook. Last summer, in cafes in Berlin and at my desk in New York, I dissected the original and put it back together — Frankenstein style — while eliminating more than one third of the original text and adding an extra threat in the woods. No outline, no master plan and not a method that’s easy to repeat.

I appreciated the sense of humor in the book. I really loved Igor’s story. Of the stories told that weekend, is there a one that’s your favorite?

Igor’s is the best!

Did you mean any irony in choosing the victim among your characters?

Umm… there really is some irony there! But that particular choice had more to do with the dynamics of the relationships between the characters and who was needed to further the story.

The real monster in The Mary Shelly Game was created as much as Frankenstein’s monster was, a sum of the dysfunctional parts of family and society. I took note of your reference that the monster was peacefully talking to the blind man until his children came and saw him as something other. How did the parallel between the murderer in your novel and Mary Shelly’s tragic monster evolve?

You are very perceptive. The scene with the blind man is the quintessential moment from the original. It speaks to the humanity of the monster and the monstrous nature of humanity — in the person of the blind man’s family. The monster in my book is created by the greed, ignorance and self-interest of the people with power. They create a monster because it’s expedient. He is the unintended consequences of their choices.

You’ve written about Writer’s Boot Camp on your blog. Did you create the parameters of the “camp” or learn about a discipline from other sources? Tell us what your writing day looks like, or what expectations you put on yourself in terms of production.

My “boot camp” is simply my crazy writing life. I publish short stories on my freelance writing website every month. In order to have 12 short stories (or 10 if two are longer) to publish, I have to write between 15 and 20 stories a year. I’ve been doing that for years. No one told me I had to do it, but… I know it’s been good for me. It’s like going to the gym or flossing your teeth, if you make it a habit you do it, and you benefit from the effort.

I write a lot and I’m a relatively fast writer. I’m also a slow reader and I enjoy research (I was a history major in college). My freelance work is primarily for businesses and not-for-profit organizations. I write website text, brochures, patient information sheets, promotional text, annual reports, presentation scripts, newsletters, etc. This requires a lot of interviewing so I meet, if only on the phone, Skype or the internet, many interesting people. I’m also finishing up a ghostwriting project. Nothing like writing someone else’s memoir, for learning how to get inside a character.

You tango! I was in Chile a few years back and was fortunate enough to attend Festival Danza America in Iquique. The tango dancers from Argentina took my breath away with their grace, agility, and pure athleticism. How much does tango play in your life? Do you do it for fun? In competitions? What do you find most rewarding about it?

My Tango is entirely social. I started with Swing, Latin and some Ballroom, but my first Argentine Tango class changed all that. It’s like I fell into the Tango vortex and never came out. A few months later I as in Buenos Aires. It’s a complex and beautiful dance with a very long learning curve. Argentine Tango is danced all over the world and since I love to travel it’s a great match for me. I’ve danced in many places including Berlin, Nijmegen (the Netherlands), Perugia and Buenos Aires. At home in New York, I dance a few times a week and have made wonderful friends through Tango.

There’s no Tango in The Mary Shelley Game, but it makes several important appearances in my second Candy’s Monster — Bram Stoker’s Summer Sublet. The protagonist doesn’t know anything about Tango so bringing her a Milonga (a Tango dance) in the story was an interesting challenge. I had to try to see the dance and hear the music from a relatively naive point-of-view.

Do monsters follow you? I read about the encounter with the monster on the bottle at the restaurant where you recently ate. Do you look for or expect signs of synchronicity that parallel your work? I personally love this aspect of being creative.

I thought there would be two monsters and then I started rereading Poe. I’m working on my Poe-inspired ebook this summer. I think all the monsters were lurking for a long time and I just wasn’t looking. Now that I’m looking, I can’t help but find them everywhere. Creativity seems to be about putting together bits and pieces in new ways to form something new.

You have a new book Bram Stoker’s Summer Sublet, which was released yesterday, July 11, 2012! Is it another drawing-room mystery? What would you like readers to know about?

Bram Stoker’s Summer Sublet was inspired by the original Dracula — another book that was a surprising read. It’s a epistolary novel, so I updated the diary entries, letters and news clippings to diary entries, voice mail messages, email, etc. The character is feeling lost and alone after a romantic disaster. Instead of spending the month of July in Italy on her honeymoon, she’s pet sitting in an apartment in the East Village in New York. The dog is old, the parrot goes on philosophical rants and she gradually comes to the conclusion that the man next door is a vampire. It’s a comedy.

Do you plan to continue the series? What other monsters can we expect to appear?

Yes! I’m in Edgar Alan Poe land right now. After that I’m not sure which way I’ll go. I’m playing around with some interesting ideas. I read Lovecraft when I was a kid. Maybe it’s time to give him another try? Right now, the plan is to have the Poe ebook out by the end of the year, so I had better get back to it!

Summer Thoughts

I started this blog saying I was going to write for at least seven minutes daily.  It has morphed and taken on a personality all its own, however.  I like that it has.  It’s been awhile though since I’ve just sat down to write and see what I want to say.  Summer is speeding by, as always, but this summer seems to have roller blades.  School starts August 14th (I think, if that’s a Tuesday).

Some people would say, Oh, you have a month, but come the first of the month I’ll be my classroom getting ready, putting up paper for bulletin boards (I reused the same paper two years in a row, time for a change), sorting math supplies, peeking into our new reading curriculum . . .I’ll most likely teach first/second grades again which means learning Pearson for both grades if my school can’t find a way to separate kids for reading time.  We’re small, one or one and a half classrooms per grade and sometimes the numbers don’t work.  Nobody wants 35 kids for reading.  Last year I had only 10 first graders for math, though, and it was delightful.

There’s smoke in the air.  A fire is burning a long way off, but the sky is red and that burning feeling is up inside my nose.

Wondering what to start writing next, the project I’ll be committed to for the next year.  I thought my mermaid novel, but in working on promoting HERON’S PATH I’ve found a plethora of mermaid books.  Going to look over my novel THREE DEMONS and see if it’s salvageable.  I think the Las Vegas part works well.  But I need to re-envision Hell.

I am so grateful for summer.

Hashtag, Handle, Bitly Register

So, since I’ve started this blog I’ve written about everything but my book.  I’ve been shy, I guess.  Or because this place has been a wonderful  to fheave stuff on to it that fills up my brain and life.  And that has a purpose.

I want to share an exciting moment in the life of an author.   I could pretend this is a found poem and title it “How I Spent My Summer Vacation”:

• did u figure it out?

• you put the tweet that you want tweeted in as a comment

• you have to follow that format

• you pick two hashtag words

• then put your handle in

• then your books name

• then the link has to be shortened

• you do that at bitly

• there is a link to bitly on there

• you go to bitly and register

• or you might not even have to register

 

Open House and Wild Things

We were hard at work making our Wild Things when news came of Sendak’s death.  This is first grader Braxton’s poem he wrote the day before:

I am a wild thing.

I look at the cheese moon

That is bright and hairy.

It chases a star squirrel,

And then Max came along,

And Boo came with me,

And Sam did too.

Here are all of the Wild Things,

some animal conversations,

and, finally, a couple of our habitats.

A Poem for My Sister

My sister Gwyn has been gone almost 8 years now.  She’s been on my mind a lot lately.  Though Celeste, in Heron’s Path, is not a bit like her, Gwyn did inspire her, the relationship between sisters.  She was the bright one, I was the dark.   She’s not in the collage, but I made it while she was dying.  The little boy is my dad, Leslie Eason, picture taken around 1909 or so.

For Gwyn

Madonna is all dolled up. Her glittery eyes look down at the baby

resting in her henna hands. The Queen of Heaven’s ready

for Mardi Gras. Instead, the graveyard stones slant below

her sparkling gaze, too quiet for a party, too white, too gray.

In the other picture, four dancing-girls do what they can

to divert  barbarian hoards on horseback, spears full tilt

as they rush in for attack. The girls dream of feet free

on desert sand, far from the soft red carpet of the harem’s floor,

far from the bad manners of these sweaty men.

In the morning, I look through my scratched lens

and sit with Andrew as he drinks chocolate milk.

Must I meditate on death with this child at my desk?

On the decal of the shuffle skeleton on the car we passed?

The white rose so quietly growing on the vine?

My sister drowns in a hospital room. In her morphine dreams,

divas dance on the walls.  From chairs by her bed, little black boys

speak to her of heaven.  I pray her rose unfurling.  Her petals.

Her wings ribbed with glittery adornments.

I think of deserts carpeted with red flowers, the mosaic spots

on butterflies, girls with bare feet spinning, All things transforming

and unfolding. I write HEAVEN in my book and underline it twice.

Unfortunate Traits We Bequeath to Our Fictional Characters

  A great blue  heron’s call is an ugly thing, resembling’s someone’s great-aunt Millie clearing her throat after a forty-year pack a day habit.  Harsh, inelegant, an ironic trait for such a beautiful birds.  The geese must laugh behind their backs.   After creating Celeste, I realized I’d saddled her with a honk the Three Stooges would have been proud of.

Deborah, in Hungry, has bathroom issues that flare up when her species hits puberty.  I just had to mortify her.  Couldn’t help it.

As a writer, have you ever created a trait that you realize has given your character unintentional baggage?   As an avid reader, have you ever snickered at the pitfalls of characters, especially very virtuous ones?