Calling All Spies, Writers, Roofers

Once upon a time, there was a prostitute called Maria. Wait a minute. "Once upon a time" is how all the best children's stories begin and "prostitute" is a word for adults. How can I start a book with this apparent contradiction? But since, at every moment of our lives, we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss, let's keep that beginning.


Eleven Minute by Paul Coelho

Below is a list of sites to help those who are in the writing community who lost their homes to Katrina:

http://www.romancingtheblog.com/blog/
Close to Home by Kate 9/1/2005

As many of you know, one of RTB’s own, Larissa Ione lives in the area of Gulfport, MS. A former Air Force meteorologist, she knows storms and left with the kid, the laptop, the cat, the mice, and clothes for two days when Katrina was still a category two storm. Katrina grew, and now Larissa has no home to return to.
Her hurricane insurance will not cover all of the loss because the largest part of the destruction was caused by the storm surge. Her son will be moving to Washington state to live with his grandparents so he can start grade school again. She will be handling all the repair / recovery on her own because her husband is required elsewhere. He is Coast Guard, and was stationed in Gulfport. He is now assigned to hurricane search and rescue. A true romance hero.
Larissa’s critique partners and the blogging group at WriteMinded are organizing an auction to help out her family in their loss. The auction, with an anticipated launch date of 9/8, already includes critiques from Kensington editor, Kate Duffy, Pocket editorial director, Maggie Crawford, several Harlequin editors, agents Karen Solem, Deidre Knight, Jenny Bent (to name a few), as well as authors JoAnn Ross, Lynn Viehl, Holly Lisle, Melissa Senate, Julie Kenner, and many more. A partial list of items can be seen here at RomAid. *UPDATE* Day One of the Auction is now live.
For more information on other ways to help, check out the link at WriteMinded.
Additional fundraising efforts organized by the writing/reading community can be found here, and this post will be updated as needed:
* All About Romance is organizing a book and ARC eBay auction, with all proceeds to be donated to the Disaster Relief Fund of the American Red Cross.
* Vicki Hinze has set up a check-in for writers at www.itgirlsseries.com/hurricane.htm
*Lisa Hamilton, a member of SOLA, the Southern Louisiana RWA Chapter, is collecting money for chapter members who have lost their homes and everything they own in the wake of Katrina. You can make a contribution via PayPal to: Wilderwriter2005 AT cs DOT com
*Squawk Radio has Adopted A Family - and they want your help.
*From Suzanne McMinn:
MORE HELP FOR REAL-LIFE HEROES–many of our military members serving overseas have also lost their homes without even a chance to salvage photographs or a few mementoes as other evacuees were able to do. Together with ArmyWifeToddlerMom, I’m helping to gather items for an auction to benefit hurricane relief for our military heroes via Soldiers’ Angels.
*From The Passionate Pen, author Jesse Peterson gives ways you can help writer Charlotte Dillion:
If you’re an aspiring romance author, you probably already know the answer to this question. Charlotte Dillon is the wonderful owner of Charlotte’s Web, which is probably the premier site for answering any question you have about writing and publishing. Charlotte also runs the RWCList, an email listserv where over 1000 authors have gathered to talk writing, with more coming every day. She has helped us all over the years. And I think we all want to give back. I know if it were me, Charlotte would be doing the same.
*Nora Roberts is matching dollar for dollar any donations made to Habitat for Humanity. Read the details here.
*An additional Hurricane Relief fund for the romance community, specifically. The Romance Club
*Romance Designs is holding a Relief Contest with proceeds going to the Red Cross. Winners will receive autographed book prize packs.
Please feel free to contact RTB with any additional information and links organized by the reading/writing community.

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Since I'm in the construction, we talk a lot about what's happened to New Orleans and Gulfport, but from a totally different view point. The roofs in NO, for example, caught our attention. None of the shingles were blown off, you see. The engineers among us marveled at the pumps that held the levee together all these years, so I got to hear all the technical stuff on how to improve/repair these pumps. Then the conversation turned to the Netherlands and their dikes there.

It occurred to me that different groups of people would always focus on different things. Up in DC, among the politicians, their minds are focusing on FINGER POINTING. 'Nuff said.

Another thing that's on my mind--if they are going to rebuild New Orleans, who's going to insure them? There's a lot of talk about the residents there not getting anything anyhow because none of them had flood insurance (the hurricane didn't destroy the homes; the flood did). I was, like, HALLO? How was it that the banks allowed money to be borrowed for homes that were built without insisting flood insurance? The land is below sea level!

The quote I found today is really true...we really have one foot in fantasy world and one foot in chaos....

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