I have asked several people to critique my book. Unfortunately, only one person has accepted that challenge and done so. Most authors/writers would pay someone for this critique, but since I make no income from my writing, I hate to make the hubby pay for yet another one of my writing adventures.

I have pretty much exhausted the free types of services. Then I thought, “Why not allow my blog fans to have a whack at it?”

So, if you’re game, I will put out the introduction to my book in this post and then one brief chapter of the book in another post. What I need most is to know whether or not it makes any sense to you. If not, please be specific about what wasn’t clear, so that I can work on correcting that.

Also, would you even pay a couple of bucks to download such a book on your e-reader? If not, I need to either scrap this writing idea or work really hard to make it worth such an expenditure.

This week’s WOW is garniture. You know the rules: No looking up the word on your electronic device or in an actual paper dictionary. Submit your guess in a comment below this post.

Here are my guesses for what garniture could possibly mean:

garniture (ˈgär-ni-chər ) 1. an amount of garnisheed money 2. a piece of furniture that also can be a garnish on your salad (That’s flexible furniture, now!) 3. a caricature of Garth Brooks

I can’t wait to see your guess(es) below!

I think there was a dog at my human home before I got here. I thought maybe the dog was still here, but I have looked for that dog everywhere, using my best sniffing, and can’t find that food-stealing dog anywhere.

But here’s why I think she might still be here–When I’m not looking, my food disappears each night and doesn’t return until morning. So that dog has to be taking it when I’m asleep. I don’t know how that dog goes without sleep, but since my human mommy and daddy are asleep at the same time, I know it has to be that sneaky, daytime-sleeping dog.

I think the dog is a female because once in a while, the human mommy and daddy call me “Maizie.” And they get mad if I don’t answer to that name. I don’t know why they do that, but they usually apologize and call me Trinity or Trin and pet my head afterwards.

As a stoic Scot, tears are not considered “kosher.” (How’s that for mixed cultural references?!) I tend to abide by that idea. In my defense I have several reasons to do so:

1. I get migraines from a stuffed-up head. Even though I now have much better meds to prevent and deal with these headaches-on-steroids, my 50+ history of dealing with them has created a habit of not giving into anything that produces a stuffy head.
2. When I do cry, I’m the ugliest of criers. Probably because I do wait eons to cry, the actual act is much worse–because tears for everything that has ever caused frustration and pain usually converge into 1 enormous crying session. The result? A stuffed-up head–see # 1.
3. I’m a pastor’s kid. As the daughter of a pastor, I learned to pretend that I had it together. I am now so good at it that I consider this an asset. And, like their pastor parents, we PKs learn to be strong for others and only break down when we have no resources left.
4. Because of the ugly crier issue, I prefer to cry alone. This means that I often have to wait until I get home to let the crying commence. For a couple of decades even getting home wasn’t a remedy because I had to be wife and mom when I arrived home. After arriving home, I would often forget that a crying session might be in order due to these responsibilities.
5. I’m an American. We Americans believe in pulling ourselves up “with our bootstraps.” We’re fiercely independent and believe that tears are a sign of weakness. As Tom Hanks said in A League of Their Own, “There’s no crying in baseball.” And apparently the only places were really allowed to cry are in hospitals, funeral homes and at weddings. Even at funerals and in hospitals we Yanks live with the possibility of being called a “sissy” for crying.
6. I grew up with two older brothers in the early 60s. Frequently, my teenage brothers wanted time to themselves, away from their demanding, whiny sister. I, on the other hand, just wanted to be a part of their “club.” If they denied me this privilege, I usually cried. They often responded with a denigrating tone, “Cry-baby!” This taught me that crying was not okay.