Merry Christmas everyone!  It's time to countdown favorite holiday movies and see if you agree.
Here's my list, with #1 as my all-time favorite:

1.  Scrooge (1970 musical with Albert Finney)
2.  It's a Wonderful Life
3.  Christmas Vacation
4.  Holiday Inn (Bing Crosby & Fred Astaire)
5. The Christmas Story (with Ralphie & the Bumpus Hounds)
6.  The Bishop's Wife
7.  A Charlie Brown Christmas
8.  How the Grinch Stole Christmas
9.  Miracle on 34th Street (Maureen O'Hara & Natalie Wood)
10.  White Christmas

Honorable mention: Elf, Babes in Toyland, While You Were Sleeping (yes, the holidays are an important to the plot on this one)

Visit my website at www.debbiefullerthomas.com for updates and information about the new blog, Novelmatters.blogspot.com









                                  

Beginning in January, I will be joining six other authors to create an exciting new blog titled "Novel Matters."
Top left: me, Patti Hill, Sharon Souza
Middle: Bonnie Grove, Jennifer Valent, Kathleen Popa
Bottom: Latayne Scott

We will highlight the "espresso roast of fiction" (Kathleen's yummy description), host guest bloggers and offer great giveaways and contests.  Even if you're not a writer, you'll love this glimpse into what makes a great piece of fiction as we explore challenging topics.  Can't wait!
Check my website at www.debbiefullerthomas.com for our launch date.

Good Dog, Pepper
After twelve years of looking after our family, Pepper left us on June 16, 2008.  She had a large tumor, poor girl.  Accepting what had to be done and being with her at the end was one of the most difficult things we've had to do. 

Pepper was a German/Aussie shepherd mix who loved to chase birds and balls, and when balls weren't available, she presented us with rocks.  As for the cats, she feared Tabby and was pals with Aki.  Pepper was a great watchdog and loved to take rides in cars.  She slept at the foot of our bed at night and always spent Christmas morning with us while we opened gifts.  There was always a gift for her under the Christmas tree.  She often tried to sneak into my son's room when I left in the morning and jump onto his bed.  She knew it wasn't allowed, and when caught, she would tuck her tail and hang her head and obediently go outside.  She knew a few commands, but the one that amazed me was her understanding of "all gone."  If we finished eating something that interested her, we would show her our empty hands and say "all gone."  She would accept this and simply quit begging. (Of course, we gave her little treats occasionally)  I always slept well knowing she would bark at the slightest sound.

I'll never forget the night she got sprayed by a skunk.  Part of our fencing was down due to a storm, and she must have heard something outside.  I opened the screen door to let her out because I thought she needed to go potty, and she bolted.  Two seconds later she raced back inside and shook her coat.  It took several seconds to recognize the horrific smell and that she had been sprayed in the face.  I had to wipe her eyes & coat with paper towels, which spread the smell to my hands, my clothes, the family room and kitchen.  She spent that night (and many more) in the garage, which took months to finally clear of the smell, and the next day I took her to the vet.  They bathed her in a solution (I believe it was Dawn, hydrogen peroxide and baking soda, but don't quote me) which took away about 85% of the smell - bless them!  What an experience. 

We love Pepper and miss her.  We join many of you who have loved and lost wonderful pets.  Feel free to leave a comment about your beloved pet.

visit my website at www.debbiefullerthomas.com

Tuesday Night at the Blue Moon has finally released and I'm doing the Snoopy dance! This weekend at Book Expo America in Los Angeles I had my first book signing, and it's an experience I'll never forget.  It was a quick overnight trip for us, but it was worth the price of gas ($4.59!) and repeated fill-ups at Starbucks to see Book Expo.  Although it's more than a little daunting to see just how many books have been added to the many already published, I enjoyed putting faces to the people with whom I've traded emails at Moody Publishers over the last six months.  They are a wonderful, supportive and talented group of professionals, and I'm grateful that I had the chance to attend.

Since we were staying in Marina del Rey, we took the opportunity to drive around our old stomping grounds, enjoy breakfast at the Nichols Restaurant (old friends) and spend some time at Palisades Park.  Back when we first got married (at age 21 - yikes!), we had moved 3,000 miles from home to Culver City,  so the area was very nostalgic for us.  As newlyweds struggling with homesickness and very low on cash, our Friday night entertainment consisted of buying ice cream cones cheap at Thirfty's and walking Palisades Park, dreaming of what we would do if we had unlimited resources at our disposal.   It was great to be there again and enjoy the beauty of the ocean and the tall palm trees.  We haven't gotten rich over the years, but God's unlimited resources have always been available to us in the form of family, friends, great experiences and work we have loved.  This trip to Book Expo to sign my first book was one of those rich experiences that has made life abundant.

Debbie

Visit www.debbiefullerthomas.com for more info on Tuesday Night at the Blue Moon

Happy belated Mother's Day to all women who share their lives with young people in a positive way.

Due to a text message I received this weekend, I've realized that mothering shouldn't and doesn't begin and end with your own children.  The text message wasn't from my kids, although they each expressed their "Happy Mother's Day" in his&her own way   This came from a young woman I've known for about seven years--a former employee I supervised.  She had come to us straight out of the Army, a single mom with one son and had lost her mom (had a good stepmom, though) and rough around the edges.  Over time, I prayed for her and let her cry on my shoulder and tried to give her counsel.  Then she started coming to church and taking steps toward God.  At one point, I had a revelation of sorts.  I'd had 3 miscarriages early in our marriage, before our children were born, and she would have been the same age as the first one.  I had the strangest feeling that God was restoring the 'child' I had lost.  Over the years, she had her ups and downs, but she graduated from college, got a good teaching job and married a wonderful man with a little girl.  She tells me they pray around their dinner table and read the Bible together.  I'm amazed at how happy and grounded their family seems to be. 

Now, I'm not saying this to pat myself on the back.  I actually did very little and probably missed many opportunities to do more for her.  But God took the little that I did and brought much from it.  How often do we get chances to love young people in tangible ways, maybe our kids' friends, girl scouts in the patrol, youth in our churches, and think it amounts to nothing?  The truth is, you don't have to be a biological mom to mother someone.  There are plenty of 'kids' out there who do not have good role models, and anything you can do will make a positive impact. 

This is the text message I received:  Hi  Keith got baptized today!  We r sooo proud of him!  Thx to u that began my journey Ive been a good influence for my son!  

My reply:  Tell him we r proud of him!  You are a good mom.

Happy Mother's Day to all you beautiful women out there who continue to love others as your own.
Do you have a story to share?

visit Debbiefullerthomas.com

Listing favorite movies by category started as a means of filling time while my daughter and I waited in our seats at the theater for an hour+ for one of the LOTR movies to start.  "Name your top five comedies, Christmas movies, action flicks..."  It was better than watching the same annoying trivia questions scroll over and over and over.  

These are all made before 1970 and aren't in any particular order.  They don't include musicals, holiday movies or comedies (although some would fit into the comedy category as well).  Once again, I could not keep the list to ten.

1.  Casablanca
2.  Dr. Strangelove
3.  The Philadelphia Story
4.  The Wizard of Oz
5..  Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid
6.  The Birds
7.  High Noon
8.  Jane Eyre
9.  Jezebel
10.  The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
11.  The Quiet Man
12.  Rebecca
13.  The Thin Man
14.  To Kill a Mockingbird
15.  Wuthering Heights
16.  Gone With the Wind

Honorable Mention:
High Plains Drifter
The Adventures of Robin Hood
It Happened One Night

Which ones would you add or leave out? 

This is a 'just for fun' category, just because.  Just because I worked all day and feel guilty about not getting any writing done.  Just because I'm buried so deeply in marketing for my book release that I feel my backside is assimilating into the chair seat.  Just because I need a distraction and remembering favorites resets my creative side. Here goes...
(Disclaimer:  Some of these movies may contain offensive language or subject matter - I'm not recommending them to you!)

1.  What's Up Doc?
2.  Little Miss Sunshine
3.  Drop Dead Gorgeous
4.  Young Frankenstein
5.  Thank You for Smoking
6.  Galaxy Quest
7.  What About Bob?
8.  Big Trouble
9.  Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
10. The Man Who Knew Too Little (Bill Murray)
11. Adams Family Values (the sequel, not the first movie)
12.  Bullets Over Broadway

Okay, I really meant the top twelve.  And they're not in any particular order, except that my top comedy choice is Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway.  They're all so very different that they defy comparison.

Comedies that didn't make the top twelve, but get honorable mention:
The In-Laws (Peter Falk/Alan Arkin)
Hot Fuzz
Raising Arizona

These are truly mindless, but funny, nonetheless:
Blades of Glory
Rat Race

This doesn't take into consideration funny musicals or other comedies that would fit in several different categories at Blockbuster.   Those are different lists for different days when distraction is necessary.

Does anyone have a comedy that should bump one of mine off the Top Twelve list?  Let me know.

Visit www.debbiefullerthomas.com

This week I had the unexpected privilege of acquiring a scleral buckle.  No, it's not the latest fashion bling.  It's a silicone band placed around my left eye to repair a torn retina.  I say privilege, because I realize that, if not for modern medicine, I would probably be blind in that eye by now.  Not a happy thought for a writer.

The doctor could give me no reason for my retina to have torn.  I had no accident of any kind, nor did I suffer any trauma to my eye.  He said it was basically due to  nearsightedness and my bad luck.  He also said that, since it had happened to one eye, it could easily happen to the other.

Being naturally curious and slightly ticked that this should interrupt my life, I held an icepack to my swollen eye and cruised the internet with the other.  Poor choice.  I stumbled across gritty pictures of eyes in various forms of treatment (ick) and a blog where fellow sufferers posted their experiences.  Why do I read this stuff?  Bad news and worse-case scenarios paraded across my blurry vision.  ONE guy said to stay positive because his experience was a good one and he was just fine now.  I shut down my computer and took to my couch to 'watch' reruns of Monk.

That ONE guy was right.  It occurred to me that I had even sold an article in "Coping With Cancer" about meeting bad news head-on with a positive attitude.  When I was diagnosed with breast cancer 10 years ago, my sister-in-law Wanda advised me not to take everyone's chemo horror stories as my own.  Her husband's experience was different.  And she was right - my experience was different, because my attitude kept me afloat above the what-ifs and worse-case scenarios.

My positive attitude didn't come from denial of what could happen.  My treatment didn't always go smoothly.  But I knew for a fact that Christ was with me through everything that came my way.  And I know he'll be with me through this, and the other eye - if it happens. 

I knew things were looking up when I went back for a check-up and the doctor asked me 'How's your double-vision" and I asked, "What double-vision?"  He said, "See you in six weeks."

Please feel free to add a comment, or visit my website at www.debbiefullerthomas.com

Valentines Day is almost here, and I must confess I have a love affair with old typewriters.  My writing room has an old gray Underwood that I picked up for spare change at a garage sale (who clearly didn't know what they had) and an older black one that cost me double digits at an antique/junk shop in town (who clearly knew what they had).  I also have a bracelet made of old typewriter keys, a gift from my husband. 

On my website, I have photos of several old typewriters.  My favorite is of William Faulkner's Underwood portable, shot against a soft, sultry backdrop of golden hues.  It calls to mind Harper Lee sitting by a window, the curtains lifting in the hot breeze.  She slides a piece of diaphanous onionskin beneath the roller, and it's tacky to the touch.  The keys clack against paper, the courier light from the well-worn ribbon.  The thin sheets stack into a pillow of story.   Her unassuming genius brought to clear light.

Okay, that was over the top, but you get the idea.  To me, old typewriters are symbolic of simpler times when publishing was all (or mostly) about story, and trends, markets and platforms didn't enter the picture.  But for all that, I really don't want to go back to my old Selectric.  Back then, re-writing meant re-typing.  Again and again, the same page over and over.  One sentence change affected the rest of the chapter, which changed the page numbers on all the rest, at the very least.  Now that I look at it, I'm surprised books were ever published at all.

I guess, when you romanticize something, you really don't want to see the dark underbelly of it.

Please visit my website at www.debbiefullerthomas.com, and you are welcome to add a comment to my blog.

One of my favorite authors is Ray Bradbury.  I wasn't a fan of Mr. Bradbury in high school, but when we were assigned the 'Martian Chronicles' and I read his description of Ylla's world, I was hooked.  In addition to his many sci fi books, he has written murder mysteries and numerous books on the craft of writing.  I was fortunate to speak briefly with him at a book signing several years ago, and asked him if the love interest in his book 'Death is a Lonely Business' was his wife Marguerite.  A huge smile brightened his face. "Yes!" he said, "and in the sequel she dances naked on a table!"

I highly recommend "Zen in the Art of Writing" (Joshua Odell Editions, Santa Barbara 1996).  He freely admits that he chose the title for its shock value.  In the chapter "How to Keep and Feed a Muse,"  he will challenge you to cultivate a proper environment for your muse.  In the chapter, "Run Fast, Stand Still..." he will challenge you to wait "at the bottom of your own stair, at half after midnight, with a pad, a pen, and a list to be made." (pg. 28).  Make your own list.  What things, good or bad, move you, frighten you or formed your outlook on life?

My 'short' list would contain: trains, big dogs, basements, deer hunting, the witches from Snow White and Oz, attics with dormer windows, squirrels in the walls, lightning strikes, ice in the trees, humid summers and Chesapeake Bay jelly fish.  (The list makes sense if you've read the book!)

Oh, and the funniest book I've ever read was "Green Shadows, White Whale" about his time spent in Ireland writing the screenplay for "Moby Dick" with John Huston.  Words can't do it justice, so I encourage you to check it out for yourself.

I'm glad you've stopped by for my blog launch.