MY 3 TIPS FOR ASPIRING WRITERS

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1) If you are looking for commercial success, study the books on the bestseller lists.

 

2) If you are a creative writer, write what you want and study the craft.

 

3) Before publication study martial arts because there will be all kinds of folks out there waiting to beat you up in dark alleys

THE LAST AND FINAL EXCERPT OF LADYFINGERS: a novel

Muriel McCracken had left everyone and everything behind. Well, not everyone.

She had every intention of waiting for Eddie to get out of the Penn. But she left her family, her country, her brand new Cadillac (Madame Bozell had told her that her car would be too large for the narrow roads of Europe) and the Condo she had bought in Beverly Hills after she received her Publisher’s Clearing House money.

She had hired Madame Arthuretta Bozell and her Ladyfingers lifestyle make over service to teach her the things she needed to know as a lady of extraordinary means.

She took with her to France, a brand new look, her decorator-magazine subscriptions, some new manners…thanks to  Madam Bozell’s Guide to Elegant and Proper Behavior and Presentation, a big fat book called a thesaurus,

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nearly 20 million dollars…less Eddie’s legal fees…and a brand new name.

She had decided she’d become a socialite, while she waited for Eddie’s release. Muriel decided to rename herself as Countess Sara Haggener…in memory of her beloved Grandmother, Sarah Mae Haggener.

She bought herself a brand new Mercedes, convertible sports car as soon as she arrived in France and christened it with the name “Sadie”. She and Sadie conversed quite often together, since she had known no one else in all of Europe to talk to.

She wrote Eddie often. He loved reading about her new life and he had told her that he was looking forward to meeting her friend “Sadie”.

Eddie, too, had always liked those Mercedes sports cars.

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As soon as she arrived in the South of France, she had checked into the Negresco Hotel in Nice. Madame Bozell had recommended it, telling her that many famous people stayed there.

When she arrived to check in, she had burst out laughing. It looked exactly like the birthday cake that Eddie had ordered for her for her 40th birthday, over ten years ago.

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But the hotel had been a wonderful place to start a new life. Oodles of celebrity-types passed through on their vacations and it was just across the street from the beach. It wasn’t the best beach in the world, because it was full of rocks and no sand…but it was different. On the private part of the beach, they had those mattresses and umbrellas…uhm…parasols…you could rent and have cute beach boys serve you food and drinks and things.

Just the kind of treatment a Countess was looking for.

Muriel…uh…Countess Haggener…created a story for the people she would undoubtedly soon be meeting.

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Since she was from Atlanta…well…from near Atlanta…and still had her southern accent, she would tell people that she was from a rich, old, Southern family. She would claim to be a member of the D.A.R…the Daughters of the American Revolution…that she had read about in one her high society magazines.

She would tell them that she had been married to an English Count.

Since Madame Bozell had hired those people who taught Muriel how to sail (since she had heard that rich people did this sort of thing), she would say that her husband died tragically 10 years ago in a boating accident near Newport Road Island.

She had read about Newport, in one of those lifestyle magazines that Madame Bozell had told her to buy.

Countess Haggener decided that she should start looking for a house…a villa, they call it in France…for herself and Eddie.

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She made an appointment with a real estate broker in St. Jean Cap Ferrat, as Arthuretta Bozell had suggested, to explore the possibilities.

_ _ _ _

On the morning of her appointment with her Real Estate broker, she decided to take a stroll around the neighborhood near her hotel and in the Old Town…la vi-eille ville…la vieille ville of Nice, to acquaint herself with her new surroundings.

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The pedestrian street…the rue Pi-e-tonne…la rue Pietonne, was lined with cafes and fancy designer dress shops mixed in with discount boutiques.

 Odd.

Many of the people in the outdoor restaurants sat eating what looked like

crawdaddys!

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 Curious.

She had studied the travel magazines that Madame Bozell had told her to buy. So when she arrived at the big plaza area off the boulevard Jean Medecin, she stood there with her mouth open. It looked more like the pictures she saw of Italian cities than what she’d expect from a French one.

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Bizarre.

When she descended the steps of la Vieille Ville, she almost bolted back to her hotel.

A teeming mass of foreigners assaulted her view. All those old, narrow streets, mixed in with newly paved ones. The stores were lined up next to each other looking more like those pictures of cities she saw in the magazines of North Africa. Fancy French restaurants mixed in with small foreign cafes selling some kind of meat…vertically…rotating on a spit. An then there were those weird-looking pancakes…all broken up…people eating them with black

pepper!

As she continued walking, gradually picking up speed, she had begun to wonder how she looked to others walking among this mass of people, as she noticed that the sound of American voices rose above all the others.

She scrutinized those she recognized as Americans.

To her, they looked like pale, gawdy, trinkets in a…in a…Middle Eastern schlock shop as Eddie would probably say.

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When she arrived at the plaza called, Place Garibaldi, she looked around at all the cafes linked together there around the traffic circle and gasped!

Crawddays everywhere!!!

Little old matrons in little fur jackets…eating Crawdaddys! Roughed up looking people eating Crawdaddys! Back packers eating Crawdaddys! Even small dogs eating Crawdaddys!

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What kind of a place was this?

She didn’t feel that this was at all the kind of place for a Countess to live.

She leaned against the traffic light post next to her, to look at her map and get her bearings. She would take another route back to her hotel. She needed to breathe. She had begun to feel suffocated by it all.

She would take the route back along the beach.

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Available in Hardcover, Trade Paperback end Kindle!

Enjoy!

American author Delorys Welch Tyson lives in France

And Yet another Excerpt from Ladyfingers: a novel

“The past is a work of art, free of irrelevancies and loose ends.”

—Sir Max Beerbohm

 

 chapter 7

  “You’re on in 10, Miss DaLilla!” stagehand had yelled into Larry Plotnik’s Las

Vegas dressing room.

He had dipped his brush into the rouge pot and added the finishing

touches.

 

Magnificent, he thought, as he admired his reflection in the mirror. A perfect

Liza!

He was performing his absolute favorite impersonations that night. Liza

first, then intermission, then the fabulous Miss Tina, then intermission, then

next, the glamorous Barbara, then intermission, then the finale…leaving the

best for last…Miss Amelia Jackson. Miss Jackson required 5 costume changes

which he always looked forward to.

He had heard that she might be in the audience that night.

Larry Plotnick had come a long way from being a boring old…actually he

wasn’t that old…entertainment contract lawyer, watching every one of his clients have more fun than he.

It had been the new year of the new millennium and he knew that it was

time for a complete change in his lifestyle…to something more personally satisfying.

He had always been a responsible man…meeting all of his obligations…

in the style to which his wife had wanted to become accustomed.

He, like everyone else, had worked toward the attainment of the updated,

baby boomer version of the ‘American Dream’…a husband and wife, both

with glamorous, high-powered careers, after a few years of youthfully misguided…he had finally concluded…attempts at politically idealistic exploration,only to find that they could, most times, barely find two nickels to rub together.

They had decided that what they really wanted was an estate in the Hollywood

Hills and a penthouse co-op on Central Park West, in Manhattan. So he

went back to Law School and became a contract lawyer in order to protect the

rights of high powered, consumer-mad entertainers and his wife worked her

way up to Executive Editor at a major publishing house, helping to mold, not

writers, but aspiring ‘literary celebrities’.

They had enjoyed, he thought, the glamorous transcontinental marriage

they had created. But as his wife approached the tender age of 40, everything

began to turn to mud!

She had known from the beginning his extracurricular inclinations and he

had thought he knew hers. He had thought that this was part of the uniqueness

of their compatibility.

But how wrong he had been.

She up and got pregnant as soon as she made Executive Editor, resigned

from her position and moved to their place in California.

A year later they had a second child, although he knew beyond the shadow

of a doubt that it wasn’t his.

His lifestyle had ended up looking like everything he wanted to avoid all his

life. She had known that he had enjoyed his sideline profession as a female

impersonator, but after they had the kids, she had started insisting that he quit,

because she felt it was inappropriate for a father to dress up in women’s clothing in order to perform in Vegas.

So he left.

He left everything, without a word of warning to anyone…his clients, his

wife, the kids…everyone! He left a wad of money and the house and the New

York apartment behind for the hen and her two chicks.

You see, Larry Plotnick is a responsible man.

A person only had one life to live and Larry had decided to become Lolly

DaLilla…permanently…and live the rest of his life as a statuesque blonde who

impersonates the grand divas of his time, for a living.

Okay…he had to admit…that to the average person it was a strange life, but

it was fun.

Besides, he realized that he had never really wanted to be a husband. He had

actually always wanted to be a wife. A socialite wife of a high-powered man. A

trophy wife, par excellence.

He decided to hire Madame Authuretta Bozell and her lifestyle make over

service, Ladyfingers to make his dream come true.

It seemed to happen overnight!

One evening after one of his performances, the shipping magnate, Janus

Daropopolis, came back stage and introduced himself where he presented

Lolly the largest bouquet of flowers in the history of the entertainment world.

The other Vegas performers were as jealous as hell, because they were all…the

male and the females…after Janus. He had quite a reputation and villas all over

the world, including an architectural marvel in the hills of the French Riviera.

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“You’re on in 5, Lolly,” another stage hand prompted.

After only a few weeks of lavish dining, dancing until dawn and being showered

with expensive gifts, Lolly agreed to have Janus buy out his contract in

Vegas. Lolly had decided to accept his proposal to live with him in his fabulous

Riviera villa.

Larry…uh, rather…Lolly was going to try out the role of socialite, trophy

wife.

He took a last minute glance a Liza in the mirror, smiled and walked toward

the stage.

This had been his last night in Vegas. He hoped that Amelia Jackson would

be in the audience. Her quintessential female glamour had always been his

inspiration.

A person had to follow one’s dreams, right?

available in Hardcover, Trade Paperback and Kindle