Leigh Daley's Storm Duty: Guest Post

I'd like to welcome fellow Word Wench Leigh Daley to the blog today to talk about her novel Storm Duty with the hotter than hot Kyle Mathis. Hold, on, Leigh's calling.

Ahm, yea, I guess that will work.

Sorry about that. Well, we're going to be doing something a bit different today.

NOTE: Due to unforeseen circumstances, Leigh is unable to attend, so questions for Kyle Mathis will be asked by one of his linemen, Matt Pendleton. I hope it goes okay.)

Take it away, Matt.

MATT: Today I get to ask my boss, Kyle Mathis, anything I want.

KYLE: That’s not how this works. Can I get somebody else in here please?

MATT: Nope, you got me. So, Kyle, you are the “hero” of Leigh Daley’s book Storm Duty but I’m in it too. How does it feel to be called a hero?

KYLE: We were all just doing our jobs. Nothing about that day felt heroic, you know that. The tornado that destroyed Milton was a monster. We were just trying to keep people safe and get the lights back on as fast as we could.

MATT: Did you enjoy making us all work sixteen hours a day that week during restoration?

KYLE: Nope because I worked eighteen hours myself. But at least we had enough help to get everybody’s power back on in about five days. We’d still be working if those crews from the rest of the country hadn’t shown up to do storm duty with us.

MATT: Speaking of storm duty, I saw that Jenna Harlow had left her big corner office down south to come help out. I heard you two were spending some “quality time” together at your house that week. So what’s up with that?

KYLE: None of your business.

MATT: Come on. You know you want to talk about her. Stacy said she saw her in the grocery store the other day with a cart full of food. So, is she going to be Mrs. Mathis again?

KYLE: As far as I’m concerned, she never quit being Mrs. Mathis. She just needed to come back home and remember that.

MATT: Finally going to paint that house something other than white now that she’s there?

KYLE: (sighs) Every wall in the house has at least three splotches of paint color on it while she decides which one looks best all day. What is it with women? They want a color on the walls. Well, white is a color. I don’t understand.

MATT: Me either. (pauses to reflect) She looks good.

KYLE: Keep your eyes to yourself. I don’t look at Stacy.

MATT: I’m just saying. Jenna is looking really good these days. And for once you look happy. So, how’s the love life? Pretty good huh?

KYLE: Shut up, Matt. This interview is over. Go back to work.

MATT: There you have it, ladies and gentleman. The love life must be rocking hard to make him blush like that.

KYLE: Shut up. Go back to work.

Their careers drove them apart--could disaster bring them back together?

BLURB: In the aftermath of a series of tornadoes, Kyle Mathis just wants to guide his linemen to restore power to the devastated town of Milton. When reinforcements in the form of corporate deskjockeys come to work storm duty, he's glad for the extra bodies to help serve food and support the crews working eighteen hour days. But Kyle is not prepared to face one of the latest arrivals, his ex-wife Jenna.

Jenna left him years ago, choosing her career over their marriage. However, being back together in their home town brings back memories and desire--for both Kyle and Jenna.

Can Kyle and Jenna find each other again in the midst of the devastation? Or will their jobs pull them apart and leave not only their homes but their hearts shattered?

To read an excerpt from Storm Duty, please click HERE.

Leigh Daley lives with her husband and kids in the wilds of West Alabama along with her dogs Bruno and Jack. Now on her fourth career, she has spent most of her life writing for other people, but these days she is writing for herself. She eats like a cavewoman. She’s a really big fan of happily ever after.

Learn more about Leigh Daley on her blog. Stay connected on Facebook..

Making the holiday last with Sloane Taylor

One of the fun things about having a Federal holiday, like the Fourth of July, on a Thursday is that people tend to take Friday off and extend the weekend. So, to help you extend your Fourth of July celebration, I asked fellow Word Wench Sloane to share her favorite recipes.

So, take it away Sloane...

Friends are coming over on this weekend and Studs wanted a cookout with all his favorites. Since I never could refuse a good-looking man, I agreed. Here’s our menu with the recipes I created. I hope you like them.

Barbecued Pork Ribs Hamburgers Sloane Style My Mom’s Potato Salad Baked Beans Sweet Corn on the Grill Snazzy Sliced Tomatoes Ice cold lemonade Cold beer

Barbecued Pork Ribs

Pork ribs plan 1 slab for 2 people if you make all this food
Beer
Chicken stock
Barbeque sauce – Sweet Baby Ray’s is my favorite

Preheat oven to 325°F Place ribs in a pan and in a single layer. Pour in about a half inch of stock and the same amount of beer. Cover tight and bake 1 – 1½ hours. You want the meat tender but not falling off the bone. Carefully remove ribs from pan to a cookie sheet. Discard cooking liquid. Spread barbeque sauce over ribs. Heat grill to medium. Carefully rub vegetable or olive oil onto the grates. Lay ribs on grate and grill 10-15 minutes turning at least once and basting with sauce.

Hamburgers Sloane Style

Ground chuck about ¼ pound per adult Ground sirloin about ¼ per two adults
Worcestershire Sauce 1 dash per adult
1 egg per 1 ½ pounds meat
chives snipped, fresh or jarred

Beat egg lightly in a small bowl. Combine the meat, Worcestershire Sauce, and handful of chives into a mixing bowl. When the mixture is well combined, break off clumps of the meat and form balls. Set them onto waxed paper, then cover with another sheet of waxed paper. Use a cake plate or large soup bowl to press the meat into a patty the thickness you like. Refrigerate until ready to grill.

On medium heat, cook patties until they are done to your preference. Be sure to turn only once. Use any type roll that suits your fancy. Dress the burgers with ketchup, mustard, lettuce, onion, and tomato. You can also add cheese for the topping. If you do, then lay it over the burger a minute or two before the end of the cooking time.

My Mom’s Potato Salad

1 red potato per person
1 hard boiled egg for every 2-3 potatoes
one stalk celery for every 5 potatoes chopped small
½ med onion for every 5 potatoes chopped small
Pepper
Mayonnaise – NO substitutes

Boil the potatoes in their jackets until just fork tender. Remove from pot as they are done and allow to cool. Scrape the skins off. Slice in half widthwise then lengthwise. Slice into the bite size pieces.

While the potatoes are cooking, lay the eggs in a saucepan, cover with water, and place a lid on the pan. Bring to a boil, then shut off the heat and allow to sit on the burner for 7 minutes. Cut into quarters, then slice. Set aside covered with plastic wrap or a paper towel to eliminate drying out.

Combine celery and onion in a large bowl. Grind in a healthy amount of fresh pepper. Stir in several large spoonfuls of mayonnaise. You have to gauge by the number of potatoes you use. Mix well. Add the potatoes, two at a time and mix well. Continue until all the potatoes are added. Check the salad for dryness. It should be moist but not swimming in mayo. Add mayo as needed. Add the sliced eggs and stir again. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Baked Beans

1 small can Bush’s Honey Baked Beans
1 small can Bush’s Homestyle Baked Beans
2 tbsp. dried mustard
2 tbsp. maple syrup - optional 2 strips bacon

Preheat oven to 325°.

Pour beans into a metal loaf pan or oven safe dish. Stir in mustard and syrup. Lay bacon strips on top. Bake in the center of the oven uncovered for 45 minutes or until desired consistency. To cook on the grill: Heat grill to medium. Prepare as above, then place pan on top rack. Cook about 45 minutes or until desired consistency. To serve – discard bacon.

Sweet Corn on the Grill

1 ear fresh corn per person – do not remove husk
Water
Butter or margarine
Salt

Pour cool water into a container large enough to hold the sweet corn. Soak corn still in its husk at least 1 hour, but no more than 2 hours.

Set grill on medium high. Remove corn from the water and lay the ears on the grill. Roast until the husk is brown on that side, then turn and repeat the process. Total cooking time is about 20 – 25 minutes.

To serve - peel back the husks. Roll the ears in butter or margarine, then sprinkle on a touch of salt, and enjoy!

Snazzy Sliced Tomatoes

1 tomato per two people
Red wine vinegar
Garlic powder or fresh garlic minced
Fresh or dried chives

Prepare this dish about an hour or so before serving. Slice tomatoes ½” thick and arrange on a serving plate. Drizzle vinegar over the tomatoes, then dust with garlic powder or fresh garlic. Sprinkle plenty of chives across the top. Set on the counter away from sun or heat to flavor through.

Now after teasing your taste buds how about a quick trip to the balmy French Riviera to tempt some of your other senses with my new five book series?

Naughty Ladies of Nice is a deliciously steamy erotic series with a touch of humor and intrigue. Pour yourself a cool glass of your favorite beverage, perhaps a tall Perrier or a crisp Chardonnay, and let your summer sizzle with French Tart, French Delight, French Twist, French Kiss, and French Tickler. Here’s a little about FRENCH Tart, Book One. For a spicy excerpt, please click HERE.

Bon Appétit... Satisfy all your cravings at cooking school. Determined to prove herself and shed her party girl image, Donatienne Dubois pins her hopes on the exclusive cooking school in Nice, France. One by one her expectations are shattered by a foul-mouthed parrot, a bogus Michelin chef, and a headmistress with a heart of tungsten steel. Doni's lifesaver is a bad boy hunk too hot not to handle.

Mark Anderson is incognito and hating every minute. To pose as a student while keeping tabs on a rich wild child is his version of hell, until he partners with the dish of Crème Brule good enough to eat.

Class takes on a whole new meaning as Doni and Mark heat up the kitchen when they discover honey has better uses than sweetening tea.

Sloane Taylor believes humor and sex are healthy aspects of our everyday lives and carries that philosophy into her books. All her stories are set in Europe where the men are all male and the North American women they encounter are both feminine and strong. They also bring more than lust to their men’s lives.

Learn more about Sloane Taylor on her website, and of course her blog for easy recipes. Stay connected on Facebook and Twitter.

***

 

Wow! Now I know what I do wrong when I cook corn on the grill. Thanks, I'll never make that mistake again!

 

Sloane's books are wonderful and engaging. They combine great characters, stories and locations. Sloane's books are always on my reading list.

Fourth of July Tribute to Old Glory from Dusty Crabtree

Once a year, Americans celebrate their country. We've had some glorious times and some rough ones, and we're likely to see more of both before we get off the merry-go-round. But even while we might not consciously be aware of it, Americans are patriotic and pull together based on the country they love every time there's a need.

Recently, the storms and winds here in Virginia pulled our flag pole to a 60% angle or so. My husband and son spent last weekend digging out the pole and resetting it so we could fly our flag today.


So, what happens when you get a patriotic Word Wench in a contemplative mood? A poem about a tattered flag, of course. 

"The Tattered Flag"
                         By Dusty Crabtree
 

It flaps in the wind limply at one corner. The other corner is ripped to shreds, caught, hanging on a wire, dejectedly. Unable to break free.

It's been windy. It's raining. It's nobody's fault.
 

And yet…it just feels wrong.  The moment I see it from my car, a whimper escapes my lips.  A pain shoots through my chest.  It aches. I want to cry.  I might as well have witnessed a young kid being pushed down by a bully.  How could someone treat the flag this way?  A sense of injustice burns inside so strong that my world turns upside down.

Such  a strong emotion for such a simple inanimate object. But it's not simple, is it? It represents our country's life. Our freedom. Us. So, I guess...in a way...it isn't just an object treated with disrespect. It's a living and breathing representation of hope. And if that's torn and tattered, then what do we have left?

 

#####

 



I agree with her. Hope is a resilient thing. And sometimes we find it in the tatters.

Dusty is celebrating another big anniversary - the release of her novel Shadow Eyes.  

The idea for Shadow Eyes actually first came to me as a screenplay for a Christian horror movie, if there ever was such a genre. The movie would have been about a cast of intertwined characters going about their lives and making mistakes with dark, creepy shadows (demons) hovering around them, whispering to them, and influencing them to do evil things. Only the audience would see the shadows. The characters would be completely oblivious. A few years after I’d had that idea, my friend suggested I write a novel like the paranormal angel books we’d been reading and loving. I’d always loved the concept of angels and demons in stories and immediately thought back to that screenplay idea. I just continued tweaking it until I had the basic concept of Shadow Eyes – a 17-year-old girl who had this special ability to see the shadows and light figures when nobody else could.

Iris thought she could ignore the shadows...until they went after everyone she loved.

BLURB: Iris Kohl lives in a world populated by murky shadows that surround, harass, and entice unsuspecting individuals toward evil. But she is the only one who can see them. She’s had this ability to see the shadows, as well as brilliantly glowing light figures, ever since an obscure, tragic incident on her fourteenth birthday three years earlier. Although she’s learned to cope, the view of her world begins to shift upon the arrival of three mysterious characters. First, a handsome new teacher whose presence scares away shadows; second, a new friend with an awe-inspiring aura; and third, a mysterious and alluring new student whom Iris has a hard time resisting despite already having a boyfriend. As the shadows invade and terrorize her own life and family, she must ultimately revisit the most horrific event of her life in order to learn her true identity and become the hero she was meant to be.

To read an excerpt from Shadow Eye's, please click HERE.
Watch Shadow Eyes book trailer on YouTube.
Shadow Eyes is available at all major online bookstores.

Learn more about Dusty Crabtree on her blog. Stay connected on Facebook and Twitter.

HAVE A GREAT 4TH OF JULY EVERYONE!

Bullies, big and small

I hate bullies. I suspect that not many people like bullies, but I really despise them. In my day job as a lawyer, I run across bullies, big and small. The worst bully is one who believes he has the right to dominate another. Whether this right is conferred by law or his perception of superiority doesn't matter.

In June, 2013, a good friend Jake Freivald received a cease and desist letter from the West Orange Township, NJ. I won't dwell too long on the details since the story went viral, but I'll give you the Cliff Notes version. Jake had run for mayor. He lost. Shortly after he received a letter from the city attorney, Richard D. Trenk, who demanded Jake cease and desist his use of the website www.westorange.info, In addition to demanding that Jake cease using the site, Trenk also demanded that Jake turn it over to the Township. Jake hired an attorney, Stephen B. Klappit, with an acerbic wit. The resulting response letter went viral.

The legal community is a small one. Trial lawyers in Virginia had copies of Klappit's letters within hours. In my opinion, one of the reasons the letter went viral (aside from its fabulous writing) was the air of David not only taking on Goliath but making him look like a fool.

According to Above the Law, a blog that comments on the law and law firms, Mr. Trenk's name is becoming synonymous with messing up big time or having a "lackadaisical attitude toward the law, with catastrophic results for the client." Quoting Jake Freivald on Above the Law's site. This is every lawyer's fear. Tremk, who was no doubt following the orders of the town's mayor, is likely to lose his job over the incident. Certainly his reputation won't recover any time soon.

The funny thing about bullies is that when someone finally stands up to a bully, the results can be disastrous. .. for the bully. 

The Ageless Debate: Work or Family?

Go away for two weeks and the world moves around you. There's been so much going on in those two weeks, both in my personal life and the world at large, that I had trouble deciding what to write about. After all, there is grief, governmental bullies, and a stay-at-home mom's regrets, just to name a few topics. I found I wasn't quite ready to write about a grief so fresh that the edges still cut. So, maybe it isn't a surprise that I chose a soft and long-term ache - the tension between being a mom and having a career. The "You Can Do It All" Syndrome.

In reflecting on her soon-to-be empty nest, Lisa Endlich Heffernan wrote Why I Regret Being A Stay At Home Mom  for the Huffington Post. She'd been simultaneously lauded and vilified for "coming out" and admitting that there might be some downsides to choosing the professional mother path. There are downsides to every choice.

Let me start out by saying I do think a woman can "do it all", but maybe not in the way she dreamed about.

I live the professional and mother route. I went to an exclusive all women's high school, Dana Hall, in Wellesley, Mass. While during its long history, it had helped women achieve the then "highest goal" of earning their "Mrs." degrees, but the 1980's Dana's curriculum had changed with the times to stress financial and career independence for its students. There wasn't any real question that I would go onto college and get a degree that started with a "B" as in "B.A" or "B.S.". Many of us went on to advanced degrees. I was no exception.  But I always knew I wanted a family. Hell, I was entitled to have it all.

I've been very fortunate. My husband has been an active force in our boys' lives and he's never worried about whether picking them up from the baby-sitter was "women's" work or not. So, much so that he would often drive the boys to and from while talking to clients on his cell phone. Matt is a criminal defense lawyer, and often is involved in child abuse and neglect cases (both as the child's advocate or on behalf of the City). His language is not child appropriate on those calls. How did we realize that our children were little sponges? When our then-two-year old started swearing like a sailor. At least he knew which expletives to use in which situations. We were so proud... and ashamed.

Where Ms. Hefferman laments the loss of income, professional and technical development, the endless volunteering, and the necessary narrowing of focus that comes with devoting her attention solely to her three boys, I feel guilty about the time I miss with my two boys because "mommy has a trial next week" or "court during your play" or another one of the endless deadlines my career as a lawyer and my second career as a write creates.  It's hard to explain to children that you can't be there to read their bedtime story because a client wants to take you out for dinner and drinks to celebrate a court win. When it comes down to it, there is a golden window of time when your kids only want you. Ms. Hefferman gave her boys that time. I didn't give my boys as much.

So, what have I figured out after nearly 15 years of having it all?

1. Life is a series of trade offs.  There are a few immutable facts in life. There are 24 hours in a day, and the human body needs sleep for some of them. What does spending 8, 10, 12 or more hours a day in the office mean? It means I have few hours to spend with the boys, my husband, writing,  on horseback riding, cleaning the house, spending time with friends, and just doing nothing each day. One or more of those other things I want to do are going to get shorted.

2. Kids value what you do.  Ms. Hefferman notes that her kids think she did "nothing" for all those years she made their care her primary focus. Writers and stay-at-home parents share a similar problem. What they do at work isn't about clock-punching or sitting in an office all day. It's only recently that society has recognized these careers as "work." It's easy to dismiss activities as "not work" when they revolve around sitting at a computer in your sweats, in the case of a writer, or running out for groceries as a mom.  There is an educational process involved in teaching others that "yes, I am at work' in these situations. I've had to teach my boys that I'm working when I'm writing, and they are no freer to interrupt me when I do so than they would be to walk into a client meeting and stop it.

My husband and I taught our boys that moms and dads work hard whether they go to an office, work on a computer at home, or run their households. A family is a small business. There are finances to be managed, deadlines to meet and client expectations that must be fulfilled. Part of my job is a parent is to help my boys understand that running a family is no different than any other job except that it has better perks like story hour. Teach your kids to respect and value what you do and they will never see you as having done "nothing."

3. A messy house is not a sign of a bad parent. My mom's Supermom. Her friends were Supermoms too. Yet somehow, they had houses that you could open the door and usher in photographers for Better Homes and Garden. For a long time, I had no idea how they did it (they worked part- not full-time). I'd come home after a day at the office,  put together dinner leaving my kitchen looking like a micro-tornado had struck, get the boys washed, bedtime story read and then tucked into bed, before falling into bed myself. Dishes in the sink was is the norm. I felt like a failure as a mom. But then I realized something related to #s1 and 2. I could spend hours cleaning the house to model-home standards or have a clean but messy house and invest the time in my boys. When I put it that way, the choice was simple for me.

4. Laughter matters most.  Once all the basic needs are taken care of - safety, food, shelter, education - what matters most is laughter. My husband can make me laugh when I'm miserable or furious or just generally in a bad mood. As recently as this morning, he told me to "push back the crazy." Rather than growl at him, which was my plan, I ended up laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes, Okay, so it's probably not a "normal" relationship, but it works for us

My boys don't remember all the times we went to the doctors or clothes shopping. They don't remember the 6 hours I spend making homemade pork barbeque rather than buying Lloyd's Pork Barbeque. They remember handing their father the mini-golf clubs and running back to the hotel room during a thunderstorm. They remember building the sailboat in our pool. How much we enjoy out time together matters more than how much time we have.

5. Choose deliberately, and you'll have few regrets. I think what rubbed me the wrong way about Ms. Hefferman's article is her use of "regret." To borrow a phrase from James A. Owen's Drawing out the Dragons, "Live Deliberately." I chose my chaotic existence just like Ms. Hefferman chose to stay at home with her boys.

Are there things that I wish I could have done with my boys that I didn't? Sure. Will there be more of those trade-offs in the future? Sure. Are there writing conventions I wish I'd attended but didn't? Or cases I wish I hadn't or had taken? Career missteps? Sure. See, point #1.

I'm not raising my kids to take care of me when I'm old. I'm not raising them to create my self-worth on their accomplishments. I'm raising them to have adventures with them for as long as we can.

Sometimes I have to do other precatory things (like earn money) before the things I want to do with them. Sometimes in the short-term I need to place my focus and time elsewhere. Knowing the goal means I can't regret the choices and trade-offs necessary to reach it.

Being a parent's complicated. Whether you go the stay at home route or the working parent one, there's really nothing better than laughing with your kids. None of us know how much time we have. Don't spend it on regret. Live deliberately and you can have "it" all.  You just have to decide what "it" is.

Work In Progress Report

I realized the other day that it had been a while since I'd done a work in progress update, and thought it was probably time. So, here goes:

The King's Falcon (fantasy) -I finished editing in the wake of Dave Farland/ Wolverton's suggestions from his Novel ReWriting Workshop. One of my challenges on this one was that I needed to pull a plot line that hadn't started until after page 100 into the first fifty pages and blend it into the story structure better. Fingers crossed that I did this well since this story is currently out with an editor for review.

New Bohemia: Just One Night (Romance). The first draft is saved. I had a heart attack moment a while ago when I was posting this story in 1,000 word chunks to one of my writing groups. I hadn't realized that Word was pulling up the file from the remote backup device. So, when it opened on the screen the story only had 50,000 words rather than the 105,000 it should have had. Panic set in. About 20 minutes later I realized my mistake. Hands shaking, I saved a backup of the file and closed the computer for the night.  I haven't looked at this one in six weeks so it's about time to start edits.

Schrodinger Effect (Urban Fantasy Thriller). A wise friend, Lisa Scottoline, once said the difference between a murder mystery a thriller is in murder mystery someone is dead when the story starts, and in a thriller, someone dies after the narrative starts. By that definition, this WIP qualifies as a thriller. I tried picking at this story without the color wheel done, but kept having to stop to figure out the emotional resonance of what Vonna was seeing. So, I've finally finished my emotion color wheel, and outline. Now if I can keep the cat off my magnetic white board (although she's done some interesting things rearranging my outline), I should be able to get this one written. I'm about 5,000 words into it and so far so good.

Thanks for stopping by.

Resonance in Star Trek: Into Darkness

This weekend I went to see Star Trek: Into Darkness for the second time. The first time was part of an unofficial Superstars post-conference field trip. Let me tell you, seeing this kind of movie with a group of predominantly science fiction and fantasy writers was a blast. Unfortunately, exhaustion and a 6:00 am flight the next morning curtailed my ability to discuss the movie with them as much as  I would have liked.

The second viewing was with my husband and two boys. One of the great things about seeing a movie more than once is I tend to notice things I didn't the first time around. Star Trek: Into the Darkness didn't disappoint.

For all of you who are yelling at your computer - "WAIT. DON'T! I HAVEN'T SEEN IT YET." I'm going to stay fairly general so I don't give anything away.

Regardless of what you feel about the re-boot, one of the reasons the new movies work for me is the casting. All of the actors wear their characters well. There's enough of the original versions of them that I don't have to completely reset my thinking to follow along (unlike a female Starbuck).

At it's heart, Into Darkness is an action adventure in space movie. Each challenge is bigger than the one before. The movie starts with a moment that could have come from the Indian Jones franchise. That scenario builds to a peak and resolves. Just when you start to catch your breath, another crisis brews, bubbles over and explodes. By the end, you've been on such an adrenaline rollercoaster, you think that the final conflict CAN'T possibly build to a higher point. But it does.

The new movie is less Kirk dominated than the original series or movies. Spock, Uhura, Chekhov, and Scotty all have their own character arcs. In fact, I'd go so far to say that Spock is the protagonist. There are some charming moments with realistic dialog that have as much to do with character development as they do with moving the plot forward. This movie definitely has an ensemble feel to it. And it's stronger for it.

What struck me most on this second viewing though wasn't the story arc or character development. Rather it's the number of "call backs" or references to the original  series, original movies, other science fiction and fantasy movies, and other action adventure movies that struck me on the second go through. Some of them are so subtle that I missed them the first time around. Some sledgehammer you. Certain time line elements are consistent with the original and others aren't - with events had hadn't yet happened in the original already occurring before this movie started. One moment made me groan and giggle even though I'm sure that's not the emotion the writer was hoping to evoke. There's paraphrasing of a quote from The Princess Bride. And a tribble.

What takes a story from "good" to "memorable"/ "fantastic?" It has to captivate us, has to have characters we want to root for, and a few we want to fail.  It also needs to hook into our collective unconscious - our shared experiences. My sons, who didn't catch most of the references, loved it. My husband who sort of watched the original series and liked it, but didn't love it (I know. And I still married him, go figure) enjoyed the movie, and caught a lot of the references. I completely geeked out, and spent the closing credits (with the other twenty people still in the theatre - not my husband or sons) talking about the call back moments.

The ability to appeal to a multi-generational audience makes for big sales. It's also the hallmark of good story telling. Dave Farland/ Wolverton talks about building resonance into your stories in his seminars and Million Dollar Outlines and Drawing on the Power of Resonance in Writing.  Into Darkness \excels at resonance. It's well worth learning from. If you're the kind who doesn't want to take a notepad into the movie, wait until it comes out in electronic format or video. It's well worth the effort of analyzing it for the references to other works or events it makes. Also, if you haven't checked out Dave's books, I highly recommend that since he does a much better job at explaining resonance than I do.