A Tough Task

 by Steve Pease/Michael Chandos

   My father died last year just after his 103rd birthday. I inherited all his "stuff". He was a career Air Force pilot, starting in 1939 and WW2, and retiring in 1968. His first operational airplane was a P-36, essentially a pre P-40 of Flying Tigers fame. His last was the supersonic F-102.  If you understand military aircraft, you understand the incredible range that represents.

   Fortunately, in the last decade of his life, he worked at slimming down his possessions. Still, there were things I didn't understand. A grandfather clock and two 200 year old restorable clocks. His hunting clothes. Photo albums filled with black and whites of people and places I didn't recognize. Two leather satchels and many boxes filled with the paperwork from a 29-year career. And all the years after. Things that were important to him.

   I offered anything and everything to my two younger brothers. They took a few things, but I still have all the boxes, dozens of framed photos and art, and records of relatives that I never met and who are strangers to me. There was a box from his mother, an Italian who immigrated to the US around the turn of the century. The turn of the previous century. There are letters in Italian, written in a beautiful hand script no one raised with computers will ever replicate. And family group photos.

   I can't keep it all. With respect, I boxed a lot of it up for the trash. (My heart jumps a little as I type that.) Goodwill didn't want it. I have dozens of framed art. Some of the art might be valuable, but some of it is a relative's very amateur painting. Memorabilia and photos from his career. I have his Air Force Mess Dress with medals and six uniform jackets. And that box of Italian memories. They must go or ? this year. Tough decisions ahead, again.

   As I swivel around in my writing chair, I contemplate. My writing "Lab" has two walls, floor to ceiling bookcases of books, mysteries, science fiction, literature, non-fiction writing books and general reference. Another wall has two tall Lawyer's bookcases of Sherlock Holmes. Books on my second career as a private investigator. Books from my fantasy career in theater and film. Coffee cups, photos, movie posters and stacks of books, papers, magazines. My Stuff.

   My father wouldn't know what to do with my stuff. My kids understand, but they aren't into piles of things. Their generation is minimalist. The grandchildren are too young to have an opinion yet, other than it's Grandpa's stuff.

   I'm a selling writer, but I don't think the University of Texas-Austin will accept the donation of my writings. That destination is reserved for the likes of Dashiell Hammett.

   As I cruise thru the seventh decade of my life, I contemplate. Will whoever handles my stuff be kind to it? Will they recognize what is valuable and what is precious? (Not necessarily the same thing) Do I leave them a memo?

   

A Little Something on the Side

 I learn a lot from the funnies page in the newspaper. I'm a puzzle aficionado, and start every day by reading the paper front to back, and then working all the puzzles. This is not quite the time consuming activity it use to be a few years go, when the daily paper actually had news in it. But at least the puzzles get my brain revved up for the day. One of my favorite puzzles is the Jumble, which consists of an anagram of a quotation from a well-known person. Not long ago I deciphered a quotation by Truman Capote which as a writer, I found quite insightful. It was as follows:

Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade, just as painting does, or music.

Perspective is a sense of depth. It's a way to show things in their true relationship to one another, a way to make them seem real.

The characters who people a novel are what the majority of readers care about the most. Action and suspense and an intricate plot are all fantastic, but if we aren't invested in the characters, we don't much care if they get it all worked out, or if they escape the danger, or figure out who did the deed. And if the author can create a series with true and appealing characters, then the reader will want to read the next installment, and the next.

So, your characters are involved in the intricacies of the plot. The sleuth has to find out who committed the crime, or who is chasing him, and why. The red herring suspects have to prove they didn't do it. The killer has to throw the hunters off his trail. But if the characters only exist to serve the plot, so what? If instead, the plot exists to reveal the characters ... now you're talking.

What does this have to do with perspective, you ask? Well, Have a seat, for I'm about to tell you.

A side story exists in a novel for the sole purpose of adding depth. It's through a side story that the reader discovers why the sleuth is like she is. Why is she so obsessive about unravelling the crime, even though she's been removed from the case, or fired by the client, or threatened with death if she perseveres? Could it be because the victim so reminds her of her own mother, who was also a battered woman? We find this out not because the author simply tells us, but because the sleuth goes home after a long day of detecting, and her mother is there, fixing dinner. We discover through successive scenes, actions and conversations, that her mother is physically and psychologically damaged from years of abuse. Perhaps Mom is agoraphobic. Perhaps she finally shot her abuser and spent time in prison. Perhaps the sleuth was ten years old when this happened, and to this day is riddled with guilt that she wasn't able to help her mother at the time.

None of this has to do with the major plot line, which concerns the discovery in an alley of a murdered woman whose body shows signs of years of trauma. Was she perhaps a professional show-jump rider, or a downhill skier? A roller derby skater?  Or maybe she was a battered woman. Our sleuth can't help her now, just as she couldn't help her mother. But maybe she can show the poor woman justice.

The side story has given the sleuth a life apart from her job. Now the reader knows her as a person, and we hope, cares abut her and is rooting for her to succeed.

So? When your critique partner cracks the whip on overused words.

Catherine Dilts

I’ve been in critique groups large and small over the years. Currently, one writer and I exchange manuscripts once a month. Beth lives way up the pass, and I’m in the middle of the "big city". She and I meet via Zoom calls. I am happy with the arrangement.

During a recent meeting, Beth advised me to do a very specific search. She suggested I check how many times I used the word “so” at the beginning of a sentence. Mostly in dialogue.

I found that an amusing request, but Beth is typically correct in her assessments of my writing. I did the search. I was horrified to realize my characters use “so” like other people have nervous tics. Remember the old Valley Girl stereotype of young women using the word “like” as a filler word, similar to a speaker repeating “um” in ridiculous quantities? Yes, like it was totally like that.

On one page, I used “so” at the beginning of sentences five times. I did believe “so” was justified at the beginning of a few sentences in the manuscript. I left those. But most were trimmed off with no ill effect to the meaning of the sentence.

Once Beth pointed that out to me, I became hyper aware of “so.” Hopefully not to the exclusion of the overuse of other words.

What should writers watch for in their work? “Really” and “very” are typically mentioned. Here’s a longer list: https://www.writeacademy.com/blog/how-to-identify-and-cut-your-crutch-words/

Whether it’s on an overused word list or not, if you notice a particular word repeated on a page, or worse, in a paragraph, it might be time to do a word search of your manuscript.

We don’t rely solely on each other’s evaluations. I also have Beta readers who review my work, and so does Beth. Fresh eyes are always welcome. Even the best critiquers can miss typos, choreography errors, or inconsistencies.

I have heard tales about other critique groups that continue unbroken for decades. My own experience has been that situations change. People move, or lose interest in writing. Feathers get ruffled. Personalities clash. Writers may simply find better feedback in genre-specific groups.

Beth and I have stuck together on this writing journey for well over a decade now, but in different critiquing iterations every few years. We share not-so-fond reminisces of some former critique partners. Others I learned a lot from, through their kind instruction.

Can you call a two-person critique group a “group”? I do, out of habit. Will we ever admit new members? Doubtful at this time. Critiquing, and being critiqued, requires trust. When you have hit upon good chemistry with another writer, it’s best to stay the course.

And if your critique buddy suggests you do a search for a particular word choice or phrase, do it! 

No Conflict, No Story

 By Thomas Kies

Syd Field, author of Screenplay: The Foundations of Screen Writing, said, “All drama is conflict. Without conflict, you have no action; without action, you have no character; without character, you have no story; and without story, you have no screenplay.”

On the other hand, Ursula Le Guin claimed that not every story needs to revolve around conflict, advocating for the importance of other human experiences like connection, growth, and understanding. 

I happen to agree with Mr. Field.  Even stories about connection, growth and understanding stem from conflict. 

What types are there?

Man (or Woman) against Self. In my mystery series, the protagonist, Geneva Chase is an alcoholic. She also suffers from body dysmorphia and depression that leads to self-defeating actions.  The very fact that she succeeds at what she sets out to do (while being a smartass and snarky at the same time) is what makes her relatable.  I believe that most of us have inner demons that create conflict.  Have any doubts?  Wouldn’t you like that piece of chocolate you’ve hidden away in your drawer right about now?

Good against Evil.  This is the straightforward Good Guy versus Bad Guy scenario.  Superman versus Lex Luthor, Sherlock Holmes versus Dr. Moriarty, Luke Skywalker versus Darth Vader.  In real life, this might be more relatable if it’s you versus your boss at work…or you versus the insurance company…or you versus the cable company.  You get the picture.  It’s still good against evil. 

Man (or Woman) against Nature.  This is where your protagonist struggles against storms, earthquakes, animals, revived dinosaurs, or surviving in the Andes Mountains after a plane crash as in the movie “Society of the Snow”.  With climate change becoming more of a factor in our lives, we see this in real life with increasing intensity of hurricanes, wildfires, droughts, floods, and snowstorms.  Oh wait…they don’t want us to talk about climate change anymore, do they? That seems to be a bit of conflict with nature.

Man (or Woman) against Society.  Examples in literature are Orwell’s 1984 and Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Examples in real life…well, just watch the news.  

Man (or Woman) against Technology.  A literary example of this is Asimov’s I, Robot.  An example of a movie is M3GAN.  With technology accelerating so quickly, it’s difficult to use in your writing.  By the time you’re published, your premise might be obsolete.   I’ll have to check with AI to make sure I’m right about this. 

Man (or Woman) against the Supernatural.  Vampires, werewolves, zombies, ghosts…oh my. So many examples here.  Wait…what was that sound in the attic?

It really doesn’t matter what your genre is, conflict will be part of it.  Crime novel….will the cop catch the murderer before he kills again?  Romance…will the boy get the girl?  Historical fiction…will we win World War II?  

As Syd Field stated, without conflict, you really don’t have a story. I’m teaching another Creative Writing class and last week I gave a prompt to write a scene of about 500 words dealing with conflict.  I’m eager to hear how they did.  They’ll be reading their work in tonight’s class. 

Heck, just giving them the assignment, I gave them conflict to deal with. 

Writing in a New Place

View from the road in Hagåtña, Guam

Greetings from Guam!

After nearly a month on the island of Guam, my hubby and I are in our own apartment. Our household goods haven't arrived yet, but we've successfully hooked up with a local internet provider. 

I have no excuse for not jumping into my writing projects.

New Project Set in Guam

One project I'm excited to begin is a women's fiction novella series set on Guam. The idea is to share what I'm experiencing through a fictional character named Stephanie Smart, a literary writer whose star has begun to fade at the same time she experiences a personal drama. She decides to move to Guam and get away from all the mess of her former life. She meets a man who says he's there on international business, but is he hiding something? Most likely. Because I can't seem to not include intrigue in my fiction these days. 

I'm really looking forward to getting into this. 

So why am I procrastinating?

The Procrastination Monster

That's always the question, isn't it? We've all been there. We have something we want to begin or finish, but tugging on our arm is The Distraction Monster, dragging us from our task, hanging on our hands like a cranky, demanding three-year old at the water park. 

"Go over there!"

"I'm hungry!" 

"I'm thirsty!" 

"I want to have fun!" 

"I don't wanna sit down quietly!"

"No! No! No!" 

Are you picturing a little red-haired hellion throwing herself to the ground and throwing a tantrum? Kicking her ratty, untied tennis sneakers, face screwed up, crocodile tears hiding the sneaky look in her eyes? That's the Distraction Monster. 

(Where's my Catherine Zeta Jones Reclining on a Fainting Couch and Smoking a Cigarette While Drinking a Martini Muse when I need her? She's reclining. And unconcerned. Unhelpful at this moment. She leaves ME to deal with the procrastination hellion. "I'll be here when you take care of that brat," she says, her voice a nonchalant and smoky purr.)

Procrastination is a brat. It's immature. It does not want to take responsibility. The key is to show it you're the adult in the room. Ignore its excuses. Send it to sit in the corner, face to the wall. Put it to bed with the shades pulled, a snuggy blanket around it. Whatever you have to do to move forward. 

Multiple Projects

Procrastination Monster with a sly smile, batting her eyelashes at me innocently while I give her a stern talking to and interrupting me: "But I need to finish this one first! You said so. Remember? Huh? Huh? You did!" 

I've never been good at juggling multiple writing projects. How about you? 

I prefer to finish one, start the next. However, I'm hoping to try a new strategy while we are abroad for the next several years, and there is no reason for me NOT to begin writing Steph's story. 

So if I have the internet, my trusty Chromebook, a good idea and notes, what's holding me back? Besides the usual procrastination, I really want to complete a half-typed short story about my female P.I. Olivia Lively. I did finish it, by hand, back in June. Those pages are somewhere on the Pacific Ocean with the rest of my stuff, and for the life of me I can't remember the middle part of the story. 

I know the beginning. I know the end. I can't remember what happened in the middle because I rewrote that thing three times before I got it right, sometime around 3:30 a.m. one night at my parents' house in Maine, where I was writing in a notebook because I had no internet service. After finally catching that wave, I rode that story all the way to THE END, but darned if I can remember how I got there. 

Was the cousin important? Did she go next door? How did she get to the [spoiler] at the end to uncover the truth? 

Have you ever had to recreate a story you finished? Because you lost the pages or the computer crashed or something similar? 

I just need to sit down at my computer and think up some new middle for the short story and start typing. Something will come to me, right? 

Meanwhile, I'm keeping an online journal about my Guam experiences and writing on ShelleyBurbank.com several days a week if you are interested in reading more often about my adventures overseas.

Gun Beach, Tumon Bay

[Of course, now I want to try to draw some illustrations of The Procrastination Monster and my Muse. Which is, of course, MORE procrastination. Sigh. I'll leave you with this drawing that represents my seeker self, looking for meaning and answers and creativity and joy in crazy times. Maybe next post I'll have the Procrastination Monster and the Muse to amuse you. And hopefully news on a completed short story.]

Happy reading and writing this week, my friends! 

Cheers, 

Shelley

In Person Events

 by Sybil Johnson

I enjoy doing in person events, whether it’s mystery conventions or signing at the Sisters in Crime Los Angeles booth at the LA Times Festival of Books or bookstore events or library events... It’s fun to talk about my books and mingle with other readers and authors.

The only thing I don’t like to do is read from one of my books. I’m bad at it. Really bad. But if I have to do it, I will. Just don’t look forward to it.

I haven’t done a lot of events since Covid. I do try to sign at the FOB, though I won’t be able to do that this year since it’s the same weekend as Malice Domestic. Malice is my favorite conference so it takes precedence. I’m all signed up for that and raring to go. The last event I did was a Mystery Ink bookstore event with Jennifer J. Chow last year. We had a lot of fun. The questions were interesting and I enjoyed hanging out with Jennifer. 

I have an event coming up on Saturday, February 15th at the Agoura Hills Library, which I very much am looking forward to. It’s a panel with Ellen Byron and Marjorie McCown, both great writers and fun people. They’ve both worked in the film industry so they have a lot of interesting stories to tell.

This event was set up by Sisters in Crime, Los Angeles. Apparently, the space we have has limited seating so people have to sign up in advance. 

Spring Into Mystery with Sisters in Crime Los Angeles
Sat Feb 15, 2025, 1-2:30 pm
Agoura Hills Library
29901 Ladyface Ct.
Agoura Hills, CA 

 For more information on the event and to reserve a space: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/12859866

This past Sunday I attended a SinC/LA meeting where the featured speaker was Walter Mosley. It was very interesting and entertaining. You can watch the recording of it on YouTube free.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=APFHavZtRNON2dv0&v=HSudRer2KeE&feature=youtu.be 

Have you all gotten back to participating in or attending in-person events? Are there any kinds of events you particularly like?

Slow start

by Charlotte Hinger

My shiny New York began with the best of intentions then got off to a dismal start. A case of cellulitis landed me in the hospital for IV antibiotics. It was followed by a reaction to oral antibiotics that I overcame just in time to be plummetted into my usual seasonal allergies.

What allergies? In January? When there's no pollen? Yes indeed. There's a quickening among all the bushes and trees. Go outside and see for yourself. All the little twigs start growing tiny little buds. Actually, apart from my sinuses, it's quite exciting. It's an irrevocable promise that there will be a spring. All we have to do is wait out the winter.

What I do best, is lying around reading books and eating popcorn. But it's not a sustainable life plan, It leads to muscle and mental deterioration.

Today I took myself in hand, vowed to overcome my tendency toward sloth and got back on track. I slipped into my morning routine. I reread the mystery I'm working on and made some progress on the next chapter.

I had a problem. One of the characters--a child--was out of whack. He was saying things that didn't ring true. That's where had I left off before I got sick. I didn't have a single bright idea for fixing this when I sat down. But it came to me after I started writing.

I've been writing for a long time and I still can't explain the writing process. Words come. They always do. Sometimes I think the only part of my body that knows what to do next are my fingers. The brain has nothing to do with it. When the fingers start moving, whether it's pushing a pencil or hacking away at a computer, words come.

My health problem was minor and easily treated. I'm in awe of the writers who have triumphed over overwhelming physical and emotional setbacks.

Stephen King was hit by a car in 1999 and suffered horrible injuries. He had a collapsed lung, broken ribs, a severe head injury, a broken hip, and a totally shattered right leg. His millions of fans worried that he would never write again. He did. In fact he's published book after book since then.

Louise Penny did not believe she could ever write again after she lost her husband. In one of the afterwords of her first novel written after Michael's death, she had a moving account of how it happened. Her typewriter still sat on the table and she passed it every day. One day she simply typed Armande Gamache. She couldn't help herself. The next day she typed one more word. Another the next day. Then she began writing again in earnest.

We are writers! If you think you are not, the fact you read writing blogs tells me you are. So begin. Sit down and just do it. Trust your fingers.

The fingers know.

I'm struggling with organization

 By Steve Pease/Michael Chandos

   I am mainly a short story writer. I like the format of a 30-40 minute story and I like pulling the puzzle pieces together of plot, character and structure. Short stories (3500 to 6000 words) are concepts, metaphors. They can be stylish and can comment on life, like using Lilliput to comment on Government.

   I use many story-starters: a theme, a scene in my imagination, a title, a character, an observation. I've thought about how an airport boarding gate would look if we were boarding for a scheduled to Mars rather than to Chicago. Some of my stories have started with a daydreamed character "talking" to me.

   BTW   Those who dream during the day have an advantage over those who dream only at night.

   The writing might start with just a scene, maybe a page of notes, some internet images, or even a song lyric. Often, a working title suggests itself as the label for the story concept I'm chasing. The title may change later. Everything goes into an electronic folder and often a real one. I have stories that started with one title and a few pages, but then a better story concept developed from that early writing, so new text files under the new title go into the same folder, which now carries both titles. I  do research on Wikipedia and elsewhere on the web. I file technical reports, videos and artwork in the folders.

   I throw nothing away.

   Often, I have a market in mind. A themed anthology? Maybe this story is #5 in a story series. Sometimes, a story will be edited/rewritten to meet a specific Conference contest or anthology call, like Bouchercon. Most folders hold multiple versions of the same story. My latest published story, "Dinky Dau", was first written around the history of Vietnam War slang that I ran across during research about something else. I have written and rewritten that story a half dozen times over 5 or more years as I submitted it to various markets. I have all those different versions of the story. It improved, and it's now in "Mickey Finn #5".

   I want to rewrite and submit another existing story, "The Happy Ending", for Ellery Queen magazine.  I couldn't find the latest version! I know I rewrote the middle of the story last Fall and I knew I needed to go thru it one more time before mailing it to EQ. I couldn't find that Fall 24 version anywhere. I hadn't followed my own rules on folderizing everything. Versions of the text were spread over two computers, some saved under non-writing labels!

   I had to go to an email from last Fall when I sent the story to an anthology call. The Fall 24 story was attached. I wasted time and raised my anxiety unnecessarily. I need to organize better.

   The base element to good writer organization, for me anyway, is saving with a meaningful file name. I have hundreds of images, maybe thousands, with non-sense numerical file names as downloaded from a source. I have versions of a story saved just under the title, ie Hamlet, but I needed something better, like Hamlet 2023 EQ. I have stories with all attribution removed for award consideration. There's no reason to do that task twice.

   I'm going thru gigabytes of data on my writing hard drive creating better file names and folderizing the result. Yes, there are Many folders on my hard drive, so the folder names are short but descriptive too. Confusing file names get changed if they don't work. Discipline.

   I'm finding things I didn't remember I had. Sometimes my writing mind is intrigued. I make a side note to go back later.

The Magic Character

 I'm within a gnat's whisker of finishing the new book and am in the process of making a few changes as per my writing group's suggestions. My original plan was to have the book completely finished by last August.

Oh, foolish woman.

Once I got into the rewrites, I realized that it isn't quite that easy. As I was pondering ways to expand one character's part and add a bit more legerdemain and misdirection, it came to me in one of those lightning strikes authors are so familiar with that if I add an extra character I'll be able to kill all my birds with one stone. In fact, the new character is tying up threads and making story connections that I  hadn't even considered before she came on scene.

It's interesting to see how her very presence affects the tale, just as the sudden insertion of a real person into a group changes its entire chemistry and dynamic. Adding a new character into a book that is to all intents and proposes finished gives the writer a jolt of energy right at the end of the process that is unusual, for the normal feeling for an author (at least this author) has as the end seems to get farther and farther away is a combination of weariness, loss of perspective, and and inability to let it go even though it's really done.

I don't expect that I'll have to make huge additions or alterations in order to accommodate the new woman, but that doesn't mean it isn't going to take some time. I foresee a couple of new scenes, at least one major rewrite of an existing scene, and a careful re-read to make sure she's mentioned wherever she needs to be mentioned. You have to be careful not to overdo it if you're going to try something like this. It's amazing how little it takes to make big changes.

This is not the first time I've gone back and added a character after the manuscript is almost finished. Whenever I've done such a thing, it's been as though the character was on the sidelines the whole time, like a relief quarterback, just waiting to jump into the game and throw the winning pass. For one of my earlier book, The Sky Took Him, it was Ike the cat. I don't know how he did it, but that cat dies the action together with a big red bow. He was a magic character. I can only hope my new gal has the same juju.

p.s. sometimes you have to take a character out. But that's a whole other entry.

You Have the Time

Catherine Dilts

One hour. My co-author informed me her window of opportunity was constrained that day by being the Mom Taxi. We could skip our writing session. Or try to accomplish something in sixty minutes.

My co-author is my daughter. Last year we embarked on a writing project that was successful, despite our busy schedules. We’re working on a new project right now that we’re both wildly enthusiastic about.

If only we had the proper amount of time to work on it.

Working with my daughter required experimentation to hit the right methodology. We write using shared files, and talk over the phone, at least 90% of the time. Just as working the former day job from home trimmed off get-ready-to-face-the-world time, plus the commute to the office, co-writing via the ether saves a lot of time.

One hour. Even having trimmed off travel to meet in person, that’s still a slim quantity of time.

Becoming a multi-published author while working a fulltime job required workaholic energy. I’ve recently retired, so my expectation was that limitless time would mean even more output. Life gets in the way, in the same manner that the day job used to put hedges around my day.

Why sweat it? Unless you're working under contract, you can take all the time in the world to write your story. Writing fiction can be a strictly creative endeavor. You can write for the love of the wordplay. You can take years to craft the perfect tale. 

I came from a manufacturing environment, and my daughter from the academic world. We’re both accustomed to deadlines. For me, writing is only part creative whimsy. The other part is publication. Getting the story into the hands of readers. Hopefully including the reward of a paycheck. At some point, the product needs to be shipped, and the grades reported.

I do have a book of the heart that will not be quick to complete to my satisfaction. I sometimes spend a crazy amount of time on short stories. But other work needs to happen at a fast pace. Get it done.

Lately, my daughter and I have realized that an amazing amount of work can be accomplished in just one hour. With the clock ticking off the precious minutes, we tear into the task at hand. We get a plot roughed out and an outline half completed.

Here are two suggestions to enable you to get 'er done:

One: Do an on-line search for “write a novel in a year” and you’ll find dozens of helpful articles. Just saying “I will write a novel this year” will doom you to failure. You need to set word counts and deadlines. “I will write a page a day.” That’s approximately 250 words. 365 pages in a year. A novel.

Two: National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) pushes writers to complete 50,000 words in a month. I’ve done this. It’s grueling. The end result is a terrible rough draft. But it’s the rough draft of a novel. Material that can be refined, expanded, trimmed, edited, and tamed into something terrific.

“I don’t have time to write a novel” doesn’t fly with me. If you really want to do it, you will find a way. Or not. There are plenty of other ways to spend your time on this earth. Maybe writing’s not it.

If you do have a story aching to be told, get after it. Nobody’s going to write it for you. Devise a plan. Set quantifiable goals. Hold yourself to your own interior deadlines while you strive for the exterior deadline of publishing contracts and timelines.

You can get it done. One hour at a time. One hour is enough.

(If you have a hard time ignoring life’s distractions while you attempt to write, check out Sunday’s article by Thomas Kies.)

Shutting Out the Distractions

 By Thomas Kies

I live on the coast of North Carolina.  I’ve been here for nearly twenty years and in all that time, I might have seen snow twice and then it was just a dusting. Here one moment, melted into oblivion the next.  But this past week, we got seven inches of the white stuff, and the temps have been below freezing so it hasn’t gone anywhere.

I grew up in Upstate New York, so I know snow.  I even miss it from time to time.  When it started coming down this week, it was late evening and I went for a walk along our quiet lane, watching it fall, feeling it on my face and hands.  I literally luxuriated in it.

Bu then, as I recalled from my youth, the next day it turns to ice.  Driving and even walking become treacherous.  The longer it sticks around, the grayer and dirtier it gets.

What did I write while the snow was outside my window? How much of my next novel did I complete?  Nothing.  Nada.  I was distracted. 

That coupled with the political climate and ensuing chaos….well, any attempt at fiction was a bust this week.

How do you overcome distractions?  Here are a few suggestions. 

Have a place of your own that is conducive to creativity.  It’s your space to write.  It might be your office, a corner of your kitchen, or a table at the coffee shop.  For me, I have a man cave over the garage.  My desk is here, the lighting is good, and it’s quiet.  

Do you have a writing routine?  It helps to set aside a certain time of day….or night…that you can take the time to write.  I know some writers who get up early to write before they go off to their day job.  I know some writers who stay up late and hit their laptops until the wee hours of the morning.  For me, mid-afternoon is the sweet spot.

The biggest distraction?  The internet.  Notifications that chime when they come across my phone.  Emails that can’t wait, social media posts, or headlines from the multitude of websites demanding my attention---all of it sucking time. IGNORE IT!!!  Click bait is just that.  It’s created to attract eyeballs and eat your time.  

Writing a novel is daunting.  It’s huge.  Break that sucker down into manageable pieces.  For me, I think about the book in scenes or chapters.  I try not to view it as a big project but a lot of smaller projects. 

Need to take a break?  Get some exercise.  Take a walk, lift some weights, take a cruise on your bike.  Not only is it good for you, but it pumps that blood into your brain where you need it the most. 

There are so many distractions that can take you away from your writing.  Putting your words on paper is hard.  Finishing an article or column or…a book…is really difficult.  You have to have your own strategy to put you into that mindset and push out the rest of the world.  It might be meditation.  It might be a few minutes petting the dog while you have a cup of coffee.  It might be taking a stroll around the block.  Whatever it takes, do it. Writing is like being an athlete.  The more you practice, the better you are at your sport.  The more you write, the better you are at your craft. 

The rest of the world is working hard to get your attention.  You have to work even harder to keep you focus. 

What do YOU do to shut the rest of the world out and focus on your writing?

My New Dog - Seven Years in a Cage

 My dog Scout, a fourteen-year-old Shiba Inu, seemed as though he was getting close to the end. Severe bronchitis, treated with steroids that caused digestive issues while stoking his appetite, made him gain a lot of weight, which aggravated his arthritic hips. Poor guy could barely walk in between his coughing fits. The impending grief of losing such a dear companion prompted my girlfriend to look for a second dog. She wanted another Shiba Inu, which she found through a dog rescue agency. Shibas are amazing dogs and it made me wonder who would get such a creature and then put it up for adoption? Or to any dog, actually.

 

So we found our new pooch, a cream Shiba Inu with the very un-dog name of Dirk. Though fully grown and physically healthy looking, he's got significant developmental issues. Easily frightened, any loud noise or sudden movement will make him shy away. Being outside really spooks him. Going for walks, which dogs should love, is a challenge.

He's the product of a puppy mill and the neglect he suffered makes me tear up thinking about it. He was kept caged for seven years, and once separated from his mother, never had a chance to play with others, in effect, learn how to be a dog. What he wanted was affection and no one gave it to him. 

We've had Dirk now for almost a month. In his youth, Scout was fiercely territorial, and he's mellowed some, enough for him and Dirk to get along. They haven't yet bonded but do pal around a bit, and we think that's why Scout's health has improved. Though he still can't jump, letting Dirk claim the sofa. 

What does this dog story have to do with Type M for Murder?

To show how childhood can indelibly affect your life.

I recently finished Truman Capote's masterpiece of crime nonfiction, In Cold Blood. He leads us through the details of a horrific mass-murder, which at the time, shocked the country. Sadly, since then, the body count of that slaughter has been eclipsed several times. The book laid out that what drove these perpetrators, like others who've committed similar heinous acts, didn't suddenly happen. The two killers were products of much childhood abuse, which they internalized and then expressed in acts of rising threats and violence until they were able to frame the murders as justified given their objective: getting rid of witnesses to cover up a robbery.

But such reactions to childhood trauma are not universal. I know people who reacted to abuse and domestic violence by going the other way, striving to be wholesome, sane, and kind. 

Not all crime stories need be dense examinations of human psychology but understanding human nature helps write more compelling villains...and heroes.

 

Scout and Dirk.

Tik Tok, Facebook, and the Intersection of Social Media and Book Marketing

This is an excerpt from a longer post on ShelleyBurbank.com published Jan. 24, 2025. I'm currently living on the island of Guam with my husband. We've been apartment-hunting and trying out local cuisine. Writing fiction has taken a back seat, but hopefully we'll get settled soon. Meanwhile . . .

The recent TikTok ban (then the non-ban) provoked much discussion and downright angst in other corners of the literary world, but I have to wonder why it came as such a surprise to some people? For as long as I've been learning about platform-building, the smart people in the room gave the same advice: Don't count on social media platforms entirely because you never know when they might fail, change, or become unusable. Build your own website and gather an email list.

I remember feeling frustrated every time I read that advice because everyone knew that nobody read blogs anymore, and getting people to sign up for a newsletter was so much harder than getting them to click that "follow" button. Why should I waste so much energy when Twitter was obviously the way to go?

And then there was BookTok, which took some backlist titles and blew them up into mega best-sellers and made huge names of some authors and created new genres, most notably, Romantasy. Good for them, I thought. It's tempting to follow suit, but do I need to jump on every trend? MUST I go on Tik Tok in order to give my books a chance?

Nope and nope. I just didn't want to go there, and I already hated Twitter, though I had an account as a kind of place-holder.

Now I'm glad I didn't waste my time and energy on either Twitter or Tik Tok. I used the X switch as an excuse to delete my barely breathing Twitter account, and I stuck to Meta products Facebook and Instagram for the past few years. Still, I had this constant feeling of irritation about the whole notion of being obliged to use social media just to reach readers. It felt performative. Maybe a little desperate. And crowded.

I liked the old Facebook. Friends and family sharing photos and recipes and funny little daily things. Then they changed the algorithm, making it increasingly less likely that I'd see the personal posts while throwing paid posts and advertising in my face along with weird meme accounts and bot-run accounts and anything inflammatory that kept eyeballs on the screen.

Recently, I ran into some horrendous, misogynistic rant pits, dumping on women's abilities and basically saying they had one, and only one reason for being alive on this planet, and I thought, This is so not where I want to spend my time.

Still, Facebook had its uses. The one time I ran a Facebook ad, my book sales did increase. Instagram helped me find reviewers who wrote lovely posts about my two mystery novels. Unfortunately, these socials are fraught, once again, with politics, and I'm ready to exit this highway to nowhere.

Plus I think it's ruined a generation of young minds and our collective society.

There. I said it. Without social media, all the Big Crazy (what I call the monster we've collectively created) would have no place to spew its venom, to spread its lies, to stew in its own acidic juices while somehow getting meaner and stronger for it, ruining any hope of factual and polite public discourse again.

I hope they all fail.

Do I feel any empathy for the influencers and creatives and artists and crafters who use social media to make money? Yes, actually. I do. It was a cool new way to make a gig income, or even a full-blown massive one, but can you say we weren't warned? Were we just hoping against hope nothing would change? Ever?

The thing about our current tech-driven life is that change happens faster and faster. What's in one year is out the next. It's not like social media arrived in a vacuum. It disrupted older industries. People used to make money writing for magazines and newspapers. Remember those? The quaint things that arrived in the mail and had a crisp turning sound when you went to the next page?

Print media began a slow decline and then took a big tumble as social media gained traction. In fact, I had just broken into the paying confession magazine market (with a 98-year history, btw), when the confessions suddenly folded and were gone. My very new source of writing income evaporated after I sold only four stories to them. Did anyone weep for me? For the other short story writers who used to make a good, steady income selling to that market?

It wasn't just writers, either. Other people once made money buying and selling ads in those publications. Others earned salaries editing, copy-editing, proofreading, typesetting, and printing them. Stores sold them. Every newspaper that died or cut way back, every magazine that disappeared, represented loss of income for creators and production people and retailers.

So, I have to ask myself, did influencers and BookTok celebs mourn for all of those people who lost their livelihoods when the new platforms left print in the dust? Did they even spare those people a thought?

I doubt it.

_________

For more like this, go to ShelleyBurbank.com  Remember to subscribe to my 1 x per month, free author newsletter where I opine about creativity, living your best life, goal-setting, books, literary life and more. Check out PINK DANDELIONS at https://shelleyburbank.substack.com/

Angel City Beat

 by Sybil Johnson

As many of you know I live in the Los Angeles area. We’ve been in the news lately because of the horrendous fires that have devastated parts of the area, Altadena and Pacific Palisade in particular. We live far enough away from these fires that it hasn’t been an issue for us. The only problem we had was one or two days of smoke in the air as it came down the coast. Then the winds changed and the air cleared for us. As I write this, the fires are slowly being contained, but they’re still going on. My heart goes out to everyone who has lost a home or family members in the fires.

It’s nice to be able to share some good news. My story, “Fatal Return,” is now out in Angel City Beat, a Sisters in Crime/Los Angeles anthology. Barb Goffman edited the anthology. She was really great to work with and helped me make the story better.

I’ve had other short stories published before, all online. This is the first one that’s been part of an anthology. Very excited about it.

My story takes place in a library so I had fun with the names I chose for the characters. I looked up the names of Library of Congress librarians and famous people who had some connection with libraries. Then I mixed and matched first and last names, added a few other names and it was done. Quite fun to name characters with a theme like that.

Here are the anthology details:

The City of Angels has a dark side. Hidden beneath its shiny surface are misdeeds, miscreants, and murderers. From Santa Monica’s sandy beaches to Hollywood’s glitzy streets, from Boyle Heights to Holmby Hills to the dirt trails of the San Gabriel Mountains, there are so many tales to tell. So many people on the beat. The police detectives seeking justice. The reporters seeking truth. Writers who build beats into their movies and TV shows. And people who choose violence to beat others and come out on top. Angel City Beat is an anthology of stories that show life behind the plastic smiles of the rich and famous, the desperate pleas of the overlooked, and the promises of dreams forgotten. Angel City Beat is the beat of a city told by those who love her.

Stories by: Gail Alexander, Paula Bernstein, Anne-Marie Campbell, Jenny Carless, Ken Funsten, CFA, Daryl Wood Gerber, Sybil Johnson, Norman Klein, Amy Kluck, Melinda Loomis, Kate Mooney, Nancy Cole Silverman, Meredith Taylor, and Jacquie Wilver 

Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/AmAngelCity 

BN: https://tinyurl.com/BNAngelCity 

Kobo: https://tinyurl.com/KoboAngelCity 

I’ll be participating in some events around the L.A. area. I’ll have info about that as the details are confirmed.