Ice, Titles, and Edgars

By Thomas Kies

I’m writing this in my home office, gazing out my second-floor window over the garage, with two pairs of socks on my feet, wearing jeans, a sweatshirt and denim shirt over that.  There’s ice covering the trees in our yard, and I can feel the cold radiating from the floor.  The garage, after all, is not insulated. 

We were hit with an ice storm last night.  Rare for this part of the country.  It was bad enough that the weight of the ice brought down a huge oak tree on top of our neighbors’ house.  One of the limbs came right through the ceiling of their bedroom.  Luckily, no one was injured.

According to the social media platforms, where I can spend way too much time, there were multiple power outages around our county, but they are all in the process of being restored. All in all, things could have been much worse.

In much of the country, it is.  Bitter cold, blowing snow, impassable roads all make life miserable, particularly in some of the mid-western and northern states.  Before moving to North Carolina, my wife and I lived in Connecticut.  Both of us could weather our winters pretty well. But since moving south of the Mason-Dixon Line, we’ve lost all capacity to withstand the cold. 

So, today I’m preparing for my Creative Writing class that begins again in a week. I'm also drafting a synopsis for my next book that I’m working on. I'm anxious to get it to my editor along with the early chapters. 

Like some of my brother and sister bloggers, I’m struggling with the title.  Usually, I have one in my head before I even type out the first line. Not this time.

I’ve put myself in a box as far as my Geneva Chase mysteries go.  The titles of the first four books have been place names: Random Road, Darkness Lane, Graveyard Bay, and Shadow Hill.  My fifth book will be out in August, and it’s called Whisper Room.

Are you seeing a pattern? The first word has been a descriptor with two syllables and the second word is the place with just one syllable. I know it’s kind of silly to make myself hold to that, but the pattern has been lucky for me. 

And yes, I’m kind of superstitious. 

Every one of my books has been saved on the same thumb drive. Would it be bad luck to use a different thumb drive?  I don’t know and I don’t want to find out.

So, book number six has no official name yet but I’m about eighty pages into it and casting about for a two-word title that fits the pattern.  Something like Murder Street or Poison Pit or Viper House. And, no, I’m not using any of those. 

As I look out my window, the only title popping into my mind is Icy Mess.

Totally unrelated, I got news on Thursday that my fourth book, Shadow Hill, has been Edgar nominated by the Mystery Writers of America for the G.P Putnam’s Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Award.  The award honors work that has the hallmarks of Sue’s writing as well as those of her most famous character, Detective Kinsey Millhone: "a woman with quirks but also with a sense of herself, with empathy but also with savvy, intelligence, and wit."

I hope that Geneva Chase fits the bill.

I’ve never been nominated for any sort of literary award before and I’m deeply honored, especially for this one.  I’ve been a huge fan of Sue Grafton’s work and I’m proud to say that my books have been favorably compared to hers. 

I can think of no higher honor than that.