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.