A Christmas Carol

 by Sybil Johnson

First, an apology for missing my last posting date. I was on jury duty, a subject for a different day. I have thoughts. So many thoughts. For now, though it seems appropriate to talk about A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

One thing I try to do every year is to either read the story or have Patrick Stewart read it to me. Not in person, of course. He did a great audiobook of it several years ago. 

I really love A Christmas Carol. There have been so many adaptations of it over the years. Probably numbering in the hundreds. Some of them are very faithful to the book, others have taken the core story and run with it. Imdb has put together a list of all film/tv adaptations. I assume it’s fairly complete.Sounds like checklist time to me.

There’s the 1938 version with Reginald Owen as Scrooge. Or the 1951 version with Alastair Sims. Then there’s the animated Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol. That one has some fun songs in it. And so many others. My favorite, though, is The Muppet’s Christmas Carol. 

Then there are other modernized versions like Bill Murray in Scrooged and, most recently, Hallmark had one called Christmas Above the Clouds. I know Hallmark movies are not everyone’s favorites. Truth be told, I don’t like all of them, either. This one was well done and a fun take on the story.

Another thing I found enjoyable to read is A Christmas Carl by Dickens and John Gaspard. (Not a typo.) Gaspard has a Greyhound Classics series. He takes the text of the original classic book (all no longer under copyright) and changes things around a bit to tell the story from a dog’s POV. In this case, the dog’s name is Carl. Other books in the series are The Greyhound of the Baskervilles, A Greyhound Investigates the Mysterious Affair at Styles and The Greyhound & Gatsby. All great fun. 

Do you like A Christmas Carol? What’s your favorite version of the story? 

That’s it for me. Merry Christmas and see you in the new year.

Merry Christmas from Type M

 by Charlotte Hinger

I'm swamped with memories this Christmas. Awash with nostalgia. Drowning in mixed emotions. And feeling guilty as usual because I can't focus on the religious connotations. 

Two joyful Christmases stand out to me. When I was five and still believed in Santa, one Christmas eve my family was snowed in at my Aunt Aura Lee's house in Garnett. We had to spend the night and I was in a state of panic because Santa would not know where we were. He surely would pass us by. I was grief-stricken. 

Sure enough Christmas morning there were toys in abundance for my cousin, Rosemary, and nary a one for me or my sister, Phiz. But the roads were clear and it was safe to drive back to our farm on the outskirts of Lone Elm, Kansas. 

My father made some excuse to go to the woodshed and came back triumphantly bearing a note from Santa that he gotten word that he should leave our presents in the shed because we had been side-tracked. With great joy my sister and I followed my father out to shed and there were two of the most beautiful dolls I've ever seen in matching high chairs. What a blissful morning. 

Another especially terrific Christmas was the one when our daughters, their spouses and children came to Hoxie for a whole week. My husband bought a huge fiber optic tree. Enormous, in fact. We called it Old Sparkly and plugged it in every Christmas ever after until it finally bit the dust. It was a magical time of family togetherness. 

I have many other happy memories of other Christmases, but I'm also conscious of loss. So many family members are no longer with us. I miss my husbands undiluted delight in the season. His generosity. His ability to seize the moment. I miss my sister's baking binges. My brother's look of contentment. 

Wednesday, I'll leave for Denver and spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my granddaughter and son-in-law and their sweet two daughters. Naturally, my daughter, Michele and her husband, Harry will be there too. Christmas past will be set aside for the present.

Hope, Peace, and Joy to you all. Have a wonderful Christmas

Christmas is Coming. Let's Get Fat!

I can hardly believe Hanukkah is here and Christmas is next week. Didn't those both happen a few weeks ago? One of the major perks of Christmas when I was growing up was all the cakes and pies and cookies and candies my mother make. Every season my uncle made a batch of penuche for us. Oh, my gosh, I haven't thought of that in years. Food is a very big part of my books, especially the Alafair Tucker Mysteries, because food - gaining it, killing it, preparing and preserving it, cooking it and eating it was a very big part of everyone's life in the early 20th century. And holiday food is an important part of growing up for every human ever born since the invention of holidays.

 So this year for the holidays, I’m treating you to my late sister-in-law LaNell’s recipe for boiled chocolate oatmeal cookies. These are oh, so delicious, and very easy. I have this recipe in LaNell’s handwriting, and have lovingly pressed it into my personal cookbook. It would be a shame not to perk up your Christmas with these cookies.

1 stick butter

1/2 cup milk

2/3 cup cocoa powder

2 cups sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

3 cups uncooked quick oats

1 cup chopped nuts

Combine first five ingredients in a saucepan and boil two minutes. Add 1 tsp vanilla. Remove from the fire and add 3 cups of uncooked one-minute oats. Add one cup of chopped nuts. Mix in well. Drop by teaspoons-full onto wax paper and let set. Yields about 40 cookies.

Enjoy! and maybe these can become part of your holiday traditions!

Late for a Reason - Puppy Alert!

Catherine Dilts

I'm late today. No apologies. I haven't had a dog since I was a teenager. The learning curve is real. My husband is ecstatic. He had an English springer spaniel nearly thirty years ago. For two decades, he's talked about wanting a dog.

Strider

Now he's retired, and has the time to spend with a puppy. We drove a long way to pick up Strider. (Our entire family is Lord of the Rings crazy, and Aragorn was too hard to use for a dog name.) He seemed sad and nervous. Until we showed him his new backyard.

so sad

At his first vet check, the doctor and tech laughed about how serious and sad he looks. He could be the poster puppy for a save-the-dogs campaign. But when he chases leaves around our back yard, he is all smiles and joy.

Strider is a companion dog. He won't be in dog shows or go pheasant hunting. With his sweet, timid personality, it's probably best he'll be with us most of the time.

Guard dog Strider hiding behind mommy's legs

This is a writing blog, and I do have writing news. I received the first paperbacks of my new release, The Body in the Hayloft.

Coincidentally, there is a heroic puppy in this novel. Along with horses. And of course, cats.  

I'm happy to hear stories about your good boys and girls, and puppy advice!

Breaking Writing Rules and a Climate Apocalypse

 By Thomas Kies

I teach creative writing and mentor a writing critique group.  At the beginning of the first class, I tell the attendees that I’ll outline what the rules of writing are.  And then I’ll let them know, there really aren’t any rules.

For example, Cormac McCarthy and his strange use, or nonuse, of punctuation. He didn’t use quotation marks, used commas sparingly, and rarely included apostrophes.  His dialogue and narration flow forced the reader to pay close attention to his writing. His sentence structure was often unusual with strange cadences.  He was difficult to read but my God, what a writer. 

I’m currently reading a book by Stephen Markley called The Deluge that also breaks a lot of rules.  For example, a few months ago, I wrote a blog about head hopping.  That is writing in the third person and then abruptly shifting gears and writing in the first person point of view. 

Changing a POV in the same paragraph is still verboten.  I don’t like it if a writer shifts POV within the same chapter. And I’m iffy when it comes to using it at all within the same book. 

But Stephen Markley changes his POV from chapter to chapter depending on the multitude of characters he’s written.  First person, third person….even writing about a character who is an opioid addict in the second person.  

And it works.  

I picked up this book because it takes a damning view of what happens to the world when we allow climate change to continue unabated.  Which we’re doing.  If you’ve read my fourth book, Shadow Hill, you’ll know that I’m deeply concerned about what we’re doing to our planet.  I have four grandchildren, and I’m worried that they’re going to inherit an apocalypse that we helped create.

Next rule broken.  There is a wide range of characters to follow.  

Are there too many characters in this book?  In a story written for the LA Review of Books, Markley said, “The climate crisis is such an enormous problem [that] you can’t, to me, tell it through the one-character point of view—the I, I, I would be a little navel-gazey or overwhelming in a way,” he said. “I knew it needed to be a range of characters, and obviously they had to be different and come at the issue from different angles and different parts of society, from different races, classes, genders, etc. It always had to be like this to me, and it was a matter of finding what voices fit into this world.”

I’m about a third of the way through the book.  It’s nearly 900 pages long.

He breaks another rule I wrote about last month.  How long should a novel be? 

Let me go back to Cormac McCarthy who said, “The indulgent, 800-page books that were written a hundred years ago are just not going to be written anymore and people need to get used to that. If you think you’re going to write something like The Brothers Karamazov or Moby Dick, go ahead. Nobody will read it. I don’t care how good it is, or how smart the readers are. Their intentions, their brains are different.” 

Is the book too long? It’s a big topic and he’s covering a lot of ground. The novel begins in 2013 and ends in 2039.  Right now, I’m reading what happens, politically, in 2027, and if we continue on the trajectory we’re on now, I think the author is going to be dead on. 

Yes, Mr. Markley broke a bunch of rules when he wrote the Deluge, but as I say at the beginning of my class, rules are meant to be broken 

The Suspense is Kinda Killing Me

Hello, Friend!

Shelley Burbank here, author of the Olivia Lively, P.I. Mystery Series and currently couch surfer extraordinaire.

At the Atlanta Botanical Garden

I’m writing today from Atlanta, and it seems to be my lot to end up in places without internet on the days I have a Type M blog due. While in Maine, I visit certain people who do not subscribe to any internet service providers, period. To work when I’m there, I drive 15 minutes or so to the small public library where I take over the children’s area table to plug in my Chromebook and log onto their server.

The librarians are kindly older ladies. They don’t seem to mind my being there for hours at a time. I’m grateful.

Here in Atlanta, the internet went down in the whole building last night. It’s a big apartment complex in a nice part of town. So now, a veteran of lost connections and travel, I’m typing this on my phone and will find some way to post. There’s a library branch nearby. The weather is nice. A walk will do me good, plus I’m curious to visit.*

Thank goodness for public libraries!

I tend to take technology/connectivity for granted these days; I bet most of us do. We notice how intertwined we are with the ‘net only when it stops working. It feels like a lost limb. It feels untethered.

In a way, it feels free.

I’m old enough to remember the time before Netscape Navigator and the World Wide Web. When we wrote papers and stories on electric typewriters and listened to music on the radio via airwaves, not streaming. Was life better then? Is it better now? Who can say?

Publishing changed dramatically after the internet and the ebook and Amazon. There are pros and cons. Pro: It’s easier than ever to produce a book and list it for sale, bypassing gatekeepers, and keeping a greater percentage of profits. Con: It’s TOO easy. Everyone is doing it. We have a glut of books. A surfeit of stories. An excess of content. Only a few writers can make a living, ‘cuz capitalism, baby. Supply has vastly outstripped demand to the point a 100k novel is worth less than a Dunkin.

It’s disheartening.

I’ve been thinking about this state of publishing, figuring out my place in the literary ecosystem, wondering whether it’s worth doing anymore. Have I given it my best shot? I haven’t yet put my indie novella project up for sale. I’m reluctant. It’s not the book biz I wanted to be in when I started, back when trad publishing was viable for someone who worked hard and had some talent.

But now I realize that era—roughly mid-20th century to 2010–was a unique period in publishing history. Before the 1900s, authors usually paid to print their own books. Writing itself was time-consuming work, too. No word processors. No spellcheck. Can you imagine hand-writing multiple manuscripts? (On the other hand, newspapers serialized novels and magazine actually paid for stories, so…it’s all relative.)

In some ways, the writing lifestyle we see now is a RETURN of an older way, not a new-fangled situation at all. The tools have changed, that’s all.

(For much more on this, please read The Untold Story of Books by Michael Castleman. It's an excellent history of publishing over the last 600 years. I've read it three times.)

What happens, though, when authorpreneurship depends on the internet working rather than on typesetting by hand and steam-driven printers? What happens when the tools are increasingly held in the hostage-grip of big tech companies? When , at the end of the day, we are “content creators” for the machine?

I wish I had a clear vision of what MAY come beyond this era. I don’t have a crystal ball. However, something like an idea is beginning to form. It’s nebulous. It’s the opposite of rapid release and BookTok. It’s not traditional publishing with the Big Five, either.

It's about being an artisan and creating beautiful pieces that will hold their value over time. Read: don't count on the money. 

In a way, I suppose, my attitude reflects a loss of faith in the literary economy of that earlier era in which I grew up, the 70s, 80s, and 90s, when writers like Stephen King and Danielle Steel could fumble around at first, earn their break, and then go on to establish long, fruitful careers publishing one or two books a year. (Steel now pumps them out every couple of months. Her readers—myself included—don’t seem to mind. Still, she established herself as a name brand back in the 20th century and what we call traditional publishing.)

Back then, mid-list writers who did not become household names like King and Steel still managed to earn a basic living from solid advances and a long tail of backlist royalties—if they stuck it out for a couple decades.

Can't see around the next bend. Can you? 

Those days are over. Something new is ahead. What’s coming? I don’t know, but I can feel it. The hairs on the back of my neck are rising. It could be good. It could be devastating. We’ll know when we know.

The suspense is kinda killing me.
____
*The internet came back before I left the building, so I am now finishing up from the comfort of the couch. I might still walk down to the library just to take a peek.

How to use DUH! Time to your creative advantage.

by Steve Pease / Michael Chandos

This is a hurry-up-and-wait world. Waiting rooms are the archetype: bus stations, dentist, doctor, license plates, busy restaurants at lunchtime.  People interested in the same few service points, coiled up or sitting on benches or plastic chairs. High humidity from anxious body heat. Confusion. Anger. Ethnic divides. Age issues. Attendants and staff limited by the System. Security gates at airports, ouch!

Wait a minute. Massive human diversity. External stressors making some people hyperactive, others zoning out. 

We write stories, about humans. About real humans, not robots or idealized stereotypes. The more human your characters, the better. But they have to look real, act real. Where do you get experience in Humans? Why, in these unmade jigsaw piles of humans in waiting rooms, of course. Where else will you get them in this kind of lab experiment? Don't nap, read, stare blankly, or go to the bar. Look at all these fiction character guinea pigs! Don't be a zombie, use this DUH! time to your advantage, assuming your imagination is connected to your senses.

This is a typical Chicago airport gate. I know O'Hare Airport well. I worked in Colorado, but many of the Government offices I interfaced with were in the Washington DC area. Video teleconferences, of course, but there's nothing like being there, for side conversations, lunches, biz card trading, and chances to sell your opinion and to solicit commitments. O'Hare was the transfer point.

I write mystery, suspense and Science Fiction short stories. My stories are getting longer because there's more to write about. Novels are percolating. I was sitting in a three-hour layover in Chicago, trying to read a little, but it was lulling me to sleep. I got up for a stretch and commenced to people watch. There was Sully Sullenberger (landed the airliner in Long Island sound) quietly waiting for the flight to board. 

I was sitting in an alcove that serviced gates to four Heavies, big planes ready to board hundreds of humans. I looked at the lines. Passengers holding all sorts of carry-ons, businessmen, soldiers, kids. Mom & Pop on vacation. My vision transformed them from sweaty humans in Chicago to passengers boarding orbital shuttles, suborbital to India and Japan, and orbital shuttles to the Moon. It all made sense now. There even was a lady in a colorful sari obviously rocketing to Dehli. All the languages!

The scene is a loop in my head still, with smells, noise, sights.  I'll use it in a future story, I am sure.  Well-used DUH! time.

I was absent two weeks ago when my article should have been here. I was at the wedding of my oldest granddaughter, outside (50 degrees and going down), but decent wind, a lovely Victorian house and grounds, and pretty good diet-busting food. Massive Social DUH! time.

Except the human pickings were good. The new mother-in-law has been married 8 times! I expected a femme fatale, but got an experienced wedding manager, like it or not. The groom had to tell her to back off a bit. Her current husband was a Texas businessman, pickup, cowboy boots, jeans, pearl button plaid shirt and a I don't want to be here attitude. He wanted to be on his phone. Slouched in his chair. Several 45-50-year-old men appeared, three of them, all "Uncles", I was told. Well-made tweed sport coats, Very properly dressed, tidy haircuts, not a muscle between them, slack handshakes, but good to talk to. Lots of young women with weird hair (to this 60s-70s man), purple, piercings, tattoos, ENERGY.  Good human character models.

Happily married. He's a study, too.

December Traditions

 Here it is, December again. Just this morning I was telling Don that we have reached the age of Warp Speed. When you’re young, time moves like molasses. It takes forEVER for your birthday to come, or the holidays. But as you get older, time picks up speed with every year, until as you near the end, days/months/years pass so quickly it all becomes a blur.

In my family, we’ve always seen the year out with a bang. My mother’s birthday was Dec. 6, my sister Dec. 7, Then Christmas. December 16 was always the traditional day for decorating the Christmas tree when I was a kid. It was my parents’ wedding anniversary, and it didn’t seem odd to us youngsters that the folks spent their anniversary buying and decorating their Christmas tree instead of foisting us off on some relative and going out on the town. December 16 may seem late to be putting up your tree these days, but back in the day we bought big old live trees, and you didn’t want them turning into dried up firetraps before the season was over.

Don resisted buying an artificial tree for the first untold number of years of our marriage, but when he got sick in 2008 and couldn’t go tree shopping, I put up a little fake tree that I had used in my Scottish shop. (Yes, I used to import tchotchkes from Scotland, Ireland, and Wales and sell them in a shop.) A couple of years later I bought a pretty little fake tree that we have used ever since. It doesn’t smell the same, but I don’t have to sweep up needles every day, either.

My plan was to finish with my WIP by the end of the year. Fortunately I didn't specify which year. Still, I like the way the book is turning out, so I guess that's something.

And then my birthday is at the end of the month. I’d tell you which one, but sometimes I can’t believe it myself. It’s all such a blur…

In two weeks, I'll post a great Christmas cookie recipe my sister-in-law used to make - wildly easy, no bake, and delicious. 

Have a happy December, and enjoy you're latest great read!

A Busy Season

by Catherine Dilts

Monday was the book release day for The Body in the Hayloft, book three in the Rose Creek Mystery series. I experienced many frustrating delays getting this novel to readers. But finally, here it is! I’m excited to present the next adventure for the Rose Creek Reads book club amateur sleuths.

When I’m asked whether I’m working or retired, I hesitate. Technically, I’m retired. That’s the box to check on soulless forms. But retirement doesn’t mean I’m not working! Can I get an “amen” from my fellow authors?

Wooly mammoth - extinct or not? Hmm.

Most of us who are retired, or who don’t work a “day job,” stay plenty busy. Volunteer work. Family care (of elders or children). Sports. Our own health challenges.

Writers? We have a small business to run.

I took a day off before Thanksgiving to go on a family outing. Several of us met up at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to see the Lego exhibit.

Me visiting Brick Planet

We all viewed the Brick Planet Lego exhibit, and then the Secret World of Elephants exhibit. I annoyed the grandchildren by calling them “oliphaunts” like Samwise Gamgee in the Lord of the Rings. After seeing the two temporary exhibits, our group split up and headed for different regions inside the museum. Space or Prehistoric Journey?  

A few nights later, we attended a dance recital at the Broadmoor. The ballroom is elegant. Merida Bass (my daughter and co-author) and her husband dazzled with a cha cha, while our youngest grandchild looked far too grown-up at age fifteen in her flashy costumes. Dazzling, but Grandma wasn’t quite ready to see the baby of the family looking so spicy.

Merida and Ron looking sharp at the Broadmoor

We took a year off from Thanksgiving. Our daughters were at other family gatherings. We’re hosting a party later in December. While we were invited to multiple dinners, we opted to stay home. We just plain wanted a quiet day.

The rest of the year will be busy with book releases (yes, two) and a book signing event. Not to mention the holidays! A day off here and there is necessary. 

I hope your holidays are merry, not maddening, and your plans are fun, not frenetic.