Going Deep

 I (Donis) didn’t sleep very well last night. I couldn’t go deep. This is a problem I’ve been having off and on lately, one with which I’m sure everyone who has ever been a caretaker or watches the news is familiar. I’ve become hyper-vigilant. I’m always right on the surface, aware even in sleep of everything that is going on. My mind won’t shut off. It’s exhausting.

As I lay awake, thinking about the concept of ‘going deep’ did cause me to spend some time pondering the mysteries of the universe. Physicists are on the hunt for the basic building block of reality, the smallest thing there is. The elementary particle. The Higgs boson. But for years I have had an intimation that creation is not just imponderably huge, without limit, out there, it is also imponderably ‘in there’, deep without limit. Just as there is no top, there is no bottom.

I recently read a  book by Jonah Lehrer called Imagine. Lehrer propounds that daydreaming and otherwise allowing the mind to wander is the most effective way to tap your true creativity. If this is so, then I am the most effectively creative creature alive.

Lately I spend my time working on my writing, yard and house upkeep, and nursing a husband who has an injured knee and can't ambulate very well. My husband's knee will heal, and starting next month I will be conducting a 10-week writing seminar for a bunch of retired university professors, which will get me out of the house. At the moment, I seldom go out. Which means that I spend a lot of time going in. Fortunately, ‘in’ is a very big place.  

Gearing Up for the Outside World

by Catherine Dilts

This isn’t about outfitting for winter sports. The topic is the much more treacherous and risky activity of introverted authors making public appearances. Authors who regularly speak in public might find my experience amusing. To those of us suffering social awkwardness, the anxiety is real. I offer a few suggestions at the end.

Just last month, I participated in the Pikes Peak Writers Winter Bash. A couple dozen authors gathered for a combination party and book signing. Being among friends and acquaintances was fairly low stress. Other than the being in public part.

I shared a table with my critique group

How did I gear up for the event? Gathering books, deciding what to wear, fixing a treat to share, finding a novel for the book exchange. Simple tasks. It was the mental prep that was daunting. I had only attended as a non-author, years ago. I didn’t know what to expect as far as attendance. As the venue filled, I made myself move around instead of hiding behind our table loaded with books. I spoke to strangers.

It's part of my effort to engage in marketing and publicity. For years, I used having a full-time day job and family responsibilities as my excuse. I didn’t have time. In the spirit of “these books aren’t going to sell themselves,” I have committed to stretch myself. For a set period. Not for the rest of my life. Let’s see how it goes. Is it worth the time I could spend writing?

I joined the Sisters in Crime Colorado chapter’s book club. This pushes me to interact with other authors in a non-threatening way. I get to read books I wouldn’t otherwise pick up. The monthly meetings are via Zoom. And in April, my daughter and I will be in the spotlight with Grandpa’s New Year’s Relocation. Again, it’s a sympathetic crowd, and I know most of the folks already. Here’s the January novel up for discussion:

April is also when the Pikes Peak Writers Conference takes place. I’ve attended off and on for many years. It’s like a family reunion in a way. Once a year might be the only time I see some of these folks. They are my kind of nerds.

Pikes Peak Writers Conference 2025

Big breath. The final planned event for 2026 is Malice Domestic. I attended over ten years ago. The conference is wonderful, and the people are great. I was, nevertheless, very stressed out. This time, I’m going with my co-author daughter. I’m gearing up by reminding myself that readers want to meet authors, authors want to network, and everyone wants to have a good time.

Methods for coping with social anxiety:

Pick low-pressure, friendly activities to ease yourself into public events. Check out a local writing group’s meetings, attend a small conference with friends, or have a book-signing in a familiar venue.

Lower the pressure on yourself by having realistic expectations. The event won’t make or break your career. Rare few people have sold their novel to a big publisher their first time out at a conference. Only already famous authors sell hundreds of books at book signings.

Give yourself the option to escape. At a conference, hiding in your room for a bit is acceptable. In a meeting, leaving to catch your breath shouldn’t require explanation.

These are your people. If you’re an author, people should expect a certain amount of artistic oddness. Don’t be self-conscious about your brand of creative madness.

If it makes you miserable, Don’t Do It. If I derived no pleasure from attending conferences or being involved in writing groups, I would save myself the time and money and stay home.

My final bit of advice is to recharge your creative batteries. I plan to do that in 2026 by going on more camping trips. Getting outside, touching grass, and connecting to nature.

 

 

Deep Inner Workings of a Story

Hi Type M's, it's Shelley here. 

I'm back in Guam and ready to get back to work writing after a kind of whirlwind of travel and so much reading. You'd think my TBR pile would be low, but no. And now I'm back here staring at my shelves and the books I left behind back in August, and they are staring back at me with accusing faces. 

Contemporary Fiction Ahead

While I continue to put the finishing touches on my Strawberry Moon Mystery files so I can upload them to KDP, I'm reworking the outline for a contemporary fiction novel that isn't in any way a mystery or thriller. This is one was written around 2019, which is hard to believe. I wrote it, as I did my Olivia Lively mystery, on Wattpad, serializing it chapter by chapter on a weekly time schedule. I did have an outline after awhile, but as usual I started out by winging it and only getting around to an outline when it was necessary to move forward. 

(Actually, it's hard to remember exactly the year or my process. That pesky pandemic happened around then and darn if it isn't something of a hard-drive glitch up in my noggin. I can see from Wattpad that I did something with the chapter files in 2021, and I have chapter files of the book from 2019 in my computer drive.)

Anyway, what I hadn't yet worked on back then was the nitty-gritty internal story structure, the inner scaffolding of a novel that wasn't a particular "genre" like mystery or romance or horror. (I've called in Women's Fiction in the past, but that genre title is sort of verboten now.) For the past several years I've taken Rosalie "out of the box" and messed around with it. I've probably made five outlines. I've written and deleted several opening scenes, trying to find the true beginning of the story. 

This year, I'm determined to get the whole thing rewritten and sent out on submission to agents. I've never tried to get an agent up until now. It seems like the absolute WORST time to do so as we can see the old trad model crumbling, but maybe that's a good reason to try it before it's gone. 

So, with that in mind, I'm delving into deep internal genre story structure, trying to determine what kind of story this really is, at heart. It's a story about making a big mistake and paying a huge price for that mistake. It's about losing your reputation and striving to regain a sense of normalcy and self-respect and fighting against societal norms that seek to bring you down. It's about remaking your life in a new community. Beneath all that runs a thread of personal growth, right? And here is where I'm having trouble.

Internal Subgenres 

Is this a coming-of-age story? Is it morality story? Is it a story about status? 

"Yes! Yes, it's all three!" I shout.

"Yeah, but you have to pick one," my internal editor replies.  

"Okay, fine." I pout and take a harder look. I'm using Shawn Coyne's Story Grid system to analyze my narrative structure. [See The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know by Shawn Coyne]

There are elements of each internal subgenre there in my book, but I need to choose one to make sure the structure is super solid. Right now I'm wavering between coming-of-age and status, so I'm going to have to examine the usual beats for those kinds of stories and decide which fit best with my current outline. This may require some more work on the outline, but in the end I'm convinced I'll have a more satisfying story for the reader. 

I'm sorry this post hasn't been so much about mystery, but keep in mind that a mystery "external" genre story probably also has an "internal" character-focused story line, too. Does your protagonist have a moral failing that he/she must overcome? Is your cozy sleuth in need of some maturation in a certain area? Does your law enforcement MC desire a move up to a higher rank or is he/she in danger of being demoted? 

Are you a reader of mysteries or thrillers with some deeper themes? Do you recognize these structures in the book you are reading this week/month? How does the author weave the internal story thread throughout the action? 

I hope you've found something of value in my ramblings about the inner workings of story. If you are interested in learning more, check out The Story Grid. Happy January and have a wonderful weekend!

Juror No. 1

 by Sybil Johnson

Juror No. 1. Sounds like the title of a legal thriller, doesn’t it?

In this case, though, that was my number when I was on jury duty for two weeks in December. 

I live in Los Angeles County. As you might expect, there are lots of courthouses and cases and, consequently, a need for lots of jurors. The last few times I’ve been summoned, I was assigned to downtown Los Angeles. Downtown L.A. is interesting, but it’s such a pain to get to from where I live, my usual reaction is “Do they want me to be in a bad mood?” This time, though, I was assigned to the Torrance courthouse, a much easier and closer place for me to get to.

The last time I was on jury duty was pre-Covid. Things have changed. Jurors no longer sit around in the jury assembly room waiting to be called for a panel. Instead, if you’re told to report in, you’ve already been assigned to a courtroom and case. There were forty of us in the jury pool. We started in the jury assembly room where we took care of the required paperwork, received our badges and waited to be called to the courtroom.

Here I met my fellow potential jurors for the first time. This was also when we discovered there was a creature (probably a squirrel) running around in the ceiling of the assembly room. Animal control had been called 2 weeks before, but hadn’t arrived yet. Apparently, this was not an uncommon occurrence. Once there was a raccoon in the ceiling that fell through and landed in the room when people were there. Not sure if it landed on anyone. Whatever happened, I’m sure it caused a great to do.

Anyway, we were soon sent to the courtroom for voir dire. I’ve got into the habit of mentally noting what I see as soon as I enter a room. I read somewhere years ago that, when describing a scene in a story, to ask yourself what are the first five things your character would notice.

In this case the character was me. Here are the things I noticed:

• As we walked into the courtroom, the lawyers stood facing us. So many lawyers. So many blue suits. I’m assuming this standing facing us thing was meant as a sign of respect for us, but it was a bit intimidating. 
• The courtroom was cold. So cold. The courthouse was built in the late 1960s. They don’t seem to be able to regulate the temperature throughout the building very well. The judge told us they’ve tried and advised us to wear warm clothing. 
• The courtroom was small. Smaller than most of the ones you see on TV. Smaller than any of the real-life courtrooms I’ve been in in the past. 
• There was no bailiff. I learned later that, since this was a courtroom where civil cases were heard, there’s a court attendant instead. They take care of the jury instead of a bailiff. 

During voir dire, I noticed the lawyers used an excessive number of Post-it notes, a sea of yellow. Makes sense to me, actually. Once a potential juror has been dismissed, they can just rip one off and replace it with another. 

Another thing I noticed was the plaintiff wore Snoopy socks with his very nice suit. They went well together. It sort of endeared him to me. Not that it made any difference in how I viewed the case. But it did get me thinking how a plaintiff or defendant decides what to wear to court and if it made a difference to most jurors.

We were questioned by three different lawyers, one representing the plaintiff and one for each of the defendants. During questioning, one of the lawyers asked all of us if anyone thought they wouldn’t want themselves to be a juror on a case they were involved with. I wanted to jump up and shout “me!” But, dang it, I would be exactly the kind of person I’d want on a jury. So I kept my mouth shut. 

One thing that surprised me was how many people had never been on jury duty before. I’ve been summoned many times over the years and been on 3 trials, all criminal.

I was ultimately picked as one of the jurors (Juror No. 1). They questioned all or almost all of the 40 potential jurors before finding 12 and 2 alternates. The jury was an interesting bunch. Quite diverse. Lots of interesting people. Lots of interesting stories. We all got along very well. One of the jurors, a lovely woman, became my JDB (jury duty buddy). Someone on the jury came up with that phrase and we all started using it. 

My JDB and I had lunch together every day at a Mexican restaurant near the courthouse called Mezontle. (The courthouse no longer has a cafeteria.) Good food, fast and friendly service. The lawyers also ended up there most days. We studiously ignored each other. We had many pleasant lunches together joined, at times, by other jurors. 

The courtroom was casual. The judge professional, but kind. He kept us amused with statistics and anecdotes about the LA County Superior court system during the occasional short break as we waited for something. It was interesting.

As I noted before, the courtroom was incredibly cold, the jury room even colder. We all came wearing sweaters and warm coats. I even wore some gloves one day. They had cat faces on them, which I’m pretty sure amused one of the six lawyers.

It was a civil case so we heard testimony from the plaintiff, defendants, a witness, a police officer, accident reconstructionists, some doctors (one of them the doctor from “Botched”)... The case went to the jury the day before I was set to leave for Seattle for Christmas. The judge kindly let me off at the end of the day. I had mentioned my plans during questioning and he assured me, that if the case didn’t finish before then, he’d excuse me. He kept his word. I left and Alt No. 1 subbed in. She was quite happy to do so. It’s hard being an alternate. 

I’m sad that I didn’t get to participate in the deliberations, but also a tiny bit happy I didn’t have to decide anything. My JDB, who also ended up as the foreperson, let me know later how things went. They ended up only needing another half day to come to a decision.

My takeaways:

• I’m more comfortable as a juror on a criminal case rather than a civil one. Not that I’m entirely comfortable deciding someone’s fate, but I feel I understand criminal law better than civil law. 
  
• I’d forgotten what it was like to go to work every day and come home at night. It’s been a long time since I had to do that.
• I’d also forgotten how tiring jury duty could be. I went home every day exhausted. It reminds me a bit of when I’m writing. You’re very focused, concentrating on everything, trying to wrap your head around the story or, in this case, the testimony. That can be very tiring.
• I also left jury duty with a new friend. My JDB and I plan on keeping in touch and, at some point, having a reunion lunch at Mezontle. Who knows, maybe we’ll see the same lawyers there. 
• And, finally, I wonder if they ever got the squirrel out of the jury assembly room ceiling or if it’s still there, scrambling around and making noise.

Off Copyright - fiction heaven or hell?

 by Michael Chandos

   When actors get old and are no longer being cast in new projects, they either retire to Malibu and Palm Springs, or they disappear into some small town in Idaho. They go to fan conventions to sell photos and signatures, do commercials for rejuvenating drugs, or get a degree in nursing and end up changing sheets in a small hospital where no one knows their previous identity. Veronica Lake was the Number One actress in the late Forties and early Fifties. She lost all her money in independent movie schemes and ended up a server in the bar of a rundown hotel in downtown Philadelphia. Only a few end up playing golf in Palm Springs.

   Where do written mysteries go?  Before 1978, published work copyrights lasted 28 years, with an additional renewal term of another 28 years. The law changed in 1978 to something like the date of the author's death plus 50 years. Thanks to Congressman Sonny Bono, the current law reads: 

• Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (1998)
  Life of the author, plus 70 years (generally)
  95 years from date of publication or 120 years from date of creation (anonymous works, pseudonymous works, and works made for hire)

   Many works from earlier in the Century, like ACD's Sherlock Holmes, were renewed under the current law, but, since Sir Arthur died in 1930, the copyright protection for all the Sherlock works expired into the public domain in 2000. Who else?  Mickey Mouse, Popeye, Peter Pan, The Wizard of Oz. As of 1 January 2026, Betty Boop, originally a singing dog in the comics, joined this distinguished crowd.  So did three iconic mystery titles and authors.

   

   I think Agatha Christie is the Number One best-selling mystery author in the world. Over two BILLION copies sold. Her many works are classics, often filmed, always in print.  And now, available to publishers without necessitating permission from her estate.

   The first four Nancy Drew mysteries are now out of copyright. Mildred Whit Benson wrote 23 of the novels. Her pseudonym soon became a House pen-name for dozens of further Nancy Drew books, and for several spin-off series. Did you start your mystery reading with "The Secret of the Old Clock"? In the next few years, the novels were written by men and women under hire to the publisher, 78 in total. They all will slowly be released from copyright as the years move on. They all are also still in print.

   Samuel Dashiell Hammett is a foundational author of the American mystery story, often realistic hard-boiled stories based on his years as a Pinkerton detective himself. His novels are high on multiple Best Of lists, including those accepted by the Library of Congress. The (third) movie of the "Maltese Falcon" is equally enshrined in cinematic Best Of lists.

   Copyrights are complicated, but the "70 years after the author's death" provision rules strongly. Some people claim copyright to images and derived works, but those will eventually fall out of copyright too and into the public domain.

Even a Nobel Prize can't disturb the process.

Every End is A New Beginning.

    

 I wish you all a wonderful upcoming year. May you attain your heart's desire. 

    How did you fare during 2025? As for me, I shall quote my niece, Abby. “There’s only one 

thing I can say about 2025 – oy!” 

    It’s been tough but we got out alive. Now I’m girding my loins for 2026.

Yesterday I finally finished reading Mark Nepo’s The Book of Awakening, which is written in the form of a day book, one spiritual reading for each day of the year. I thought the entry for December 29 was particularly to the point, especially since that day was my birthday. It’s entitled “Sing, Then”.

“…it has become very clear that giving voice to what is inner is essential to surviving what is outer,” he says. “When everything in life presses from outside of us, we have no choice but to sing like scared children relying on their song to stop the pain…This is the secret of all spirit, why it cannot stay inside, but must be brought from within us into the world.”

I thought that was a very good description of why I write.

What Is Splooting?

by Catherine Dilts

Those of you who know me may have wondered at my pet-less condition, considering how many animals I include in my mysteries. It had been 15 years since we had an animal companion in our home, a cat named Tyger who died of old age. 

Enter Strider, a five-month-old English Springer Spaniel. I haven't had a dog since I was a teenager. My husband used to train dogs. He picked the puppy. I'm glad he did. This little guy is full of energy and affection. He's eager to please, but also a bit of a scamp.

Strider in full sploot

I have a learning curve to tackle, including the terminology unique to pets in general, and dogs in particular.

Keeping up with slang words and phrases is a never-ending task. Writers who like to sprinkle their work with the latest lingo need to use words correctly. Here's one I thought everyone had heard of, but I was wrong: splooting.

The puppy we adopted is the King of Splooting. I've seen photos of cats, bears, dogs, squirrels, and other creatures splooting, and now I have my own entertaining splooter.

​According to our veterinarian's website, splooting is a real thing. Full description here.

In the "full sploot," the animal lies on their belly and spreads their hind legs out behind and the front legs in front of them. A flying Superman pose.

A sploot displaying toe beans

Puppies and kittens are more flexible and more likely to sploot than adults. Strider is just five months old. He's a big boy at over twenty-five pounds, but has puppy attitude. 

He was born in Montana, so I suspect his motivation for ridiculous amounts of splooting is to cool off. He prefers to lie on the hardwood floor, although he has a bed, a blanket, and a towel.

How do writers learn new slang? I follow social media pages for national parks and particular animals. The rangers and the fans of bears and eagles spice their posts with humorous observations, often containing slang terminology.

Bison (American buffalo) are NOT fluffy cows, despite tourists thinking of them as such. Zoomies describes when a cat or dog runs around wildly, full of energy. Toe beans are the pads of the animal's feet, particularly felines and canines.

I rely on my co-author daughter and my granddaughters to correct my attempts at modern slang in my fiction. Because you can’t always trust the internet definitions!

He looks sad, but Strider is a happy puppy.

 

New Beginnings and First Sentences.

 by Thomas Kies

Since we’re about say farewell to 2025 and usher in a new year, I’ve been thinking about new beginnings.  I’m optimistic on the publishing front because I’d like to announce that I’ve signed with a new publishing house- Level Best Books.  I can’t be any happier to be part of their team!

New beginnings.

Anytime you start something new, it’s a time of excitement colored with a shade of apprehension.  It’s a little like reading, or writing, the first page of a new novel.  It’s an adventure and you really don’t know where it will take you. 

Legend has it that Aristotle said, “Well begun is half done.”

In the creative writing class that I teach, I often talk about how important your very first sentence should be if you’re trying to capture a reader’s attention or that of an elusive literary agent. My own agent has told me that she gets a hundred queries a day.  That first sentence has to grab her.

The sentence that captured my agent’s attention in Random Road my first novel was—"Last night Hieronymus Bosch met the rich and famous." 

Then I followed that sentence up with this:

"That was the lead sentence of the story I filed later that night with the Sheffield Post.  My editor spiked it, saying, “nobody who reads this newspaper knows who Heteronymous Bosch is.”

"Instead, the story began: “Six people were found brutally murdered, their nude bodies mutilated, in the exclusive gated Sheffield community of Connor’s Landing.” 

Here are a few famous first sentences from some truly great mysteries:

•  “There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.”— The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman

•  “They threw me off the hay truck about noon.”— The Postman Always Rings Twice, James M. Cain

•  “When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist.”— The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith

•  “Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested.”— The Trial, Franz Kafka

•  “Mrs. Bentley was not surprised when the sheriff arrived.”— A Fatal Grace, Louise Penny

•  “In my end is my beginning.”— The Daughter of Time, Josephine Tey

•  “The first time I saw Terry Lennox, he was lying on the floor of my living room with a blood-soaked towel pressed against his face.”— The Long Goodbye, Raymond Chandler

•  “I was seventeen years old, and I was pretty sure that no one would ever want me.”— Sharp Objects, Gillian Flynn

•  “I am convinced that at heart every writer is a murderer.”— The New York Trilogy, Paul Auster

•  “I’d seen little of Holmes lately.”— The Hound of the Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle

•  “I was sitting in my office when the door opened and a woman walked in.”— Farewell, My Lovely, Raymond Chandler

•  “It was seven minutes past midnight.”—
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon

So, in closing, have a wonderful New Year and I hope this is the beginning of a fabulous 2026,  Oh, and the picture at the top of this blog?  It has nothing to do with what you just read.  But I thought it was funny as hell and we all need to smile at the New Year. 

Twenty Years as a Ghostwriter

 Happy Holidays. I trust everyone had a Merry Christmas. As we head into the New Year, we tend to reflect on what's happened to us during the last twelve months and see how that will stack up for what's in store. Recently, I was at a convention when another author announced that next year will bring the 20th anniversary of her first novel and mentioned that she's published twelve since then in that series, as well as several other standalones. That reminded me that in 2006, my debut novel was also released, which was later followed by six more in the Felix Gomez series, plus a YA standalone and my Cats in Quarantine memoir. Nine books under my name and a dozen-plus short stories. But compared to my author friend's accomplishments, my output seemed wanting.

However, over those twenty years, I had been very busy as a ghostwriter. When I first heard the term "ghostwriter," I asked my dad what it meant, which he explained. I thought it an odd profession, only to embrace it decades later. What interesting turns life puts in our paths.

While I enjoyed being a ghostwriter, the downside was that I was working on someone else's ideas instead of my own. It was write-for-hire with no residuals. A big positive was that the money was fairly steady. And I got to work with interesting clients on fascinating subjects I would not otherwise have explored. As a summary of that career, I've collected the covers of published works I completed as a ghostwriter or as co-author. Not every project made it to print. Several were screenplays and others stalled because of money problems or the client had second thoughts about the story. Some of our clients were very involved in the process, giving lots of feedback. Others barely read the manuscript, trusting me to produce a narrative true to their vision. 

Below, the books in the first row are novels. Good Money Gone a financial thriller set in Panama. I've always wanted to write a WW2 story but didn't have a good enough idea until Kirk Raeber hired me to help him write Forgotten Letters. My spin the classic Western was Luther, Wyoming, which suffered the sad fate of being released at the start of the Covid lockdown.

Row two are memoirs. Always Forward, one man's journey in the US Marines, from the mean streets of Detroit to the meaner streets of Mogadishu. What do I know about being a destitute Black teenager in Jamaica? My client, Petergay Dunkley-Mullings, taught me much with Can't Afford to Fail. In another project about WW2, Mark Verwiel approached Broken Destiny from a metaphysical perspective, which was how we connected. Minor-League Buzz: Major-League Life by Don Miers, a raucous, sometimes raunchy, résumé of his adventures as a baseball manager. 

Top row, below. Possibly my most unforgettable client was that high-energy tornado, Todd Saylor, with whom I wrote his Wire Differently series. Steven Schwartz outlined his business success and principles in Spiritual Consciousness. 

Second row, below. Four thrillers. Lone Justice gave me insights into the world of a Black lawyer in Dallas, Texas. Star Revelations by Steven Paul Terry, a metaphysical political thriller involving time travel, alien mentors, and Project ULTRA. The Natanz Directive, a political thriller with super-spy Jake Conlan, co-written with Mark Graham. A funny anecdote: a reviewer commented that the author Wayne Simmons showed off his CIA credentials with his detailed descriptions of Tehran when that had me using Google Maps! Writer friend Josh Viola asked me to rework his sci-fi/fantasy epic, Bane of Yoto, and amp up the violence and gore. A delightful challenge.

Below, top row. Business books. Ex-Navy fighter pilot turned investment consultant, Matthew "Whiz" Buckley showed people how to exploit stock opportunities in Covid Crash. John Manzetti presented case studies of good and bad business decisions in Small Bites of the Elephant. My last project as a ghostwriter, Patience With Patients, about the need for patient empathy, by Dr. Jim Longobardi.

Last row. Another crack at The Big One, books by Carl Haupt, a WW2 vet and an eccentric but good-hearted client who passed away shortly before we got to complete the last of his inspirations. These novels feature the adventures of Gary Catlin, who winds up in Formosa, an overlooked region during the war. Working on these stories sent me down many deep and winding rabbit holes, courtesy of vintage National Geographic magazines and maps in the Texas online university library system.

Twenty-one books in twenty years. Whew!

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