Showing posts with label Alison Gaylin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alison Gaylin. Show all posts

Friday, February 21, 2020

Writing in the Midst of Much To Do

I forgot today is my day to blog. I've been checking my phone every morning for the day of the week. Then I check my appointment book. I'm still old-school with that. A book that I can open and flip through the pages.

This morning, I forgot I was blogging today because I didn't have time to check my calendar. I had an appointment to take Harry, my cat, to the vet. One of his eyes has been watering, but it was looking better. I almost canceled, but then I would have felt guilty if later it turned out to be something painful or serious. He dashed toward the bed when he heard me bringing in his crate, I lured him out by spraying the bathroom with Clorox. Don't ask me why, but he loves the smell of it. He trotted right into the bathroom and started to sniff and looked ready to hop into the wet bathtub. I shut the door and dashed for his crate before he suffered lung damage. 

He was not happy when I opened the door again and scooped him up for that hated trip in the car that always winds up on the table being poked and prodded. But today, he only got his nails clipped, eye drops, and treats with nutrients for vision. He was happy to have lunch and go out on the enclosed porch to turn paws up in the sun. I had to go back out to do errands before I could go to office. 

Now, it's the end of the day and I am going home to settle down to writing. I believe more and more that I should go back to the way I used to write. Log off the email, ignore the news alerts popping up, and settle in for five hours of uninterrupted time at the keyboard. This week, I made numerous notes to myself about both my historical thriller and my two non-fiction projects. The time I wasn't writing actually proved useful because in one of those marvelous examples of serendipity (I love that word), I happened across articles relevant to all three projects. 

With the 1939 thriller, I accidentally ended up on a Yahoo page devoted to interesting news stories. One of them was about a man who had bought a dresser at an auction and discovered a secret drawer. Then I was re-reading Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile because it was published in the United States in 1938, and one of my characters in my 1939 thriller will have read it. As I was reading I came across several lovely references to clothing that I want to quote in my non-fiction book about dress and appearance in American crime and justice (because, of course, Americans were reading Christie in real life). I also stumbled across a quote in a newspaper article about a real life gangster that will work well in my book about gangster movies. So my time was not wasted. I now have a frame story for the events in the historical thriller and several useful quotes for the other two books. 

Today the sun was shining. That was good. It was even better when I heard from one of our SinC chapter members that we have only 23 seats left for the second day of our Murderous March conference (March 20-21). That's good news because it means that with the Saturday portion of the conference still a month away, the library that we are partnering with for the third year is already near 80 person capacity. But we have lots of space at the hotel where we have a block of rooms so we can accommodate any of those people who decide to attend the Friday afternoon workshops with Sujata Massey and Alison Gaylin and the buffet dinner that evening. I think it also means that the people who attended last year's conference are excited about the third year of what is now an annual conference. This year, we are being joined by authors from MWA-NY. I'm among those upstate members who can rarely make it down to the City for chapter meetings, so I'm happy that they're coming upstate. We are also going to have authors from New England and the SinC Murder on Ice chapter in western New York. For the first time, we'll have a Pathways to Publishing panel with industry professionals. With luck we won't have a blizzard that weekend. 

Tonight, I am going to turn off all my distractions and settle down to write. That's also how I'm going to spend the weekend. Even with the notes I've jolted down, I need to get back to work.

Friday, April 05, 2019

A Pause for a Plot Twist

It has been a busy week. I've spent more time thinking about my historical thriller than actually writing because I have nonfiction projects that I need to finish and deadlines looming. 
But sometimes a pause is exactly what's needed.

I was invited to take part in this year's Woodstock Bookfest. Yes, that Woodstock, a small town with a big legend. I live only an hour away and somehow never made the drive from Albany until I was invited to participate in the festival.
My panel on Saturday afternoon was "Write Like a Girl," about women writing crime fiction. I arrived early to have lunch at the pub with Alison Gaylin and Marlene Adelstein. We had a great time getting to know each other over lunch and discussing what we wanted to talk about during the panel.That conversation paid off. We were able to turn the panel into a three-way conversation. After signing some books and chatting with the people who came up, we headed across the street for the authors' dinner. Then I spent the night enjoying the big, cozy room the Bookfest organizers had booked for me at Twin Gables.

I had a wonderful time, loved meeting Alison and Marlene, and Martha Frankel. Hat off to The Golden Notebook, the local indie bookstore, The Pub, and Oriole 9. Great author's goodie bag -- cheerful yellow pouch with cherries filled with chocolate, jelly beans, tea, and other fun treats.

But -- aside from enjoying Woodstock and the Bookfest, I had a wonderful bit of serendipity on my drive down. I told Alison and Marlene about it during our lunch together. I mentioned it again during the panel when someone in the audience asked about getting ideas. I've been toying with the idea of having a parallel subplot in my 1939 -- a mystery set in the present that would dovetail with the events in the past. The only problem was I couldn't decide who the protagonist in the present should be. Then two things happened. A couple of weeks ago, someone showed me a unique feature in a Victorian house. Then as I was on my way to Woodstock, I was listening to the radio and heard a discussion about a Batman comic book from 1939. That reminded me of the research I'd done on pop culture in 1939. And it all suddenly came together. I had my subplot -- linked to "The Singapore Sling Affair," (EQMM, Nov/Dec 2017), my short story set in postwar upstate New York.

In fact, this book -- in one way or another -- pulls all three of my protagonists into the plot in one way or another. There in reference if not in person.

Thank you Woodstock Bookfest for getting me away from my desk.