Too Dumb for Words

by Charlotte Hinger

Janet Hutchings, the editor of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, asked me to create a blog post for their on-line blog. Her guests blog about suspense, short stories and the mystery-fiction scene. I was delighted to have the opportunity. Here's the link to my post: 

The Bliss of Ignorance (by Charlotte Hinger) | SOMETHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN

Last Monday, Thomas Kies, had a great post about how he conducts his writing class. I can't applaud him enough. What a great approach. His classes are kind and helpful. He does his best to help his students achieve their goals. It says the world about the kind of man he is. 

My post was about my lack of writing education when I began my career. I was literally self-taught. Yet, in some ways I was better off because I never heard the discouraging words so many newcomers have to endure.

After a friend of mine read my post she said she wished she had never taken graduate courses in creative writing. That, and a critique group convinced her she had no business ever submitting a thing. She's just now getting her first novel published after picking herself up years later and working up the courage to try again.  

Another friend told me her writing classes leached all creativity from her years ago. She will never write now. 

This just burns me up! What in the world is going on? I didn't have access to either liberal arts colleges or writing groups in the little Western Kansas prairie town I lived in. I learned all the publication processes from books and magazines. What a luxury to learn without pressure. 

I attended my first writing group as a guest of a friend in another state. I had just finished Come Spring, a historical novel, which was later published by Simon and Schuster. I was in awe of the cultured well-dressed attendees. Yet, by the evening's end, I decided it was the meanest group of women I had ever come across. They absolutely slaughtered the work of the only one there who was writing a novel.

How could that poor timid little soul take that week after week? That's the real story of what soured me toward writing groups. I was glad I didn't have any part of my manuscript with me. I would have been expected to read it and probably would never have submitted my work after the group "helped me."

Again, what in the world is going on?

 I can't abide cruelty in any form. It's especially egregious when it comes to creativity. It doesn't take much to blow the flame out of candles. 

Three cheers for Thomas Kies. If you haven't read his post, do so. It a model example of the right way to teach a difficult subject.

Surprise!

 

Last week I picked up Thomas Kies's book, Shadow Hill, when I was in Barnes and Noble. I was delighted to see it prominently displayed on a table with the country's most prestigious fiction writers. I was heading to North Carolina to visit my daughter and I knew Thomas lived in that state.

Her family had rented a vacation house in Beaufort and when I arrived and cracked open the book, I realized from the flap copy he was the president of the Chamber of Commerce of the county where we would be staying. The very same county! And the very same town!

I emailed him immediately and much to my delight, he invited me to lunch. Naturally, our conversation focused on publishing and also how fortunate we were to be included in Type M For Murder. Type M is one of the oldest running blogs--since 2006. Our outstanding blogmaster, Rick Blechta is responsible for it's longevity. He gives a new meaning to "faithful to the task."

Thomas and I are with the same publishing house, Poisoned Pen Press, which was purchased by Sourcebooks several years ago. It was fun to recall the lessons we had to learn about writing, and how fortunate we were to have skilled editors to teach us how to improve our books. 

Oh the lessons I've had to learn! The humiliation I've endured. My third most embarrassing moment involved Barbara Peters. I have the world's second worst sense of direction. I was so thrilled when I was to appear at the bookstore for an interview. The other author was Michael Bowen. When I arrived and parked my car, I headed up the street in the wrong direction. Arizona was in the midst of an ungodly heat wave. 

I walked forever before I realized my mistake, nearly had a heat stroke, did an about-face, arrived sweaty, red-faced, with my lovely outfit limp and wilted. I was barely on time and went swanning in like one of those vain persons who make a dramatic late entrance. My hopes of making a good first impression on this poised sophisticated lady lessened to striving to sit upright on the stool. I settled for recalling my own name and hoped my blood pressure would return to normal. 

Nope! I'm not going to tell you who has the worst sense of direction because she's another author and I haven't asked her permission. But I will say she was at the wheel while her husband and family were asleep when returning from a Western Writers Convention. She was headed toward their home in Amarillo, Texas and ended up in Spearfish, South Dakota. Boy, was her husband startled when he woke up.

 

Getting by with a little help from my friends & my murder book

The summer has come and (nearly) gone, as of this writing, and it was a whirlwind. In July, I founded and directed a summer writing institute for teenage writers. Actually, July was the easy part, the culmination of 13 months spent planning, designing, and recruiting both faculty and students, and I have Type M’s Frankie, Tom, and Barbara to thank for serving as three of my seven visiting artists.

So now, as the fall launches a new school year, and I prepare to do it all over again, I’ve also hit the second half of the novel I’m writing. This is where things get hard. I’m 45,000 words in, the story line has taken a rough shape, and it’s time to get serious about plotting and tying up loose ends. It was interesting to hear all three of my Type M friends speak about writing, about plotting in particular. Most are “pantsers,” writing, as they say, “by the seat of their pants,” not knowing where their book will go.

Elmore Leonard said he spent the first hundred papes getting to know the characters. I love writing the first hundred pages. Now, as I approach page two hundred, I recently returned to my personal “murder book,” the notebook where I write character sketches, plot ideas, and questions I have about the manuscript on which I’m working. It’s literally my murder book.

I read again this week (in a Mystery Writers of America publication honoring him) about Jeffrey Deaver’s hundred (or more)-page outlines. I wish –– I REALLY wish –– my brain worked that way. My murder book is as close as I get, and, believe me, I’ve tried to outline. The story, it seems, always has other ideas (or my subconscious does and those only appear when I really turn everything off and sit down at the desk).

The other day, I sat for six hours at a picnic bench in a loud water park as my 12-year-old daughter Keeley and her friend went up and down crazy slides, ball-point pen out, murder book open, and filled seven pages, creating would-be plot points and coming up with what (hopefully) is a surprise ending (one I didn’t see coming when I began the book).

So as I head into the fall, the murder book will remain open, allowing me to finish the work in progress while another year begins, and I get to do it all over again.

Conference Envy

My fellow Type M'er, Thomas Kies, posted a report on Thrillerfest, a writer's conference held in New York this month and I confess I was seized by more than a touch of envy. I always learn something and meet new people at any conference and this one was full of terrific panels and workshops.

Thrillerfest sounds especially exciting. The line-up of speakers was spectacular. It was like a gathering of all the rich and famous in the mystery field. Conferences are also a chance to meet the not so rich and famous. I can honestly say some of my best friends are writers that I met at conferences.

Above is a photo from this year's Western Writers of America convention. It was taken at the Five Star party. In the middle is our brilliant editor, Tiffany Schofield, who is one of the most friendly persons in publishing. Her frontier series featuring historical novels about the American West has been a great hit both with librarians and readers.

I'm on the left. Having just discovered a western hat that fits I longer have to worry about my hair. What a relief. On the right is Irene Bennett Brown. I look forward to seeing her and her husband, Bob, every year. Irene and I have known each other forever. She and Bob started attending in 1978. Her book, Miss Royal's Mules, is a finalist for a Will Rogers Medallion Award. Her new book, Tangled Times will be published Summer, 2020.

Old friendships can be dangerous at conventions because of the temptation to spend all my time with people I already know and like.

I would love to go to Thrillerfest next year. I have a number of friends who attend. Plus this year a number of person's from Sourcebook were there. Sourcebook acquired Poisoned Pen last year and the conference would have been a great opportunity to meet representatives from our new publisher.

I don't like posting on the day mine is due. I like to schedule it at 12:01 am so our early morning readers will have fresh content. This has been a very harried summer full of disruptions. Most of them were good. But still, my writing has been interrupted a lot. Then everything else lags too.

Better performance next time!

Food and Mood

Since Rick has us exploring recipes, I’m going to add one at the end of this blog.

First off, I do all the cooking around in our household. I enjoy cooking. I find it relaxing and I only prepare meals that I truly enjoy eating.

Cooking was one of those things Cindy, my wife, found attractive in me when we were dating. She doesn’t like cooking. Period.

I’m pretty sure it’s why she married me.

So, when I’m writing, food is an important ingredient (yes, pun intended) to particular scenes. The protagonist in my mystery series is Geneva Chase, a female reporter with a drinking problem who makes bad life decisions. In my first book, Random Road, the only time you caught Geneva in the kitchen was to get ice cubes and a glass and to pull a bottle of Absolute out of the freezer.

Thinking I’d tone that down a smidge, in the second book, Darkness Lane, I started the book with Geneva making a pot of chili. My editor (and rightly so) flatly told me, “What are you thinking? Geneva is boring. You’ve made her too suburban.”

So, no more cooking for Ms. Chase. Now the only food you see in her kitchen is take-out from a local restaurant.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t write some good meals into a storyline. For example, in Darkness Lane Geneva goes to the home of a well known actor and his writer wife where they’re having an emergency meeting with the key players of a Broadway play in development. A teenage actress is missing, feared kidnapped by her high school teacher.

The actor’s cook brings in a porcelain tureen of steaming coq au vin and warm bread fresh from the oven. I could have just given them BLTs on toasted whole wheat, but the day outside had a crisp October chill to it and Geneva savors the deliciously earthy scent.

Why coq au vin? It sounds snooty and how many of us actually have it for lunch…brought in by our live-in cook?

Oh, plus I had prepared it in my own kitchen for the first time just the weekend before. So true to the recipe challenge, here’s mine for coq au vin...oh, and Happy Thanksgiving.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
• 5 skin-on, bone-in chicken legs (thigh and drumstick)
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 12 ounces thick-cut bacon, cut crosswise into 1/3-inch slices
• 3 carrots, peeled, chopped
• 3 celery stalks, minced
• 1 onion, minced
• 4 cups dry red wine, such as Burgundy, divided
• 1/2 cup tomato paste
• 1 quart low-sodium chicken broth
• 12 sprigs thyme
• 6 sprigs rosemary
• 1 pound assorted wild mushrooms, such as oyster and maitake, cleaned, cut into bite-size pieces (about 8 cups)

RECIPE PREPARATION

• Preheat oven to 350°. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in an ovenproof pot over medium-high heat. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Cook chicken in batches until browned, 5-6 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate.
• Add bacon to pot; cook until rendered. Add carrots, celery, and onion; cook until onion is translucent, 7-8 minutes. Stir in 1 cup wine and tomato paste; simmer for 2-3 minutes. Add remaining 3 cups wine. Boil until wine is reduced by half, 15-20 minutes. Return chicken to pot.
• Add broth. Tie thyme and rosemary sprigs together; add to pot. Bring to a boil and cover pot. Transfer pot to oven and braise until chicken is tender, about 1 1/4 hours.
• Meanwhile, heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms; sauté until browned, about 5 minutes.
• Transfer chicken from sauce to pot with mushrooms; keep warm. Simmer sauce over medium heat until reduced by 1/3, about 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
• Add mushrooms and chicken to sauce. DO AHEAD Coq au vin can be made 3 days ahead. Chill uncovered until cold. Cover; keep chilled. Re-warm before serving.

Distractions, you say. Where was I?

I read Rick’s and Thomas’s excellent posts this week and had to cringe. Not because I dispute anything they say; but, rather, the opposite: I think most of us wish we had longer attention spans. I read somewhere that eighth graders know 50% fewer words now than they did in 1950. I don’t doubt it. I don’t know for certain why this is, but I do believe young people, in general, don’t read as often as they once did. Because of Rick’s dreaded television? Not sure.

I do, however, know screen addiction is real. “Close your laptops, please. Eyes up here,” is becoming a mantra in my classroom. But here’s the thing, I, too, probably suffer the same addiction. My phone might as well be a sixth finger.

Like many people, my day job requires me to be accessible for the majority of the day. Given that I oversee a dorm of 46 teenagers and need to be available to coworkers and parents just about 24/7, the relationship I have with my cell phone is probably more dysfunctional than yours.

There are, though, are a few things I’ll share here that I do to help me exceed the attention span of a hummingbird.

A single tab: The first thing I need to focus is to avoid email. At all costs. Google runs my world, so I open the Chrome browser to full screen with only one window open. I can’t see a second tab.

Lose the phone: I mean this almost literally. When I’m writing, my office door is shut, and the cell phone is in the other room. (I check it on coffee breaks, and I can hear it ring, but texts are set to vibrate.)

Work on paper: Rewriting takes place on paper and clipboard. No distractions when I’m laying on the sofa, reading, slashing, and writing longhand.

Chew gum: Yes, that’s what I said. It helps students to focus. I know it helps me.

Run: Not necessarily fast or far. But exercise helps me to clear my head, and I write much better after a run.

I don’t have a cure-all for concentration lapses. No prescription. Just some (hopefully) thoughtful tips. Feel free to send yours my way.

Clickbait ADHD

I know that November is Novel Writing Month, but I can barely write a novel in a year.

Why?

I have the attention span of a six-year-old. That’s a bad thing if you’re writing an 90,000-word mystery. Worse, if you’re working on a computer and you’re logged onto the internet.

First off, I’m a news junkie. Every morning, I look at the websites of the Washington Post, the New York Times, Politico, The Hill, Huffington Post, and the Raleigh News & Observer. The current political climate doesn’t do anything to assuage my news addiction. Scary things are happening and an absurd rate of speed.

AMAZING PICS: NASA releases image showing Sun ‘exploding’

If I just read the stories that interested me, I would most likely be fine. But I go for clickbait. Those shiny, sparkly, too good to be true headlines that always promise more that they deliver—suddenly I’m down the rabbit hole. When I should be working on Chapter 23, instead I’m clicking on something that’s caught my eye.

19 Every-day items that are actually a huge waste of money

And how much time on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram is too much? I justify it by saying that they’re all marketing tools to help get the word about my books. “Liking” my friends’ photos is just being neighborly. Isn’t it?

After all, they “like” and share the reviews I post of Random Road and Darkness Lane. Facebook and Twitter, well, they're just good marketing tools.

A few years ago, a Chicago psychologist, Michael Pietrus offered an interesting theory: Maybe these distractions aren’t just an internet-age annoyance but something approaching actual pathology.

It's possible the internet is giving us all the symptoms of ADHD. He cautioned, “We are not saying that internet technologies and social media are directly causing ADHD.” But he claimed that the internet “can impair functioning in a variety of ways…that can mimic and in some cases exacerbate underlying attention problems.”

According to the CDC, an estimated 4.4 percent of adults have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It can make it difficult to concentrate on one thing for any period of time. Adults with ADHD, unlike children, aren’t hyperactive in the conventional sense. But they can be compulsive, easily distracted, easily bored. They lose interest halfway through reading an article or completing a task.

When I sit down at my desk on a Saturday morning intending to have two chapters under my belt by the end of the day and I look at my watch and see that it’s already noon and I haven’t written a word—well, that’s when I slap myself in the forehead.

How do I combat my addiction? Believe it or not--YouTube. No, I don’t download kitty videos or trailers of upcoming movies (although I love those) and nor do I download outtakes from the Big Bang Theory (even though I find those laugh-out-loud hilarious).

Nope, I’ll listen to ambient music. There’s a ton of it out there. It’s like the background music in a movie. If I’ve come to a sad chapter, I put on an hour of sad music. If I’m at a place of introspection, I’ll put on an hour or so of a chill mix. Writing a scary scene? There are some ambient style Game of Thrones soundtracks that put me in the right frame of mind.

A 2007 study from Stamford University published in the journal Neuron makes the claim that music engages the areas of the brain linked with paying attention, making predictions and updating memory.

'Cursed’ Egyptian sarcophagus reveals secrets.

That’s the last one, I promise. Time to turn on some ambient music and write that novel. www.thomaskiesauthor.com

Tom's Halloween Blog

The month of October marks the beginning of autumn.  The leaves are turning color, the days are getting shorter, the air is crisp, and Starbucks is serving their pumpkin-spice lattes.  It’s also the month for Halloween…and when I particularly enjoy scary movies and novels.

I’m currently binging on the new Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House. It’s comprised of ten episodes and, while it veers considerably from the 1959 gothic novel by Shirley Jackson, it pays homage to its essence.  It’s a slow-motion horror burn and it’s scarin’ the bejesus out of me.

Concurrently, I’m reading an excellent (if not spooky) account of a real-life paranormal investigation written by two dear friends of mine, Joey and Tonya Madia.  They were residents here on the coast of North Carolina and recently moved to Ohio.  They’ve written a book entitled Watch Out for the Hallway: Our Two-Year Investigation of the Most Haunted Library in North Carolina.

Now, to give you a little context here, this area of the coast has a rich and colorful history.  The pirate Blackbeard sailed in these waters three hundred years ago.  Indeed, his ship Queen Anne’s Revenge was scuttled by Blackbeard himself only a mile off our beach.  To my knowledge, it was one of the first examples of downsizing as a cost cutting measure.  Fewer pirates employed, fewer pockets to fill.

This region is also known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic because of the large number of shipwrecks these waters have claimed.  Sudden savage storms and shifting sandbars all contributed to heavy losses of life and property creating some remarkable stories and legends.

Just around the corner from my office here in Morehead City, North Carolina, sits the Webb Library.  In 1929, Mr. Earle W. Webb, Sr., CEO of Ethyl Corporation in NYC and native Morehead City resident, began construction of a commercial building on the corner of 9th and Evans Streets in downtown Morehead City.

For the first few years the building had doctors’ offices downstairs and a training facility for the local garment factory upstairs. When the upstairs noise became too much for the downstairs occupants, the garment factory left. Mrs. Webb, a member of the Morehead Woman’s Club, asked her husband if the club could move its 300-book library to one of the upstairs rooms. When he agreed, the library was moved.

A few years later in 1936, the Webbs’ son, Earle W. Webb, Jr., became ill and died. In honor of their son, Mr. and Mrs. Webb dedicated the building as the Earle W. Webb Jr. Memorial Library and Civic Center and opened it to all the citizens of Morehead City for community use.

The Webb Library is subject of Joey and Tonya Madia’s book.  It’s fun to read about their investigation and how the spirits they encountered had personalities, moods, and sometimes indulged in playful activities as well as bad and rude behavior.

The difference between Hill House and the Webb Library?  I have no worries about going in and borrowing a book or two at the Webb.  I’ve been there for fundraisers, meetings, and have never been uncomfortable.  Of course, now after reading the Madias’ book, I find myself looking over my shoulder more often.

Hill House?  You wouldn’t catch me there….ever.

Full disclosure.  I’ve never actually seen or felt a ghost.  Honestly, the only spirits I’ve ever seen have been in the bottom of my glass, right where they’re supposed to be.

That being said, I still like a good scare from time to time.

Happy Halloween.

For more information on Joey and Tonya’s book: http://visionarylivingpublishing.com/book/watch-out-for-the-hallway-our-two-year-investigation-of-the-most-haunted-library-in-north-carolina/

For more information on my mysteries, go to www.thomaskiesauthor.com

Stress

Henry James said that plot is characters under stress.

When I began working on my second Geneva Chase novel, Darkness Lane, I sent the first hundred pages to my editor at Poisoned Pen Press. In it, Geneva is sober, cooking meals for her and Caroline (Geneva’s ward) in their warm, cozy kitchen, and she’s sworn off married men.

In the first chapter, I wrote about an abused woman who waits until her drunken husband has fallen asleep and then covers him with gasoline and lights a match. By the time the police arrive, the fire department is vainly trying to put out the blaze and the husband is long past screaming.

The cops find the woman standing on the curb with a plastic cup filled with Merlot. She looks at the officers and says, “I’m just toasting my husband.”

A page later, we find that a fifteen-year-old high school girl has gone missing. She happens to be Caroline’s best friend.

A good start? I thought so.

My editor, in her diplomatic but honest way, sent back a critique essentially saying that she could see how I was putting the puzzle pieces in place, but Geneva, my protagonist, was too suburban.

Oh my, God, I’d made her boring!

My editor went on to say, she hoped that the part of the abused woman torching her husband wasn’t being used as a ‘billboard’, a ruse to bring the reader into the story but once you’ve past it, no longer is part of the narrative.

Oh my, God. It was!

Finally, my editor said that in the first hundred pages…NOTHING HAPPENS!

Oh, my God. She’s right!

Two weeks later, I’d rewritten that first hundred pages. After review, my editor came back and told me that the first hundred pages are dark and it feels like everything is right on the edge of disaster. Keep writing.

Whew!

I put the characters under stress. I made the abused woman a secondary plot line, something that would merge with the disappearance of the high school girl. I brought in two characters from an earlier book I’d written but was never published, bad guys—really bad guys.

Geneva had to have it coming from all sides. Teenage Caroline became a pain in the ass. The publisher of the failing newspaper where Geneva is working is threatening to sell the publication to a media conglomerate, screwing his employees into the ground. A teacher at Caroline’s school disappears at the same time the high school student has gone missing. Geneva discovers the body of the student’s father, brutally murdered.

Geneva starts drinking again.

Characters under stress.

Australian writer, Ian Irvine said, “Conflict forces characters to act in ways that reveal who they are – and nothing tells us more about characters than how they deal with their troubles.”

He goes on to say, “Stories are about adversity. Happiness can be the ending of the story, but it can’t be the story itself. Why not? Because happy characters don’t want to change. Happiness doesn’t force the characters to act and thus reveal themselves and, if the characters are having a good time, the reader is not.”

Plus, stress and conflict create plot twists. When I write, at some point, the characters take on their own lives. I’m along for the ride. They seem to create their own dialogue, move through a scene without my guidance. And just like real life, things happen that I didn’t see coming. Some of my best plot twists just seem to have happened on their own.

Crazy? You bet. But aren’t all writers a little nuts?

And because your characters are under stress, it can feel uncomfortable to write the scene. It’s painful, not because it’s bad prose, but because your characters are struggling with the obstacles that YOU’VE given them. They’re your characters. You created them. You’re making them suffer.

Overcoming dire obstacles under stress is what draws the reader into your story, advances your plot, and makes your characters more sympathetic.

Have a great week and I hope to see you at either/or the Poisoned Pen Press Mystery Conference in Phoenix over Labor Day weekend and/or at Bouchercon, September 6-9 in St. Petersburg, FL.

Walking the fine line between “flawed” and “annoying”

By Rick Blechta

If you haven’t read Tom’s excellent post from yesterday, you might want to drop down below this post to check it out. It brings up some important points in basic character development.

His post, as often happens here on Type M, inspired mine for this week. As all writers do, I’m always concerned that people can relate to my characters. They can be good or bad and readers can respond to that, but the last response I want from them is indifference, or maybe incredulity. So far I’ve never been called for the latter, but have swung and missed on the former.

I totally agree with Tom that characters need some sort of flaws to remain interesting over the course of a novel, much less through a whole series. Adding flaws to characters is something that’s not all that difficult. The big questions are: How far does one take it? And how far is too far?

I can’t remember the title of the novel, and besides it was written by a friend so I wouldn’t tell you, but I sadly could barely finish the book because the character had flaws that I found completely irritating to the point where I wouldn’t have minded if he’d come to a quick and gruesome end. Not a good thing in the first novel in a projected series.

Way back in the dawn of time here on Type M 2006, I wrote a post about a situation that arose in writing my fourth novel, Cemetery of the Nameless. I was well into the novel (probably around page 70) when I realized I did not like my protagonist one little bit. He was irritating, to be honest. I didn’t set out to make him that way, he sort of took on that mantle all on his own. And no matter how I tried to change him, he kept whining. Not good.
I did consider killing him off early on and then letting someone else take over as the protagonist. That might have even been an interesting writing exercise. Problem was, I only felt comfortable writing in first person at that point, and the difficulties to get my novel out of this mess using this plot device seemed, well, strained and a heck of a lot of work.

I eventually decided to “recycle” a character from my second novel, The Lark Ascending, and even though she tended to be “difficult” too, at least I didn’t find her annoying and her addition to the cast really allowed me to take the story to another level.

The problem is, what if a writer doesn’t recognize that they’ve made the most important character in their story annoying? And worse yet, what if the book’s editor has the same issue?

I suspect this is what happened with my friend’s novel. I do know he would describe his protagonist as “crusty, opinionated and irritable but endearing” and my response was he’s also dead annoying. Needless to say, I didn’t read any more of the series.

I’m sure a lot of us ink-stained wretches spend the dark hours of the night worrying about stuff like this. I know I do.

Life Intervenes Yet Again

I was really looking forward to my upcoming trip this Wednesday from my home here in southern Arizona (where the temperature is 116º F as I type) to my native Oklahoma (where it's only in the upper 90s), where I was scheduled to do two library events with friend and colleague Mary Anna Evans at libraries in Woodward OK, Aug.2, and Watonga OK, Aug. 3.

But guess what? My darling yet troublesome husband took a header in the kitchen yesterday morning (Tuesday the 24th) and broke his right arm in two places. We spent most of yesterday in the emergency room, a very familiar venue for us. This latest round of trouble and strife started on Monday morning July 9th, when he went in to see his ophthalmologist for a routine eye shot and ended up having emergency eye surgery that very afternoon.  The doc said that his eye pressure had risen so much in six weeks that he had to get it fixed RIGHT NOW before it damaged his optic nerve. Seems new blood vessels have grown to take the place of the broken one in his right eye, but they inconsiderately grew over the place that drains the fluid in the eye and blocked it. Of course the only surgical center that could do it on such short notice is an hour away from where we live, so we raced up there and he had the outpatient operation at about 4:30 that Monday afternoon during a raging thunderstorm. They put in a permanent shunt to drain the eye. We had a couple of follow-up exams, but all was progressing nicely.

Except for the fact that he'd reach for something and have to try a couple of times before he could grasp it. Its seems that the vision in the healing eye is distorted and his perspective is off. It was all kind of funny until he took a wrong step and careened into the wall.

Everything seems to have gone well and we're home. They set and splinted his arm and immobilized it, and he didn't have to stay overnight. He's not in terrible pain, just uncomfortable. Can't dress himself or drive, of course.We're going in for a follow-up with the orthopedist on Friday and go from there. This is his tenth operation in nine years. My sister-in-law told me I should be in the Guinness Caretaker Book of Records.

But I say he's the one who should be in the Guinness Book of World Records. Nobody can deal with adversity with as much equanimity as he can. He says that getting all upset about unfortunate things just makes them worse. If only I could be as sanguine.

So long story finally to the point, I've had to cancel my trip to Oklahoma, which has been in the works for months. This is not the first time I've had to do this. Sometimes I wonder why I bother to make plans. Everyone has been very gracious, but I don't care how good your excuse is, it isn't fun to have to back out at the last minute. Fortunately, the libraries are far from left in the lurch. They still have the wonderful Mary Anna, and that is enough to make up for everything. Here's a link to the event in Woodward: http://woodwardlibrary.okpls.org/category/author-visit/

As for me, I'll be spending the cruel month of August nursing, chauffeuring, and trying to finish the first draft of my work in progress.

p.s. I'm so happy that Tom Kies will be joining Type M 4 Murder!

Please welcome Thomas Kies!

by Rick Blechta

Type M for Murder has a new member! We are most pleased to welcome Thomas Kies. Tom will begin work next Monday and alternate weeks with our delightful Aline Templeton. Please be sure to visit on Monday, July 30th to read Tom’s inaugural post!

In the meantime, here’s some biographical information he’s provided.

Thomas Kies

Tom Kies has wanted to be a mystery writer since he was a little boy, cutting his teeth on every John D. MacDonald novel he could get his hands on. But real life got in the way – working for newspapers and magazines for 30 years and raising three children. So his dream of being a novelist took a back seat.

Tom’s current day job is as the President of the Carteret County Chamber of Commerce on the beautiful coast of North Carolina. At night and on weekends, he writes about murder. His Geneva Chase series starts with Random Road and six naked bodies found hacked to death on an island. Written from the first person point of view of a female alcoholic reporter, Tom says, “I didn’t start out writing as a woman and, frankly, it’s a challenge. But she’s such a snarky smart ass, she gets to say things I wouldn’t dare and that makes her a hell of a lot of fun.”

His second book in the series, Darkness Lane opens with an abused woman torching her sleeping husband. When the police arrive, she’s drinking wine and watching the firemen vainly attempt to douse the fire. “I’m just toasting my husband,” she says.

Concurrently, a fifteen year-old high school student vanishes. The two plots appear to have nothing to do with each other but as Geneva chases down leads, she finds that they are dangerously related.

Tom’s given workshops for various state writers groups as well as the NC Writers Network Fall Conference. Working on Graveyard Bay, he lives on Bogue Banks, a barrier island with his wife Cindy and Lilly, their shih-tzu.

Thomas Kies, Guest Author

Type M is very pleased to welcome guest author Thomas Kies, author of the Geneva Chase Mystery Series. The first novel in his new series, RANDOM ROAD, introduced Geneva Chase, “a reporter with a compelling voice, a damaged woman who recounts her own bittersweet story as she hunts down clues” to murders straight out of a nightmare—six bodies found naked and cut to ribbons in a posh Connecticut home. Thomas lives and writes on a barrier island on the coast of North Carolina with his wife, Cindy, and Lilly, their Shih-Tzu. He has a long career working for newspapers and magazines, primarily in New England and New York, and is currently working on his next novel, GRAVEYARD BAY.

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How Crazy is Your Research?

From nine until five, Monday through Friday, I’m the President of the Carteret County Chamber of Commerce. We’re right on coast of North Carolina and we’re blessed with beautiful beaches, world class cuisine, and some of the best fishing you’ll ever see. I’m the head cheerleader for one of the nicest places on earth.

Being the head of the Chamber of Commerce comes with a reputation that’s wholesome, upright, and good for the community. Heck, when the sun’s shining, it’s called Chamber of Commerce weather. Who else has their own damned weather?

But on weekends and after work, I think about and write things that are dark and, according to my wife, deeply disturbed. I write mysteries.

That requires certain tidbits of knowledge that others may not have, and certainly nothing that a president of a chamber of commerce should be harboring. For example, in my first mystery, RANDOM ROAD, a swingers’ club figures prominently in the plotline. I’ve lost track of the number of people who’ve read the book and asked me how I know what the inside of one of those clubs looks like. Because I worked in newspapers and magazines for over thirty years, I have the inside dope on a lot of stuff. It doesn’t mean I was a member.

In my second book, DARKNESS LANE, there’s a creepy scene that takes place in an exclusive diamond merchant’s shop. It’s expensive, well-secured, hard to find, and by-appointment only. Yes, that’s based on a real jeweler’s establishment. Full disclosure, in real life, the owner was murdered there.

The theater and haunted mansion scenes in DARKNESS LANE? Based on real locations in Fairfield County, Connecticut where the book takes place. I have pictures on my phone. I can share if you like.

 In the book I’m writing now, GRAVEYARD BAY, there’s a scene from a professional dominatrix’s BDSM dungeon. Have I actually seen one? Oh, yes. Was I a client? Hell, no.

But then there’s the stuff I don’t know or haven’t seen.

Let me digress for a moment. When I attended my first Mystery Writers Conference, there were multiple workshops given by authors, publishers, agents, cops, ex-FBI agents, forensic specialists, and physicians. We discussed everything from how to kill someone, to hiding the body, to what the body would look like after being in the water for a week. Questions were asked and answered. Will someone die after eating ground glass? What is a fatal dosage of Fentanyl? When someone is killed and thrown into the water, how do you keep them from floating to the surface?

If you were someone off the street just wandering into one of those workshops, you’d think you’d stumbled onto a coven of psychopaths. Weird? Certainly. Scary? Maybe. Fun? It is if you’re a mystery aficionado.

So, doing research at home is very similar. If someone were to look at my browsing history on my computer (my home laptop, not my work computer…oh, no—that would be wrong), they’d be tempted to call Homeland Security or the FBI. Let’s take a look at some of the topics I’ve Googled or YouTubed: The Russian Mafia, Los Zetas, M-13, explosives, pill mills, AK rifles, handcuffs, sex trafficking, ice pick murders, samurai sword, killer clowns, theater make-up techniques, Aryan Brotherhood, and hypothermia.

Some of the headlines of articles I’ve downloaded: Garage owner charged with selling drugs. Prominent developer killed by train. Real estate agent charged with home burglary. Florida nanny found dead in woods reportedly tortured before her murder. Body found in floating barrel identified, but name is withheld. Students mine data to find where unfaithful husbands live.

Those are actual headlines!

So, speaking of data mining, you can only imagine what Facebook has on me. And the ads that pop up unbidden on my computer screen? There’s an algorithm working overtime that’s dropping the weirdest advertising possible in my emails and on my newsfeed.

But then there’s the old fashion way of doing your research. This is where you get a feel for a scene or the flavor of the action. Talk to the experts. I have friends in law enforcement that help keep me on track (what happens when someone goes missing?). Some of them are avid readers so I want to get it right. There are doctors (so what does that broken arm look like?) and attorneys (walk me through a plea deal) in my Rotary Club who are fans as well. They don’t mind that I ask them questions, even if their answers never make it into a novel.

I’ve also spent time in police headquarters, hospitals, prison (not much time), and courtrooms. It gives you a chance to see, listen, feel, and smell the scene. I love researching my books.

And while knowing your subject matter is a good thing, Stephen King writes, “You may be entranced with what you’re learning about the flesh-eating bacteria, the sewer system of New York, or the I.Q. of potential collie puts, but your readers are probably going to care a lot more about your characters and your story.”

I try to tell the best story I can, but I also try to make it as realistic as possible. I research some pretty strange stuff…just don’t tell my Chamber of Commerce board of directors.

COMING JUNE 2018! The second book in the Geneva Chase series, DARKNESS LANE, is coming in June 2018! Pre-order now to be the first to read Geneva Chase's latest account.

Visit Tom's website at www.thomaskiesauthor.com