Superstitions

By Johnny D. Boggs

I just made an emergency run to the grocery.

I was out of blueberries. Had gone days without any. Which explained why this week has been so lousy. 

Sources for magazine assignments blowing me off. Outlining a novel not coming together as I’d hoped. Sentence I just wrote reading like crud.

Here’s my morning ritual: Get up. Let the doggies out and feed the big one. Hit the coffeemaker. Shower. Get dressed. And, most importantly, make myself a smoothie.

The ingredients vary, depending on what’s available. Raspberries. Strawberries. Blackberries. Spinach. Celery. Tomatoes. Oranges. Peach. Grapefruit. Lemon. Chile. Carrots. Apple. Cucumber. Zucchini. Brazil nuts. Protein powder.

And 20 blueberries.

For good luck.

I am not so insecure and insane that I must have a 20-blueberry smoothie when I’m on the road. When I’m home, however, I remain fairly certain that failure to include those 20 blueberries dooms me to a frustrating day at the Mac. That the Kansas City Royals and South Carolina Gamecocks will stink if they’re playing. That the check I’m expecting won’t be in the mail. 

If I happen to have only 23 blueberries left, I’ll likely add the extra three. Maybe.

A 20-blueberry smoothie could be a ritual because I happen to like blueberries, though, as a native of South Carolina, I’m a much bigger fan of peaches. Maybe the specific number is just a tradition. Perhaps it’s comforting.

Or I could be superstitious.

But I have no problem stepping on cracks in sidewalks. I don’t worry if a black cat walks in front of me. Thirteen is just another number. There’s no rabbit’s foot around. I won’t walk under a ladder, but that’s because my dad was a building contractor, and there might be someone on that ladder, or there might be a hammer or a gallon of paint atop the ladder, and I don’t want a carpenter or a hammer falling on my head or being bathed in paint if I accidentally slip and hit that ladder.

When I coached Little League, I would try to wear the same socks, shoes, etc., if we were winning. Once we lost, the mojo was gone and I’d find new duds or wash the luck back into what I had been wearing. I would chastise anyone who started packing up equipment before the game was over.

And I will never step on a foul line.

Superstitions apply to writing, too.

The first book I ever sold was mailed (back when we actually mailed typed manuscripts), per the publisher’s guidelines, in 12-point Monaco. Most people that I run into these days have never even heard of Monaco, but I use it all the time. Well, if a publisher demands 10-point Times New Roman or 14-point Calibri, I’ll try to comply. If I happen to forget, I just think, Hey, Editors, all y’all have to do is hit “Select All,” and change the font and point size, silly.

Then when the editors have a bad day, they have only themselves to blame.

Body in Motion

On Tuesday night, I had trouble sleeping. I tossed and turned and wanted to throw something at the alarm when it went off. But I had an appointment -- with a physical therapist. My doctor asked if I'd like to see one after she concluded that the occasional sharp pain I was having around my neck and shoulders could be related to fact that I spend most of my working days at a computer. She suggested that a therapist might do an evaluation and give me some exercises to do.

The therapist did her evaluation and noted that I had limited range of motion in my neck before experiencing pain and that there was a problem with the distance between my shoulder blades. I nodded and explained my bad habit of sitting too much at the computer, even though I use my adjustable standing desk when I work at school. But I have two monitors on that desk, and looking back-and-forth between them counts as "repetitive motion". And at home, I tend to work a lot at my dining room table on my lap top. Wrong position for arms, too much looking down. Even more when I read a book with my head down while slouching in a chair. The physical therapist mentioned that spending hours not moving from a sitting position can be as bad as smoking.

I heard all this and still expected to walk out with exercises to do and come back in three months. Instead, the therapist went off to get a large heating pad and a device with electrodes. She wrapped my neck in the heating pad, put the electrodes on the back of my neck and left me with a magazine. The heating pad to reduce inflammation felt wonderful, so did the pulsing from the electrodes. When the session was over, she came back with the exercises that she wanted me to start doing. And the news that she wanted me to come in twice a week. But the problem should be better soon if I work on my bad habits. Set an alarm and get up and move every hour. Watch my posture. Position my computer properly. Do the exercises.

Actually, I already knew I've been engaging in body abuse. That was why I requested an adjustable  desk at work. But I hadn't allowed myself to think too much about how that might be counteracted by sitting for hours at home, carrying around a shoulder bag that weighs at least ten pounds, and trying to make one trip from garage to house with two grocery bags and a 24-count case of cat food.

Thinking about writing and the body reminded me of a book that is somewhere on my shelf -- diet and exercise for writers. I know it's somewhere, but I haven't found it yet. I did come across Stephen King's On Writing. If you've read his memoir, you'll recall that he is candid about his former drinking problem that he justified at the time with "the Hemingway Defense" (that writers are sensitive, but real men don't show their sensitivities, instead they drink). About his life now, King observes that having a healthy body and a stable relationship (his marriage) enhances his writing. And his passion for writing contributes to his health and his marriage. King has a schedule, writing in the morning and the afternoon when necessary, but reserving evenings and weekends for his family and relaxation.

We all know, writing can be a pain in the neck, the back, the legs, and the posterior. Writing can lead to carpal tunnel syndrome, and weight gain. We get eye strain from writing. Too much time alone or the stress of a deadline can make us grouchy and give us insomnia. Knowing when to move our bodies -- to stand up and step away from the computer -- is essential.

I'm going to do better. I don't have the time to go to therapy two times a week, so I will sit up straight and get up when the alarm goes off and pretend I'm my cat, Harry, who wakes up from a sound sleep to turn around and stretch. Zumba. Interval walking. Will do. Yoga. Meditation. Will try.

Writing in the Present and the Past

Rick's post on Tuesday about the digital age and new technology struck a chord with me. I agree that as writers of crime fiction, we end up looking fairly stupid -- or making our characters look that way -- if we don't know about and make use of current technology in our books. I have tried a twist in my two Hannah McCabe books. They are set in the near-future, but in an Albany, New York that exists in an alternate universe. The characters communicate with an all-purpose device called an ORB. I've incorporated some other real-life technology already available but not yet widely used.

On the other hand, my Lizzie Stuart series is set in the recent past. The challenge there is to remind readers that Lizzie is in 2004 right now. Only problem, my memory of early 2000 is becoming a bit blurry. I haven't written a book in the series in several years. When I return to it with the next book, I'm going to have to do some research -- read some newspapers, look at some ads, get back into the technology of 12 years ago.

I thought it would be easier to write a historical thriller set in 1939. Even with the future looming and on display at the World's Fair, no one was able to pick up a smartphone and find information.  But I do need to know what  technology was available. That's a fairly easy question to answer regarding the FBI and large city police departments. But I must dig deeper to know how readily a small town police chief in Georgia would have been able to obtain information about a suspect or verify someone's identity.

And there are other questions I need to answer about 1939. Recently, I came across a collection of letters online. Letters to a young woman who was in her first year of college. Most are from her mother, with an occasional letter from her father, a minister. The letters are fascinating because the parents are keeping their daughter informed about what is happening at home. What has struck me is how often someone is ill that winter. The mother has a toe that has become infected and she is at home with her foot up in the early letters, waiting for the toe to drain and the hole to close over. She later comes down with a horrible cold, as do several other people she mentions. One of those people is a radio personality. A family in the town suffers a double tragedy when a young man attending the funeral of his sister, fails to dress properly for the wet, chilly weather, catches pneumonia, and dies soon after. All of this illness has reminded me that I need to know more about the state of medicine in the 1930s. I had this on my radar as a concern for the people struggling to survive the Great Depression, but even in this middle-class, well-educated family and among their neighbors, the danger of an early demise seems to loom over their heads. So research on the state of medicine in the 1930s is in order.

But right now, I am waiting to receive my new computer. I have turned over my old equipment to my computer guy and he is transferring everything over. I'm going to keep my outdated desk top to use for writing when I don't want to be distracted. The new laptop will have all of the most recent bells and whistles, including touch screen. It should be interesting to see how long it takes me to adapt

Happy Birthday, Canada!

Barbara here. Today is a day for unabashed, unapologetic sap. For today is July 1st, the day set aside to celebrate the creation of my country one hundred and forty-eight years ago. Canada Day is marked across the country by fireworks, parties, and musical extravaganzas big and small. In Ottawa, there is a day-long concert of music representing the many strands that make up the cultural mosaic of the country, crowned by a gorgeous display of fireworks against the backdrop of the spires of Parliament Hill. It is a truly fabulous spectacle. When my children were young, I made a point of bringing them to see the fireworks and share with the throngs who crammed the green lawns in front of Parliament.

When I was a child, in the long-dissipated mists of time, the day was called Dominion Day, and my parents used to bring my sister, brother, and me to a much more modest display of fireworks in our own town hall square in Town of Mount Royal, in Montreal. I recall sitting on the grass being alternately awe-struck and terrified by the noisy cannon-blasts.

Tonight, I will be sharing Canada Day in yet another venue- the concert and fireworks display put on by the village of Sharbot Lake, where I have a cottage. Instead of battling the throngs to get even a glimpse of the fireworks on Parliament Hill and contending with impossibly crowded buses afterwards as everyone tries to leave at once, I will bring my blanket and sit on the public beach overlooking the lake, and watch the fireworks being set off by local volunteers on the helicopter pad next to the medical centre. The beautiful displays will burst into colour right overhead and shower reds and blues and greens down over the lake, drawing oohs and ahs from all of us on the beach. The bay will sparkle with the red and white lights of boats that have come from all over the lake to park offshore for the best view.


It's a day to put writing and business aside and celebrate the extraordinary privilege of calling this country home. In so many parts of the world, writers live in peril, driven underground or into exile if they dare to criticize the society in which they live. I grew up in the time of the Iron Curtain, when some of Eastern Europe's best writers were either in the gulag, in hiding... or dead. This is still the case in many parts of the world. In the book I am currently writing, I have one of my characters, a journalist who has covered global conflicts, say "God, I love Canada. It feels great to be able to piss off the police and not get my head chopped off."

It's that elemental. Today I acknowledge the freedom I have to write what I want and not fear the knock on the door. Yes, there may be an internet outcry or even a tense visit from the RCMP, but we have laws and rights and due process standing between us and the guillotine. Let us cherish that, and guard it fiercely, lest by our blindness and apathy, we let it slip away.

The Power of Trust

I think I've mentioned here that a couple of months ago I adopted a cat, now named to Harry. In this photo, Harry — eight year old Maine Coon mix —  is investigating the boxes I've collected for my decluttering project. Harry seems to share a number of characteristics — like loving boxes — with other felines. But he has other quirks that seem to be uniquely his own.

Much more of a dog person than a cat lover — having only had an outdoor cat briefly when I was a child — I have been surprised by the bond that we're forming. But what has surprised me even more is that having Harry in my life is giving me greater insight into human relationships. Harry is an opportunity to study close-up the profound power of trust to affect human behavior.

Yesterday, I dropped Harry off at his vet's to have his teeth cleaned while I made a quick trip to New York City. The night before, Harry seemed to pick up some anxiety on my part that I had received instructions that he was not to eat after 6 am. That meant I would either not be able to leave food out for him that evening or that I would have to wake up before 6 and remove his food bowls. But my greater anxiety was that he would somehow sense that the next morning I planned to put him into his carrier. Harry does not like his carrier, wisely associating the carrier not only with being caged but with a trip in the car to the vet.

At a little after midnight I went off to bed, having decided to set the clock and get up at 6 to remove his food bowls. For the next two hours, Harry wandered through the house meowing, with occasional stops in front of my close door to scratch and meow louder. The scratching at my door is something we dealt with early on. We established that I will not open my door because he scratches. At night, I go off bed, leaving him to do the same — and he is often asleep before I am. But he wakes up and plays cat soccer with his toys and dashes through the house and eats and does whatever cats do at night. His business, as long as he stays away from the door. Then in the morning, I get up and open the blinds so that he can look out. He is already on top of the radiator waiting. Over the past two months, we've worked that out. So the scratching at the door and the loud meowing was disturbing. I couldn't sleep and he wasn't in a mood to play.

At 2 am I gave up. I waited until it had been awhile since he scratched on the door. Then got up, went into the living room and set on the sofa. Now, that we have a pet cover, he is allowed to make use of the sofa without the balled aluminum foil that didn't keep him off anyway. Now, we sit on the sofa in the evening when I have the time. Easier than having an 18+ lb cat jump into my lap when I trying to work on my computer. So at 2 am, I sit on the sofa. He jumped up beside me. Exhausted, I stretched out. He stretched out in the curl of my arm, on his back, paws in the air.

When he was snoozing, I eased off the sofa. He turned over and curled up against the pillow and kept sleeping. He was still asleep when I woke up at 6. In fact, I had to wake him up a little before I scooped him up and put him into his carrier — actually, a carrier designed for a medium-sized door. I had lined it with a towel, sprayed it with a calming spray, but Harry still meowed his unhappiness as we drove to the vet. And I felt guilty, as if I had betrayed his trust, even though I knew the trip was necessary and that I would come back for him. And I hoped that 2 am time together on the sofa had helped him to believe that, too.

Harry has gotten me thinking about humans relationships, not just with animals, but with other humans. For most of us — those of us who have the power of empathy — being trusted by another human or an animal is a gift, but it comes with responsibility. The responsibility to live up to that trust.

As writers, particularly crime writers, we deal with trust in our work — usually betrayals of trust. But there are also those stories to be told about keeping trust. Harry has me pondering what I can do with that. Writer thanks cat.