Holidays with My Characters

Posts from Rick, Barbara, and Aline about holiday customs got me thinking about Christmas when I was a child. I grew up in Virginia, and my parents both worked. Today, my family would be classified as among the "working poor."  That made holidays even more special because my parents always splurged on Thanksgiving and Christmas meals.

On Christmas morning, we had oyster stew and fried oysters for breakfast -- or, in the case of my brother, who would eat neither, his usual cereal.

I never asked why we had oysters, but I know now that the custom is supposed to have originated with Irish immigrants and become an American tradition. After breakfast, we went back to the Christmas tree to open any packages that might have been missed in that first rush to the toys. Our tree was the old-fashion kind -- a real tree that my father had chopped down on my grandfather's farm and that we decorated with tinsel, ornaments, and lights that had to be put on in the right order. The tree went up in early December.

I still have oysters on Christmas morning, but with less of the delight than when I was a child. Now, that I can afford to have them any time I'd like, some of the magic is gone. But it's nice to remember all those childhood breakfasts.

Thinking about all this, has made me wonder about my characters' holiday customs. I suspect that Lizzie Stuart, my Southern-born crime historian, had many of the same meals I did. Of course, she was born and reared in a small town in Kentucky by her grandparents. I must do some research on Kentucky delicacies that her grandmother, Hester Rose, might have served alongside her own childhood favorites from Virginia. And then they would have gone to church. Christmas Day and Easter would probably have been the only two occasions when Lizzie's grandfather, Walter Lee, would have gone without nudging from his wife. As a traveling man, a sleeping car porter until he retired, Walter Lee was not as religious as Hester Rose.

Does Lizzie still go to church on Christmas morning? Or does she share a romantic breakfast with her fiance, John Quinn? In the book I'm working on, they go to Santa Fe to spend Thanksgiving with Quinn's family. Quinn is 1/8th Apache. They will be spending that holiday with his half-sister and her family. His sister, mother, and step-father observe Native American traditions and customs that he does not. His sister, who owns an art gallery, is married to an archeologist, whose parents immigrated from Scotland when he was a child. What will be served at Thanksgiving dinner and what food memories will they share?

And what were Quinn's Thanksgivings like after his mother left his father? Quinn's father was career military and an officer. He had married Quinn's Native American mother and expected her to fit in. Did Quinn and his father join other officers and their families for holiday meals? Or, was his father impatient with such celebrations? Did he occasionally allow Quinn to spend Thanksgiving or Christmas with his mother and her family in Oklahoma?

Intriguing questions and something to think about as I'm imagining that Thanksgiving meal and the discussion over the table about how everyone intends to spend Christmas.

How do your characters spend the holidays?
 

A New Book Coming

On its way!

Remember this old folk song, Dear Reader?

The grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men.
He marched them up the hill one day,
Then marched them down again.
When you’re up, you’re up,
And when you’re down, you’re down.
But when you’re only half-way up,
You’re neither up nor down.
And that about describes my life over the past two months.

Between my family’s little medical adventures and trying to get my upcoming book launch in order and attempting to make progress on my WIP, I don’t know why I bother making plans at all. Of course, any Zen master would tell you that making plans is what leads to misery in the first place.

Life must be getting back to normal, because I’ve returned to my old pattern of saying yes to everything anyone asks me to do and then driving myself insane trying to get it all done.  I am constantly chiding friends and relatives (mostly the female ones. You know who you are.) for overextending themselves and not particularly enjoying it, to boot. And yet I’m as bad about it as anyone. Part of the problem is that you don’t want to disappoint. And then, this one little project won’t take much time, and neither will this one, and this one, and this one, and there’s no end to it.
Well, damn it, Donis, just say no, and strike a blow for women* everywhere. And if I ever manage to do it, I’ll be sure and let you know, Dear Reader.

Now that my rant is over, I happily announce that I just received the hardback copies of my January release, The Return of the Raven Mocker. There will be a giveaway when the book launches, Dear Reader, and I will tell you all about it and about the book when next we meet here at Type M on December 29. (Which happens to be my birthday, and that means perhaps I’ll be the one giving you a present.) Until then, I wish you and yours the happiest of holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hannuka, or whatever you celebrate.

_______________
*with a nod to the men, as well. They are as guilt-ridden as the women.

'Tis the season of wandering minds

Barbara here. I was so happy to see the two previous posts of my blogmates. What to write about? No ideas. Nada. Let's try to think serious thoughts about writing while making Christmas cookies, Aline says. Let's write about Christmas trees, Rick says. What a serious group we are. The reality is that the holiday season plays havoc with a writer's schedule and focus. Charlotte Hinger's post on her valiant effort to write a book at this worst of possible times struck a chord. I am just embarking on the third book in the Amanda Doucette series and I am trying to use Charlotte's tricks. Consider writing like any other job; set a daily goal, choose a time of the day, write no matter what's going on around you or wandering through your head.

Easier said than done. Even if you're not trying to get ready for that Christmas luncheon or shop for gifts before the rush hour or clean the house for the neighbours you invited over so that you would have to clean the house (it's nice to see the neighbours too), it's difficult to pretend this is a time of year like any other. In my extended family, we celebrate two traditions, so I get distractions in spades. Do I have enough Hanukah candles for the menorahs, and where on earth can I buy Hanukah napkins and wrapping paper? The colours of Hanukah, at least in my family, are silver, white and blue. Try finding those in a season crazy about red, green, and gold.

Every year I pore over Hanukah recipes looking for a combination of old and new dishes. At the very least, my children expect classic potato latkes and Hanukah sugar cookies cut into shapes; all else is negotiable. We also celebrate Christmas with my extended family so I have gifts and food to prepare for that as well. And when you're a work-at-home writer sharing a house with two rambunctious, long-haired dogs, there is not a high premium put on house-cleaning. Until all three children and their partners descend for the holidays, in which case not only do the beds need to be changed, but the accumulated dog fur has to be vacuumed, muddy dog prints mopped up, the books, maps, pages of notes, and other clutter of my craft cleared off all the available surfaces in the house, etc.

With all these demands yammering in the back of my head, how on earth can I expect to find that zone of creativity and inspiration that a writer needs to produce a reasonably coherent sentence?

Then I take comfort in the thought that, even when I had a normal job out in the world, not a lot of real focussed work got done in the two weeks leading up to the holiday season. There were staff parties and gift exchanges and lots of gossiping around the water cooler. Not that there was an actual water cooler in my job, but in each school I went into, the kids and teachers seemed more excited to talk about decorating and baking and shopping and visiting than about the serious business of learning. Life is not all work; there needs to be time for fun too. Time for connecting and laughing and indulging oneself. So with that in mind, I accept that I'm not likely to get a whole lot of serious writing done over the next three weeks. I'll be lucky if I get the dog hair vacuumed. But I plan to have fun.

Happy Hanukah, Merry Christmas, and the best of the season to you all!

Going completely off-topic

by Rick Blechta

Yeah, yeah, I know this blog is supposed to be about presenting thoughts about writing, crime writing in particular, but like Aline yesterday, I can’t think of anything particularly interesting to post about writing or reading or publishing or…

So I’m going to go off on a tangent — not like I didn’t also do that last week! My post has zero to do with the Type M “mandate”, but, well, I won’t apologize.

What is it with people’s Christmas trees this year (at least in the city of Toronto)???

The past two evenings, my wife and I have been out and about in the city in which we live, and of course, we look at people’s Christmas lights. Quite often, there’s a Christmas tree in their front window, too. The outside lights are generally very colourful, but it didn’t take long to notice that there’s something quite odd going on inside those houses.

The vast majority of trees we’re seeing — and I’ll get to numbers in a moment — are decorated with white lights. That’s it. Whether the tree is real or not is immaterial. There’s just this mono-colour decor thing going on.

So let’s get to the numbers. Last night, driving back from a band rehearsal (a rather long trip on smaller residential streets) we observed a total of 28 Christmas trees in people’s front windows. Of that number, 25 had white lights only, another had those light blue lights and only 2 had multiple colours. I don’t know what the numbers were last year, but I’ll bet it hadn’t swung this far or we would have noticed — which we did immediately this year.

Here’s another thing: none of the trees had any Christmas ornaments! I’m only talking for us here, but one of the joys of the holiday season is to take out our much-loved ornaments to adorn our tree. Many were bought in faraway places (Scotland, Vienna, Florence, Paris, etc.) or to celebrate the birth of children and grandchildren.

We still have three of the four my wife and I bought for our first tree together so many years ago now. All we had money for was 4 good Christmas tree ornaments. The rest of the tree’s decorations consisted of a dozen cheap, red glass balls, strings of popcorn and cranberries, red and green braided yarn and some pine cones I picked up under the trees at the nearby mall and decorated with glued-on sparkles. To us they are precious objects with many memories wrapped around them. All of our decorations are like that.

So why have Christmas trees descended into becoming mere fashion accessories? Did we miss some important news that all trees were to be white lights only? Did some fashion gurus mandate away our sort of decorations? What’s going on? Keep in mind that it’s been proven in bad economic times people tend to put up more outdoor lights rather than fewer. Does tree decorating have an underlying meaning?

Then I had a rather sad thought. What if this trend is indicative of the rapidly changing world in which we’re living? As society becomes more fractured and insular — and, well, colder, is this being reflected in the way we think of our Christmas trees, that they’re just an after-thought decoration but up mostly because “we should have a Christmas tree” rather than a link to our families and our past. Even our two thirty-something sons, hardened characters that they can be get all dewy-eyed when they spot special decorations they loved from their childhood and they still take delight in moving the other’s “First Christmas” decoration to a spot against the wall, while putting theirs in a place of pride right at the front (this happens several times as they come and go from our house).

Is the 2016 Toronto Christmas tree something that’s only happening here, or is it more widespread? I sure hope not!

And if it is widespread, is there a deeper meaning?

Where Do You Get Your Ideas From?

No, this isn't another post about the impossibility of finding an easy answer to this most frequently-asked question.  This is about sitting down once a week or once a fortnight to write a post for Type M.

Usually when I have one to write soon I see something that strikes a chord - a topic chosen by one of my fellow-bloggers, a news item, a problem or a particular joy I've found in my writing life, an observation about technique, even ( a rarity, this) an original thought.

This week, nothing seems to have come my way.  I know why.  Apart from writing time, my mind has been taken up with the preparations for Christmas.  With the whole family, grandchildren and all, coming here this year, my mind has been taken up with all the usual preparations - presents, cards, house-cleaning, decorating, cooking.

So when I started to think about writing this, nothing obligingly sprang to mind.  I did have a casual thought as I made marzipan cookies and amaretto chocolate truffles how strange it is that when cooking is absolutely my favourite hobby, my main character, DI Marjory Fleming, is famously an appalling cook - a reflection of mild interest to me but not really to anyone else, and certainly not material for a blog.

However, I bet I'm not the only person who has clutched their head in despair wailing, 'What am I going to write in my post?'  (My husband is fortunately very tolerant.) So what do you do, when inspiration doesn't strike?  All suggestions gratefully received.

Since my next post won't be until Boxing Day - sudden thought, do you call it that on the other side of the Atlantic? The 26th, anyway - so I want to wish you all a very happy Christmas and a wonderfully successful 2017.

Guest Post: Sarah M. Chen

Please welcome fellow Sisters in Crime/LA member, Sarah M. Chen, to Type M! We worked together on the SinC/LA board plus we've done several events together. You may remember my posting about a cozy v. noir smackdown awhile back (we both participated, on opposite teams). Take it away, Sarah...

Reading Books on Writing

by Sarah M. Chen 

 

Lately, I’ve come across blog posts or Yahoo Group threads that mention invaluable books on writing. People responded enthusiastically, especially if it’s one they haven’t heard of yet. Some said they have so many books on writing, yet they’re always willing to add one more. Or that these would make excellent gifts for their fellow writer friends.

I’m reading all this and wondering if I’m a horrible person because I don’t have a lot of books on writing, whether it’s craft, inspiration, or memoirs by famous writers. It’s not like I don’t think they’re a great idea. As writers, we’re by nature alone and work in a vacuum. It’s easy to become disillusioned and on the verge of heaving your laptop across the room. Reading someone else’s writing journey or how they coped with the frustration of being a writer is comforting. Or learning a new way to write realistic villains is surely worth a quick read.

Now I admit, I read many writing books in school. I mean, it’s school, so we kind of have to, right? I studied screenwriting so the books I read were Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces, Chris Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey, and Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat. I have to say that the lessons learned in these books have stuck with me to this day. Even though they were geared mostly toward screenwriting, I found they can be applied to any type of storytelling.

When I decided to try my hand at writing crime fiction, I bought a book that was something like “How to Write a Mystery.” It was essentially a workbook. I can’t honestly review it because I never finished it. I kept thinking as I was going through the exercises, “Shouldn’t I be using this time to write?” Perhaps if I’d finished it, it would have made me a better writer or I would have made fewer mistakes along the way. Now I’ll never know.

Friends who found out I was following my writerly dream bought me books like Brenda Ueland’s If You Want To Write: A Book about Art, Independence, and Spirit. I’m sure it’s a lovely book but I had no desire to crack it open. I feel awful for admitting it (and I apologize now if you’re the friend who bought this for me). And I hear amazing things about Stephen King’s On Writing or Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. I keep telling myself one day, I’ll buy these books but really, I’m just lying to myself.

I do find quick bursts of inspiration and handy writing tips with crime fiction blogs. In addition to Type M for Murder, you have SleuthSayers, Criminal Minds, Do Some Damage, The Thrill Begins, and Kill Zone. I also have a printout of Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing near my computer because—well, it’s Elmore Leonard.

But let’s not forget what truly inspired all of us to write great crime fiction: crime fiction books. For me, reading crime fiction (interspersed with YA titles) energizes me and gives me that needed boost. I know many writers can’t read fiction while they’re working on something but I don’t find that to be a problem. Although sometimes it backfires and I realize I’m a total fraud. But that’s a blog post for another time.

So what about you? Are there books on craft and writing that you swear by? Or are you like me, and you can’t generate enthusiasm for reading anything but fiction and the occasional blog post?

Sarah M. Chen juggles several jobs including indie bookseller, transcriber, and insurance adjuster. She has published over twenty crime fiction short stories with Shotgun Honey, Crime Factory, Betty Fedora, Out of the Gutter, and Dead Guns Press, among others. Her debut book, Cleaning Up Finn, is out now with All Due Respect Books. www.sarahmchen.com

The Best Worst Time

I began writing a new mystery Wednesday. The timing was absolutely horrible. I'm always stressed during the Christmas season. There is too much to do, too many decisions to make, and since I'm extremely introverted, way too many places to go. I'm very quickly worn to a frazzle.

I began this book at this dreadful time on purpose. Yes. Deliberately chose the worst possible day in a year that hasn't been all that hot. I even wrote my ideal quota of five pages. In longhand, yet.

Fractured Families will come out in March and I would love to have the first draft of my next book done before that time.

But really now. Beginning a book right during the Christmas season? Why would I make such a peculiar move? Because one of the most important things a novelist has to learn to do is to get over regarding writing as more precious and mysterious than other kinds of work.

We are on the same plane as everyone else in the world. We do not exist at a higher elevation. Nurses, teachers, mathematicians, musicians, fast food workers, clerks, bankers, truck drivers get up every morning and go to work.

There's a downhill slope from regarding writing as very special undertaking to then seeing oneself as a special person. From that comes the sense that the world should accommodate your talent and leave a box lunch at your doorstep every noon.

Ain't going to happen. I started writing when my daughters were young and I used a quota system for a book. Five pages a day, five days a week. I've strayed from that many, many times, but it still works the best. I trained myself to write anywhere under any circumstances. One of the bonuses of the quota was that I became much more realistic about time. Since I'm a morning person, I began scheduling appointments in the afternoon.

There were and still are days when it's nearly impossible to work in writing. And looking back to the time when I was quite rigid about the quota and wrote just pure D crap on these very horrible days, when I reread the material the next day I was always, ALWAYS surprised.

The pages I had created were as good or as bad as the drivel I usually turned out.

Bookmarks and Postcards and Pens, Oh My

One of my favorite things to do at conferences is to check out the postcards, bookmarks and other assorted items left for attendees to grab up. I’ve gotten pens, postcards, bookmarks, candy, rubber jar openers and probably lots of other things I’ve now forgotten. But just how much of this stuff really helps sell books?

So far with my own books, I haven’t ventured beyond postcards and bookmarks. I’m thinking about expanding, but I don’t want to throw my money away.

Candy seems like a good idea, but I’ve seen people grab a package, tear it open and gobble down the chocolate without bothering to look at the writing on the package. Doesn’t seem like very good advertisement. I think I’ll skip that one.

Pens are fun. I have to admit they’re my favorite thing to snap up. I’m the kind of person who can spend hours in a stationery store. I do actually notice the author and book series that’s written on the pen when I’m using it. So that seems like a good possibility. Rubber jar openers are nice, but you really need to have a series that involves food or cooking, I think, to pull that one off. Since I don’t, I think I’ll skip it.

Between postcards and bookmarks, if I had to choose only one, I’d go with bookmarks. Most people can use bookmarks and you can have fun with the design. I do really like postcards, though. I put the book cover on the front and information about the book on the back. This is the kind of thing I enjoy getting at conferences for books I’m thinking of buying later. I stash them away and, yes, I actually look at them after I get home.

Unfortunately, I tend to go overboard when it comes to the number of bookmarks/postcards to order for my own books. Does anyone have any rule of thumb when it comes to how many to order at a time? And what are your favorite items to get at conferences?

On a different note, I enjoyed Rick’s post last week on the little free libraries that are cropping up everywhere. We have several in our area. I checked one of them out the other day. Lots of older books. I dropped off a book that I enjoyed that was published fairly recently, putting one of my own bookmarks in it, and I noticed it was snapped up within a couple days. So I’m going to start putting other books I enjoyed in the library with one of my bookmarks. Someone else will get to enjoy the book, it’ll free up some space in my own library, and who knows, maybe someone will buy one of my own books after looking at the bookmark.

The Other Blechta

by Rick Blechta

The past two weeks I’ve done very little writing. Why? Because I’m trying to clean up the last of the graphic design work after which I’m shuttering my studio — except for the odd job for friends and a handful of clients with whom I enjoy working — and mostly to pick up a bit of pin money (an interesting term in itself). I had hoped I’d be done with GD by now but two jobs went on and on despite me more and more desperately nudging my clients to finish up their projects. Anyway, I’ll soon be free!

Second of all, I’ve been working on promotional materials for my current music project: SOULidified, a 9-piece band specializing in performing classic soul music from the ’60s. It’s a labour of love, really, since this music is what got me interested in my main life’s work: music — of all kinds.

Sure I love writing, and still enjoy the act of creating compelling stories with interesting characters and settings, but it was actually music that led me into writing in the first place. I’d always had a way with words (just ask my high school and university teachers), and when someone asked me to do a music review for the local paper, I said sure. That led to more reviews and even a few magazine articles (wish I’d kept copies!). Eventually, I started into crime writing because I’d sort of temporarily burned myself out on music (teaching music seven days a week eventually takes its toll) and needed a new creative outlet.

But, honestly, if I was forced to pick only one thing to do going forward, it would have to be music. I currently have the pleasure — and honour — to play in a very fine big band, The Advocats (http://www.advocatsbigband.com/) and that has been a huge part of my life for the past 12 years.

A few years ago, soul music called out to me when my niece asked me to put together a band to play at her dad’s surprise 60th birthday party. Since soul music was where we both musically began, I wrote out some arrangements, got in touch with some old musical friends down in the NYC area, and we surprised the hell out of my brother when he showed up to a “Valentine’s Day Dance” (it would be more accurate to say he got dragged there by his wife) and there were his drums (untouched for more than 20 years) and 10-piece band in need of someone to keep the beat. It was an epic party!

It also made me realize how much I missed playing this music. Since I had written over a dozen arrangements, I thought, Why not find some good musicians back home in Toronto and put together a band that could perform this great music the way it was done back in the day?*

SOULidified was born. And ever since, my attention has been divided. On one hand, I desperately want to write and hate to see my novel-in-progress languish. But on the other hand, I want to work on new arrangements (I’m up to 46 currently) and perform with my mates, great musicians and also great people.

So now I’d like to share with Type M followers (and my fellow authors) a bit of “The Other Blechta”. Hope you enjoy it!

There are more clips if you go here: http://www.soulidifiedband.com/video.html

__________________________

*The band was rehearsing an Otis Redding tune one day and I said we should do it a certain way because, “That’s the way Otis used to perform it live. I saw it, and believe me, it was #$%@@$@ amazing!” Most of the musicians in SOULidified are a fair bit younger than me, and one of those who was up on his Otis history said, “What a minute! Didn’t Otis die in 1967? How old are you?”

Rainy Days and Wednesdays

I love the rain. The rain when I lived in Seattle, rain in the morning, with Puget Sound and Mt. Rainier in the distance. The kind of rain that seems to be a part of the landscape.

Or, rain that comes in a sudden, cloud-burst in summer and sends people fleeing for shelter and laughing as they run. Or, rain on a Saturday afternoon that provides the perfect excuse for not going out to do those errands that aren’t that urgent anyway. A quiet time to make a mug of cocoa and curl up with a book.

And then there’s the kind of rain we’re having in Albany today. A Wednesday work-day rain that makes me want to pull the covers up over my head and spend the day in bed. Too much to do, gray and sad outside. A day when you wonder if anyone would notice if you didn't put in an appearance.

Wednesday. With no classes to teach today, I decided to spend the morning working at home. I had an article to revise. I intended to check the headlines in the news and then write.

The headlines were depressing. I clicked on an entertainment blog about Tuesday night’s episode of The Voice, when Miley Cyrus and Dolly Parton performed “Jolene.” I had heard some of it from the kitchen during the show and rushed out to watch. I’m a Dolly Parton fan. I decided I had time to watch the video of the complete performance.

My cat, Harry, was hunkered down on top of my desk when I started my impromptu concert. By the time I had pulled up the YouTube video of Dolly performing “I Will Always Love You,” followed by Whitney Houston’s live performance of the same song, he had climbed down into my lap to have a nap. All sixteen pounds of him, stretched out and comfy.

But then I happened on the videos of Simon Cowell and his fellow judges on X Factor responding to a nine-year boy who was so stricken with stage-fright that he began to cry. His mother came out to comfort him, a judge rushed up on the stage to hug him. He tried again and sent his voice soaring, I wiped away a tear or two.

Then I noticed my YouTube search had brought up some Reba McEntire videos. Yes, I’m also a Reba fan. I grew up in the South with country music. By the time I’d gotten through her videos about heartbreak and triumph and grief and comfort, I was sobbing out loud.

Harry raised his head, opened his eyes, and gave me what I’ve come to recognize as the cat equivalent of a dog's empathy. The look that says, “Are you all right?” while you know your cat's also thinking, “Really? Are you really about to make me jump off your lap. I’ll give you five seconds to get it together.” I laughed and got it together and assured him that everything was okay. He closed his eyes and went back to sleep. And I realized it was okay. Instead of being sunk in gloom, I felt like putting on my royal blue sweater and a smile and heading out the door.

I need to remind myself from time to time of what music – from country to rap, from jazz and movie theme songs to classical – does for my soul. I am a visual person, and sometimes I forget to stop and listen. I forget that music can make things better.

This morning also gave me another way of thinking about my characters. What does my protagonist do when she wants to hide under the covers? What is her “go to” for coping with melancholy? Does she watch old movies (Lizzie, my crime historian) or go for a four-mile run (Hannah, my police detective). I’m not sure yet what Jo, a new character does. But it's something to think about.

What do your characters do?

The Ice Ages

Time passes so quickly that it alarms me sometimes. How did I get anything done at all in my former life when I worked for other people? The truth is that I didn’t, or at least I was only able to do whatever was absolutely necessary to live.

Now my work is writing, and work at it I do, and yet it still feels to me that I’m always short of time. Days bleed into one another, and weeks, and months, and a year passes without my quite being aware of how it happened. It seems that I’m constantly busy, and yet I feel like I make little progress.

Yet when I remember the monumental events in my past that changed my life forever, or set me on a new path, I realize that most of them happened quickly, sometimes in an instant. I think of that when I’m frustrated, when it comes to me that I have less and less time in front of me to fool around with and wonder if it’s just going to be like this for the rest of my life. In the words of that immortal philosopher, Yogi Berra, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.”

I’m normally not much bothered by things, and I think I have a naturally sunny disposition. But every life goes through periods that must be endured, and the past few years have been my personal Ice Age. My husband’s health problems have been no secret. We have endured and he keeps coming through, and I’ve been able to return to my own pursuits. But it seems that something has changed. I go through the days with a sense of unreality. I want to hold myself at a distance. My mind wanders. I’ve frozen over.

Everyone gets to go through these periods, if they live long enough, and this is not my first rodeo, as we say in Oklahoma. It’s the universal life experience, to lose loved ones, to go through extended times of stress and fear. In the past, no matter how unendurable a situation seemed at the time, I lived through it whether I felt like it or not, and the fog eventually lifted. I expect that will happen again. You just have to hunker down and wait for spring.

With that in mind, I’ve finally begun working on the tenth Alafair Tucker novel, though at this point the manuscript consists of several pages that meander about like the mighty Ganges. But I keep plugging along. I need a few more good weeks of writing to make significant progress, yet next month is shaping up to be very busy with the launch of book nine, The Return of the Raven Mocker. So I’m working hard to get as much done as I can before things get crazy. It’s interesting to see how a new book shapes up. No matter what you plan, things show up in your writing that never occurred to you when you started out. Funny. You dig deep for your characters, and bring up a lot of stuff that was way down inside yourself.

The lure of maps

Barbara here. Every since I was a little kid doing treasure hunts at birthday parties, maps – and especially hand drawn maps – have always given me a little thrill. Nothing like holding a puzzle in your hands, with directions to decipher, clues to follow, and a big X at the end to mark the treasure. It didn't matter what the treasure was (it could be a simple chocolate bar), because it was the challenge that mattered, not the prize. Had there been no treasure, of course, or worse a little note saying nyah, nyah, we would have called foul, but otherwise the fun was in the hunt.

In a sense, the hand drawn treasure map is a metaphor for the crime novel. The reader is invited to embark on a quest, with the thrill of following the clues and uncovering the solution at the end. Some readers are only interested in the characters or setting, or simply enjoy being along for the ride, but most commit themselves actively to this quest. For this reason, perhaps of all types of fiction, the crime novel engages the reader most. A good argument for reading crime novels to keep the mind alert throughout life!

Some crime novels go even farther. Not only do they present a metaphorical map for invite the readers into the story, but they also place a real one at the beginning of the book. These maps are usually simple and hand drawn, reminiscent of the treasure maps of childhood. They are like a little lure dangled before the reader, inviting them to turn the page.

My latest novel, FIRE IN THE STARS, is set in Newfoundland, in an area unfamiliar to most readers, and the reader is invited to follow my protagonist Amanda Doucette on her own wilderness quest to find her missing friend and solve a murder or two. I wrote this book with a multitude of topographical maps spread out on my dining room table so that I could get the geography right.

A number of readers have told me that they read the book with the atlas open beside them and would have liked a map at the beginning of the book. This idea had never occurred to me, but it shows how powerfully the readers were engaged in the quest.

The Amanda Doucette books are each set in different iconic locations across Canada, most of which will be unfamiliar to readers, and the setting will be an vivid part of the stories. As a result of these readers' comments, I am considering the idea of including little maps at the beginning of each book to show the major landmarks that appear in the story. There will not be an X to mark the solution, of course, for that will be included in the pages of the story, but it should be an interesting and helpful aid to those who like treasure hunts.

Drawing a map is proving more difficult that I imagined because of my limited software and design expertise, but I hope between myself and my publisher we will get a reasonable approximation  that readers can follow. Here is what I have so far for the next book in the series, THE TRICKSTER'S LULLABY.

What do you think? Do you ignore maps at the beginning of books or are they helpful. Do they add an extra enticement? Or do they seem like a gimmick, rather like the cast of characters at the beginning of a book?

Little free libraries

by Rick Blechta

To the right you can see what looks at first glance like a large birdhouse. It’s not. This is a “little free library” and here in Toronto — and I expect many other places as well — they’re sprouting up on people’s front lawns like mushrooms after a fall rain. Intrigued, I recently stopped to look at a few.

Here’s how it works. You put one of these up in your front yard, fill it with books you no longer want or have space for. Neighbours or random people passing stop, find something that intrigues them, and take it away with them. If they happen to have a book they no longer want, they can leave it, thus paying it forward, as the trendy saying goes.

It seems like a quaint and friendly idea. You can even register your little free library for a small fee which will include it on a searchable map. Little Free Library, the organization of which I’m speaking, says it has over 50,000 registered worldwide.

In consulting their map for my area, however, it seems that there are also a lot of unregistered little free libraries. I have no idea whether they’re dangerous or not. Personally, I usually stay away from unregistered entities. I mean, you wouldn’t go to an unregistered dentist, would you?

Seriously, though, it sounds like a good way to share books you’ve enjoyed. Problem is, of the half-dozen front yard libraries I’ve browsed, I haven’t found much beyond paperback bestselling thrillers, self-help diet books, and other things I’m not really interested in reading. Only one had what I would consider a “literary classic” (read it in Grade 8). I definitely got the feeling the owners of these libraries were simply clearing bookshelf space, or had chucked a forgotten carton of books from their basement or attic, the flotsam of a long ago move. Or perhaps all the good offerings had been snapped up before I got there.

Another thing that is really rather sweet is that every one of the libraries I’ve seen are completely different. One matched the person’s home in colour, shutters, etc., even down to the shake shingle roof. The scope to express yourself in your library’s design is limitless. A good woodworker could keep him/herself happily engaged for hours designing something really special. Of course, you’d then have to worry about graffiti artists defacing your little architectural marvel.

Now that I’ve begun exploring this free library movement, I think I’m going to fetishize stopping at every single one I pass to see what I can turn up in the way of unexpected reading material.

I may even put one on my front lawn. Heaven knows I have books I can pass on.

Or — wait for this — I’ll go around and place my own works of deathless prose in carefully chosen neighbourhoods so that my literary gifts may be presented to all and sundry in a non-confrontational way! I mean, who enjoys being bombarded by a desperate author with a new novel when they’re going into an Indigo store simply to pick up a throw pillow for their Great Aunt Margaret’s Christmas present? Isn’t some guerilla book placement a much more elegant way to cultivate new readers?

Have you seen these little free libraries? Have you stopped at one to browse or even drop off a well-loved tome? The last place I stopped this morning had a rather nice book on perennial gardening which I borrowed. I fully intend to take it back when I’m through, and maybe leave something of my own.

The Thief of Time

Recently my daughter gave me a present of procrastinating pencils. They came in a little pack and each of them bears a suggestion.

• You probably need another coffee.
• Go on, take me for a doodle.
• Mmm, what's for lunch?
• A to-do list, you need a to-do list.
• You can't possibly work in an untidy room.
• Just chew on me and look thoughtful for a bit.

There may be some writers who sit down at their desks at the determined hour and get to work straight away without allowing any form of distraction, but I haven't met any of them.  They are probably the same people who only ever have one slim file lying on the otherwise empty desk, who have the whole book planned out with spreadsheets before they type 'Chapter One' , who always meet their deadlines without any sort of unseemly scramble at the end and who always have a spare ink cartridge in reserve for the next time it runs out - so we don't like them, do we, boys and girls?

For the imperfect mortals among us, there is a bizarre resistance that often has to be overcome before we open the file that contains our work in progress and get on with it.  If you haven't got a big excuse, a little one will do : 'If anyone comes in and sees the kitchen floor looking like that, I'll be mortified...'

It's completely irrational. I know that writing is what I like to do more than anything else - whereas I hate having to wash the kitchen floor. Once I sit down and get absorbed, the time simply flies and I'm surprised when I find it's lunch time. I can look at what I've done with a glow of satisfaction that carries me on through the rest of the day.

I can remember in the long-ago days when I was a teacher pupils who had upcoming exams would tell me they 'just couldn't make themselves' get down to revising. An excuse, I thought at the time and was fairly crisp about this kind of problem. But now I wonder, is there something deeper at work than just being easily distracted?

As long as we are writing our book in our head, it is going to be the very best thing we have ever done — probably the best thing anyone has ever done. But whenever something is set down on paper it becomes limited, and however good the writing may be it never quite takes flight with the glorious freedom it had before.

So is procrastination, after all, not just a funny little lazy quirk but a dark, deep-seated fear of failure?

Readers versus Writers

Jess Walter and Dana Spiotta will be speaking next Saturday at Inside the Writer's Studio presented by Lighthouse Writers Workshop. In anticipation of their visit, I attended Lighthouse's Writer's Studio Book Club where we discussed Walter's Beautiful Ruins and Spiotta's Innocents and Others. We talked mostly about narrative structure, but at times the conversation got heated when we debated who wrote the better book. Having read all of Walter's novels and even taught a seminar from his Beautiful Ruins, I was definitely his champion. However, Spiotta had her fans. Not everybody involved in the back-and-forth was a writer; some were there because they are readers and wanted to share their opinions. The episode got me thinking about the conceit we writers can have about the writing process. Since we're intimately involved with the mechanics of putting words on paper and trying to have the effort make sense, we assume we have a better understanding of what makes for a good story. Just because we're more familiar with the ingredients, we think we can whip up a better meal. Conversely--and to build on that food metaphor--I may not be a chef, but I know a good dinner when I taste it.

Blog Bonus!


I wrote a piece of short fiction for the world in Aaron Michael Ritchey's steampunk opus, The Juniper Wars. In Book One, Dandelion Iron, a trio of gunslinging sisters brave a post-apocalyptic wilderness to save their family ranch. My story, "Ezekiel 37:38," let me tap into my evangelical roots as I explored the early days following nuclear disaster. It's a tough place to be. Check it out here.

The First Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving yesterday. It was the first time I hosted a large family event in my home since moving to Fort Collins. I was amazed at how my house accommodated the group. The too small kitchen seemed to swell to include all the women who had their fingers in various pies. There was even room for the essential pitch table in the living room.

I have a large leather sectional that is just right for viewing movies. A large arched three-shaded lamp provides plenty of light for those who want to knit or do needlework.

We have a lot to be thankful for this year. This autumn has been one of the most spectacular I've seen. The weather has been gorgeous and the country is slowly emerging from the wounds afflicted during the recent election.

Thanksgiving is the source of one my happiest memories. I was introduced to reading through a little book about Thanksgiving. The title was Hoot Owl.

I wanted to learn to read more than anything in the world. We were in a tiny school where three grades were together in one room. No pre-school or kindergarten. No TV, Sesame Street, or clever toys. My mother read stories sometimes out of the old Book of Knowledge. We were simply jump-started into first grade.

I thought reading was a trick or a revelation. I emulated a third grade boy I especially admired. I sat exactly as he did, held my head at the same angle, frowned like he did. But I couldn't read. Then one day the teacher told us about the alphabet and that the alphabet formed words and the words then became sentences and sentences were the basis of stories. I was swept with a wave of white-hot fury that it was that simple and everyone had withheld it from me.

The alphabet and everything connected with it became an obsession. And then came one of the most joyful days of my life. After the class had endured yet another fumble-through with Dick, Jane, Spot, and that damned ball and I was out of anything to do, the teacher told me I could choose a book to read.

And I could! I could actually read. And these books all had plots.

 The first book I ever read on my own was Hoot Owl. It was about a little pioneer boy who got lost in the woods. Just when everything seemed the darkest and he despaired of ever making it back to his colony he was befriended by a little Indian boy, Hoot Owl, who took him to his stern, but kindly Chief. A group of Indians guided Hoot Owl back to his anxious parents who, along with other welcoming colonists, were preparing a Thanksgiving feast. Naturally, the grateful colonists invited the Indians to share their meal. It was the first Thanksgiving and everyone lived happily ever after.

There now. Wasn't that wonderful? The shelves were full of similar books and I was off and running.

Happy Thanksgiving & Audiobooks

Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers.

I found Vicki’s recent post about audiobooks interesting, and it got me thinking about my own relationship with audio reads.

As a dyslexic, audiobooks (we called them “books on tape” back then) showed me books could be friends, not just the source of academic embarrassment. In fourth grade, when the class read aloud, I would try to gauge my turn and judge which paragraph would fall to me, knowing I was doomed to stumble my way through the text.

Years later, I found Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels on audio. I fell in love with the books, read by Burt Reynolds and even Joe Mantegna. I learned to pace a scene this way, I learned a lot about narrative voice, and I learned to write by ear.

Most of all, I learned to love books, reading along and annotating as I listened to Hemingway, Falkner, Melville in American Literature. Learning, too, to read my written work aloud, first for class, then for the newspaper, and now for my publishers.

To this day, like Vicki, I listen to audiobooks constantly –– at the gym, in the car, before bed. I might be reading one book and listening to another. That’s the case right now. I’m reading Ordinary Grace, by William Kent Krueger, and listening to Turning Angel, by Greg Iles.

My advice is this: Never try to do both at the same time.

*

As a writer, I shouldn’t ever say a picture is worth a thousand words. First, it’s a cliche. And second, well, I’m a writer, not a photographer . . . but, here are some pics from the past two weeks.

"Writing Multiple Series" panel(from left) Liz Mugavero, Lea Wait, Diane Valerie, and Lucy Burdette.

Crime Bake, put on annually in the Boston area by New England’s chapter of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime, is a small but intimate conference. I had a great time this year. William Kent Krueger was the guest of honor, and he gave a memorable keynote address.

Keeley's 8th birthday dinner at Friendly's

Welcome Home! Someone missed her big sister away at college

Traditional and Cozy Mysteries

The pies are in the oven. Plans are set for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving celebration. Time to talk mysteries, cozy and traditional.

I’ve always considered my own books to be solidly in the cozy camp. Then someone commented to me that they thought they tended more toward the traditional. That got me thinking. What makes a book a cozy?

I’ve been mulling over this for a while now. Aline’s recent post on cozies brought it to the forefront once again.

For the last few years, I’ve attended the Malice Domestic conference in Bethesda, MD, a celebration of traditional mysteries. The Malice website loosely defines this genre as books having no explicit sex, excessive gore or gratuitous violence. Think Agatha Christie.

I think everyone pretty much agrees that cozies are a subset of traditional mysteries. So the above definition applies to cozies as well. Beyond that, though, what pushes the book over the edge into the cozy camp? I have my own thoughts, but I decided to query a group of people who read a lot of them to see what their take was.

The following came up in the discussion:

- Traditional mysteries are grittier and have more of a police presence.
- Cozies tend to be more humorous.
- In cozies, the main character is usually an amateur sleuth. And that sleuth is often involved in a hobby/craft and/or runs a business centered around a hobby/craft. Cooking mysteries are extremely common in the cozy world, so I’d add that the sleuth might have a business involving food, like a bakery. I don’t think either is a requirement for a cozy, though. I can think of series that feature college professors or columnists for newspapers.
- Historical mysteries fall in the traditional camp and aren’t cozies.
- Having a romantic interest in the story also came up. Pretty common in cozies, but not required, I think.
- And there are often pets in the stories. Cats, dogs... I wrote a post about that once on National Cat Day on my take of why that’s so common. Here it is, if you want to read it. http://typem4murder.blogspot.com/2014/10/national-cat-day.html
- Cozies often have “cute” titles in which puns are pretty common.

In addition to all of that, the crime often takes place in a small community of some kind. That might mean a small town, but it also might mean a community of people interested in the same thing like knitters, tole painters, etc. And what I think is most important, the bad guy is always revealed at the end and they get their comeuppance. I think that’s probably true of traditional mysteries as well, though I’m not sure it’s really a requirement.

So where does that leave my books? First, look at those covers. They look pretty cozy with their bright colors. And the titles are pretty cozy-like in my opinion. My protagonist is a freelance computer programmer (amateur sleuth, check) whose hobby is tole/decorative painting (craft, check). She lives in a Los Angeles county beach city, which has a small town feel. The books do involve the tole painting community so I’d say check on the small community. The bad guys are always revealed in the end and they get their comeuppance, so there’s a check on that as well. No sex, but there’s a bit of romance (check). There’s a bit of humor (check). And neighborhood cats and dogs play a role in my stories (pets, check).

So what might take me out of the cozy camp? While I don’t have gory scenes or gratuitous violence, I do occasionally have a scene where my main character, Aurora (Rory), is hit on the head or finds herself shoved into traffic. (Poor thing has been hit on the head too many times. I’m beginning to worry about her.) That may be where the idea that my books tend toward the traditional comes from. I can see that.

This has been a fun exercise, but it doesn’t really matter to me how my books are categorized as long as people read and enjoy them.

Cozies transport you into another world where you can forget about your own problems for a while. And, in the end, the case is solved, the bad guy is punished in some way, and order is restored. Rick wondered in a recent post if, with the discord in the world today, if more people would start reading more cozies. I wouldn’t be surprised.

That’s my two cents for today. I think I’ll go read a cozy right now. Those pies aren’t ready to come out of the oven yet.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

There’s a word for that!

by Rick Blechta

I don’t have much time to write my post today because I’m helping my eldest son move, but I did want to share something wonderful I learned this past week.

Bus knuckles.

Ever heard of ’em? I hadn’t until I read the following articles in the Toronto Star. (https://www.thestar.com/yourtoronto/the_fixer/2015/11/11/concrete-pads-used-to-eliminate-the-worst-bus-knuckles-the-fixer.html and https://www.thestar.com/yourtoronto/the_fixer/2015/07/21/bus-knuckle-packs-a-surprising-punch-for-bikes-fixer.html)

So now you know what a bus knuckle is. Fascinating, no? We used to have some amazing bus knuckles on a big street near us. They got replaced by concrete pads last year. Alas. I’ll have to look elsewhere to find them.

There are words for all kinds of things you never thought about. The trades are loaded with words that are virtually unknown to the general public but very necessary. The printing trade: that dot on top of an “i” or “j” is called a tiddle. Carpentry: that about the space a saw leaves behind it as you cut through a board? That’s a kerf (kind of sounds saw-like, doesn’t it?).

Then there are the arcane words, little known and nearly forgotten. You've got to be careful of those, however, in the Age of Information, because you can be darn sure someone can find them, sometimes to your embarrassment. We have a deli chain here in Toronto called Druxy’s. Too bad they didn’t do a little more research on the name. The word druggy means “something which looks good on the outside, but is actually rotten inside”. Oops. (Druxy’s food is actually quite good.)

So there you go. My thoughts for the day. Does anyone out there have a favourite arcane word they’d like to share?

In closing, I leave you with one last word: knurl. Why don’t you look it up?

Listening to Books

By Vicki Delany

I love audio books, as both a reader and a writer. I drive long distances, often by myself, and an audio book is a great way to pass the time. It’s a different reading experience, for sure: often difficult to pay close attention, and hard to go back a sentence or two to get something you missed. But I do enjoy it when driving. My library has a very limited stock of books on CD and not much by anyone other than major bestsellers (and me! As a local author) but I have occasionally been able to find a gem I wouldn’t normally read.

Case in point: I am a huge fan of Iain Pears (An Instance of the Fingerpost: one of my favourite books of all time; Arcadia: so hugely disappointing I wondered if he got a ghost writer to do some parts). I bought his small book The Portrait some time ago, and was never able to get into it. It’s just a stream of consciousness novel as some guy chatters on. But when I listed to it on audio, I loved it. The experience of listening to some guy chatter on was totally different than reading it on paper.

As for my own books, all my Poisoned Pen titles are on audio as are the Lighthouse Library books by me as Eva Gates. I always listen to them one time through and enjoy hearing it spoken out loud. It’s a very different experience.

The LL books are narrated by Elsie Arsenaut, who has a perfect soft gentle voice for narrating the cozy genre. The narrator of the Constable Molly Smith books and the standalones is Carrington MacDuffie, who does an excellent job of it, particularly switching between male and female voices so you always know who is speaking.

I have only one complaint, and that is that Carrington doesn’t even seem to try to get the Canadian accents or pronunciation right. It’s Traf-ALL-gar, not Traffic-AL-gar. A junior officer in the Canadian army is a LEF-tenant, not a LOU-tenant. And every person in Canada knows that the Canadian Security Intelligence Services is pronounced Csis, not C.S.I.S. The (former) Canadian International Development Agency is Cida, not C.I.D.A. I expect a lot of Canadians wouldn’t even know what C.S.I.S means, spoken like that.

(Is that a Canadian speech pattern, does anyone know? To take initials and turn them into a word? When I got my first contract with N.A.L., I told someone I was with Nal, and I was corrected: N.A.L. Is proper. About the one thing we don’t make a word of is RCMP. Probably because Rurcump wouldn’t sound quite right. But we do drop the period between the letters.)