The Magic of Best Sellers

 by Charlotte Hinger

The making of bestsellers fascinates me. My wonderful agent, Claire Smith (b.1934-d.1998)  once said publishers couldn't hype a book onto the bestseller list. It took buzz. Buzz is when everyone is talking about (and buying) a book. This year's sensation was Lessons in Chemistry. It isn't a great book. It isn't an important book, but I swear it was the most satisfying book I've read in years. 

I loved it. But why? Without knowing the reason, I bought it in hardcover for two granddaughters. 

Another huge bestseller years ago was a non-fiction book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.  I wanted to read this book and tried to get it through the library. Believe it or not, there were already 147 holds on the copy. I wasn't willing to be the 148th in line and ordered it through Amazon. Not only was I willing to pay good money for the Japanese author's slender little instruction manual, I had already listened to it on an audiobook. I had even started folding underwear and my socks vertically and started sorting items for Goodwill by category.

My life is basically the same. I do some things well and some things poorly. I have good days and bad days, but mostly my days are pretty satisfying and on the whole I'm a happy person. I have a lot to be thankful for. The book had some great hints, but the "life-changing magic" seemed to bypass me.

So what in the world happened to make such a simple little book zoom to top of best-seller lists? I think that the author was Japanese lent credibility. We associate Japanese décor with uncluttered simplicity. Simplicity is appealing to those of us who are overburdened with the demands of our stressful societies and our plethora of electronic gadgets.

The book has a serene cover with a blue sky. It promises happiness. Serenity. A perfectly ordered house with everything in its place. There is a compelling narrative. The author, Marie Kondo, started down this decluttering path when she was in kindergarten. At the age of five, she could not wait to get home after school and begin organizing her things. It's her passion. She built a business out of organizing stuff.

She's the ultimate authority and very opinionated. No one else could have written from the same point of view.

But making a fortune from tidying up! Who would have thought?

This is a simple book.

There is a lesson here for beginning novelists who complain that they are stuck in ordinary towns with ordinary uninspiring people. The greatest writers see the stuff of stories right in front of them. It doesn't take great adventures to come up with great fiction. And the same could be said of non-fiction.

I write about Kansas. Go on. Say something. I dare you. 

Twilight Zone and Writing Truths

By Thomas Kies

Anne Serling, daughter of Rod Serling, posted a letter her father wrote to a high school student back in 1961,  It read:

The following comment would best represent how I feel about writing: Write and keep writing. Develop your own style. Respect another writer but never imitate him. Learn patience because it is as necessary as a typewriter—and never be afraid to speak out and say what you believe. This is the function of the writer—to call the truths as he sees them.

Sincerely

Rod Serling

Later on, Serling said, “The writer’s role is to be a menacer of the public’s conscience. He must have a position, a point of view. He must see the arts as a vehicle of social criticism and he must focus the issues of his time.”

When I was a kid, I recall sitting on the couch in my grandparents’ cottage on Waneta Lake in upstate New York watching shows like Ed Sullivan, Lawrence Welk, My Three Sons and Gunsmoke.  But my all-time favorite program was the Twilight Zone.  Rod Serling’s introduction as those surreal images flashed and faded on our screen scared the bejesus out of me.  “You're traveling through another dimension -- a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's a signpost up ahead: your next stop: the Twilight Zone!”

At the time, I thought those episodes were written and produced just to give viewers the willies.  In reality, they were social commentary. 

In the episode called He’s Alive, a young Dennis Hopper plays a character who is clearly a fascist. He gets guidance from an unseen creature hidden by the shadows.  Eventually, he’s persuaded to kill, but ends up dead himself.  It’s finally revealed that the creature was the spirit of Adolf Hitler. 

Rod Serling's closing monologue warns that while Hitler may be dead, his spirit is kept alive everywhere where bigotry, racism, and white supremacy exists.

In an episode called Number 12 Looks Just Like You, young people are strongly encouraged to undergo a transformation. They have a limited number of features to choose from since in this world, everyone looks very much alike.  The upshot to this is “When everyone is beautiful, no one is.” It's a world that simply doesn't tolerate people who are different. 

In Monsters Are Due on Maple Street, an idyllic neighborhood is suddenly cut off from the rest of the world, power goes out, and there’s no phone, radio, or television service.  Rumors, theories, and false information run rampant, and the neighbors turn into a violent mob. 

Does that sound faintly like January 6^th?

I dare say that every episode of Twilight Zone had a message of some kind.  Some were banal and some were daring, especially for the time in which they were written and broadcast. But they all had a truth they were telling.

The point of this blog is that as writers, we not only should be telling a damn good story, but we should let our conscience guide us as well.  I try to do that with my books, and sometimes run afoul of readers.  Not many, but some.  

One of the guidelines Stephen King has about writing, is, “What are you going to write about? And the equally big answer: Anything you damn well want. Anything at all . . . as long as you tell the truth.” 

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.

One Hundred Years Ago Today

My father and mother, 1947

 Donis here. January 19 is a big birthday date in my little corner of the world. Today is my brother-in-law Chris DeWelt's birthday. Happy birthday, Chris! I'm also wishing a happy birthday to my friend Judy Starbuck. But this year is special, because today would be my late father's 100th birthday.

Carl Casey was born at home, in Haskell, Oklahoma, my grandmother's second child after my aunt Lucille. My grandmother told me that the doctor used chloroform on her for her second child, and she was very happy about it. However, she said that when the baby came, her sister Mary, who was attending the birth, said, "Look at them* eyes!" Grandma was alarmed and tried to see what was with the kid's eyes, but she was so groggy from the chloroform that she fell asleep. Turns out my dad was born with his blue eyes wide open, looking around curiously (according to Aunt Mary, not the most reliable of witnesses.)

That wouldn't be out of character, though. My dad was full of life, outgoing, rather boyish, and playful. He was a wonderful daddy for little kids. My grandmother told me that he was "the playing-est kid she ever saw," and he only stopped playing with his friends outside because they all got too old and he couldn't find anybody willing to play with him.

...One year later...

My father didn't live anywhere near long enough to even think about celebrating his 100th birthday. He died of a sudden heart attack in 1967, when he was 44 years old. He left a young wife and 4 children. Our mother was beyond devastated. It colored the rest of her life, though once she managed to live through the early horror of it all, she did a good job of raising the children on her own. My dad was a 19-to-23-year-old Marine posted in the Pacific theatre during WWII, and even if, as far as any of us kids saw, he was a cheerful person, he was also fatalistic about the fragility of life. So even though he died so early, he had so much life insurance and property that my mother never had to work and was able to pay for all of us to go to college. She never remarried, or even dated after he died.

I was a teenager when he died, the eldest. My youngest sibling was 18 months old. He's in his 50s now, and never really knew our father. Even so, my brother notes that he grew up in a sad household. Our dad's death changed the course of all our lives.  I know it's a major reason I write the kind of books I write, set in the time and place they are set - the time and place of my father's family, a time and place he would have been familiar with. 

Carl has been gone much longer than he lived, but his short life was everything to me, my siblings,  all his family, and many other people, as well. So happy birthday in heaven, Daddy. We all still think about you a lot.

______

* I never once heard my grandmother or any of her many siblings use the word "those".

The power and perils of technology

 This is going to be a short post about the brilliance and frustration of technology. AKA the domino effect. Recently, my family got me a beautiful new Apple Watch in a sophisticated blue colour. As instructed, I connected it to my iPhone and started to explore it and discovered it was lacking some features I wanted. So I hunted around in Apple Support and found I had to upgrade the watch's OS, which I did, and then it was perfect. But it decided to also talk to my laptop, which I hadn't expected. It could turn it on, for example, and it made my phone go dark and put it in bedtime mode after I told the watch when I planned to be in bed.

All this was fine until this week, when Facebook started to go nuts, jumping around whenever I tried to scroll through my feed. Rebooting Safari and even turning off the whole computer didn't help. I upgraded the laptop's OS to the latest. Still no dice. So it was back to the internet, where I found lots of people had complained about FB skipping and there were numerous websites and youtube videos claiming to have fixes. I found the most common ones and did one of those; I cleared the browser's history. I was about to clear all my "caches" as recommended, but was leery of losing a whole lot of data and function.

Then I noticed many posts of FB complaining about the same thing. So I held off on the cache purge. This morning FB seemed to be behaving better, but my calendar reminded me it was my time to post on Type M. I clicked on the link on my banner, then on the little orange icon at the top, which always takes me to the admin page. This time... nothing. It just took me to the blogger main page. Blogger had never heard of me, I didn't have a blog, did I want to create a blog?

I fiddled around with Google accounts and passwords, queried my blog mates and finally got back on the internet, this time finding the Blogger "Help Centre". Here there was a useful link about "Why can't I sign in to my blog?" Essentially I had to be invited back in by the administrator, and once she did that - Thank you, Charlotte!- here I am. Out of Blogger exile. Apparently in clearing my history, I had also erased the crucial connection that allowed me admin access to the blog. 

All of this because Facebook freaked out and I ventured down the treacherous path of trying a DIY fix. Fixing one thing (in fact, it didn't fix it) caused a cascade of other things to go wrong, and I have lost the better part of two days, not to mention considerable hair, trying to figure out how to fix them, instead of writing the erudite blog on storylines which John's post inspired and I had planned. 

So instead you're getting this blog on the daily small frustrations that eat away at our time and creativity. I also wonder what other unpleasant screw-ups are waiting for me that I have yet to discover. Did I inadvertently erase some other crucial piece of information, or is it all the fault of my new Apple Watch, which looks so innocent and pretty displaying the time on my wrist. 

No wonder i like to write my first draft with a pen on yellow pads of paper. 

Narrative Tension

This week, I want to share a writing activity that I’ve used with students often. It’s one they tell me they return to for review. If you try your hand at this, I hope you might share it with me.


What’s My Back-Story? A Plot-line Activity

Must every story be told in a linear narrative style? No way. Readers want a scene that allows them to figure out the story on their own. So how do we tell stories cinematically? By using scenes to convey the storyline. This allows the writer to use flashback sequences while starting in the middle of the action and continuously pushing the story forward.

Activity: Read the following plot-line and determine which numbers (there are several, after all) at which you could begin.

Carefully consider how you will include the information that came before your starting point? And decide how much of that previous information you need to include.

Write a first- or third-person opening scene (narration and dialogue) beginning at one point on the line and dropping in the necessary previous material as the scene moves forward.

1. Mary Howard grew up in Readfield, Maine, the daughter of a doctor.
2. She went to the University of Maine at Orono, where she studied history, graduating with a 3.5 GPA, and met Steven Smith, a political science major, whom she married following graduation.
3. After graduation and one year of marriage, Mary dutifully helps Steven launch his political career.
4. Mary, now in her mid-30s, helps Steven becomes a Maine State Legislator and raises their three kids.
5. Unbeknownst to Mary, Steven begins an affair with a fellow Maine State Legislator.
6. Mary gets a phone call from an intern in Steven’s office, who tells her of the affair.
7. Mary confronts Steven. This takes every ounce of courage she has. In 15 years of marriage, she has morphed from the confident, bubbly Mary Howard, to the housewife of powerful Maine State Legislator Steven Smith. As his career has taken off, her identity somehow got lost.
8. Mary listens as Steven tells her the affair is just “a sideline” that “this is how some political marriages are.”
9. Mary packs her bags, grabs her kids (now ages 11, 9, and 7), and walks outside, determined to start a new life.
10. She drives to Santa Fe, New Mexico, a place she’s only seen on TV.
11. In Santa Fe, she enrolls the kids in school, gets a job in a bookstore, and hires attorney Phil Rogers, who is 35 and single.
12. Mary doesn’t know what to do when Rogers asks her to dinner six months after she’s been in Santa Fe and following what was a surprisingly easy out-of-court settlement with Steven. She wonders what message a date would send to her kids. Would her acceptance tell them that they are all starting over? That it’s okay to move on? Or would they think she’s callus?

Happy New Year

 

by Sybil Johnson

Happy New Year to everyone! Sorry I didn’t post a couple weeks ago. I was in Seattle visiting family. We didn’t have a power outage, but there was an ice storm that added unwelcome excitement to our time there. Luckily, we flew in on the Thursday before Christmas, which was pretty okay, just a little icy. Then the ice storm hit on Friday, which dropped the temperature significantly and closed down the airport for a bit. So glad we weren’t flying that day. The ice was the thickest I’ve ever seen it, like a pane of glass. Saturday dawned and temps went up into the upper 40s or so and all was well again.

I spent most of December doing stuff around the house, including making roman shades, and ignoring writing. I decided I’d start off January by organizing myself a bit, including going through my Inbox and actually reading things people sent me and filing things away that I wanted to keep. I have a tendency, if I don’t immediately have the time, to keep messages with links to look at later. Only later often doesn’t come.

I found these gems waiting for me in my Inbox. 

• I discovered that I’d missed my two billion second date. That’s the day I’ve been alive for two billion seconds. The husband sent me a message giving me my 1, 2 and 3 billion second dates. The first was in 1989, the second just this past July 30. Don’t remember why he calculated these, but remember we were both math/computer science or computer science majors so this is the kind of thing we enjoy.

• Someone I worked with at Xerox long ago sent me some pics from the 1980s. In them was one of me from the early to mid-80s. That’s my best guess, anyway. So here I am at my desk.
  
  
  
  

• A friend I study the Coptic language with sent me this interesting article on the Coptic church in the US. There are a number of Coptic churches in the Los Angeles area. I hadn’t noticed them until I started studying Coptic. The language is a liturgical language now, only used in the Coptic Church. That’s the Bohairic dialect. I have been studying the Sahidic dialect. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/coptic-church/555515/

• Duolingo sent me my statistics for learning Swedish this past year. I did 966 lessons, spending 4226 minutes on them. I spend 5 to 10 minutes a day practicing my Swedish. My grammar is fairly good, but my vocabulary is not that great. But it’s improving.

• A friend sent me a link to the most haunted houses in the UK. I don’t know what I think of ghosts. Let’s just say that I’m open to the possibility, but I’m not sure I want to go and visit them. I do love ghost movies, though. So, if you want to see some ghosts here’s where you can find them. https://www.historyhit.com/guides/most-haunted-houses-in-the-uk/

• Here’s another interesting article about how the English failed to stamp out the Scots language. Yes, there’s a Scots language. No, it’s not the same as Scottish Gaelic. A surprising number of people speak it today. https://getpocket.com/explore/item/how-the-english-failed-to-stamp-out-the-scots-language

• If you want to animate your family photos like in the Harry Potter stories you can go here to find out how. Seems a little creepy to me.  And here’s a YouTube video about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjBYSnoAWqg 
  

•  And, finally, you can access back issues of Suspense Magazine here.

 I’m not quite done with the clearing out of my Inbox, but getting pretty close. Who knows what else I will find.

Haunted by Books

 by Charlotte Hinger

During the Covid lockdown, I reread some of my all-time favorite books. I was curious, too, as to why they were memorable and so many I've read recently aren't.

Thanks to Amazon it's easy to track down these old books that I've remembered for a lifetime. I still own a lot of them. My interest is more than a nostalgia kick, although I am a nostalgic person. This obsession was stirred up by my whimsical treacherous muse who pointed out that great books depend on great characters.

The books I especially admire were mostly commercial successes, but that was not why they stuck with me. I loved the central character in each one. Also, these characters had a huge heart-wrenching problem worth wresting with.

For that matter, it seems to me the old writing books had a lot more information than the manuals I pick up today. I'm re-reading Maren Elwood's Characters Make Your Story. It's outstanding. It's tough reading and I don't think I understood some of her points until I had written several books.

Elwood insists that characters come from within. Spinning them from thin air doesn't work. You can give a man a quirky car, some semi-handsome physical attributes, a few snarly snappy lines and he will still seem like everyone else's cardboard cut-outs. Ditto for Too Stupid To Live Heroines. You know. The ones who never call for back-up. Or run around saying, "Oh I'll show him!"

Here is a just of a few of these old, old books I'll re-read and why:

Green Dolphin Street--Elizabeth Goudge. It's my all-time favorite whose theme touches a spiritual chord within me. Goudge, has the ability to make unlovable multi-dimensional characters profoundly lovable.

Love Let Me Not Hunger--Paul Gallico. This is a hauntingly beautiful insight into the cloistered world of the circus. Who knew that this society fostered it's own royalty? What I remembered forever and forever was Mr. Albert, the animal trainer. How did Gallico so vividly create such a noble humble old man whose personal story broke my heart?

A Distant Trumpet--by Paul Horgan. A historical novel telling about the Indian wars and the relentless campaign to hunt down the Apaches. And for years, whenever we moved to another town, another library, or even when I was visiting relations, I went to the their library to look up General Alexander Upton Quade. I couldn't believe he wasn't real. After forty years went by, I found out this character was based on the autobiography and writings of General George Crook. Horgan told the‎ story from the Indians' point of view as well as the soldiers'.

Not As a Stranger--Morton Thompson. One of the great all-time medical novels. Not only was it informative, I had such hopes for the protagonist. He was destined to be one of the all-time great doctors.

Five Smooth Stones--Ann Fairbairn. One of the great social novels and one of the few that delved into subtle Northern racism. This was published in 1966 when the Civil Rights Movement was roiling America.

Rebecca--Daphne du Maurier. Need I say more? One of the great classic mysteries, which was the forerunner of the gothic novels. At one time I couldn't get enough of them.

There are some common denominators to all the books I've mentioned. In addition to great characters, they all have great plots. Every single author is a masterful story-teller. And for some reason they are all l-o-n-g.

Will these books still resonate with me forty years later? Of course I won't have forty years, but never mind.

Lights Out! Imagination On!

 By Thomas Kies

Isn’t that when your imagination runs wild?  In the dark?

On New Year’s Eve my wife and I met friends at one of our favorite restaurants on the mainland.  We had a relatively late seating for eight o’clock, but after dinner we thought we’d walk over to the harbor where we could watch the holiday fireworks.  

The stage was set for that evening when fog rolled in from the oceanside and then a steady drizzle fell.  Before we headed over the bridge, we’d heard the fireworks had been canceled due to the incoming inclement weather. 

Not to be deterred, we all convened at a cozy table in the dining room and started our evening with a round of drinks.  Taking our time, we enjoyed conversation, listened to the specials, and gave our server our orders.  Knowing that the dark gloom was just outside, it made the dining area even more congenial.

Until the lights went out. 

Where we live, momentary lapses in power happen on a relatively regular occurrence.  Usually these are only long enough to screw up the clocks and force your computers to reboot.  

This wasn’t one of those times. 

We spent the next twenty minutes speculating what may have caused the outage and how extensive it was. Patrons and servers were consulting phones, searching diligently for information.  

“Was it the wind?”

“There was an accident behind the hospital.”

“A transformer blew downtown.”

“Must be more rolling blackouts.”

The most ominous of the theories was, “Someone shot out the grid.”

Our waitress came out of the kitchen into our dimly lit dining area and announced that they simply couldn’t continue with service under the circumstances.  Our friends decided to stay for another drink but Cindy and I bolted, hoping there was power on our island and I could get to our favorite dive for a pizza before they closed.

The rain was falling, the streets were eerily dark, the stoplights were out, and traffic was building as New Year’s Eve celebrants realized the evening was over and it was time to go home. As we crossed the bridge, aware that there were no lights behind us and only darkness ahead of us on the island, we realized there would be no pizza, no Chinese, no take-out at all.  We’d be foraging for food once we got to the house.

But as I drove, one thought kept intruding upon my thoughts of a cold holiday dinner.  Someone must have shot out the grid.

Such is the mind of a mystery writer…or a paranoid conspiracy theorist.  That’s what we do. We wonder what if? We wonder what if someone actually attacked our power supply like they did on December 3 in Moore County, North Carolina, not far from us, where someone with a rifle shot out two substations and knocked out electricity for 40,000 people for four days? 

I wonder how I can incorporate that into my new book????

The power of imagination.  It’s what keeps writers in front of their laptops and pumping out the prose.

So, my wife finished a salad she found in the refrigerator, and I made peanut and butter sandwiches, and we ate by candlelight in our kitchen.  We listened to fireworks as they went off in our neighborhood sounding like gunshots.  That didn’t quell my nervous imagination.

I found a live feed on my phone beaming images of fireworks displays from around the world that I pulled up at our table. My wife proclaimed that, “Boring.”

Then I found a movie and began to watch it, still chewing on my PJ&J sandwich.  Just before she left to go upstairs to read by candlelight, she told me, “I’m not watching a movie on your damned phone.”

The movie?  War of the Worlds.

Ah…new paranoid thought.  Was the darkness on New Year’s Eve caused by aliens?

In actuality, it was an insulator here on the island that had gone bad.  The salt air wreaks havoc on all manner of things.  We never did get our power back until five in the morning. 

I’m still not convinced it wasn’t aliens.  Such is the power of imagination. 

Favorite Novel Openings

By Johnny D. Boggs

Someone asked: If Peter Cooper’s “Somehow, Johnny Cash is dead” is the best lede to any newspaper article, what’s tops for a novel’s opening.

That’s easy.

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.” – J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit (1937)

Wait. I forgot Hatchet – the novel that makes every 10-year-old boy want to read. Want to learn how to write for boys? Read Gary Paulsen.

“Brian Robeson stared out the window of the small plane at the endless green northern wilderness below. It was a small plane, a Cessna 406 – a bushplane – and the engine was so loud, so roaring and consuming and loud, that it ruined any chance for conversation.” – Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet (1987)

There. That’s settled.

Except I just remembered …

“To get there you follow Highway 58, going northeast out of the city, and it is a good highway and new. Or was new, that day we went up it. …” – Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men (1946)

Wait, I write mostly Westerns so it ought to be …

“People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father’s blood but it did not seem strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day.” – Charles Portis’s True Grit (1968)

Portis’s ending is spot-on, too.

On the other hand, I’m a fan of mysteries. Like …

“I first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey in the Big Ship in Butte.” – Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest (1929)

And this is coming from a reader who is a bigger fan of Raymond Chandler – and, while I’m on mysteries, William P. McGivern (The Big Heat, Rogue Cop) doesn’t get the credit he deserves.

But, shucks, you can’t go wrong with Mark Twain.

“You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. …” – Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)

Oh, I can't diss Dickens.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair …” – Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities (1859)

No, it’s now settled:

“It was a pleasure to burn.” – Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

Yep. Settled. Till I think some more.

Lie Detector

Donis here. To start the New Year off right, last night I watched an episode of American Experience on PBS entitled "Lie Detector", about the development and limitations of the polygraph, or "lie detector", and how United States law enforcement, government, and even businesses came to rely on an unreliable technology. It was a very interesting episode, especially for a crime writer whose books are set in the early 20th century. 

So I'm watching along, all engrossed, when lo and behold, Dr. Frankie Y. Bailey, Type M's own mystery author and professor in the School of Criminal Justice University at Albany (SUNY) pops up as one of their expert commentators. I was wildly impressed and happy to see one of our own nationally recognized for her expertise. ESPECIALLY since at this very moment Frankie's Tell Me Your Story article is up on my own website. Tell Me Your Story is feature I run every month in which I invite authors to share with us how their backgrounds and life experiences have contributed to their writing. Frankie's story is an absolutely fascinating tale of history, mystery, and multiculturalism. 

“Like a butterfly pinned to a board,” she begins. "That’s the first line I can remember writing." 

Oh, that's good!

I highly recommend reading Frankie's story at www.doniscasey.com. The article will be up on the first page of my site for another week, after which you can find all the Tell Me Your Story entries in the site Archives. You'll be enlightened and edified!

I also recommend watching the PBS episode of Lie Detector, an excellent resource for mystery writers. By the way, many years ago, shortly after I was married, my mother told me she could always tell when one of my sisters was lying because "her eyes always flick off to the left." I never forgot that telling piece of information. It brought home to me that the greatest lie detectors ever created are our own mothers.

Happy New Year to all you Dear Readers, and may 2023 bring nothing but good things to you and yours.

Turning the page

 Well, 2023 has arrived! If we are all approaching it with caution, who can blame us? For anyone interested in whether the Fradkin family managed to pull of their holiday get-together this year, the answer is yes! The families from Toronto braved the blizzard and the six-hour drive to arrive on Christmas Eve, we managed the 22-person extended family Christmas dinner at my nephew's with no one catching Covid, although a cold may have been passed around. And we did our famous Fradkin ninth day of Hanukah on December 26th with menorahs, songs, latkes, and lots of wrapping paper. Even Kenzie got a gift, which he loved.

I am so happy 2022 gave us hope in its waning days. Now, if only the viruses would give us a break and Putin would cut his losses and spare everyone further death and terror.  As if.

Welcome 2023!

So now that the joyous flurry is behind me, I turn my mind to my next task - celebrating the release of my fifth Amanda Doucette novel, WRECK BAY, which is due out at the end of January. January is a dreadful time to launch a new book. People are cocooning, their bank accounts depleted and their desire for social get-togethers at rock bottom. It's dark before you get home from work. Decisions on whether to venture out or stay home are often based on last-minute weather forecasts, at least up here in the frozen North.  

Plus, the news about the new book is likely to be buried amid an avalanche of retail and online sales ads for discounted merchandise that businesses are anxious to dump before the spring stuff arrives.

If readers actually see the promo about the new book, they think about the the dark, cold, icy roads, and they tell themselves they can always buy it on Amazon. Which is true (if they remember), and I would encourage people to buy in whatever way feels most comfortable for them. But I am a big fan of local, independent stores, and if one is available in your neighbourhood, consider dropping in or ordering from them by phone or email. Amazon doesn't need your money as much as they do.

I was impressed by Charlotte's post about her friend's outdoor book launch, which was held on the author's driveway with chairs, games, hot drinks, and a fire pit. It would be so much fun, as long as the weather cooperated. No snow, no freezing rain, no brutal north wind. Up here, that's probably too much to ask of Mother Nature. So I am doing the next best thing. My last two books were launched over Zoom, which worked well, but most of us are Zoomed out and eager for in-person connection again. I know I am. Nothing beats seeing the smiles and hearing the laughter of friends and fans who have gathered to cheer you on.

I may do some sort of online "launch" as well, but I am planning two real live events at my two favourite independent bookstores. One at Perfect Books on Elgin Street in Ottawa on February 7 at 6:30 pm (I know, it will be dark out), and one at Sleuth of Baker Street in Toronto on February 4th at 2-4 pm. Official notices and posters will be out soon. But meanwhile, Ottawa and Toronto, if you love Amanda Doucette and want to find out her next adventure or meet her for the first time, mark one of those two dates in your calendars. Even if you don't live near either city, I know both those bookstores will also send you a signed copy. 

Meanwhile, I hope this new baby year treats you well and brings health, caring, and peace to our struggling world.

A Weird Christmas

 by Charlotte Hinger

This Christmas went awry. Even some of the church services that keep my heart in the right place were displaced due to extreme weather. 

It was the "off" year for our family gathering. By that we mean that everyone goes to the in-laws. Next year is "Hinger' Christmas. Which means we negotiate the time and place for my daughters, their spouses and all the grandchildren to show up.

But talk about "off." My daughter, Cherie hosted Christmas for her daughters at the new/old four-story house on the coast of North Carolina. It was 20 degrees outside and a mere 40 inside. They were totally miserable. The geo-thermal heating system wasn't built to cope with the extreme cold. So it gave up the ghost. The pipes froze. Even the dog was rolled up in extra padding. 

My youngest daughter, Mary Beth, worked long hours Christmas Day. She's the administrator of an assisted living/memory care center and ended up supplementing the ones who usually work the floor. She works in Raleigh, but lives in Clayton, NC. She suffered through a complete power outage and her pipes froze too. She showered at work. 

I was snug and happy here in Colorado where we are prepared for cold weather. Even so, no one is used to 17 degrees below. All activities were cancelled. Thankfully, our power stayed on.

My daughter, Michele and her husband, Harry, prepared a wonderful Christmas dinner and their daughter, Audrey, her husband, Pete, and the new baby, Francesca, came up from Denver. Nothing makes a day more joyful than the presence of a baby. For one blessed day, it felt like Christmas. 

Nevertheless, this Christmas was weird. Presents never arrived, or were misaddressed or something. We have a historically long message chain to one another trying to straighten out little messes. We exchange a large number of books and many of us ended up with the wrong ones. 

But guess what. Christmas came anyway. Despite the weather. Despite our bumbling. 

The Grinch Who Stole Christmas was one of my husband's favorite movies. Don's laugh was contagious. We all loved to watch him watch the movie. He delighted in the central message. 

Nothing can stop this special time of year. Christmas draws us closer to our families, to memories of times past, to an awareness of the needs of others who are less fortunate. 

We open our wallets and our hearts and for a brief season join a collective circle of humanity acutely aware of those without homes and families.

The season reminds us that we can do better for our fellow man. 

What a Book Launch

 by Charlotte Hinger

Shortly before Christmas I went to a book launch for Rita Popp's first book, The First Fiancee, published by Wild Rose Press. It was at Rita's home. Rita is a Sisters In Crime friend who lives here in Fort Collins. 

The event was held outside on a cold Sunday afternoon. It didn't sound like a good idea. Surprise! it was a howling success. The driveway to their double garage was scattered with tables and chairs grouped around an fire pit. To one side was an enormous array of hot drinks and snacks. Hot chocolate, cider, and coffee hit the spot. So did all the crunchies and plates of homemade cookies. 

Clutters of people gathered around the fire and we had no trouble finding our connection to Rita, who is a lovely woman and a natural facilitator. For those who liked more activity or were not into chatting, she had set up a throw the bean bag game with sacks of cookies as the prize. 

She sold a lot of books. What a great idea. Who would have thought? December? Outdoors? Cold weather? It worked!

Novel way to launch a book

Great Attendance

Two bags in the hole won a package of home made cookies

Plenty for all

This all goes to show--there's something new under the sun when it comes to selling books.

Merry Christmas

 Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and wishing you a prosperous and healthy New Year.  May all your mysteries be solved. 

Back to The Scene of The Crime

 My holidays began with a visit to a client in Bradenton, Florida. When I arrived at the airport Hyatt, I found out that the hotel restaurant was closed. Upon asking the desk clerk for dining recommendations, she handed me a photo-copied map and said the closest place was Rico's. Off I went on foot. When I read the street sign at the next intersection and saw that it was the North Tamiami Trail, I said to myself, "I've been here before."

The opening chapter for my third novel, The Undead Kama Sutra, took place close to this intersection. My detective-vampire Felix Gomez had been summoned by an alien from the first book. The alien was asking Felix to find "the man who killed me." (The alien was dying from a gruesome blaster wound.) The scene:

"I sat on the alien's bed. We were on the second floor of a cheap motel in Sarasota, Florida. To get up the stairs I had to get past three hookers, their pimp, and a blind man selling pot--for medicinal purposes, of course...

Outside, the second shift of hookers prowled the curb alongside North Tamiami Trail, the main drag in this part of Sarasota. They strutted on stiletto heels around discarded hip flasks and bottles of malt liquor...

None of the hookers showed any interest. Considering the neighborhood, a whale could fall out of the sky and flatten the motel, but no one would admit to seeing a thing."

To Florida's credit, North Tamiami Trail has improved considerably since I wrote that passage. Had I continued straight at the intersection I would've wound up in the John and Mable Ringling Art Museum (of the Ringling Brothers circus fame and fortune). But as I was hungry, I took a left at North Tamiami Trail and continued in search of Rico's. The street was a wide, divided boulevard and in spite of the busy traffic, surprisingly dark. The sidewalk passed stretches of businesses, closed for the night, and gloomy grassy lots, marked with signs prohibiting access. Like similar places in other American cities, empty liquor bottles, discarded clothes, and stolen grocery carts lay abandoned in the weeds. Whereas closer to the airport, you had your pick of chain hotels, here the accommodations were local motels. Most seemed well kept, some retained the sketchy vibe from my book, and others were shuttered and deserted. No hookers anywhere. As I said, it was quite dark and when another person approached from the opposite direction, the chance meeting filled me with a cautionary dread. What if he--they were all men--pulled a knife or a gun and decided to rob me? Step by step we closed the distance and even in the meager light, I could sense they were as apprehensive as I was. I find it hysterical that anyone would be afraid of me, but being Mexican, you get used to this sort of thing. When we passed shoulder to shoulder and realized that we would survive the encounter unscathed, we both breathed a sigh of relief but quickened our pace away from each other, just in case. 

I made it to Rico's, alive. The pizzeria was quasi-divey but friendly and welcoming. My earlier meals had been in over-priced airport restaurants and frankly, Rico's was the cheapest and best place I'd eaten at all day. 

So with this tale of my most recent adventure in Florida, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

 Remembering Peter Cooper

By Johnny D. Boggs

“Somehow, Johnny Cash is dead.”

We’re taught in Journalism 101 to tell readers what they need to know in that first paragraph. Make every word count. And force those readers to keep reading.

Peter Cooper nailed it on September 13, 2003, when his obituary of The Man in Black appeared in The Tennessean, Nashville’s daily newspaper.

For 19 years, I’ve been saying that’s the best lede to any newspaper story I’ve ever read.

Peter, newspaper journalist turned musician, songwriter, historian, music producer, author of liner notes and senior director, producer and writer at the Country Music Hall of Fame, died Dec. 6. He had sustained a head injury after a fall the previous week.

He was only 52 years old.

We both hailed from South Carolina. Peter was born in Spartanburg – he wrote Hub City Music Makers: One Southern Town’s Popular Musical Legacy about his hometown’s music scene (the Marshall Tucker Band, Walter Hyatt …) – and taught school in Rock Hill (“I used to live in Rock Hill/South Carolina, South Carolina/I’m glad I’m not living there still/I feel much better now” he sings in one of his songs).

I grew up farther south in the Pee Dee country. Living in New Mexico, I feel much better now, too.

Peter Cooper. Photo by Deone Jahnke

Courtesy PeterCooperMusic.com

After Peter’s death, I started rereading his Johnny’s Cash & Charley’s Pride: Lasting Legends and Untold Adventures in Country Music. If you want to know about Nashville, songwriters and country-music stars, that’s the book to read. And Tom T. Hall’s The Storyteller’s Nashville: A Gritty & Glorious Life in Country Music (Peter wrote the preface).

How do writers improve their writing? They read great writers.

I read Peter Cooper. And learned a lot.

Peter wrote:

“[O]bjectivity is the mortal enemy. …

"But objectivity is dispassionate.

"And we’re in the passion business.

"We’re trying to make people feel something different than what they felt before they read our words.”

That’s a concept White House beat reporters or those covering cops in Dallas might have trouble wrapping their heads around, but for entertainment writers or fiction writers, it’s a subject worthy of discussion in the bar after deadline.

Recalling an interview during which Johnny Cash told Peter, “I read everything you write,” Peter wrote:

“Immediately, I was ten feet tall.

“Johnny Cash reads all my stuff.

“Then I shrunk eight feet down from ten.

“Johnny Cash reads all my stuff.

“All my stuff.

“Stuff I write on deadline … stuff I just can’t nail … stuff where I am writing over my head … stuff where I am unduly judgmental … stuff where I am overly kind.

“All my stuff.

“Johnny Cash.

“Writer’s block ensued.”

Peter was a writer I wanted to sit down with at Nashville’s Loveless Café and talk craft. Now, all I can do is listen to his music and reread his prose.

Because I’m still waiting for my brain to accept this fact:

Somehow, Peter Cooper is dead.

A Better New Year to All!

Eat well for the holidays!

 Since my birthday falls between Christmas and New Year, the end of the year is the literal end of another year of life for me and I always approach January 1 with  anticipation. I've begun a whole new series and plan on some upcoming trips to which I look forward, so I hold out hope for a pleasant 2023.

Many years ago, I had a friend who was into numerology. Now, I must tell you that of all the divination arts such as astrology or palmistry or tarot or reading chicken entrails, I had always considered numerology the most illogical.* But no, my friend told me, one must approach numerology with the mindset that there are no accidents. That there is a numerical logic to the universe, a vibrational order, like music.

Every number, she said, corresponds to a vibration, a musical note, and we humans are attuned to this music and express it with our language. Each number expresses a series of qualities or traits, just like combinations of notes, rhythms and silences create certain types of music, from rap to classical.

Get it?

This means that your parents looked at you when you were born, sensed your tune, and said to each other, "hey, she looks like a Jane. Jane Doe. That sounds nice." I was impressed by the logic, whether I buy the idea or not. (I prefer to be in charge of my own destiny, thank you very much.)

The point of all this is that 2023 is a 7 year, my friends, and 7 is the number of inner peace and seeking the truth. As for me personally, 2023 is a 1 year - new beginnings (I can only hope they're good new beginnings!) Any numerologist would say, "it ain't that simple", and any non-numerologist would say, "you're nuts, lady." But whether you believe it or not, it's a nice idea.

So here's wishing all of us a wonderful 2023, full of lots and lots of peaceful contemplation and a whole lot of truth.

_____________

*Though chicken bone divination is a close second.

Holiday ups and downs

 This will be my last post of the year, and good riddance to 2022! We have been hanging on for nearly three years through this pandemic rollercoaster, hopes rising and falling with each successive wave and variant. Every single one of our family get-togethers since the pandemic began have been disrupted in one way or another. A grandchild's runny nose, an unexplained cough, a covid exposure... 

But each time, we have picked ourselves up and made another plan. Maybe at Passover... Oh well, there's always Labour Day weekend. Last year at this time, we thought we were finally going to pull it off. All three children and partners, plus two small grandchildren - all were coming to my little house! I stocked up the fridge and the wine rack, planned menus, even as the Omicron variant  began its relentless rise. Then the morning of the first arrivals, there came the call from my son. The two year-old has a weird rash. 

I remember cheering the end of 2021, thinking surely 2022 has to be better! But it wasn't. In fact. 2022 had some terrible surprises up its sleeve. In Ottawa here, first the "freedom convoy" invaded the capital for three weeks of noisy, up-yours, horn-honking nonsense, soon eclipsed by the war in Ukraine and the crushing assault by the bear, Russia on the small, proud nation led by a man who wouldn't say die. And still the Omicron variant tightened its grip. In the spring came supply shortages in food and just about everything from lumber to vehicles. Shipping containers were backed up in ports, employers couldn't find workers to open their shops and restaurants, prices began to soar.

I could go on, but you already know this. 2022 sucked, and now here I am looking forward to kicking it out the door and welcoming the new year. Thinking surely 2023 has to be better! But I am wary of my optimism. Already there are warning signs. It is three to four days before my family arrives at my house to celebrate the holidays - a mix of Hanukah and Christmas that reflects the mix that we have become. They are all driving from other cities. And Mother Nature has a great big storm planned for exactly that holiday travel time. Rain, freezing rain, flash freezes, snow, blizzard winds possibly up to 120 km an hour. This storm spans the continent and has already been ruining travel plans for families everywhere.

But I am holding steadfast to my hope that we can pull it off. So far there are no positive Covid tests, no runny noses or suspect coughs. We are Canadians. What's a little snow? 

Here's a couple of holiday messages I'd like to share before I go back to my holiday preparations. First, if you still haven't got all your gifts yet, consider a book. Any book, although if you choose to go beyond the big-name bestsellers, you will find lots of unique, varied, and entertaining books by lesser-known authors who could really use your support. Including the authors on this blog, just saying. Writers too have struggled during the pandemic. Buy their book, write them a review, and spread the word.

Secondly, before you spend your last dollar on gifts, consider donating it to your local food bank or toy collection or Christmas hamper program. With inflation and rising interest rates, there is a desperate need this year for extra help to make the holidays happen. Every little dollar counts.

Thirdly, may your holiday season, however you celebrate it, be full of light, laughter, and warmth, and may 2023 bring joy, health, and peace. 

Too much to hope for?

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE