Procrastination: A Writer's Nightmare

(Award-winning author, Charlotte Hughes, began her writing career publishing newspaper and magazine articles before becoming a New York Times best-selling author. Charlotte makes her home in Beaufort, S.C. Best known for her Full series with Janet Evanovich, she has written over 40 books, ranging from the 3 mysteries she wrote for Avon to Mira's Hot Shot. Her newest release, Nutcase, centers on Atlanta psychologist, Kate Holly, and the humourous antics of her friends, family and patients. In the process she's learned that the life of a psychologist is enough to drive anyone nuts. Readers are invited to visit Charlotte online at www.readcharlottehughes.com where she also blogs regularly. To celebrate the publication of Nutcase, Charlotte is doing a blog tour, Virtually Nuts, and we're happy to welcome her today.)

Someone recently asked me, “What is the thing you most hate about writing a book?”
My answer was, “Um, writing the book.”
That gave me pause. Gee, what a thing to say!
I thought of my friend, a successful author, who once said she loved being a writer but hated writing. I remembered another writer friend who seldom found time to go to her computer because she was forever volunteering, holding dinner parties, creating new gourmet recipes which she hoped to put in a book one day. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the book she had been commissioned to write. She never got around to writing the book and had to pay back her advance.
Pretty scary.
So I got to thinking. . . I knew I loved writing – it’s what I’ve done for more than twenty years – so why was it still so difficult to write the damn book? Even more disconcerting is my present unfinished manuscript that was due two weeks ago. Another missed deadline!
It sort of feels like I missed my mortgage payment, only worse. I wouldn’t miss a mortgage payment so why would I not make a book deadline?
It’s a clear case of procrastination, and it has been a part of my life since forever. I remember putting off book reports in grade school, cramming for exams in college. I even procrastinated when it came to bearing my two sons. On both occasions, my contractions stopped the minute I reached the hospital, and my labor had to be induced.
One problem, I think, is how I look at my deadlines. They feel kind of vague and so far off in the future that I don’t actually see them until their staring me in the face. Like Christmas. You know it’s coming – I mean they put up the decorations right after Halloween – but somehow it always slips up on you, and you almost kill yourself trying to buy and wrap the gifts in time.
I think for me I lack focus and direction. I am so easily distracted that I found it tortuous to sit through the movies “Australia” and “Benjamin Button.” Give me a ninety minute movie, and I’m good to go, but I don’t want to sit through some two and a half hour epic. I don’t like having to go to the concession stand twice for popcorn.
I always tell people I don’t believe in writer’s block because if I believe in it I’ll get it. But I’ve been blocked, and it is sheer misery. It’s like the creative well has run dry, and you are using a divining rod to find water in the middle of a desert. My head feels like it is stuffed with cotton, and there’s not an idea to be found. Only a sense of dread and despair. (This might be the reason so many writers drink!) I’ve had two husbands – at different times, of course – tell me I always go through an agonizing process before the story takes root or clicks in my brain. Even then, I have to force myself to go to the computer and face that blank page. Wouldn’t it be easier to face a firing squad?
Why do I/we have to go through this torture? Finally, we start the book and fill up that first page, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy going from that point on. There are dry spells, stops and starts, days when you want to toss your computer out the window and get a job flipping burgers. When the words won’t come, the most difficult thing is slogging to that computer day in and day out. I find as many reasons as I can to avoid it. Sometimes I pretend I’m attending to something more important than my writing, but I know I’m just putting it off.
It’s also during this time that I find myself caught up in little dramas. I don’t know if these situations come about as a result of the stress I’m under or if I’m subconsciously seeking out distractions or both. During this time I find I absolutely must have something repaired in my house, usually to the tune of a lot of money, and suddenly I’ve got contractors coming in and out. One of my sons will do something dumb, and I’ll go off the deep end, or my mom will have a health issue, and I’ll spend sleepless nights pacing the floor because I just know it’s up to me to solve all these problems.
By this time my life is in chaos, I’m a total wreck, as are most of the people close to me. Only my case is worse because I’ve got a book to write. I have to earn a living. But how can I possibly write my book in the midst of all of these problems, I cry to the heavens. And, OMG, what if I never write again!
Panic sets in. I start ordering all these books that promise to cure procrastination. I listen to my paraliminal tape, “Get Around to It,” from Learning Strategies. I tell myself I’m going to GET CONTROL of the situation. I get out my egg timer, set it on sixty minutes, during which time I WILL NOT leave my desk no matter what. NO MATTER WHAT. But not even ten minutes passes before I have to pee so I decide while I’m up I can grab a cup of coffee, and I run like hell because I know I’m sort of cheating. And as long as I’m at it I’ll go ahead and let my dogs out. I arrive back at my computer, out of breath and find more time has passed than I thought.
Before I can gather my thoughts, the dogs are barking to get back in, big eye roll, I jump up and run to the door to let them in, only to have one of them hurl something green at my foot.
Well, hell, now I’ll have to bring out the mop, and that reminds me I haven’t mopped, MUCH LESS vacuumed my floors IN DAYS, so with a huge sigh I clean up the hurl with a paper towel and run for the laundry room and my vacuum cleaner. If I’m fast, I can get back to my desk and still beat the egg timer. But hellfire and damnation, I can barely get to the vacuum cleaner for the pile of laundry so I pause to put on a load of clothes.
Back at my computer I see a large chunk of time has passed, and I decide I’m going to make up for the lost time by not answering the phone or checking my e-mail, but, I have to check it because I’m expecting to hear back from my agent on a particular question I asked so I’d better check before I get back to work. Nope, nothing from the agent, but OMG, Pottery Barn is having their 75% clearance, and that is my favorite store in the entire world!
The egg timer goes off. Crap! I decide not to restart it until AFTER I’ve looked at the online sale at PB. My shopping trip steals more time than I’d planned, and I’m so tired because I got up at an ungodly hour so I could get started on my book early, which explains why I’m still in my pajamas. My mother would find that appalling because she believes in having her face and hair done by 6 AM. She’s also the only woman I know who starches and creases her jeans.
Okay, I’ve got a plan now. I’ll grab lunch, lie down for thirty minutes and devote the rest of the day to writing. But back at my computer, I need to see if my agent has responded to my e-mail.
The best and the worst thing that happened to writers is the Internet. It’s too easy to touch base with friends and other writers. (Of course before that we stayed on the phone with each other!) It is too easy to lose yourself on the Internet. It’s like trying to eat ‘just a little bit’ of butter pecan ice cream out of a half gallon carton. It can’t be done. Before you know it, half the ice cream is gone. You can blow half a day online. Then you have to feel guilty and even more stressed about not getting much done on the book.
It would be so much easier if I just wrote the damn book.
In “The Procrastinator’s Handbook,” (yes, I bought the book), author Rita Emmett writes: “Because much of procrastination is a game—a mind game—you can use your mind to change the game. Instead of focusing on how you’ll feel doing the work, focus on how you’ll feel when it’s finished. Think about the payoff. Visualize the relief and sense of accomplishment you will feel once it is done.” In the very next paragraph she advises us to, “Harness your mind and imagination to change the procrastination game.”
Well, okay, I tell myself, but harnessing my mind sounds pretty hard because it’s traveling in a million different directions.
Something Rita Emmett said in her book, about making excuses, really bothered me. “Every time you voice excuses, you are trying to convince someone (most often yourself) that it’s OK that you did or didn’t do something. You may have noticed that excuses undermine other people’s confidence in you, but are you aware that excuses harm your self-esteem.”
Reading that was an ‘ah-ha’ moment. I don’t know about other writers, but I have days when my self-esteem is lower than a gopher hole. I don’t want or need a another reason to feel bad about myself.
Then there’s the part about others losing their confidence in me. I am, for the most part, a good person who obeys the laws and tries to follow the Golden Rule. I send money to several charities. If somebody needs me, I try to be there for them. I check my FICO scores once a month. I would simply die if I did not have a high FICO score or wasn’t a good friend to someone who needed me! That would make me feel as though I couldn’t be counted on.
So how is it that I’m able to change the rules where my book is concerned? The very sobering answer to that is I have no right.
All the little rituals and negative self-talk and the drama that I put myself through have no place in the professional world. We’ve all heard stories about the famous authors who came before us and lived hellish lives in the name of creative genius – Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Cheever, Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath – the list is far too long and their stories way too sad. Suffice it to say that many authors have fought demons; as a result, drank and drugged their way through life.
I’m not so sure all that drama works in today’s publishing world. My editor might feel like my best friend, but I don’t think she’s going to be around for long if I drag her through every minor tragedy that befalls me because, let’s face it, writers seem to have a lot of tragedies that just might be called “life.”
So here I am with an unfinished manuscript that’s late, and a book tour that starts in one week, and I don’t even know if I can fit into half the clothes in my closet. And here’s the really bad part: I knew this was going to happen. For weeks I’ve been dreading it, DREADING IT! Why? Because, as much as I hate to admit it, this has happened before.
I’ve spent so much time dreading it that it’s all I could think about. I read somewhere recently that the more we think about something the bigger it gets. That makes perfect sense, and when something gets really big it just sucks the life right out of you. It OWNS you. Think of all the time and creative energy it takes to give life to all those fears and insecurities and God only knows what else we put ourselves through!
And then there are all the interruptions.
My smoke detectors have been beeping for a week, and I am JUST ABOUT TO LOSE MY MIND because it sounds like I’m surrounded by newborn chicks, cheep, cheep, cheep! Holy hell, of all times for this to happen! Now I have to go find the damn ladder. But first I have to find the new key to my outside storage room because I lost the old key and had to get someone to replace the entire doorknob, and Lord only knows how long that is going to take.
When I get back I’m going to set that egg timer, and I am NOT getting up, NOT ONCE, not even to pee, until I get some work done on my book.
Oh, hell, my dog just hurled again. I’ll have to call the vet. This has been the worst day! Maybe I’ll have time to work on my book tomorrow.
(So what's your favorite excuse--I mean valid and important reason--for putting things off?)

Sigh, I feel like Typhoid Mary . . .

By Lonnie Cruse

Shingles on a roof can be a problem when high winds hit, ripping them off and dropping them on your lawn, several feet below where they really belong. IF you're lucky, your insurance will replace them. If not, likely you will soon be up on the roof all by yourself, hammer in hand, precariously balanced and praying not to slide off and join the rest of the shingles, far below.

Shingles on the human body, the viral kind, can be a far worse disaster. IF you are a senior citizen, you really need to research this problem, on the Internet and among your friends. Here's what I found out. An elderly relative of my hubby suffered from a bout of shingles all the way down one leg and had severe pain for over a year. Wearing street clothes was extremely difficult for her, so she spent a lot of time in a loose robe. Another relative was on a trip with friends, several hundred miles from home. On reaching their destination, he had to be taken to the nearest ER, with severe pain on his upper back. His annual golf trip, long anticipated, wasn't much fun. The diagnoses, shingles. That was a year ago this February. When I asked him last week how long the problem lasted, he said he still had it, a year later! Not the rash/blisters, mind you, they faded in about thirty days or so, but the area is still tender and painful to the touch.

A search of the Internet will most likely scare you like it did me. Along with the severe pain (shingles attacks your nerve endings) sufferers can be blinded if the facial area is afflicted, and if pneumonia results, the sufferer can die. Not something I wanted to have happen, particularly since I had a huge case of chicken pox when I was five, and those of us who had chicken pox are more at risk for shingles than those who didn't. Urrrrr.

On my first visit to my new family doctor, I noticed several signs spread around the office urging patients to consider the shingles vaccine. I asked for more info, and here's what I learned. The vaccine is expensive, usually around $200 per dose. And it's a bit delicate to store. It MUST be kept frozen until just minutes before the injection. Most, if not all, doctors are reluctant to order and/or store the vaccine. Instead, they fax the order to local pharmacies who then order it. It takes two to three months for the orders to be filled because there are so very many of us seniors learning about it and rushing to sign up.

Many of the pharmacies will also give patients the shot right there in the store because transporting it to the doctor's office can be tricky as well. Let the vaccine thaw for more than thirty minutes and you've just blown two hundred samolians. And by the way, this $200 buys you about a half inch worth of vaccine when it's placed in the syringe. Whew. Is it worth it? You be the judge. I'm not a fan of severe pain, and seeing/hearing how shingles affected others was enough to convince me.

So where does Thypoid Mary come in? In case you're too young to know who Typhoid Mary was, (or don't remember all the details, as I didn't until I did an Internet search) she was the first person in the United States to be identified as a healthy carrier of typhoid fever. In the early 1900's Mary, (I'm not using her last name) a young cook, immigrated to America and came into contact with dozens of unsuspecting people as she took jobs in various homes. In EVERY place she worked nearly everyone in the family became seriously ill and some died. Typhoid fever is contracted after the victim consumes food or liquid handled/prepared by a carrier of the disease.

Since Mary was certain she'd never had typhoid fever, she continued to deny she was the cause, even though the disease spread throughout every single family she worked for. Researchers believe her mother had it during her pregnancy and that caused Mary to become a carrier. Thus the term Typhoid Mary came to mean anyone who infects others without suffering the results themselves. Mary's complete refusal to admit she might be the problem, and her continuing to work as a cook and causing severe suffering (and in some cases death) in those around her resulted in her being forcibly quarantined twice in her life. She eventually died in quarantine at the age of sixty-nine. (After her release the FIRST time, she continued to work as a cook, even though she promised not to as a condition of her release. And, yes, those people got sick as well.) At least two men have also been identified during that era as carriers who had not knowingly had the disease.

When I first researched the shingles vaccine, I learned that the vaccine is "live" and therefore I would need to avoid contact with infants and young children who had not yet had chicken pox or been vaccinated for same. Okay, I could do that. We didn't have any small children in our family, and I could easily avoid the infants I routinely come into contact with at church or in public. Couldn't I? Hmmm.

My family doctor ordered the vaccine to be shipped to our local pharmacy in Metropolis, and to my relief, there was someone on hand to give me the vaccine when I arrived to pick it up. No dashing across the Ohio River to Paducah (and risk getting stuck on the bridge IF there was a problem) in order for the doctor's office to administer it. All was well. That shot was probably the LEAST painful I've ever been given, since the giver uses the fatty section of the arm between shoulder and elbow (sigh, she had no difficulty locating MINE.) Yeah, I'm talking about the chicken wing that swings under the arm, below where my muscles used to live. Sigh. But I digress. And I've had no reaction to speak of from the shot. Not even a rash. Back to Typhoid Mary.

After the shot, Hubby and I went to have breakfast and while waiting for my pecan waffle to arrive, I read the mile long warning/instruction paper included with the vaccine. Along with infants and small children, I'm to avoid "close contact" with pregnant women. Okay, I can do that, even though the young woman who sits beside me at church every Sunday and Wednesday night is newly pregnant. I'll simply move to another pew. But for how long? After all, we have at least three pregnant ladies in our congregation, and three or four little ones who are at risk from me, and it's not a large building. The mile long warning paper doesn't specify. I search online, beginning with the company who made my vaccine. Nothing, except the same warnings. I call their 800 number. The person on the other end of the line says: "It depends on the individual." Okay, I pride myself on being an individual, so give me a ball park figure. How long to I avoid close contact? He can't say. Or won't. Urrr.

I call my doctor. Bless her heart, she takes time out of a very busy day and researches my question. But she can't get me an answer either. I call the pharmacy. They also have no clue. I look at the drug company's website again. (You'll notice I'm not mentioning names. I don't need grief from them. I've already shelled out $199 for the vaccine, and I don't have insurance to cover it. But it was worth it, more on that later.) Where was I?

I call a different number at the drug company. This person has no clue either. Sooo, how long do I sit in a different pew? (If you attend church regularly you likely know how very territorial we church goers are, and how we hate having to sit out of pocket.) And since I routinely hug and chit chat with the expectant moms in the bathroom between Bible study and worship, I now have to use the RARELY used potty waaaaay in the back of the building, by the class rooms. Urrr. I have given everyone I might be a danger to a head's up, that they should turn and run in the opposite direction, IF I happen to wander into their space accidentally. They agree (were they a wee bit too eager, or was that just my imagination?) I begin to feel like Typhoid Mary.

After further research, reading/wading through information on the Internet designed for doctors and other care givers about the vaccine, and actually understanding it, I decide thirty days should be long enough for me to be "safe," live vaccine or no. I might wait longer than that to return to "my pew" because I do NOT want to cause problems for the newly pregnant mom. I'm thanking my lucky stars that the vaccine arrived when it did, because she and her family lived with us for nigh onto two weeks after the ice storm that took out their power, so for all of that time we were indeed "in close contact" as the pamphlet-as-long-as-a-roll-of-toilet-paper cautioned against. Luckily they were able to move home just a couple of days before I received the vaccine and learned about the cautions. Did I mention I felt like Typhoid Mary?

I've been surprised to learn how many other seniors are not yet aware of the vaccine. Shingles is a serious threat to all of us over sixty, and sometimes to those who are younger. The side affects of the vaccine are generally mild, bit of a sore arm, etc, but well worth the protection. According to my research, the vaccine doesn't guarantee that everyone receiving it won't get shingles. But while those who do get shingles will have the rash and blisters, the pain will not be as severe. The vaccine helps protect against that. For me, it's well worth the cost, both in money and time. And I can survive a month or so of avoiding those at risk from me. What about you?

Against the Grain Part II: Building A Better Relationship

Elizabeth Zelvin

Note: This is the second half of my Valentine's Day post on relationships.

Two psychologists called Prochaska and DiClemente invented a model of the stages of change that they originally meant for describing addictions and recovery. It works equally well when applied to other processes involving change, including relationships.
The six stages of change are precontemplation, contemplation, determination, action, maintenance and relapse. In plain English:
1. you’re not even thinking about changing, even if the way things are is causing trouble
2. you’re thinking about it, but you feel ambivalent
3. you’ve decided you want to change
4. you do something about it, like changing your behavior or your attitude
5. you keep practicing new behavior and attitudes
6. you slip back into your old ways

I’ve counseled many couples in my career as a therapist, and the stages of change model explains why so often it doesn’t work. Typically, one partner drags the other into treatment. What’s the problem? “I’m willing to change, but he’s not.” (With straight couples, it’s usually the woman who’s more motivated to get help—or thinks she is.) What’s really happening here? What stage are they in? She claims he’s in precontemplation—doesn’t think he needs to change. She thinks he needs to change, all right. But does she realize she needs to change as well? Nope. She too is in precontemplation.

What do they expect from therapy or counseling? Well, he expects torture. And she expects a fix. She wants the therapist to recommend a book (like those by Hendrix, Gray, and Gottman that I mentioned in Part I) and make him read it and do the exercises with her. Yep, she wants to jump right to action. And because neither of them has gone through contemplation and determination, all the exercises in the world won’t heal their marriage or relationship.

So what’s the first requirement for building a better relationship? Two willing partners. If you’re dissatisfied with your relationship, start by throwing away that list you’ve been compiling of all the things your partner does wrong. Ask yourself a few questions.
1. Do you love your partner?
2. Are you prepared to make some changes yourself? Not be right all the time? Let your partner win?
3. Are you prepared to give up “should” and “not fair”?
4. Would you rather be angry or have the relationship? Not a rhetorical question. Ask yourself, and be honest about the answer.
5. How much trust and safety do you have with your partner? If there’s a problem of drinking, violence, depression, jealousy, or lack of support, you may have a genuinely unwilling partner, and you and your helping professional need to know that.
6. Are you willing to get help for yourself if your reactions to your partner come partly from your own history? In the vernacular, are buttons getting pushed? You need to know.

Next on the agenda: giving up blame, criticism, and control. This is very hard to do, but it’s essential to a good relationship. Here are some actions you can take, from sources as different as the three psychologists I’ve mentioned, family systems theory, the twelve-step programs, and a variety of approaches to mental health.

1. Accept your differences. Agree to disagree on “perpetual conflicts.” Accept the difference in gender styles, between “Mars and Venus,”or in individual personal styles, in how you process conflict. Remember you can change yourself, but not your partner or anyone else.

2. Respect your partner’s boundaries. I love the way the Mars and Venus guy talks about it. When men “go into the cave” to work things out, women had better not “sit outside the door of the cave,” waiting to hear all about it. Conversely, men need to try not to shut down emotionally when a conflict needs to be resolved.

3. Stop blaming. One good way is to watch what you say and how you say it, no matter how angry you are. Some communication styles escalate things, others defuse them. You won’t make things better by accusing, critiquing, or even justifiable anger. Tell your partner about your sadness, fear, and anger without saying your feelings are his or her fault.

When you’re moving from determination into action, there are plenty of tools you can use to resolve conflict without the kind of fight that tears relationships apart. Don’t throw the kitchen sink into the argument. Stick with the “solvable conflict” that’s on the table. Let repair attempts succeed: accept laughter or a natural closure to the discussion. Don’t do a Columbo—“And one more thing”—that starts the fight all over again.

Be aware of how the past can escalate the present. Counseling can help with this. Sometimes an intense reaction to what your partner does or says has as much to do with the past as with the present situation. Learn to recognize when your buttons get pushed, and separate that out from what’s going on now with your partner. If your partner identifies a button-pusher, respect it; don’t go ahead and push it. Acknowledge your partner’s vulnerability; admit your own.

There are appropriate and inappropriate ways of expressing feelings. “I feel sad,” “I feel scared,” “I feel angry,” and “I feel lonely” are appropriate. “You always,” “You never,” “You should” and “Why can’t you” are inappropriate. Appropriate expressions of feeling get through. Inappropriate expressions arouse defensiveness and escalate the conflict. By the way, “I feel you always,” “I feel you never,” and “I feel you should” are not “I” statements about your feelings. They are merely ways to accuse or blame, and they will make things worse.

One of my favorite ways to put it in a nutshell is the Serenity Prayer, used in twelve-step programs and other spiritual paths. Whether you connect with spirituality, religion, or neither, and whether or not you use the “G” word, I suggest you keep an open mind about the value of “serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” It will help you have a better relationship.

How does that feel?

Sandra Parshall


One second I was upright, walking across a patch of ice on the patio. The next, I was face-down on the bricks with blood gushing from my nose.

I’m sure I felt some pain in the moments after my recent fall, but that wasn’t my primary concern. My first thought: Omigod, are my glasses broken? (No, but they were so badly scratched that I had to buy new lenses at an exorbitant price.) My second thought: Omigod, what a mess, I’m bleeding all over everything. (I was.) I didn’t pay much attention to the pain until later, when I was resting with my head back and a handful of paper towels clamped over my nose. That was when I finally had the leisure to notice that the middle of my face felt as if I had, well, landed nose-down with great force on brick paving.

If I were describing this event in a novel, the pain would get the character’s attention a lot faster. And I’d have to come up with a more evocative description than the one in the last line of the previous paragraph. I would have to make the reader feel the pain along with the character. What kind of pain is it? Sharp? Dull? Shooting? Throbbing? Blinding? I could spend an extraordinary length of time putting together the right handful of words to make the suffering real to the reader.

Allowing the reader to experience physical sensations vicariously through a character’s body is part of the reader-character bonding that produces devoted fans. We may think it’s unimportant compared to letting the reader into the character’s heart and soul, but if you leave out sensory details a story seems flat and incomplete. Often the physical and emotional can’t be separated, because emotions cause physical reactions – the pounding heart of anger, the cold sweat of fear may be cliches, but they are familiar to almost every human being. It may be enough if we leave a reader with the thought, Yes, I know that feeling, I know exactly what it’s like. But a gifted writer can make us believe that what we’re experiencing through his or her character is unique, something never felt in quite this way before.

This is Anne Tyler’s description, in the non-mystery Celestial Navigation, of an agoraphobic character’s terror during his first outing in many years: “Dread rose in him like a flood in a basement, starting in his feet and rapidly filling his legs, his stomach, his chest, seeping out to his fingertips. Its cold flat surface lay level across the top of his throat. He swallowed and felt it tip and right itself. Nausea came swooping over him, and he buckled at the knees and slid downward until he was seated flat on the sidewalk with his feet sticking out in front of him.”

In cozy mysteries, pain and bloodshed are usually kept offstage, but in the darker forms of crime fiction, characters stagger from one emotional and physical extreme to the next. When they aren’t terrified, they’re reeling from gunshots, stab wounds, blows to the head. If a character is rendered unconscious, the reader wants something a little more detailed than the old standby, “And then the world went black.” Yeah, but in the seconds before that descent into blessed oblivion, how did it feel?

Is it possible to accurately describe something we’ve never experienced? I’ve never been shot, stabbed, thrown off a building, or clobbered with a blunt object, so what do I know? Granted, many readers haven’t had those experiences either, but that won’t stop them from passing judgment on the authenticity of my descriptions. How do I get them right?

I can extrapolate. I know how a deep cut on the hand or foot feels, and I might be able to use that sensation if I amplify it several thousand times. I’ve banged my head on enough cabinet doors and other unforgiving objects to imagine how a blow from a pipe or baseball bat would feel. I’ve fallen from a height and will never forget the feeling. A gunshot? Nothing comparable in my bag of life events, so I have to ask someone who’s been through it. When I questioned both a combat veteran and a former policeman about being wounded in the line of duty, their answers were surprising – and surprisingly similar. Both said that so much adrenaline was pouring through them that they felt no pain at first and didn’t realize they’d been hit. I’ve seen a similar reaction described in some crime novels, but more often the character collapses in agony. Whether a particular scenario works or not depends on the skill of the writer, but as a reader I find the delayed reaction more intriguing and realistic in an intense action scene.

Sex scenes are the bane of crime novelists, and some writers shun them, either because they don’t want to stop the story long enough to throw in a sexual encounter or they dread writing about such intimate contact. Only the writers who started in the romance genre seem to feel comfortable detailing every touch and thrill of their characters’ sex lives. Do readers appreciate the effort? Many don’t. Sexual pleasure somehow seems out of place in most mysteries and thrillers, and I suspect that a lot of readers skim those scenes or skip them entirely, preferring to move ahead to the next round of pulse-pounding terror and excruciating pain.

Some writers are so good at making the agony feel real that I have to wonder whether they have a touch of the sadist in them. When I need inspiration, I can turn to Val McDermid’s thrillers, Lisa Gardner’s Gone (a lead character is imprisoned in a wet, cold basement for much of the book), a terrifying chapter in Elizabeth Becka’s Trace Evidence that’s written from a victim’s viewpoint. For depictions of characters teetering on the psychological and emotional edge, no one matches Ruth Rendell and Thomas H. Cook.

When I was young, long before I published a novel, my chief failing as a writer was that I didn’t let readers get close enough to my characters. Too many times, critique partners complained that they couldn’t feel what the characters were experiencing. I’m learning and, I hope, improving. Maybe I still have time before I check out of this life to produce a passage that will make a reader exclaim, “I’ll never forget that scene – I felt like I was living it through your character.”

Digital Fallacies

Sharon Wildwind

February has been a good month for the digital debate, generated by the February 9th Amazon announced of its new Kindle 2, and by the fact that the realities of last October’s Google lawsuit settlement are filtering down to individual authors.

True or False:
1. Electronic books cost less to manufacture than paper books.
2. Electronic formats should be released months after the paper format.
3. Electronic books should be sold for less than paper books.
4. Electronic books are greener (more ecologically friendly) than paper books.
5. Electronic books a passing fad.

1. Production Costs

Production costs for electronic books are, to a large extent, dependent on how much the publisher wants to spend up front. In a traditional publishing house, there are costs for author advances, editing, cover design, typesetting, the printing and distribution of Advanced Reading Copies, and for marketing and promotion. Some companies spend a lot on these services, some spend almost nothing, passing those costs on to the author. So the cost to manufacture is variable and may equal the cost of producing a paper book.

Second step costs are for raw materials: paper, ink, covers, printing itself, boxes in which to pack and ship the books, and the salaries of all the people who do these tasks.

Third step costs are for shipping and handling, storage space, returns from book stores and, ultimately, the cost of discarding remainders and destroying the physical books.

Second and third step costs for electronic books are different than for paper books, but they still exist. Someone has to format them into electronic readable documents, and there has to be a staff available to fix the electronic copies if something goes wrong. Electronic books are, after all, only computer files and when was the last time you had to call IT to fix a computer file problem.

Bottom line: There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Paper books cost; electronic books cost but the money is spent in different places.

2. Release Dates

Some of the most heated debate this month has been from people who say that, in all fairness to bookstore owners, an electronic title MUST be held back—some say six months, some say a year—after the date of the paper book’s release. This is the old paradigm of releasing a hard cover first, then waiting a year before releasing the paperback. That paradigm is dead.

Fairness is not the motivating factor in sales. Suppose you were a clothing manufacturer. If you had produced a new version of a coat that was selling like crazy, would you withhold your product from the market for six months in order to give clothing stores a fair chance to sell the coats they already had in stock? Heck no. As soon as enough stock had come off the production lines to fill a truck, that truck would be rolling out of the garment district.

If that’s true, some people say, then let’s set up electronic kiosks in bookstores where people can come to download electronic books. That way the book seller can still make a small commission on each copy of an electronic book.

So, I’ve got two options. I can go out this morning in -9 weather (and it’s snowing) to my favorite local bookstore, where I will pay the cost of the book + a $2.50 kiosk fee to download a book, or I can sit at my computer, pay only the cost of the book, and have it downloaded in under 1 minute. Which option am I more likely to choose?

Bottom line: Electronic releases are more likely to be made BEFORE or at the same time as paper releases, but never afterwards.

3. Price Point

Full disclosure being a big thing these days, I have to admit that there are relationships here to question #1 that, as an author, affects me directly. Will the price point for my book cover ensure me a fair and reasonable author’s advance? Will it cover good editing? Will I be likely to see royalties?

One thing we do know already is that some vendors are already using low book price points as an add on. It’s akin to “Do you want fries with that?” The primary products for electronic readers are newspapers, magazines, and electronic material, such as blogs. There are already advertisements that tout the values of getting your daily newspaper on an electric reader, including cell phones, and as an afterthought say, “You can get books for this reader, too, you know.”

In the current paper market, I have no say-so in the price point unless I’m self-publishing or I’m selling one of those copies I’ve paid for (author’s discount applies) and have in my storage locker. Otherwise, I’m dependent on what my publisher says the book will sell for. Electronic book price points won’t be any different.

Bottom line: what price point will sustain both authors and readers? Will a terribly low price point on electronic versions be offset by a huge increase sales volume? I don’t know. Stay tuned for further developments.

4. The Green Machine
Here’s how paper books affect the environment: cut down trees; replant trees and grow them for 20 years; mill paper; use recycled paper; manufacture and use ink, colored ink for the covers, bindings, and glue; use fuel to ship all the raw materials and ship the finished books, and store books, and return the books, and destroy books; toss books in landfills; recycle some books, keep bookstores open; keep second-hand bookstores open; produce, ship, sell, and recycle book shelves to both businesses and individuals; produce and recycle promotional materials; and use fuel to move books from place to place whenever book owners move.

Here’s how electronic books affect the environment: ship raw materials; produce, market and sell electronic machines; feed the desire for the latest gadgets; deal with obsolescence; deal with the disposal of electronic machines and with components that contain chemicals such as PVCs and mercury; manufacture and use electricity; and manufacture, use, and recycle batteries.

List 2 looks shorter than list 1, but each activity probably has a greater impact on the environment. A paper book in a landfill will eventually degrade; an electronic reader in the same landfill degrades over a longer time—possibly not at all—and releases more toxic chemicals as it does degrade.

Bottom line: we’re back to that no free lunch thing. Paper books cost the environment; electronic books cost the environment.

5. Faddishness in the age of electronics

If you’re reading this blog, chances are you’re already part of my tribe. There are six bookshelves in my office alone, another two in the bedroom, a stack of books beside the bedroom door, and we won’t even discuss my husband’s office. Now go for a ride on your local public transit, or attend the major sporting event of your choice (Hey, the Briar is coming to Calgary next month and I can’t wait. If you don’t know what the Briar is, that won’t matter to you. Oh, okay, it’s a championship curling event.)

How many of those people on the bus or in the sports arena have a houseful of books? Not many.

The cut line is about at age 40. More people over 40 love and want to always have in their lives paper books. They love the look, the feel, the smell, the tangible reality of a book. More people under 40 consider paper books an unnecessary physical encumbrance. Read it and toss it.

The other thing that people under 40 want is for the book reading experience to be a public, tribal event. A rainy afternoon, a cup of tea, and a good book is so 20th century. Read the book, visit the web site, discuss the book on a social web site, produce and post a multi-media collage that encapsulates your reaction to the book, add a soundtrack, and maybe do a little fan writing because you didn't exactly like the way the book ended. It's not about the book anymore; it's about the book brought to a public stage.

In line with that idea, the used book business has reversed in the past five years. Before about 2004, the majority of books being brought to used book stores were discards, multiple copies, and clean-outs of Great-Aunt Violet’s house after she passed on. Today, a large part of used bookstores’ inventories is first run books, which hit the shelves as little as 3 days ago. Read it and take it to the used bookstore for some ready cash.

The edge of the wedge is textbooks. University publishing companies and university bookstores saw a revolution of very angry students and parents last fall. Why put up with huge textbook cost increases? Why buy this honking fat book, which I won’t need next semester, when I should be able to download relevant chapters, as I need them. Read it, take the test, and delete it from my hard drive.

Bottom line: According to the Association of American Publishers, in 2008,
E-book sales increased 68.4%
Adult hardcover book sales decreased 13%
Adult paperback sales decreased 3.6%
University press book sales decreased 7.9% for hardbacks and 8.2% for paperbacks.

So to go back to our original quiz:

1. Electronic books cost less to manufacture than paper books. (False, they cost differently.)
2. Electronic formats should be released months after the paper format. (False, electronic books are likely going to be released on the same day as paper formats.)
3. Electronic books should be sold for less than paper books. (Don’t know if they should be, but they certainly will be.)
4. Electronic books are greener (more ecologically friendly) than paper books. (False, they both cost the environment.)
5. Electronic books a passing fad. (False, they are here to stay, particularly for the people under 40.)
------
Quote for the week:

In the fall of 2008, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor allowed professors to list their texts online. The university’s bookstore's textbook sales fell $510,000 over the next 5 months. Students went to the Internet to buy their books.
~Karl Pohrt, bookstore owner, February 2009

Spring and The Yearning for Other Places

by Julia Buckley
Spring is almost here. I have never been much of a traveler, and yet I always find myself dreaming of the perfect spring break. Last year we went to a little lake resort in Michigan, where I took these idyllic photos. It was a healing retreat during which we sat around, ate good food, acted goofy, and enjoyed each other's company.

I don't know if we'll even get away this spring--time and resources are limited--but I'd really like to squeeze in another getaway.

Aside from the practical and close escape (the kind we usually take), there are those imaginary escapes we say we would choose if we suddenly became wealthy. (And if I, let's say, suddenly stopped being deathly afraid of airplanes).


So here are some of those places that I go in my mind when the air smells of fresh earth and the first crocus starts to peek through the snow:

1) England. I'd head to the Yorkshire Dales that James Herriott made me fall in love with when I read his books, and then I'd go to Cornwall, whose wild beauty I came to appreciate through Poldark and the books of Rosamund Pilcher.

2) Hungary. This is the land where my father's parents were born, and which they missed all of their lives. My brother went to Budapest last year and said that it has much of the charm and beauty of Prague and other old, stately cities. He also hiked in the mountains and even, with the aid of relatives, checked out the nightlife (and the amazing food) of this country.

3) Germany. This is the homeland of my mother, and I know from all of the beautiful German traditions she shared with our family that I would feel very much at home in this beautiful place--a land of castles and scenic vistas; a land of bierhauses and friendly people. Here's my favorite German castle: Neuschwanstein, the home of "Mad" Ludwig.

4) Somewhere Caribbean--or is it Mediterranean? Somewhere like that place the people are sitting in the Corona commercial, where all they can hear is the roar of the surf as they sit in lounge chairs and contemplate the sunset. Ahhh.

5) An island between Italy and Africa where I can find the place of Prospero, the magician in The Tempest, who lived on this magical island for twelve years until he summoned a storm to wreak his revenge on his would-be murderers . . .

Okay, enough daydreaming for now. But I have a question: What's your favorite destination, real or imaginary?

Canada Calling: The Birth of a Legend

Sharon Wildwind

When the U.S. President came calling Thursday, the Canadian government trotted out the red carpet and an honor guard of Royal Canadian Mounted Police/Gendarmerie royale du Canada decked out in scarlet tunics and stetson hats. Ever wonder where the tunics, the stetsons, and the legend of “they always get their man” comes from? Here’s a short quiz.

Which of these led to the RCMP/GRE becoming THE symbol of policing in Canada?
A. The Royal Irish Constabulary
B. The Newfoundland Constabulary
C. The Klondike gold rush
D. Albert Johnson
E. George W. Trendle and Dewey Cole

The answer—all of them.

In 1871, Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first Prime Minister, had a new problem. In July of that year, British Columbia joined the five eastern provinces to become part of Canada. At the time, Canada was four years old. Macdonald’s problem was that there was a heck of a lot of geography between the Manitoba and British Columbia borders; so much geography that no one really knew how much.

The Northwest Territories was sparsely inhabited by First Nations people, Metis, a few European settlers, some American settlers, and an unknown number of courier du bois, essentially seasonal trappers and traders who kept Europe supplied with fur for coats and hats.

Macdonald’s problem was not only whether Canada or the United States would win the race to settle the Territories, but how to keep law and order over such a large land. He realized that a paramilitary force was essential and he modeled that force—The North-West Mounted Police—on the Royal Irish Constabulary.

Here’s what the RIC contributed to the legend: constables were expected to establish roots in their local communities. Most of the constables were drawn from the same backgrounds—social class, religion, and general background as their neighbors—but were not permitted to serve in their home county or the home county where their wife came from. The RIC followed a military model, with constables living in barracks, and with an emphasis on carrying military carbines and being proficient in military drill and regulations.

Plus which, another paramilitary organization—the Newfoundland Constabulary—modeled after the RIC, had been operating in North America since 1729. Newfoundland and Labrador would not join Canada until the twentieth century, but the NC had already demonstrated that the kind of police force Macdonald envisioned did worked in the north.

So, in the late spring of 1874, the North-West Mounted Police (approximately 300 men) left Fort Dufferin, Manitoba for unknown lands. Like British soldiers, their uniform jacket was a red serge coat. They also wore a yellow stripe down the sides of their black trousers to mark them as cavalry, and to complete the ensemble a round black-and-gold pillbox hat that Jackie Kennedy might have envied. It was not a good hat for conquering the prairies.

Like all military supplies, the hats and the red coats were made on contract by the lowest bidder. When it rained, the coats leaked dye, and the hats, which were mostly made of cardboard, came apart. By the time the NWMP reached Edmonton and Calgary, most of the men were wearing light pink coats or had traded their uniforms for more appropriate cowboy clothes. After all, who was out there to tell them they were out of uniform?

Their orders were essentially we don’t know what’s out there; we’re not even sure how much of out there is out there. Go find out for us. Keep the peace. Keep the Americans from taking over. Write back if you get a chance.

And that’s exactly what they did. Men dropped off the trek west, in ones and twos, to establish the original NWMP Detachments. Not only did the constables establish roots in their communities, in many places the communities formed around the detachments. There is a wonderful panorama photograph of an early detachment in Alberta, a small stone cabin located at the bottom of a valley, with a stream running beside it, and nothing else—absolutely nothing—man-made visible in the entire photograph.

By the time of the Klondike gold rush, those detachments were sprinkled across the west, and up into the far north. Sam Steele and his Mounties saved an unknown number of lives during the Klondike gold rush by mounting a machine gun at the top of the Chilkoot Pass and issuing an order that every single person coming up the pass had to show proof that they had a ton—literally, 2000 pounds—of supplies with them. Anyone who tried to pass through the Mountie checkpoint without those supplies would be shot. The machine gun was never fired.

The NWMP sent a contingent to the Boer War and, as a result of that service, they received two honors, one probably a lot more practical than the other. Edward VII gave them permission to use Royal in their name and the now Royal North-West Mounted Police got to wear stetsons. Finally, they could ditch those tiny pillbox hats.

In January and February 1931, people throughout North America followed, on their radios, a manhunt happening in the far north. Albert Johnson, a trapper, had tangled several times with a posse formed by the RCMP. He had already wounded one constable and killed a second one. For almost a month the Mounties, and a bush pilot named Wop May, pursued Johnson across a frozen landscape. On February 17, near the Eagle River, after seriously wounding a third Mountie, Johnson was shot to death. It had everything high drama needed: men against the wilderness, danger, suspense, the romance of bush flying, and a mysterious villain. To this day, details of Johnson’s life before he went to the Artic remain open to speculation.

Radio listeners lapped it up, and a few years later, George W. Trendle gave North America Sergeant Preston of the Yukon and his faithful sidekick, the dog Yukon King. Those wonderful sound effects of blizzards and wind, and King barking as he led Preston’s team were done by the pre-eminent soundman, Dewey King. The legend of the Mounties had come to North America.

As a final bit of trivia, the Mountie motto is not “We always get our man.” The motto is actually “Maintiens le droit.” The English translation is “Uphold the law.”

CareTrak . . . it's worth repeating . . .

By Lonnie Cruse

Little Adji Dessir went missing on January 10, 2009 and no one seems to know what happened to the mentally disabled six year old since then. Authorities have have been forced to discontinue the massive ground search but are still working on the case. I follow the case on Nancy Grace when she gives updates, and I pray for him every day.

Adji has the mentality of a two year old and can not communicate. However, he lives on a large migrant worker farm where at least the close neighbors are familiar with his situation. Yet no one saw him disappear from his yard in broad daylight. My personal fear is that he was somehow kidnapped since if he'd wandered off, you'd think someone would have found him within a few hours. How I wish Adji had been wearing a CareTrak bracelet.

The CareTrak company is located in Murphysboro, Illinois, a small town you've likely never heard of. But I believe everyone in this country, maybe even the world needs to be aware of CareTrak. And I'd like to see every care giver and/or law enforcement agency throughout our country using this equipment.

I learned about this wonderful technology a few years back through the Metropolis Planet newspaper when a local group made a donation to the Massac County Sheriff's department for more CareTrak equipment. After researching the technology I used it in my third Metropolis Mystery book, MARRIED IN METROPOLIS, to try to get the word out, and I've donated proceeds from the book to the local sheriff's department to help them in acquiring more equipment.

CareTrak is a small transmitter worn as an extremely durable bracelet on the arm or ankle of anyone who is mentally challenged and likely to wander away. A tracking perimiter is set anywhere from fifty feet to four hundred feet. During the day the perimiter can be expanded to allow a child or adult to enjoy the outdoors, and at night it can be shortened, in case the wearer tries to leave the house. If the wearer wanders beyond the perimiter, an alarm sounds to warn the caregiver. Either the caregiver or local law enforcement officials can keep the tracking mechanism to quickly locate the wanderer. To date the CareTrak technology has been responsible for over TWO THOUSAND rescues.

I doubt Adji's family could afford the cost of the unit, but law enforcement agencies can donate the wearer's unit IF they have enough donations to help.

Back to Adji. Had he worn a bracelet and simply wandered off, likely he'd have been found within thirty minutes, which is about the average find time. And IF he was indeed kidnapped and the kidnapper somehow figured out how to remove the bracelet and toss it, that would have at least given authorities two important facts, (a) that he WAS taken and (b) where he last had the bracelet on him. Time spent searching for a wandering child could have been spent on locating a suspicious vehicle.

How often do we hear of a mentally challenged adult or child wandering off, with tragic results? Far too often. With CareTrak, the find and rescue statistics are nothing short of magnificent. If you know someone who needs CareTrak, please check the link below for more information. And if there is anything you can do to help connect those who need it with this technology, please do it. Let's try to prevent any more stories like Adji's.

http://www.caretrak.com/index.php

(Well, fooey, for some reason, I can't get this link to go "live" so you can just click on it. Please copy and paste into your browser. Or do a search. Sigh.)

The Mayor of Central Park’s Birthday Party

Elizabeth Zelvin

On February 15, the Mayor of Central Park turned 93. Alberto Arroyo is a beloved and legendary gentleman who is credited with being the first person to use the path around the Central Park reservoir as a running track and could be found there daily, rain or shine, from 1935 until a year or two ago, when age and ill health started to slow him down. I’ve blogged before about how I met him and fell for his charm and simple goodness before I realized that he was a famous New York character.

A few months ago, Alberto stopped appearing at the South Gate House where he usually held court. Runners who counted on his encouraging wave and smile and looked forward to hearing his stories were dismayed, fearing the worst until we learned that he had had a stroke. He was living in a nursing home and residence near Riverside Park and could no longer make his way across the Upper West Side to Central Park, even with a walker as he had most recently. His friends, some of whom had known him for decades, mobilized to visit him and push his wheelchair to the reservoir as often as possible.

New York Times reporter Charles Wilson (left) picked up the story and wrote a feature that appeared in the Sunday Times, on the back page of the sports section, on Alberto’s birthday. His friends gathered at the reservoir—on a day that was blessedly sunny and mild for February—to rejoice in his pleasure at being out in the fresh air among his many friends and watch him charming the socks off the tourists from all over the world whose guide books direct them to the reservoir and the track that Jackie Kennedy Onassis—one of Alberto’s friends—used to run.

The reservoir was beautiful as always, playing winter ice against early signs of spring. In mid-afternoon, we all adjourned to the residence for birthday cake and more partying. I brought my guitar and played the song I wrote about Alberto several years ago. Another friend played and sang his song about Alberto. A gorgeous lady who also lives at the residence, 102-year-old Amelia, played the piano. And everybody agreed that Alberto’s right when he says, as he once did to me, “In my simple way, I make a lot of people happy.” Here's the article from the Times, with more pictures of Alberto.
Friends Help Alberto Arroyo, Jogging Pioneer at Central Park, Keep Going

A New Voice: Meredith Cole

Interviewed by Sandra Parshall

Meredith Cole directed feature films and wrote screenplays before writing mysteries. She won the St. Martin’s/Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery competition in 2007, and her debut novel, Posed for Murder, was published yesterday, February 17, by St. Martin’s Minotaur. She blogs at www.thedebutanteball.com.

Q. Tell us about Posed for Murder.

A. Posed for Murder is about a photographer named Lydia McKenzie who has a fascination with murder scenes. She recreates historic cases for the camera, using her friends as models, and shoots in a film noir style. But when she finally interests a gallery in her work, a killer starts murdering her models and posing them just like her pictures.

Q. Your education prepared you for a career in film. Why did you decide to write books? What can you do in a book that you can't do on film, and vice versa? Do you plan to continue doing both?

A. I wanted to be a writer since before I could even read. I would dictate stories to my mother. In high school I became fascinated by film, and pursued a film career through graduate school. I directed two feature films, "Floating" and "Achilles' Love." I wrote a lot of screenplays, but I got tired of putting them in a drawer. Film is an expensive medium, and it’s difficult to get films made (even if you win Academy Awards) without big names attached and lots of cash. I realized that I'd always read more books than watched films, and storytelling was storytelling. So I set out to write a book.

Q. Why did you choose to write in the mystery genre?

A. I've always loved mysteries. When I first tried to write novels, I attempted what I thought of as serious fiction. But I ended up stuck in someone's head for pages and pages, and the plot went nowhere. I found the mystery genre very freeing, because I had somewhere to go and something to do there. I let the plot pull me through my first draft, and really enjoyed the ride.

Q. What was the inspiration for Posed for Murder?

A. I love photography, and I've always been interested in the "artist's eye." As a writer, I walk down the street and notice all sorts of weird details that I store away. And then someone will mention some shop moving away or some building going up, and I'll realize that I was so enthralled by something else that I never even saw it. I wanted to see a story though the eye of a photographer, and use her special skills to solve it.

Q. Why did you choose Brooklyn as a setting rather than other places you lived, such as the Charlottesville, VA, area where you grew up?

A. Williamsburg, Brooklyn is both a fascinating and frustrating place. It's a hip artsy neighborhood filled with young people, art galleries and boutiques. People come here from all over the world to try to make it as artists. I've lived here for almost 10 years, but didn't grow up here--so it's both familiar and fascinating to me. It's also a place in flux, unlike Charlottesville, so I think I found that appealing. But I don't rule out writing something set in Charlottesville, Northern Virginia or Washington, DC--all places that I've lived.

Q. Was this the first novel you'd written, or do you have others stuck in a drawer somewhere?

A. This was my second Lydia McKenzie book. The first was mostly backstory, but has a plot I might try to recycle someday!

Q. What made you decide to enter the St. Martin’s Press/Malice Domestic contest? Had you tried to sell the book before entering the contest?

A. I tried to get an agent for awhile, and was told by a couple of agents that there wasn't a market for my book. This probably means they didn't know where they could sell it, or thought it would be too hard to do so. So I took a chance after learning about the contest from Robin Hathaway, a winner from years ago, and entered the contest.

Q. What was it like to get the call from St. Martin’s telling you that you'd won? How long did you have to keep it a secret before you could tell people about it?

A. I knew I was a finalist, but I had pretty much convinced myself there was no way I'd win. I saw I had a voice mail on my phone, and I was quite shocked to hear Ruth Cavin asking me to call her. Instead of calling her right back, I went over to the sink and started washing dishes. I think I was in shock. Then I told myself to snap out of it--she wouldn't be calling with bad news--and called her back. I kept winning a secret from almost everyone for awhile (except from family). But then I started letting it leak to friends. I had to spill it to the Guppies (an online SinC chapter of unpublished writers) because it would have been like keeping something amazing from your biggest support group. The Guppies all knew I was a finalist, and they were good about keeping it quiet. I think I was supposed to keep it quiet up until Malice Domestic, but Sarah Weinman got to blow my cover on her blog after we met at the Edgars right before Malice.

Q. You've had to wait quite a while between winning the contest and seeing the book published. Have you filled that time with writing the second book? Has it been difficult to concentrate on writing while you've been in the limbo between selling and publishing?

A. Looking back, having almost two years between winning and getting published has turned out to be really great. I've had a chance to network and meet so many people in the mystery community. I've also been able to learn from the experiences of friends, and get lots of advice on touring and marketing. I've also written another Lydia McKenzie book which is almost done. But it is challenging to switch between marketing and writing all the time, and it's sometimes hard to figure out what the priority should be.

Q. Have you learned anything about the publishing business that has surprised you, or has it all been just as you expected?

A. I didn't know what to expect, so it's all been very eye-opening. I've been most surprised by how long everything seems to take. There's a procedure for proofreading, putting out catalogs, etc., that the companies have been following for years, and every step seemed to take months and months.

Q. Do you work with a critique group or individual friends who give you feedback on your manuscripts, or do you go it alone?

A. I have a wonderful critique group I meet with every two weeks (when we can manage it), and who both reads my book as I write it and reads the final draft. I also have a few readers that help me out by reading the final draft cold and telling me if I've made any glaring errors.

Q. What is your writing routine? How do you fit it in when you’re also working at a job outside the home?

A. I freelance, so every day is different. It also depends on where I am in the writing process. I write best in the morning, and I've been experimenting with getting up very early (before my husband and son) and writing. All the marketing has sort of taken over the rest of the day.

Q. Do you outline before you write? If so, do you follow the outline faithfully, or do your characters do things you didn't expect and change the direction of the story?

A. I start with notes on the computer that morph into a rough outline. I divide the outline into chapters, still keeping it rough, and try to get most of the way through the book. Then I use that document to begin writing the book. I find it very helpful to have some place to go because I pick up and put down the book a lot on my way to finishing a draft. Within that structure, my characters end up going different directions, new ideas occur to me and I jot them down, and the plot takes new twists and turns. I have even tossed out two thirds of a book after a rough draft and rewritten it, so the outline is never set in stone. But I don't consider any of the steps wasted--they're just necessary to the finished book.

Q. What do you believe are your greatest strengths as a writer? What aspects of craft are you still trying to master?

A. I think I'm pretty good at character, plot and dialogue--probably from my screenwriting background. But I often forget to describe everything. It's in my head, but screenwriting teaches you to write very sparsely, so I try not to waste any words. Often a few things get left out until the final draft, or when one of my readers comments that they'd like "more".

Q. Do you ever have writer’s block? How do you get through it?

A. There's usually a specific problem that's keeping me from writing (whether it's a plot, work or family issue). But occasionally I just get burned out and need to sit around reading something that someone else has written for a few days. I used to panic when this happened, but then I realized that everyone needs to take a break every once in awhile. I'm also a big believer in deadlines. If someone else doesn't give me one, I make one up for myself.

Q. What writers have inspired you and taught you by example? Whose books are must-reads for you?

A. I really like Ruth Rendell's complex character portraits, and I think Agatha Christie is a terrific plotter. But I think I've been most inspired by the hard working mystery writers I've met personally who have been so generous with their time and advice --like Julia Spencer- Fleming, Donna Andrews, Elizabeth Zelvin, Rosemary Harris, Jane Cleland, Cynthia Baxter and Chris Grabenstein, to name just a few. Reading their work and seeing how they manage their careers has been very inspiring.

Q. Have you found writers' groups such as Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America helpful? In what ways?

A. I can't praise SinC and MWA enough. I found my writer's group, the Guppies, and got information about the Malice Domestic contest through SinC. MWA put me on three author panels last spring before my book even came out, and I'm now planning to do joint events with authors I met at the meetings. I have really met wonderful people through both organizations. They're terrific for networking, but also for finding out about opportunities. They've both been invaluable.

Q. What’s in the future for you? Will you continue writing this series indefinitely, or would you like to try different things?

A. I have a second Lydia McKenzie book written, and at least one idea for a third. But I also have a great idea for a thriller. I would like to continue the series and do other books. Hopefully I'll learn to write faster!

Q. In parting, do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

A. If you enjoy writing, then keep doing it. Don't let anyone tell you that it's impossible, but do realize it's hard work. And you have to be realistic about the business. Very few writers become rich, and not too many more can make a living at it.

For more information, visit www.culturecurrent.com/cole/.

Dial M for Motivation

Sharon Wildwind

How’s it going with those New Year’s resolutions?

Mine are going just fine, thanks for asking. They’re going fine because I didn’t make any. My husband and I decided a long time ago that instead of pegging resolutions to one day a year, we’d let them come along naturally. If I suddenly realized, in the middle of a bath on the evening of June 12th that my life needed to go in a different direction, well, why not?

If I did have a resolution right now, it would be to end daylight savings time. Of course, that would be a rant, not a resolution. So, here goes the rant:

The original purpose of DST (during both World Wars) was to save electricity. Here are some characteristics of the U.S. society that existed at those times, (more during World War I, than World War II), and made the savings from daylight savings time feasible.

~ society was primarily rural. It was the setting and rising of the sun that determined when a work day began or ended.

~ there were very few uses for electricity other than to provide lighting, telephone service, radio, limited electric trolley service, and run industrial machines.

~Telephone service was self-limiting. No one would even think of making a call between the hours of nine PM and nine AM, except in emergencies.

~Ditto, radio. Other than the clear channel stations with a huge output, radio signed off the air immediately after the ten o’clock news.

~Except when they were on a war footing, factories did not run three shifts a day. The majority of workers went to work between the hours of five and eight AM (Monday to Saturday) and they came home between three and six PM (Monday to Friday) and usually around noon on Saturday. Businesses were closed on Sunday. Really closed. All of them, except for farmers, fire fighters, police, and hospital workers, who were considered a little odd.

Times have changed. It’s six-thirty on a Monday evening. In my office alone I have a potential to be using six desk lamps and an overhead light; a computer, printer, and assorted peripherals; a telephone and answering machine; an iron and sewing machine; and a CD-player. I can hear the dishwasher running in the apartment below us, and since the temperature is hovering at minus twenty, our electric baseboard heating is going full throttle. Consuming electricity to run these things won’t matter one whit if it is 6:30 God’s Time or 6:30 Mountain DST, other than maybe I’ll use fewer of the lights if it’s still daylight outside. However, since my office tends to be darkish, and always in need of additional illumination, maybe not.

We are a 24/7 world and we are paying huge penalties for springing forward and falling back.

This time last year a University of California-Santa Barbara economics professor did a study that showed the switch to and from daylight savings time cost residential electricity users in Indiana $8.6 million dollars extra each year. One survey, one state, and focused only on costs to residential users.

Here are a few other stats that have shown up in recent studies:
~the rate of heart attacks soars in the two weeks after we go to DST and decreases in the two weeks after we come off of it.
~the switch may be making significant contributions to our chronic sleep deprivation epidemic.
~the rate for traffic accidents goes up 8.6% on the Monday after going to DST.
~the rate for pedestrian deaths in the few days after the switch goes up 186%.

Which brings me to what motivates people to change. I read a nursing article last week that I still haven’t resolved itself in my head. The topic was what motivates people to change their health behaviors.

In health care, we have been conditioned to emphasize positive, non-judgmental messages: You can do this. You are a strong person. You have the ability to work through this. You’re a good problem-solver. You are doing something good for yourself. And so on.

As writers, we follow the same idea. It makes sense that we will keep more friends by saying, “You’re on the right track here, it just needs work,” than by saying, “This is the worst chapter I’ve ever read, and you don’t have a hope in heck of making it as a writer.”

Except, maybe we have been wrong all along.

The article I read said was that it is negative messages that—at least in the short run—motivate people more strongly. The test group, all of whom needed to change a health habit, was divided into three sub-groups. All groups received their usual care from their primary health provider. Group One (the control group) received only that. Group Two was given a pamphlet written in very positive language: You can do this, you’re a strong person, etc. Group Three was given the same information, but written in negative language: You’re failing to make this change; if you don’t change you are likely to become very ill and maybe even die.

Guess what? Four months later, more people in Group Three had moved toward change than had the people in Groups One and Two.

But I think just in case this was a fluke, I’m going to go on giving positive messages. Except, perhaps about daylight savings time.

------
Writing quote for the week:

Priorities are not written in granite. They need to be flexible and change as we do. I find it helpful to think of priorities as the wooden frame upon which we stretch the canvas of our days so that we may apply color and form to the work of art we are creating without the entire painting collapsing in the middle.
~Sarah Ban Breathnach, author

The Mystery of Extinction

by Julia Buckley

According to this link, there are many things about to become extinct in our country; on the list are (in reverse order from the original post):
1. Pit toilets
2. Yellow Pages
3. Classified Ads
4. Movie Rental Stores
5. Dial-Up Internet
6. Phone Landlines
7. Chesapeake Bay Blue Crabs
8. VCRs
9. Ash Trees
10. Ham Rado
11. The Swimming Hole
12. Answering Machines
13. Film Cameras
14. Incandescent Bulbs
15. Stand-alone bowling alleys
16. The Milkman
17. Hand-written letters
18. Wild Horses
19. Personal Checks
20. Drive-in Theatres
21. Mumps and Measles
22. Honey Bees
23. News Magazines and TV News
24. Analog TV
25. The Family Farm

I understand the logic that suggests why all of these are fading, some of them rapidly (where art thou, honey bees?), but I am troubled by the notion of extinction itself.

The thought of extinction makes us sad (at least it makes me sad), and yet extinction is a fact of life. According to this website, "Since the year 1600, a total of 83 mammals species (2.1%) and 113 birds (1.3%) are known to have become extinct. This number is expected to rise . . . " In the case of animals, I always feel badly to think that something--let's say the polar bear--will become extinct, but I feel entirely helpless about preventing it. Perhaps too many of us feel that something's extinction is a foregone conclusion, that it is a part of the ebb and flow of existence.

In the case of technological extinction, I also feel sad to think of something's loss--hand-written letters, oh my!! But ask me if I write hand-written letters and I will blush with shame. I am dependent upon my keyboard and the speed with which I can write upon it. When I occasionally jot notes to my mom and dad I am appalled by the slowness of the process--the seemingly endless motions of making characters by hand. I should be reveling in the nostalgia of it, since it is suggested that by the time my children are adults no one will be writing this way at all . . . and oh, how sad to think of all that beautiful stationary that I once bought . . .

The picture above is a small selection of letters I saved over the years, ever since I was a child. Although I love e-mail and suffer from a slight addiction to it, I find nothing special about saving e-mails. I don't have a bag of neat e-mails that I'll look at in 20 years, but these letters--what a lovely physical memory of things people wrote to me once, of a certain moment in time when they felt a certain way and made certain plans that are now long-lost to their memories.

But were they meant to be saved? Is it natural to look at things on the verge of extinction and wish them a fond farewell, or is it incumbent upon us to try to preserve what we feel to be good and worthwhile?

This is my philosophical question to you today.

Naming "Baby Book Harris"

by Rosemary Harris, guest blogger

When Pushing Up Daisies was released last year I found myself fielding lots of questions and comments about a certain television show with a similarly catchy title. Frighteningly enough, an early version of my book cover even looked a bit like the show’s ads which haunted me at every bus stop in New York City.

I think I was gracious about it. My favorite “no, that’s not me” experience was with a gentleman at a library talk in Connecticut who refused to believe I was not connected with the program. After five full minutes of denying that I had a Hollywood deal, I simply thanked him and agreed that, yes, my mother was very proud of me.

There’s also a story behind the title of my second book, The Big Dirt Nap, which hits stores this week. (I love saying and writing that – hits stores – as if they’re being flung out of moving vehicles and miraculously land on bookshelves in stores.) There was some drama concerning the title. The working title was Corpse Flower, which everyone agreed didn’t exactly roll off the tongue. I hadn’t said it out loud much (just typed it) and when I did, for some reason, I was reminded of Henry Fonda in On Golden Pond saying “Ethel Thayer” over and over again. It had to go.

Much to the dismay of my editor, I rejected most other botanical titles as either too cutesy, too obvious or too excruciatingly nonsensical, e.g. Stalking the Corpse Flower – but it was getting late in the day. I remembered working with a man who told me that the name on his birth certificate was Baby Boy Johnson, because his mother couldn’t decide what to name him. (It’s still his nickname and far more colorful than the name she eventually gave him.) I started to think of my book as Baby Book Harris.

Weeks passed. The natives were getting restless. I finally came up with Dirt Nap. Some people loved it; others went “hunh?” Some thought it was too angry, too edgy, too obscure. (I’m eternally grateful to Julia Spencer-Fleming for being one of those who got the joke.) Still, people in-house were not 100% convinced.

Enter Hector DeJean, publicist extraordinaire, film buff, and quite coincidentally having the same name as the ambitious hotel bouncer/security guard in my book, who saved the day by saying five words. (Hector’s a man of few words.) “How about adding The Big?”

Eureka! The Big Dirt Nap. It knocked off some of the hard edges without making it totally wussy, and quietly paid homage to Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep -- always nice to acknowledge the masters. I liked it. Sales and marketing liked it. For all I know, people in the mailroom were polled too. And on February 17, I hope that you like it.

Rosemary Harris is the author of the Dirty Business Mystery series. The first title, Pushing Up Daisies, was a Mystery Guild Selection and was named to Library Journal's Best First Fiction List for 2008. Please visit www.rosemaryharris.com for more information.

Interview with author Sylvia Dickey Smith

By Lonnie Cruse

Today I'm interviewing author Sylvia Dickey Smith. I met Sylvia through my critique group (where it's gals against the guys and the gals generally win.) Thanks for joining us, Sylvia!

PDD: Tell us about Sylvia Dickey Smith. Where is she from, where is she headed, and what is she doing in between?

SDS: I was born and reared in Orange, Texas, a small town on the Texas/Louisiana border. As G. Howard, says, Orange has its own gravity. You get out early or you don’t get out at all. I was one of those who left early—right after high school. At times I’ve been glad I left, and at other times, wished I could move back. Where am I headed? New York Best seller list I hope! In between, I work at improving my writing, my marketing and my book promotion.

PDD: Tell us a bit about your Sidra Smart series.

SDS: Ah, Sidra. Sidra is one of those post menopausal women ready to take on the world. She’s left a world where she felt caught in a vise and has ventured out into a world so foreign to her some days her head reels. Her new world couldn’t be more different than the one she left. Her ex-husband is a preacher who controlled who she was, what she said and did, and what she thought. Soon after her divorce, her brother dies and leaves her his detective agency in small town Texas. Now she’s on a roll trying to figure out who she is, what she stands for, what she doesn’t stand for, and what she absolutely won’t stand for.

PDD: What prompted you to write this series?

SDS: Life—my own, and that of other women caught in similar circumstances. I write to entertain, but my writing also gives voice to important social issues. These issues may be subtly woven in the stories, but they are there. I encourage readers to look for them. DANCE ON HIS GRAVE, book one, was inspired by a true story. DEADLY SINS DEADLY SECRETS deals with people’s prejudices and the blind eye we can turn on injustice and abuse. The newest book, DEAD WRECKONING, is due out April 1, 2008. I’ll let you figure out the social issues in that one.

PDD: You are also working on a contemporary romance. How difficult or easy is it for you to switch from one genre to the other? What draws you to each?

SDS: I shelved the romance for now. I realized I wasn’t having nearly as much fun writing it as I was the mysteries. But I must take opportunity and tell you about the historical mystery I’m working on that’s lots of fun. The book takes place during WWII, and again is set in my hometown. The title is A WAR OF HER OWN.

Before December 1941, the sawmill and farming town of Orange, Texas was full of grand homes, its streets lined with virgin pine, ancient oaks draped with Spanish moss, and bayous full of cypress and water tupelo trees. If someone even said damn, folks fell out in horror. Codes of conduct were exacting, at least in public.

Then, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, propelling the whole country into what became the Second World War. Along with it, Orange shipbuilders gained contracts with the Secretary of War to build Dreadnaughts, destroyers, and destroyer escorts. All hell broke loose. By 1944, the population of Orange had exploded to well over 70,000 people, and with this explosion, a war effort to end all war efforts. Yet one woman fought another war, and the unnamed enemy resided within her.

This work is such fun for me, and as you might expect, is loosely based on family members who lived there during that time period. I hope to have it finished and be ready to query within the next few months.

PDD: Among the topics you present to groups is Mystery Writing and Self Discovery. What did you discover about yourself when writing your mysteries?

SDS: Oh boy. Well, I think the most important thing I learned was that I had a voice. All my life, I forced that voice to lie dormant, fearful to use it, to speak out, to take a risk. Writing helped me tap into it and let the written word embrace it. I learned of my keen insight into people, and a strong intuition available to me. To put it simply, I learned to be authentically me.

PDD: What is a typical writing day like for Sylvia Dickey Smith?

SDS: (Laughter) There’s nothing typical about my day. There was at the beginning, but you know how life happens in the midst of our writing. Previously I spent almost all day at my computer, in my private office, starting early and ending at dinner time. Then, my mom grew ill and came to live with us, needing my time and attention. She passed last year. But did things settle back into the old routine? No way. We decided to downsize, which stole much of my writing time. We packed, we sold, we gave away, we trashed. Then the move happened and along with it the sense of having lost my writing space. Next, an 18-year-old grandson moved in with us. I had forgotten how much a teenager eats! Add to that, a further lack of writing space. But I’ve recently carved out a cubbyhole behind the laundry room and steal a few minutes there several times a day.

PDD: You belong to a monthly book club. Besides the fellowship and the food, what does the club do for you? And what can you do for the club?

SDS: It helps educate me on what people like to read and why. What they like about a book and what turns them off. I see the delight in their faces when they discuss one they love, and it inspires me to keep at it. What I do for them, I think, is to remove the halo many people like to put on an author. (Maybe some authors enjoy the halo. I am not one of them.) I share with them my struggles to make a work happen, the pitfalls inherent in the process, etc. What I love the most is when they review my books and want to talk about my characters!

PDD: Any tips for new writers to help them stay focused?

SDS: Dig in your heels and keep at it. When those voices in your head tell you that your writing stinks, stuff a rag in their mouth and keep going. Force yourself to sit in that chair and put words on the page. Find a way to get inside the scene, inside the character’s head. Feel what they feel and allow the dialogue to evolve from deep inside that character.

PDD: What is your best marketing tool? What sells books?

SDS: I love starting conversations with strangers. I enjoy that one-on-one contact, of being real with people, the kind of contact that binds us at a spiritual level. Perhaps that is what makes people interested in me and my characters. I hope so.

PDD: You work with a critique group. How does the group help your writing? How do you help theirs?

SDS: Wow. I couldn’t do it without them. For one thing, when you write, you know what you mean to say, so when you read it back, your brain reads what you meant to write—not what you wrote. They find where I’ve used the wrong word, made a grammatical error, ‘head-hopped,’ where I may step outside my point of view—all those things that an author can miss when we read our own work. Members are also good at pointing out a ‘darling’ that we need to kill--that beautiful prose that we fall in love with, but has nothing to do with the plot.
My desire is to offer the same back to them. I hope I do.

PDD: Anything else you'd like our readers to know about you or your writing?

SDS: I am in the process of creating a whole new website and hope folks will stop by to visit when it is up and running, probably around April 1st, when my third book, DEAD WRECKONING launches. The address is http://www.sylviadickeysmith.com/. There is a link on the site to my blog at http://sylviadickeysmith.blogspot.com/.
Just recently, my protagonist, Sidra Smart, got her own website where folks can ask her questions, make comments, read short stories about her and her brother Warren who left her the Third Eye Detective Agency. They will also soon learn about her new venture making Alligator Pickles! These pickles feature, of all things, a dancing alligator on the label and are pickles with a byte! She will offer these pickles for sale at some of her book launch parties and will give away her secret recipe in book four, due out next year. Oh yes, her blog address is http://sidrasmart.blogspot.com/. She told me to tell folks she hopes they’ll stop by and chat!



PDD: Alligator Pickles? Facinating. I'll have to look into that. Thank you for sharing with us today and best of good luck with the new book!

Dorothy L. Sayers, Men, and Lord Peter Wimsey

Elizabeth Zelvin

Over on the DorothyL e-list, they’ve been discussing Sayers’s Gaudy Night, in which Lord Peter Wimsey courts Harriet Vane amid the dreaming spires of Oxford, while she struggles with her ambivalent feelings not only about Lord Peter but also about love and work. Someone inevitably mentioned the widely held belief that Sayers herself fell in love with her protagonist, a charge often used to criticize the high ratio of romance to mystery in this book and its sequel, Busman's Honeymoon. If so, I’d argue that it doesn’t hurt the book. Besides, it’s understandable, given what we know of Sayers’s life, that she chose to create an ideal mate for an intelligent and independent woman.

Sayers’s husband was an unemployable invalid and an alcoholic whom she cared for and supported during their 25-year marriage. Co-founder of the Detection Club with G.K. Chesterton, she evidently ruled the group of Golden Age mystery writers with an iron hand. The juxtaposition of rescue and control in Sayers’s life makes perfect sense to me as an alcoholism treatment professional with 20 years of clinical experience and publication credits on the subject of the spouses and partners of alcoholics. Or I could explain it in terms of family systems dynamics. When one partner (in this case, Sayers’s husband) is increasingly dependent and incapable of responsibility, the other becomes overresponsible: a caretaker and enabler. Sayers put a lot of energy into propping her husband up, which could only have increased his dependence. At the same time, she developed her taste for being in control and exercised it in other areas of her life, like being bossy about the rules of writing detective fiction.

Sayers’s marriage was not her first bad relationship. She had an affair with a man who refused to marry her, claiming not to believe in marriage but later admitting he was “testing her,” like the lover Harriet Vane is accused of murdering in Strong Poison. She also had a child with a man who left her when he learned she was pregnant. Wish fulfillment through fiction is one of the rewards of writing fiction. I hope Sayers got some satisfaction out of killing off Philip Boyes—and skewering him again in Busman’s Honeymoon, when Lord Peter has the opportunity to observe that Harriet has not experienced sexual generosity before.

How can any reader resist a passage like this:
“He knew now that she could render back passion for passion with an eagerness beyond all expectation—and also with a kind of astonished gratitude that told him more than she knew....Peter, interpreting phenomena in the light of expert knowledge, found himself mentally applying to [Boyes] quite a number of epithets, among which ‘clumsy lout’ and ‘egotistical puppy’ were the kindest.”

Why do critics give Sayers such a hard time about making Lord Peter a human being of depth and complexity yet a little larger than life? She’s not the only writer to project a yearning for love—transference, to use a psychoanalytic term—onto a fictional character. If it’s done well enough, the character will become so vivid, memorable, and appealing that readers will do the same. For example, if Diana Gabaldon’s not in love with Jamie Fraser, I can’t imagine why so many readers are. Although her Outlander books aren’t mysteries, a remarkable number of subscribers to DorothyL admitted on the e-list that they’d be glad to go to bed with Jamie. I bet the sentiment is shared by many other readers of this wonderful series of historical time-travel romances. (I won’t say they transcend their genre, which is always an insult to genre fiction, but they are fine and satisfying novels.)

Would Sayers be as popular as she is today, fifty years after her death and seventy since she stopped writing mystery novels, if Lord Peter and Harriet were not in love and their love story so richly and passionately presented? I don’t think so. So stop picking at them, and leave them alone.

And Happy Valentine's Day!

Women in history, women in mystery

THE WINNERS OF THE FREE BOOKS are Carol, Julie, Nancy, Caryn, and Jane. Send your full names and addresses to me at sandraparshall@yahoo.com and I'll put your books in the mail!



Sandra Parshall

History books are filled with heroes -- the men who led nations, waged war, made most of the scientific and technological advances -- but heroines are scarce. Only a few women broke through the cultural barriers to become major figures. In recent decades, women’s studies have given us more insight into the lives of women of the past, but history is still largely about men, both the exceptional and the ordinary. Historical mysteries, though, offer us a legion of strong heroines who take control of their own lives, fight the social constraints of their time, and risk everything in a quest for justice.

Two of my favorite historical mystery heroines are written by Anne Perry. Hester Latterly is a nurse who worked with Florence Nightingale on the Crimean battlefield and returned to England filled with progressive ideas about patient care, only to run into the brick wall of ignorance erected by male doctors. In partnership with policeman turned private detective William Monk, Hester uses her stubbornness and intelligence to solve crimes. In Victorian England 35 years later, Perry’s heroine Charlotte Pitt goes about crime-solving in a very different way. Charlotte is from an upper class family but has done the unthinkable in marrying a common policeman, Thomas Pitt, and accepting a far lower social status. Charlotte is invaluable to Pitt when he’s investigating crime among the aristocracy, because she can move in and out of that circle with ease. Charlotte is always a lady. She almost always does what is considered socially acceptable. And she’s a heck of a good spy for the cops.

Perry’s deep characterizations and attention to detail set a high standard, but many other writers are creating their own memorable female sleuths in historical settings. I’ll mention just a few you might want to look for.

Rose Melikan began her mystery writing career with The Blackstone Key (Touchstone, 2008), set in 1795 England and featuring Mary Finch, a young woman longing for adventure and dreading a future of teaching at Mrs. Bunbury’s school for young ladies. Europe is at war, England is threatened with invasion, and Mary finds herself embroiled in a deadly plot involving smugglers, secret codes, spies and traitors. Melikan is an American, but since 1993 she has been a Fellow of St. Catherine’s College, Cambridge, focusing her academic research on British political history in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Her historical details are impeccable, and she has a style that beautifully presents the sensibilities of a lively young woman of the period. An interview with the author and a list of discussion questions at the back of the book will be useful to reader groups.


Victoria Thompson’s Gaslight Mysteries feature Sarah Brandt, who grew up in a wealthy home but now works as a midwife in the dreary tenements of 1890s New York. She witnesses poverty, crime, and violence, and together with Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy, she seeks justice for the less fortunate. In the latest book, Murder on Bank Street (Berkley Prime Crime, 2008), Malloy sets out to solve the murder of Sarah’s husband, Dr. Tom Brandt, four years in the past. What he discovers is devastating to Sarah and may destroy any
chance Malloy has for a future with her.



In the Ursula Marlow Mysteries, written by Clare Langley-Hawthorne, a headstrong (and beautiful, of course) young heiress in Edwardian England struggles to keep control of her father’s textile empire. This series has been compared favorably with Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs books. In the second installment, The Serpent and the Scorpion (Penguin, 2008), Ursula is off on a business trip to Egypt, where a new friend is murdered and the friend’s sister dies in a fire at one of Ursula’s factories. Back home in England, Ursula discovers possible links between a former suitor and the murdered women, at the same time she fends off Lord Wrotham’s marital overtures.


Emily Brightwell’s long series of Mrs. Jeffries mysteries should suit those who have read all the Miss Marple novels and long for more of the same. Mrs. Jeffries keeps house for Inspector Witherspoon – and serves as his secret weapon in crime detection. The latest, Mrs. Jeffries in the Nick of Time (Berkley Prime Crime, 2009), has the cunning housekeeper back in action, solving the baffling murder of a train enthusiast who died upstairs while a gaggle of friends and relatives sipped tea downstairs.

Suzanne Arruda, whom I interviewed here recently, places Jade del Cameron in a place and time where adventurous women probably had more freedom than anywhere else on earth: colonial Africa during the 1920s. Jade leads safaris, shoots, flies a plane, and solves murders. In the latest book, The Leopard’s Prey (Obsidian, 2009), Jade has to clear her lover’s name when he is suspected of murder.

Do you read historical mysteries? Which series is your favorite, and who is your favorite heroine?

Want to try one of the mysteries mentioned above? Leave a comment and tell me which book you’d most like to read – The Leopard’s Prey, The Blackstone Key, The Serpent and the Scorpion, Murder on Bank Street, or Mrs. Jeffries in the Nick of Time – and why. I’ll choose a winner for a free copy of each book. Check back tomorrow to find out if you won. Scroll down through Liz Zelvin’s Thursday blog (only after reading it, of course!) and you’ll find the names of the winners added at the top of my blog.

Five Minute Miracle

Sharon Wildwind
2008 August
I am not going to save this tiny cast-off leaf I found on the floor at work. It’s hardly bigger than the nail on my little finger. It would never survive.

2008 October
This year I am absolutely not going to bring anything in from the garden. Especially not that aloe vera plant. I mean that thing is so old that I’d need genealogy software to track how many generations of cuttings that thing is from the original plant. Besides, it already has a couple of frost-nipped spots. It would never recover.

2008 November
These seeds I saved from the marigolds heads would probably never sprout. Don’t they treat these things to be sterile, so you have to buy more seeds next year?

2009 January
Oh, look, this avocado seed has a split in it. Hmm, I can’t see even a hint of root down inside. Every time I plant an avocado seed, it never sprouts. Why bother?

2009 February
Shoot, I knew we should have eaten this sweet potato sooner. Look at all of those ugly white sprouts coming out of it. Looks like something from another planet. I wonder what would happen if I gave it a little sunlight?

One table-top garden made up of bits and pieces that I never thought would survive. But what the heck, dirt and water and sunshine are cheap, and you never know, do you? The rescued Snow White poinsettia in the middle may have been a mistake. It isn’t looking good, but you know, I swear there is one miniscule leaf bud down there close to the soil line. Why don’t we just give it a a few more days and see.

Last week, I came across a phrase that I’d learned once, but forgotten and I was glad to see it because it was something I needed to hear again: Don’t give up five minutes before the miracle. Whatever we’re hoping for next in our writing careers, whether it be an agent or a publisher or the breakout novel or maybe just that next paragraph, we must not give up. We are all growing our own table-top gardens.

Why wait for Saturday? Let’s spend this whole week celebrating love, hope, joy, and peace. Happy Valentine’s Day.

Bleachorexics and the Culture of Perfection

by Julia Buckley

There's a trend that began in Hollywood and which now extends far, far beyond it that has always really bothered me--the obsession with white, white teeth. (This is often accompanied by faux tans that look orange and unusual, but I'll save that for another post). The tooth phenomenon, I read on this ABC blog, has become such an obsession for some people that they are referred to as "bleachorexics" and they flirt with the danger of totally destroying their teeth.

What is it, then, that makes people so determined to look so unnatural? In some movies I am so distracted by an actor's weirdly glowing teeth that I can't even appreciate his or her performance. I just keep wondering, "Don't they know that their teeth look that way?" I wonder, too, if they think that white teeth somehow make them more authentic, because to me, even in these days of good dental hygiene and a healthy braces trade, "normal" teeth would be a bit crooked and not entirely white.

Skim through blogland and you'll find that folks in other countries find Americans strange--not just because we are, to them, weirdly friendly, but because we as a nation have some scary white teeth.

Now, some might think that my argument is nothing but sour grapes: not only did I never get braces as a kid (my parents couldn't afford them), but I have inherited a tooth enamel that could only, at its kindest, be called "ivory," and at its worst, "yellow." All of my siblings have this color teeth. What it creates, though, is a mouth full of dentiture that does NOT draw attention to itself. It goes with our skin. If I went to the dentist tomorrow and told him to make my teeth twenty shades whiter, I think it would disorient everyone I know. How could they not notice my suddenly powder-white chompers, my newly odd smile?

Beyond this, I wonder that no one objects to the fact that we are a culture trying to homogenize itself. How many starlets have given in to that horrible "get too thin" disease that has eaten away at the bodies and self-esteems of many good women before them? How many men feel they are not worthwhile, especially as a visual image, if they are not pumped up and muscular, then sprayed brown and bleached until their teeth can light a room? Doesn't this feel like a conveyor belt of falsity? Isn't it okay to just be yourself these days?

In any case, even if I fell victim to this public-scrutiny disease and found myself somehow lacking, I simply don't have the priorities to spend thousands on my teeth and skin. I have a ten-year-old car and kids who need college educations. I'm pretty sure I'll remain authentic until I die. :)

I had a friend who got her teeth whitened recently, for a wedding. She was convinced that she wouldn't look good in the wedding pictures unless her teeth were somehow better, whiter, cleaner looking. She went for the procedure in my town and then stopped to visit me for a while. Through our entire conversation she clasped her jaw and moaned in pain. "This will go away," she assured me. "It will be worth it. The pain only lasts a while."

Okay. I'll take her word for it, but I'm still not going to whiten my teeth.

What's your take on this phenomenon? Is it simply a social necessity? A way to make movie star dreams come true? Or a sign of our obsession with our own faces?

photo link here.

An Author's "Mews"

by Lorna Barrett (who also masquerades as L.L. Bartlett)

And the winner of a copy of Lorna's latest release, Bookmarked for Death, is Chris Redding. Chris, please contact me at darlene at darleneryan.com. Thanks to Lorna and cats for joining us this weekend.

Just about every author I know has at least one pet. Most have more than one. Some have more than one species, too. But the majority of us seem to have cats. Or rather, they have us.

I’m currently owned by four cats. Most of the day they lie around the house, snoozing their lives away. This time of year you can find them under incandescent light bulbs or lying with their snoots pointed into the heat run. I swear, sometimes I think they’re going to cook themselves, but cats love heat.

These days, Chester, our dominant cat, seems to be able to find the best source of heat and stick with it. If the sun happens to be out, he’ll follow it to every room in the house. More often than not, it’s just plain gloomy. (We live in Western New York. I think only Seattle has more gloomy days than us. That’s my story, and I’m sticking with it.) Chester’s not much of a lap cat during the summer, but come winter, he might deign to sit with me, but mostly he prefers hanging around with my husband. (It’s a guy kind of thing, I guess.)

Bonnie, terrified over just about everything (except at breakfast time, then she’ll challenge the boys to a fight--and then screams bloody murder if they take her up on it), lives on the heat run behind the couch. She comes out for meals, and likes to watch DVDs with me. (Last week we watched episodes of Star Trek Enterprise and the movie Iron Man. She prefers more quiet shows. And let’s face it, photon torpedoes are a lot more quiet than everything blowing up in a guy flick. After all, I don’t think sound travels through the vacuum of space. Am I right?)

Now Betsy, our little Princess, was very ill with cancer in 2007. She had an amazing recovery (sure shocked the heck out of our vet when we brought her in for her yearly shots this past September), although she’s a bit … crabbier … than she was before her illness. Still, she still likes to do her Betsy things -- hanging out under light bulbs (especially if you’re trying to read -- blocking light is No. 1 on her list of things to do) and moving around the house to check out all the heat runs. (Are you seeing a pattern here?)

Throwing a monkey wrench into the works is my tiny son, Fred. (Also known as my Little Prince.) Fred isn’t the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, but he’s super handsome and he knows it. He also knows that if he’s in trouble, all he has to do is lie down, roll over and look cute. (And darned if it doesn’t work every time.) Fred will sleep under a light bulb, but has never learned that heat runs got super warm. (See dim-bulb comment above.)

I’d like to say that the cats keep me company as I work on my books, but that would be a big fat lie. No, they’re in the next room with my husband (and that 200 watt incandescent bulb). Hubby also works from home, and did years before I did, so the cats have their routine and they’re not changing it just for me. It’s just as well. Sometimes they come in for a visit and like to sit on my arms as I type. This, of course, makes it very difficult to type accurately--which I have a hard enough time doing without their “help.”

I also have a comfy chair in my office, with a nice light. I like to sit there to edit. Unfortunately, the minute my butt hits the chair, some cat will wander in and demand to sit on my lap. Since I keep my drafts in a big three-ring notebook, there’s nowhere to put it if there’s a cat on my lap. So I have to sit, twisted like a cheese straw, and put the notebook on the chair’s arm. Then a cat will get annoyed, stand up, turn around at least three times, nudge the notebook until I move it to the other arm, and then sit down again. I’ll turn the page, make a note, and the process starts all over again.

Of course, cats have other habits. They’re very clean. With all that washing, they ingest a lot of hair. How often have I been working when I heard hubby’s voice call out, “Someone’s puking, someone’s puking.” Since I write mysteries, it’s up to me to play detective to find the culprit and remove the evidence. (Not one of the perks of working at home.)

But would I ever live without cats? Never.

By the way, my new book, Bookmarked for Death, features a cat. Her name is Miss Marple and she steals every scene she’s in. She’s based on my cat Cori, who lived to the ripe old age of 20.

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Lorna Barrett writes the Booktown Mystery series, featuring Tricia Miles and her Haven’t Got A Clue bookstore. It’s available now. Hop in the car and rush right to your local bookstore. Go on! Do it now!

The Great Ice Storm of '09 part two whereupon we enter the dark side

By Lonnie Cruse

Awhile back I heard a news report about a blizzard in Michigan (I think it was Michigan, because shamefully that's how much attention I paid at the time, and probably how much attention others paid as well) and several thousand people were without power. We've been without power for a few days before here in Southern Illinois, so it's not like I'm totally out of the loop on this, but I really didn't think that much about it. Not until a huge power outage hit us last week. I'm posting this because I wondered how many others have no real clue what the term "thousands are without power and authorities don't know how soon it will be restored" really means. Please take a peek with me at the dark side.

Ice forming on trees looks soooo pretty and so delicate and so, um, not dangerous, maybe? But the truth is, ice weighs the limbs and branches down on the trees, bending them until they break. Thanks to gravity, the damaged limbs and branches have nowhere to go but down, right on top of whatever is below, be it houses, cars, or people. And sometimes the weight and the damage brings down an entire tree, often huge trees that looked strong and healthy only hours before. Worse yet, some trees survive the initial damage only to come down during the next ice/rain/wind storm, catching home owners by surprise.

Below: metal table and chairs on the front porch. Not a place you'd want to sit now.




Yesterday we were over in Paducah for church (Sunday morning, Feb 1) and afterword we transferred food from our friends' freezer to ours. They are still on a generator and we (for now, because in this area you take nothing for granted) have power. The amount of limbs, branches, and whole trees down in Paducah is amazing. Lots of houses with holes in the roof.

Once we got our power back I heard on the news that the linemen in one nearby county have to replace several HUNDRED light poles before power can even be restored in that area. And that number is FAR higher than they generally replace in an entire year. Ice not only brings down trees, it splits those huge poles and brings them down. Graves County in Western Kentucky may be without power for thirty days or more. The power company there experienced some major kind of problem that will not be easily fixed. Doesn't really bear thinking about. I was going nuts after only three days without power.

The trees in this area look more like they did when we had a killer tornado a few years ago. Nearly every single tree has no top, just raw branches looking like the tops were snapped off by a passing giant. And the branches torn completely off the trees litter the ground so thoroughly that you can't see what is underneath them in some places. Clean up is dangerous. A friend of ours was helping his son rescue his car when he was hit by a falling branch. He had to have several stitches. Wires are down everywhere, making it dangerous as well as difficult to check your property. Insurance companies are listing their phone numbers on television and radio so customers can register claims and get a processing number. Probably gonna be a long wait.

Below: damaged trees and limbs in our back yard near the creek.

Western Kentucky was quickly declared a disaster area by their governor and FEMA is helping them. Police and other authorities canvased door to door, checking on residents. Meanwhile, our governor's impeachment trial by the Illinois state senate began just before the storm hit, but poor Blago was too busy traveling the television talk show circuit to attend his own trial OR to notice what was going on in the southern-most tip of his state. He keeps saying he just wants to do the job the voters of Illinois hired him to do, but I'm not really certain he's ever figured out just what that job is. Anyhow, after a fifty to nothing vote to oust him, the locks at the Governor's office were changed and the lieutenant governor was sworn in around the time we lost power, but we're not sure if even the new governor knows how bad things are down here to date either. Nothing has been said on the news . . . when we get news.

Last week I enthusiastically and somewhat prematurely posted here that we still had power after the initial storm ended. Sigh. Before the power actually went off we kept hearing a loud buzzing sound outside our house. I was chatting with a friend on the phone when Hubby shouted that there was a huge fire across the road from us.

Back to last Tuesday afternoon: We live about three miles outside of Metropolis on a couple of acres that used to be a corn field. There is no house across the street from us, only an open field where flames from a downed power line were shooting several feet into the air along with a large cloud of smoke. And the scary buzzing sound. I called 9-1-1 and the operator told me it was indeed a downed power line and the fire department was on the way. Ditto the power company, but they were much later getting here, being kept busy with other downed lines. The ice storm was already doing its worst. I'm surprised the downed line didn't take out our power as it was hanging from the pole in front of our house, but it wasn't until the power company arrived that we lost power. And it stayed off.

Below: note the electric pole middle right of the picture. A line came down from there, landed across the road in the field, and the fire was just to the left of the pole and was big enough to be seen over that hill.

It was just growing dark when the power went out so I lit three oil lamps and about a dozen candles. Sounds like a lot, but trust me, it wasn't nearly enough light to read by. Or do much else by. Hubby and I listened to an audio book using my iPod and a battery operated speaker system. It was a Naigo Marsh mystery, A Man Lay Dead. And I read What Are You Wearing to Die by Patricia Sprinkle, with me still hovering over the candles. We have gas logs fueled by a propane tank, so the living room was comfy to live/sleep in. At least in the beginning.

Trust me, besides the sound of someone breaking into your house, I doubt there is anything so scary in the middle of the night as the sound of falling branches and tree tops. Since our lot was cleared decades ago for the corn crops, there are no trees close to the house, but they line the creek a few yards from the house. I knew the house was safe, but what about the garage (where Hubby is restoring a '57 Chevy) or the storage shed? What about the neighbors and their children? Was everyone safe? Their houses undamaged? What would the morning bring?

Below: note how low the electrical line going from our house to the neighbor behind us is. And all the ice on it.

Wednesday: The neighbors up the hill came down here early that morning to share our heat because their twin babies are too small to stay in an all electric house without heat. No damage to their house, but tons of limbs in their yard and ours. When we heard rumours that we might not have power for a week, they decided to pack up and brave the icy roads to head an hour away to Grandma's, who did have power. Thankfully, they arrived safely. By now, no stores were open in Metropolis, or in the larger city of Paducah, KY, across the river. And if you've watched the news lately, likely you saw pictures of the terrible damage over there. No stores and no gas stations open meant that we all had to survive with whatever we had on hand when it started. A few places opened on Thursday, but the few brave who ventured out could only buy $25 worth of groceries using cash and could only take $100 out of the bank. Gas stations were still closed. EVERYTHING in the area was at a standstill. Yes, most of us stocked up when the storm warnings came, but supplies dwindled quickly.

At lunch time Wednesday Hubby decided to roast hot dogs on the gas logs in our fireplace. I wasn't concerned since he used to be an expert at roasting them on a gas stove. Unfortunately we no longer have a gas stove, opting for electric when we bought this place. (And yeah, what WAS I thinking? With a gas stove, gas furnace or logs, and gas water heater, one can survive a VERY long time during a power outage. Sigh.) Anyhow, he was using one of my better oven mitts to keep from burning his fingers, even with a long fork, and he set the mitt on fire. He poured water on it, then ate his dogs and went onto the next task. I kept smelling smoke and checked the kitchen. The mitt was smouldering on the table I use for a kitchen island. I used more of our precious stash of water to put the fire out and tossed the damaged mitt out into the back yard. And threatened him with physical violence if he used any more of my good mitts.

You might remember I mentioned in preparing for the storm I'd filled both tubs with water because we are on a well with an electric pump and I wanted to have water to wash our hands with or flush the potty with IF the power went out. Well prepared, right? One tub leaked out around the stopper, so we were down to one. Urrrrr. Where was I?

Hubby kept me sane (and probably from killing him) by using an old pan on the gas logs to heat water for hot chocolate and my daily cup of tea. Meanwhile branches were still coming down and I couldn't see my favorite old glider out in the back yard. I worried that it had been badly damaged.

Along about now the neighbor on the other side of us headed to Grandma's as well, leaving us alone for quite a distance on this road. And the prison escapees I mentioned in an earlier post were still at large. I slept on the couch with one eye open. Hubby sleeps like the dead. He fed the birds each day, knowing they couldn't peck far enough through an inch of ice and two or more inches of snow to eat. At least until we ran out of bird seed, and then he used the bread I had in the freezer that soon thawed. We had enough bread to feed a small army. Of birds, anyhow.

Below: Hubby feeding the birds at the backyard feeder.

Thursday: Don wanted to brave the icy roads and bring home hot food. Cold cereal was wearing a bit thin and he was out of hot dogs and oven mitts to burn. Unfortunately for him, all the restaurants within driving distance were still closed. I, on the other hand, learned how to toast bread by holding it over the gas logs with my bare fingers, mind you. Best toast I ever ate. More food was thawing in the freezer so we put some on the sun porch by the window to keep it cold. Worked pretty well. Many of our friends had moved to higher ground, meaning Marion, IL, an hour away where the storm missed. Motels were full. Generators sold out, more were shipped in, and I vowed to buy one this spring or summer when prices come down out of the sky. Gas sold out at most stations, shortly after they were able to open. Trapped in a house with no electricity was becoming less and less fun.

Friday morning: Somewhere in the middle of the night our propane tank ran dry and the temp outside was in the teens. We could no longer stay here. We bundled up to finish out the night, and packed up that morning, heading to our friends' house around the corner. They have a large house and a large generator. We were invited before, but they have a large family as well and we didn't want to impose. At this point we were fully disposed to impose.

We had warm food at long last and other people to talk to besides each other. I stopped having visions of Donner Pass and the cannibalism of my nearest and dearest and concentrated on beating one of their granddaughters in a hot card game. Hubby cleaned out our freezers and brought along what he thought was all of our meat to cook at their house. (He missed a pound of burger and some frozen fruit which I later had to discard.) A master griller, he fired up their grill and proceeded to feed a dozen or more of us steaks, ribs, and chops. He's by now the most popular man in the neighborhood. I'm staying there with him, so I'm allowed to join in the feast.

One of the married daughters in this family was determined we were going to have Monkey Bread (cut up canned biscuits, covered in butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon and baked in a Bundt pan, for the unfortunate of you who never had this treat) but the dad of the house insisted the generator could NOT carry the electrical load of the oven. It would shut the generator off. The rest of us were determined to back her against him, so after dinner, we shut down everything in the house except the oven, sat with one small light on in the kitchen and sang hymns while the Monkey Bread baked. Best Monkey Bread I've ever had.

After the "party" broke up half the family hustled back to another of the hosts' daughter's house, next door, and the rest of us dived for our respective beds and called it a day. Just before we retired, we heard the good news, the lights were back on in the entire neighborhood! We elected to stay overnight anyhow as Hubby had turned off our power at the box so we (hopefully) wouldn't be hit with a power surge when the power company re-connected us. It's a rarity, BUT last year two neighbors suffered house fires when a downed power line was incorrectly re-connected after a storm. No one was home, but the damage was extensive and they are still recovering from it. Hubby wanted to turn our power on in daylight when he could see what he was doing. I agreed. Any bed in a storm, so long as it's warm.

Saturday morning: Our friends feed us a large breakfast and send us on our way home. At last, all good things are possible. Hot baths, flushing the toilet without having to dip several pitchers of water first, television news. Yea! My first task is to clean out one refrigerator and two freezers. I promise you I now have the cleanest fridge in two states. Maybe three.

So many things impressed me about this disaster and how people reacted. Many families and friends took others in, sheltering those who had no heat and no generators. Few without heat were able to stay home. Many churches and community centers opened what they called "warming shelters" giving folks with no heat and no way to feed themselves a warm place to stay and served them hot meals.

One of our sons took his family to his wife's mom's house. Our other son and his wife have a small generator and were able to stay home, but he did make use of our washer/dryer last night for laundry and our television for the Super Bowl. He received word that his power was back on during the game.

A police officer friend is staying with us now that we have power and he still doesn't, sleeping during the day, and patrolling on twelve hours shifts at night until things settle down in his area and he has electricity at home. Our youngest son called from California, not to commiserate with us mind you, but to proclaim thankfulness that he no longer lives here but resides in sunny California. Sigh. We really should've adopted him out when he was younger and cuter.

On the down side, many locals bought generators in order to be able to stay home, only to have them stolen in the middle of the night. And at least twenty people died due to improper use of generators. (Kept them inside instead of outside and they put out poisonous fumes.) And some who bought generators for this emergency are now selling them at a discount. Hello out there! Tornado season is about a month away! Power will be out again. Generators will be humming again.

Things I managed to enjoy during the power outage:

Hearing that family and friends were okay.
The white beauty, the sparkling trees (before they fell.)
The absolute quiet when absolutely NOTHING in a house is operating (furnace, TV, appliances, etc.)
The antics of the birds on the front porch.
Cross-stitching or reading without the guilt of "I should really be doing ___ (fill in the blank.)
Not having to be anywhere because absolutely nothing was open even if I could have gotten there. And, boy howdy, does a "To DO" list shrink at a time like this.
Staying warm in sweats despite no electricity.
Battery operated games and radios and speakers for iPods.
Non-cordless phones that kept us in touch with the world when cordless phones wouldn't work. And being with a cell phone company whose product continued to work when another well-known company's phones wouldn't.
And most of all, the neighborhood kids coming to slide down our hill during the outage.

Below: the intrepid sledders.

Things I missed or outright hated:

No local news or national news. What were the rest of you doing without us? Sniff.
Little or no warm food. The best of cold cereals grows wearisome somewhere around day three.
Lost or severely damaged trees.
Batteries that ran down. And the propane tank running dry. Sigh. NO way to re-charge or re-fuel.
Not knowing where the escapees were. We are a bit removed from our nearest neighbors. Screaming wouldn't help much. Shooting might.
The sound of a live wire buzzing and the sight of flames and smoke.

That's how we survived the first (and dare we hope the last?) great storm of '09. Many are still without power, cut off and struggling to get by, or forced to leave home. I ache for them. After church yesterday one family went to gather water in five gallon buckets from someone else lucky enough to have access to power and water.

Yes, our ancestors, some not all that far removed from our generation, often lived their lives without all the luxeries we take for granted like electricty and running water. Hubby grew up in a home without electricty until he was a teenager, (which meant no running water as well) and my family lived in the hot Nevada desert without air conditioning, only a swamp cooler which really didn't do the job, until I was a teen. It's amazing how much for granted we take these simple things . . . until we don't have them.

Meanwhile, my survival list is growing. Refuel the propane tank. Get more batteries in all sizes. Get a small camping stove to heat tea water and roast hot dogs in safety (yes, I know it has to be used outside or in a WELL ventalated area.) Get a new plug for the guest bathroom tub. Stock plenty of bird seed. Save for a generator. Pray for good weather. Try not to hate anyone smart enough to own a gas stove, a gas hot water heater, and/or has access to natural gas, which doesn't run out. You might want to update your survival list too. Just in case.

Against the Grain: Unlearning What We Know About Relationships

Elizabeth Zelvin

A few days from now, I’ll be giving a talk at the Mid-Manhattan Library in New York City on how to have a good relationship. Since not many readers of Poe’s Deadly Daughters are likely to get there, I’d like to offer a foretaste of the topic. I chose it as a way to mark the transition from my current mystery, Death Will Get You Sober, to its sequel, Death Will Help You Leave Him, which will come out in October. The new book deals with destructive and addictive relationships, so it seemed to fit. It’s also in honor of Valentine’s Day, which represents the desire of most folks to be part of a couple and their utter cluelessness about how to make it work.

It’s not our fault. We are bombarded with messages from the popular culture that mislead us about the nature of love, how to attain it, and how to make it last. Falling in love, from a psychological standpoint, is a perfectly good description of short-term bonding. Unfortunately, a fifty-year marriage—in the vernacular, happily ever after—is not a short-term bond. Songs tell us that some enchanted evening we will meet a stranger, dance a little, send a valentine, and get along perfectly for the rest of our lives without ever having to say we’re sorry.

Alas, that’s not the way it works. Let me offer several different perspectives on relationships and how they go wrong, from popularizers who have written best-selling books on the topic, all based on sound psychology.

Harville Hendrix, the author of Getting the Love You Want, developed something called Imago relationship theory to explain that mysterious process of attraction that is often called “chemistry.” He gave the name Imago to the unconscious image of our ideal mate that we carry around within us, a combination of both the positive and the negative traits of both parents plus all the potential traits within ourselves that we disown or deny exist. Imagine the permutations. He says this unconscious lottery explains why as romantic love fades, couples start to push each other’s buttons and stir up childhood wounds. Of the ensuing power struggle, he says, “In despair, people begin to use negative tactics to force their partners to be more loving....What makes people believe that hurting their partners will make them behave more pleasantly?” Good question.

John Gray, the author of Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, took a view of male-female relations that makes sense in the light of both traditional psychodynamics and the relational model developed by feminist psychologists. Men really are different from women. Men cope by pulling away and working things out. Women cope by talking things out and connecting. Men show love by not worrying (assuming women’s competence). Women show love by worrying (maintaining the connection). Gray says that women’s most frequent complaint is that men never listen; men’s, that women are always wanting to change them. Ring a bell?

John Gottman, the author of The Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work, looked at conflicts, which he divided into solvable conflicts, which can be negotiated if the couple can learn not to sabotage the process, and perpetual conflicts, which there’s no point trying to solve. My favorite concept from Gottman’s work is one he cites as one of the best predictors of divorce: failed repair attempts. Have you ever had a bitter argument with your partner that ended when one of you said something funny and you both dissolved in laughter? Do you and your partner take turns being the one to climb down first and admit you’re wrong, or at least extend an olive branch? Can you and your partner accept a reasonable apology, let go of your self-righteous anger, and stop sulking? If so, you have a valuable skill: you can repair a relationship that’s been damaged by a quarrel.

So how do you go about building a better relationship? Look for Part II after Valentine’s Day.

And the winner is...

Sandra Parshall

Meryl Streep said recently that “there’s no such thing as the ‘best’ actress” and that “everybody wins” in a year when many great movies provide showcases for talent. Of course, she said this while accepting a best actress award from the Screen Actors Guild, but there is some truth and good sense in the statement. It’s wishful thinking, though, to imagine that creative people can rise above the competitive streak that is an inborn aspect of human nature.

Writers aren’t exempt from the craving to outshine one another. Maybe we’re not as cutthroat about it as movie and TV people, but would most of us trample the bodies of our beloved grandmothers to get to an Edgar Award? You bet. If you win a single award of any kind, you will be labeled forevermore an “award-winning author” – regardless of whether you continue to turn out good books or never produce another that’s halfway readable.

I’m thinking about all this because it’s that time of year again, when Malice Domestic registrants are filling out their Agatha Award nomination ballots and everybody’s looking at the just-released list of Edgar nominees and saying, “Huh?”

The campaigning for an Agatha nomination usually takes the form of e-mails and mystery e-list posts “reminding” everyone that a writer’s book is eligible for a nomination. When the reminder is coming from a personal friend, it’s hard not to feel pressured. Sometimes I think writers expect a nomination simply because they’re friendly with a lot of the people who will do the nominating. But what if you don’t think your friend’s book is one of the five best of the entire year? You don’t have to say so, of course, and no one will see your ballot except the person who counts it. The whole situation is uncomfortable, though -- and unnecessary. If I think a book is terrific, I’m going to remember it. I don’t need to be reminded of its existence.

The Anthony Awards given out at Bouchercon, and many other crime fiction awards, are the result of the same sort of process. Attendance at a conference, or membership in an organization, or even a subscription to a mystery magazine, gives a person the right to make nominations. A lot of factors influence the nominators – friendship, subgenre preferences, biases that have nothing to do with the quality of books (“I don’t like violent books, or books with graphic sex, regardless of how well-written and well-plotted they are”), and, most important, the limits on how much a person can read in one year. If you haven’t read every crime novel published in the last year, how can you choose the best?

That brings us to the Edgars, which are awarded by committees. Every year both writers and fans complain about the nominations. “I’ve never HEARD of most of these books! How can they be the best?” (I hope you see the fatal flaw in that reasoning.) “Why don’t they ever nominate a cozy?” And so on. The refrain is the same, year after year.

I’ve done my share of grousing when a book I loved – for example, Laura Lippman’s wonderful What the Dead Know – is nominated for (and ultimately wins) just about every other award in existence but doesn’t receive an Edgar nomination. I don't always agree with their choices, but I have to respect the simple fact that the Edgar judges do read every eligible book that is published and submitted by publishers for consideration. Each unpaid judge in the novel categories suspends normal life for a year and reads hundreds upon hundreds of books before choosing the five she/he considers best. As I understand it, a period of discussion and perhaps re-reading follows to reconcile disagreements among the members of a particular panel, and ultimately they arrive at a list of finalists. Then they choose the winner in that category. It’s not surprising that this laborious process usually produces nominations for serious books that display outstanding, original writing and in some cases tackle social issues.

Lighter books will have a chance at other awards. A mystery or thriller doesn’t have to be life-changing to be great entertainment. It doesn’t have to pulsate with psychological or social significance that will outlast the ages. Each award has criteria, and the people making nominations have to keep those criteria in mind. You wouldn’t nominate a Karin Slaughter book for an Agatha. That doesn’t mean the Slaughter book is worthless. You can’t expect to see a cooking cozy get an Edgar nomination. That doesn’t mean the cozy isn’t entertaining (with great recipes included). And if your own book receives no nominations, that doesn’t make it a failure. Mystery writers might be happier if no awards were ever given, if we weren’t forced to applaud for authors whose books were deemed “better” than ours. Awards are here to stay, though, and all we can do is try to be realistic and sensible about them.

Would I give up my own Agatha Award? Are you nuts? Will I fill out my Agatha and Anthony ballots this year? Of course. Will I be annoyed if my favorites don’t win? Of course. I’m only human, after all.


In case you’re interested, the book I’d like to see win the Agatha for Best Novel is I Shall Not Want by Julia Spencer-Fleming.







My favorite for the Anthony is Master of the Delta by Thomas H. Cook.

Which books are you rooting for this time around?

In the Twinkling of an Eyebrow

Sharon Wildwind

My characters have very predictable bodies. When faced with emotional moments they get nauseated or their hearts race. Chills run up their spines if they are excited or sexually attracted, and down their spines if they are frightened. In fact, when I’m clicking along in an early draft, and don’t want to stop to think out physical reactions, I use [nausea], [spine chills] [heart races] as placeholders. That way I can later use a global find to locate all of those places where I need to come up with something else—anything else—please.

Admittedly, some body parts—kidneys and bladders for example—don’t lend themselves to expressing emotion. After a character suddenly realizes she should have made a pit stop before confronting the villain, or the detective aches every time he moves become someone sucker-punched him in the kidneys, where else can you go?

Livers are even worse, unless maybe you’re writing a historical mystery, set in a time when humors were believed to rule the body, and you can use a line like, “He awoke the next morning feeling liverish.” Maybe you could get away with, “She cast a jaundiced eye over the proceedings.”

The heart has been turned inside out and upside down in the name of good (and bad) literature. It’s raced, palpated, skipped a beat, contracted, stopped, restarted with a thunk in a character’s chest, melted, been broken, bent, torn apart, mended, healed, and in the immortal words of the late John Denver, “You dun stomped on my heart/And you mashed that sucker flat/You just sorta stomped on my aorta.”

Okay, let’s get serious about some body parts that authors can use to express emotions, starting with hair. Not the point-of-view character’s own hair because that’s almost always limited to “The hair on the back of her neck stood up.” or “So much for washing my hair. I flipped the greasy strands into a pony tail, double-checked the back-up .32 in my ankle holster, and was out the door in under two minutes.”

Hair on other characters can be a wonderfully sensual detail to which the point-of-view character reacts, even on the first meet. “He had three long sections of hair, which he’d carefully arranged in the classic comb-over, hoping I suppose, that I wouldn’t notice the pink scalp peeking through underneath. Kind of sad, actually. ‘Come on,’ I said, ‘Let’s get a cup of coffee. I’m buying.’”

And you can’t beat hair in romantic scenes. “He slept on his stomach, with his face turned away from me. I reached over and traced the baby-fine curls on his neck. Six small crescents lay quietly against his skin and a seventh one flipped and refused to lay flat. ‘That’s always the way the world works for you, isn’t it,” I thought. “On the seventh day, you never get it right.”

The all-time body-parts champions for expressing emotions are faces, hands, and skin. The problem is that writers use them up too fast.

“Her face darkened with anger.” That’s it. Face reference. Got to use another part of the body next time for variety.

Think about how many parts there are to the face: hairlines, eyebrows, eyelashes, upper lids, pupils, irises, lower lids, tear ducts, nose bridge, nostrils, cheeks, cheekbones, upper lip, Cupid’s bow (that’s the little dip the middle of the upper lip makes), lower lip, upper teeth, lower teeth, chin, and multiple kinds of skin. That’s just in a normal face. There could also be hair, moles, scars, etc. in the less-than-blemish-free model.

“Mrs. Adelle was one scary woman, too well-bred to admit to anger; too infuriated not to show something. Her pupils contracted, just a little. A small white line formed briefly along the top of her Cupid’s bow. A woman that controlled was bound to come apart one day. I just hoped I would be in the next state over when the springs burst loose.” It's a face reference, but there are still loads of face parts that could be used later in the story without the writer repeating herself.

It’s the same thing with hands. Four fingers, each of which has three knuckles; a thumb with two knuckles; a palm with loads of lines; fingernails; blood vessels; more skin—assorted variety—as well as a potential for calluses, scars, and age spots. Remember that Sherlock Holmes contended he could tell almost everything worth knowing about a man by looking at his boots, his clothes, and his hands.

So if you're stuck in a heart racing—spine tingling—face darkening rut, here's a way out of it. Divide a piece of paper into three columns. In the first column write down all the anatomy you can think of. Break multi-part features down into component parts. In the second column, trot out all the over-used conventions, no matter how bad. Just for a giggle, I often color this column purple—for purple prose, of course. Once you have the overused cliches out of your system, in the third column, try to come up with new ways that body parts can be used to express emotions. I hope you find some cool things there you never thought to use before.

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Writing quote for the week:

Waves of hoo-haw washing through the protagonist, is a pet peeve…if your character is afflicted with rising tides of fear, chills of panic running through their spine, and roiling senses of panic …they are a victim of their body…pathetic, rather than interesting.
~Tim Esaias, author, poet, essayist, and writing teacher

The Mystery of Words, The Power of Curses

by Julia Buckley

My ten-year-old son has always been stern about maintaining clean language; if his father or I (generally not profane, but both subject to temper) ever let fly with a "damn it" or a "what the hell is that?" he would instruct us to apologize, which we did. We are ever humbled by the vigilence of our children. :)

Lately, though, my son has been sidling up to me and asking for "permission" to say certain words. First it was "hell." He wanted to say it because certain jokes he saw on television used it in punch lines (this includes children's cartoons) and he wanted to be able to repeat them. Later it was the word "damn," and yesterday he asked if it would be okay with me if he sometimes said the word "bastard."

I find all of this very polite and respectful, and it makes sense, because words are about power. Right now my son thinks I have the "power" to restrict his language, which I suppose I do. Later he will seize that power and say whatever he wishes simply to assert his rights. And sometimes, as a child, as a teen, as an adult, he will wield words both to help and to hurt other people.

Swearing is not something that I generally approve of; I don't like stumbling across a tv show or movie with my children that is filled with gratuitous swearing. We turn it off, or I find myself reddening and apologizing to my boys. On the other hand, I know that they'll hear swearing in the world, occasionally from me, so I have to avoid hypocrisy, especially because, whether I like it or not, swearing is a reality that has always been there. According to a 2005 article in the Herald Tribune, swearing has existed since man existed, and when and why we swear is stuff made for scientists.

Ben Jonson and Shakespeare are said, in this article, to be notorious swearers of their age, and their plays are peppered with daring and inappropriate language. "Every language, dialect, or patois ever studied," asserts author Natalie Angier, " . . . turns out to have its share of forbidden speech."

As interesting as why we swear is when we swear. My most likely occasions are true of most of mankind: when I am angry, and when I am under stress. My husband will assure you that I can swear like the most profane sailor when I am arguing heatedly with him, and even if my children are in the car I have been guilty of yelling the occasional "ass-face!" at someone who cuts me off. (Or something similar).

It's ironic to me that the one key swear word I've never said in front of my children (and most likely never will), is the one that our society has given the most power: the dreaded f-word.

I took a linguistics class in college that explored this word in detail (it was a fun class). It suggested that one of the things that gives words like this their primal power is that they sound violent. They are short, assertive, with strong consonant sounds. Therefore, these words are most effective as curses because they sound almost like a violent action--one that we also attribute to a sexual action.

Angier writes that scientists are seeking a link between swearing and the more primal parts of our brains. In an odd way, swearing links humanity throughout history.

But back to my son's questions: when asked if he could say those words, I said I had no problem if he said them at home, in the context of a joke, but that he couldn't say them at school or to his friends. I'm still asserting power over his language, but I'm not fooling myself into thinking that he won't soon seize the power of language for himself.

Well, I've confessed to being a stress-swearer. Do you swear? When and why?

(My photo, which represents the ancient world, was taken by my husband in an Argentinian grape vineyard).