Writers Plot

CUTTING WORDS

2009-11-30T07:00:00-05:00

Posted by Sheila Connolly and Sarah Atwell

For the last few weeks I have been in intense edit mode for a book that's due (electronically, thank goodness) on Tuesday. It's a book I actually wrote in 2004, before I had sold anything. It's set in a Philadelphia museum where I worked for several years. I circulated it to agents, and one agent came back with some excellent suggestions for making it better–like including a murder. Oh. Right. So I rewrote it with the murder of a character who was already in the book. I resubmitted it to that agent, but ultimately she passed on it. However, I never throw anything away, and a couple of months ago I pitched it to Berkley and they bought the book, in a three-book deal.

This should be easy, I thought. After all, I had the first book written, and I'm just overflowing with ideas for sequels. There's only one problem: Book 1 (still unnamed) was too long. The contract specified 70,000 to 80,000 words. Book 1 was 102,000.

Sarah and I had no problems with the Glassblowing Series–the books there all came in nicely at around 78,000 words. The Orchard Series? Well, I'll admit I fudged a little, and they're all over 80,000, but not by a lot. But 102,000? Not happening. Which meant I had to do some serious editing.

I write long. When I first started writing, I had no clue how long a book was supposed to be. I just sat down and wrote. I remember pulling a mystery book at random from my bookshelf and literally counting the words on the page and the number of pages. That was long before I knew about writers groups and on-line loops, and I'm not sure I even knew that my word processing program had a "word count" function. I simply told the story until it ended. Luckily that turned out to be book length. Looking back, I find that the shortest thing I've ever written was my second book, a sweet romance set in Ireland, at 66,000 words. All the others topped 80,000 words–and, once I got rolling, they started creeping past 90,000, and then 100,000.

But there are conventions in the book business: cozies short, and thrillers and suspense are longer. I write cozies, ergo my books should be kind of short. There are probably lots of good reasons why this is true: some relate to physical production of the books, others to reader expectations. Publishers don't always share these tidbits with writers, but they do expect us to conform.

So Philadelphia Book 1 had to go on a starvation diet. Let me say I prefer whittling to padding. I think. I'd rather have something on the page to pare away than try to shoehorn a new subplot or some enriching description into existing text (and you know, either way, you're going to introduce some bloopers which will come back to embarrass you).

But cutting is still painful. A writer puts the words on the page for a reason. You're building characters; you're making a place come alive with sensory details; you're planting subtle clues. You love each and every word, because they're all yours and you strung them together. But at the same time, you can hear your editor's voice (Note: I love my editor–she knows what she's doing, and she invariably makes my books better) saying, "what is the point of this section?" "Why do we need this?" And worse, "you've said this before–can't you take one or the other out?"

The immature part of you says, "no, I don't wanna. I like those words/paragraph/subplot." You can dress it up and tell the editor things like, "I was expounding on the protagonist's issues with forming close relationships with other people based on her dysfunctional relationship with her father."

And the editor's appropriate response to all your blustering should be, "but does it advance the story?"' And often the answer is "no."

So I had to cut a whole lot of words out of my story. It hurts, no question. The first part to go was the "romance" aspect–the potential relationship with the law enforcement official (okay, it's cliche, but...). Take out all the drooling over his broad shoulders, all the enigmatic glances (does he? should I?). Take out a few juicy scenes, or tone them down. Still too long.

Then there were the chunks I label "look at how much I know!" This series is about museums, and I've worked in several. Unfortunately I have a tendency to show off my arcane knowledge. Some of this insider information might interest people who really want to know what goes on behind the scenes, so some of it stays. But not all of it. Stop showing off, Sheila. Slash, chop.

And then there are the lovely chunks of "thinking." My protagonists actually stop and think about what's going on, most often about how they're supposed to solve the murder. Thinking is good–now and then. But thinking falls under the dreaded "show, don't tell" umbrella, and it's kind of cheating, when you periodically review the evidence for the readers. Out comes the red pen again, axing entire paragraphs of thinking.

This doesn't mean that I don't ever get to add anything. Even in the best of times, I will stumble over a sentence I wrote and say, "what the heck did I mean by that?" And I also have a tendency to assume I've said something, but when I look for it it's not there. Maybe whatever I was trying to say was obvious to me, immersed in the book, but it's not going to be clear to a new reader.

So that's what I've been doing for weeks now–taking a machete to my deathless prose. Pretty words? Bah! Throw them overboard. Longing glances? Not in my mystery! As of yesterday, my bloated 102,000-word book was down to a lean 90,000 words and change, and I've got one more pass to make before I push the button and send it off to my editor. That's 12% of the book that has fallen to my sword, er, pen. Is it a better book now? I think so. It's clearer, cleaner, and it comes closer to telling the story I wanted before I buried it in words. I think it's working–and I hope my editor agrees.

Look for Untitled First Book in the Unnamed Philadelphia Museum series in Fall 2010!

Where's Leann? (And a contest!)

2009-11-27T03:54:11-05:00

Nope, this isn't a Writers Plot version of Where's Waldo -- but Leann is definitely among the missing today--on Black Friday. Why? She's out shopping for the perfect Christmas gift for granddaughter Maddie.

Maddie's now two years old--yes, the TERRIBLE but oh-so-fun TWOs (and Leann can give Maddie back to her parents at the end of the day). This year, Maddie knows all about Santa and presents under the tree. Leann wants to give her a great Christmas. But what should she get for Maddie?

That's where you come in. Suggest the perfect Christmas gift for Maddie and you could win a copy of The Cat, The Quilt and the Corpse--or another book by one of the Writers Plot authors! Just drop us a line at contest.writersplot@gmail.com, and include your name and address.

Leann will announce the winner on December 5th.

Go on! Enter now!!!

The other white meat

2009-11-26T00:26:00-05:00

posted by Jeanne Munn Bracken

I did something a couple of days ago that I have never done before in my life. I bought shallots and fresh jalapeno peppers.

In my quest to learn how to cook for two, I came across a recipe for "Cider vinegar & molasses glazed pork chops." I found it in the Eatingwell Serves Two cookbook, although it is also on their web site, which gives me hope that it's okay to share the recipe with you.

At any rate, this being Thanksgiving and all, I was thinking of the progression of the holiday turkey. There will only be four of us here this year, but my daughter bought a 19 pound turkey to be sure there will be leftovers. Oh, no doubt about that. Here's what will happen:

Thanksgiving dinner with the fixin's.
Turkey and gravy with leftover stuffing
Hot turkey sandwiches
Turkey with dumplings
Turkey soup with stock from the carcass

The problem is, Ray isn't crazy about turkey leftovers, and he really only eats the white meat. That works fine, actually, since there are only two drumsticks on the bird and the rest of the family fights over them. (Very genteely, to be sure.)

But before the Big Meal That Lasts A Week, I made him pork chops. The recipe calls for thin sliced boneless pork chops. Miracle of miracles, in the freezer stocked by Mr. "Bring on the Beef," I found frozen burger patties, bulk ground beef with varying degrees of fat, a couple of roasts--and a package of six thin sliced boneless pork chops.

The rest of the ingredients were at hand--vinegar, molasses, olive oil, low sodium soy sauce. Except for the shallot and the jalapeno pepper. So I went to the grocery store, bought them, and made the recipe for Sunday dinner. It actually was delicious. Even Mr. "Bring on the Beef" thought so. It didn't hurt that I served it with rice, which he likes.

Of course, I doubled the recipe and had leftovers for supper the next night.

So I'm getting the hang of cooking for two. Problem is, I haven't learned to shop for two. I bought three shallots and two jalapeno peppers; I have one of each left.

Now I have to find another recipe that will use them up. Because I am now out of thin sliced boneless pork chops.

When you're tired of turkey, try this out:

Cider Vinegar-&-Molasses-Glazed Pork Chops

1 tsp. extra-virgin olive oil
2 thin-cut boneless pork chops (8 oz), trimmed of fat
1 shallot, finely chopped
1/2 jalapeno papper, seeded and finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2 tbsp. molasses
2 tbsp. cider vinegar
1 tbsp. Dijon mustard
1 tsp. reduced-sodium soy sauce

1. Heat oil over medium-high heat in a medium skillet. Add pork, and cook until browned and no longer pink in the middle, 1 to 2 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate and cover with foil to keep warm.

2. Add shallot, jalapeno and garlic; cook, stirring often, until slightly softened, 2 to 3 minutes. Add molasses, vinegar, mustard and soy sauce and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to maintain a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, unti thickened, 2 to 4 minutes. Return the pork and any accumulated juices to the pan and turn to coat with sauce. Serve the pork with the sauce.

Stuffing Wars, The Dish Lottery, and Other Holiday Customs

2009-11-25T05:00:00-05:00

Posted by Kate Flora

The other night at dinner, my husband was asking about my family's holiday traditions. I must be a bear of little brain, as Pooh says, because I can't remember very many traditions. I think I spent my entire childhood being unobservant, because I always had my nose in a book. Also because holidays tend to be those occasions when people fight, and having your nose stuck in a book makes it easier to filter out the raised voices.

However, under his persistent questioning, I was able to dredge up a few memories of turkey days past. Here are the ones that top the list.

The Year My Mother Outraged My Father's Family!
Thanksgiving seems to have traditionally been held at our family farm in Union, Maine. Depending on the year, we would have my grandmother, her sister Lillian, Lillian's son Richard, his wife, and their too-sweet daughter Sherry. Uncle Kleba. Uncle Guy and Aunt Lucille. Against this overwhelming onslaught of Clark relatives, my mother created her own protective device--the collection of strays. That meant that along with all the people who, in my father's opinion, BELONGED there, my mother would collect a tiny handful of little old ladies who lived alone and a few odd folks from church, and they would also be included. By the time my parents were done, we had a rather large crowd gathered around the table. And after the tiny green glasses of creme de menthe to aide the digestion were downed, we had rather a large number of dirty dishes.

Feeling, most righteously, that she had already spent the better part of the day in the kitchen, my mother evolved an equitable system for assigning dish washing duty. Everyone got a number, and people did five or ten minute dish washing stints according to their numbers and a kitchen timer. My poor father, who was always desperate to avoid being embarrassed in front of his relatives, used to writhe in humiliation as the tottery old Uncles and Aunts were marched to the kitchen, wrapped in aprons, and set to work doing dishes. He never got used to it. I expect the relatives, particularly the elderly male relatives never got used to it either, and my brother John, my sister Sara, and I marveled at our mother's courage.

Stuffing Wars.

It is a fact well known in any blended family that THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FAMILY doesn't make stuffing that is as good as ours. I think we've gotten over that, for the most part. My mother made wonderful stuffing. My mother-in-law's stuffing is better. By contrast, my uncle Kleba's wife made the world's worst stuffing--miserable, tasteless bits of burned, dry bread that no amount of gravy could resuscitate. Interestingly enough, my mother-in-law's sister also made awful stuffing. We used to hope for Thanksgiving at our house so we wouldn't have to eat the gummy mass thick with chunks of liver and giblets that one relative produced. And one year, my sister Sara, who had spent her summer working on an island off the coast of Maine as the cook for a picky and eccentric New York interior designer, decided that we needed to get just a wee bit more sophisticated in our tastes, and brought a separate dish of oyster stuffing. She was a fantastic cook, and it was a hit. (As long as there was also mom's stuffing for the ritual next day turkey sandwich. Oysters don't quite make it in a turkey sandwich)

It is very easy to assume that stuffing really doesn't matter very much...whether it is good or bad...until somehow, the stuffing gets completely forgotten. Which is what my brother John did one year. He got the job of fixing the turkey, and completely forgot to make stuffing. A fact that wasn't revealed until everyone had searched the table, and the oven, and the carcass, repeatedly, assuming it had to be somewhere. He has never been allowed to forget this dereliction. Indeed, some years, he gets a phone call, reminding him of the importance of stuffing. And the terrible year of NO STUFFING is always mentioned several times during dinner.

Thanksgiving is also not "right" unless there are too many pies. Usually, a ration of one pie for every three people is considered correct, but my sister Sara used to get a bit manic about baking pies. She never could make just one. Or two. Or three. One year, she showed up with five. Among them, since toward the end of her insane baking spree she was running low on ingredients, was a pie that was a mixture of sour cherry and raspberry. Not a traditional turkey day offering. Bar none, the best pie I've ever eaten.

I'm waiting for the next generation to start a few wars of their own, once we get the family horse-trading straightened out and figure out who has to go where each year to appease which family. Meanwhile, we've only got three styles of cranberry relish. Whole berry (I made my own this year), jellied, and the wonderful raw cranberry, apple, orange relish my son Max makes. Surely there must be some other styles. Surely we can find room for one more dish on table? Or maybe not.

Oops...forgot perhaps the best T'day story of all. One year, my friend Nancy happened to have Julia Child at her house for Thanksgiving. Julia arrived with the turkey, and a separate oven to cook the legs. Nancy, who gets a bit nervous about entertaining anyway, got so flustered she forgot to serve about half the things she'd prepared. Who among us would have done any better?

Finally, no Thanksgiving Day is complete without the ritual reading of Art Buchwald's column, Explaining Thanksgiving to the French. You might find it here:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/796829/posts

Meanwhile, I'm avoiding all the TV shows that tell me that by just picking five nuts off the pecan pie I can save 100 calories. Dieting on Thanksgiving Day is a bore.

What are your holiday traditions? What's the funniest thing that's every happened? Has anyone ever had the turkey go completely wrong...and how did you cope?

The woman with the invisible hands

2009-11-24T06:59:59-05:00

Posted by Lorraine Bartlett, also known as Lorna Barrett

Every couple of months I'll wake up with a finger missing. Sometimes it's a whole hand--sometimes (but not often) it's BOTH hands. I call them my invisible hands. That's not exactly correct. I can still see them, but they just don't work really well. They're too busy tingling.

I have carpal tunnel syndrome.

Not that I've actually gone to the trouble of having a real diagnosis. It was the lady at the apothecary who sold me my first pair of wrist splints some twenty or so years ago who did the actual diagnosis. I said something like, "my hands tingle when I wake up. Do I need wrist splints?" She said, "Yup," and then proceeded to fit me.

Was it the constant rewriting of manuscripts (this was back in the days of typewriters) that did it or one too many cross stitch projects? I'll never know. But I had to give something up, and as I wanted to be a writer, it was the cross stitch. (And, as I discovered a couple of years ago when I decided to make a scarf--I had to give up knitting, too.)

The splints aren't a cure, but they're pretty good at making the tingling go away. I wear them for about a week and then I'm good again for three or four months, which works for me, especially as I've known several people who've had surgery for the ailment and have not reported good results. That's why I'm perfectly okay with having invisible fingers now and then.

I recently shot the wad and bought myself two BRAND NEW wrist splits. (Hey, I had to spend those fabulous $9 and $1.78 royalty checks on something, right?) Oh how glamorous I feel when I don one (or both) before retiring for the night. NOT! But they work and I'm not complaining. (BTW, these aren't pictures of my hands, but my right splint really is black and the left is beige.)

How about you, do you sometimes have invisible hands, too?

CLASH OF THE TITANS

2009-11-23T07:00:00-05:00

Posted by Sheila Connolly and Sarah Atwell, who are equally ticked off

There was a great disturbance in the Force this week: Romance Writers of America took up arms against the publisher Harlequin. The story is both simple and complex.

To give some context, some numbers first. Romance Writers (aka RWA) is a writers organization with over ten thousand members, whose "mission and purpose is to advocate for the professional interests of career-focused romance writers," according to their website. In the industry, they are a force to be reckoned with. I am a member, and have been for six years. I started out trying to write romantic suspense and found that I simply don't have a romance voice, but I've stayed with RWA because they provide a terrific support structure and a lot of valuable information for writers.

Among the advantages of membership is access to their annual market review. For 2008, RWA reports that romance fiction generated $1.37 billion in sales, and they estimate that this level will hold steady in 2009. Compare this to mystery sales for 2008, at $668 million according to RWA's figures.

Harlequin Enterprises has been distributing books in North America since 1957, and while I can't cite statistics, I think it's safe to say that they dominate the romance market. While you may not always see their imprints on bookstore shelves, they do mail order as well, and they have throngs of hungry readers who may read as many as 30 of their romance novels each month. Harlequin is one of the few companies which actually reported increased sales for last year, in the face of economic turmoil (escapism sells!).

So what has pitted RWA against Harlequin this past week? Harlequin announced a new venture: Harlequin Horizons, a vanity/subsidy press. And RWA ejected them from the kingdom, because RWA has clearly-stated guidelines about what kinds of publishing they endorse, and this does not include vanity presses. Harlequin ignored those guidelines in creating their new venture. RWA acknowledges the right to publish through a vanity press, but their stand against Harlequin represents an effort to protect member-writers from exploitation.

Why does this matter? Harlequin will no doubt continue to thrive, with or without its new vanity press. But RWA will not let them continue to participate in the annual national conference, which offers free meeting space, the chance to hold editor appointments and offer spotlights for their program only to eligible publishers. Harlequin can attend the conference–if they pay. But they cannot use RWA resources to publicize or promote the company or its imprints, and this includes Romance Writers Report, which goes to all RWA members.

Pity the poor RWA members who are published by Harlequin, and there are quite a few. They won't be drummed out of RWA, but they won't be eligible for RWA-sponsored contests, of which the biggest is the RITA, awarded at the national conference. Romance writers seem to love contests, and the RITA is the jewel in the crown; Harlequin books will not be allowed. Ouch.

Members have been vocal on various loops, and the majority support RWA's stance. The guidelines are there for all to see, and have been for years. Apparently Harlequin did not consult with RWA when they planned their new venture, even as a courtesy, and they feigned dismay at RWA's quick response. [MWA and SFFWA have joined with RWA to condemn Harlequin's actions; Sisters in Crime has made a slightly more cautious public statement.]

So what is the stink really about? Who's got more power, more clout in the industry? Not exactly. Harlequin has every right to create a new imprint, and that is a business decision. What is offensive is the way they went about it. The scenario boils down to this: you, Eager Writer, submit a manuscript to Harlequin. You receive a rejection letter–which includes the suggestion that you contact Harlequin Horizons (note: Harlequin backtracked almost immediately, saying that they would remove "Harlequin" from the title–maybe because it was quickly labeled "HarlHo" by loop members–but it's a bit late, since everybody knows now that they're behind it). This new imprint will be happy to accept your money–up to $1,500–and produce your book. Oh, and they'll be happy to take 50% of the proceeds–after you have promoted it yourself. And if you're really, really lucky, and the book does well, maybe a Harlequin editor will look at it and consider publishing it. But, oops, Harlequin isn't going to ensure that your self-published book will appear on shelves alongside their own.

This is just wrong, and violates the ethical standards of almost any writers organization. Eager Writer is clueless about the industry, and will do almost anything to see her name on a book cover, particularly one with Harlequin stamped somewhere on it. Harlequin is exploiting that, and pocketing a nice piece of change while they do it, dangling the hope that somehow the Harlequin name will guarantee success.

Could this mess be laid at the feet of the new CEO of Harlequin's parent company, Canada-based Torstar–who is a number-cruncher? Does he see Harlequin as a cash cow, and that slush pile Harlequin sits on as a potential goldmine that will help him bolster the sagging Torstar?

It's an ugly scene all around. The consensus among members is that RWA has done the right thing, but at a price. Harlequin's image in the eyes of its writers had fallen, but the general public probably won't notice. Who wins?

But I salute RWA for sticking to its guns, and for its sister organizations for following RWA's lead. We as writers need powerful advocates who will stick up for writers and protect their interests, and I for one am glad that RWA has taken this stand. I hope it makes a difference.

It Was The Worst Of Times, Now It's The Best of Times

2009-11-20T09:43:08-05:00

posted by Leann Sweeney

Holiday season is upon us, a time of year I have had plenty of difficulty with. Ever since my children moved away and married, I seem to have dwelled on the the worst that holidays brought me when I was growing up, thanks to my very alcoholic mother and all the drama she brought to each and every day between November through the end of January. January was when she usually sobered up.

As I raised my own family, I made sure that every Thanksgiving (and Christmas) was exactly as I wanted it to be--filled with food, laughter and love. And when the first Thanksgiving came that we weren't all together, I wasn't "all together" either. I cried a lot. I remembered too much about the past. I felt very sorry for myself.

Way back when I was a kid, we didn't get a huge Thanksgiving break--just Thursday through Sunday. And I remember getting off the school bus on that Wednesday before Thanksgiving hoping I'd find a sober mom. And I usually did because she was preparing food that day, although sometimes she started drinking Wednesday night. And then Thursday morning her coffee was pretty heavily spiked. By dinner time she was wasted and embarrassing all us kids with her slurred speech, inappropriate jokes and unsteady gait. Oh. And usually something she'd prepared was left to burn in the oven. We could always count on that. Yup, holidays were the worst and I know there's a lot of folks out there who can relate, who know all about "holidays" and what they meant to children of alcoholics. It's called hell.

But now that my father has passed, now that he and my mother's generation are all gone, now that I have a granddaughter, I find myself remembering that despite the chaos, uncertainty and shame I felt during those holidays, there were some very fun times, too. My father's side of the family always did have a wicked sense of humor and my cousins offered up a lot of laughs. While the adults were getting drunk, we were playing cards. We knew every kind of card game you can imagine. And if there was snow and ice, we'd be out ice skating on the rink my mother always managed to make in the front lawn no matter how drunk she was. Guess making layers of ice doesn't require your reflexes to be all that good.

And the food. Now if there was one thing my mother was really good at, it was cooking. My grandfather was a chef and she learned at the hand of the master. Everyone wanted her cooking at Thanksgiving and that's one thing I brought to my own family. I cook a mean, massive, and scrumptious Thanksgiving. I guess that's why I didn't want to give up having the family always come here to Texas so I could be in control of the kitchen. And even when we did go elsewhere, I always did a big part of the cooking. Until we went to my father and stepmother's one year. We ate at the country club they belonged to. For me, that was blasphemous. I hated it.

But last year and this, I seem to recalling many more of the pleasant memories--the spicy and rich smells, the Jell-o my grandmother always had to make, even if we had five different pies--and more importantly that real whipped cream she made to go with the lime Jell-o. The excitement of visiting my aunt's house where everything was so absolutely NON-chaotic.

Today, I have given up the control. My brother-in-law cooked Thanksgiving last year and it was awesome. I didn't have to lift a finger, even to do the dishes. And this year my son and daughter-in-law are doing the cooking. And it will be fantastic. The reasons I had to do absolutely everything aren't important anymore. What's important is to let go of the control adult children of alcoholics so desperately cling to. Two years in row for me now! Yahoo. Maybe I should be counting and marking the anniversary just like alcoholics who get sober do. I've found there's so much more power in my new attitude: I can cook, and it will be delicious. Or someone else can work their butt off and it will be delicious. And that feels so right.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Lots to be thankful for

2009-11-19T00:59:00-05:00

posted by Jeanne Munn Bracken

Now that the New England mystery conference Crime Bake is over, it's time to get into the holidays. I have admitted already that I've bought a few gifts, including some when I was on vacation. (Souvenirs R Us). But before we go into Christmas Crazy Mode (and I plead guilty as a carrier of that disorder), let's give thanks for what we have.

It's a tough year for a lot of people, and as suggested in other posts here at the Writers' Plot, I plan to be generous both to the food pantry and the local police department's collection of toys for kids. I also have a stack of mailings from favorite charities, and at the end of the year I try to send them checks. Childhood cancer, Make a Wish, Salvation Army, the humane society, the nascent National Women's History Museum, among others. Tells you what I care about: kids, dogs, women's history.

The number of people around our Thanksgiving table can vary widely from year to year. We have had so many family and friends here that we had two tables and no space to move around the room at all, once everybody was seated. (That's about 15 people, for us.) On occasion we have invited folks who would otherwise be alone for the holiday. More recently we have spent Thanksgiving with our good friends the Smiths.

Sometimes we had dinner here and sometimes at their house. We had a varying number of our kids at the table, and recently their grandchildren in highchairs. One year we celebrated at a restaurant on Cape Cod, where we had taken condos for a few days' respite. (That was the year that our daughters and the Smith daughter entertained us with stories of their escapades, most of which included teaching bad habits to the younger sister.)

This year, the Smiths have moved to North Carolina. It's the end of an era. We could probably go to my sister's for dinner, since she was drafted as Chief Chef, but we weren't actually invited, and besides, the drive to their rural area is time-consuming and often hair-raising in wintry weather.

So. This year, it's the four Brackens, and for the first time, the daughters will be arriving from their own homes. Mollie has already brought a turkey, making sure it was large enough so there would be leftovers to take home. Lisa will make the mashed potatoes. I'll do the rest, and I don't mind.

I make the stuffing from scratch the night before. I'll cheat and use the bread machine to make the dough for rolls. I'll make creamed onions (which only two of us eat, but which make a great next-day treat with leftover peas). I've ordered a pie from the high school fundraiser.

And I will not repeat earlier Thanksgiving goofs. The year when Ray and I were dating, I made dinner while he watched football on TV. I was rather naive, though: when the food was ready, he said there were just 15 minutes left in the game and could we wait. I didn't know that 15 minutes in football is about eleven innings in baseball, an analogy I could understand.

So the carmelized sweet potatoes were rather more charred, and we had to carve the bird with the only knife I had that was big enough: a bread knife. A few years ago, when we were having our kitchen remodeled (once and never again!), I tried to make the sweet potatoes in a crock pot. (Note to self: crock pots do not carmelize. They glop.)

Cranberry orange relish from Mom's recipe is already in the fridge. My stepfather refused to eat anything that had rind in it--until, after a number of years, he actually tasted it.

So, I want to wish you all a great Thanksgiving spent with loved ones. May all your teams win. Whatever game they're playing.

The Red Pen or The Shredder?

2009-11-18T05:00:00-05:00

Posted by Kate Flora

Boo. Hoo. Where is Joshua Bilmes when I need him? The last time I was up to my ears in the pages of a promising, but flabby manuscript, he led me through the forest of rewrite with firm but calm advice. I cut. And I cut. And I tightened and I tweaked. And in the end, I had a book I could be proud of.

So here I sit, the week before Thanksgiving, facing the grim fact that the book I just spent a month cutting needs more than word removal. It needs a plot lift. It needs greater focus. It needs scenes that economically move the plot and develop my characters. It needs tension, not whining. Showing, not telling. And a dump truck load of inner monologue hauled away.

If I were my student...I'd know what to do. I'd make myself sit down and do a chapter by chapter and scene by scene analysis to see what isn't working. But today, I sat and looked at the size of the task and promptly reverted to Plan B. I would continue to indulge my obsession with National Novel Writing Month, and see if I could add a few thousand zippy words to my unserious novel in progress. Not a smashing success. For twenty-nine chapters, I'd managed to keep my characters from actually having sex, despite a number of times when they'd come within a whisper of the deed. Ringing phones, buzzing doorbells and the arrival of nosy cops had kept them apart. But finally, their moment had come. And once it had come...and gone...I lost my ertia. I couldn't think of the next interesting thing for them to do.

On to Plan C. Flip over to eBay to see if I could do a little bit of holiday shopping. I went to Costco and bought gigantic amounts of food that wouldn't fit in my refrigerator, including way too many perishable berries. I zipped into my favorite clothing emporium, Global Thrift in Waltham, and picked up a Jil Sander jacket, an Italian designer skirt, a lovely bejeweled peasant top to wear to a holiday party, and two pairs of corduroy pants, all for the price of a sandwich lunch and a cappuccino. I practiced a fine form of busy avoidance. I knocked lots of things off my list, prepared a delicious dinner, and did my sit-ups.

But the book is still out there, lurking just at the edge of my consciousness. Waiting for the attention it deserves.

Tomorrow, I promise, I will take Mr. Laptop to the library, away from all distractions, and handcuff myself in a carrel.

Tomorrow I will act like a grown-up. I will be diligent. I will carry my laptop to the library and I will edit the heck out of the little beast. I will not move until the first three chapters are slim and lovely and irresistible, with powerful forward momentum.

But first, of course, I must go to the gym. Can't be typing novels with flabby arms, can I? And then there are batches of books that must go to the post office. And don't I have to be at a bookstore in Exeter, New Hampshire? Oh dear. It looks like I'm too busy for rewrite tomorrow.

It's hard to believe that after twenty-five years in the writing game I still can't always see the forest for the trees, but that's my reality. Every book is different. Each one has a rhythm and a personality. Some come easily. Some are dragged out and nailed to the page. And rewrite is always its own challenge. Sometimes I can see what needs to be done; other times, I'm like a monkey at a typewriter, with the occasional good word or sentence coming out.

Like every writer, I prefer those moments of obsession. I love it when the prose just flows and I can't type fast enough to get it down. But I've been in this chair long enough to know that what makes me stronger, and a better writer, is fighting my way through times like this, when nothing is easy. Nothing flows. And even though I'm practically bleeding on the page, the story won't behave. Persistence. Faith. Experience. Banging my head against the desk. And keeping myself in this chair. In the end, these will help me through rewrite.

Something else will, too--my friends who have offered to read a few chapters and give me feedback. So far, my ego is badly bruised, but my mind is starting to tick away, evaluating suggestions and assessing avenues for change. By next week, when I'm thoroughly dug-in, it's going to be hard to get up and go cook that turkey.

Thanksgiving -- it's not a given

2009-11-17T03:37:00-05:00

Posted by Lorraine Bartlett, also known as Lorna Barrett

I have loads of wonderful memories of my family sitting around the Thanksgiving table, chowing down on turkey, my mother's wonderful bread stuffing, my aunt's marvelous roasted potatoes, and all the rest of the trimmings. Sadly, this will be the first year I won't have my Dad sitting at the head of the table, and that makes me incredibly sad.

But I do have those wonderful memories, and I'm sure my whole family will be thinking about them as we pick up our forks and knives and dive into the feast.

Yet, in the back of my mind, I know I'll be thinking about others, who won't be seated at a table laden with food. The hungry. And I wouldn't even have to leave my suburb to find them.

My latest book, Bookplate Special, is full of food. In fact, I juggle three subplots about various aspects of the subject. One of them involves food pantries. While my story isn't set during Thanksgiving (it's about a month too early), it does involve the working poor and the need for donations.

I did my research just down the road from where I live, at the Greece Ecumenical Food Shelf. One of its volunteers is our own Doranna Durgin's mother. Mrs. Durgin gave me a tour of the facility, and answered my many questions relating to the workings of food pantries, including how the food is collected, sorted, and distributed.

Something I'd never heard about were the special "Turkey Day food shelf baskets." According to Doranna, "The holiday baskets are like Santa Times in Food Shelf land. My Mom used to be so pleased when they got a basket for a family in dire need--often your average hard-working family suddenly sideswiped by circumstance who never thought they'd be in that position at all."

That's one of the biggest problems these days: people who used to support food pantries, are in dire need of their services. According to a recent report in The Washington Post, "Last year, people in 4.8 million households used private food pantries, compared to 3.9 million in 2007, while people in about 625,000 households resorted to soup kitchens, nearly 90,000 more than the year before."

The thought of children going hungry not just occasionally, but on a regular basis, especially in this land of plenty, should be unthinkable. And yet, it's a fact of life.

So while I'm thankful that I don't need the services of a food pantry, I'm glad it's there for people who do.

There's still time to donate to your local food pantry in time for Thanksgiving. But the need isn't just seasonal -- it's here 365 days of the year.

Can you help?

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

2009-11-16T07:00:00-05:00

Posted by Sheila Connolly

Since the Thanksgiving holiday is upon us, we thought we'd take a look at different aspects of the holiday and what it means to us. Since I'm first in the queue, I'll talk about the first Thanksgiving.

I live about fifteen miles from Plymouth, Massachusetts, site of the first permanent settlement in the colony that would become the United States. Okay, I know that the Roanoke Colony came earlier, but they couldn't hang on (thus generating one of the first mysteries on our soil). There were also plenty of trappers and traders who roamed the lands and rivers (spreading germs to the Indians), but they didn't stick around.

Which leaves those hardy Pilgrims of Plymouth. We probably all got hit over the head with the Mayflower story in elementary school (at least if you lived on the East Coast as I did). The romance of Priscilla Alden and Miles Standish. The happy natives sharing their lore and their corn and fish to help the settlers survive the first winter, for which they were woefully unprepared. They should have known better than to land in November, but that wasn't altogether their fault–the boat ran late.

Anyway, recently I've had a chance to get to know modern Plymouth. It's an interesting place. I first saw it decades ago, although I didn't do a lot of sightseeing–more like, yup, there's that rock. We moved to southeastern Massachusetts six years ago, and when I first revisited Plymouth, I thought it was kind of a stodgy, seedy little town. The rock was still there. I did visit Plimoth Plantation, which is perhaps the best living history museum in the country, and worth the trip if you have any interest in history.

Over the past few years Plymouth has kind of reinvented itself. The main street downtown is dotted with interesting restaurants and shops of all sorts. A couple of upscale malls have sprung up on the outskirts. My doctor has an office in The Pinehills, a huge residential development that's like a little city unto itself, with a market, a bank, and a variety of shops, all in sparkly-bright and very clean new buildings, and not one but two golf courses. A derelict rope-making center on one end of town has morphed into an interesting industrial and office park now called Cordage Park.

But that's the modern city, and I was talking about history. I've may have mentioned before that I'm a genealogist (no! really?), and, yes, I have identified one Mayflower ancestor. Poor guy, he died less than a month after the Mayflower landed, and he may never have set foot on the ground (his wife came over on another ship three years later, with their two daughters, and I'm descended from one of them). For years I felt like he was kind of a second-class Pilgrim, until I learned that fully half of the original passengers died in that first year. In fact, the settlers were so worried that the Indians would notice that their ranks were dwindling rapidly that they didn't even set up a burial ground for the dead–they buried them by the dark of night in unmarked graves. For the tri-centennial of the landing, the townspeople collected all the bones they'd been unearthing for years and had squirreled away in various places around town and installed them all in a substantial granite sarcophagus, so at least they're together, for perhaps the first time since 1621.

But the settlers survived that first hard year, and more settlers arrived (along with food supplies), and as people kept dying, they did in fact create a cemetery. It's up on the hill above the town, where the first palisade stood. Several years ago I visited that cemetery for the first time, and I was surprised by how much it moved me. Strip away all the buildings and the docks laid out below, and imagine open space along the shore, with a few people moving around, maybe a few cattle or pigs. Behind you stands the pitifully small wooden fort, large enough to contain the handful of citizens and the precious livestock. And behind that? Nobody knew. Imagine the weight of those endless miles of unknown territory, peopled by unpredictable natives, while you and your tiny band clung to the coast and hoped that you'd survive, which was far from guaranteed.

I came away from that place with a heightened respect for those first settlers. Their reasons for coming–financial, political or religious–may have varied, but whatever the reason it took a lot of courage to make that leap into the unknown.

They survived because they were lucky: a couple of plagues in the years before they arrived had wiped out over 90% of the local Indian population, which left already-cleared land for them to occupy and cultivate–and nobody left to resist them. And the settlers didn't exactly cover themselves with glory in their ongoing relationship with what few Indians remained: they robbed the survivors, and even plundered the graves of their dead. It's a wonder the Indians helped them at all.

But they did. The first Thanksgiving took place in the fall of 1621, after a good harvest, with some 90 Wampanoags attending. Here's Edward Winslow's account from A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, in 1621:

"Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, among other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed upon our governor, and upon the captain, and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty."

Many of us may be facing hard times these days, but put yourself in the place of those First Settlers in 1621–it may make you feel better.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The secret to getting published . . . ? (Guest Blogger Laura Child)

2009-11-14T04:14:00-05:00

Greetings! I'm delighted to be guest blogging today and talking a little bit about how I kick started my mystery writing career. Probably my biggest qualification was being the kid who snuck into cemeteries late at night on a dare, whispered ghost stories around the campfire, and devoured Nancy Drew books under the covers.

And late at night, when the wind is howling and the house is creaking, I still believe there might be a body stashed in that old trunk in the attic. And when I finally visited New Orleans and wandered through their incredibly spooky above-ground cemeteries, I think I even started believing in vampires.

But as much as I longed to be a mystery writer, I landed in advertising instead. I wrote and produced TV commercials, then ended up heading my own firm for nearly 15 years. Still, the mystery bug gnawed at me. So writing evenings and weekends, I chipped away at Old Masters, a thriller about stolen World War II artwork. When it was finished, I thought it was fantastic – the best thriller ever written! My only problem was, I wasn't sure what to do with my masterpiece.

One day, while having lunch with my friend, F. Jim Smith, (he was Bing Crosby's personal artist and illustrator for the Marlboro Man) I told him about Old Masters. Brimming with enthusiasm, Jim said, “Let’s call my friend Mary, she'll know what to do.” Well, his friend “Mary” turned out to be Mary Higgins Clark! Who, as you probably know, is the Queen of Suspense and one of the best-selling mystery writers of all time.

I thought to myself, “No way is this going to happen.” But two hours later Jim called back with a message from Mary. “Come to New York and meet me at the Mystery Writers of America symposium.” Oh, heck yes, I thought!

When I arrived at the symposium, this tiny dynamo in a gorgeous Chanel suit grabbed my hand and proceeded to introduce me to New York’s finest agents, editors, and publishers! As Mary handed me off to each one, I did my little song and dance and presented them with a spiffy book cover I’d had my senior art director design.

Did I sell my Old Masters manuscript that day? No, but it was read by Penguin and Random House. And I received offers from 5 different agents to represent me and ended up with a dandy offer to write a cozy series.

A fairytale ending, yes? But that was almost nine years ago. Could this still happen today with publishers clinging miserly to every dollar, allowing author’s backlists to go out of print, and letting new (good!) manuscripts languish in slush piles?

If you want it bad enough, I really believe you can make it happen. Pour your heart into your story, make sure it’s a killer plotline, add twists and tangles, and then prove, prove, prove to a publisher that you’ve got the platform to promote it.

I’ll also let you in on a very weird secret. Editors (who are really acquisition editors, not mark-it-with-a-red-pen editors) don’t really know what they’re looking for. That’s why you have to tell them that you have the next big thing in publishing. If you can, gently pull them aside at a conference and perform your own animated song and dance. Because if you’re convinced, they’ll be convinced.

One more critical thing. You must also learn the subtle art of the one-page query letter. It’s the only way you’ll score the big enchilada - a killer agent. Which, in publishing’s uncertain times, is the best way in the front door!

Ah. You’re probably wondering who my killer agent is? After three years of writing, guerrilla marketing, and proving I could actually sell books, I finally landed the same agent that represents Mary. And every day, rain or shine, I thank my lucky stars.
------------------------------------------------
In Laura Child's past life, she was CEO and creative director of Mission Critical Marketing, with offices in Minneapolis, MN, Austin, TX, and San Jose, CA, where they handled marketing and advertising for medical, technology, and financial clients.

She's married to Dr. Robert Poor, a professor of Chinese and Japanese art history at the University of Minnesota. They live on two acres of woods in Plymouth, MN and have two snarky Chinese Shar-Pei dogs. They travel to Asia, enjoy art collecting, and serve on the boards of a couple of non-profit organizations.

Oh yes, and she's the author of the Scrapbooking Mysteries, Tea Shop Mysteries, and Cackleberry Club Mysteries.Her most recent mystery, TRAGIC MAGIC, was just released. And don't miss EGGS BENEDICT ARNOLD, coming December 1st.

Thanks for the Memories ... Of Really Old Stuff

2009-11-13T10:13:42-05:00

posted by Leann Sweeney

My grandfather used to have stories, so many neat stories about his life, and as kid I always thought that was great. The good memory gene pool was on my side. But I was operating under a serious misconception. The misconception of youth. And these days, when I can't remember where my phone is or if I took my thyroid medicine, I understand that nature is a trickster. Yesterday's news just doesn't get stored, but twenty-year-old news is right there to grab and enjoy ... or dislike, depending on the memory.

Lately, I've been thinking about the early days in my nurse's training career. Why? I have no idea. Maybe because some of what I lived through back then was so darn funny. Not all of it. Working in hospitals isn't really all that fun but I do remember my stint in the psych hospital outside NYC. Now that was an eye-opening experience.

This was years ago, and about the time the government made the decision to "set them free." The psych patients. Just let them go. It's not pleasant how that turned out. The city streets have become home to the types of people I worked with at that hospital. But I don't want to go there right now. I'm remembering many of my favorite friends and don't want to spoil it with too many bad thoughts.

The first problem we confronted when we arrived at this Catholic psychiatric hospital (picture old scary six story brick building) was the news that a patient had escaped--but inside the building. That patient? A nun with a serious case of schizophrenia. Yeah, they get it, too. As nursing students, we were given her description and told to be on the look out, but without real knowledge of the building, we weren't much help. She'd been missing a week and I guess I should have wondered why no one was all that concerned. They found her the next day exactly where you'd expect to find a nun--in the sanctuary. Only she was living in the rafters. Had a real nice set-up, too. Later I found out this woman had "escaped" more than twenty times and no one really looked too hard for the first week. She needed her "time off" from being crazy in front of people.

Many of the patients had been in the hospital for years, some as long as forty years. One huge, old woman--and by huge, I mean broad shouldered and big boned-- had been committed there as a young girl after she tried to push her rich parents off a boat they were paddling around in on some lake. Anger issues. Nothing new, right? Only she got put away for her whole life.

Anyway, nursing students are an optimistic bunch, and we decided that these patients needed a "fun day." We set up a fair on the hospital grounds, with games and food and extra visiting hours. Nice huh? And I brought huge old woman out in her wheelchair to enjoy the sunshine. There was a bean bag game--the kind where you toss a bean bag toward a hole in a wooden board and if you make it through, you win a prize. Like a cute little stuffed bunny. So I demonstrated for huge old woman and then handed her a bean bag. Let me tell you, murderous rage cannot be contained in the sunshine. Huge old woman heaved that bean bag so hard she could have toppled the Leaning Tower. She shut down that bean bag game with one throw. Um, we went back to the hospital for a little more Thorazine. No cute little bunny for her.

And speaking of Thorazine, it was the drug of choice at St. Blankety-Blank Hospital. What I didn't know, however, is HOW it was administered. Each evening, before the patients went to bed, they had a little "social gathering" in the corridor. (Picture big wide corridors.) Cookies and punch. Sweet huh? I sure thought so. Until we'd put the patients to bed on my first evening shift and started my charting. And realized I could hardly keep my eyes open. When I commented to the charge nurse that I was so, so tired, she smiled this knowing smile and said, "You didn't drink the punch, did you?" You can guess what was in that punch and you can also guess that it was not an accident that no one told the student nurse that was ME about said punch. Someone had to help me back to the dorm and I was groggy for three days.

I can smile now. Yes, I think as we age, our mind reminds us to smile by resurrecting these memories. I got a million of these. Stay tuned in the future!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

2009-11-12T00:20:00-05:00

Posted by Jeanne Munn Bracken

I went to a meeting this morning and the people who had stopped at the nearby Starbucks were sipping cups of caffeine. Nothing notable there. But the cups--ah, the cups! They were red and festooned with mittens and snowflakes and other tree ornaments. They smelled like morning but they looked a whole lot like Christmas. The Starbucks customers assured me that holiday music was playing to get everybody in the mood. Imagine -- seven weeks of Christmas carols and "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas." Yikes!

Not that this should surprise me. As I write this, there are 44 days 'til Christmas 2009. That's 1062 hours and counting til Santa comes down the chimney (if he can navigate through the wood stove set on the hearth) and fill our stockings with joy.

I realize there is a recession and the stores are worried that they won't make enough money from frugal buyers. They feel they have to ramp up the holiday cheer to get us all in the mood. But sheesh--they started in September. I know this because I was in one of those dollar stores and was able to snap up rolls of Christmas wrapping paper for a buck each. I still have a handsome supply of wrapping paper in a closet upstairs, along with bows and the like, but I cannot resist a bah-gin, as we say in New England.

Of course the stores had to start decorating early because they had finished up with the back-to-school sales by the Fourth of July and the summer clearance sales ran in late July.

I admit I'm addicted to the local chain of Christmas Tree Shops, and no month is complete without a foray into the aisles to see what's on sale. Even those iconic stores don't decorate for Christmas until Halloween is over. Thanksgiving apparently doesn't have enough cachet to hold a place in retailers' hearts. Just turkey and pies. Ho hum, not jingle jingle in the pockets.

So--have you got your shopping done? Gifts wrapped and stashed? Cards addressed? Not me. Most years I do some Christmas shopping while I'm on vacation, so family can expect some gift from Hawaii or Alaska or wherever we have traveled during the year.

This year we got as far as upstate New York, and sure enough, I did pick up a few things there. But it's not a good idea to wrap them and hide them in closets or under the beds, because I will certainly forget them--either where I put them, what's in the brightly wrapped packages, or even that I ever bought them to begin with. Many years I am surprised around Easter to come across some gifts I have absolutely no recollection of buying. Lists are helpful, but too often I lose the lists, too.

But I actually love Christmas and look forward to the season every year--the cold snap that brightens my cheeks, the store clerks before they burn out from dealing with the public, the twinkly lights, and my annual humming-along with "The Messiah" (only in the comfort of my own home, of course). So I agree with the sentiment--"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas."

If only they weren't singing it in July.

Welcoming New Baby With Joy and Concern

2009-11-11T05:00:00-05:00

Posted by Kate Flora

Quarry, the seventh anthology in our yearly collection of crime stories by New England writers, arrived on my front porch last week, box after box of strong, beautiful, new-born books. Although it is the seventh book in the collection, the process never gets old. I'm as excited about the arrival of this new book as I was so many Novembers ago, awaiting the arrival of Undertow, our first anthology. I'm curious to see how the stories will strike me on a third or fourth reading. How well they'll work together. Whether we've successfully put them into the right order, into a balance which will please and intrigue the readers who pick it up and send them forward, curious, to read the next story.

The invitation to participate in this project as an editor came from Susan Oleksiw, a writer whose work, vision, and drive I greatly esteem, eight years ago. Would I like to participate as an editor in assembling a collection of crime stories that would take a snapshot of the New England writer's mind? It was an intriguing idea--to sit on the editorial side--and I accepted the invitation. We thought it was a one-time project, but our delight in the book, and our pleasure had getting to introduce readers to fine stories, and in discovering talented unpublished writers, made us want to do it again. And again.

Along the way, our third editor, Skye Alexander, left the region for Texas, and was replaced by a fine local writer, Ruth McCarty, who had been one of our own early discoveries.

They have been a rich and wonderful eight years. I couldn't imagine, on that cold winter day when we sat and looked at our first set of submissions, what a joy it would be nine months later to watch a signing line of our authors--several of them first timers--holding the physical book that had their work in print. It was that pleasure and excitement--theirs at being published, mine at getting to share their work with readers--that has led to six more collections.

I've just come from a launch event at River Run books in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, for the newest collection. Three of our authors read from their stories, and each one had such distinct voice, such an inviting sense of mystery, and each was different. It's always fun to watch an audience being read to. People love to hear writers read their stories. I can see it in their faces and in the sighs of pleasure when the author finishes. Tonight it was Norma Burrow's "Confessions of a Telemarketer," which begins: "No one in their right mind would give a postal worker a hard time. Their tendency to go "postal" is well documented. However, it is socially acceptable to harass and be rude to telemarketers over the phone. I am here as a telemarketer to ask you, Do you have a death wish?"

With a start like that, who wouldn't need to finish the story? Norma will be reading again next week at Water Street in Exeter, New Hampshire.

Our authors even get creative about marketing the book. Vincent O'Neil, a Malice Domestic award-winning author who has a delightful caper story in the collection, even sent us prospective posters. Up in Farmington, Maine, attorney Woody Hanstein, who has had stories in most of our collections, is putting out the word about the collection in his homegrown internet newspaper, the Daily Bulldog. Maine Librarian John Clark is spreading the word in the library community. Next week, John and Woody will be talking about Quarry at the Farmington Library. And there are more events in the works.

So, with the excitement of a new book and all this lively activity, why am I concerned? Because it has been a hard year for booksellers and for publishers. I'm a natural born worrier, and I'm worried that despite a big push and a wonderful product, I may not be able to sell enough books. And if I can't sell the book--good as it is--then next November, the happy little Level Best Family won't be welcoming another new baby.

Sure, seven children is enough. They're beautiful, talented, entertaining, thoughtful, inspiring, and unique. But there is a whole world of stories out there, established writers to celebrate and new writers to discover. Life won't be the same if I--and my partners Ruth and Susan--aren't spending many hours reading them and shaping another rich collection.

And, by the way, you can order your copy of Quarry here.

The Generosity of Cozy Authors

2009-11-10T04:10:00-05:00

Posted by Lorraine Bartlett -- also known as Lorna Barrett

Last week I sent out my quarterly newsletter. In it, I offered a large print edition of my first Booktown Mystery, MURDER IS BINDING. (My editor's assistant had been tidying the office and found an extra copy--so I figured, why not give it away?) The catch? Readers had to tell me (in 50 words or less) why they wanted/needed a large-print edition of the book.

Whoa, was I unprepared for the onslaught of requests. Some of them were downright silly ("I just turned 40 and I don't want to wear reading glasses to read for pleasure") while some were heartbreaking ("I have terminal cancer. . .")

I never said this was going to be a "picked from the hat" contest, as I really wanted the book to go to someone who needed it--not for some frivolous reason, so it was a no brainer to divide the requests into two piles: "Worthy" and "Better Luck Next Contest." And I could have just chosen one name from the worthy pile and sent them the book. But I wanted to do more than that.

So I asked a bunch of my friends, also cozy mystery authors, if they could help me out and donate one of their books.

Let's pause for a moment and think about what an utterly outrageous request this really was. These were MY readers and MY contest, and I was asking my pals to part with a $25 book. We don't get cases of these books. We're lucky to get two copies of the large-print editions of our books, and more often we only get one. What would they get out of helping me out?

I'll tell you what, the satisfaction of doing something nice.

There are a lot of nice people out there, doing good for a lot of people, but they rarely get thanked for it in a public forum. That's why I want to SHOUT OUT LOUD about the generosity of my cozy author friends:

JULIE HYZY

LEANN SWEENEY

DEB BAKER

SHEILA CONNOLLY

SARAH ATWELL (2 books!)

Because of these friends, four more people, one small library, and a nursing home, will have a happier holiday. (Most of the requests came from unemployed people wanting to give books to their elders with vision problems.)

I'm reminded of the ending of the movie "It's A Wonderful Life," where Clarence the angel gives George Bailey a copy of Tom Sawyer. In it he wrote: "George, no man is a failure who has friends."

I think that goes for women, too.

DO BLONDES HAVE MORE FUN?

2009-11-09T07:00:00-05:00

Posted by Sheila Connolly

At Boucheron recently I was hanging out with a terrific group of women who all write in the same genre, traditional mysteries. (You know who you are!) In fact, many of us write for the same publisher. All are talented, interesting people. And I realized that most of them are blonde.

When you know people primarily on-line, through their blogs or through writers lists, you don't think much about appearance. We do share a lot of personal information: I could probably tell you which ones are married, which have children, which are still working at day jobs. I could even tell you how many pets they have and what kind(s), or their favorite foods. But until you meet them at a conference, you have no idea what they look like.

Well, this batch was blonde. Guess what: I'm not blonde. I felt like a goose in a swan convention. A "herd" of swans? (Hey, it sounds wrong, but I looked it up.) There are probably pictures to prove it.

Why did I notice this? A few million years ago, when I was an art history major in college, I wrote a senior thesis about Victorian Genre Painting. In case you're unfamiliar with that (believe me, most people are), it was a style of painting that became popular when the middle classes in the later nineteenth century found they had some disposable income and started buying art, mainly as wall decoration. Quite a few of these pictures included the very people who were buying them: the English bourgeoisie. (Gee, kinda like cozies, eh?) The characters depicted were affluent members of the class, often seen in comfortable home environments. At the same time there was a "story-telling" element, and quite often a moral message.

My particular focus in the thesis was how Victorian painters depicted women in that era (I wrote this during the height of the feminist wave). The overall theme was "home=good". Women were represented as the keepers of the hearth, helpmeets, and mothers. And to emphasize this, there was the antithesis of this image: the fallen woman.

The picture that best sums this up was painted by one Arthur D. Lemon, titled "Pure Innocence/Pure in No Sense." It was a dual picture. On one side was a charming child at play; on the other, a prostitute. And both were blonde. (I'd love to show it to you, but it's so obscure that it doesn't appear anywhere on-line.)

Blonde or fair hair is often associated with childhood. In addition, it is (if I recall my college biology classes correctly) also the result of recessive genes, so a "true" blonde is a relatively rare phenomenon, unless you happen to find yourself in Scandinavia. So if a woman chooses to lighten her hair color, she is doing it (a) to invoke in others pleasant associations with early childhood, or (b) to stand out in a crowd (think Marilyn Monroe). According to my in-depth research (i.e., I googled it), commercial hair bleach first emerged in a major way in the 1880s-90s, which corresponds to the period of Lemon's picture. I would guess his lady of the evening wanted to be noticed.

Of course, hair color today runs the gamut from natural shades to neon, so a blonde hue is pretty mainstream. And then there's the age factor: many of us are "of a certain age," as the French would say. (TheFreeDictionary tells me that means a woman who "is no longer young but is not yet old." Unfortunately, with ageing comes grey hair. We live in a youth-oriented culture, and nobody wants to be branded as "old," even if they're only forty.

Take a poll among any group of women: how many are sporting their own natural hair color? Not many, I'd bet. I plead guilty, and my grandmother went to her grave at 94 with dyed hair. My mother dyed her hair; my sister dyes hers. I resisted for as long as I could and finally gave in when I felt like I was fading into the wallpaper.

But I didn't go blonde, because it would look entirely fake on me. Instead I opted for a tribute to my Irish forbears and chose a warm brown with reddish highlights (let's ignore the fact that the only Irish family members I knew had dark or sandy hair–not a redhead in the batch). At least I don't look blah and washed-out.

So to come back to my original question: why are so many cozy writers blonde? We want to look younger than our chronological age? I don't think that applies. For one thing, many of us think that we're better writers now than we would have been twenty years ago, so we don't need to go back. Besides, our readers don't look at author photos when they buy our books. Is it because we want to stand out from the crowd? I'm happier with that idea. Maybe the blondes are saying, look at me! I'm smart, I'm articulate, and I like what I'm doing. It's a great group to hang out with–even if you're not blonde.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: LAURA CHILDS

2009-11-08T17:09:56-05:00

Please join us here on Writers Plot next Saturday, November 14, when Laura Childs will be our guest. Laura is the author of the Scrapbooking Mysteries, Tea Shop Mysteries, and Cackleberry Club Mysteries. She'll be talking about how she became a mystery author. Her latest book is Tragic Magic (#7 in the Scrapbooking Mystery series).

Don't miss it!

DO YOU HAVE MY NOUNS?

2009-11-07T04:49:00-05:00

by Guest Blogger Mary Jane Maffini

So, do you have my nouns? Some days there isn't a single one to be heard in our house. In chat between my husband and me, nada. It's not like the dogs can eat them. They've just disappeared. Take today's morning conversation:

He, looking frazzled. "Where's my um …?"

Me, taking one eye off fascinating newspaper article featuring severed body parts. "What um?"

"You know, the …" Voice trails off again. Cute silver head is scratched. He is wondering what is wrong with his wife that she can't tear herself from the blood and gore story to answer the simplest question. "Things, the things. I need them to start the um."

"Oh right. I think I saw them on the whatzit, next to your … Did you check there?"

"What whatzit?" He is starting to get annoyed, but doesn't want to show it, at least not until he finds the things.

"What things?" I counter. He's not the only one who can get annoyed.

"I had them when I got back yesterday because I used them to open the …"

"Did you look on the whatzit?" I point upwards toward the bedroom, which has several whatzits, one of them with things on it.

Grumbling starts. "Now I'm going to be late meeting what's-his-name at--." Snapping fingers follows grumbles, trying to get a handle on what's-his-name. A noun is after all person, place or thing. The persons and places can vanish too. Snapping fingers will not bring them back, as we've learned the hard way.

Of course, it doesn't pay for me to get too uppity. It's merely a matter of time before I find myself saying "Have you seen that pile of stuff that was here yesterday? There's a lot of important er … "

"What pile of stuff?"

"You know, the, um. It was this high, over there by the you know."

"Your voice trailed off. What stuff again?"

Of course, he has no choice but to cooperate. After all, didn't I help him find those things on the whatzit just this morning? "Are you certain you didn't move it somewhere?"

"I don't think so."

"Sure you did.. It's right over by the gizmo near the the uh. Oops, watch out for the queerthing on the -- . Are you all right? Did you hurt your …?"

Okay, all this, including missing noun injuries, might be expected if we didn't own six thousand books, including at least eighteen dictionaries. Or if we hadn't both read obsessively as children. I took care of fiction, he was in charge of non-fiction. Even if I wasn't as a friend once described me 'a known talker'. So it's not like we didn't ever have a supply of fancy upscale and occasionally obscure nouns to sprinkle in our sentences, insert into conversations or meaningful questions.

Of course, what good are dictionaries when you have to check everything under S for stuff or T for thing?

I put my lapses down to the brain-frying activity writing two books this year. They each contained mountains of nouns, many of them scary if not dangerous. That must be what's edging them out. But seriously, what's his excuse? Oh well, it's not so bad, really. As long as our verbs don't start to, you know … um.
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Mary Jane Maffini is the author of the Charlotte Adams mysteries and two Canadian series: the Ottawa-based Camilla MacPhee books and the Fiona Silk novels set in West Quebec. Her latest book, Law & Disorder, the sixth in the Camilla MacPhee series, is absolutely crawling with nouns. Verbs, too.

What Did I Ever Do Without The Discovery I.D. Channel?

2009-11-06T09:16:31-05:00

posted by Leann Sweeney

I can't tell you how many times I've heard myself--and other writers--say, "If I wrote that in a novel no one would believe it." But that's what Discovery ID is all about. Delving into the unbelievable crimes that people commit. And giving me more motive material than I could ever come up with in a million years.

Lately I've been watching lots of old episodes of Dateline and 48 Hours. These shows rarely focus on anything a thriller writer would be interested in. But OMG, they are a cozy writer's gold mine. Most of these episodes deal with crimes in small town America and involve infidelity, white collar crime and almost always murder. Don't get me wrong. They have profiled some of the more recent serial killer cases, like BTK, but even that case is a fascinating psychological study of a guy who would never make a great villain in a serial killer book. Too ordinary. He hid in plain sight. Like the killer does in a cozy. Oh, I forgot the taunting part about BTK. The taunting did do him in and that doesn't happen in a cozy.

Most recently I watched a two hour saga about a woman in Ohio who had two boyfriends, seven children--oh, and a husband. She is a former beauty queen--rich and beautiful. And had been messing around for a long time. Even one of her kids belonged to a boyfriend, not her husband. One of said boyfriends killed the other. And she was tried for conspiracy. She was found guilty, had her verdict reversed on appeal and she is now a free woman. Too much drama for a cozy, I guess. But it's good to know that the stuff I think up isn't "way out there" or at the very least a stretch. When it comes to humans, I don't think there is a "stretch."

There's plenty more I love about the ID channel. "Forensics: You Decide" is great for plotting. As a mystery writer, I have to be able to spin the possibilities of how and why a crime occurs. That's where the clues and red herrings come in when crafting a mystery. Misdirection by defense lawyers or misinterpretation of the evidence is fascinating to watch. And it happens enough to create a TV show about it. I like "Solved" because it follows a case in a very linear fashion from beginning to end. For me, writing in first person, linear is important. The heroine in my story as well as the reader get to see the evidence as it unfolds. And all the directions it can lead. Yup. Love "Solved."

I haven't watched all the shows on ID--yet. But I'm about to check out the show about evil women. Every crime writer should brush up on their evil women. But I'm not so sure about the series they broadcast that deal with ghosts and psychics. I don't think I will be writing any stories like that. But I do enjoy a good autopsy program--even though I leave the gore out of my books. To know the reality of crime, the reality of violent death may not show up on the page, but to write an authentic story, to make it seem real, I need to see and hear and feel the pain some of those victims and families feel.

So thank you Discovery I.D. You are a wonderful resource.