The Stiletto Gang

Idle Threats

noreply@blogger.com (The Stiletto Gang) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 10:00:00 +0000

I was making the bed one morning, the television tuned to a morning program on a national station, when James Patterson’s voice implored me to buy his latest book or he would “kill Alex Cross.” Oh, really? You would? This advertisement from the thriller-meister has generated a great deal of talk on DorothyL, a listserv that I and many of my Stiletto brethren subscribe to. People fall firmly into two camps when it comes to expressing their opinions about this ad: brilliant versus schlocky. I think I’m somewhere in the middle.

The first thing I wondered is exactly how much does it cost to get thirty seconds worth of air time during “Good Morning, America”? I’m sure it’s more money than I have but I wonder nonetheless. Second, I wondered how many people actually believe Patterson. Is there a contingent of die-hard Patterson fans out there who would trudge to the bookstore (or to their computer keyboard) to order the book just because he said so? Obviously, Patterson is being tongue-in-cheek. But I’m curious to know how successful an ad like that is in generating sales.

I don’t know that I’ve ever read an Alex Cross novel, so I don’t know whether to be chagrined or not that he might travel to the great unknown in Patterson’s next novel. Is Alex Cross the guy that Morgan Freeman always plays in the movies? If so, please don’t kill him, Mr. Patterson. I love Morgan Freeman and want him to have work well into his 80’s, some 50 years after it is unacceptable for women to have a decent leading role.

Let’s remember that Patterson began in advertising, something that’s been pointed out several times on DorothyL. According to one of the posters—our friend and fellow mystery writer, Chris Grabenstein—the sign on Patterson’s door to his band of ad copywriters was “Startle me.” I actually have a friend who worked for him, and by all accounts, he was a master at the game. So it’s not surprising that he would pull out all of the stops to sell books, which got me wondering (once again…I do a lot of wondering), “Just how far would I go to sell a book?”

Conclusion? Not far.

People know what they like to read and they are not usually persuaded to go outside of their comfort zones, in my opinion. I think back to one of the first book signings I ever did, as the guest writer featured during our middle-school’s Barnes and Noble fundraiser. I sat, all alone, at a table in the middle of the store, smiling and trying not to look as uncomfortable as I felt. A woman approached me and asked me what kind of book “Murder 101” was. I gave her a rambling synopsis of the plot, and she took the book over to where she was sitting to look through it to see whether or not it was worth the twenty or so bucks B&N was charging for it on that particular day. She walked back to me a few minutes later, her face stern. She handed me back the book. “I don’t think I want to read this,” she said. And instead of screaming, “Buy this book or I will kill Alison Bergeron!” I bid her a nice day and sunk a little lower in my hard-backed chair.

I used to work in college textbook publishing and one of my jobs was to support our sales reps in the field by traveling with them and making sales calls. I have to say, I was pretty good at closing the deal. And I will admit I once used the old “baby needs a new pair of shoes” line to a professor who was considering one of our books. I was eight months pregnant at the time, and he was so surprised by my cheekiness that he ordered 150 copies of a $40.00 book on the spot. Yes, that’s $6000 worth of business in a five-minute call. All this to prove that when necessary, I can sell. But there’s something different when it’s a book that you wrote, that your blood, sweat, and tears went into, that came from your heart. The hard sell just doesn’t seem to apply.

All this to say that I applaud Mr. Patterson. I won’t buy his book (“I don’t think I want to read this”) but I will probably buy a copy for a family member for Christmas. Because in a thirty-second ad, Patterson piqued my interest. People obviously care enough about Alex Cross as a protagonist that killing him off would upset them greatly. And that makes me wonder.

“Final Exam” came out yesterday. If you like my kind of mysteries, I hope you’ll buy it. More than that, though, I hope you enjoy it.

And in the interest of blatant self-promotion, commonly called BSP on DorothyL, what I will do is offer an excerpt of “Final Exam” here at the Stiletto Gang on Friday. Please check back if you’re interested in finding out what kind of trouble Alison Bergeron gets herself into this time. Let’s just say it involves exploding toilets, drugs, aliases, and one very hot and bothered Crawford. Interested yet?

Maggie

A Wonderful Christmas Past

stilettogang@gmail.com (The Stiletto Gang) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 09:31:00 +0000

Years ago I belonged to a sorority--no, not the college kind, this one was social--whose primary purpose seemed to be having fun. We had once a week get-togethers and a party once a month at someone's house which our husbands were invited to. There was always a theme and we usually danced. We also had get-togethers with other sororities in our area, ones where we wore long dresses.

During this time I was a teacher at a pre-school for developmentally disabled kids.

It bothered me that our sorority didn't do any service projects, I'd never belonged to anything where we didn't do anything useful for anyone else. One of the consultants who worked with the kids at our school told me about a family with three kids, one developmentally disabled, and the father had lost his job and they had no money for Christmas.

I approached the sorority members, told them about the situation and proposed that we provide Christmas for this family. The women thought this was a great idea. We found out the ages of the children and everyone bought gifts. We also got a tree and decorated it. (This was before they sold all the pre-decorated phony trees.)

We gathered all the food needed for a Christmas dinner including homemade pies and some extra groceries too.

We loaded up the back of my station wagon (I always had station wagons, after all, we had five kids) and four of my sorority sisters went with me on delivery day. We located the address, an apartment house. A man was working on his car in front of one of the garages. We called out and asked if he knew this particular family. He said that was his family.

"Great, we have something for you."

He looked bewildered, but started helping us carry everything upstairs to their apartment. He opened the door and we brought everything in. The mom and kids stared at us wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

When we'd deposited everything, the man asked, "Who did this? Where did this all come from?"

One of the gals said, "You have heard of Santa Claus haven't you?"

We left giggling all the way down the stairs and on the drive back home. What a wonderful feeling that was and I didn't feel quite so bad about belonging to a sorority that's primary goal was having fun.

Marilyn
http://fictionforyou.com

The Search for Plots

stilettogang@gmail.com (The Stiletto Gang) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 10:00:00 +0000

Where do mystery plots come from? National news broadcasts, local newspapers, obscure blogs – they are all great resources for a mystery writer.

The following are some of the news bits that caught my eye recently.

A searcher dies: Robert Rines died at age 87. For 35 years he'd been spending his free time at Loch Ness looking for evidence of Nessie. As a biologist in addition to being a mystery writer, I've always been interested in the search for unknown species. I think Mr. Rines must have enjoyed the adventure and the thrill of the search; otherwise he would have give up the hunt years ago. Many books have been written with the theme of "the searcher." And many more will be.

A celebrity crashes his SUV: An expensive SUV driven by a sports celebrity strikes a fire hydrant and tree at the end of his driveway in the middle of the night. The air bags don't deploy. His wife uses a golf club to shatter the back windows and pulls her semiconscious husband out. Or at least that's the surface story. The next day reports of affairs fill the tabloid and mainstream news sources. Then the celebrity apologies for letting his family down and pulls out of scheduled events. Wouldn't be hard to pen a plot with this scenario.

A couple crashes a White House State Dinner: Had Evelyn David included an event like that in a mystery, readers would have howled, claiming it was unbelievable. Now we all know different. All the Secret Service agents, metal detectors and firepower in the world is sometimes not as effective as one strategically placed secretary with a guest list on a clipboard. The couple's totally inappropriate, even dangerous, actions have opened up all kinds of plot opportunities for writers who want to use the backdrop of the White House.

A murder trial in Italy: The American student studying in Italy is on trial for the murder of her housemate, a British student. An innocent, young American woman who is being mistreated by a foreign justice system? Or is she a monster who masterminded a sexual assault and bloody killing of another young woman? The jury just found her guilty and sentenced her to 26 years in prison. There's tons of material for a fictional mystery in this sad set of circumstances.

What kinds of non-fictional mysteries are you interested in? Which ones would you like to see used as the basis of a novel? Or do you tire of the ripped-straight-from-the-headlines, Law and Order type of scenarios and would rather not recognize the events when you read a mystery book? Is it cheating to base the story on real life and simply manipulate the ending you prefer? Or is all fair and game in the mystery biz?

Rhonda aka The Southern Half of Evelyn David

To All the Scrooges Out There...Bah Humbug!

stilettogang@gmail.com (The Stiletto Gang) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:00:00 +0000

by Susan McBride

You'd think that with the world in such turmoil people would start being nicer to each other, but it seems just the opposite. I don't know why civility seems such a rarity these days, but it is (had a nice rant with Maggie on Wednesday about this!). Is it because technology has made it unnecessary to deal with people face to face? Is it that profit has taken such precedence over people that "customer service" has become as extinct as "Made in the U.S.A."? Is it because rudeness has become so commonplace that it's pretty much acceptable? What the heck's going on, and how can we fix it?

During hard times, people are supposed to band together, aren't they? Instead of sounds of cooperation, all I hear is political sniping. I am so sick of seeing grown-ups on TV, lying and arguing and acting like misbehaving children (paging SuperNanny!). How can we expect our kids to act polite if there aren't any role models of politeness to follow?

I'm feeling strangely nostaglic for my growing-up years. We moved around a lot when I was a kid, but every new neighborhood we landed in had a similar sense of community. You knew all the families on your street and probably several more streets around you. Neighbors looked out for neighbors, and any families with kids became close friends. We shared dinners, played kickball or softball or Red Rover, and raced our bikes up and down the streets. I had a cute older boy once offer me a cigarette while hiding behind a bush during flashlight tag, and I realized after one puff that I never wanted a cigarette to touch my lips again! When I fell off the slide and landed on my head during recess (brilliantly trying to go down standing up in tennis shoes), my mom couldn't be reached. So Mrs. Butler next-door picked me up and let me lay on her couch and watch TV, eating Charleston Chews, until my mom got home hours later. It was awesome.

As I grew up and moved around a few times as an adult, I felt more of a sense of isolation in my neighborhoods. There's more distance between people, and everyone's so wary (perhaps, rightly so, considering the headlines on the evening news). Could be that all this fear and distance has made people less practiced in common courtesies. I'm rather stunned when someone opens a door for me these days (and it's usually an older man). I actually try to open doors for people whenever I can, just to freak them out.

And the uncivility doesn't stop with pedestrians. It's almost worse when people get in their cars. I dread having to go anywhere as no one seems to obey traffic rules anymore. Red lights don't mean "stop" for most. In St. Louis, if you have any sense, you wait about three beats for cars to keep going through a red light at an intersection before you can go on the green. Say the guy in the far left lane decides he needs to be in the far right lane. No problem. He just cuts across three lanes of traffic to make his exit. It's ridiculous. I don't say the f-word in public and only in private when I'm very frustrated; but somehow when I'm out running errands, it pops out of my mouth a lot. Were drivers always this bad? Or is it more of the rudeness thing? The "I don't give a s**t about anyone else but myself" attitude that seems so prevalent?

I know, I know. It's the holiday season. Everything should be all pretty lights and bows, but I can't seem to stop stumbling over Scrooges everywhere I go. Now that I've ranted, I'm going to say "poo poo to mean people" (did I do that right, Marian?). I am going to stick a smile on my face even if I'm pinned against the Wii display during crowded shopping days. I plan to say, "Happy Holidays," open doors, and be as pleasant as can be no matter how many Scrooges I encounter. If I'm nice then maybe it'll make someone else feel nicer, too, and so on and so on, like that old shampoo commercial. Pretty soon it'll catch on like the swine flu and become an epidemic! (And, no, I haven't been dipping into the loaded eggnog--yet--but that does sound mighty, um, nice!)

The Puck Does not Stop Here!

noreply@blogger.com (The Stiletto Gang) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:00:00 +0000

Nikki Bonanni has worked in the fitness industry for almost 20 years. In the 90’s she began as a Fitness Director at a small health club in Ithaca, NY, eventually becoming the general manager. While at that small club Nikki joined forces with a friend to open a personal training and consulting business which thrived for 6 years with over a dozen trainers working in both the gym and traveling to private homes. She is now an Exercise Physiologist in a new health club that is co-owned with a medical center, and is a part-time faculty member teaching at Ithaca College. In her spare time, she is working on her first mystery novel.

I am a true believer in doing things that make you happy. Trusting that if you want it bad enough there is always a way to make it happen. Realistically everyone needs to make a living and pay the bills. I am lucky enough to have a career that is also fun—I am an Exercise Physiologist in a health club that sits on an inlet to Cayuga Lake. Granted there are long hours and sometimes weekends, but the benefits far outweigh that. I get to see the water and wildlife, work with interesting people helping them become healthier, be active throughout my workday….and wear sneakers to work!

Work isn’t the only thing that defines you, and I have many other interests. One that has been a part of my life since I was a kid is mysteries. From Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys to Agatha Christie I have always been an avid reader. For many years I also professed that I wanted to be a mystery writer. Thanks to Carolyn Hart and The Christie Caper I became aware of this real life conference called Malice Domestic.

One day years later I was training a client who was also a mystery reader and mentioned Malice. Sure enough she said she’d love to go with me. There it was, my first opportunity to become part of a different world. That led to investigating other conferences, and although it took awhile to get there I was starting to realize one of my dreams. For the past two years I’ve gone to a number of these GREAT events. I have also started to write, and have been overwhelmed with the generosity, help and friendship of other authors. If I had not taken that first step this thing that is now a big part of my life would never have happened.

As I said, I have a lot of interests, so there was still something that I loved that was missing. Sports. Throughout high school and college I played several varsity team sports. When you join the adult world, lack of time and opportunity often lead to athletes ‘retiring’.

One of my clients happened to be a goalie on a women’s recreational hockey team. Since field hockey was one of my sports I expressed an interest in maybe one day trying ice hockey. She invited me to an open hockey, and even though I told her I could only skate forward she insisted I go play. Needless to say it was a bit of a disaster! However, after a friend nicely told me I could not play hockey until I learned to skate, I decided that I did indeed want to do it.

It was a harsh reality for me to not be able to have the ability to do a particular sport; I am generally at least adept at most athletic endeavors. Skating was not so. It was beginner lessons for me, and even the little kid version of ‘wiggle your butt’ could not propel me skating backwards—I just ground holes in the ice.

If you want it badly enough, you can do it! At age 40 I really wanted to be good enough to play on a team, and after lessons, beginner women’s hockey and then spring league, I have done it now playing on two teams and having a blast!

So, since I have not actually published a book (yet), I do have a giveaway. Anyone that posts something they have done to follow their dream will be entered into a drawing for a signed copy of Hank Phillippi Ryan’s Prime Time along with a cool tote bag! Thanks Hank!!

Nikki Bonnani

So You Want to Be in Pictures?

noreply@blogger.com (The Stiletto Gang) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 10:00:00 +0000

I read an article in the New York Times this weekend in which the writer estimated that in any given year, ten thousand reality-show contestants (actors?) grace our television screens. Ten thousand? I think that’s a conservative estimate.

As you faithful Stiletto readers know, I have partaken of a few reality shows myself. My son and I enjoy Survivor immensely and look forward to sitting together under a blanket (it’s almost winter here and I refuse to put up the heat until absolutely necessary) and criticizing each contestant’s game play. Then we talk about how long we would last on the show. (Me? One episode. Him? He’d win.) And I admit, I do enjoy the “Real Housewives of Whatever City They’re In” if only to bask in the glory that is my own lack of self-absorption and over-spending. The entire family enjoys The Amazing Race and have a new-found love for the Harlem Globetrotters after watching Big Easy and Flight Time run a very nice race against some very nasty competitors. We were sorry to see them go this past Sunday night because Big Easy couldn’t rearrange five letters to spell “FRANZ.” Oh, well.

By the way, if I ever make the Harlem Globetrotters, I would like my stage name to be “Paperback Writer.” I know—not original. But it’s better than “Can’t Make a Foul Shot” which is probably more appropriate.

All kidding aside, I have never had an urge to be a reality-show participant, but from what I glean from the Times article, I’m in the minority. That’s why it wasn’t a shock in one sense to read about the State Dinner crashers, a former Redskins cheerleader (if the wife is to be believed—no one on the Redskins’ cheerleading staff remembers her) and her equally fame-hungry husband. On what planet is it acceptable to crash a dinner at the White House? I guess if you’re dying to be recognized or to exploit your fifteen minutes of fame, it would be this planet.

There is so much wrong with this scenario that I hardly know where to begin. Breach of security? Check. Possible international incident? Check. Complete lack of class? Double check. In my humble opinion, I hope they are roasted like my Thanksgiving turkey when they sit before a select group of representatives tomorrow. And then, I hope they go to jail.

You want to be on television? Shoot a video and stick it on You Tube. Then, tell all of your friends to watch it and help you make it go “viral.” I assure you, some nightly news program will pick it up and televise it. Then you can live your lifelong dream of seeing yourself on the tube and we can all go back to our daily lives, secure in the knowledge that the Secret Service can focus on their job of protecting the President from the true crazies, not just the ones who think it would be a hoot to get on tv.

I wish I had something more cogent to say about these two knuckleheads, but as I am sitting here writing this, I realize that their actions raise more questions than I can answer in six hundred words. What has become of our country that people are so focused on achieving some kind of fame—however dubious—that they would put the President of the United States in jeopardy, not to mention his family and guests? They are an embarrassment to our country. I know that heads are going to roll for this stunt—and I’m not saying that they shouldn’t—from members of the Secret Service to select White House staff. I wonder how that makes the party crashers feel. You got your fifteen minutes of fame, but someone is going to lose their job during the holidays.

Well done, White House party-crashing wannabe reality stars. You’re famous. Or infamous…not that you care.

Thoughts?

Maggie Barbieri

Giving Something of Ourselves

stilettogang@gmail.com (The Stiletto Gang) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 09:38:00 +0000

Today a new member of our church challenged us to give something of ourselves for Christmas. His proposal is that those who feel led to help put on a dinner for those at the church or in town who have no where else to go for Christmas.

Usually we give the fixings for a Christmas dinner for those who ask. We always do the same at Thanksgiving. This is something different though, this is a real commitment because not only do some of us need to cook, he suggested that there be greeters at the door, volunteers to transport people who might need a ride, someone to hand out name tags, and that we sit and visit with people we don't know. It also means giving up Christmas day at home.

As I sat in the pew thinking about it, I realized that our family, those who actually come to the house for the gift-giving, do so on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day we have the big dinner at one o'clock, the same time as this church dinner is being proposed. So--I could cook a turkey, make a big container of dressing and another of yams and take it to the church.

Since my son's family live next door and always come for Christmas dinner, I wasn't sure how they would react to this--but they were sitting on the same pew and heard the same proposal. After church we went out to eat together and I said, "I think I'm going to cook a turkey and some of the trimmings for the Christmas dinner."

My daughter-in-law said, "I think I'd like to be a part of that too. We can all go over to the church and have our dinner there. My granddaughter said, "I could do the name tags."

This is quite an undertaking as our church is really small. This morning I bet we only had about 30 people there--some were still off somewhere for the Thanksgiving holiday. Our little town is interesting--there are lots of rich retirees and there are a lot of down and outers, many of them live in what used to be a tuberculosis hospital that's been turned into low income housing for the elderly and handicapped. I suspect that's where a lot of people will come from.

You know what though, I bet this will turn out to be something we'll all love being a part of--and if it doesn't work out like we're hoping, well, we'll have tried.

And that's how the Christmas season is beginning in my neck of the woods--or should I say in the foothills of the Sierra.

Marilyn

Striking a Happy Holiday Balance

stilettogang@gmail.com (The Stiletto Gang) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:00:00 +0000

The official holiday shopping season has begun. Our family celebrates Chanukah, also called The Feast of Lights. The first of the eight candles will be lit the evening of December 11. Oy!

Our youngest daughter won’t be home from college until the holiday is actually over – so I plan to send some gifts to her at school, and save the rest for when she’s eating some latkes at the dinner table. Son number one and his wife live in Washington – so I need to get their gifts in the mail. If I’d been smart, I’d have had them ready and wrapped when they were here for Thanksgiving. Son number two and his wife, and son number three, all live in the area – so we’ll probably see them for at least one of the eight nights of the holiday.

I can give you the standard spiel, which is that Chanukah is a minor Jewish holiday, never intended to duplicate the breadth of Christmas. No trees, no garlands, no ornaments – at least not when I was growing up. Today, there are tons of decorations you can buy – but there’s a not-so-small voice that echoes in my mind that reminds me that I’m not supposed to go for the glitz (much as I love Christmas decorations) when celebrating the Feast of Lights. Chanukah commemorates the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean revolt. Desecrated by the forces of Antiochus IV, when the Jews retook the temple there was only enough holy oil to fuel the eternal flame for one day…but the miracle is that the oil lasted eight days, enough time to consecrate more holy olive oil.

Traditionally we eat latkes – potatoes fried in oil. In Israel they eat sufganiyot, jam-filled fried donuts. We play dreidel – a game with a spinning top with four Hebrew letters, Nun, Gimel, Alef, Shin, symbolizing the sentence, “Nes Gadol Haya Sham" -- A great miracle happened there.” Actually in Israel, the final letter is changed to Pei , to read “Nes Gadol Haya Po," -- A great miracle happened here.”

I confess I get caught up in the commercial holiday spirit because I love picking out gifts for loved ones and seeing their delight. And while I could certainly give presents other times of the year – and do – there is something fantastically fun about enjoying the communal spirit of shopping and giving – both on a personal and charitable level at this time of year. I'm a wrapping paper connoisseur, insisting on sharp tight corners on the package, and choosing just the right bow, because the original Evelyn insisted a present always required a ribbon. Who knew?

So I try to strike the right balance between the religious components and commercialism. And there is, of course, the thrill of the hunt – finding the perfect present at just the right price. I’ve never shopped on Black Friday – except this year, when I carefully combined coupons and promotion codes, and stopped by several online stores. Throw in some free shipping and this is one happy shopper. Might I remind all that books, especially mystery books, are always a perfect, one-size-fits-all gift!

So as the weeks move along during this holiday season, whatever you are celebrating, I wish for you the joy of giving, the delight of seeing those you love savor your thoughtfulness, and the importance of remembering those less fortunate at this time.

We’ll talk more in the weeks ahead. Enjoy!

Evelyn David

Murder Takes the Cake by Evelyn David
Murder Off the Books by Evelyn David
http://www.evelyndavid.com

From the Trenches: When Every NaNo Second Counts

noreply@blogger.com (The Stiletto Gang) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 10:00:00 +0000

Monday, the last day of November, will end National Novel Writing Month, also called NaNoWriMo, or for those beaten down by its grueling schedule who can no longer manage the extra syllables, just NaNo.

Every November for the last ten years, crazy writers worldwide have undertaken Chris Baty’s challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. Novels in their completed form, like the one you’re probably reading this week, are usually between 70,000-90,000 words and, generally speaking, many authors produce a book each year. So while 50,000 words is short by industry standards for book-length fiction, it’s gargantuan in terms of what most writers can swing in thirty days.

In his own 50,000 word book No Plot? No Problem! Baty explains how this mammoth task can be tackled. The book is a riot and I found it totally uplifting and inspiring. Even if you think you’ll never participate in NaNoWriMo I’d highly recommend his entertaining book for people who want to shake up their writing routines.

To summarize: During the month of November, writers put down 50,000 words—no editing allowed. He stresses that there is a time for writing (November) and a time for editing (December and onward). When we write passages that will never make the cut, rather than delete them, we are to italicize them. This is how we’ll know what to take out later. But for November, all the words stay in the manuscript because the name of the game is output, not quality.

Between you and me, I italicized thousands of words this month.

Professional writers fall on both sides of the NaNo fence. Some say it’s better to write carefully and well, editing as you go, because there will be less work waiting during the revision phase. Others embrace the stream-of-consciousness approach and say that there’s a creative part and an editing part to the writing process, and that when we’re being creative we must suppress our inner critic.

At Bouchercon, I talked to writers from both camps and told them I was planning to do NaNoWriMo this year. Half of them told me to go for it. The others cautioned that it was the worst thing I could do. But my mind was already made up.

I’d known about NaNoWriMo for years but had never tried it because in previous Novembers I’d always been in the middle of a project. The idea behind the exercise is not to write 50,000 more words of a project you’ve already started, but rather to start from scratch. As it happened, this year I finished the first draft of one project in October, which left November ripe for the picking. I figured all I had to lose was one month, and my writing output being what it normally is (not much) this was a no-brainer. I had nothing to lose and a potential story thread to gain.

The reason I decided to do it is because I’m a chronic over-editor. If I don’t force myself to move on in a story, I will tweak and improve and play around with early chapters forever, at the expense of not producing anything new. This doesn’t make the revision process faster, either, as those Bouchercon writers suggested it would. In the last book I wrote, for example, I massaged the early chapters until I thought they were absolutely perfect. Then my cherished critique partner convinced me to start the novel in Chapter Four. (He was right.) So where’s the economy in that?

No, the reason NaNoWriMo appealed to me is that I had a vague, general idea about what I wanted to write about in my next book. I wanted to write a mystery based on a love affair and I wanted to set it at a hockey rink. Being a mystery, someone would die, but I didn’t know who, or why, or how. This is not the sort of ambiguity upon which my editor looks favorably.

The first step of starting a new book is sending her a synopsis. In a synopsis, we basically tell the whole story to our editors in a couple of pages, including the twists, misdirections, and ending—none of which I had—and this way we can find out ahead of time if something major should be changed before we spend the next year wandering off into the weeds. So my reason for jumping into NaNo was to figure out what was going to happen in the book. I didn’t actually plan to use any passages I produced because I believed Chris Baty when he said, “Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap.” (I’m here to tell you he was right.) Rather, for me, NaNo would be a success if I came away with enough material to kluge a synopsis.

Enter real life. A few weeks ago, a colleague remarked that he thinks I organize my thoughts by writing. We were talking about the scientific papers we co-author, but his observation struck me as applicable for my fiction too. I decided that if I was lucky, I’d come out of NaNo with a 50,000 word outline, basically. I was willing to throw away all those words if my thoughts about the next book would finally be organized. Or even closer to organized.

But what about setting realistic goals? I work. Have kids. I’m training for a couple races. And there was my addiction to Facebook to consider.

I also had a lot of weekend commitments that took me out of town in November. So I modified my NaNo goal to 30,000 words. Before NaNo, a successful writing month for me produced 10,000 words of much higher quality so I thought that aiming for 30,000 words of drivel might be a fair compromise.

Finally, let’s not underestimate the convenience of letting our standards slide as things get tough. I draw upon my marathoning experience for illustrative purposes:

Before the race: “I’m gonna set a personal record!”
At Mile 10: “I feel so good. I’m invincible!”
Mile 19: “Guess I went out a little fast. If I finish as least as good as last year, that’ll be fine.”
Mile 22: “Why am I here? I hate running and all my friends are at the movies. I want their Junior Mints.”
Mile 24: “I’ll finish when I finish. Hell with it.”
Mile 26.2: “I missed my goal, but I’ve finished something most people will never start.”

That’s kind of how this month went for me. The New England Crime Bake conference over the weekend of November 13th and 14th set me back. When I came home, there was so much to catch up on, including kids’ activities and sports, and Thanksgiving events at their schools (that took up my lunch hours, during which I had been writing NaNo stuff before). Long story short, the words just weren’t coming as fast as they had earlier in the month. I decided to give myself a break on the word count and focus on just writing something every day, which is another thing I don’t usually do.

So how did I do? When this posts, I’ll have three days left, so I’m not done putting words down for this experiment. But at the time of this writing (Tuesday) I’ve penned 25,300 words on 95 pages, have a structure for the story, an interesting new character, and an idea about a motive. Whodunit details remain sketchy, and I won’t be using any of the words I actually put down. But over the holidays I hope to produce that synopsis.

I missed eight writing days in November. Ready for the excuses?
1. One day I was out of town for the Ft. Worth Mud Run.
2. The next day I just didn’t feel like doing anything. Happens.
3. One weekend I was at Crime Bake—too busy talking about writing to actually do any.
4. One day I got home from work and went straight to my daughters’ basketball practices, after which I came home and collapsed.
5. Another day I chose the gym over the keyboard. That was a sanity call.
6. This week I decided, rather abruptly, to paint my dining room. That took out another couple days.

Observations: Some days I wrote a couple thousand words, others I wrote a couple hundred. I wrote more longhand in November than I ever have before, scribbling words in a spiral notebook I carried around in my purse. I discovered that longhand works for me, and I’ll keep that notebook handy for long waits and unexpected downtime. I also learned that I can walk to a picnic bench near my lab and eat lunch outside while I write. I’ve never mixed business (day job) and pleasure (writing) in the same hours before, so this was a neat discovery, like stealing an extra writing hour out of the day.

By my admittedly low and sliding standards, NaNoWriMo was a success. My writing habits are more flexible than I once thought. I’d never written 4,000 words in one sitting and this month I did it twice. Before NaNo, I was unwilling to write flat dialogue or low-stakes scenes, so when I got stuck I left the keyboard, perhaps not to return for days. But by giving myself permission to explore a story in a rambling, blindfolded fashion, with no expectation of quality, I explored more possibilities. Several of them stuck and will stay in Book 3. Who knew?

Based on the last month, I’d say that if you are a disciplined writer who routinely turns out a word count with which you are satisfied, this is probably not something you need to explore. If you are that writer, then you already have a method that’s working for you. But if you’re like me, paralyzed to move ahead in your story unless you know what is supposed to happen next, then NaNo is a good exercise in pushing forward through the uncomfortable parts of a storyline. Recently I was one of several guests on a Blog Talk Radio show called What’s Write for Me. We talked about our experiences with NaNoWriMo and what it meant to each of us. If you’re thinking about NaNo or just curious how it went for other writers, click over and have a listen.

With luck, I’ll be between projects again next November because I’d really like to give this another go.

Parting words:
"The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark."
-- Leonardo da Vinci

Rachel Brady

Five Things I'm Thankful For

stilettogang@gmail.com (The Stiletto Gang) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 10:00:00 +0000

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at The Stiletto Gang!

On Thanksgiving, do you stop to think about all the things you’re thankful for? I do. There are so many, but most can fit into these five categories.

The top five things I’m thankful for:

5. Health and Happiness (knock on wood; we have obstacles, but overall, we're good!)

4. Writing for a Living (to earn *a meager* living doing what you love is fantastic)

3. The writing and book loving community (truly, they are an amazing group of people)

2. Good Friends and Family (because what would life be without them?)

and number 1 on my 'Thankful' list is...

1. My wonderful kids and husband (because they really do give my life meaning)

Have a wonderful day!!

~Misa

Of Turkeys and Traffic

noreply@blogger.com (The Stiletto Gang) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:00:00 +0000

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and we’re flung far and wide this year, people on the move. We’re the stay at home people whereas my parents are the flung-far people. Here at Chez Barbieri we are hosting Jim’s side of the family, which makes us a nice, even dozen. Fortunately, that number represents the maximum occupancy capacity in the house and in particular, around the dining room table, so just one more person and we’d find ourselves elbow to elbow while enjoying my brined turkey.

Mom and Dad have headed south to see my sister who lives in Georgia. In typical Mom/Dad style, they planned on leaving for the South at six in the morning to “beat the traffic” but decided, after a spirited discussion at two in the morning that they would leave then. When my mother called me at two o’clock in the afternoon on the day they were supposed to arrive at my sister’s (their original e.t.d. had them arriving around dinner time) and told me that they were fifteen minutes from her house, I was surprised. Our conversation went like this:

Me: Didn’t you leave at six this morning? Doesn’t it take thirteen hours to get there? (I had visions of my father doing 120 miles per hour down 95 and was wondering how they were still alive. I’m bad at math, as we all know, but even I can figure out that the trip not taking thirteen hours means that they were traveling at very high speeds.)

Mom: Well, Dad got up in the middle of the night and I was watching television so we just decided to leave then. Oh, and by the way, we were supposed to start back the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, but we’re going to leave the Saturday after Thanksgiving instead. You know, to beat the traffic.

Me (incredulously): You haven’t even arrived at your original destination, but you’re already talking about when you’re coming home?

Mom (through gales of hysterical laughter): We’re old! That’s what old people do!

Newsflash: they’re not old. And they shouldn’t be doing what old people do. They’ve got at least ten years before they need to start doing that. But it provided us some good laughs when Mom realized that indeed, they are mostly retired and have nothing to rush back here for. We’ll be eating leftovers for weeks, so surely they’re not anxious to get back to have dinner at our house.

Now, I’ve taken a poll and apparently, many people of retirement age are alternately fascinated and horrified by traffic and will do anything they can to avoid it. A friend’s father begins his trek from Florida at nine at night and drives until he hits…you guessed it…traffic. Only then will he stop to eat and/or go to the bathroom.

I’m thrilled that we’re staying home because the only traffic I will have to contend with will be the backup at the bathroom door as several Barbieri’s attempt to shower and look presentable for the day in the only bathroom with a shower. I’m absolutely positive that “bathroom rage” will ensue. But there is no way that I’m getting up any earlier to “beat the traffic.” I’ll just wait at the back of the line until I see a break in the action and then I’ll make my move. Just like any good driver.

Happy thanksgiving, Stiletto faithful.

Maggie Barbieri

Thanksgiving Past and Present

stilettogang@gmail.com (The Stiletto Gang) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:38:00 +0000

On Facebook a challenge was put out to tell something that we are thankful for everyday until Thanksgiving. That is not a hard task for me. I have so much to be thankful for, I've been truly blessed by having a loving husband, a large family, many friends, and a career that I love--actually there have been more than one of those.

Today, though, I'd like to write about Thanksgivings past and present.

When we were kids (my sis and I) growing up we always went to my grandparents house in South Pasadena for Thanksgiving along with my aunt, her husband, and their one child, a daughter. We were never allowed to wash or dry grandmother's good dishes, so we always headed outside. Only a block or two away from grandma's house were mansions. We loved to walk around and snoop, peeking inside gates and walking up long driveways to gaze at these huge houses. Once my sister and I played tennis (or tried to play) in someone's tennis court that was right inside the open gates. The people came home and smiled and waved at us. (If kids did something like that today, they would probably be hauled away to juvenile hall.)

After we had our first house--and several children--everyone came to our house for Thanksgiving. We set up tables in the living room in order to have enough room. I was always the cook.

Once we moved to the home we're in now, I still was the cook and we had all sorts of relatives who came for dinner, plus for many years we had the six women we cared for in our home. This house is bigger and we have a round table with a lazy Susan in the middle that hubby build. We can fit 16 around it and there's room to set up an extra table or two if need be.

Last year I had a break, we were invited to our youngest daughter's for Thanksgiving. Our youngest son and wife and their daughter went too. It was a good thing because I could never have cooked a big dinner because I came down with the flu and spent most of my time in bed.

This year we're having dinner at home again. Guests will be son, wife and grandaughter, my second oldest daughter and her husband, their daughter (another grandaughter) her hubby and three kids, and her other grandma who lives with them. I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't another guest or two, after all my grandson is a preacher--if he learns someone doesn't have a place to go for Thanksgiving he'll probably invite whoever it is to come to our place.

My daughter-in-law went with me to shop for the groceries needed and she'll do the mashed potatoes and a great salsa that she makes with lots and lots of fresh tomatoes, avocados, red onions, cilantro and a jalapeno. Doesn't sound very Thankgiving-ish, but believe me, it's delicious. Granddaughter has asked to make the green bean casserole and I'm quite happy to let her.

I don't like to bake so I ordered my pies from a new little place in town. I'll pick them up later today.

Believe me, I've figured out the easy ways to do everything. We serve buffet style, putting all the food on the kitchen counters. I even use paper plates so I don't have to spend time doing dishes after we're through eating.

Of course the TV will be turned to football games, but the kids and I will play our favorite card game, Estimation. That's sort of become a new Thanksgiving tradition.

And that will be Thanksgiving Present.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, hope you can all be surrounded by those you love as you eat your Thanksgiving meal.

Marilyn

The Thanksgiving Menu

stilettogang@gmail.com (The Stiletto Gang) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:00:00 +0000

Evelyn David will be at two Thanksgiving tables this year - a thousand miles apart geographically but just nextdoor in spirit.

Rhonda:
I watched an HGTV cooking special the other night. Four families were competing for $10,000 and the honor of best Thanksgiving feast. They had six hours to prepare the meal from scratch. Each team had 3 members. Each team's leader was the matriarch of the family. The obligatory turkey ranged from fried, to roasted, to "tofu-ed." It was fun to see the variety in the menus and the interaction of the families.

My family is from Oklahoma and our traditional Thanksgiving meal is rooted firmly in Southern cuisine. A large turkey is prepared. If it's not at least 18 pounds, it's not worth the trouble. It's thawed over several days in a cooler, then wrestled into the oven by my mom (the only one in the house up at 5 am.)

I get involved in with the preparation of the centerpiece of our meal – the cornbread & sage dressing. It's very labor intensive – lots of chopping, mixing, and tasting. The recipe is very close to what our ancestors fixed a hundred years ago. Each generation has tweaked the spices – my paternal grandmother added a couple of cans of chopped oysters. My mom and I have added cheese. About ten years ago we invented "dressing balls." We had more dressing than we could fit in the oven to bake, so we put the leftover raw dressing in greased muffin tins. We baked it after the rest of the meal was done. The result was individual portions of dressing that had a crusty top and sides – perfect for reheating in a microwave for the second, third, and fourth meals with the Thanksgiving leftovers. Now we bake all the dressing in the muffin tins. Modesty aside, I'm sure our Thanksgiving dressing is the best in the world.

The rest of our menu includes gravy, mashed potatoes, a cranberry/apple ring, a pineapple/orange Jell-O dish, green beans, steamed broccoli, baked sweet potatoes with marshmallows, homemade yeast rolls, pumpkin pie, and cherry pie. We wash it all down with gallons of iced tea.

My co-author is from New York but her mother was Southern. We've found that we have some of the same traditions and some different.

Marian:
Thanksgiving dinner seems to be set in stone. Sure we can mix it up a little, maybe try a new dessert, but basically my family wants to see the same items on the menu from year to year, regardless of whether I’ve got my Barefoot Contessa apron on or not.

Turkey is a given – although personally I ate all sides last year and never touched the bird. Sweet potatoes with marshmallows is a staple, a salad (which is more an homage to nutrition than actually eaten), and this year I’m trying a new cranberry conserve, but I’ll also have a can of Ocean Spray cranberry jelly for the traditionalists in the group. My daughter wants to make a pecan pie (yum!), and I’m going to make a devil’s food cake with a turkey decoration. If time is running short, it may just be chocolate cake sans the fancy bird – chocolate is a perfect way to express thankfulness.

Equally important to me as what is served, is what it is served on. I have several platters that belonged to my mother, the original Evelyn. A holiday wouldn’t be complete without having those dishes heaped with food – reminding me of wonderful holidays of long ago.

Our latest mystery, Murder Takes the Cake is set during the week before Thanksgiving. In one scene our main female character is debating on how she was going to spend her holiday and with whom.

Murder Takes the Cake – Evelyn David – May 2009

Mac started to walk to the door, but paused. "So what are you doing on Thanksgiving? Jeff and Kathleen want me to join the family, but I'm not up to that scene. You're probably doing something with your family.…"

"Not this year." Rachel sighed. "Sam is going skiing with his new girlfriend and my brother is off visiting his fiancée's family. Kathleen asked me to come too, but I'm not up for that scene either. I thought I'd stay home and feel sorry for myself."

"So maybe we could do that together? Or if we got really inspired we could get a pizza and watch some football or something?"

"Or maybe we could eat some turkey with cornbread stuffing, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, and pecan pie and then watch a movie?" Rachel countered.

"We'd need to negotiate the menu. Whiskey doesn't like pecan pie."

"How does she feel about apple pie?"

"A la mode?" he asked.

"Of course."

"It's a date."

Tell us about your Thanksgiving menu? Does it vary from year to year? What's your favorite dish?

Happy Turkey Day from Rhonda, Marian, and Evelyn David

http://www.evelyndavid.com/

A Missing Corpse?

stilettogang@gmail.com (The Stiletto Gang) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:00:00 +0000

When it comes to mysteries, few things are as bone-chilling as the thought of a missing corpse. After all, shouldn’t the dead be left alone? Not necessarily. Grave robbing can—and has—happened.

Michael Jackson’s family is said to have selected Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California for his burial, feeling that it was a more secure location for his body. They needn’t go back too far in history to find reason for concern. Elvis Presley’s remains were the target of an unsuccessful “body snatching” plot, and in 1978 Charlie Chaplin’s body was removed from his grave. His widow refused to pay a ransom, so poor Charlie was later discovered left in a cornfield by his frustrated abductors.

The idea of stealing a body for ransom goes back to the late 1800s. In 1876 a plan to take Lincoln’s body was foiled, but the body of Alexander T. Stewart, one of the wealthiest merchants of the Gilded Age, was successfully removed, and this crime set off a major fear among the well-to-do. Woodlawn Cemetery, the interment site of Jay Gould, established a security force after robber baron Jay Gould was placed in the family mausoleum there because there had been threats that his body would be taken.

Of course, grave robbing used to have a “practical” purpose—digging up bodies was one of the methods necessary to obtain bodies for dissection and medical study. Often the “procurer” made his living by obtaining bodies and/or organs for doctors or medical schools, but sometimes the medical students themselves had to get their own bodies. Documents left by the students indicate that the procurement of bodies was actually quite stressful. One fellow wrote, “No occurrences in the course of my life have given me more trouble and anxiety than the procuring of subjects for dissection.” With his friends at Harvard, this fellow, John Collins Warren Jr., created a secret anatomic society in 1771 called Spunkers, whose purpose was to conduct anatomic dissections.

Body snatching presented a terrible problem for the families of the deceased. They commonly set up watch over the body until burial, and later, relatives would take turns watching over the grave for a few days to be certain it was not dug up afterward.

Today fears of body snatching are primarily limited to those where there is enough ‘fame value” that the body parts would do well on eBay. In the meantime, most people today will be allowed to “rest in peace.”

Kate Kelly

Kate Kelly is a corporate speaker and successful author of more than 25 nonfiction titles. She is a veteran of both local and nationwide talk and news programs and has been quoted in publications such as Time and The Wall Street Journal. She has appeared on World News Tonight, Good Morning America, The View, The CBS Early Show, Fox and Friends, and on CNN, MSNBC and The Fox News Channel. For more interesting bits from American history, check out http://www.americacomesalive.com/blog

Sofa Comfort

stilettogang@gmail.com (The Stiletto Gang) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:00:00 +0000

I never considered myself as quirky, but now that I think about it, I guess I do have a few quirks. One of them is that I love a good kids movie. There's something magical about them, and they fill me with warm fuzzies. Make it a dark and blustery day, throw in a cold front and/or storm, give me slippers and a cozy quilt, a mug of hot tea (or better yet a pumpkin spice latte) and I'm in:

H. E. A. V. E. N., heaven.

Harry Potter movies still top my list. They're like comfort food for me. There's something about the world JK Rowling created that truly is...well... magical. Literally. And figuratively. Getting lost in Hogwarts with Harry, Hermione, and Ron makes me happy.

Same with Pirates of the Caribbean. Love Johnny Depp in most everything, but really love him in this movie. Love Geoffrey Rush. Love the whole pirate code, er, guidelines. Again...happy.

Holiday movies? CAN’T WAIT!!! Ushering in the season with Peanuts is essential. Miracle on 34th Street (love the original and the remake--I’m not a purist and I’m not ashamed to admit it--except when it comes to the original How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Accept no substitute.) is a favorite. It’s a Wonderful Life? One of the most perfect movies ever made. Patrick Stewart’s A Christmas Carol... so atmospheric, and he’s so adorable that I can’t wait to watch it.

Modern classics? The Santa Clause with Tim Allen... as good as warm cookies straight from the oven. My son played Santa Claus just like the boy in the movie. It spoke to him and so I will always love this movie. It’s magical.

And the stop motion shows from my childhood? Santa Claus is coming to Town, The Year Without a Santa Claus, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and The Little Drummer Boy are classics that we have to watch in our household. The season isn’t complete without them.

I get the same warm fuzzy feeling when I settle in with a good book. I'm currently reading The Help. LOVE IT. Can't wait to get back to it. These are people I wish I knew. I feel like I DO know them. I want them to be real. I'm rooting for them, holding my breath as their lives unfold before my eyes, and I can't wait to turn the page, start the next chapter, find out what happens next. I will be so sad when the book ends. That is a sign of a really great story.

My own books hold that magic for me, too. I can’t wait to dive into my writing each day because it’s like spending time with friends, getting close to them, living their lives with them, and there’s nothing better than spending a day like that.

So, what gives you warm fuzzies? Is there a book or a movie that holds that magic for you?

~ Misa

Crime Baking

noreply@blogger.com (The Stiletto Gang) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:00:00 +0000

This past weekend, approximately 200 hundred mystery fans and writers gathered together in the Dedham, Massachusetts, Hilton to participate in Crime Bake. It was a horrible weekend in New England, weather-wise, but that didn’t dampen the spirits of the attendees, all enthusiastic mystery lovers. We were treated to a lunchtime talk by Sue Grafton, creator of the “alphabet” mystery series and the fabulous sleuth, Kinsey Millhone, in which she listed ten things writers shouldn’t do in their writing. I was dismayed to find that I am guilty of oh…all ten.

But that aside, it was a great conference. Great panels, lots of interesting conversation, and a boxed lunch (my all-time favorite mode of food delivery). I met some great people at the banquet Saturday night including Dana Cameron, Paul Tremblay, and Jedediah Berry, where we all participated in trying to solve two murders that took place right before our very eyes when we weren’t growsing about how our dinners were being interrupted by the aforementioned murders.

I’m a newcomer to conferences, having only started going this year. I went to Malice Domestic in May with the northern half of Evelyn David, and now have gone to Crime Bake, which I most certainly will attend again next year. I’m not sure how much selling goes on at these conventions; remember, I come from a college textbook background and selling at conventions is what we do. But I do know that it’s great to meet other writers and fans (I fall into both categories), and to hear about how other people navigate the stormy and lonely seas of writing. I know that after having attended these two conventions, I have been spurred to write more and complain less. I always get inspiration from talking about writing and mysteries and I write more words that sound better together when I come home. (This post may not be an example of that, but hear me out.) I learned about fellow Stiletto blogger Rachel Brady’s participation in Nano Wrimo, where in you write 50,000 words in the month of November, no editing allowed. I was exhausted just listening to her talk about trying to reach the goal of writing 50,000 words in a month—most of my books run from 80,000-90,000 words when they are finished so 50,000 is no small feat—but then I remembered who I was talking to: writer, mother, rocket scientist, and all-around fabulous stiletto-wearing gal. Who, if not Rachel, would be able to undertake this task successfully?

Thankfully, November is half over so I don’t have to participate in Nano Wrimo. But something tells me that next year, Ms. Brady will be knocking at my door.

Marilyn’s post yesterday says it all: treat yourself to a conference. I was nervous about attending my first conference but I’ve learned that the mystery community is generous, accepting, and wonderful. You may meet one of your favorite authors, or find out that you have a fan or two. Going to a conference gives your solitary writing life a context and a purpose. There are more of you out there than you ever imagined and it’s nice when you can all come together to celebrate and discuss what you do and love.

Hey, Stiletto Readers: what are your favorite conferences and why?

Maggie Barbieri

An Idea for a Writer's Christmas Gift

stilettogang@gmail.com (The Stiletto Gang) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:00:00 +0000

While reading Nancy's wonderful guest post about research, I thought about one of the ways that I do research is by attending the Public Safety Writers Association's conference every year. Many of the members who attend and the speakers are experts in forensics, law enforcement, fire fighting, FBI and any number of professions that we mystery writers often have lots of question for.

I must confess, as the program chairperson for the conference after I've managed to talk the most outstanding speakers to come and make presentations at the conference, I'd really like to have a good crowd for them to share their expertise with.

You can take a look at the great line-up by heading to the website http://www.publicsafetywriter.com and checking them out. My suggestion is that if you are a mystery writer you might want to give yourself a Christmas gift by signing up for the conference--and if you know a writer who would benefit from a conference like this maybe you might nudge their significant other to register him or her for the conference.

Because it is a smaller conference, attendees have the opportunity to really network with everyone. And if you would like to be on a panel, all you have to do is say so on the registration form--and it would be great if you'd give a hint as to what kind of panel you'd like to be on.

You can bring your books for sale and PSWA will only take 10% as their fee for taking care of the selling.

If you think Christmas is too soon, since the conference isn't until June, be sure to sign up before March 31 to be on a panel before the price goes up once again. (The price includes three great lunches.)

I've said it before, but I'll say it again, besides gaining some knowledge, I guarantee you'll also have fun.

And be sure to check out the contest for unpublished and published short stories, articles, non-fiction books, and fiction books.

I promise not to say anything more about the PSWA conference until it gets closer to March.

I'm a confessed conference junkie--but this is one of my very favorites and not just because I'm on the board.

Try it, you'll like it.

Marilyn
http://fictionforyou.com

Our Justice System

stilettogang@gmail.com (The Stiletto Gang) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:00:00 +0000

America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.
Aaron Sorkin, The American President, 1995

The last ten days has made me marvel at the brilliance, strength, and yes, generosity of the American way of government – while at the same time grow angrier at those who abuse it.

Malik Hasan Nidal, the accused gunman in the Fort Hood massacre, demands a lawyer before being interrogated. That is his legal right – and while he (allegedly) had no trouble denying the right “to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” to 13 innocent victims, in fact, Nidal hired John Galligan, a well-respected lawyer, a retired army colonel. Mr. Galligan is absolutely correct when he insists that “my goal is to ensure the defendant receives a fair trial.”

Because of course, as angry and frustrated as I am with Nidal’s actions, I know that unless our justice system can handle the very worst of those charged with heinous crimes, then we can’t ensure that anyone, especially the innocent, receives a fair trial.

But boy is it hard to keep that in mind.

And then this week, came the decision to try, in a civilian court, the masterminds of the 9/11 massacre. It is again a reflection of the majesty of our judicial system that the courtroom is but a few blocks from Ground Zero. Buildings may have shattered, but the democratic society of these United States could not be toppled.

That’s not to say that I don’t have horrific fears that Manhattan will again be targeted – but I remind myself that it’s not only physical terror that is at stake here. Mind games and targeted fear-mongering are part and parcel of the terrorist weaponry.

I haven’t made up my mind whether the administration’s rationale for trying the self-confessed mastermind of the 9/11 attack and four co-conspirators in a civilian court is correct, but I am not afraid of affording them the constitutional protections of our system. I’m not worried that our justice system is not up to the task. As President Obama said at Fort Hood, "We are a nation of laws whose commitment to justice is so enduring that we would treat a gunman and give him due process, just as surely as we will see that he pays for his crimes.”

God Bless America.

Evelyn David

Murder Takes the Cake by Evelyn David
Murder Off the Books by Evelyn David
http://www.evelyndavid.com

Research and the Muse

stilettogang@gmail.com (The Stiletto Gang) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:00:00 +0000

by Nancy J. Cohen

A reader at one of my author talks recently said she was surprised by how much research I did for my books. She believed fiction writers made up their stories. I was appalled. No wonder some people (not YOU, of course) look down their noses at popular fiction writers. Any author would be dismayed by this observation because we put a lot of work into researching our tales.

As any reader of historical fiction knows, the writer must thoroughly research all details of the era in order to be accurate. Ditto for mysteries. I get people asking me all the time if I had been a hairdresser because my sleuth's job details are so accurate. When I mention that my background is in nursing, they are astounded. How did you learn enough to write about a hairstylist who solves crimes for your Bad Hair Day series? Well, I interviewed my hairdresser and followed her around the salon. I visited a beauty school and checked out their curriculum. I attended a beauty trade show in Orlando. I subscribed to Modern Salon Magazine. And if I needed to know anything else about hair, I asked my hairstylist or had her read relevant passages in my manuscript for accuracy.

That's just the beginning. Consider that I also consult a homicide detective for crime details and police procedure, even if forensics doesn't play a heavy role in my books. Plus each story has its own topics to research. I've investigated such diverse subjects as medical waste disposal, tilapia farming, migrant labor smuggling, the dog and cat fur trade, vanilla bean cultivation, and more. Then there is on-site research, i.e. pounding the pavement in Mount Dora to get street details, skulking through a Turkish Bath in my swimsuit, getting a reading from a medium in Cassadaga. I take very detailed notes and photos to use in crafting my story.

Authors who use contemporary settings cannot make things up out of thin air. Besides the location, we may need to research pertinent issues to include in our stories. I always try to include a Florida based issue or something of universal interest (like Alzheimer's Disease) to give my stories added depth. Newspapers, magazines, the Internet, personal interviews, and on-site visits are just some of the techniques we use. Probably the most fun I've had for research was going on a couple of cruises for Killer Knots. I challenge you to fault any of my minute details in that adventure.

But what about the vampire and werewolf fiction out there now, and other paranormal stories? Don't those authors just make up their imaginary worlds? No, because these worlds must be consistent, and they're often based on mythology or early Earth cultures.

For example, my proposed paranormal series is based on Norse myths. I have several texts on the subject and took extensive notes so I can understand their creation theory. I wrote down the different gods and goddesses, because they play a part in my story as well. For this tale as well as Silver Serenade, my upcoming futuristic romance, I needed to name spaceships, weapons, and/or military personnel. Using the Internet to look up ranks in our own military gave me a model. I also have a collection of Star Trek and Star Wars Sourcebooks which are great inspiration for weaponry, ships, propulsion and such. So even for fantasy, research is necessary. Science fiction is even more exacting because you're extrapolating what might be plausible in the future or exaggerating a current issue from the news.

So please have more respect for fiction writers. We do extensive research, and a truly gifted writer will not let it show because you'll be swept into the story. A good work of fiction is like a stage show, with all the blood and sweat and tears going on behind the scenes. All the audience sees is the fabulous performance.

Nancy J. Cohen
Killer Knots: A Bad Hair Day Mystery
Silver Serenade: Coming soon from The Wild Rose Press
Website: http://nancyjcohen.com/
Blog: http://mysterygal.bravejournal.com/

Mysteries and the Return to Adolesence

stilettogang@gmail.com (The Stiletto Gang) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:00:00 +0000

Steven Rigolosi is the author of the Tales from the Back Page series of mystery and suspense novels. Each book takes an ad on the back page of a New York City newspaper as its starting point. Who Gets the Apartment? won the David (awarded by the Deadly Ink convention) for best mystery of 2006. Circle of Assassins followed in 2007. His latest, Androgynous Murder House Party, just came out in June. He can be reached at srigolosi@yahoo.com, or followed on twitter at twitter.com/srigolosi. He lives in Northern New Jersey. He does not wear stilettos, but Robin Anders (the hero/heroine of Androgynous Murder House Party, might.

Like Maggie Barbieri, I used to be an editor of college English textbooks. For those of you who haven’t seen an English textbook lately, I can tell you that a lot of them go on at length about the process of writing and the writer’s mindset. I used to think, “Geez, everyone should stop talking and thinking about writing, and just do it.” Part of my thinking (back in the day) had been that every individual writer follows a very different process, so attempting to force one particular method down someone’s throat seemed unwise and destined for failure.

I used to wonder, too, whether writers really think about themselves as writers all that much, or whether they are more focused on the work they are writing. I used to think of myself as a product-oriented person, not one who thinks much about himself as a Writer. But I think that may be a self-deception, because each of my books (I’ve written three so far) has gone through progressively more drafts, which means that I am secretly a process-oriented person too. For example, with my third and most recent, Androgynous Murder House Party, I slogged through five drafts. (Editor’s only note on first draft: “Cut 100 pages.”) And now I’m afraid to start on the fourth because I know it’s going to take me six drafts and I’m feeling kind of tired.

I had another epiphany, too: Being published is like returning to the worst of your adolescence. By putting your work out there, you expose yourself to all kinds of scrutiny, and you start to have the same types of doubts that plagued you as a teenager. Here are the questions I find myself asking of no one in particular:

1. Will people think I’m nuts? As mystery writers, we spend a good deal of time plotting ways to kill people, creatively and with panache. We also need to create some pretty creepy characters to provide good motivation and propel the story along. So during my dark nights of the soul, I ask myself, “Will my family or colleagues think I am plotting to kill them? Will they think that my narrator is a thinly disguised version of myself?” Most likely nobody gives my mental stability a second thought, but surely some do. I mean, think about Stephen King. Haven’t we all wondered at some point if the man is as warped as the books?

2. Will people like my books? We get so invested in our books—we want people to love them and their characters. Certainly we want people to buy our books, so that our contracts can get renewed, but mostly we want people to read them and enjoy them. So I work myself up into a state, even as I turn in my final manuscript, that for whatever reason someone out there will not enjoy my book and that I will have wasted his or her time. And I know that has happened, and I wish I could apologize to the poor reader who would have been better off with Janet Evanovich, but all I can say is, “I did the best I could.”

3. Is this stupid? Many of us write to entertain our readers, to give them a pleasant sense of escape. To accomplish that, we have to turbo-charge reality, making our fictional worlds a lot more event-filled and interesting than our everyday lives. We have to push plots pretty far sometimes, which always makes me wonder, “Are people going to roll their eyes and think this is ridiculous?” It’s always a fear, but it’s something we have to do to move our work beyond the mundane and into the realm of entertainment. And it’s always amazing to see how that all-important suspension-of-disbelief-o-meter has literally millions of settings, one for each reader, with no two exactly alike. We want our readers to have a good time, but how do we do that without insulting their intelligence? Oh, I lose sleep over that one.

4. Hasn’t this all been done before, and better than I’m doing it? I’m so thrilled to be writing in a genre I love, but I find it intimidating as hell. I am most definitely subject to the anxiety of influence, wondering if I can ever do anything different, unique, better than the greats. How do I work within the formulas of the genre but give them a different spin so that readers have an engaging read—and so that my agent will continue to represent me and my publisher will continue to want to invest in my books? I get a little depressed when I read something really fabulous, new or old, because I wonder if I’ll ever have someone think so highly of my work. And yet that sort of insecurity spurs me forward, forcing me to think more carefully about the work, the words, and even the marketing.

So how does this all figure into Androgynous Murder House Party? In a nutshell, the book has two very different mysteries to solve. The first is of the traditional variety—a key figure in a circle of friends is murdered, and the person’s ex-lover decides to investigate. Nothing new there. The second is of a more mind-melting variety: The reader has to figure out the gender of each of the six main characters. The fact that they all have androgynous names like Robin, Lee, Chris, and Alex doesn’t provide readers with many clues, so they have to use context, conversation, and behavior to figure it all out.

And all the questions above apply. Will people think that Robin Anders, my narrator, is a veiled representation of myself? God, I hope not, since Robin is a pill-popping, pretentious snob. Will people like the book? The reviews have been good so far, with some raves, but also with a few people saying they found the book “too clever by half” and too “cutesy.” (That last adjective really threw me for a loop. “Nasty”--perhaps. But “cutesy?”) Is the book stupid—could any of it really happen in “real life”? Of course not, though interestingly I haven’t heard any criticism (yet) that it’s too over the top, though it clearly is. And of course Sarah Caudwell has done an androgynous narrator already, so what have I really contributed to the genre? I hope I’ve done a new and different take on the Caudwell scenario. Her cast is a loving if impatient group of friends, while mine is composed of a bunch of back-stabbing, greedy egotists. Someone recently described Androgynous Murder House Party as “an episode of Friends in which everyone decides they hate each other,” and I just loved that.

Of course, my last and final question is: Will the Stiletto Gang ever invite me back to do another guest blog, after I’ve gone over the maximum word count and exposed my twisted mind to the innocent and unsuspecting mystery-reading public?

Steven Rigolosi

A Good Babysitter Is Hard to Find...

noreply@blogger.com (The Stiletto Gang) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:00:00 +0000

Child #1 has become quite the in-demand babysitter around these parts. She’s mature, responsible, and actually plays with the kids, not to mention that in-between age where she’s too young to drive and have a really major social life, but is old enough to stay up late and be responsible with other people’s precious cargo. All of this adds up to the fact that she’s got a lot of steady jobs and that people fight for her Saturday-night services. Even Jim and I have to get in line if we want her to babysit for her brother, the boy known affectionately as child #2. Her clients treat her very well, stocking their refrigerators in anticipation of her arrival, pre-ordering pizza and anything else she might want to eat for dinner, and warning their children that they’ll be going to bed early and without fuss, lest they incur the wrath of the babysitter. To top it all off, she makes a small fortune, often getting upwards of $70 or $80 for a weekend stint.

Makes me want to reconsider my career path. But then I remind myself that I really don’t like kids, can’t stay up late, and am not that responsible. Better to leave it to the professionals.

But as she was taking off for one of her most recent gigs, I got to thinking about my days as a babysitter. A few things came to mind:

1. There were no television shows on after the 11:00 news with the exception of Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert, and the Late, Late Movie on ABC which was always a movie about a babysitter who gets killed after the 11:00 news and Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert ended.

2. Nobody ordered me any food. I was usually left with a brick of Velveeta, some “macaroni” (what pasta was called before it became fancy), and a jug of apple juice and told to wing it. One night, I ingested so much Velveeta that I proceeded to throw up the instant I walked in the front door of my own house. I have not eaten Velveeta since and just typing the word Velveeta makes me queasy.

3. The pay stunk. I was paid a dollar an hour, regardless of the number of children involved. That meant that sometimes, several families in the neighborhood would dump all of their kids on me at the same time, meaning that they each only paid about .33c an hour for me to watch their little darlings, none of whom were potty trained. One time, I had eight children. (Remember, this was in the day when people had more than 2.3 children per family.) They all needed to be fed, bathed, and put to bed. Oh, and there was a dog. Who also wasn’t potty trained. I went home with $4 that night, even though the house was cleaner than when the parents left and I had taught one of the kids French. But only the curse words.

4. It was the early days of Saturday Night Live. That means that I saw every classic skit, the first time it aired. I watched Dan Ackroyd play Julia Child, and John Belushi do “chee-burger, chee-burger.” And I saw Elvis Costello play his first American gig, singing “Watching the Detectives” in all of his skinny jeaned, pigeon-toed glory. I was in his thrall. When I wasn’t worried about getting slaughtered by a babysitter-killing axe murderer.

5. I kept the house dark. I thought it would be a good idea to turn all of the lights off while babysitting. You know, to let the babysitter-killing axe murderer know that nobody was home so don’t bother to come looking for the babysitter to kill. I didn’t account for the robbers who would love to let themselves into a vacant house and steal all of my aunt’s estate jewelry.(I babysat for my cousins on a regular basis.) No, that didn’t cross my mind.

6. I wasn’t allowed to use the phone, touch the thermostat, or fall asleep. That made for a conversation-starved, freezing and/or overheated, sleep-deprived teenager. Ever met one of those? They’re not much fun to be around.

Sound like hell? It was. That’s why I’m so glad that people nowadays, in their quest to live normal lives outside of their children and have relationships with their significant others, have come to value the services of a good babysitter.

So what are your babysitting stories? Please share.

Maggie Barbieri

How Writing Changed My Life

stilettogang@gmail.com (The Stiletto Gang) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:00:00 +0000

When reading Maggie's wonderful post about how writing saved her life, I have nothing to compare. However, when I began thinking about it, I realized writing has truly changed mine.

Many of you know I married young, raised five children, husband was gone a lot with the Seabees and when he retired the grandkids started arriving. I worked on and off through the years, wrote things like PTA newsletters, plays for my Camp Fire Girls, etc. I've always been a voracious reader and wrote short stories when I was a kid. While the kids were young tried my hand at two novels which were rejected almost immediately, tossed them out and decided I probably didn't have what it takes.

While babysitting grandkids I managed to write another historical family saga. It went through lots of rejections but after tons of rewrites, it was finally accepted for publication. I wrote another which was also accepted.

By this time, hubby and I had moved to the foothills of the Sierra where we now live and is the setting for my Deputy Tempe Crabtree novels. I switched to mysteries and wrote several of my Rocky Bluff crime novels--the first one published as an e-book, long before anyone had a clue what that was.

Rather than go into the whole long history of my writing and publishing, these are the things that changed my life because of writing.

1. I doubt I would have learned how to use computers as early as I did if it hadn't been for my writing. I got so tired of typing and retyping my books I was ready to try anything to make it easier. Of course I had to have lots of help from the fellow I bought the computer from.

2. I was one of the founding members of the San Joaquin chapter of Sisters in Crime and I've made so many friends there. I still attend the meetings whenever I have the opportunity. (I also belong to the L.A. and Central Coast chapters and have friends in both.)

3. Once my first mystery was published, I attended my first Bouchercon there I met
so many wonderful people in the mystery field--authors and fans.

4. I've since attended other Bouchercons, Left Coast Crimes, Mayhem in the Midlands and other mystery cons and made more friends. Going to one of these events now is like attending a family reunion. It's so much fun to see people I know and enjoy being around even if it is only once a year.

5. To get to all these places, hubby and I usually fly. I used to be a bit nervous--now I think of it as an adventure--even when I end up having to spend the night in an airport because of a missed flight due to weather, or being the last flight into Chicago during blizzard.

6. Together, we've visited places all over the country we've never seen before and probably would never have gone to if it hadn't been for the mystery cons.

7. Alone, I've been to Alaska twice. The first time, I went to visit a school in a tiny village and was driven there on a frozen river. The second time, I stayed with a Native woman I'd met and visited a school in Wasilla.

8. I was fortunate to be asked to be an instructor at the Maui Writers Retreat in Maui--and took hubby along--he who didn't think he ever wanted to go to Hawaii and had the time of his life while I worked.

9. I'm on the board of directors for the Public Safety Writers Association and I'm the program chair for their annual conference in Las Vegas and I've met the most fascinating experts in the public safety field as well as top notch mystery writers who've agreed to come and teach.

10. If I wasn't a mystery writer I might be like some of my friends who are my age who mostly talk about their ailments, their grandkids (I love mine and my great grandkids but I have to many I'd monopolize the conversation if I told about each one of them), how bored they are, or gossiping.

So, you can see, my life has really been changed by my writing.

Marilyn

Going the Distance

stilettogang@gmail.com (The Stiletto Gang) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:00:00 +0000

In the past Evelyn David has posted two blogs a week at The Stiletto Gang. That was because Evelyn David is really two people: Marian Borden and me, Rhonda Dossett. We write under the pen name "Evelyn David." Going forward, we will just be writing one blog, on Mondays. We're hoping to use the extra time to write our next novel. So how do we write together? And why?

In addition to the obvious perils of two people working together on any project, much less a book, we also live half-way across the country from each other – Marian in New York, I'm in Oklahoma. We haven't met in person. For the past ... I'm not sure how long now, five years? Six years since we started writing together? I just know we were both younger when we began and had no idea of the possible pitfalls. Because we were clueless about what could go wrong, we just did it. We wrote a book together. We wrote together just using email. No phone calls until after we had sold our first story. I think that made a difference. Writing to each other is different than placing phone calls. Exchanging emails gave us the time and space to put down our ideas and respond to the other's questions and concerns in a fuller manner than what happens when we talk on the phone. Plus, with emails you have a record for reference later.

We had fun during the writing process. The pain came later when we got involved with publishers, agents, and the business side of writing. The publishing world is not for wimps! And definitely not for quitters! You have to really want to see your book published to go through the pain of rejections from agents and the sheer mind-numbing, snail's pace of getting a simple yes or no from a publisher. Four to six months for a response is not unusual. In what other industry or profession is that kind of time delay even a possibility? And royalty payments to authors? If you're lucky and your publisher pays on time (which is apparently not the norm), you'll see a check every six months. Often it's more like nine months between checks. And if you're not getting four figure advances, that's a long time between paydays. Don't quit your day job.

Publishing isn't fun, but writing is! Especially with someone who shares your sense of humor and work ethic. We divide up the scenes, then pass them back and forth so much that in the end, it's "Evelyn David's" writing, not Marian's or Rhonda's. We both love writing dialogue – that's the candy for us. Setting the scene, plotting the action sequences, that's more difficult and rewarding in another way. I write by seeing and hearing the words in my mind first, much like watching a movie screen in my head playing in my head. Then I put the words down on paper – or rather use a keyboard to type them into a Word document.

We each write all characters, although I confess to having favorites. "Mac Sullivan and Rachel Brenner" are our main human characters, but I love writing "Edgar" and "J.J." best. It's always a treat when I get first crack at one of their scenes. If you ever watched the old tv series, Gunsmoke, you'll understand when I say that "J.J. and Edgar" are Mac Sullivan's "Doc and Festus." On the surface they argue and appear to dislike each other. But underneath everyone knows (except maybe the characters) there's a bond developing.

There's a bond between co-authors. If you write a book with another person, at the end of the process you will have traveled a journey together that is unique and not completely understandable to friends and family looking on. From start to finish, it takes "Evelyn David" about 8 months to write a book. We both have day jobs and we're terrible procrastinators, so we probably, if pushed to meet a deadline, could write one in half that time. We dither a lot before we get started, try to solve the world's problems, angst over the stresses of the publishing world – then finally settle into writing a couple of chapters a week. Around the end of the first third of the book, we crash headlong into a wall (others call this writer's block). It might take us two or three weeks to get past that wall, or around it. Then things usually move much quicker, with the last few chapters coming in a rush. Believe me, there is nothing better in the world than typing the words "The End" on that last page of your finished novel.

Well, one thing is better ... having someone to shares that long journey with you.

Rhonda
http://www.evelyndavid.com

Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

stilettogang@gmail.com (The Stiletto Gang) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:00:00 +0000

by Susan McBride

One of the questions that writers are asked most frequently has to be, "Where do you get your ideas?" I remember hearing Denise Swanson once tell someone, "I order mine from J.C. Penney," which I thought was pretty funny. Personally, I pluck mine from the Idea Tree which grows right beside the Money Tree in my backyard (oh, man, don't I wish!).

Okay, seriously, I find ideas everywhere all the time. It's almost impossible for me to go out anymore--or to take a shower or get on the treadmill--without the seed for a plot planting itself in my mind. When I first began writing seriously post-college, I'd cut stories from the newspaper that intrigued me, usually those concerning a missing person or a baffling homicide that got me thinking, "What if it had happened this way instead?"

That's how I wrote AND THEN SHE WAS GONE, my very first published mystery. A little girl had gone missing from a public park in broad daylight in Plano, Texas, with loads of people around watching T-ball games; yet no one had seen a thing. That bothered me to no end until I had to sit down and write about it. The next Maggie Ryan book to follow, OVERKILL, had its plot loosely based on a school bus shooting in St. Louis. Something about being able to control what happened in my fictional tales had a soothing effect on me, like justice did win out (even if it doesn't always in real-life).

Once I started writing the humorous Debutante Dropout Mysteries, I couldn't exactly use such heart-wrenching real-life stories as my jumping-off point. I had to tone things down a lot (although there's no on-the-page violence or much of anything graphic except emotion in either GONE or OVERKILL). BLUE BLOOD, the first in the series to feature society rebel Andy Kendricks, involved the murder of the loathsome owner of a restaurant called Jugs (think "Hooters" with a hillbilly theme). I'd gotten so sick of seeing ginormous Hooters billboards all over Dallas that it felt pretty good to exterminate Bud Hartman, a sexist and hardly beloved character. Next, in THE GOOD GIRL'S GUIDE TO MURDER, I offed a Texan version of Martha Stewart after watching one too many of Martha's holiday specials and feeling like an inadequate dolt. I must admit, that felt very cathartic, too.

When I was asked to write THE DEBS young adult series, I had to change my mind-set. I mean, I wasn't going to kill anyone in those books (except maybe with dirty looks and reputation-destroying words). Then I got to thinking about the teens and twentysomethings I know, and I realized that technology might have changed since my high school days but emotions had not. So the ideas for the plotlines in THE DEBS; LOVE, LIES, AND TEXAS DIPS; and the forthcoming GLOVES OFF stemmed from relationship issues. Who hasn't experienced a friend's betrayal, a broken heart, a mother's ultimatum, or a dream dashed? The best part about writing those novels was getting to re-enact some of my high school drama via the characters in the book...and getting to have my debs say all the witty and acerbic things that I wish I'd said in similar circumstances. Ah, sometimes it's really therapeutic playing God, at least on the page.

When the chance came to write THE COUGAR CLUB, I leapt at it. I'd been dying to write about women my age who happened to date younger men (I only dated one but I ended up marrying him). I'd gotten sick and tired of the way the media portrays "Cougars" as desperate old hags with fake boobs, tummy tucks, spray-on tans, platinum hair, and Botoxed features. My friends in their 40s and 50s who've dated and/or married younger guys are smart, successful, classy, and real. So I came up with the idea of three women who'd been friends in childhood but slowly drifted apart through the years because of jobs, marriage, children, and distance. When they're all 45, they end up coming together again as they each hit huge potholes in their respective roads. What they help each other to realize is that true friendship never dies, the only way to live is real, and you're never too old to follow your heart. These are the middle-aged (but hardly old) women I know. Heck, the kind of woman I am.

I've got a zillion ideas floating around my brain for the next books I need to write (namely, a young adult novel that isn't a DEBS book and another stand-alone novel to follow THE COUGAR CLUB). The hardest part for me is getting the ideas down on paper for my agents and editors to see in a way that makes sense and conveys all the nuances I'm imagining. But enough about my Idea Tree. I'd love to hear from y'all. Do you order from J.C. Penney like Denise? Cut out pieces from the newspaper? Eavesdrop in restaurants? Inquiring minds want to know!

A Writer's Whirlwind

stilettogang@gmail.com (The Stiletto Gang) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:00:00 +0000

With my current publicity photo as proof, you can see that while some authors get writer’s block, I get stumped!

Hurricane Ike was due to hit the Louisiana coast near Lake Charles on September 12, 2008. I boarded up the windows and delivered my wife Raejean and our dog to my mother’s house on higher ground. Forecasters predicted the storm surge would put River Road under three feet of water (and two feet under our house, which sits on eight-foot pilings on the Calcasieu River near the I-10 bridge). Throughout the night, I watched the water rise, rip our dock apart, and slosh past the predicted mark under our house to engulf equipment I had placed on sawhorses. Then the churning water lurched up the stairs until there was six feet of water under our house. At daybreak, I remembered promising my neighbors to feed their cat, so I waded through rushing, neck-deep water with wind-driven rain stinging my face.

Ike, the third most destructive hurricane ever to make landfall in the United States, left us with thousands of dollars worth of damage and one magnificent gift, a two-ton cypress stump that drifted over our “hurricane” fence from the swamp that had been clearcut in the 1920s. Five days later, a neighbor boated me to the head of River Road, where Raejean picked me up.

That meeting was its own miracle, because Raejean and I had dated for two months in 1983, when I was teaching at Lamar University, then didn’t hear from each other for twenty-two years. One morning, I opened my e-mail and there she was again. After a whirlwind romance, we married on January 4, 2008.

The birth of A Savage Wisdom has its own drama. By 1992 I had published two small-press novels and thought I could interest a major press in the story of the only woman executed in Louisiana’s electric chair. After researching the Valentine’s Day crime of Toni Jo Henry—a drug addict and prostitute by 14—I realized that she was not a sympathetic character.

Instead, I became interested in how an innocent person could transform into a cold-blooded murderer, so, in my “imaginative reconstruction,” I reversed much of her story, making her an ingénue and the novel a study in deception. After four years of work, I knew it was the best novel I would ever write.

I submitted it again and again to agents and editors who all said the same thing: the writing is brilliant, but we don’t think we could sell this because it’s not really true crime, nor is it a murder mystery or any other sub-genre we know of.

After seven years, I decided that my next best chance would be to secure a major-house publication through one of their contests, so I packed it off to a competition sponsored by two well-known New York publishers.

I was thrilled when I heard that Savage was one of five finalists. After another wait, I was dejected by the news of its second-place finish. But here’s the shocker: the first-place novel was not even listed among the original five. What happened? I believe the final editors saw that a friend’s manuscript was not among the finalists and overrode the initial screeners’ decisions.

Two years later, I saw that a movie based on Toni Jo’s life would be released in
2008. Thinking that interest generated by the movie would increase sales, I luckily found a small press, Thunder Rain, willing to publish Savage quickly.

The novel has done exceedingly well in Louisiana, and in May of 2009 it launched as a Kindle book on Amazon.com, climbing three times to #5 in the competitive True Crime/Murder & Mayhem category.

Dr. Norman German
Winner of the Deep South Writers' Contest, and author of A Savage Wisdom (Thunder Rain Publishing.
http://www.asavagewisdom.com/