Month: August 2020

And now, for a little chaos…

~ Pamela Beason ~ 7 Comments

I became a “Lady” (although I’m not sure I’ve ever been called that before) only a few days ago, so I’m going to introduce myself today. My path through life has been a meandering one. I have worked as a translator, a mechanical and architectural drafter, a technical writer and editor, a senior editor of a multimedia department, and a private investigator, and of course an author. I’ve been both traditionally and indie published, with 11 “how-to” books and 13 full-length works of fiction, along with a few advice ebooks, short stories, and two dust-collecting screenplays. I paint, do western line dance, hike, kayak, snowshoe, and sometimes scuba dive. I’m originally from the Kansas hills (yes, there are hills in some parts), but I’ve called the Pacific Northwest home now for decades.

All this chaos might explain how I’ve ended up with four different mystery series. (What was I thinking?) My Sam Westin wilderness mysteries are about crimes on public lands. Wilderness and wild animals are my biggest passions in life, and I spend a lot of time hiking and kayaking in wild places. There are so many ways to get into trouble “out there,” and calling 9-1-1 is not going to bring help any time soon, so suspense is naturally built into the setting.

My Neema series revolves around a gorilla who has been taught sign language. When I worked as a PI, my cases sometimes involved testimony from young children, so I’ve done a lot of thinking about who makes a credible witness. I’ve always been fascinated by animal intelligence, and a gorilla is estimated to have the intelligence of a five-year-old child. My poor human detective soon learns that while Neema knows some sign language, she doesn’t think like a person, and she doesn’t have a large vocabulary. So, when Neema offers clues like “skin bracelet” and “tree candy,” it’s up to the humans to figure out what this gorilla could possibly be trying to say. I didn’t intend for Neema to star in a series, but when readers loved The Only Witness, I had to write two more books.

I wrote the Run for Your Life trilogy for anyone who loves the Hunger Games books. I was inspired by the incredible young female athletes we see today. The protagonist, Tanzania Grey, 17 years old in the first book, is a champion runner who competes in extreme endurance races around the world, while living under a false identity and trying to evade the unidentified killers who murdered her parents.

The Langston Family Stories include Shaken, about a young, dark half-Hispanic woman managing a plant nursery she inherited after her father’s sudden death. The business has been plagued by an earthquake, vandalism, and arson. With so many damage claims, Elisa Langston becomes the target of an insurance investigation. As a PI, I am well aware of how hard it is to defend yourself after you’re accused (or even suspected) of a crime. Again deals with Elisa’s adoptive mother, Gail Langston, who lost three lovers (most recently, Elisa’s father) to violent deaths, so she’s afraid to love again. A handsome EMT, Leon, is pursuing Gail, but another person is shadowing her, too—a psychotic woman who wants Leon for her own. Eventually, I’ll write book #3 about Charlie, Gail’s beautiful blond biological daughter and Elisa’s stepsister.

Feel free to check out my writing on https://pamelabeason.com. I look forward to sharing my fractured imaginings with you all in more coherent future posts.

August by Karen Shughart

~ kshughart47

Here up at the lake we’re surrounded by orchards, vineyards and farmland; gently rolling hills and meandering streams with an abundance of fish. It’s a beautiful place any time of the year, but the end of summer, the month of August, is special in so many ways.

Sunrise is a little later this time of year, we can hear the morning songs of birds at around 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. rather than 3:30 or 4:00 as in June. There’s something peaceful and magical about waking early in August to see the sun rise, it’s rose-gold rays streaking the water with brilliant light.

Warm days are the norm; some days the humidity rises, but on others bright blue skies, lazy white clouds, and a lake sluggishly rolling its waves onto the shore are a welcome change to the previously fetid air.  Sailboats dot the horizon, pontoons chug lazily about and motorboats slice through the undulating sea. Families play on the beach and picnic under a pavilion where laughing children used to ride a carousel.

A cornucopia of fresh produce offers up its bounty at a multitude of farm stands and markets. Lovely squashes, tomatoes, blueberries, cherries, corn, beans, and herbs create a riot of color far more beautiful than any still life painting.  And the fecund ripening of the fruit on trees in the orchards, especially the apples, the first of which will soon be ready for harvest, remind us that fall is on its way. The green, green grass of past months starts to brown, the flowers lose some of their bloom, and the limbs on deciduous trees, with their dark, heavy leaves, droop with anticipation as they begin to fade. In a month or so, their bright, warm hues will beckon an onslaught of sightseers.

The days are getting shorter, but still, because we are so far north, it stays light until  after 9 p.m. and the cicadas, dormant since last year, add a soft, musical background to the fireflies that sparkle and dance their way across our yard . On clear nights, when humidity is low, the sky is awash in stars so dense to appear as a carpet covering an inky background.  Unlike earlier, warmer summer evenings, we can now, more frequently, sleep with the windows open.

Photo by Karen Shughart

Something about the light and the air bring visions of fall: bright, sunny days as crisp as biting into a just-picked apple.  It smells different, too. The air is perfumed, but in August, with a rich, heavy ripeness and the beginnings of the decay that precedes fall and winter.

Later in the month, when the tourists and those who spend their summers at simple cottages here have gone, there’s a quiet  interrupted only by the occasional droning of a lawn mower,  the buzz of insects, the bark of a dog or a the quiet chatter of friends and neighbors passing by.

August by Karen Shughart

~ kshughart47 ~ 6 Comments

Here up at the lake we’re surrounded by orchards, vineyards and farmland; gently rolling hills and meandering streams with an abundance of fish. It’s a beautiful place any time of the year, but the end of summer, the month of August, is special in so many ways.

Sunrise is a little later this time of year, we can hear the morning music of birds at around 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. rather than 3:30 or 4:00 as in June. There’s something peaceful and magical about waking early in August to see the sun rise, it’s rose-gold rays casting brilliant diamond-like shards across the water. It’s a quiet time.

Warm days are the norm; some days the humidity rises, but on others bright blue skies, lazy white clouds, and a lake sluggishly rolling its waves onto the shore are a welcome change to the previously fetid air.  Sailboats dot the horizon, pontoons chug lazily about and motorboats slice through the undulating sea. Families play on the beach and picnic under a pavilion where long ago children laughed with delight as they rode a carousel.

A cornucopia of fresh produce offers up its bounty at a multitude of farm stands and markets. Lovely squashes, tomatoes, blueberries, cherries, corn, beans, and herbs create a riot of color far more beautiful than any still life painting.  And the fecund ripening of the fruit on trees in the orchards, especially the apples, the first of which will soon be ready for harvest, remind us that fall is on its way. The green, green grass of past months starts to brown, the flowers lose some of their bloom, and the limbs on deciduous trees, with their lush dark leaves, droop with anticipation as they begin to fade. In a month or two, their bright, warm hues will beckon an onslaught of sightseers.

Photo by Karen Shughart

Something about the light and the air bring visions of fall: bright, sunny days as crisp as biting into a just-picked apple.  It smells different, too. The air is perfumed, but in August, with a rich, heavy sweetness mingled with the beginnings of the decay that precedes fall and winter.

Later in the month, when the tourists and those who spend their summers at simple cottages here have gone, there’s silence  interrupted only by the occasional droning of a lawn mower,  the buzz of insects, the bark of a dog or the subdued chatter of friends and neighbors who pass by.

Guest Author- Leslie Wheeler

~ patyjag ~ 14 Comments

An Unexpected Encounter with Wildlife Becomes a Magical Moment in Fiction

By Leslie Wheeler

One of the pleasures of having a house in rural Western Massachusetts is the opportunity to see wildlife at close range. I’ve observed deer, bear, bobcats, foxes, beavers and otters on my property, and every time this happens, I feel like I’ve been given a gift. But there is one species of wildlife I didn’t think I’d ever see–a moose.

Then one Friday in September, a few years ago, I went to my house in the Berkshires, and discovered that a cow moose, about a year old, had taken up residence, drawn by the pond on the property, the old apple trees laden with fruit, and also perhaps by the hope of finding a mate. She followed a track that took her out of the woods, onto the back field, across it, around the pond, and down the front field to the driveway, which she crossed to return to the woods and begin another circuit.

Around dusk on Saturday, I’d gone into my fenced-in vegetable garden when I looked up and saw her standing a few yards away, watching me. She was so quiet I hadn’t heard her approach. I froze, fearful that a sudden movement or sound would frighten her away. After a few moments, I slipped carefully from the garden, and stood stock still, returning her curious and unafraid gaze. Although not a bull moose with antlers or a cow with a calf to protect, she was still a very large animal. Finally, breaking eye contact, she continued on her leisurely circuit around the property.

Sunday morning, I watched from indoors as she made yet another circuit. She even ventured onto the patio, the closest she’d come to the house. And there I was without my camera, knowing full well that this might be my last chance to get a shot of her before I returned to town. Then, as I began to pack up, she made a second circuit, and armed with my camera I followed her along the patio to the front of house, where she stopped and regarded me with the same unafraid eyes. I took two pictures before she finally hoofed it away.

I returned to Boston, never to see that moose again, but the experience inspired me to write a scene in my new mystery, Shuntoll Road.  In it, the main character, Kathryn Stinson, wakes up at dawn the day after a fire has raged in the woods around the house she’s renting. She goes outside to see if it’s still burning and spots a big animal on the far side of the pond. It’s not a moose, but a white stag, a legendary creature, which does exist in real life. To her surprise, the stag approaches her, stopping a few yards short of the patio, where she’s standing. Then it turns around and bounds back to the pond, where it stops and looks back at her. The white stag does, this enough times for her to think it wants her to follow it—into the burnt woods where she makes an important discovery. Later when Kathryn expresses her wonder at why the white stag appeared to her of all people, her boyfriend says, “It’s a mystery. And a gift.”

Readers: Have you have had encounters with wildlife that you’ve used in your fiction?

Shuntoll Road

Boston library curator Kathryn Stinson returns to the Berkshires, hoping to rebuild her romance with Earl Barker, but ends up battling a New York developer, determined to turn the property she’s been renting into an upscale development. The fight pits her against Earl, who has been offered the job of clearing the land. When a fire breaks out in the woods, the burned body of another opponent is discovered. Did he die attempting to escape a fire he set, or was the fire set to cover up his murder? Kathryn’s search for answers leads her to other questions about the developer’s connection to a friend of hers who fled New York years ago for mysterious reasons. The information she uncovers puts her in grave danger.

Paperback

Amazon – Note they do not show this as a pre-sale, but if people order from Amazon it will still get to them at a reasonable time not what they show on their site.

https://www.amazon.com/Shuntoll-Road-Leslie-Wheeler/dp/1645990346

Barnes and Noble

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/shuntoll-road-leslie-wheeler/1136500170?ean=9781645990345

E-books

Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08DCZYR3M

Apple

https://books.apple.com/us/book/id1524348304

Kobo

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/shuntoll-road

Barnes & Noble

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/shuntoll-road-leslie-wheeler/1136500170

An award-winning author of nonfiction, Leslie Wheeler writes the Miranda Lewis Living History Mysteries which began with Murder at Plimoth Plantation, recently re-released for the first time as a trade paperback, and the Berkshire Hilltown Mysteries which began with Rattlesnake Hill and continue with Shuntoll Road.

Check out my books at my website: http://www.lesliewheeler.com

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Truth vs Stereotypes, or Do Grandmothers Giggle?

~ janispattersonmysteries ~ 9 Comments

by Janis Patterson

In these days of fraught political correctness when being offended at something has become almost a career choice, we as writers have to be very careful about what we say. We must always be on our guard against using stereotypes and prolonging misconceptions. But sometimes it’s hard.

A couple of years ago I wrote a short story for inclusion in an anthology centered on wedding days. I thought it was a pretty good piece – four generations of women in a family (girl, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother) and their reactions to a wedding coming up the next day. Of course – as you have doubtless already noticed – I am a dyed in the wool contrarian, so naturally I had to do something different. The bride in this case was the grandmother, who was marrying against her mother’s and daughter’s wishes – the granddaughter was in favor of the match. During the course of this familial sturm und drang the grandmother/bride and granddaughter have a special moment and the grandmother giggles. This is when the reader first realizes that the bride is the grandmother, not the granddaughter.

I thought it was a special moment.

The editor thought differently. She almost exploded with angry disbelief. “You mean the bride is the grandmother? And she giggled? Grandmothers,” she stated unequivocally, “do not giggle.”

I replied with my usual tact and polite restraint that I was a grandmother, and I giggled frequently. In fact, a dear friend once stuck me with the nickname of ‘Giggles.’ The editor was openly disbelieving. Well, after a lengthy and sometimes acrimonious discussion the giggling stayed in the story, but the editor was most vocally unhappy about it and we’ve never worked together since.

Another story, this time a stand-alone novel, another year if not another decade and another editor. I had my characters out driving in the remote wastelands in the Texas panhandle. This is the area where you can drive for two hours and never see another car or sign of human habitation. My characters found a bad car wreck, but the driver was still alive. They picked him up and drove him to the hospital in whatever town was closest. (It’s been years, and I don’t remember…)

Well, the editor went ballistic. How, she asked, could I be so uncaring and stupid as to move an accident victim? My characters should have called (as if there were any cell service out there) for an ambulance and waited with him until the ambulance arrived. To do anything else, she yelled, was irresponsible.

I tried to explain that in that part of Texas it would be irresponsible not to get the man to the hospital as quickly as possible, as he might die in the time it took an ambulance to respond. This editor – who, by the way, was openly proud she had never been west of the Alleghenies – was completely disbelieving, and turned down the book simply because of that. She had offered me the out of rewriting, and (if I really insisted) making them closer to a town where an ambulance was a logical inclusion, but I declined. The loneliness and isolation of the area were too deeply interwoven into the story – almost a character in itself – and part of the moral understructure of the book. We agreed to cancel the contract.

Yet one more story about a New York editor, though it has little to do with a book. I had worked with this editor several times, and was tossing around an idea about a couple being trapped in an ice storm. She absolutely hooted at my idea of setting it in North Central Texas, because, as she said “everyone knows Texas is tropical!”

Well, apparently the weather gods were tired of Yankees being so ignorant about Texas, because within a very few weeks we had a paralyzing ice storm that pretty much shut down the city… and it was the middle of April. There were photos on the front page of our newspaper of horizontal winds and trees breaking under an inch thick coating of ice. Smiling with unrepentant glee, I risked life and limb skating over the ice to get a fresh copy of the paper from a nearby box, stuck it into a big padded envelope and sent it to her. I didn’t even include a note. The subject was never mentioned again.

So – even when it does not even touch on the ungodly mess of political correctness (which to me brings up images of the Fire Swamp in The Princess Bride) we all have to be very careful about indulging in the lazy shortcut of stereotypes and misconceptions. We write fiction, but to be believable fiction, it has to have a firm grounding in basic truths.