Month: June 2021

What I Like and Dislike About Writing

~ marilynm ~ 8 Comments

Writing is something I’m compelled to do. I’ve written in one form or another since I was around four. The first of my telling stories was in a series of pictures about the soap opera my mother listened to on the radio every morning—My Gal Sunday. While mom worked in the kitchen with the radio tuned in, I sat at a little table with a tablet and crayons, depicting what I heard.

During my grammar school days I wrote lots of stories, some were my versions of “Little House on the Prairie,” and an old series of books of my mother’s about the life of Elsie Dinsmore. I also wrote and illustrated a fairy tale my mother sent off to a publisher. She must’ve thought it was good—the publisher sent back a nice rejection letter.

My junior high years I wrote plays for the neighborhood kids to star in and a magazine which I sold to my friends for a nickel. I wrote essays, stories and poems during my high school years. I married young and was kept busy running my household and raising five children. My writing turned to newsletters for PTA and plays for my Camp Fire Girls to perform. I did write two novels during that period of my life and have no idea what happened to them.

My sister labored on our family’s genealogy and when she was done, I used it as a guide for writing two historical family sagas—a huge undertaking requiring lots of research. Both books, after a lot of criticism and work, were published. And I was hooked.

I love the writing process. Because I love to read mysteries, I started writing them. Being inside another place, seeing exciting events through the eyes of imaginary characters became my obsession. Planning the mystery, where it would take place, who would be the detective, deciding who should be a victim and who might want to see that person dead, how the person was killed, all became part of the enjoyment of writing.

I do like the editing part—though I confess to missing mistakes and I’m grateful to my editor for finding plot holes and typos.

Even after all the editing, I don’t like it when a reader lets me know about a mistake she’s found. Oh, I’m glad she pointed it out because it can be fixed, but I’m unhappy because the mistake was missed during the editing process.

Researching is often fun: talking to people in law enforcement, going on ride-alongs, attending mystery and writing conferences, meeting other writers and readers.

What I dislike about the whole business of writing is planning promotional events: making the phone call or going in-person to ask to hold a book signing in a particular place. Though I do enjoy talking to readers, I’m not happy with trying to convince someone to buy a book. If they aren’t interested after I’ve told them about it, I’m not going to push.

I like being on panels at writing or mystery cons, but what I don’t like is when one author tries to hog the whole time period for him/herself.

Though I do like some ways of promotion, I’m not fond of any that takes a lot of time away from writing and costs a lot of money. Anything effective seems to do both.

No matter, when I’m finished with one book, an idea for another is usually rolling around in my brain.

Okay, I’ve had my say. I’d like to hear from my author friends, what do you like best about writing? And what don’t you like about the process?

Marilyn

The Other Reason I Write

~ susanoleksiw ~ 6 Comments

This is an exciting time. Crime Spell Books has just announced the list of stories and writers that will appear in its first Best New England Crime Stories anthology. This is the nineteenth such anthology after Level Best Books announced it was discontinuing the series last year.

Last fall two of my colleagues and I agreed that the cessation of the annual anthology by Level Best books was a sad end for a publication we all loved and two of us had worked on. Leslie Wheeler and I had been editors and Ang Pompano had published stories in the anthologies. But I had another reason for being disappointed.

I was one of the original founders of Level Best Books, along with Kate Flora and Skye Alexander. There’s something wonderful in creating something that lives after you—and doesn’t need you to prosper. That was the Level Best Books anthology.

In 2003, when we began, print-on-demand hadn’t yet taken hold and become the easy, accessible (and cheap) process that it is today. As the first editors, we chose paper, dealt with printers and shipping, and hand delivered books to bookstores and events. We advertised and promoted. And that came after reading and selecting stories, editing and proofreading. And back then proofreading meant reading the printed text against the paper manuscript, looking for errors in composition and type setting, not in the writing of the story. The process is so much easier today that any writer can put together a collection of stories and publish it digitally and through POD with or without technical help.

Creating this new anthology satisfied something in me that I don’t usually find elsewhere. I love the process of making something. Yes, I write stories and novels, and have a number of both out circulating with editors. I cannot imagine a life without writing, and indeed I’ve never had one without it since I was a teenager. But the finishing process has its own special appeal—there’s a tactile pleasure in putting together the front matter and back matter, arranging the parts felicitously. I get some of the same pleasure from matting and framing a photograph for the few times I’ve done an exhibit of my work. That form of satisfaction is probably why I do needlepoint and embroidery, and used to sew all the time. Sometimes I arrange tools and equipment in the garage or cellar for their appearance rather than practical reasons. I may end up a sculptor making assemblages or found art pieces. I love using my hands. But I’ll still be writing.

The point of all this, I suppose, is to share with all of you those aspects of my writing self that don’t often come out. I talk so much about writing—how to do this or that—that I sometimes forget that each of us who writes has more going on and other ways of being creative and finding a sense of accomplishment than the one part we talk about on line. The beginning of the resurrected anthology is one of them for me. So while all the writers are celebrating having their stories in the new anthology, which I fully understand, I’m celebrating making another object that will satisfy another part of me.

It’s a Heat Wave

~ dzchurch ~ 4 Comments

It is 108 degrees outside my front door. That’s hot. But it is a dry heat, shorthand for the moment you walk into an air-conditioned room, you sweat like a stevedore. It also brings on combers of nostalgia for Michigan, feet dangling off a tethered raft in Gull, Gun, or any lake, including Michigan, waves nibbling at my toes, reading summer books that widened my horizons.

July on a raft in a Michigan lake

Edna Ferber was from Kalamazoo, Michigan, once known as the celery capital of the world and a place dear to my heart. I whipped through Cimarron, adored Saratoga Trunk, and still love Giant, one of the ultimate summer books filled with indelible, strong, resilient, tough female characters. I often think of Vashti and wonder what the heck was going on in Luz’s mind. Edna Ferber told big stories about big people, personal growth, and bigotry. That’s a lot to deal with at sixteen years old wearing a bikini on a raft in a lake with boys waterskiing close enough to splash your pages and rock your raft. I also devoured Michener’s Hawaii and Leon Uris’s Exodus and Jessamyn West’s Friendly Persuasion while sashaying about in my favorite madras two-piece.

In between big beach books, I delighted in Dauphine du Maurier. My Cousin Rachel, Rebecca, and Jamaica Inn. Slathered with Coppertone, I adored the dashing Jem Merlyn. I re-read Jamaica Inn recently and wondered at my choice. I suspect it was that Jem was a bad boy, not good, not unredeemable, but a bit sexy and more than a tad sullen. I had the same crazy adoration for ‘Wild Whip’ Hoxworth (Hawaii), Ari Ben Canaan (Exodus), and Jess Birdwell (Friendly Persuasion). What teenage girl wouldn’t love him or them? Or Daphne du Maurier with her brooding houses and equally brooding men, slightly overwhelmed heroines, and crazy housekeepers. She introduced me to a tightly controlled world of threat, romance, and creepy moors.

This brings me to the best read while babysitting during a thunderstorm. The only book I ever threw at a ceiling was Wildfire at Midnight by Mary Stewart. I was babysitting, the kids were all in bed, their parents late, thunder roared, rain rasped against the windows. I kept watch in the living room, shades drawn, listening to the night rumble and whack. I turned the page; the heroine sees a shadow gyrating in front of a burning funeral pyre. A window shade snapped open. The book hit the ceiling at about ten miles an hour. The joy of it is that Mary Stewart’s booksare as fresh as ever with their strong female leads, engaging, slightly sexy male protagonists, and intriguing travelogue plots.

I still have the paperbacks of each of these books, some with water spots on them. My copy of Giant made an appearance on the cover of a magazine, red-checkered tablecloth, paper plates, sunglasses, and Giant open spine up. Most of the books have a price of $.75 or less printed on the cover. Giant, because it was giant, cost $1.25.

Those hot, humid, muggy Michigan summer days, replete with gigantic mosquitos and buzzing cicada, sit on my shoulder as I write. In particular, my book Booth Island captures the essence of being a teen vacationing on a lake when anything is possible, including love, death, and Tiger Tail ice cream.

For fun, try this summer book quiz. MATCH THE BOOK TITLE with the book’s first line and marvel at the few words used to set the scene. Answers will be in next month’s blog. To get you started, the first one is a gimme:

First Line of Book Title of Book and Author
Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again.Saratoge Trunk – Edna Ferber
All the Venables sat at Sunday dinner.Madam, Will You Talk? – Mary Stewart
Nothing ever happens to me.My Cousin Rachel – Daphne du Maurier
They were interviewing Clint Maroon.Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
The whole affair began very quietly.Jamaica Inn – Daphne du Maurier
It was a cold gray day in late November.My Brother Michael – Mary Stewart
They used to hang men at Four Turnings in the old days.Cimmaron – Edna Ferber
HAVE A WONDERFUL SUMMER!

The Wine Cellar by Karen Shughart

~ kshughart47 ~ 5 Comments

This month, to celebrate my birthday, friends treated me to lunch at a lovely restaurant/winery with charming views of Seneca Lake, in the heart of the Finger Lakes. The restaurant not only carries its own wines, but also a splendid selection from other wineries located here, along with those produced elsewhere in the United States and internationally.

Maybe it’s because of the burgeoning wine industry in the Finger Lakes – it’s the second largest producer of wines in the U.S. – that wine features prominently in our social life. Each night before dinner, my husband, Lyle, and I have a glass, every meal we share with friends at their homes or ours as well as at restaurants, includes wine. We sip, we taste, we compare, and we share. It’s part of the culture.

Right around the time that COVID quarantining started, Lyle decided to clean out a basement room directly beneath our kitchen that has thick stone walls and a stone floor.  We figured it may once have been a cistern, the house is about 130 years old. Remarkably, in both the heat of the summer and chill of winter, that space stays cool at about 56 degrees.

For as long as we’d owned our house, this was one room I had never, ever entered. It was gloomy and dark with cobwebs, discarded doors, rusted paint cans, a hodgepodge of debris and a broken wooden table. It took him hours, but eventually he got rid of all the junk, cleaned the floor and walls and cleared out the cobwebs. What an amazing transformation! The stone walls were charming; the floor was, too. It was wired for electricity, there was a burned-out bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. Then it struck me. While we enjoy wine and had taken wine appreciation classes at nearby New York Kitchen in Canandaigua, our wine storage options for collecting it had been limited. This was the perfect space to create a wine cellar.

Just outside the room we hung a round, wooden sign: “Wine Pairs Nicely with Good Friends.” We bought a light fixture to hang from the ceiling. For comfort, my husband installed some interlocking rubber tiles over the floor. We found an authentic wine barrel that we placed in one corner of the room; a huge Finger Lakes wine country poster sits in another. We purchased racks and started filling them, rows organized by varietal.

A colorful rug anchors the middle of the room, with a small, rectangular table covered with a Provencal – print cloth, a perfect spot for wine glasses and bottles to open for tastings.  Over the winter, we had an electric fireplace installed for those chilly wine-tasting nights.

Our journey began with an appreciation for wine and the abundance of vineyards so close to where we live. It has continued with the creation of our own wine cellar, a fun space for small groups of friends and family to gather, and a silver-lining project during the isolating time of COVID.

Internet Trolls and Tree Frogs in Bags

~ Pamela Beason ~ 4 Comments

I wish I could write about my next mystery because today I went hiking in the snowy north Cascades where I’m setting the story. But I’m tied up with a ghostwriting project about cyberbullies and internet trolls that is keeping my imagination all too imprisoned in the ugly present. And I’m struggling with the plot in my novel, because I want to set it in post-pandemic times, but the plague didn’t conveniently end in the spring season that I needed it to for my plot to work out. I may have to resort to true fiction to resolve that successfully. But I have to get internet trolls out of my head first. Reality can be such a pain to deal with sometimes.

So, this post is about something totally different: the happy surprises in my life that have involved animals. I have often said that I don’t expect life to always be kind, or easy, or fair, but I darn well expect it to be interesting. And so, I’m thrilled every time I get a surprise that makes my day more intriguing.

Most of my surprises involve animals, especially wildlife, so it should be no mystery why I include so much of the natural world in my writing. My cats are sometimes responsible for my surprises, like the baby opossum I discovered under the couch. Although neither of them ever admitted it, I’m pretty sure one of them kidnapped that poor baby. Of course I rescued it, using a beach towel and a cat carrier. Did you know that a baby opossum is a pretty fierce opponent? They growl and are more than ready to use those sharp teeth.

And then there was the mole that climbed into bed with my visiting sister. That was a surprise to her as well as me. Cats again, no doubt. Mine like to kidnap all sorts of interesting creatures. They rarely injure them. It took me days to find the poor little beastie crawling along my floorboards and take it back outside. It gratefully dug itself back into the earth in seconds. I discovered that moles have beautiful soft silky fur. And giant feet, or course, all the better to dig with.

The tree frog in a sandwich bag by the kitchen sink was probably one of the biggest shocks. Scared me to death. Had an intruder been in my house? Was this a warning of some kind? After I got over my hysteria, I remembered that I’d washed out a sandwich bag the night before and hung it over the faucet to dry. And I had found tree frogs in my house before. I’m not sure I can always blame the cats, because I’ve found frogs sneaking around window screens from time to time. So, tree frog + window over the sink + sandwich bag drying by the sink = tree frog squirming in sandwich bag.

These surprises don’t always happen in my home, though. One time, on a sailing trip through stormy seas, when I was thoroughly seasick and out on the bow tying down something or other in pouring rain, a dolphin emerged beside the boat, rolled over on its side, and we both stared at each other for a long moment, gifting me one magical experience in a truly miserable day.

As a kid, I was awed by a giant luna moth, praying mantises and walking sticks, horned toads, tortoises, bright green garden snakes. (I wasn’t so fond of the patterned brown serpents.)

I will get back to my creative writing soon. For now, after I hammer away at the keyboard for a few hours on my contract job, I keep venturing out into the natural world, trying to banish internet trolls from my brain to allow more space for happy surprises.