The Wine Blog by Karen Shughart

~ kshughart47 ~ 6 Comments

I’ve always believed that it’s easier to write about what you know, which is why wine features so prominently in my Edmund DeCleryk mysteries. Like my husband and me, Ed, and his wife Annie, live in the northern Finger Lakes region of New York, the second largest wine producer in the U. S. Wine is very much part of the lifestyle here.

Our own wine journey began many years ago. Our kids were in college, our careers at their peak, and we came home each night exhausted. We made the transition from workday to evening by having a glass of wine (or sometimes for Lyle, a Scotch) before dinner.  We caught up, chatted about our day, and even when my husband traveled for business, we designated a time to call each other, evening drink in hand. Although now retired, we continue the tradition to this day.

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One weekend we were invited to a dinner party at some friends’ house. We were asked to bring a dish to share and a bottle of wine to pair with it. It was the genesis of a gourmet group that met quarterly for many years, rotating hosts. A specialist at a wine store helped us choose the wines to go with each course. We quickly learned that to enjoy wine is to slowly sip and savor it.

Some of us took a cruise together from San Francisco Bay, along rivers that led to the Napa, Sonoma and Carneros wine regions of California.  Each evening we’d dock and before dinner attend a wine education session. The next morning we’d board a bus that would take us to charming towns for vineyard tours, wine tastings and to explore galleries and shops.

One weekend Lyle and I traveled to the Finger Lakes; a short drive from where we lived in Pennsylvania. We were enchanted by the wineries and restaurants, the vibrant jazz scene, and postcard-picture beauty.  We purchased an 1890s cottage on Lake Ontario; after retirement, we decided to make it our permanent home.

We joined a wine club.  At a series of monthly classes at New York Kitchen in Canandaigua, we learned about regions around the world where wine is crafted and how terroir, the natural environment in which grapes are grown, results in differences in color, smell and taste of the same varietal.  We cleaned up our musty basement and created a wine cellar in what was once a cistern, dry as a bone with thick stone walls and floor and about 56 degrees year ‘round.

Over the years I’ve learned a lot about wine, and I write about it in my mysteries. It is, after all, part of the local lore, and an integral part of the culture. And just like Lyle and me, having a glass of wine at the end of the day is a way for Ed and Annie to unwind and share their stories.

Ol’ Man Janus Ain’wah He Use-ta Be

~ Missye K. Clarke ~ 3 Comments

by Missye K. Clarke

I’m at my new tripod desk as I work on this month’s longish post, so I please ask your pardon for the inconvenience. Truthfully–and warring winter allergies with pet dander while half-zonked on antihistamines meds–I’m half-winging this, uncertain how to open or grab your attention on a writing topic not done past use, but I suppose this works. I wasn’t about to offer another post of life post-couvid, or kvetch to y’all when do I get my former life back, how I’m adjusting without this or that. Although nothing wrong with those subjects in/of themselves, for one usually a big mouth on issues . . . couvid silenced me another way: The shock of how fast humanity changed past the point of know return, the shock itself, and how this event’s deepoend me despite not wanting to go that crazy depth. Like in almost every writing reference around insisting the main character must adjust to his or her new normal in their worlds, I’ve been forced again to follow suit. Guess my cast is having a good belly laugh at my expense, because in their words: this constant compass-adjusting just fuckin’ sucks. They’re not wrong.

Still . . . I’m notorious for delayed shock, unfortunately exposed to this at an early age. Knocked out cold by a thrown rock when I was nine, I had my first of several out of body experiences, being knocked silly to start with, subsuquent recovery from the OBE, and the shock itself until many weeks later. 9/11/2001, another stunner, now much bigger and deeper with the emergence of a more likely storyline behind that event I’m still unpacking. Still sweaty from kidhood at twenty whem my forty-year-young mom lost her cancer fight; and four years hence, more shock during what should’ve been a joyous time receiving my firstborn the same year my father violently died. As you can imagine, also released that year, Mike + The Mechanics’ “The Living Years” will always hold a certain poignance, the last verse especially useful when I need a good cry to wash my eyes out before allergy meds kick in.

But even couvid and a rigged election’s aftermath still being written before our eyes isn’t my biggest shock, despite the resonance these events still hold. For the longest time, I’ve struggled to put my thoughts and feelings into digestable bites for readers and contributors of this platform to understand, cogitate, and maybe help me change–and on another level, maybe even relate a little to me–without coming off bitchy, arguing too much, or generally be that unlikeable narrator. This subject’s been on my heart since I could remember, only recently instigated by open mockery, hot disdain, and the flat-out exile from groups, orgs., and other socials of daring to hold a dissenting point of view. What was once done in pockets of academia–being a target from both sides while finishing college, you learn a few things–the veneer of impartiality and evenhandedness in the open marketplace of ideas is gone, if it existed to begin with. In its place is a scary, filthy leviathan of a share-our-view-or-else slant now so mainstream you’d have to be living on Pluto most of your life not to see how bad times have become. Don’t misunderstand–this isn’t a political post, nor will such ever be shared here. But I’m speaking–pleading, if I’m being honest–strictly from the standpoint of an author making a modest living on a basic tenet: to speak his or her mind freely no matter how appalling, offensive, or dangerous it may come across. I do not sanction violence. But the right to be as you are, say what you like, how, where, when, or which you like–just being heard, damn it!–is being persecuted in unprecedented ways. I hope to help quelch this, not only in picking up the reins where the fantastic, late, great Nat Hentoff dropped off, but holding to that late Sixties drumbeat I was taught in school: DIFFERENCES ARE GOOD! As I opine this, I’ve tears in my eyes where free speech, free thought, and free expression will go–the helpful, beneficial, positive, uplifting, and inspiring kinds that call on pulling together differences in every one of us we’re the same to and in at the end of the day despite the awful-icky speech we’ve dealt with. Solomon of Proverbs was spot on when he said the tongue is more powerful than the strongest sword or the heftiest ship’s rudder. Hoo-boy, isn’t it ever.

In the guise of “wokeism,” I found myself in #1stAHasAVoice jail from certain platforms within the past year. One was with two scribe orgs. I’m happily no longer assosicated with; Twitter, where I called out several NYT bestselling authors for treating their readers like they’d been asked to enjoy a roten fish smoothie for lunch; and the third was a monthly box I’d gushed over several months back (This last, I owe you a deep apology for–not that you’ll like what I do, but I should’ve vetted this company more thoroughly for my tastes.) I could’ve been a little more diplomatic, suave, evenhanded in my responses. But I suppose holding my feelings and thoughts of what’s moral and just in the name of professionalism was what got even one of us here to begin with is problamatic. Done with being nice, I gave my own exit interviews to those outlets like a wrecking ball discovering demolition sex, having nothing else, in my eyes, to professionally lose. Banned from the blue bird (Sidenote: why are some to most beta males disgusting to strong women they secretly want? What, SWINOs–strong women in name only–need only apply?)–no real loss, since it’s permitting child porn and okaying snitching on your friends/followers/following, euphamistically labeled “Birdwatching” if you haven’t heard, with zero discernment. The tea has it through other socials membership is continuing to decline in my former orgs, including those rethinking their membership in wake of my treatment on principle, and take their wallets where viewpoint alienation isn’t a menu regular. As the quasi-tired expression goes, some are finally seeing the true light in the contrived darkness. I’m happy for this. Being that casuality, or witnessing one, isn’t a picnic, nor is going outside my comfort zone defending the attacked, or letting them stay persecuted (i.e.: capitulation by proxy) hoping in that skein, maybe I won’t be. Un/Fortunately, we’re not in polite times or polite society anymore. Positions will be taken, rooted deeper into, right POV or no. Whichever yours are, hold fast boldly, go all in, bake until done. Lukewarm, wimpy, or milquetoasts anything is unacceptable–in the writing life and your right to speak in it!–and that’s how it is.

As my box-drop is funniest in a you-hadda-be-there kind of way, I’ll expound. Comedians like Seinfeld, Ray Romano, Fred Rubino, identical twins Kevin & Keith Hodge, Larry the Cable Guy, Jeff Foxworthy, Tim Allen, and a slew of others lamented they can’t visit American college and university campuses anymore for stand-up routines. Why? Co-eds are so indoctrinated with unevidenced fear and anger over jokes being offensive to anyone, when it’s that means making dark times more bearable. The kids are right in one sense–even through we ladies might find gallows humor appalling, laughter makes those intense moments less so; I can only imagine the sick jokes during and after Christ’s execution or the rotten timing of satire from some in Titanic’s lifeboats as they waited for the Carpethia. But psychological studies of this phenom back this to be legitimate: dangerous vocations like First Responders or high-rise window cleaners have, or one in a horrific life-changing event, often crack morbid, greusome, or gory jokes to help themselves deal with nightmarish tasks they’d like to forget forever. In the place of some NYPD detectives having to handle recent affairs of child sex trafficking–those terrifying images involved they had to see, they’d damn better joke, joke, joke all the way home. #TooSoon isn’t applicable here.

But an author serving a spoof at couvid’s or its country of origin’s espense? No! Go! Scared me so! Get out, get out, GET!!!! OUT!!!! Not hyperbole, either–it happened all that way. Even this platform came under recent fire for contributors not towing the censorship line others wished they’d do. I defended my fellow authors in both cases that tasteless, crass speech is free to be expressed, as it’s on the reader/listener/viewer to discriminate if they’ll be in audience. Sadly, with many millennials freefalling into the dangers of okaying piecemeal’ed to extreme censorship–and not a few boomers declaring themselves God to push such impositions on–they complained to the CEO and group owners about the emerging author’s share and complained about those who supported her right to express herself. No avail. We were permanantly excused. Just as well–I can’t justify monthly writing tchotchkes on a lean budget, but more imporantly, I won’t patron a business hellbent on quelling voices or views they find objectionable because it challenges their hegemony or stances. Sharing my argument to the CEO that I expected to go unanswered (it did), later that week I received a snarkily-comedic worded exit email, feigning sadness in its “Dear John” seeing me go. Tough sh*t, I’m staying ghost. I won’t give anything of me to anyone, anything, or any cause showing its ass, even more so since my position’s been thoroughly belittled, dismissed, scorned, or openly made fun of. All in the name of tolerance, of course.

Although a tired expression, it’s one worth sharing again: Where He closes a door, He opens a window. Opportunities abound for a warrior. During times of great upheaval, they always, always do.

So. That was my January. The bearded god looking in our past sees . . . what? Wreckage of a broken everything, if we’re being raw honest. The god’s other bearded face looking into our sunrise of what’s to come . . . sees what, exactly? Wreckage illuminated? The glow to rebuild, the light to guide?

The resplendwency to constntly keep in plain sight what never to revisit in history ever again?

That dude’s role sure ain’t what it use-ta be.

Then again, ain’t none of us are.

Stay strong in the fight for the pursuit of life, liberty, and that ever elusive bitch of happiness, my friends and scribe warriors. We’ve only just gotten started.

ps: Almost forgot: Happy Valentines’ Day. May you all be showered in flowers today and always.

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The Experiment – Continued

~ janispattersonmysteries ~ 7 Comments

by Janis Patterson

If sales of my books go any lower, it looks like I’m going to have to start paying people not to read my books. Yes, that’s an exaggeration (I hope!) but it’s also in danger of becoming quite true. And I will admit it hurts to see my books languish at the bottom of the charts, especially since some of them have been on bestseller lists (international, not US – go figure that!) and some have won prizes while others, both appalling rubbish as well as tomes much more literary than mine, sell like the proverbial hotcakes.

Late last year I bewailed my position and decided to start an experiment. I was going KU. Now as a fiscal conservative, I abominate the idea of anything that reeks of potential monopoly, but I also dislike the idea of not making any money for all the work I have done on my books. I have always had all my books – those which I control – wide, meaning they were available just about everywhere ebooks books can be bought. Sales have been so bad they would have to work a week to inch their way up to pathetic.

So, since most of what sales I did have were coming from Amazon and none from two of the other major outlets, I decided to start an experiment. I pulled three test books from wide distribution and put them into KU, which means exclusive with Amazon.

The results were good – for my wallet – but disheartening from a free market point of view. Sales inched up a tiny bit, but what astounded me was the page reads. No, I’m not going to give exact numbers, mainly because they are no one’s business but mine and would be considered embarrassingly low for most other writers, but they were a very large jump for me, and have increased almost daily from the beginning of the experiment. Yes, the money for KU page reads is distressingly low, but even a low return is better than no return.

However, only part of me believes that. By being in KU am I contributing to the stifling (and perhaps eventual extinction) of the free market by encouraging a possible monopoly? Part of me thinks so but part of me wants to be compensated for the time and money I spend to make my books available to the public.

By being in KU am I keeping my books away from those who shop on platforms other than Amazon? Yes, but they weren’t buying from me anyway, so what difference does it make, except that with KU at least I have the potential of earning due recompense for my labors.

I know I’m talking a lot about money – I’m not really greedy, but workmen are worthy of their hire; my books have made international best seller lists and won prizes. They – and I – deserve better treatment and recognition, and if being in KU does that I will respond.

It has taken a long time and a lot of thought to come to this point, but with my usual decisiveness I have chosen to keep feet in both camps. Those books which have performed well wide – for example, CURSE OF THE EXILE and A KILLING AT EL KAB – will stay wide. New books – released this year, such as A WELL-MANNERED MURDER and ROMANCE AT SPANISH ROCK – have been put directly into KU.  The other five books I have ready for release, plus any others I will finish in the foreseeable future, will be decided on a case-by-case basis… that, or the phase of the moon and my mood at the moment.

https://ladiesofmystery.com/2021/02/10/the-experiment—continued/(opens in a new tab)

It is true that the customer drives the market, and the vendor/writer has to follow the trends. Right now the trend is to KU, and if this trend continues, I will eventually move everything to KU. If the ebook industry does become a monopoly, all will change – and probably not for the better – but the reader has no one but himself to blame.

Ending a Series is Hard by Paty Jager

~ patyjag ~ 5 Comments

After waiting years to finally feel as if I were a good enough writer to write the genre I loved, it’s hard to fathom I have the last book of my Shandra Higheagle series releasing this month.

Years ago, we’re talking in the early 90s I wanted to write mystery books. I read them voraciously and after reading the first three in Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone series, I wanted to write a mystery book. I had taken creative writing classes at the local community college and was ready to try my hand at mystery. Especially after someone I thought was a close friend told her husband she was having an affair with my husband to keep her husband from learning who was her real lover.

I knew I could write a really good murder mystery because I was killing that person in my story. I wrote the book. In first person, just like Ms. Grafton did. When I sent it to an agent, the reply was: First person mysteries don’t sell. I read the letter over and over wondering at the comment since I’d read many first person mysteries. While I waited to hear back on the first one, I killed off a replica of the same person in my second book with the same main character.

After receiving the letter from the agent, I transformed my first person account into third person and sent it off. Still a solid rejection. When I tried back then to get into a mystery writers group all of them insisted you had to be already published to become a member. Heart broken and feeling like mystery wasn’t my calling, I joined RWA- Romance Writers of American and put my writing skills into western romance always adding a bit of adventure or mystery into each book and showcasing injustices.

When I picked up the gauntlet to write an Indian Jones type book, I wrote my Isabella Mumphrey Action Adventure series. The success of those books and my brother telling me about a way to hide a murder weapon on a bronze statue started my brain spinning. I came up with an amateur sleuth who was in the art world.

Giving a nod to the fact I like to write Native American characters to help educate readers about their history and circumstances, I came up with Shandra Higheagle a potter. From book one, Double Duplicity, I loved my character and the secondary characters I sprinkled into her life. Through the series the reader learns more about Shandra’s past and sees her build a future with Detective Ryan Greer.

At book six my daughter’s asked when I would end the series. I told them when I was tired of writing them or my readers were tired of reading them. I didn’t want to be an author who had readers saying I should have ended the series three books ago. But as I wrote the previous book, Capricious Demise, and I had Shandra and Ryan adopt twins, I realized to keep readers liking my character, she would have to stop sleuthing and take care of the kids.

And that is how I came up with the last book of the series. Shandra’s grandmother comes to her in a dream showing her, Ryan and the twins at the Colville Powwow. During the course of the book, her grandmother stops coming to her dreams and Shandra realizes she can no longer put her life in danger. The twins lost two parents already. They didn’t need to lose another.

While it is sad to think I won’t be visiting Shandra, Sheba, Ryan, Crazy Lil, Ruthie, Maxwell, Ted, Naomi, Maranda, and Alex, I’m excited to carry on writing Gabriel Hawke novels and my new series Spotted Pony Casino Mysteries.

Vanishing Dream

Book 16 in the Shandra Higheagle Mystery series

Deception, Gluttony, Murder

Shandra Higheagle Greer’s deceased Nez Perce grandmother appears in her dream, dancing at a powwow. Since Grandmother only appears when there is a murder, Shandra believes, she, Ryan, and the twins should attend the yearly Powwow at the Colville Reservation.

While out for a walk the first night, Shandra sees someone lurking in the dark between the vendor tents. A vendor is discovered the next morning strangled with her own beads. 

When members of Shandra’s family are attacked, she finds it hard to stay out of the investigation. While Ryan is working with the Tribal Police, Shandra follows a suspect and is captured. No one knows her whereabouts. Calling upon her grandmother seems futile. The dreams are vanishing and so could her life.

universal book link to pre-order at most ebook vendors: https://books2read.com/u/4XLkvg

A Newsletter: To Have Or Have Not by Heather Haven

~ Heather Haven ~ 5 Comments

The decision to have a newsletter was not an easy one for me. I didn’t come to it naturally. At first, I resented spending the time and moola sending out something I wasn’t sure anyone was going to open, let alone read. My webmistress really pushed me to do it, saying any writer worth his or her salt had one. I like salt, so I relented.

Three years ago, she began to build one. And it was an immediate disaster. The first model used SSL, I believe. If I don’t have the right name for this, it’s because I’ve blocked it out. The bad taste of it stays with me. The newsletter, itself, wasn’t actually written by me, but used info pulled from blogs I was steadily writing at the time. It was supposed to be effortless, even going out to a designated email list at a pre-designated time.

It didn’t work. Sometimes it would go out but without any information attached. Just a banner with an image of me and Tugger the Cat would show up in their emails. Other times, it would go out containing bits and pieces of Gobbledygook, not one straight word. But most of the time, it didn’t go out at all. Meanwhile, I was paying for all of this through the schnozzola.

After three months of this nonsense, I started writing them in real time. Then I was in real trouble. I had no idea what to say. Just buy my books sounded a little too blatant. And for whatever reason, I couldn’t be amusing or witty in these newsletters I was writing to a bunch of strangers. Neither informative nor entertaining, the newsletters laid there like a lump. My readership dropped off significantly. It wasn’t unusual for me to lose five to ten people a month. I was desperate.

I was ready to abandon the whole idea of a newsletter and save myself 35 bucks a month in the deal. I happened to mention my decision to Julie Smith, who not only is my publicist, but a fantastic writer, herself. She was totally against the idea of not doing a newsletter, claiming this was the only way to reach out and truly get to know your readers. Hmmmm. You mean, a newsletter is something more than just buy my books?

I should also mention, in the meantime I had been reading other newsletters, from writers like Camille Minichino and Cindy Brown. These are authors whose work I not only admire, but who have newsletters I found myself reading from top to bottom. I discovered something amazing. They not only engaged the reader but wrote about stuff they were interested in. And it had an intimacy about it, like writing to a penpal.

Armed with the idea of getting to know my readers, I became more chatty in my newsletter and even asked questions. I started receiving emails back from them filled with tidbits about their own lives. I came to know many as more than names. I learned some of their stories. They became not just readers but friends. Not only did the email list stop declining, more names were added.

And they are all really neat people. I like them. I’m happy to write to them, to share something from my life, a joke, an anecdote, or even a book I recently discovered they might be interested in reading. Sometimes I mention my own books, but not often. I also found out, incidentally, most of them do buy my books, but not because I hawk them about it, but because my style fits into their reading pleasure.

This writing a newsletter is so win-win.