A Writer’s Retreat by Heather Haven

~ Heather Haven ~ 9 Comments

I’ve been married to the same guy for 42 years. We’ve known each other for 44. He’s a Type-A personality. I’m Type-Z. And thus, in order to stay married, we must compromise on many things. It’s the only way to go.

He’s easy-going in a lot of ways and loves to travel. Let me be clear about this. LOVES, loves, loves it. If he could travel two weeks out of every month his life would be perfect. Of course, he is a working musician, so gigs have to be accounted for. I am a working writer, so words have to be accounted for. The reality is, we can only travel around ten to twelve days every other month. Let me add right up front, we don’t have kids and try to live slightly beneath our means, not counting the cats. They get whatever they want.

The one thing my guy seems to love as much as travel is planning a trip. As long as he does it in his office with the door closed and doesn’t hassle me with anything except what directly impacts moi, I’m good with it. He tried going on a vacation by himself once and it didn’t work. He spent the majority of the time on the phone telling me what he did or was going to do, such as staying in the room and reading a book. I spent the majority of my time being lonely.

But what, you may ask, has this grade-B movie scenario got to do with writing? Plenty. I don’t have to tell anyone reading this post that writing a novel takes a lot of time and concentration. Taking off and going somewhere so often is an interruption that doesn’t work. At least, not for me. But staying home longer than two or three days without my guy doesn’t work, either. So, off I go. However, no matter where we travel, my mornings are dedicated to writing, unless I’m doing research for a new book. He spends his mornings exploring, loving life, and walking his feet off.

His favorite mode of transportation is a cruise ship. And no, he doesn’t walk on water. But he does walk around the Promenade deck many, many times. We’ve done thirty-four cruises, and counting. Three more are lined up (as stated, he loves to plan). The longer the cruise ship stays at sea, the happier I am. This is because I order room service, put up the do not disturb sign, look out at the passing ocean, and write my head off. He zips in and out, going to or coming from somewhere, while I get one or two chapters a day done. He sometimes brings his portable piano or guitar along and practices while I write. But the evenings are always “ours.”

If this sounds like an easy-breezy sort of life, it wasn’t stress-free to arrive at. I would say it took us a good five to ten years to find a compromise that gave us mutual happiness and rewards. Possibly, we are slow learners. But pretty lucky ones.

We’re older now and soon enough travel will be limited, at best. But we have loads of scrapbooks, some handheld, some online. And memories. Oh, yes! Then, of course, I have my novels, mostly written somewhere other than my home office.

Don’t Forget the Turkey!

~ Janet Dawson ~ 8 Comments

I’m writing a historical novel set in New Mexico, in the 1870s. In an early chapter, my protagonist, Catriona, goes to a dance. Except in that time and place, it was known as a baile. It’s a common term in the southwest, describing a social gathering where people dance.

For a writer, a social gathering is a great way to set the scene and give it the flavor of the times and the place. It advances the plot and allows me to give my characters more depth and substance. Throw all these people into a social gathering and describe their interactions—it’s a great writer’s tool.

Catriona is the daughter of an army officer from a nearby fort. She’s accompanied to the baile by her father and another officer and his wife. Newly arrived in the area, she’s looking forward to the social event, her first in her new home. I describe her anticipation of a pleasant evening, the clothes that she and others are wearing, the venue where the baile is held, the refreshments, and so on.

Her first dance—a schottische—is with her father. From then on, she has many dance partners, as the locals spin around the floor—the waltz, the polka, square dances, accompanied by guitars and fiddles. In the interest of research, I went looking for examples of dances that were popular in the mid- to late nineteenth century and found Dance Through Time, which is on YouTube. This interesting channel provides descriptions and videos of various dances. In addition to those dances listed above, there were others, such as the galop and the mazurka. This is a terrific source for writers who set their stories in any decade. You can check it out at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr2JrloB7pc.

Writing the chapter was a great deal of fun, especially one scene. Catriona has already danced—twice—with an earnest second lieutenant from the fort who keeps stepping on her feet. She’s trying to avoid a third session when:

A voice at my right said, “You promised me this dance.”

I turned my head and looked at my rescuer. He was a young man, about my age and a few inches taller, with even features and a head of sandy-colored hair. His slender form was dressed in clean brown pants and a blue shirt. A spark of merriment lit his blue eyes and when he smiled at me, I saw two prominent front teeth. He held out his left hand and I took it. Then he led me onto the dance floor, leaving the disappointed lieutenant standing alone.

“You looked like you needed rescuing from that fellow,” he said with a smile. “I saw him dancing with you earlier. It appears he stepped on your feet a time or two.”

“More than a time or two,” I said. “I fear the lieutenant isn’t much of a dancer. But he’s persistent. My name is Catriona MacNeill, by the way.”

 “Glad to know you, Miss MacNeill. They call me Billy. Billy Bonney.” The band began to play a square dance. “Ah, ‘Turkey in the Straw,’ one of my favorites.”

And that, dear readers, is how Catriona meets Billy the Kid.

How do I know “Turkey in the Straw” was one of the Kid’s favorites? Research, of course. That’s what we writers do, diving down various rabbit holes, including this one. There are a number of sources that say Billy loved dancing and was a skilled and popular partner for the young ladies at many bailes. In 1928, one of Billy’s compadres, Frank Coe, was interviewed by historian J. Evetts Haley. According to Frank, who played fiddle at many bailes, Billy was “a mighty nice dancer and what you call a ladies’ man . . . The Kid danced waltzes, polkas and squares.”

Frank added that Billy would often call out to the musicians, telling them, “don’t forget the gallina.” Which is Spanish for turkey.

Guest Blogger ~ Claudia Riess

~ patyjag ~ 9 Comments

Choosing to write an art history mystery series came relatively late in my career, but the seed was planted very early in childhood, and was as much a part of the natural course of events as learning to read and being read to—Winnie the Pooh, Mary Poppins, Alice in Wonderland—and being told laugh-out-loud stories, ad-libbed by my father, about a little girl named Jeanie, clearly my alias, and her adventures with her anonymous daddy, clearly my own.  And like bedtime stories, my introduction to art—my association with art—was, and is, bound up with family, adventure, safe harbor. 

It began with outings to museums.  We lived in Brooklyn, and a couple of the great ones were a short subway ride away.  The Metropolitan, the Museum of Modern Art, the Frick, the Brooklyn Museum.  Typically, these outings were followed by take-out Chinese food and talks around the kitchen table about what we had seen that day.  We talked about the different ways painters saw the world; debated about which perspective better described the real world—and what the real world really was.  Color and light?  Shape and dimension?  And what about imagination? Created imagery.  Distorted reality.  Ideas about the relative nature of beauty and truth were woven into these conversations, and all the while we were savoring our chicken chow mein and fried rice with lobster sauce.

It stands to reason that my idea of the art world was a romanticized one, but by the time I’d written a few rom-com-like novels and murder mysteries and was considering writing an art suspense novel, I’d learned a lot more about its seamier side.  How the price of art is virtually uncontrolled, dependent on the whims of collectors and dealers and the transient tastes and fads of the times.  How art is ransomed, forged, used to launder money, stolen then sold on the black market.  In short, that the art world is where the most sublime of human instincts collide with its basest.  What a great amalgam for fiction!

I pitched the idea of my writing an art suspense novel to my brother, Jonathan, an art history professor at the University of Cincinnati, and he off-handedly suggested, “What about finding a lost study of Michelangelo’s Battle of Cascina?”  As he enlarged on the subject, a conversation I’d had years ago popped into mind.  It was my first week at Vassar College, and I was out of my social depth, trying to hold my own with one of my classmates, a seasoned debutant.  I suppose the incident remained etched in memory because our life experiences were so disparate.  Especially vivid was the story of how her father’s sugar plantation in Cuba had been confiscated by Fidel Castro’s government.  It was this historical nugget that instantly dovetailed with my brother’s suggestion.  In that moment, the American sugar plantation owner became an art collector, and as he and a freshly materialized plantation manager and a lovely cook’s assistant hid out in a basement storeroom, the art collection was being hauled off by a band of wannabe Castro rebels looking to raise money to buy arms.

The imagekicked off the prologue to Stolen Light, Book 1 of my art history mystery series.  I’m a stickler for historical accuracy, and as a rule I take off from it, filling the gap with events that conform to its character, and therefore might have been.  Then, in a butterfly-effect maneuver, I fast-forward to the present and drop a pair of resourceful lovers into the challenging set of circumstances that has developed—multiple murders included—and see if the sleuthing duo can sort it out. 

For example, the impetus for Knight Light, Book 3 in the series, came from two quotes.  From the painter Marcel Duchamp: “Not all artists are chess players, but all chess players are artists.”  From World Chess Champion, Alexander Alekhine: “Chess for me is not a game, but an art.”  From there, I discovered that the two had actually been team-mates on the French chess team in the 1933 Chess Olympiad.  And that furthermore, Alekhine’s death in 1946 has been considered a cold case to this day.  My fiction, integrated with the facts, took off from there.

Dying for Monet, Book 5 and the most recent in the series, is structured with the same criteria, except this time a crucial plot-twisting component hog-ties me to a bare-boned blurb.  I’ve never felt more in danger of giving away the spoiler.  I’m okay discussing Claude Monet and the Impressionists; Paul Ruand-Durell, the renowned art dealer based in Paris, carrying on in London during the Franco-Prussian War; the art museums in London; the disappearance of a still life painting; a brutal murder.  Even the End Notes, where I mention books that were part of the research phase, omits a critical one whose title would blow it.  Luckily, I’ve got my two sleuthing protagonists, Erika and Harrison, about whose ever-evolving love story I could go on forever.

Book 6, the last in the series, is in the works.  Its plot is powered by the subject of artificial intelligence, boon and curse of the art world, depending on your definition of art or stake in its profits.  My fascination was doubly sparked by an episode of CNN’s “The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper,” which focused on the Dead End Gallery in Amsterdam, the world’s first art gallery dealing solely in art generated by AI, and the Whitney Museum’s exhibition of Harold Cohen’s AARON, the world’s first AI program for art-making. These experiences raised questions regarding the genesis of inspiration, the act of creation, and the boundaries of ownership, all of which are potential harbingers of conflict, including the most deadly.

Dying for Monet

A gala evening auction at Laszlo’s, an upstart auction house in New York City, is in progress.  Without notice, a much sought-after Impressionist painting is withdrawn from the block.  Moments later, its broker is found dead at the foot of an imposing statue in Laszlo’s courtyard.

Amateur sleuths Erika Shawn, art magazine editor, and Harrison Wheatley, art history professor, are once again drawn into an investigation involving an art-related homicide, this time sharing an unnerving coincidence with violent crimes occurring abroad.

As Harrison searches for clues in the archives at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, Erika is on a stakeout in Brooklyn Heights gathering information on the owner of the hijacked still life.  After Harrison experiences a disastrous encounter in London, he returns home, where he and Erika, along with a few of their usual cohorts, find themselves ever more deeply at odds with the movers and shakers on the dark side of fine arts commerce.

https://www.amazon.com/Dying-Monet-Art-History-Mystery/dp/1685126545

Claudia Riess is an award-winning author who has worked in the editorial departments of The New Yorker and Holt, Rinehart and Winston, and has edited several art history monographs.  Stolen Light, the first book in her art history mystery series, was chosen by Vassar’s Latin American history professor for distribution to the college’s people-to-people trips to Cuba.  To Kingdom Come, the fourth, will be added to the syllabus of a survey course on West and Central African Art at a prominent Midwestern university.  Claudia has written articles for Mystery Readers Journal, Women’s National Book Association, the Sisters in Crime Bloodletter, and Mystery Scene magazine.  She has been featured on a variety of podcasts, blogs and Zoom events.

claudiariessbooks.com.

https://www.facebook.com/ClaudiaRiessBooks

ORNAMENTAL CHARACTERS

~ Kimila Kay ~ 2 Comments

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season and the new year finds you busy writing, plotting, or selling books!

As I took my tree down a couple of weeks ago, I was reminded of a conversation I had when I attended a party hosted by one of my friend’s aunts. The aunt had a large, beautiful tree decorated in black and white. The decorations included black bows, a couple of very large white owls, and smaller blackbirds. Black and white ornaments were scattered amongst the branches and complimented by white icicles and white bells.

When I asked if she always has a black and white tree, she replied, “Oh, heavens no. I have decorations to do an all-teal tree, but my favorite tree is decorated in purple.”

My hostess was drawn into a conversation with another guest. I stood in front of the black-and-white tree, wondering if I could ever embrace this type of décor for my tree.

Decorating my tree is my favorite part of Christmas. When I open boxes of ornaments, I feel like I’m greeting old friends. Each decoration has a story, and I love remembering the ornament’s origins. I like grouping my Nutcracker ornaments together and keeping the handmade gifts from my kids and grandkids in the same area of the tree. I also like distributing my collection of Santa ornaments throughout the branches.

My nine-foot tree tells the colorful story of my life. Ornaments handed down from family members no longer here bring a smile to my lips as I remember past holidays. Each time I place my glass avocado next to the small plastic tequila bottle, I find myself longing for the beaches of México. And though my grandkids don’t visit at Christmas, I still hide the dill pickle ornament they gave me just in case they make a surprise appearance.

Recently, one of my readers asked me why I decided to write a series featuring repeating characters in the same setting. The question echoed in my mind this year when I returned my ornaments to their storage containers, and it occurred to me that my fondness for the characters in my novels is like the adoration I feel for the baubles that brighten my tree each year.

Luckily for me, I write two series. My suspense/thriller series, México Mayhem, has some repeating characters, but each book has a new heroine, hero, and villain. The locales change, too, since I move one or two minor characters from the previous book forward into a new story.

I can’t imagine never creating my very first heroine, Clara Marsh. When I wrote “Peril in Paradise” long ago, in 2008, I had no idea that I would suffer losing a child as Clara does. It stunned me the first time I reread the passages in the book after Clara’s daughter was murdered. How did I know her grief so well before I’d experienced it myself? And though Clara is a figment of my imagination, to me, she is real and a kindred spirit in my life.

My first hero took me by surprise, too. I’m a very independent woman, so when Jackson Brady wanted to protect Clara and rescue her from Damian, I found it hard to let her be rescued or trust Brady. Growing up, I never bought into the whole white knight coming to the damsel’s distress. But being part of Clara’s journey into Brady’s arms was a fabulous experience.

The only writing kudos I ever received when receiving countless rejection letters was: “You do write an excellent villain.”

Creating my villains is one of my favorite parts of crafting a story. I find it easy to heap on evil traits, but I also try to craft a backstory explaining their bad behavior. In “Peril in Paradise,” the reader eventually learns that Damian Garza thinks his stepmother killed his biological mother. Damian’s hatred for his stepmother causes him to mistreat women, but his ego eventually leads to his undoing.

In my mystery/suspense series, Stoneybrook Mysteries, I created a fictional town full of fabulous characters that starts the reader’s journey in “Redneck Ranch.” Every time I open a WIP for a Stoneybrook novel, I feel like I’m home. The chatter of patrons at the Babbling Brook Café fills my mind, and I can smell the bacon and eggs. When my heroine, Harley Harper, trudges to the barn to feed her animals, I’m reminded of my childhood on the family dairy. And though I’m lucky to have numerous friends, I never really bought into the “best friend” label. But I thoroughly enjoy writing about Busy and Harley’s “bestie” moments.

Sheriff Wyatt Stone is a culmination of all the incredible male role models in my life. Wyatt is diligent in his quest to protect the residents of Stoneybrook from harm. I don’t consider myself a romantic, but I enjoy the developing relationship between Wyatt and Harley. He exhibits quiet strength and endless patience, especially when interacting with his autistic cousin, Deputy Derrick Stone.

When I get to write a scene with Derrick, it takes me back in time, just like the ornaments on my tree. I love remembering our lunch dates after shopping at the local Goodwill. Derrick would always find some treasure he had to have, some of which I kept after his passing. Creating a fictional character to honor my son has been a soothing elixir.

The only rotating character in this series is the villain. And once again, what I lack in romantic tendencies, I make up for in crafting dark and twisty bad guys.

My Christmas tree ornaments have been stowed away for another year. The hustle and bustle of the holiday season has settled down, and the usual demands of everyday life await me each morning. I feel blessed to have these characters, recurring and newbies waiting in the wings, to greet me when I lift the lid of my laptop and place my fingers on the keys.

Just like decorating my tree, I enjoy greeting each character like an old friend or introducing myself to someone new, placing them exactly where they need to be in the book. Oh, what a journey each story promises to take me on… one ornamental word at a time.

Lists and More, Always More

~ susanoleksiw ~ 4 Comments

I belong to a chat list of people in my general geographical area, one or two counties north of Boston mostly along the water. Here we post requests for a carpenter or, right now, a snow shoveler. Members report on the remodeled bath and how well the job was done, or not done.

One man organized a picnic for anyone who wanted to come, and within days he had offers of side dishes, the loan of a grill, a small tent in case it rained while he was flipping burgers, a few tables and chairs, and a volunteer to track who was doing or bringing what. There are long discussions on what’s happening that has brought a helicopter and two police cars, and whether or not the city can or should do something about the homeless woman who has set up shop on a certain corner.

This is a community within a community, an ongoing exchange of good will, information, moral support, and occasionally humor. Lots of people are looking for small jobs, the kind that don’t attract construction companies. These are people willing to do just about any little chore—watch your elderly mother one afternoon a week, or your two pre-school children three days a week, or water your plants while you’re on vacation, or fix the front steps, or cut down a small tree that’s dying. There’s always someone who’ll help install a smoke detector, explain the restrictions on B&Bs in a specific town, or suggest a junk removal guy who is reasonable, quick, and neat. Small jobs but necessary ones.

I’ve had several jobs taken care of through this site, and occasionally I recognize another user, or another user recognizes me. The site is more efficient than asking at the local hardware store, another place I’ve come to know and love since my husband died. It’s also more informative. In almost any instance a person seeking a worker for anything will get two or three suggestions, with affirmations (or not) by other readers. 

The site is remarkably accurate as to skill, reliability, and pricing, perhaps because a failure in any one of these areas will lead to a disappointing post, at best, and complaints from others and a decline in business.

For a long time I thought of this as a useful site, but now I read the offers and requests, including occasionally my own, and I feel like I’m reading a novel or a short story as people report on life changes requiring a new home for a pet or a change in a second bedroom. This change in perspective is perhaps the result of how I see the world, or at least my corner of it. 

When I hear someone talking about an incident, or see a group of people engaged in something, within seconds my brain has constructed a narrative, just like what I did in the first paragraphs above. You read very few facts; instead you got a feel for how a group of people relate to each other, with holes where paranoia, suspicion, ill will could fold away from view.

When you’re a writer, wherever you look you find a story.