Three Hydrangeas

~ susanoleksiw ~ 6 Comments

I’ve been reading up on hydrangeas—where to plant, when to bloom, what to feed. I planted three on a gentle slope in the back yard, just off the small patio, several years ago. This area gets lots of morning sun, midday sun, and some afternoon sun. I never feed them, never prune though I do remove old stems that are woody and falling off. And, like many other plants in New England, these three no longer wait for the traditional August blooming. They begin in mid June. 

All three plants have been productive since I planted them perhaps fifteen years ago, and two have reached their full height, over three feet. The third grew more slowly, and two years ago, as I was weeding out whatever had crept up through the mulch, I found an invasive plant had twined itself around the third plant. I rooted it out, and hoped the hydrangea would survive and do better now.

Last year the runt of the trio bloomed nicely, and I congratulated myself for planting it a little higher than the other two, thinking now it gets more sun instead of being somewhat sheltered between two other plants and a fast-growing false spirea, which is another object of my (unfriendly) attentions.

As the spring drifted into June, I admired the first two hydrangeas, which were getting larger and larger, with more and more blooms. I pondered the third plant, which has now arrived at the top of the slope and is only a few inches from the patio. How did it get there? 

It’s been two years since my husband died, and while I thought my life was continuing on its established trajectory, I’m beginning to see that it’s not. A few weeks after Michael died, a mutual friend, also a widow, asked me if I was now reinventing myself. The question surprised me because we’d known each other for years both as writers and as neighbors. My first reaction was, no, of course not. I’m who I have always been. But in the intervening months I have noticed that interests I didn’t pay much attention to are coming to the fore, or I’m taking them more seriously. Some of them involve fixing things myself instead of asking Michael, who loved broken things for the chance to tinker, or hiring someone. 

I’m doing a lot more photography, and looking back on four solo shows and wondering why I didn’t take the work more seriously. My newest project involves lace and exploring experimental photography, which involves poking into analogue work. I don’t feel like I’m reinventing myself so much as sprawling over boundaries established arbitrarily and no longer useful. 

So now when I look at the hydrangea working its way up the slope and getting ready to grow as large as the other two, I don’t wonder how it got here or why. It’s where it needs to be.

Battling with Bots in Phone Mazes

~ Pamela Beason ~ 1 Comment

A couple of years ago, I deactivated my Twitter account, right after You Know Who took the company over and decided to allow any wackadoodles to post whatever they wanted, no matter how hateful or delusional. I thought that was the end of it—goodbye, Twitter or X or whatever you want to call yourself next. But somehow, my Twitter account did not go away. As a matter of fact, after two years of absence, the account now lives with someone posting as me nearly every day about magic mushrooms and referencing an account that has been suspended by X for violating its rules. A friend called this disaster to my attention.

I immediately contacted X product support and filled out the form for a compromised (stolen!) account and asked that the account be deleted. In the notes, I pointed out that Twitter no longer recognizes any of my email accounts, so I cannot get into the account, but that the Twitter feed shows the hacker posting as me, using the photo from my Facebook author page as well as my name. I received a form letter telling me to access my account and go through the deactivation process from within. I tried again, even posting my ID and photo. No such luck. Since I can no longer supply the email used for that account, they refuse to believe that it’s mine and it’s been hijacked. I was curious by why they didn’t see that every post by the hacker (probably a bot) references an account that has been suspended. Then it occurs to me: I’m trying to persuade an AI bot that a crime is being committed! As far as I can tell, customer support at X does not include human life forms, so it’s useless to add notes to prove your case; they will not be read.

When I posted on Facebook about the issue, several people referred me to an Instagram account that might be able to resolve the problem. Maybe that would help, and I will probably do it. But does it seem unreasonable that I’m reluctant to run from one social media site to another for help? These days nobody has a clue who is on the other end of any online communication.

Is everyone trapped in this increasingly non-human world every day? I recently dropped an eyecare company because they never offered any way to contact them other than going through their phone maze, and as they have offices all over the state, each time I wanted to call to ask a question, I had to spend twenty minutes wading through that morass. Our biggest healthcare system in my town is the same. You cannot call any office directly. I often hang up before I ever get answers, wondering if some people actually die wandering through the phone maze or waiting on hold nowadays.

Imagine if the 9-1-1 service were converted to AI using one of these phone mazes.

911:      Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?

Caller:  Someone is trying to get into my house! I’m hiding in my closet.

911:      Please choose from the following options: press or say 1 if you need emergency medical service; press or say 2 if you need the fire department; press or say 3 if you want the police department; press or say 4 if this is not an emergency.

Caller:  Three! Crap! The intruder just broke the lock on my front door!

911:      I understand you want the police department. Please choose from the following options: press or say 1 if you are reporting a theft; press or say 2 if you are being threatened by an armed person; press or say 3 for all other reasons.

Caller:  He’s coming up the stairs!

911:      I didn’t understand. Please try again. Please choose from the following options: press or say 1 if you are reporting a theft; press or say 2 if you are being threatened by an armed person; press or say 3 for all other reasons.

Caller:  Oh god, two! Two! Two!

911:      I understand that you are being threatened by an armed person. Is that correct?

Caller:  Yes, yes! He’s trying to open the closet door now.

911:      Press or say one if the person is armed with a gun; press or say two if the person is armed with a knife; press or say three if the person is armed with something else.

Caller:  He has a gun! Help me! Send the police.

911:      I understand that you need help. Is that correct?

BANG! End of call.

Is this the future we have to look forward to? I certainly hope not, but civilization seem to be headed that way. Will we survive the AI-pocalypse?

On the other hand, this 911 scenario would make a great suspense scene in a book. I look forward to publishing my fifteenth novel later this year, and I hope my readers do, too.

The Yard Sale, by Karen Shughart

~ kshughart47 ~ 2 Comments

Ten years ago, we moved from the suburbs of an urban area in Pennsylvania to our vacation home on the south shore of Lake Ontario in New York state. Figuring out what to take and what to leave, combining two homes into one – each with its own distinct personality – was challenging, to say the least.

We knew our life at the lake would be far more casual than the one in a city suburb; we didn’t need the silver serving dishes, warming plates, crystal pitchers and elegant tablecloths that we regularly used before we retired and were entertaining a lot.

As difficult as it was, we got rid of boxes and boxes of books we donated to the library; kept only those that had absolute meaning to us. We sold numerous LP records, something I will always regret now that record players are back in favor. The couple who purchased our house bought much of the furniture; the rest we either sold at a consignment shop or brought with us, just in case we decided to use it.

We kept other items we weren’t sure we’d need but couldn’t bear to part with, storing them in our lake house attic and in Rubbermaid closets in our garage. There was a 40-cup coffee urn, three crockpots, an assembly of pots and pans for cooking and jars for canning, flower vases, a Lazy Susan, bedspreads, throws and decorative pillows; area rugs. And lots of glassware.

Because we’ve never used most of the items we stored away in the ten years we’ve been here, and we are certain our grown children don’t want them, we decided to participate in our village’s community yard sale this year. While I’m glad we did it, it was a lot of work. We chose what we could part with and a storage shed that houses our porch and deck furniture in winter served as a holding center. We determined ahead of time what to charge for each item and affixed a sticker with the price on it. On the day of the sale, we lugged everything out to our front yard in a wheelbarrow and placed compatible items with each other on tables, ladders and drop cloths on our grass.

It turned out to be a good experience. We met nice people who liked what we had to offer, and it felt good to clean out the clutter. Now our attic contains suitcases, a wicker chair that we may use at some point, and our Christmas decorations. There’s not much left to sell for next year’s sale, except for some of those Rubbermaid closets that now stand empty in our garage.

Karen Shughart is the author of the Edmund DeCleryk cozy mystery series, published by Cozy Cat Press. She has also co-written two mysteries; two non-fiction books and is a monthly contributor for Life in the Finger Lakes magazine.  She is a member of CWA, N.A., and F.L.A.R.E. (Finger Lakes Authors and Readers Experience). Her books are published in multiple formats and available at local gift shops, bookstores and at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BZF9TC3W?ref_=dbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr&storeType=ebooks

Guest Blogger ~ Laura Kelly Robb

~ patyjag ~ 1 Comment

The Audiobook Experience

Like nearly every writer I know, I proof my manuscripts by reading them out loud. With my finger poised over the delete button, I find unnecessary words that make a sentence sticky and verb tenses that don’t line up. The process turns up lines of dialogue that sound stilted, as well as gaps in meaning—those leaps in logic a reader would be unable to make without additional information.

My latest mystery, The Laguna Shores Research Club, published by TouchPoint Press in 2022, underwent the same process. The trade paperback version, further copyedited by editor Kimberly Coghlan, was praised for the readability of the prose. I was delighted when TouchPoint sold the audio rights to Tantor Media. The audiobook became available November 2023.

Listening to the audiobook taught me a few things about my editing process.  Something happens when one’s writing becomes performed sound. The story gets a new layer. All the characters gain an additional aspect through the voice the narrator chooses for each one. For instance, the character of the deceased friend, Billie, acquired a West Virginia accent, done very well by the narrator, Amanda Friday.  I had written Billie as having a slight drawl, but I meant only to alert the reader to the fact that she wasn’t a native of Washington, D.C. In Amanda’s narration, however, Billie’s soft, slow pronunciation serves to make her more vulnerable. When I first heard the full recording, Billie’s demise struck me as more tragic than in the written version.

During the process of proofing the manuscript out loud, I had not considered what a performer might add. Knowing what I know now, my instinct will be to give a potential audiobook creator more material to work with—more accents, more quirks of speech, or more variations of disposition that bubble up into the dialogue.

Another benefit that a recording can wring from the written word is to highlight the pacing. Feedback I received from some listeners pointed out that the plot began to gallop in the last quarter of the book and the ending left them breathless. Amanda anticipated the change in the rhythm of the story by speaking in the early chapters in a measured tone.  She saved her variations in intonation for the critical plot developments and final revelations. If I had realized the effect her techniques could have, I think I would have begun the suspense earlier in the book by spreading out the revelations and suspicions of the main character. I’ll be more likely in the future to take the listener as well as the reader into consideration as I structure a plot.

I found one downside to a vocal performance to be the treatment of the dialogue tags. Since we generally read faster than we listen, some repetition in a text is glossed over by the efficient reader. I often included dialogue tags for clarity on the assumption a few extra tags would not tire out most readers. In the audio, however, unnecessary repetitions can weigh down the performance. The narrator often indicates who is speaking through variations in tone and pitch, and the “he said” and “she said” tags become tiresome.  In future work, I will be more attuned to the tags and try to edit them more closely.

As audiobooks become more popular, writers may want to consider producing their own audio versions of their work. I am not familiar with the best ways to proceed, but I know more and more people are wading in. If you are interested, here’s my Mystery and Suspense magazine interview with Amanda Friday about the ins and outs of narration and her work with indie authors.

The Laguna Shores Research Club by Laura Kelly Robb

(ISBN 9781956851311; 328 pp, trade paperback)

Laila Harrow knows the best way to track down anything—or anybody—is to ask Billie Farmer. As the brains of the Laguna Shores Research Club, Billie teaches fellow members how to reach into the ether and pluck out facts.

Counting on Billie’s guidance, Laila promises the St. Augustine Museum a catalogue of Florida Highwaymen paintings that will catapult her standing in the art world. But when Billie dies suddenly, Laila is forced to pull herself out of the darkness and follow the facts. Her investigation turns up up one fact too many: Laila is at the center of a dangerous game.

You can find the audiobook of The Laguna Shores Research Club on Audiobooks.com, AudiobooksNow.com, GooglePlay, LibroFM.com, the free site that asks listeners to post reviews, AudioFreebies.com,and Audible, as well as other platforms such as Spotify. If you have time to take a listen, I would love to hear your thoughts. Reach me at Laura@LauraKellyRobb.com

After studying at the University of Toronto, Laura taught for five years in Spain. Returning to Seattle, she completed a three-week fiction class at Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and published short stories for Foliate Oak, The Nassau Review, and on the RTVE show, Nómadas. She is a member of the Mystery Writers of America. The Laguna Shores Research Club is her second novel.

Social Media Links

Website: https://www.laurakellyrobb.com/

X: @LauraKellyRobb

Instagram: @BookHardy

Adventures in Anthology-Land

~ janispattersonmysteries ~ 3 Comments


by Janis Patterson


I like the anthology format – a short (ca 20K words) length which is appealing to today’s sound-bite sensibilities, several authors, which means several different stories, several different viewpoints, several different styles even if written around the same theme. This broadens the target audience and exposes every one of the contributors to readers they might not otherwise have reached.


On top of my standalone releases I do two Regency-set romance anthologies every year – one with a summer theme and one set at Christmas. Great experience, great publisher, good financial returns – everything needed to give me a totally overblown opinion of my own knowledge and powers.


At an informal gathering of some long-time (multiple decades) writer friends (all working professionals) we were talking about the market and what we could do to improve our sales. Suddenly struck with an attack of the stupids, I suggested “Why don’t we do an anthology ourselves? A mystery anthology?” (Yes, I have seen all the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland movies where someone always cries, “Hey! We’ve got a barn… why don’t we put on a show?”)


After a lot of chatter and very little good sense, we decided to peg our anthology to underserved holidays. I mean, who needs another Christmas or Valentine’s Day anthology? Who has even seen a Labor Day or Memorial Day or St. Swithin’s Day anthology? It’s practically a virgin field.


We decided to start with July Fourth, each of us writing a story about our choice of the various wars that have defended our freedoms. I – for some unknown and unfathomable reason – chose World War I, about which I knew next to nothing. Now I know a lot, much more than is needed for a 20,000 word novella, but that’s the way things go.


Fortunately, as all of us are long-time professionals, all skilled in the mystery genre, coming up with the ideas and actually writing the stories were not difficult at all. What drew us all up short was the non-writing stuff.
Who is going to do the formatting? We all have different formatters, or do it ourselves. What about covers? Same thing. But those were small problems, easily handled.


It was the business side that drew us up short. Now we have all self-published with varying degrees of success, so the mechanical part didn’t faze us, but the financial part did. The vendors only take one name and social security number, so whomever we used would get stuck with the tax bill. There are ways around that, with a portion of the buy-in to be set aside to recompense that person, but it seemed dreadfully complicated. None of us are particular mathematical geniuses (genii?) so through the kind generosity of several other writers we got names of a couple of companies that did fee-splitting, which relieved our minds immensely. The only sad thing is, by the time we got this far it is much too late to get the July Fourth book release on track for a proper pre-release. The only choices we had were to rush it through and sell a less-than-ideal product or put it off a year so we could give it the professional send off – and offer our readers a professional product.


So what did we do? Of course none of us could face putting out a less-than-professional product, so it should be ready for pre-order next June. You expected something different? Of course, that left the question of what to do between now and then… go back to our individual projects after making a release schedule for the July Fourth anthology? Take a much-needed break from writing at all?


Hey, people, we’re writers. What on earth would make you think we would do anything so sensible?
The new anthology is titled Bloody New Year! and is centered on New Year’s Eve/Day. It will be ready for pre-order 15 November. Don’t forget to get your copy!