Upstaged ~ Susan Goodwill's Blog

Update

2009-07-20T09:12:00.000-07:00

It's been a while...First an update on Agnes: she was last seen scooting under my mouse-sitter's fridge during a cage cleaning incident. My friend swears he heard a faint little mousey voice yell, "Live free or die!"
As his house is older and has been declared a D-Con free zone, she is believed to be happy, healthy, and thriving.
Now, on to me: I am working on a new series!
It is fun and intriguing and I am excited to see where it leads. It is a little more serious than the Kate London books, but not overly so.
Kate and Kitty are still alive and well and waiting on the sidelines.

Susan

PS Thanks to Eeek Mail for the image.

A Mouse or A Muse (a.k.a. I Am Crazy Now)

2009-01-27T16:04:00.000-08:00

So, it has been sub-arctic up here in Michigan.

That having been said, things are coming out of the woodwork. Quite literally. The c-c-c-old has driven mice into the crawl space under my livingroom. And other places, I fear. But blocking the crawlspace is a problem for when the snow melts.

On with my story....

A week ago Saturday night, the mice had been driving the dogs nuts making noises in the baseboard area. ClaraBelle and Ernie were obsessed with one particular corner, and as soon as I opened the bedroom door the next morning, ClaraBelle made a beeline for said corner.

I guess I'm a little crazy myself, because I was about to pick up the Tupperware pitcher that holds thistle seed for my bird feeder, which (ahh, the plot thickens) happened to be in that very same corner. I noticed the lid was slightly open. I looked inside, and I'm proud to say this, I didn't even scream when the mouse inside looked back.

So, with me looking horrified and the mouse looking horrified, I think we both were thinking the same thing:

Uh-oh, what do I do now?

But the ball was in my court, or should I say the mouse was.

I narrowed it down to three options.

1. Kill it.....nope. I apologize to boneless skinless chicken breasts in the grocery store aisle. No way.

2. Let it outside far from the house..... the windchill was 15 below. This would turn into option 1 pretty quickly.

3. Let it outside near the house....the equivalent of letting it into the living room. I'm crazy, not stupid. No way.

So, I chose option 4. I headed for WalMart and came back armed with a terrarium, water bottle, mouse food and bedding.

I've named her Agnes, and she lives in my office now. She is gray and white (must be the great-great granddaughter of someone's pet.) She is partial to blueberries and infinitesimal slices of apple.

I like to think she is an inspiration. A muse of a mouse to nudge me toward my writing goals.

Yeah, yeah. I know. I told you I was crazy.

Confession of a Procrastinator

2009-01-07T07:38:00.000-08:00

They say the first step to changing a bad behavior is facing it, admitting it. So, here's my confession: Hello, my name is Susan, and it has been one year since I have written anything significant.
I've talked about it and diddled around with maybe 100 words at a pop. This has gone on for at least the last twelve months.
As you know, I haven't even posted to my own blog in almost that long.

Most of the writerly folks I know sneeze and a hundred words hit the paper. But for some reason, this past year and this book, a new day-job, and this all-or-nothing personality of mine have conspired to create a wee bit of some kind of er, ummm…, BLOCK!
There, I said it. And I do NOT believe in writers' block.

Here's the thing: I want to write. I plan to write. It's what I feel I came here to do. But every day, I don’t. I can make enough excuses to fill a dozen blogs, let alone this one. The truth is, I've procrastinated because writing is hard, and it doesn’t pay well at this point in my career. The odds are that it will never pay well.

That's the dirty little secret about novel writing. It's really hard, and maybe the top 10% make enough to pay our bills and eat.

The pay well part is important because I am largely motivated by financial recognition and furthermore, I like to eat.

But here's what happened in the last twenty-four hours. First, it has really been bugging me that I haven't been writing. It's on the new years' resolution list for this year, as it has been every year for my whole adult life. Most years it got shoved aside, but as you know, not all years. Hence, the two novels I have out there.

The receptionist at my doctor's office, Miriam, left me a voicemail last night. She had just finished my second book. After the various and sundry appointment information, she launched into a gushing riff on how much she loved Little Shop of Murders.

This morning I called to change my appointment. She called my book the best book she'd read in a long time. She proceeded to say that she stayed up until 4:00 AM finishing it. She said that what she loves about my books is that they are funny with a good mystery, but that there is something about them that is just a tiny bit sad underneath. No one else has gotten that yet, but I meant for it to be gotten.
And she asked that I put her first on the list for the next book.

Thank you, Miriam!

I am bottling that phonecall and putting it in the writers' room in my head. I'll take a sip of that potion every day and use it to inspire me to get back on track. 2009 will bring another book. I swear. And I'll blog once a week. I promise.

Anyway, eating is overrated.

A Disappearing Destination

2008-02-24T10:47:00.000-08:00

I'll be the first to admit, it's not the vacation for everyone.

But I like it. I really do.

I like cottages.

And I mean real cottages--the kind built somewhere between 1935 and 1950, where you make your own bed each day and have to sweep and wipe down the counters and strip the beds when you check out.

Maybe one or two bedrooms are packed in the little building, with a little kitchenette and a more shabby than shabby chic living room and a tiny vintage bath.

Outside is usually a beach of some sort, picnic tables, barbecues and maybe a fire pit for late night bonfires under the stars.

This picture is of a cottage where I recently spent a week. It's on beautiful Longboat Key in Florida--right smack-dab on the beach.

A wonderful place that alas, is about to be sold. The new owner swears they 'won't change a thing." I hope that's true, but did I mention, right smack-dab on the beach? The writing is on the wall.

Every year more cottages disappear. Their old, freestanding buildings are expensive to maintain, and they don't demand the dollars of a highrise on the same beach front property.

They are often replaced with slick, resort style chain hotels or condos that could be anywhere in the world. And our lives becomes a little more homogeonized, a little less rich. Another thing we lose in the name of progress and convenience.

Isn't She Lovely?

2008-02-17T12:03:00.000-08:00

I'll admit it, I'm excited. I just this week received the advance copies of book two in the Kate London Mystery Series, Little Shop of Murders.
I absolutely luuuuve the cover art, with its concept designed by the talented Kevin Brown of Midnight Ink and the design's flawless execution by illustrator Kim Johnson of Lindgren & Smith.
Acquisition editor Barbara Moore and copy editor Connie Hill combined efforts to make the finished story-product shine and flow like quicksilver, and the back cover copy, worked and fine-tuned by Amy Martin, also of Midnight Ink, gives just the right combination of intrigue, romance, and slapstick.
Finally holding the finished product in my hands, I'm one happy girl!

Good Writing Weather

2008-01-06T14:30:00.000-08:00

It's good writing weather here in Michigan. Today is foggy and snowy, and it's nice to be inside.

With the holidays behind and a few months of winter out in front, it's a favorite time of year for me to hunker in my garret with my current work in progress. Right now it's La Cage aux Foul Play. Little Shop of Murders is on its way to the world, and my first baby, BrigaDOOM has survived, even thrived, for almost a year now.

So, I've brewed a cup of tea and tossed an afghan over my lap. I've lit a candle to the muses, put some classical on the headphones, and I'm ready to dive into my story. Going back to La Cage aux Foul Play is like seeing an old friend on a winter's afternoon.

Today my only orders are to say hello, to show up, to make a joyful noise.

Hello, old friend.

BrigaDOOM tours with Famous Author!

2007-09-06T08:44:00.001-07:00

Notorious author, Jack Getze, of the Austin Carr Mysteries fame, was gracious enough to allow the everpresent paparazzi to snap this shot of him on tour with BrigaDOOM!

Mystic is apparently a historic seaport in Connecticut that also, ahem, happens to host one big, honking gambling casino.

Well, you know what they say-- all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy-- and trust me, if you've read Jack Getze's recent debut Big Numbers-- you know, Jack is anything but dull!

Jack-- you win a pin!

BrigaDOOM at the Mall of the Americas

2007-08-12T10:10:00.000-07:00

Beth continues her treck with BrigaDOOM shoe-shopping at the Mall of the Americas. Today she crossed the midwest with 659 miles under her belt and on her odometer. What's next for our intrepid traveler?

Take your own pictures of BrigaDOOM on the move and you, too, can win the coveted Skull and Crossbones lapel pin.

Look at the June 27 post to see the artist's rendering. The actual pin is too beautiful to photograph. Blogger bans photos of such beauty, in fears that they will crash the system.

If you send me your photo of BrigaDOOM on the Move here, along with your name and address, and where and why you took the picture you did, you, too, may have your photo posted and win the pin!

Who's playing?

BrigaDOOM goes to the Badlands!

2007-08-11T09:34:00.000-07:00

From Beth this morning,

"...the North Dakota Badlands, at Painted Canyon in Teddy Roosevelt National Park. Apparently there are badlands in SD, ND, and MT so far...maybe there are more...who knew? I took the picture from an overlook, which I shared with a woman who was threatening to swim in a lake far below us. I thought she was kidding til she shouted to her hubby, "I found a path!" and disappeared over the edge, as she hollered back to me, "Don't take a picture of the fat lady skinny-dipping!" I drove from MT through ND to Minneapolis on Thursday, and this was my first stop. And the best of the day - who knew ND was pretty??"

Thanks Beth!!

BrigaDOOM is on the Move!!

2007-08-10T11:06:00.001-07:00

We have a new player in the BrigaDOOM is on the move game.

Beth Hanggeli from Idaho sends us this shot from Lake Coeur d'Alene, at the very start of her cross country road trip. She says it was too early and windy to find a tourist to hold the book and the seagulls were no help at all.
Beth tells us we can plan on pictures from the Dakotas to Maine to Florida!
Go Beth!!

Beth is a writer and world traveler. Visit Beth's blogspot here.
When Beth lands long enough to receive mail, we'll send her the coveted Skull and Cross bone pin.
Who's playing next?

Win Prizes!

2007-06-27T09:45:00.000-07:00

When you send your picture for BrigaDOOM is on the MOVE, include your name and address. If we post yours, you will receive this lovely Kate London Mysteries lapel pin. Okay, that isn't the ACTUAL pin, it's the design, but trust me, it will be lovely. (See my previous post for details.)

BrigaDOOM is on the Move!!!

2007-06-27T08:39:00.000-07:00

They say when a book is published, it takes on a life of its own. Apparently, this is true. BrigaDOOM has taken to traveling the world without me!

Here's BrigaDOOM on Grafton Street in Dublin, Ireland.

If you spot BrigaDOOM in an unusual place, please send me a snapshot through my website e-mail at http://www.susangoodwill.com/

Where will it turn up next?

Killer Conferences

2007-05-07T06:34:00.000-07:00

Hi Everybody,

I haven't posted for a while because I have been verry busy. I, just this past weekend, attended my first Malice Domestic. It was amazing and exciting and a dream come true!

This is the big conference in Arlington, Virginia, where the Agatha is given out for the best mysteries of the cozy persuasion. I then drove--well, my significant other, Bob, drove, bless is soul-- with two of my dear author friends, Jack Getze , author of the debut novel, Big Numbers, and Christine Goff, author of the Birdwater's Mysteries, to Pittsburgh.

Today, we have tea with a few hundred librarians. How cool is that? And tonight, we attend the twelfth annual Festival of Mystery in Oakmont, PA., sponsored by the home of my very first bestseller list, the absolutely wonderful Mystery Lovers Bookshop. I am in the part of the country where I was raised. Signing books. Life is good.

P.S. Nancy Martin, author of the Blackbird Sisters Mysteries moderated our panel at Malice Domestic. What a wonderful lady. I have been a fan of hers for years, so this was another out-of-body moment--she said she loved my book! And I just found out that she posted about it on her blog-- The Lipstick Chronicles on May 3rd.

Life is really good.

My First Bestseller List

2007-04-07T06:19:00.000-07:00

I posted this over on my Amazon plog, but I thought I'd cross post it over here.

I received news of a redletter first yesterday: I made my first Bestseller List!
Susan Goodwill's debut book in the Kate London Mystery Series, BrigaDOOM, has made the March, 2007 bestseller list at Mystery Lovers Bookshop .

Mystery Lovers Bookshop is one of the largest specialty mystery book stores in the country and has been in business for seventeen years. Located in Oakmont, PA, Mystery Lovers sponsors the annual Festival of Mystery, now in its twelth year.
The Festival will take place Monday, May 7, 2007.

I know it's not the NYT, but it IS a group of avid mystery readers and true lovers of the genre, so I am totally flattered. And I will be at the Festival May 7, with bells on. (Or at least good boots.)

COMING UP SOON: BrigaDOOM is on the move. Tune in next week for more...

First Signing

2007-04-02T13:31:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple of shots from Saturday's booksigning. Folks were there waiting when I showed up fifteen minutes early! It was like that all day. Many were friends and neighbors who came to wish me well, but others were strangers and browsers who spent the dreary afternoon in the warmth and coziness of Barnes & Noble. Dan, the manager, said it was the best new author signing they have ever had, and they want me to come back in April.

I know that they won't all be this way, but it sure was a nice way to start.

My First Signing

2007-03-31T05:31:00.000-07:00

March 31st, 2007

Today is my very first booksigning! If you happen to be in southeast Michigan and in the area, please pop in to the Birmingham/Bloomfield Barnes & Noble at Fifteen Mile and Telegraph Roads between two and four today. I'll be signing BrigaDOOM and would love to see friendly faces.

Booksigning tip from years of sales: Stand, make eye contact, have a fifteen second speech to answer the question, "What's your book about?" Tell your visitor what your story is about, then hand them the book and chat more about it, or let them read the back cover if they like. Let them hold your book, but talk as long as they want if you have no line. They can read later, they came to talk to you.

I'm excited. I'll post later about how things went!

Booksigning and Atlantis Rising

2007-03-26T05:40:00.000-07:00

This weekend I stopped in at my local Barnes & Noble and got my first glimpse of the publicity for my booksigning. Posters of the book cover for BrigaDOOM and my picture adorned the big plate glass windows, and a display table loaded with books and flyers graced the table by the row of cash registers.

It was so exciting to see! I wish I had brought my camera so I could share this. I'll snap a picture at the signing.

It really was one of those moments where it hit me. I am living out my dream!

For those of you local to the Detroit area, the signing is next Saturday, March 31st, 2:00PM-4:00 PM at the Bloomfield Hills Barnes & Noble, 15 Mile and Telegraph.

And speaking of living the dream, I chatted with a friend last night who, get this, hit the bestseller lists this week! As in USA Today, BookScan, B&N. Alyssa Day AKA Alesia Holliday has hit with her break-out paranormal romance "Atlantis Rising." And it's a series.

Congratulations Alyssa!!!

Hurricane Punch

2007-03-21T12:24:00.000-07:00

While I am waiting for Big Numbers by Jack Getze, I've found another darkly comic author to love. Tim Dorsey's 'severely under-medicated serial killer protagonist, Serge Storm, is joyously twisted. I mean that in a good way. I am a third of the way into Hurricane Punch, and I have begun laughing maniacally while walking the dogs. (I'm listening to the Audible version on my MP3.)

After I get through my to-be-read stack, I am heading back to the first book in this series and catching myself up to speed in the life of this wonderfully loveable, brilliantly psycopathic, ADHD vigilante.

Big Numbers, by Jack Getze

2007-03-14T08:18:00.000-07:00

I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of Big Numbers, by Jack Getze. I'll read this on a day when I crave a little hard boiled fiction with that darkly comic quirky thread.

Big Numbers is garnering rave reviews all over the place, and Jack is a writer's writer who is poised to hit the bigtime.

Here's a quote from one of his online reviews:

"there is a grey area in between the good guys and the bad guys where some characters thrive...Big Numbers is a gritty, sexy, violent and funny book...filled with outrageous characters and situations." Reviewed by Liz

Let's hope the dogs don't eat the book (or the mailman), because I can't wait!

The Devil's Pitchfork

2007-03-08T06:04:00.000-08:00

I walked into Borders Sunday and found BrigaDOOM displayed on the "New in Paperback" table. What a feeling!

I almost had to be sedated.

In other book news:

If you like intelligient, scientific thrillers, you should take a look at The Devil's Pitchfork, by Mark Terry.

Here's an excerpt from one of Mark's Amazon reviewers:

Quick witted, willful, but somehow vulnerable, Stillwater is Jack Ryan before he lost a step. Rooting for him in his high stakes race against time is easy; anticipating his reactions to each successive shock and surprise is great fun.

Marks' second book, The Serpent's Kiss, comes out in July.

Happy reading.

My Office

2007-02-27T07:16:00.000-08:00

I thought it might be fun to show what my office looks like. It's messy, I know, but trust me, it's never even this neat! I shoved all the crap out of the way so you get the 'as good as it gets' shot.
And you may notice-- a REAL LIFE copy of BrigaDOOM strategically placed on my keyboard. I saw it in stores this week. What an absolute thrill to see your book on the shelf in a bookstore. As my friend Elizabeth says, you can hold the product of your creativity in your hands.
If you are a writer and have a shot of your 'writerly nook' please send it. I'll post it here.

Kangaroo Court meets Miss Alice

2007-02-15T08:08:00.000-08:00

Next week will be busy, the book is shipping out from Amazon now, and yours truly must fire up the shoe-mobile and attend JURY DUTY--at eight-thirty AM! Don't they know I write at night? What happened to night court, or better yet, afternoon court? And I have to go through that metal-detector thingy, and I can't take my phone because it contains a camera. Now, explain to me why Nancy Grace and the rest of court TV can take a camera crew, and I can't take my phone because it has a camera.
And on a related note, check this guy out. I love this man:

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - A male lawyer who appeared in court dressed in women's clothes as a protest against what he said was New Zealand's overly-masculine judiciary was suspended Wednesday after being found to be in contempt of court.

The High Court found Rob Moodie, a 68-year-old, balding man who appeared in court in dresses and toting a handbag, was in contempt for circulating suppressed documents outside the court in one of his cases.

Moodie officially changed his name to "Miss Alice" as part of his protest against the "old boys network" that he said runs the nation's judiciary, and was granted an award for the most bizarre conduct by a lawyer in 2006 by London's The Times newspaper.

The protest began after a coroner's inquest largely blamed a farming couple for the collapse of a bridge on their property built by the army.

Moodie obtained documents apportioning much of the blame for the collapse to faulty wood used by New Zealand Defense Force engineers, and posted the report on the Internet despite a judge's order it not be distributed.

The High Court on Wednesday found Moodie guilty of contempt of court, suspended him for three months, fined him and ordered him to pay costs.

Moodie announced after the ruling he would quit the law altogether, and end his cross-dressing protest because he no longer needed to appear "in a 19th-century Alice in Wonderland environment that allows pomp, self-importance and deference to the court to eclipse the truth."

2007-02-07T08:01:00.000-08:00

I am mostly recovered from my marathon month of January finishing Little Shop of Murders. I think it's going to be a fun read.I can't wait for my publisher's feedback on revision suggestions.

We've kicked around some cover art ideas for the new book, and it's exciting to picture it as real.

And BrigaDOOM! About three weeks until we see it in the stores! I am beside myself with excitement.

Meanwhile, I have turned my hat around, and I'm on my way for the promotional part of the process. This will be a real learning curve, but then everything about writing and publishing seems to be that way.

Plus I'm percolating on the next book, my fingers are getting itchy to start.

What I learned

2007-02-04T09:05:00.000-08:00

So-- I haven't posted in a month because I've been completely holed up finishing Little Shop of Murders. I'm whipped. But I'm done!!
I learned a few things I didn't know before--

One CAN write on demand and write fairly well on demand

If you overcomplicate your plot, you may be making your life more difficult than necessary.

Writing is a discipline.

Sometimes you have to step away in order to be more productive.

It feels really, really nice to meet a deadline with a book you feel good about.

Sleep is optional.

Caffeine comes in many forms.

Christmas decorations begin to look tacky on Groundhog Day.

More later. I'm back to regular posts a few times a week now.

Second Chances

2007-01-01T17:07:00.000-08:00

I was surfing through Salon.com and snatched this photo from http://www.fotolog.com/yolima/ posted with today's date in her fotolog. I have no idea where it was taken, but it was so perfect I had to shoplift it.

I personally love fresh starts and second chances--clean slates and blank pages waiting to be filled. I have yet to make my new year's resolutions or my goal lists. I certainly have a few in mind. Because I am finishing a book in January, and gearing up for the release of Brigadoom in March, it almost feels like my new year will come later. For now, in the month of January, I will keep on keeping on. And for 2007, I resolve to be kind to others and to myself.

Happy New Year everyone.

Deck something

2006-12-15T05:07:00.000-08:00

Good morning folks!
Confession time.
I have been a real slacker in the writing department. At least in the new writing department.
I've had a few nips and tucks to make on the BrigaDOOM pages this week, and I partially revised a scene Tuesday for Little Shop. Yesterday, I did nada. Wednesday I did nada.
I'm not sure how today will go. It's this Christmas thing, dontcha know... I have a sleigh-full of family coming in for the holidays, and the things I've learned to tolerate around the house just aren't cutting it for the big-tent Christmas blowout extravaganza. Plus, there's the shopping, don't get me started on the shopping. And we don't even do many gifts!
Don't get me wrong. I love Christmas and once it's pulled together sometime around 11:59 on December 24th, I totally enjoy it.
Just kidding. Just kidding.
In the writing department, the lovely thing is that January stretches like a serene white wonderland after the silver, red, green, and gold of Christmas chaos, commercialism, and cheer. JaNoWriMo anyone?

Don't Look Down

2006-12-08T06:10:00.000-08:00

There's a reason Jenny Crusie and Bob Mayer chose this title for their collaborative mystery/adventure/romance novel. Aside form the obvious fact that much of it takes place on a very high bridge, I mean.

Any writer worth her salt knows that much of the writing process involves not looking down. Just like the highwire walker or steelworker painting the bridge, looking down at the failure potential does nothing but hinder us reaching our goal. Today, I will not look down. I will take several more steps toward the finished story and enjoy the breeze and the view from atop the highwire.

Slogging through the Nog

2006-12-05T08:13:00.000-08:00

Someone is hovering around my computer. Looming is more like it. Oh look! It's the ghost of Christmas future. Very near, eighteen to twenty for dinner and fourteen overnight Christmas '06 blowout extravaganza future.
But, I am not taking the frosted and sprinkled warm gingerbread bait. I am continuing to do my book in progress for at least the next ten days on our extended NaNo December write-a-thon. That should give me a slab of story to set cooling on the windowsill over the holidays.
The website update is done, www.susangoodwill.com , the proofs of BrigaDOOM are done, the acknowledgement and dedication pages are done.
Now back to your regularly scheduled book in progress.
Today I will follow Annie Lamottt's advice. I'll just look for that one inch square of my story. Sometimes that's the only way to start.

NaNo #25 Mystery Links

2006-11-30T05:35:00.000-08:00

Well Folks,
It's the last day of my defunct and suspect "Zokuto Clause" NaNoWriMo experience. I must say I am thrilled with the results. It has been a great ride with a lot of support and commiseration from my fellow NaNo-ites. Some of us will be continuing to hold each other accountable through December. I look forward to that and to a (slightly) polished novel for beta readers by mid month.
I have a beginning middle and end to my story and am in the second draft (depending on where you look -- it might be the fortieth draft of some scenes and the first draft of others.) But folks, it has a beginning, middle, and end!Anyway, I found some cool links to give you today. You'll just have to trust me and click to see what's here. Hint: the last one is aWriters' Forensics Site, the first will tell you how to bury a clue.

http://www.gillianroberts.com/writing.html

RandomHouse

HarrisDonahue

AprilHenryTIPS

Ticket2Write

http://bobsanchez1.blogspot.com/

Questions

NaNo #24 Deadlines

2006-11-26T18:31:00.000-08:00

At http://www.poewar.com/ over the weekend, I read an article by Susan K. Perry, Ph.D., about deadlines.

Deadlines are often thought of by writers as a bad thing. Susan suggests that they can be a positive thing when combined with the appropriate inner motivation. Rather than get one out of the "flow" or "zone", they may actually push the writer just enough to foster a flowing creativity.
Like NaNoWriMo, they can help develop discipline, motivate, and force that great debilitator perfectionism aside.
The trick, she says, is for the writer to know when the writing may be suffering due to the pressure of an unrealistic (at least for that writer) deadline and at that point speak up.

NaNo #23 Deconstructing Dead Men

2006-11-26T10:24:00.000-08:00

I have a secret. I ripped up Dead Men. Okay, so here's the thing. I liked the plot, the pacing, and the subplot of Harley Jane Kozak's Dating Dead Men. I liked the characters and the humor.

It didn't hurt that it won the Macavity and the Anthony and a slew of other awards for best first novel. So what I did was, I tore it apart. I marked up my copy for plot, inciting incident, how characters were described when they were introduced. I rated scenes from 1 to 5 for action, pacing, conflict. I looked at chapter length, introduction of backstory, use of setting. I watched how the climax fell and what was tied up ahead of time and what after. I looked at the weak points and the strong points.
I did this with a few other books as well. Crusie and Evanovich and others.
And I'm about to do it again.
So, my tip today, is find an author you love and rip her a new one.

NaN0 Tip #22 The more things change...

2006-11-25T07:08:00.000-08:00

Wordcount today--42,000 Finish line in sight.

This comes from the Gotham Writers' Workshop site: http://www.writingclasses.com/index.php

It's interesting that a lot of the "tips" we use today haven't changed.

George Orwell has earned the right to be called one of the finer writers in the English language through such novels as 1984 and Animal Farm, such essays as “Shooting an Elephant,” and his memoir Down and Out in Paris.
George expressed a strong dislike of totalitarian governments in his work, but he was also passionate defender of good writing. Thus, you may want to hear some of George’s writing tips.*
A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus:
1. What am I trying to say?
2. What words will express it?
3. What image or idiom will make it clearer?
4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?
And he will probably ask himself two more:
1. Could I put it more shortly?
2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?
One can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:
1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
* From “Politics and the English Language” by George Orwell.

NaNO#21 Shoes and seeds and gifts

2006-11-23T06:53:00.000-08:00

First-- you have to see this piece of art-- this is crop art! My fabulous (and talented) editor at Midnight Ink, created this out of seeds. Art out of seeds! Can you believe it? And it's a shoe! So, well, you know... How could I resist? It is national be thankful for shoes and harvests and everything else day, right?
Ok. It's NaNo so how to make this about writing? Oh, yeah...Speaking of thankful-
Yesterday I took part in a discussion centered on this question: Would you write if you didn't have to? Would you be happier if you stopped?
We all know Writing is Hard.
But writing is a gift. Sometimes I know that I forget that. I forget to be grateful and take joy in the process and the wonderful comeraderie with other writers and the magic that is creating a story out of nothing.
And what a gift we writers have--to navigate the funhouses and labyrinths of the human experience, to go to the dark place and bring back the treasure, to transport our passengers to the center of the sun or a rice paddy in Viet Nam or someone else's holiday table. To channel magic that reaches across lifetimes and cultures and languages and everything else, to send a little smoke signal to another human that makes them say, Yes! that's what it's like to be human!
Yes, that is truly a gift.
Back to your regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.

NaNO #20 Climax

2006-11-22T06:02:00.000-08:00

I'm back to Nancy Kress in Beginnings, Middles & Ends.

Nancy suggests choosing a short story at least twenty pages long-then read the first four pages, write down all the expectations you have for the story. Now finish the story. Were your expectations met? Identify the climax in that same story. Analyze it. How long is it? What forces come together in that climax? Does the story have a denouement? If so, does it wrap up the plot? Loose ends? Are all characters accounted for?

For our own work, she gives us a checklist:

"The climax must satisfy the view of life implied in your story." (My stories carry a pretty wacky worldview. A straight climax doesn't do it for my reader's expectations.)

"The climax must deliver emotion. An emotionally neutral climax will disappoint readers. They should feel whatever your character's feeling. If your characters don't feel anything in particular, this is not the climax."

"The climax must deliver an appropriate level of emotion. This means that the level of drama in the climax must match the level of drama throughout your story. Too much drama will short-circuit a restrained quiet story, too little drama will seem flat in the story already festooned with murder, betrayal, war, sex, car chases or other strong action. …"

"The climax must be logical to your plot in your story. … The climactic scene must grow naturally out of the actions that preceded it, which in turn must've grown naturally out of the personalities of the characters." (Calling in Zeus or the Cavalry or a big amazing coincidence is tempting at times, but Nancy tells us to fulfill the promise of our story. As Chris Goff, author of the clever and suspenseful Birdwatcher Mystery Series, once told me, your reader has earned it!)

NaNo #19 Sense and Sensuality

2006-11-21T05:09:00.000-08:00

Sense and Sensuality
In The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing --a Writer's Digest compilation of articles and essays with contributors as varied as Margaret Atwood, Kurt Vonnegut, and Tom Clancy, (my edition is copyrighted 2002) I stumbled on a discussion about Sense and Sensuality by Janet Fitch the author of White Oleander.
She tells us how sanitized the average post millenial reader's environment has become.
"The millennial reader is starving for sensual information. He wants the world back. And this is what good writing gives us--a rich "full spectrum" sensual experience. Appealing to the five senses is the feature that will always set writing apart from the visual media. A good writer will tell us what the world smells like, what the textures are, what the sounds are, what the light looks like, what the weather is."

She lists several exercises for upping our awareness of our five senses-- everything from collecting and feeling feathers, rocks, sponges, fabrics, and writing your descriptions, to using a "scent organ" a box with ten small bottles, each containing a few drops of an essential oil you have chosen for its personal evocativeness. She chose a bitter orange because it reminded her of the rotting fruit in L.A., pikake because it reminded her of her mother's Hawaiian perfume. She also recommends keeping a sense journal where you collect these descriptions and reach through them to scenes, a time of day, a place, people, experiences, real or imagined .

There is so much more, but I leave you with this tip from Janet-- read wine reviews! They approach sensual description very effectively, using one sense to describe another. Wines are sharp, have baritone notes, are blonde, crisp, spritely.
A wine review may start with a literal description, but will quickly move to the other senses, and as a fiction writer, you can move even further, into fantasy, from the chocolatey and oaken tones of a cabernet to the rich brocade of its velvets to the checkered tablecoth between you and Jean Luc as you shared the bottle during harvest season.

NaNo #18: Make Room for the Magic

2006-11-20T05:52:00.000-08:00

Last night I hit 40,000 words. I pretty much have a beginning middle, and although somewhat sketchy--okay, so incredibly sketchy, end. Things, odd things, I didn't have a clue why I'd written them at the time, are starting to fit in truly wonderful places. And when I flesh things out I will have around 55,000 words which is right where I belong. Happy! Happy! And the sun is shining in Michigan.
Brian and I were talking about how the universe sometimes leads us to the strange bit of information that we need to know in order to unlock our book. I also, am often amazed that a piece of writing that doesn't seem quite necessary when I write it, a scene, a character quirk, an object, becomes a crucial fulcrom on which my story finally turns.
On one of my notebooks I have a rabbit coming out of a top hat. It represents the magic we experience when we write. Today, here's to the magic.

From Walking on Alligators: A Book of Meditations for Writers by Susan Shaughnessy:

Ideas sometimes come to us without visible anchors. The unconscious can be several days, weeks, or months ahead of your conscious intent. A hunch compels you to cut out a newspaper story. It sits on the edge of your desk for weeks, annoying you, unclassifiable and thus unfileable. Yet you have the haunting sense that it's important.

I'll trust the odd, unplaceable things that catch my inner attention. I will collect them. I will wait to find out their use.

NaNo #17 Action!

2006-11-19T05:46:00.000-08:00

Robert McKee in his insigtful and somewhat egotistical book, Story, tells us that one of the most common errors writers make is to allow their protagonists to be too passive. He says our protagonist must convince the reader that she has the "will and capacity" to reach her goals at the story's end.
I find that often in my first draft, things are happening to my protagonist and she is reacting or witnessing events, not precipitating them. And this continues well after that first inciting incident that gets the old story ball rolling.
When I go back (and back and back) and make her more proactive, my stories start to pop with energy.

By the way, the book pictured above is great fun and one of my favorite "writing books."
Tips inside include how to turn yourself into a 'hotttie' in five minutes or less and how to strangle an enemy agent with your bare thighs...No wimps in that crowd.

NaNo #16 The Swamp

2006-11-18T05:15:00.000-08:00

Keep to the path people, it's a swamp out there and it's full of alligators!
One of the hardest things for me to do once I reach mid-point in a book is to stay on track and move forward. I want to stray off the path and pick up every breadcrumb I've dropped. It's a dangerous game. I could get eaten up before I reach home.
Guess what? I really don't have to get off the path at all! I could leave those breadcrumbs. Gators won't bother with them. They want the whole author.
So, if I resist and get to the end of my draft, when I go through the second time, armed with a finished story, I can find those crumbs and make sure they are where they need to be in my story. That's what everybody tells me, and they should know, right?
My problem is that I rarely trust myself to do that, so I go back and back and back. I gather all my crumbs and line them up on the path in perfect order. I pull scenes, change things, diddle around. Now, I must admit that this week I went back a lot and lost all forward movement on my book. However, I feel I have a better book for it. But now, forward movement becomes hard and I have to really push to get it back. Momentum is lost and I have to fight. But I like the new work I did this week.
Arrgh! I tried so hard to write that encouraging "don't back up" speech here and i had to gum it up. I had to go and be honest about my own process.
So which way is right?
Arrgh again! Both.
So much of writing seems to be about blind trust and overcoming fear and resistance and just doing what YOU think is right for each individual book.

Woody Allen said that ninety percent of genius is just showing up. My agent says, Do it ayway you want. It's about producing a story, You Big Ninny. (You should meet my agent...)

So. Show up, struggle, wrestle that alligator to the floor any way you can. Then build a pen for him in the swamp out back. And be proud of your pet. You can do it!

NaNo #15

2006-11-17T06:46:00.000-08:00

Tips/Tricks/Equipment

So, do you have any secret weapons? Any items or tools that get you through the writing day, help you stay organized?
I have a few:
Sometimes I print calendars off the computer and fill in my story events, crating a timeline. When things get really complicated, I have been known to write every story event on an adding machine tape and stretch it around my office wall.
I use writing software, Dramatica Pro, and sometimes the inexpensive Write It Now, to help me when I'm stumped. Dramatica is tough to learn, but I like its story list feature that allows me to move scenes around, and somehow the questions it asks unlock something inside me. Here's a link to the twelve essential questions. It helps me get a different view of my story.
I even have speech recognition software from DragonNaturally Speaking ($99 at Costco--I have an older version) that I use from time to time. I can't seem to write with it, but I can blog with it. And I'm getting closer on the writing.
I'm using it right now. I have to correct a few things, but it really makes for word count. Something Nano-ers can appreciate!
Last thing. Sometimes it's the littlest things that mean the most. I was trying to move a block of text within my work in progress the other day. I kept grabbing too much of the text. Happens all the time. Drives me nuts. So, I went to the "help" feature in Word and found out if I click the shift key a certain way I could grab precisely what I wanted. Who knew???

NaNo #14 Journaling

2006-11-16T05:01:00.000-08:00

I find that once in a while I have to back off my book and write the story of the plot in one long stream of consciousness--just to sort of figure out the layers of what is actually happening and what the sleuths are uncovering.
I also, not always and not consistently but sometimes, keep a journal. I find, like exercising regularly, regular journal keeping keeps me a little more sane and happy. I guess I am not alone. Sue Grafton talks about this, I think it is in the Speaking of Murder anthology, but don't quote me. Anyway, she has posted some of her journal pages on her website. They are pretty interesting insights into the way the process goes. It's reassuring to me to know we all fumble around without our flashlights once in a while.
SueGrafton

NaNo #13

2006-11-15T05:27:00.000-08:00

I got my first blurb yesterday, from the wonderful and talented former HotLips Hoolihan-style nurse and funny, funny mystery writer Lori Avocato! http://www.loriavocato.com/

"Love, laughter, and lots of mystery go hand in hand in Susan Goodwill's, BrigaDoom. First in the Kate London mystery series, we get to meet Kate and a ensemble cast of characters. I mean real characters like her red plaid mini skirt wearing Aunt Kitty, who you'll just fall in love with--as you'll fall head over heels for her ex-lover turned sheriff, Ben. Yum! I highly recommend this entertaining read." Lori Avocato

Verry, verry excited here!

On to the work at hand. I am still a bit stalled so I made my list last night (based on NaNo Tip # 12 below) and guess what? I think I unlocked a major plot point. God, I hope so. I've been LOSING word count. Not good.

I once heard Janet Evanovich say that she thinks of what the most outrageous thing is that could happen in her scene and then writes it that way. She said she may tone it down once she's done that, but not as often as you'd think. So I guess the tip I'm thinking of today is that we need to work to make our characters larger than life in some way. They should do the things the reader wishes they could do, experience those things, feel those things.

Happy writing!

That Pesky Middle NaNo #12

2006-11-14T05:32:00.000-08:00

I'm back looking at Nancy Kress's Beginnings Middles and Ends again this morning. A lot of us are in the deep woods and looking for a guide on the way to OZ.
Maybe Nancy can help. She gives good tips about the middle. She suggests that if we are stuck, we do three things:
1. If you stall a few scenes in, take a look at whose story you're writing. Who commands the most attention? Who changes the most? It may not be who you thought it was in the first few scenes. The Wizard of Oz has four main characters and each wants something, but whose story is it? Dorothy's. And in Gone with the Wind we have four strong characters but Scarlet owns the show. If you're stuck, maybe you need to look at this.
2. Who is the Point-of-View Character? All action must be witnessed through the eyes of your point of view character. Nick tells Gatsby's story in The Great Gatsby. A lot of first person plots tell their own story. Most series mysteries are told this way.
Some stories use multiple points of view. If you haven't yet, by mid-book, you want to hone the points of view to increase your focus. Decide exactly who deserves a point of view. This tells you what scenes you may include in the rest of your book.
3.Okay--Now the part that helped me. Once you have determined whose story you are writing and committed to your point of view character, Nancy talks about throughline. A throughline is the main plotline of your story, "the primary events of the most significant line of action " that lead to the end scenes. Your story in one sentence. Okay, so I get that.
(Many writers don't need to worry about this until the second draft. They just perk along adding wordcount to the end. I am not one of them. I get stuck in the middle and want to clean house instead of write. This is a sure sign that I am either crazy or very, very unhappy.)
Nancy tells us to determine that throughline, and then make a list of everything that has to happen to everybody in your story to get to the end of that througline. Sounds simple, right? Then cross off all the events that happen out of the range of your point of view character (or characters) and figure out how these things will be learned by them. Add scenes for those items.
Now you have a list of your main story events. Think about each one. Is it important enough to be a scene? Two scenes? Should it just be summarized? Is your list is partial? Maybe you can only see three or four scenes ahead in your woods. Don't worry! Write those scenes and when they're exhausted, make a second list. Odds are you'll see the way by then.
Is this an outline? Yes and no. It doesn't include anything but waymarkers on the throughline path.
You still have the poppy fields of secondary threads and subplots that may require other scenes . Just a caution, don't fall asleep and wander away from your throughline path for more than two scenes at a time.

See you at the Emerald City.

Desire: NaNo #11

2006-11-13T05:11:00.000-08:00

Maria sent us this comic today which got me thinking about the interplay between screenwriting tips and novel-writing tips.

From Michael Hauge , screenwriter, teacher of screenplay seminars, and author of The Hero's Two Journeys among other books. His insights on screenwriting translate well for the popular novelist:
Here's an Excerpt from his article on Desire.
Your primary goal as a screenwriter must be to elicit emotion in the reader and the audience. Whatever else you hope to achieve with your script – money, fame, artistry, a celebration of humanity or an enlightened, empowered audience – you will do so only when you keep the movie or TV audience emotionally involved with your story. And you will only be given the opportunity to reach an audience if the people in power are emotionally involved as they read your screenplay.
This necessary emotional involvement is realized only when the audience experiences the events of your story through your characters. Without giving your hero some compelling desire to pursue, your story will have no forward movement, your audience will have nothing to root for, and your reader will have no compelling reason to keep turning the pages of your script.

He goes on to tell us the deire must be visible, have a clearly defined endpoint, be deperately wanted, actively pursued, within the hero's power to achieve, and the hero must put everything on the line to achive that desire.

To read more of Michael's article click here: http://www.screenplaymastery.com/desire.htm

Dutch's Top Ten: NaNo#10

2006-11-12T07:45:00.000-08:00

Lifted from local hero, Elmore Leonard. Check out his website: http://www.elmoreleonard.com/
Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing
Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle
from the New York Times, Writers on Writing Series.
Being a good author is a disappearing act.
By ELMORE LEONARD
These are rules I’ve picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I’m writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what’s taking place in the story. If you have a facility for language and imagery and the sound of your voice pleases you, invisibility is not what you are after, and you can skip the rules. Still, you might look them over.
1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said” . . .
. . . he admonished gravely.
5.Keep your exclamation points under control.
6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.
And finally:
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip. ...
What the writer is doing, he’s writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character’s head, and the reader either knows what the guy’s thinking or doesn’t care. I’ll bet you don’t skip dialogue.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.
If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

He elaborates on these on his website and mentions a few noteable exceptions. Worth the trip to his site to read these.

WRITE LIKE THE WIND.

NaNo #9 Evanovich

2006-11-11T07:58:00.000-08:00

Okay! With NaNo Post #8 Lila picked up on our theme of cooking.
So let's go on with that a little bit and take a page (literally) from How I Write Secrets of a Best-Selling Author by Janet Evanovich with Ina Yalof. From the question-and-answer section, page 40.
Q:I really want to be a best-selling author, how do you get your books to be so easy to read into appeal to so many people?
JANET: I work very hard at the mechanics of writing so the reader doesn't have to work at all. This means I'm conscious of the rhythm of each sentence. I vary the building blocks (narrative, action, description, and dialogue) so the pace is interesting. And I keep my books relatively short and the structure linear so they're easy to read.
Also, I strongly believe in reduction writing. It's like reduction in cooking. When you make gravy you take a big pot of ingredients—meat, spices—and you boil it down to a little pot of stuff, which is the essence. If you use that principle in writing. You're getting two terrific sentences rather than four long, tedious paragraphs. While my writing may give the impression of being simple and effortless, it actually takes me hours to get it to appear that way.
And here's another little quote. A good plot draws its energy from a reader's curiosity, as you write your story keep asking yourself, And then what happens?

And she is a firm believer in the finished rough draft before the editing begins. You have to have a lot of ingredients before you can reduce. Write on NaNo-ers.
Gotta go. These posts made me hungry.

Nano #8-Feed the Muse

2006-11-10T07:00:00.000-08:00

Here's a little meditation from The Writer's Life: Insights from The Right to Write by Julia Cameron.

One of the mysteries of the writing life is the fact that an investment of interest in column A—say listening to a great piece of music—will pay off obliquely when we set pen to paper on an entirely different topic. Writing is what we make from the broth of our experience. If we lead a rich and varied life, we will have a rich and varied stock of ingredients from which to draw on. If we lead a life that is too narrow, too focused, too oriented toward our goals, we will find our writing lacks flavor, is thin on the nutrients that make it both savory and sustaining. Although we tend to think of it as a linear, writing is a profoundly visual art. Even if we are writing about internal experience, we use images to do it. For this reason, we must consciously and constantly restock our store of images. We do this by focusing on what is around us.

My thoughts now. The middle of a book is HARD. Sue Grafton says her husband can tell when she hits around page 180. She gets angry, tearful, always wants to dump the "garbage" she's just written.

If you are blocked today take a minute or twenty to take a walk, look around. Take deep breaths and tell yourself your story. Or, if you're stressed, take deep breaths and focus on something entirely different from your story.
Or-

Shut your eyes and listen to music from the viewpoint of one of your characters. Would they love it, hate it, throw the iPod against the wall?
Or-

Leaf through a magazine and clip items that remind you of your story and your characters. Why do these items resonate with you?
Or-

Go to the dollar store and buy one item representative of your protagonist, another representative of your antagonist. Put them on your desk or carry them in your pocket as talismans.

Happy writing.

Nano #7

2006-11-09T07:14:00.000-08:00

Chris Baty sent out his wonderful day 7 NaNoWriMo e-mail this morning encouraging people to move on in spite of the internal editor.
There's magic in the pages once we let go. Push through it! Write anyway!
Do as I say not as I do!
I firmly believe I sometimes have to write the junk to get to the good stuff. But I did need to do what I did with research yesterday. Writing will be fun again now.

Today's tip comes from First Draft in 30 Days a novel writer's system for building a complete and cohesive manuscript by Karen S. Weisner. This book is valuable for the charts on the appendix section alone. This is an outline driven system and not for the seat-of-the-pantser, but the charts are wonderful.

From page 87, we have:

What are the characters seeing touching, smelling, hearing, and tasting?
What are they wearing, and how does their clothing affect the other persons in the scene?
Where are they within the scene? Is there anything near them that holds meaning to them, and if so, what and why?
What are their expressions? Do they seem nervous, emotional, guarded?
What is happening around them? What is the POV character's reaction to the events?
What are they thinking?
If there are other characters in the scene, does the POV character know them? If he does, how does this relationship affect him?

Nano Tip # 6

2006-11-08T05:20:00.000-08:00

Since I am doing an unofficial NaNoFiMo (National Novel Finishing Month), I am hitting the wall a bit ahead of the WriMo folks. At 36,000 words, I have the joy and fear of the home stretch, and I'm not sure how to get things wrapped. The last few thousand words wander. They don't feel like there's much to them that I'll be able to use. A sure sign of a blind alley according to Nancy Kress in the Elements of Fiction Writing: Beginnings Middles and Ends.

A few of her suggestions paraphrased here:

Interview somebody in the field of one of your main characters.

Back up to where the scenes disappeared-- to the last place things got interesting and try a different tact from there. Yes you may lose a few thousand words but you may regain your plot thread.

Oh, and WriMo folks, if you're stuck, check out the research and plot problem threads on the Forums. There are some very cool things posted from all over the world. My fave was the helpful theatre person from the UK who answered that tryouts for certain musicals were often held in the east coast city of San Francisco.

Off to chat with the Secret Service...

NaNo Tip # 4?

2006-11-07T07:34:00.000-08:00

Today's tip talks about a little writing tool I have sitting on my desk. It's a 60 minute kitchen timer. I get an idea of where I want to go with my next scene or so and wind that baby up. I ask myself, sixty minutes—how bad can that be?

And sometimes I dangle a reward at the end, sometimes just a break to walk around, make the bed, sometimes chocolate, lunch, whatever.
On a good day I do this several times a day. It usually works for me.

By the way, you may notice some Nano Tip Numbers are missing. We have the case of the missing posts.

And they were so brilliant, really! The Internet truly is a dangerous place.

Keep writing and you'll get through that middle.

Nano Tip #5

2006-11-06T05:21:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's goal--not so good, although I saw a really great amateur production of Little Shop Friday night (worth the hour-and-a-half round trip for the backstage tour alone) and a wonderful band, Blue Cat, Saturday night. So the weekend stimuli fed the muse nicely, and she has no excuse now to hide. Except that she's a muse.
I'll be baiting her with caffeine and breathing exercises today to get her out of the bushes and back on my shoulder.
I feel like a little Annie Lamott today. How about you?
Nano Tip #5
Life is Not a Submarine
This excerpt is from the wonderful Bird by Bird by Annie Lamott, from the section on plot.

Plot grows out of character. If you focus on who the people in your story are, if you sit and write about two people you know and are getting to know better day by day, something is bound to happen.
Characters should not conversely serve as pawns for some plot you've dreamed up. Any plot you impose on your characters will be onomatopoeic: PLOT. I say don't worry about plot. Worry about the characters. Let what they say or do reveal who they are, and be involved in their lives, and keep asking yourself, Now what happens? The development of relationship creates plot. Flannery O'Connor, in Mystery and Manners, tells how she gave a bunch of her early stories to the old lady who lived down the street, and the woman returned them saying, "Them stories just gone and shown you how some folks would do."

That's what plot is: what people will up and do in spite of everything that tells them they shouldn't, everything that tells them that they should sit quietly on the couch and practice their Lamaze, or call their therapist, or eat until the urge to do that thing passes.

So focus on character. What happens in Faulkner's books, for instance, arises from the nature of his characters, and even though his characters are not necessarily people you want to date, they compel us because we believe that they exist and we believe that the things they do are true to who they are. We read Faulkner for the beauty of his horrible creations, the beauty of the writing, and we read him to find out what life is about from his point of view. He expresses this through his characters. All you can give us is what life is about from your point of view. You're not going to be able to give us the plans to the submarine. Life is not a submarine. There are no plans.

And a special good luck to my friend Roman White, nominated for Country Music Video of the Year for Carrie Underwood's, Jesus Take the Wheel. Watch tonight on ABC 8 PM Eastern.

NaNo #3

2006-11-05T15:21:00.000-08:00

Day four ended with a surprising leap ahead in my story. Carjackers inadvertantly saved the lives of my protagonist and her computer-hacker sidekick, my missing octogenarian bankrobber wandered into a pancake house and called his girlfriend, and my former B-Grade horror movie star completed a stellar run at the craps table while her friend picked the bad guy's pocket.

I was thinking about the common driver in our stories--CONFLICT. And ultimately change. Change means something happened. If something doesn't happen and nothing changes, it ain't a story. And what usually happens is that a person changes. Because stories are about people.
Okay, so how do we change people?
I took a behavior modification class eons ago. Not much stuck but one thing did: changing people usually requires these three elements-- the rewards or repurcussions need to be personal, immediate, and large enough to make change worthwhile.
So, I am asking myself this about my story--
1.Are the conflicts my characters get into personal enough? Is this something they have to care about for a good believeable personal reason, not an arbitrary one?
2. Are the rewards/or repurcussions of these conflicts immediate? Is there maybe a ticking clock or an end to all their options so that the reward or repurcussion must come at a certain finite time? Are we moving inexorably toward the reurcussion or reward?
3. And is it large enough--are my stakes growing high enough to make things have to happen and facilitate change? As Jenny Crusie once said, will they die a real or psychic death if the bad thing happens? How can I raise the stakes to that level?

Happy writing--tonight's goal--2000 words.

Don't forget to check out your November writing horoscope over at BookTalk.
TJMACGREGOR

NaNo Writing Tip #1

2006-11-03T06:27:00.000-08:00

Throughout November I will be posting writing related tips to help me and my fellow NaNoWriMoers through the woods.

Tip # 1 comes from Jack Bickham's wonderful WD book in the Elements of Fiction Series, Scene and Structure:
The subject is credibility. To make our fiction credible, we must remember a few simple rules:

Stimulus must be external--that is, action or dialogue, something that could be witnessed if the transaction were on a stage.
Response must also be external in the same way.
For every stimulus, you must show a response.
For every desired response, you must provide a stimulus.
Respons usually must follow stimulus at once.
When response to stimulus is not logical on the surface, you must ordinarily explain it.

Since NaNo is not about editing, store this for later and keep writing, or come back to my archive in December.

Started NaNo under the rule-bending Zokuto Clause with 18,000 words. Wordcount start of day three 25,000.

NaNo NaNo

2006-11-02T11:43:00.000-08:00

National Novel Writing Month has gotten off to a rollicking start. With 70,000 participants worldwide this November, the NaNo website experienced snail-paced servers, and as I understand it a crash or two. Not to be daunted, the folks in my "Dirty Dozen" group have been racking up the words. Gabriella in Toronto crossed 4500 words before going off to her crochet class last night. Rick--a flapdoodling 4009-ish before tending his garden of bones and greens in the Carolinas. I move a little slower--about the pace of the NaNo server. But, I am moving forward and writing new words. And surprises are happening. I love the surprises!
It is spitting snowflakes in Michigan and the tea is warm. So are the slippers. Life is good.
Now, if the dogs would just stop barking at the paving company resurfacing the driveway next door, I could get back to the bikers and the Molotov cocktail.

NaNoWriMo and Miscellany

2006-10-31T06:25:00.000-08:00

So, tomorrow starts the crazy, hazy, word-count-frenzied National Novel Writing Month. Thousands and thousands of caffeine crazed individuals take part in the Novel in a Month 50,000 word challenge. http://www.nanowrimo.org/

There will be write-ins, blogs, forums, even NaNoWriMo radio.
The adage misery loves company gains new meaning for the NaNo-ers by around Thanksgiving.
Wish everybody luck! Yours truly will particpate, but on a peripheral basis using the somewhat resented Zokutou clause. I will be writing to find the end of the current book in progress, Little Shop of Murders, featuring the ever popular Audrey Two pictured here.

And while I'm posting links-- here's an interesting formula for mysteries:
Mystery Don't know if I agree, but he, if it helps use it!

And guess what, my book is on the Midnight Ink site: MidnightInk
Would you believe it's already on Amazon and Overstock? And it doesn't even go to press until December with a March release date.

And lastly-- try your skill. These two pictures are identical exceot for three small differences. If you can find all three, you are part of an elite group. 800 folks were tested and only 19 could find all three. hint--Look really close at the town.

boo!

And last but not least--Bwah-hah-hah!

Happy Halloween!

A Rose by Any Other Name?

2006-10-19T05:38:00.000-07:00

My friend, let's call her Lila, has been dipping her shell-pink pedicured toe in the murky waters of online dating. She hopes to find a nice guy. A happy guy. Someone who is fun to be around.
We all know dating isn't easy.
It can be frustrating.
It can range from fun to boring to just plain weird to some guy who thinks he's Woody Harrelson in Natural Born Killers.
So, "Lila" talks to this guy via e mail a few times. Let's call him "Ralph." They Instant Message back and forth.
Yada, yada, yada, you knowthe drill.
So. Ralph tells her he's 6'2", muscular, loves women with meat on their bones, lives in her area, and did she want a pic of him?
My friend says "why sure," and begins sorting her pictures of Raquel Welch in One Million Years BC, Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, and Jane Fonda in Barbarella to find the appropriate one of herself to reciprocate.
This is the picture Ralph sent her.
I don't think he looks 6'2," do you?

Writing Horoscopes

2006-10-02T05:48:00.000-07:00

The wonderful Trish MacGregor gives us Writer's Horoscopes at Booktalk:
http://www.booktalk.com/TJMacGregor/horoscope.html
Her latest in the Tango Key series in in stores tomorrow.

Here's my horoscope, and since I am in the home stretch on Little Shop of Murders, I love it!
Virgo, August 24 - September 22. All of the activity in Scorpio this month occurs in your third house, so it’s ideal for your writing! You’re able to hunker down, close yourself off from the rest of the world, and write like a person possessed. The urge to do this begins on the 1st, with Mercury’s transit into Scorpio. Between then and the new moon in Scorpio on the 22nd, you may be searching for the absolute bottom line in whatever you’re writing. Once that new moon rolls around, you have one of those aha! moments, a creative epiphany that blows your socks off. Then, on the 23rd and 24, when the sun, Mars and Venus follow Mercury into Scorpio, you had better put up a Do Not Disturb sign. On the 28th, when Mercury turns retrograde, you dive into rewrites and this energy carries you to November 17. By then, you’re ready to take a few days off for Thanksgiving.The full moon in Aries on the 6th could present a challenge. Someone – an editor, agent, a person in sales or marketing – doesn’t see things your way. But the rest of the month is so productive, it ends up as no big deal. And by the way, checks arrive between the 1st and the 22nd.

I guess this means I should use the stars and go write!

Fancy Meeting You

2006-10-01T07:30:00.000-07:00

I was wandering through the archives at the Stupid Criminals Hall of Fame the other day and found this in the Top Morons of 2003 section.

Police in Oakland, CA spent two hours attempting to subdue a gunman who had barricaded himself inside his home. After firing ten tear gas canisters, officers discovered that the man was standing beside them in the police line, shouting, "Please come out and give yourself up."

Sorry to all the law enforcement officials out there, but you gotta admit, Elmer, Daffy, and Bugs would be proud.

Zen and a Clean Dish

2006-09-29T10:57:00.000-07:00

I have been reading the new Janet Evanovich, "How I Write." She says that you should treat your writing like any other job. She says something like, "If you needed money and had to work at the Seven Eleven, you'd go do it. And when you were at work, that's all you would do. Work." I'm paraphrasing so forgive me, but you get the point.
It reminded me of something another writer-- the phenomenal Barbara Samuel once said. There is a story she told about a writer who asks his Buddhist master what to do to get on the path to accomplishing his writing goals. The master tells him that, much like the path to enlightenment, every day he should wash his bowl. She goes on to tell that the gist of the story is to do the work without asking the work to do anything for you. You wouldn't ask the Seven Eleven to bring you anything. It's just what you are To Do that day.

I am just trying to show up and wash my bowl every day right now. That means pounding out words-- some good, some bad, and every once in a while something wonderful happens.

Off to wash my bowl.

Cover for BrigaDOOM!

2006-09-25T09:09:00.000-07:00

Here it is folks!! The final cover art for the first book in the Kate London Mystery Series: BrigaDOOM!
I have to admit, I am thrilled with this book cover.
My publisher, Midnight Ink, www.midnightinkbooks.com did a fabulous job focusing on the atmosphere of the book.
Their cover designer and the illustrator they hired really dialed-in on the elements that convey this book as a fun ride and a little off beat, and of course that our amateur sleuth, Kate London, is
not your average gumshoe.
March will be here sooner than we think.
The galley proofs are on their way any day.
I even have a publicist now!
Stay tuned.

Tme Out

2006-09-22T06:31:00.000-07:00

Appropo of nothing, this is like that five minutes at the end of "Sunday Morning" on CBS (I think) where they just let the camera roll at some gorgeous spot.
I took this at the cottages where I traveled via shoemobile a few weeks ago. The mist rises off the water from sunrise 'til about nine-thirty, and we sit in adirondacks on the beach drinking hot coffee and watching it burn off into the pristine air. Have a good weekend. Read or write what you love, and always wear nice shoes when you go to Wal-Mart.

Writing-Outline-Draft-Edit?

2006-09-20T05:48:00.000-07:00

So, let's talk about writing. Who, out there, writes an entire draft before they go back and fix things? I can't! Who outlines meticulously? I try... Anybody outline scenes using scene cards? Sort of...Do you know the end of the book before you write it? I think I do but -no.
I always intend to write a "don't look down" draft from beginning to end--straight through. It sounds so efficient.
It never works for me. About 30--then 50-- then 100 pages in, I have to go back and rewrite from the beginnning. I tweak and twist and cut and re-emphasize, then I can move forward. I am beginning to learn that every time I stall, I ought to just heave a big sigh and go back to page one, no matter how long it takes.
Sigh.
How about you?

Collage

2006-09-16T07:51:00.000-07:00

Okay. Some writers think creating a collage for a book in progress is silly. All I know is that on some level it helps me connect those pesky right and left brain functions. This is the collage for my book in progress--Little Shop of Murders.
It will make no sense to anyone but me, I just thought I'd share.
Off in the shoemobile again today for a reconnaissance mission to west coast of Michigan where the Kate London Mysteries are set. (And to celebrate my birthday!)

Casual But What Shoes???

2006-09-14T12:14:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure I need to say anything here.
Nope. I always need to say something. I believe this shopping occasion just screams "Elvis Sweater."

Vacation was grand.
Fall seems to have landed early.
Back to the book in progress.

When One Face is Enough

2006-08-31T12:27:00.000-07:00

Some things do not translate well into needlework.
This is one of them.
Oy. The knitting craze has us all by the yarn balls.

This weekend, I'm off in the shoemobile for yet another cross Michigan transit. The lakefront cottages where I will be staying are about sixty years old and made of log and knotty pine. They're funky, rustic, and fabulous. The refrigerators may be older than the cottages. They have those round corners, you know.
I will be visiting the Cherry Bowl Drive-In--running movies and popping corn since 1953. See you soon!

Sock Monkey Dress

2006-08-28T03:56:00.000-07:00

There is a reason fashion happens in New York and Paris and Milan and not at state fairs,

but really, folks--

isn't this kind of cool?

I'm thinking of purchasing one for my next formal soiree,

but I'm torn between this and the tube gown with the sock monkey bra...

Have I been hanging out in the midwest too long?

Casual Monday

2006-08-21T07:41:00.000-07:00

You've seen the formal shoemobile. You might ask, what does one drive while wearing more casual fare?
We offer the lovely and stylish Rebokmobile for your consideration.

Decisions, decisions.

Bradbury Speaks

2006-08-17T06:56:00.000-07:00

Bradbury Speaks the latest by Ray Bradbury, one of my all time fave fantasy/sci-fi/Night Gallery writers, is on the shelves today. Here is the text excerpt off Amazon from Chapter One:

Chapter One
About Writing
My Demon, Not Afraid of Happiness (undated)
I have a strange and incredible muse that, unseen, has engulfed me during my lifetime. I have renamed my muse. In a Frederick Seidel poem, I found a perfect replacement, where he tells of "A Demon not afraid of happiness."
This perfectly describes the Demon that sits now on one shoulder, now on the other, and whispers things that no one else hears.
My Demon warned me one night years ago when I saw some glum theater at UCLA. Later I said to the director, "You want me to stick my wet finger in a wall socket for electrocution. Instead I will screw a brighter bulb in the same socket and light the room."
So my Demon warned me off such encounters and provided invisible material for my future life.
Dandelion Wine, for example, began as an essay in Gourmet magazine in 1953, and over the years my Demon tripped me, sprawling, into a novel to be read in American schools.
On my twenty-fourth birthday, I discovered Winesburg, Ohio, which is indeed not a novel but a short-story collection by Sherwood Anderson. How fine, I thought, if someday I could birth similar grotesques to inhabit Mars.
My Demon, provoked, secretly made travel plans to landfall Mars, live there, and arrive at an unplanned novel, The Martian Chronicles.
Green Shadows, White Whale resulted from my life in Ireland, when for eight months I wrote the screenplay of Moby Dick for John Huston. At the time I thought I was not sponging in any of the green atmosphere or the characters of sad and beautiful Ireland. But then one night, a year later, a voice spoke in my head and said, "Ray, darlin'. "And I said, "Who's that?" The voice said, "It's Nick, your cabdriver. Remember all those nights of my driving you back from Kilcock to Dublin and describing the mist and the fog and the rain along the way? Do you remember that, Ray?" "Yes," I said.Then the voice said with the voice of my Demon, "Would you get up and put that down?" I got up, surprised, and went to my typewriter and began to write a series of poems, essays, and one-act plays that finally shared a San Francisco theater with Sean O'Casey.
Twenty years passed with more essays, poems, and stories, and I woke one morn to find in that litter Green Shadows, White Whale, a novel, complete and intact.
A short tale, "The Black Ferris," melded itself into a screenplay for Gene Kelly, and when Kelly couldn't find the money for the film, I spent three years turning the screenplay into the novel Something Wicked This Way Comes.
Then at last there is my late-on offspring From the Dust Returned, commenced when I drew skeletons, age six, to scare my cousins, continued in secret when I helped redecorate my grandparents' house with Halloween broomsticks, and ended with a gothic story, "Homecoming," rejected by Weird Tales as needful of Marley's ghost and lacking Poe. I sold the story to Mademoiselle, and over the years it grew in rain and mist and arrived in fogs as a novel just last year.
What we have here, then, is a very unusual approach to writing and discovering, not knowing the outcome. To move ahead on a blind journey, running fast, putting down thoughts as they occur.
And along the way my inner voice advised:
If you must write of assassinations, rapes, and Ophelia suicides, speak the speech, I pray thee, poetry in your breath, metaphors on your tongue. Remember how glad Iago was to think on Othello's fall. How, with smiles, Hamlet prepared his uncle's death.
Shakespeare and my Demon schooled me so: Be not afraid of happiness. It is often the soul of murder.

I haven't read this book yet, but if it is anything like his other work, it will be a strange and wonderful treat. What a unique voice. And he wrote Fahrenheit 451 on a public library typewriter that he had to feed a dime every half hour! (Nine dollars and eighty cents for the first draft...)

Writers out there or interested readers, pick up Zen in the Art of Writing also by Ray. You will get the Fahrenheit 451 story and so much more to inspire you.

Bradbury suggests a life list of subjects that intrigue you--to be used as candy for your muse (or your demon.) His includes lightning rods, carnivals, graveyards, and skeletons... What about yours?

She Does Loook Like Her Dog

2006-08-15T09:15:00.000-07:00

You Guys!

<--------------Check this out from the "I Look Like My Dog Contest!!!!

Im back from Ludington and back to work on book two of the Kate London Mystery Series--- Little Shop of Murders. Alas, with gas prices the way they are, I could not take the lovely high-heeled vehicle in the post below. Had to take a flat instead...
My goal today is two thousand words. I know for some writers that ain't nuthin'. For me, well, lets just say that around eight tonight, the significant other better shove a pizza and a cold beer through the door with a stick. Two cold beers.

I'll drive...

2006-08-11T05:39:00.000-07:00

I'll be traveling this weekend to Ludington, Michigan. If you're not familiar with Michigan, take your left hand and look at it palm down, fingers together. This is Michigan's Lower Peninsula where most folks in Michigan live.

I will be going somewhere around the top knuckle of the pinky finger. It should be gr-eat weather in Michigan.

Maybe I'll take the shoe-mobile...but it will be a casual, camping and beaching it type weekend. This shoe is all wrong.

Does it come in a Birkenstock? Maybe a clog?

BrigaDOOM Cover Art

2006-08-10T07:43:00.000-07:00

Midnight Ink is known for their excellent cover art. I think that this one--for Sue Ann Jaffarian's Too Big To Miss-- won an award. Excellent graphic, isn't it???
Well, I can't show you yet, but I just saw the final cover design for BrigaDOOM, and I must say--it is gorgeous!!
I can't wait to see what the artist they've chosen for my cover--whose work is fabulous by the way -- does with the design. I mean, the basic composition-- the one the art department at Midnight Ink rendered-- is so cool, I would've been happy just with that. Then when you look at the artist's work-- well--- you can see it will be even more gorgeous when she gets through with it. I'm not allowed to show you the artist yet either. All very hush-hush, dontcha know???
Okay-- enough gushing. You can view more Midnight Ink Books here: www.midnightinkbooks.com

Hopefully in the next month or so, I can show you guys the final BrigaDOOM product. I am so excited I can't stand it.

Plot Gifts and a Veggie Wash-Don't Ask Me Why

2006-07-25T09:16:00.000-07:00

I'm about halfway through writing book number two in the Kate London Mystery Series. At least writing the s**tty first draft portion as Annie Lamott calls it in her fabulous book on writing and life: Bird by Bird.
I'm trying to keep my hands off the draft and get through to the end before I diddle with it much. I find that if I allow myself to just show up and write, sometimes the stuff that feels like crap when I write it has the kernel of some wonderful magic gift that makes the writing and the story better than what I originally planned.
It is hard not to diddle because I'm a craft geek and want every scene tweaked and sparkling before I move along.
And I'm also a plot geek-so I need to tweak that part once in a while or I could end up in a blind alley with pieces that don't fit together in the puzzle-plot. And in a mystery-those pieces have to fit. And fit well.
A technique I am using today is to summarize each scene I have so far with one or two lines. This way I can get a feel for where I have been and where I am going and uncover any "gifts" in the draft that might lead me to better places than I was going in the first place.
Wish me luck!

Oh and Totally Unrelated to Anything: here's a tip I read this this week in "Bottom Line."
To remove pesticides and wax from fruits and vegetables: In a bowl or basin, mix four tablespoons table salt, four teaspoons lemon juice, and a quart of cool water. Soak fruits and veggies five to ten minutes. Exceptions: Soak leafy greens for two to three minutes-- berries, one to two minutes. After soaking rinse in plain cold water and dry.

Staying Organized When I Write

2006-07-10T15:23:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I admit it. I have a hard time staying organized and keeping track of details and changes when I write.
And one little change can cause big problems.
I fear what one of my writer friends-- the fabulously talented and soon to be famous Doreen O'Brien-- calls the Domino Effect. You change one leetle thing in a novel and next thing you know-- everything is affected. Like when you read through your draft and one character's name changes like four times? Or when they're riding motorcycles in one scene and ice fishing in the next?? One change and the next thing you know you need to make thousands.
Staying organized? People use many methods-- I use a bunch of different things myself-- outlining, writing software, timelines, collages, electronic comments in word, a book journal where I write thoughts about the work in progress, scene cards...I guess the bottom line is to keep trying things until you find what works for you. Different methods seem to work at different times for me.
And sometimes I have to show up and just write until I feel organized again.

Twenty Percent Too Much?

2006-07-09T15:24:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when I tip, I feel like twenty percent is too much. I hate to admit it but I guess I have a chintzy side. This guy though-- he knows how to leave a tip:

CHICAGO (Reuters) - As tips go, Chicago limousine driver Abdul Faraj got a priceless one this week when one of his regular customers offered up a kidney, media reports said.
Faraj and Minnesota businessman Dave Baker underwent transplant surgeries at Chicago's Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
"He gave me part of his body. He saved my life," Faraj, a diabetes sufferer whose kidneys were failing despite a three-times-a-week dialysis regime, told area television stations.
Baker has used Faraj, a native of Lebanon, as his driver on trips to Chicago for several years. Making small talk months ago, Baker learned of Faraj's poor health and struggle to find a kidney donor with a matching blood type.
"At that time, he tells me, 'What's your blood type?' I tell him O-positive," Faraj said. "He said, 'I'm 0-positive. I'll give you one.'"
Baker is out of the hospital and expected to fully recover within weeks.
"This was an opportunity to stop, slow down, take a look around and try to help someone," Baker told local television.

Oops.

2006-06-21T04:48:00.000-07:00

Denmark:
A patient broke wind while having surgery and set fire to his genitals. The 30 year old man was having a mole removed from his bottom with an electric knife when his attack of flatulence was ignited by a spark. His genitals, which were soaked in surgical spirits, caught fire. The man, who is suing the hospital, said: "When I woke up, my penis and scrotum were burning like hell. Besides the pain, I can't have sex with my wife." Surgeons at the hospital in Kjellerups said: "It was an unfortunate accident."

Oprah, Bears, and Oatmeal

2006-06-20T06:14:00.000-07:00

OPRAH CONTINUES TO TEACH US ABOUT THE WORLD... IF ANYONE TELLS YOU HAIR, CLOTHES, AND MAKEUP DON"T MATTER: SHOW THEM THIS.
<<<<<<
In other news:
WEST VANCOUVER, British Columbia - It was a real-life version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears — only in reverse — when a woman came home to find a young bear eating oatmeal in her kitchen.
The bear apparently entered through an open sliding glass door, broke a ceramic food container and started eating, West Vancouver police Sgt. Paul Skelton said.
"It sounds like a nursery rhyme, doesn't it?" Skelton said. "At least we have a health-conscious bear on our hands."
Three police officers who went to the home Thursday couldn't get the bear to budge, so authorities let the animal finish its meal.
"The bear didn't appear to be aggressive and wasn't destroying the house, so they just let it do what it was doing and eventually the bear decided to make its way out of the residence and down toward a forested gully," Skelton said. "It ended the best it could."
Skelton said bears in the suburbs north of Vancouver have been coming out of hibernation as hungry as ever but later than usual but this spring because of a heavier than normal snowpack from the winter.

Plots and Parrots

2006-06-15T05:49:00.000-07:00

Today serious plot-work-- then serious yardwork.
The book is a third of the way written-- the plot needs jacking up in the slow spots at the beginning, and please, Sweet Jesus, I'd like to see more than three scenes ahead for once!

And speaking of Prayer:

Pairs of parrots

A lady goes to her priest one day and tells him, "Father, I have a problem. I have two female parrots, but they only know how to say one thing."

What do they say?" the priest inquired.

"They say, 'Hi, we're hookers! Do you want to have some fun?'"

"That's obscene!" the priest exclaimed; then he thought for a moment.

"You know," he said, "I may have a solution to your problem. I have two male talking parrots, which I have taught to pray and read the Bible. Bring your two parrots over to my house, and we'll put them in the cage with Frank and Jacob. My parrots can teach your parrots to pray and worship, and your parrots are sure to stop saying that phrase in no time."

"Thank you," the woman responded, "this may very well be the solution."

The next day, she brought her female parrots to the priest's house. As he ushered her in, she saw that his two male parrots were inside their cage, holding rosary beads and praying. Impressed, she walked over and placed Her parrots in with them.

After a few minutes, the female parrots cried out in unison: "Hi, we're hookers! Do you want to have some fun?"

There was stunned silence.

Shocked, one male parrot looked over at the other male parrot and exclaimed, "Put the beads away, Frank, our prayers have been answered."

A Bartender-Someone You Can Talk To

2006-06-12T18:36:00.000-07:00

SHERIDAN, Wyo. - A woman woke up over the weekend to find a man she didn't know climbing into her bed.
Eva Olson, 40, said she felt her bed move and heard the man say he wanted to talk to her, according to police.
Olson didn't know William O'Dell, 48, of Sheridan, but O'Dell allegedly knew Olson because she was a bartender. He said he'd stopped by her house to visit.
Olson asked O'Dell to leave, then showed him out the door without incident.
Police said they found O'Dell at his home, smelling heavily of alcohol. He was jailed and charged with criminal entry.
___

I Feel Pretty

2006-05-30T18:49:00.000-07:00

KEY WEST, Fla. - A man wearing a purple women's bathing suit and carrying a flare gun was arrested after he told a bartender he was going to "get rid of all the dirt bags in Key West," authorities said.
Jeffrey C. Anderson, 55, was charged with carrying a concealed firearm Monday after he brandished the flare gun, which was under a skirt he was wearing, Key West police spokeswoman Christie Phillips said.
The bartender, who was not identified, was working in the downstairs bar of The Bull and Whistle, a popular Key West watering hole located on Duval Street.
"She reported she had seen a man, later identified as Anderson, dancing in the street showing tourists his private parts, and asking people for money when they took his picture," the news release said.
The bartender said Anderson then approached her, telling her he was going to get rid of the city's "dirt bags" before displaying the gun, police said.
Police quickly located Anderson and found an orange 12-gauge flare gun in his possession, Phillips said. He was transported to the Monroe County detention center. It was not clear if he had a lawyer.

So, the burning question has to be, how big was his gun???

Mixed Nuts

2006-05-25T06:50:00.000-07:00

This happened in 1996, but I think a good weird news story bears repeating:
Sao Paulo, Brazil: Psychiatrist Oscar Dominguez was listening to a patient talk about her sex life when he pulled out a gun and shot her to death. As he explained to the court, "I just couldn't take those nut cases anymore."

Three Stories in One

2006-05-18T15:29:00.000-07:00

I was skimming an old book I have called You Can Write a Mystery by Gillian Roberts. Don't let the title fool you. This little Writer's Digest book is packed with good, concise info.
Been thinking about this, Gillian Roberts touches on it, but I am running a bit more on my own.
Crime novels are actually three stories:
First: what physically happened--- what we as readers see of the crime
Second: The theory of what happened-- what eveyone but the sleuth believes went on
Third: What actually happened and why-- the real facts the sleuth uncovers by the story's end

So-- what actually happened is masked, misleading everyone but your sleuth to a the false theory of what happened. But Things Don't Fit and your sleuth knows it. Clues shine through for her, and with her special skill set she uncovers the real story. And that special skill set is why she is the only one that could do it.

Hmmm.

Merry Christmas

2006-05-17T07:41:00.000-07:00

In his comment on my last post, Rick did a little plot riff including Homeland Security. It reminded me of a funny card I came across the other day in the grocery store. The front had beautiful pine boughs, glowing candles, and Christmas ornaments.
The inside said this:
Merry Christmas and Best Wishes for a Safe and Prosperous 2004,
From Your Friends at FEMA

Satire-- and sarcasm-- I love it--
The sarcasm thing is very hard to pull off on paper. At least I think so.

Plotting is Hard

2006-05-12T10:05:00.000-07:00

Plotting is hard. I always start a book with some whacked-out idea. This one I'm working on now-- an octogenarin robbing a bank in his bathrobe-- and he does it maybe once a week. Everybody knows him, and they just go get the money back later.
Okay--so that's how I started-- a little mustard seed of an idea. The PROBLEM is-- I need a little bit more plot than that. And a few more things have to happen. And they have to kinda go together. Intricately. They have to go together intricately and logically and on top of that, they need to be funny and did I mention logical? When it's all over, the reader must put the book down and say: Of course, it happened that way. That's the only way it makes sense.
Okay, so you get the idea of why Mousetrap comes to mind?
The weirdest thing-- if I just show up at my desk and do the work-- I know it will fall together. It will be a lot of work-- I'll have to show up a LOT--but eventually I'll show up enough and it will happen.
Kurt Vonnegut said, "When I write I feel like an armelss legless man with a crayon in his mouth."
I inderstand, Kurt. I understand.

Writing as a Subversive Act

2006-05-08T07:03:00.000-07:00

So I'm a huge fan of Boston Legal.
I think I love two things, the writers of the series are at least as crazy as I am. And somehow they always manage in the midst of an absolutely wacked out show to convey a message (usually both sides of it) on a controversial topic. Whether it is the sanctity of the confessional--anyone see the episode where the priest was shielding the child molester?-- How they could make THAT subject have funny moments, well, you just had to see it-- to last week's riff on the food additives that are making us fat and sick, specifically the high fructose corn syrup.
The show is amazing. I love it when writing can change the world. And I love it most when it is done so subtly and with such great hilarity. That show ROCKS.
And you've got to love William Shatner's television resurrection, itself an act of redemption from the typecasting hell of Captain James T. Kirk and those silly commercials. Who knew he was so hilarious???
Denny Crane. Mad Cow. Denny Crane.
I have a quote in front of my computer- not about BL but just something I hope to hear someday about my own work--"Deeply funny and wonderfully satisfying social satire." Here's to the writers of Boston legal-- You've got it, baby, you've got it!

What's your favorite show, book, or movie that you consider was written as a subtle subversive act?

Here Comes the Sun Porch

2006-05-05T10:58:00.000-07:00

Burglars steal sun porch to enjoy sunshine
Fri May 5, 8:15 AM ET
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Thieves made off with a 15,000 euro ($18,910) sun porch after spying it in a shop window during the Netherlands' first week of summery weather this year, police said Thursday.
"They smashed a window to get into the shop which had a fully assembled sun lounge in the showroom. They had to dismantle it and took it away in seven parts," police spokesman Anton de Ronde said.
The 23-foot by 6-foot sun porch, designed to be attached to a house, was for sale in Apeldoorn, to the east of Amsterdam.

Isn't this going to be kind of hard to hide???

"I've been a bad, bad boy"

2006-05-03T09:38:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK - A charity foundation's former accountant, who admitted embezzling heart disease research funds that he used to pay an Ohio dominatrix to beat him, was sentenced Tuesday to two to six years in prison.
Abraham Alexander, 45, of East Meadow, N.Y., pleaded guilty to grand larceny in March. Alexander admitted he stole $237,162 from the Cardiovascular Research Foundation between Nov. 2, 2003, and April 20, 2005.
New York Supreme Court Justice Renee White said if Alexander made a timely repayment of at least 50 percent of the money he stole, she would reduce his prison sentence to one to three years.
Alexander has been jailed without bail since he was arrested in November. Prosecutors said he used at least $11,000 of the money he stole to pay Through the Looking Glass, an online company run by Columbus-based dominatrix Lady Sage...

The Web site of the dominatrix features numerous photographs of the 43-year-old pain professional in a leather, metal-studded thong and bra, high-heeled lace-up boots, a leather dress and in what appears to be a red latex rubber evening dress. It says she charges $250 an hour and declares: "Professional domination sessions are about good people having great fun."

Ho ho ho.

If you like to mix rubber dresses, whips, and humorous mystery writing, click here.

Fair and Balanced

2006-05-02T07:46:00.000-07:00

In light of the Anna Nicole Smith ruling announced today that allows her to pursue a disputed inheritence (from oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall, whom she married when Smith was 26 and J. Howard was 89)--I offer this up for balance:

Couple, 33 and 104, Reportedly Marry
2 hours, 31 minutes ago
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -
A 33-year-old man in northern Malaysia has married a 104-year-old woman, saying mutual respect and friendship had turned to love, a news report said Tuesday.
It was Muhamad Noor Che Musa's first marriage and his wife's 21st, according to The Star newspaper which cited a report in the Malay-language Harian Metro tabloid.
Muhamad, an ex-army serviceman said he found peace and a sense of belonging after meeting Wook Kundor, whom he said he initially sympathized with because she was childless, old and alone, the report said.
"I am not after her money, as she is poor," Muhamad reportedly said.

And I've been wondering, should we create a separate gender for folks like Anna Nicole? Maybe we call them media-induced-synthetics? Any other ideas?

Been in Starbucks Lately?

2006-04-27T05:19:00.000-07:00

So, I popped in Starbucks yesterday. I sometimes go there to get out of the attic office-- or away from the library-- to slurp outrageously expensive caffeine while I write. Everywhere in the store are flashcards for Akeelah and the Bee, the new indie film by Lion's Gate (Crash and Hostel) : http://www.akeelahandthebee.com/

An article in the SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER (printed earlier this year) tells us that Starbucks is now in the movie promotion business.
But Lombard asserts that this is not like the longstanding McDonald's promotion of films in its stores through Happy Meals toys. "It is not like the typical fast food approach to entering the movie business, which is about paying for product placement," said Lombard. "Starbucks has no capital investment and we have not paid for product placement."
What Starbucks will receive in the deal, though, is striking in its breadth: an undisclosed percentage of all box office sales, merchandise sales, TV revenues and soundtrack and DVD sales -- even from non-Starbucks retail locations.

Books will follow later this year. Wow. How many lattes would I have to drink to have them carry BrigaDOOM?

How Many Points for Drool?

2006-04-25T11:55:00.000-07:00

By LUKE MEREDITH, Associated Press Writer Mon Apr 24, 8:56 PM ET
DES MOINES, Iowa - To those who know her best, Hannah is the ultimate girly girl. She enjoys socializing in the neighborhood, wearing fancy outfits and pursuing a shoe fetish that would rival any Hollywood starlet.
But Hannah doesn't wear shoes — she eats them. Still, that didn't stop this 2-year old English bulldog from beating out 49 others to claim top prize in the 27th annual "Beautiful Bulldog" contest Monday.
The contest marks the beginning of the Drake Relays, one of the nation's oldest and most prestigious track and field meets.
Hannah, who is white with patches of brown scattered across her squat figure, took the stage wearing a Drake cheerleaders' outfit and shocked the crowd by taking "top dog" honors over Porterhouse, a brown male from St. Paul, Minn., who dressed like a construction worker — complete with tool belt and hard hat.
As the winner, Hannah will serve a yearlong term as the official mascot of both the Relays and Drake University.
"She's a pretty outgoing dog," said Curtis Jackson, Hannah's co-owner. "We're stunned ... I'm dumbfounded."
The panel of judges poured over a random assortment of drooling, grunting canines with a much different purpose than their Westminster Kennel Club counterparts. Bowed legs, deep wrinkles, bloodshot eyes, protruding teeth and clever costumes were considered strong attributes.
Proud ancestry and impeccable breeding are not. When it comes to picking Drake's next mascot, beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder.
"We're looking for the ugliest bulldog you can get your hands on," said Dolph Pulliam, the executive director of the Beautiful Bulldog contest. "We're the looking for the bulldog that has that face, that drool, that personality that can charm you."
Hannah's reign got off to a rocky start. The winner's crown couldn't find a home within the ridges atop her wrinkled head, and Jackson had to pick her up and force her to sit on the throne.
But Amanda Millard, her co-owner, promised that Hannah will take time out from her favorite activities — digging in the mud and dining on foot wear — and honor the office of Beautiful Bulldog with style.
"She'll take plenty of naps for all of her bulldog friends," Millard said.

Fancy Meeting You Here

2006-04-24T07:36:00.002-07:00

FROM THE STUPID CRIMINAL'S HALL OF SHAME: FBI Rules for robbers:
Pick the right bank. Agent Clark of the FBI advises that you don't follow the lead of the fellow in Anaheim, Cal., who tried to hold up a bank that was no longer in business and had no money. On the other hand, you don't want to be too familiar with the bank. Another California robber ran into his mother while making his getaway. She turned him in.

Geeky Writer Stuff: Beats and Values

2006-04-21T08:46:00.000-07:00

Okay, so the new MP3 player combined with the great spring weather has me walking up a storm. Four miles this morning.
While I walk, I am listening to McKee's "Story" for the second time. I finally have a bit of insight into how he analyzes a scene. The abridged audio is clearer than the book, by the way. Hmmm. Book needs more editing perhaps?
Here's what I got:
A scene = a unit of conflict. All scenes contain some small or large turning point in which the value charge of the scene changes. A value is the feeling of a scene, not the emotion a character displays, what the reader feels when identifying with the character.
Trust/mistrust, love/no love, confidence/self-doubt
Many value charge changes occur in the subtext of a scene. In other words, what happens below the surface of what your characters are doing.

How to analyze a scene:
Step One-- define the conflict: Main Character wants something (to do this or to get that- phrase it as an infinitive, to apologize, for instance.) Someone, or in some cases, some force, blocks that goal-- the scene antagonist (phrase this as an infinitive, too: to stay mad.)

Step Two: Look for your opening value. This value must change in some way, however subtle, for the story scene to be a valid scene, otherwise it's exposition or summary or some other thing (or shouldn't be there at all).
When a value changes in a big way it is a turning point in your story.
For instance-- hope to despair, love to hate. If a scene is not a turning point, the value change need not be extreme, it can be as simple as expecting to get a clue from a suspect and not getting it. Value change from confidence to frustration, perhaps?

Step Three: Break out your beats: actions/reactions. Beats are tiny units of conflict-- action/reaction. If you can't break it into "ing" words-- it ain't a beat.
For instance: main character apologizING/antagonist ignorING the plea,
main character threatenING/antagonist turnING his back,
main character explainING himself/antagonist softenING,
main character offerING a doughnut/antagonist acceptING.
Look at what the characters are actually doing and then what they are really doing. What it really means would be the subtext-- offering a doughnut--accepting it.
(The action beat is obvious: offering doughnut/accepting-- so is subtext here: apologizing and accepting apology.)
As long as the actions remain the same, it's one beat. The beat changes when the action and reaction change.
Step Four: Note Closing Value and how it has changed from opening value: In the above-- the scene is perhaps set up so that the value charge changes from mistrust to trust.
In most cases you would have a value change to complicate the plot, from a positive to a negative value--this particular value is from a negative to a positive.
Step Five: Survey the Beats and Locate the Turning Point: When the gap opens between expectation and result--- the value changes, and we have a turning point-- A real scene might have 20 beats, but at some point the value changes. If a value hasn't changed-
it isn't a scene. In our simple example, our turning point is at the offer of the doughnut and acceptance.

Very geeky. Enough of that!

What Has Six Teeth and an IQ of 65?

2006-04-17T08:59:00.000-07:00

Kentucky: Two men tried to pull the front off a cash machine by running a chain from the machine to the bumper of their pickup truck. Instead of pulling the front panel off the machine, though, they pulled the bumper off their truck. Scared, they left the scene and drove home. With the chain still attached to the machine. With their bumper still attached to the chain. With their vehicle's license plate still attached to the bumper.

From the Stupid Criminals' Hall of Shame
Ahhhh, yes. Love the stoopid criminals.

So, Did the Anger Management Help?

2006-04-13T08:14:00.000-07:00

An older story clipped from www.thenenewz.com 's warped newz department:
FBI agents caught up with a suspected bank robber after finding his graduation certificate from an anger-management course in the vault. Johnny Lee Miller is accused of taking $34,804 from First Utah Bank on New Year's Eve. The FBI said he slid a gun out from an envelope and said, "Where is your money?" The suspect took the gun with him but left behind the envelope, which contained the certificate that was issued by the Utah Department of Corrections.

Story on a Limited Budget

2006-04-12T07:31:00.000-07:00

I just finished watching Crash and then listening to the voiceover of the writer/directors' commentaries. What struck me is that they kept coming back to the choices that were made because of a limited budget. Scenes were rewritten, locations were chosen, timeframes were met, all because of that limitation. Excellent movie, by the way. And it won the Edgar from Mystery Writers of America for best screenplay and well, everybody knows, it won best picture.

Like Haiku, or a book or short story pared down for wordcount, or heck, even like the refrigerator magnet poetry done by my friends that covers my fridge, a limited budget to tell a story is often a story teller's best friend.

I'm in Love-- Ode to my New MP3 Player

2006-04-11T08:15:00.000-07:00

In Spring a woman's fancy turns to...MP3 players and www.audible.com

I just unpacked my very first MP3 player this week.
I am in love.
(Cue the sunrise, angels singing, and blooming Easter flowers, please.)
When I traveled a lot on business, I'd plan my roadtrips around Cracker Barrel locations because of their audio book rental program.
I luuuve audio books.
But now that my commute is up a flight of stairs to my attic, I don't get to listen to many.
I luuuve book books, too.
But I've discovered the same muscles I use writing all day get used reading a book.
Those would be the eye muscles and the sitting on one's big behind muscles.
I try to walk the dogs a mile or so a day for the big behind muscles.
But what about my books?
Enter my MP3 and Audible.com-- and their downloadable audio books.
I signed up for a year at Audible and got $100 credit toward my new MP3. (See it here.)
After shipping and handling, it cost cost me 38 cents.
38 cents!
You get a credit a month toward books with the Audible program I chose
(I pay $14.95/month).
I picked that plan because of the $100 toward the MP3.
And I ended up with three free credits, too.
Not quite sure how, but you can bet I'm using those puppies up.
I'm just finishing Robert McKee's fabulous book on screenwriting and writing in general: Story.
In the chute right behind it is The Devil Wears Prada.

The dogs are going to be getting a lot more walks.

A Long, Strange Trip for Jerry Garcia's Toilet

2006-04-07T13:01:00.000-07:00

Thief gets away with Grateful Dead leader's toilet
SONOMA, Calif. (AP) — The long, strange trip continues for Jerry Garcia's toilet.
Police say the Grateful Dead leader's commode was stolen recently from a driveway along with three other toilets and a bidet.
Garcia's salmon-colored toilet was the subject of a legal battle before it was finally moved to Sonoma, to await shipment to a Canadian casino.
It's unclear if the toilet was swiped by a wayward Deadhead or a thief remodeling a bathroom. Police have no suspects or leads.

How I Got Published

2006-04-07T08:54:00.000-07:00

I posted this over on the Cherry Forums-- a writing group made up of writers that are also fans of Jenny Crusie's writing. The question was How did you get published? Although I haven't actually BEEN published yet, the deal is done. So it will happen. God willing, March of 07, it will happen. I've edited this down to the short blog version. My story:

About five years ago, after a few false starts, I began diddling with a novel and realized that even though I had read about writing all my life and owned a gajillion craft books, I was ultimately clueless.
I considered going back to school and looked around for a program in creative writing-- but I didn't want a to write literary fiction. I wanted to have fun and the learn the craft and write genre fiction. Funny mysteries.

Meanwhile, I'd read Tell Me Lies by Jenny Crusie and loved it. I read more of Jenny's books and then got the bright idea that maybe she taught somewhere. Classes from her might be handier for writing fiction than a degree in English or whatever. And boy was that right.

So I checked on the web and found that Jenny was teaching at Writers Retreat Workshop in Kentucky that May. I took a deep breath and feeling like a total impostor, I signed up. I almost turned the car around somewhere near Cincinnati I was so scared.

The first year, I met Jenny and others at WRW and learned a ton about the craft and then joined the Cherries online where I learned even more. That was 2003.

The second year at the workshop, Jenny taught the master class and I learned more still. At the same workshop, I met my agent and signed with her. When she told me she wanted to represent me, I literally pinched myself during our meeting I was so convinced I was dreaming.

The third year, I had the first book done, and we were shopping it while I worked on the second one. (That Spring, we had pulled the book off the market after a few rejections and I did a revision based on feedback.) Then we got more rejections. Two "almosts" which was kind of painful.

We finally got The Call December 27th. Midnight Ink bought BrigaDOOM for release next March and asked to see the synopsis and partial for Little Shop of Murders. They bought that one in February. So that's my story.

Phrase Origin Quiz

2006-04-06T12:49:00.000-07:00

Take this phrase origin quiz from http://www.phrases.org.uk/phrase-origins-quiz/quiz.cgi

Check my comment for the answers.

1. 'A cock and bull story' originated
a.From cock fighting terminology
b.In France, with the term cock a l'ane, meaning fanciful story
c.At the Cock and Bull coaching inns in Buckinhamshire
2. 'Run Amuk' comes from
a.The Malayan word 'amok', meaning frenzy
b.The Old English for 'run a mile'
c.The Norse word 'runeamic' meaning pillage
3. 'Go off at half-cock' comes from
a.Firing a gun by mistake
b.Horse racing
c.Cock fighting
4. The phrase 'Salad Days' was coined by
a.Gertrude Jekyll
b.Noel Coward
c. William Shakespeare
5. 'Hold your horses' was
a.The last command given at the Battle of the Somme
b.An instruction given by a horse race starter
c.A line from Shakespeare's Henry V

Writing and Getting Unstuck

2006-04-05T05:37:00.000-07:00

I'm looking out the window of my attic office and there's snow on the ground. Thirty-five and dreary. Aack!! And I have to walk the dogs right now.

But aside from sucky weather, today is pretty unique. Once in a lifetime actually. A lot of y'all probably got the same e mail I did. (I figure you prolly did, because I got it twice. That's usually a sign it's circulating.) At 1:02 and three seconds this morning, the time/date was 01:02:03 04/05/06. If you, like me, are a member of the Eye Missed It News Team and slept through the first one, you get another chance this afternoon.

I learned something this week about getting myself unstuck in writing. For about three weeks I was at an impasse. I tried "writing through it," that is, writing more of the story in draft form and worrying about fixing whatever it was that felt wrong later. That's what many, many writers I know would do. Tried and true method and all that. Didn't work for me. At all. Mercury in retrograde until last Saturday= Virgo in agony and all that...

So, anyway. On about the thirtieth read through of my first sixty pages, I got to about the fourth scene and something in my brain went off like a buzzer: Ennttt!

That scene was the culprit! The whole chapter really. And it needed to be dumped. I think subconsciously I didn't want to go back that far and rewrite for starters. I mean, who does? Secondly, the info that comes out in that scene is important. Listen-- the INFO was important, not what happened in the scene, cuz pretty much nothing happened. Standing around talking. Translation, a talking head scene, the next worse thing to a sittin'
and thinkin' scene.

So, I cut the scene and started rewriting from there. Boy, do I feel better. It's like I'm walking a path and walked off into the brambles and now I'm back on the path again. I actually want to write today. Sometimes the best thing about writing is kind of like when the pain goes away.

Whew, that made me feel a little sick...

Publishing Blog and Trish MacGregor Links

2006-04-03T10:05:00.000-07:00

I was just over at Trish MacGregor's actual website. Veddy cool. And I love discovering an author whose books I haven't read. I don't know how I missed her, but I'll fix it soon.
The Tango Key series with the psychic detective is so intriguing, and we've always loved her writer's horoscopes at Booktalk. See my post on that a week or so ago for the link.
And then I realized her name sounded familiar for a reason, she taught at the Writer's Retreat Workshop-- my three time alma-mater! Unfortunately for me , she taught in 2002, I attended the first time in 2003. Drat. I missed it. Maybe another year. I'll put her link in with our permanent ones over at the side. http://www.tjmacgregor.com

Anna Genoese from TOR gives us the skinny on how it all works in the publishing biz. Production, accounting, editorial, PR, the works. If you're interested in being published or are somewhere in the process, you might want to check it out! http://alg.livejournal.com/76744.html
Off to write.

64 and Sunny!!!

2006-03-30T04:57:00.000-08:00

It will be 64 and sunny here in Michigan today. Spring is on its way!
A week ago it was snowing. That always makes one appreciate the nice weather even more, don't you think?
Or does it just make one ask:
Why the #*&$!z* am I living in a cold weather state?
I am working hard on the second book in the Kate London Mystery Series-
Little Shop of Murders. Poor Kate, who has stagefright, has to operate the Audrey 2.
She is hoping that the professional puppeteer will come to her rescue before opening night, meanwhile she is sitting inside this beast on a secretarial chair, when she isn't chasing killers and bank robbers, that is.
And cheers for Jill Carroll's release. Isn't it great to hear good news once in a while?