(Not) My Town Monday

(My Town Monday is a project conceived in the darkest corners of Travis Erwin's brain.)

My current work in progress is set in St. Martin, in the French West Indies. It's half an island. Or, to be more precise, 20 square miles of a 37 square mile island. The other half of the island is Dutch. I'd say the island was in the Caribbean, but only half of it is--other coasts are washed by the Atlantic. And, now that I think about it, only half the book is set there. The other half takes place in New York.

I've been going to Saint Martin/Sint Maarten since I was a kid, for thirty years, and my husband and I own a couple of timeshare weeks there. (We inherited them from my parents after Hurricane Luis destroyed the island in 1995, leaving the timeshare development in ruins. It took 5 years to find someone to take the place over because the original owners ran off with the insurance money. My parents moved on to a livable space for their vacations and passed their weeks--completely worthless at the time--to us.)

Half a book is a lot of words, but it doesn't cover a lot of time, and there's no way my characters could go to all the great spots I've been on the island. But a few days a year isn't long, either, and I now give you three spots I've never been. The signs, though, the signs are priceless.



and the place where they take care of all your sleeping needs...forever....

Keeping Up With The Joneses...Or At Least Their Blogs

This post was originally written as an email response to a question on the Sisters in Crime group about why blog "hit counters" often don't reflect the actual number of a blog's readers. Someone on the list asked about "feed readers". It occurred to me that having the information here, on a blog, wouldn't be a bad thing.

A "feed reader" essentially compiles/aggregates information from any number of sources. They were originally all "RSS" readers. RSS stands for "really simple syndication," which explains the intent of "feeds" quite nicely--it was a protocol designed to make it really easy for you to get your information without flitting from one place to another all over the web every day. Now you'll see them called Atom Feed, XML Feed, Blog Feed, all kinds of things. You'll see "Technorati Feed" or "FeedBurner Feed" because those are two very popular readers. (The Wickipedia definition is more detailed and less personal than what I'll say below.)

There are two main categories of feed readers:
- standalone
- through your web browser

I use a standalone feed reader, which means there's a program that runs on my computer all the time collecting whatever is new from however many sources I may have added. Whenever I want to see what's new in the world, I look in that program. It collects not only blogs, but newspapers, alerts, all kinds of stuff. I use the standalone because I subscribe to some outrageous number of sources, and I haven't found a web-based reader that conveniently shows me the full text of that many sources without clutter.

As an example, however, I set up a little NetVibes page of feeds to give you an idea of what I mean. (Readers of this blog may note I've mentioned NetVibes before. What can I say? I am a creature of habit.)

NetVibes is a very cool web-based reader because it allows you to add gadgets like the weather one and the Craigslist one I have on that page as well as feeds, so a lot of people use it for a home page. If you look in the address bar (where the URL is), you'll see a little orange box over on the right that looks like it has radio waves coming out of it. That's a "syndication" icon. If you click that, it will ask you whether you want to "subscribe to Laura K Curtis' activities". Any Blogger blog, Wordpress blog, TypePad blog will have that icon in the menu bar. If you use a feed reader, clicking that little orange icon will add the blog to your subscription list for your preferred program. (I am sure others also have it, but those are the ones that come to mind immediately.)

The standalone programs I've tried look a lot like mail programs. (In fact, many mail programs function as feed readers if you want them to, including the newest version of Mac Mail.)

Clicking the picture above will give you a bigger image, so you can see what a non-browser-based feed reader looks like. I've marked all the items as "unread" so you can get a sense of what it would look like if I didn't keep up with it!

Some blog sites allow you to set your "syndication" so that only a small portion of a post is broadcast to a feed reader, forcing anyone interested to actually go to the site for the rest, but that peeves a lot of my more geeky friends, so I don't recommend it, even though it may make the hit count higher on the blog. (The subject of "the numbers game" is one I've addressed here in the past.) Mind you, I don't read the full text of the articles from all the newspapers and blogs in my feed reader, but the headlines give me a sense of things, and I can pick and choose which ones I do want to read.

But the thing is, as I mentioned earlier, when my feed reader goes around every half hour automatically checking to see "what's new" and collecting its data, it doesn't leave a "footprint" for the site tracker. And it only picks up the "news," not the general page changes, so it won't "see" polls or sidebar items. To make sure your feed-reader-using fans see the cool stuff you put in your sidebars, don't forget to put up a post about what you've changed.

Pssssst! Wanna Read Some Good Stuff?

Since I can’t seem to stop blogging about the two stories from Murder New York Style that have been nominated for the Agatha Award for Best Short Story, I thought it only right to link the stories of all four nominees for your reading enjoyment. Truth be told, our own Nan Higginson made me do it. Fair play and all that.

And the nominees are:

Donna Andrews, "A Rat's Tale" Ellery Queens Mystery Magazine

Rhys Bowen, "Please Watch Your Step" Strand Magazine

Nan Higginson, "Casino Gamble" Murder New York Style

Elizabeth Zelvin, "Death Will Clean Your Closet" Murder New York Style


And, of course there is always news to be had about the anthology itself. We are pleased to announce that Murder New York Style, the e-book, is now available through Fictionwise. and is offered in these eBook formats: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [1.4MB], Palm Doc (PDB) [331 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [352 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [962 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan(FUB) [340 KB], hiebook (KML) [1.6 MB], Sony Reader (LRF) [1.3 MB],iSilo (PDB) [299 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [833 KB], Kindle Compatible(MOBI) [848 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [512 KB]

Last but far from least, our friend, writer and all around creative genius Chris Verstraete, has put up a cover of Murder New York Style on her Miniatures page. These tiny covers are used to fill the shelves and libraries of the detailed and delicate rooms created by miniature enthusiasts. Chris’s book, Searching for a Starry Night, A Miniature Mystery will be released in May 2008. Run on over and look around Chris’s website. You will be amazed.

Terrie

A Confusion of Birds and Words

Apparently, a confusion of guinea fowl is another of those funny animal group names like a murder of crows or a smack of jellyfish. I discovered that and this painting, also named Confusion, by high school student Kara from Allentown, New Jersey. I thought it captured wonderfully the problems of focus and concentration amidst nature's splendors that several of us have been discussing lately.

I hate not having the right words. Currently, I feel like I'm moving the troops across the map, storywise, but without the style or charm I know my tone needs. Worse, as I try to fix the flatness, all the words I reach for seem worn-out and dull. In response, I'm filling my eyes with words that I don't habitually use, trying to liven up the joint, but I'm so dead bored with my own description, and the writers I'm reading all seem to make better choices than I ever could. Kara, I feel ya, girlfriend.

Still, as much as we battle repetition and cliches in our fiction, apparently it's as big an issue in book reviews. The NYT Book Review blog identifies their overused seven review deadlies: poignant, compelling, intriguing, eschew, craft, muse, and lyrical.

Mario Puzo’s intriguing novel eschews the lyrical as the author instead crafts a poignant tale of family life and muses on the compelling doings of the Mob.

Read their arguments and the comments section with lots more candidates. Truly, my misery's enjoying the company.

Once More, with Time

Last week I told you about the Deadly Ink Short Story Contest. Its deadline had been extended, but it was still just 10 days or so away by the time I wrote about it. This week I’ve got another contest to tell you about, but this time I’m giving you more reasonable notice.

The Writer Short-Story Contest every year features a different genre, and this year it’s mystery. You can enter as many stories as you’d like, as long as you get them there by the end of June. The entries can be up to 2,000 words long, but they shouldn’t contain any graphic language, sex, or violence. This is probably because the first-place entry will be published in The Writer magazine, and the top three will be posted on the publication’s website. Other prizes include $1,000 to the first-place winner, $300 to the second-place winner, and $200 to the third-place winner.

Judging the final entries will be William G. Tapply, author of the Brady Coyne, Stoney Calhoun, and Brady Coyne/J. W. Jackson mystery series. Each entry must be accompanied by a completed entry form, available at the website, and a $10 nonrefundable entry fee. The stories cannot have been previously published in a book, nationally distributed periodical, or Web-based magazine, and simultaneous submissions are not allowed. The entries must be postmarked by June 30, 2008, and the winners will be notified by September 30, 2008.

For more information on The Writer 2008 Short-Story Contest, including how to format the manuscript and where to send it, see the contest's Web page.

Good luck!

Two Sentence Tuesday

I was out of the country last week, and I left all the books I read behind, so I can't copy two sentences for you. I will say that there were some wonderful sentences in Nancy Martin's Murder Melts In Your Mouth. I liked it enough that I almost toted it back home with me, which is saying something for a hardcover!

So since I don't have two sentences I read, I'll give you four sentences I wrote. They're actually from a re-write I've been working on, a retooling of a mystery that won't work as a mystery, so I've been trying different schemes to change it from the traditional mystery written in the first person, the way it started, into something else. I'm not quite sure what, though. So here's a snippet I considered this week.

Five nights a week, from eight to two, she served drinks to college kids, tourists, and cops. Lots and lots of cops. Not that Caro minded cops, but she’d have liked them better if they’d drunk more and tipped better. And if they weren’t absolutely certain her boss was a felon.

Diversions

Who was the author who claimed to lock her office door not to keep the world out but to ensure she stayed inside? I know I'd do well to follow her advice. But my real distractions - if you don’t count food in the kitchen and gunk in the shower stall - aren't outside the room. They're outside the window.

In a black cherry at the bottom of my hill there's a pair of nesting hawks, and to the north – no joke – I can see fifty miles to Mohonk’s Sky Top ridge. But my most recent distractions are the two equine occupants of a small barn on a neighboring eight acres.

When they arrived a few weeks ago, the temperamental pony did her best to evict her full-sized roommate. Ever seen a horse jump backward, hind legs kicking? By now she's adjusted to sharing quarters. When they're let out of the barn every morning, they prance the perimeter of the paddock before settling to graze. There's a black lab working up the nerve to herd them, but so far he's kept a safe distance.

In March the wind sometimes blows like a hurricane on our ridge. The day it whipped a skylight off our roof, the horses were stuck in the barn. I missed them, but resolved to accomplish a fair bit of writing. Until I discovered that by leaning forward in my chair, I could see their noses through the stall windows.

It's hopeless. I’m considering moving my desk to the basement.

I can see why Michael Connelly writes the occasional novel in a windowless room. Why, according to Joanne Palmer in Write Blindfolded, Steven King wrote on a typewriter squeezed between washer and dryer, and Andre Dubus parked his car in a cemetery to write The House of Sand and Fog.

There are certainly alternatives to writing at home. I do like libraries (I recommend Nyack’s). I’ve gotten into the zone on trains, although I once nearly missed my stop at Secaucus Junction. Cafe's sometimes work until I get to know the regulars. (See Best Places to Write/Work in NYC for one writer's recommendations.) But as Clare pointed out, it's spring. The jonquils are ready to bloom. I'm expecting bunnies in the yard any day now.

This time of year, can anyone honestly claim self-discipline? What's your secret? Maybe a sturdy set of window shades.

- Lois

Link Saturday with Fuzz on Top

We're living in a new place this spring with actual (albeit fractionally slivered) acreage. There's already been some nice landscaping done, but I didn't know whether we had any spring bulbs working. When I asked my long-time, gardening neighbor, she assured me that I could safely wait to see what showed before planting more. Something would happen.

Now, I can really see the daffodils pushing up. No crocuses or snowdrops that I can tell, though other houses already have blooms, but lots of daffodils. Those are the most important to me anyway. The Montauk Daisies are working their magic and sprouting leaves and spreading plantings. The miscanthus grass is starting to green up, but so slowly. The hydrangeas? Dunno. Risky. I think I see buds, but I can't be sure. Some of the recent birds at the feeder are small, even for sparrows, and still carry silly plush mohawks of gray fuzz on their heads and backs. Last night, I made coconut cupcakes to take to my family's for Easter. I love the time of year, and am starting to feel more awake and alive again myself.

My novel's also finally picking up momentum again, even if, at the last meeting of my writers group, no one's life was transformed or even astoundingly improved by reading it. There's still nascent fuzz on it, too, but I believe it's getting pared down, muscled-up, and more aerodynamic by the day. So while I continue plucking the yuck out of my paragraphs, here are some scribbling-related links:

1) Some (I've done it) may give the occasional cat mystery a hard time, but Rita Mae Brown is a fascinating, forthright person as well as a successful author. Though approaches and subgenres may deteriorate into caricature over time, she was one of the founders of the genre and still believes in her characters and concept, so she's earned her pass. Anyway, I enjoyed this Time interview (via CrimeSpot) ...Well, I didn't know I was going to be famous. All that happens, and I was like, what is all this crap? Excuse me for swearing...

2) In a refreshing departure from traditional "literature" or "classics", One Book, One Chicago has chosen a crime fiction title, specifically Chicago-born Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye, for its citywide reading program. Coming up in early April, the NEA-sponsored Big Read will also be offering two free events with a noir focus. Panels of MWA authors at Manhattan's Mercantile Library will discuss (and debate, if you're lucky) the lasting influence of The Maltese Falcon and Sam Spade.

3) You may love your copy of the terse Elements of Style by Strunk and White , or maybe you prefer the even shorter Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing (however swelled into its hardcover from the original speech delivered at Bouchercon). But neither of these brevities will fit into the waistband of George Orwell's pithiest 6 tips , linked in their entirety. Free sample: Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

4) This TimesOnline article compares contemporaries Albert Camus and Georges Simenon, prolific creator of Inspector Maigret. The existentialist versus the existential hack. I'm sad Paul Theroux used that phrase, because though I don't know what Nan will choose, Existential Hack has always been on my business cards.

5) But Clare, you ask, why are you spending your time on this flapdoodle when you should be writing, writing, writing? Well, procrastination is part of my Method. Besides, I still see blogging as an extracurricular outlet, not a substitute for writing, but plenty of authors have found it worked otherwise to their detriments. Ignore your agent and pals, and do what's right for your writing. (via Whatever) Bestselling fantasy author Robin Hobb strongly cautions against the time and creativity-draining Vampires of the Internet. And yes, you have to read her warning online, smart a**.

Happy Spring!

Somethin' For Nothin'

Tony Burton, publisher of Crime and Suspense e-zine, has frequent give-aways on the website for subscribers only. If you are not a subscriber, this is a great time to become one because this month Tony is giving away two mystery anthologies. One is ~TA DA~ Murder New York Style. As you know from our incessant chatter, Murder New York Style is an anthology of twenty-one stories, and every one is classic New York. Nan Higginson and I both have stories in MNYS and I recently bragged about it over at Criminal Brief.

The second anthology that Tony is giving away is Never Safe which was edited by Karen Kavanaugh and Margaret Searles. In this anthology, danger lurks everywhere, especially when people think they are secure. I am definitely going to try to win a copy of Never Safe.

For a taste of Murder New York Style, I am linking back to Women of Mystery Nan Higginson’s Agatha nominated story story: Casino Gamble, which Laura posted a few weeks back. You can also find Casino Gamble here.

So hurry over to Crime and Suspense where you will find great stories, excellent reviews and general mystery fun for only a few dollars a year. The give-away ends March 31st, so it’s time to subscribe!

Malice Domestic is Changing my LIFE

It happens in an instant. The world changes and you have to adapt. This is true for good changes and bad. It only takes an instant.

Like becoming an author. I'm an accidental author. At least it feels that way. And, baffling though it may be, I'm a nominee for an Agatha at Malice Domestic, in the Best Short Story competition! How do you like them apples!?! How did it happen? Why did it happen to me while so many other great writers are still unpublished, or are published and not nominated for an award? I haven't got a clue. I think it has something to do with all those years of trying to get it right, but I also think magic happens, sometimes, and this was one of those times.

It happened while I wasn't looking. I submitted a short story to the anthology now known as MURDER NEW YORK STYLE. It was a juried anthology based out of the Sisters In Crime New York/Tri State Chapter, and I miraculously won a spot in the book. Lots of other writers in the anthology are great writers. Well published. Well known. I figured my story making the cut was a fluke - that, or they needed all the stories that were submitted, otherwise they'd have a very short short mystery anthology.

So, one minute I was sitting in my cozy den, laptop on lap, peering over the screen to yell out "Who is Janet Evanovich!" at Alex Trebeck, and it hit me: I was no longer a hopeful, wannabe author. My short story got accepted to a juried anthology! I was going to be a published mystery writer!!! I almost choked on my popcorn!

For years I'd slogged along in the wake of great writers. Sure, I'd been published here and there in magazines and newspapers. Did a lot of critiquing. Stockpiled manuscripts, decimating vast forests in the process. But nothing changed my perspective as much as getting published in MURDER NEW YORK STYLE. Nothing, that is, until I got nominated for an Agatha in the Best Short Story category.

BEST Short Story? WOW! Thank heavens the notice of my nomination came via email - I had to print it out and see it in black and white before I could believe the message! I carried my print-out to my hubby - I couldn't read it aloud lest my throat would close and I'd self-destruct along with the nomination. He read it aloud and I got all choked up. Malice Domestic! A conference for READERS! READERS would be determining who wrote the BEST Short Story - best of those nominated by anyone Malice bound, from anywhere in the country! I LOVE READERS! It's enough to drive a girl to her hidden cache of the darkest of dark chocolates, with not an ounce of remorse!

The reality is totally impossible: The Best Short Story category has me in league with Liz Zelvin (my clever writing pal, and soon-to-be-published novelist!), Donna Andrews and Rhys Bowen (mystery mega-stars!). Holy crap! How did I ever get nominated in that rank? Holy, holy crap!

It has to be magic. How else did I ever get to this point? I didn't do anything remarkably different. These wonderful accidents can stop here and now, before I hyperventilate. Getting my name listed on the Agatha nominee posting was more than I could comprehend for the longest time. Now that the news has settled in and I'm picking out what to wear at the conference, I'm getting giddy. I've been known to bust out laughing at my good fortune. I feel like I already won the greatest prize! Nomination is a joyous state!

My mom tried so hard for so many years to become a children's book author that I think she's somehow pushing me from beyond the grave. So much for my latest plan to quit writing except for my own personal pleasure - and to keep from driving my hubby nuts. Heck, I'm told that Malice will kick off with all "us" nominees being introduced to the conference's early birds. The next day I'll be on a panel and maybe even signing books! AND I'll be on the ballot!!! My name up there with all those high-fliers!

I'm making my own business cards just in case business cards are doled out at Malice like souvenirs.

I could use some advice - what will make me look less clearly out of my league?

Yowza. I'm light-headed already! My hubby's convinced I'll win. He gets extra points for that! Life is good.

And let this be a lesson to you: If it can happen to me, it can happen to YOU! Just keep writing!

Are You Quick?

Are your fingers itching to write something, but you don’t know what? Are you good at whipping up short stories in less than two weeks? If your answer is yes to these questions, you’re in luck. The deadline for the 2008 Deadly Ink Short Story Contest has been extended to March 30.

According to the contest organizers, fewer stories than in previous years were submitted to the contest by the original deadline of March 15. Because of this, every story that’s entered has a better chance than usual of not only winning the contest, but making it into the 2008 Deadly Ink anthology. The anthology will be available for sale at the Deadly Ink Conference, June 20
through 22 in Parsippany, New Jersey, and at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com.

All stories submitted to the contest must have no more than 3,500 words, be set in New Jersey, and include clues relating to a pen or ink, as well as a “deadly incident.” More than one story can be submitted, and the entry fee for each is $7, waived for people attending the conference. The prizes are:

First prize―$50 and Deadly Ink goodie bag
Second prize―$25 and Deadly Ink goodie bag
Third prize―$10 and Deadly Ink goodie bag

For more information on the contest, click here.

For information on the conference, click here.

Two Sentence Tuesday: Your Exquisite Corpse

Image via E.C. Gallery, beinArt Int'l Surreal Art Collective


I wrote: “And you don’t want your nosy parishioners to know? This mysterious meeting, for which you insisted I abandon my glassware unwashed, isn’t for anything embarrassing or tawdry, is it?”


I read: With a straight razor and a sure hand, he rapidly scraped away at his cheeks, his squared-off chin, and his pale throat. Then he took out a small scissors and carefully clipped any errant hairs that might disturb the shape of his luxuriant black mustache.
- The Midnight Band of Mercy by Michael Blaine

If you'd like to play along, offer up a random 2 sentences you've written and read this week in our comments. Once we get a string going, it's like an exquisite corpse in writing, or eavesdropping your way through the most fascinating hotel bar.

Update: C'mon, anyone? E-mails, grocery lists, anythang... Is the picture scaring you away?

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

In keeping with Travis Erwin’s My Town Monday series, I bid you

Cead Mile Failte (A Hundred Thousand Welcomes) to New York City on Saint Patrick’s Day, Monday, March 17.

Saint Patrick is the Patron Saint of Ireland as well as the Patron Saint of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York.

I am the direct descendent of ancestors, all having surnames the likes of Farley and Dwyer and Duggan and McGuinness and O’Brien and Kealey and Keating and McMullan, who were born on one of two islands, Ireland or Manhattan.

Is it any wonder that the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade is a constant in my past, present and future? I’ve marched or stood as a spectator in snow and rain and on gorgeous sunny days for more than fifty years. When my children were young, I pulled them out of school every Paddy’s Day so they could participate in this yearly shout-out to their heritage. It’s important to know from whence ye came.

As is true of so many things in America, the history of the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade has its roots in European politics. During hundreds of years of British rule, Irish music, Irish language and the “Wearing of the Green” was forbidden in Ireland as was land ownership by Irish Catholics and any sign or practice of the Roman Catholic religion. Not so in the American colonies, perhaps because no one thought to do so.

The first march of what was to become the oldest Saint Patrick’s Day Parade in the world was held in 1762, when a group of Irish immigrants and some Irish soldiers serving in the British military here in New York, decided to march along lower Broadway on Saint Patrick’s Day. Many wore sprigs of green in their hat bands as they sang Irish songs and played Irish music. They marched each year, their numbers steadily increasing.

Over time the parade was formalized by the Irish fraternal organizations. New York City grew, exploding with new immigrants landing every day, first at Castle Garden and after 1892, coming in through Ellis Island. Still more immigrants arrived by routes unknown and, perhaps, not quite legal. No matter how they came, millions of immigrants came from Ireland.

As the Irish-American population grew, so did the parade. Today approximately one quarter of a million marchers will assemble to strut along the fine green line painted down the center of Fifth Avenue. Upwards of two million spectators will surge into Manhattan, early of a morning, to find their spot for the best view. There are no fancy floats. The Saint Patrick’s Day Parade is a parade filled with marching people and marching bands. And bagpipes. Lots of bagpipes. And clusters of Irish Step Dancers twirling along with stiff arms and knees up, keeping time to a jig or a hornpipe.

The famous Fighting 69th Regiment of the New York National Guard, with Irish roots going back to the American Civil War, has led the parade for as long as I can remember. And the line of march goes on forever. The FDNY, the NYPD, and is that the Friendly Sons of the Shillelagh going by? Here’s Cardinal Hayes High School and is that Fordham University coming up now? Ah, and let’s not forget the Irish Northern Aid and the Irish American Labor Coalition. Each of Ireland’s thirty-two counties has a contingent, including Cavan, Derry and Tipperary, the counties of my ancestors.

To give you an idea of the sheer size of the parade, the Parade Committee has put together a link of pictures from the 2007 Saint Patrick’s Day Parade.

If you happen to visit us between 11 am to 3pm Eastern Standard Time on Monday, March 17th, you may find a live stream of the parade at this site. If not, try here.

I hope you enjoy this blog and its links and I hope you’ll share a comment or two. As for me, decked out in my finest green, including my granny hat splattered with shamrocks and teddy bears, I’ll on the Central Park side of Fifth Avenue, some where north of Fifty-ninth Street. I’ll be in the grand company of, among others, my youngest grandchild, who at the ripe old age of eighteen months, will be attending her first, but far from her last, Saint Patrick’s Day Parade in New York City.

Slainte. (Good health.)

Terrie

Guest Blogging

Hi All.

I have been invited to write my first guest blog by James Lincoln Warren and Leigh Lundin and all our friends over at Criminal Brief. Please stop on by and say hello. Otherwise, I'll be soooo lonely.

Nah, actually, I'll be having fun hanging out with the Criminal Briefers. However, if you have never been to Criminal Brief, you are missing a great blog about reading, writing and mysteries.

How many other blogs can brag about having guest bloggers the likes of the late Ed Hoch and the wonderful Jon Breen, and, oh yeah, me.

See ya there.

Terrie

It's 3:18AM. Do You Know Where Your Children Are?

If they're dumber than any novel reader would believe, they may be staying at the Residence Inn where I am currently. Let me recount the last...oh...20 minutes for you.

Phone rings. I answer, sure some horrible tragedy has occurred, and not quite certain why anyone would call on the hotel phone rather than my cell.

Prepubescent teen male voice, kind of giggling: "Code word: rugmuncher."
Me: "You have a wrong number."
Him: "No, dude..."
I hang up.

Phone rings. I answer, now certain there's no tragedy, just a whole lot of idiocy.

Him: "Dude, where's my weed?"
Me: "You have the wrong room. Whoever you think is staying here, they're not."
Him: "No, dude!" His voice is now edging into hysteria, shouting slightly. "211, dude, 211. You told me..."
Me: (in words I won't put here) "I don't care who told what, they lied to you."
I hang up.

Phone rings. Now, I am seriously pissed off. My wake-up call is in three hours. I have to haul my butt out of bed early to set up for a trade show I wasn't in the mood for in the first place.

Him: "Dude..."
Me: "The next time you call this number, I am calling the police."
I hang up.

I call the hotel operator. It's three o'clock in the morning, so it takes a while to get someone on the line. I explain the situation and ask her if she can track where the calls originated, since I am sure they are room-to-room. No, she can't. She apologizes. Actually, she "sincerely" apologizes. I explain that if the police arrive, it will be because I've called them. She is stumped by that, and apologizes again.

If I wrote this scene into a book, no one would believe it. What kind of moron gives a drug dealer money without getting the drugs then and there? Without even being sure they know what room the guy is staying in? Who calls a drug dealer "dude?"

Go ahead, use that scene in a book. I dare you. People will say your characters are "totally unrealistic."

Truth may not be stranger than fiction, but it sure is dumber.

Watching Your Weight

I've been ruminating on this for a while. It is, perhaps, a particularly touchy subject at the moment, as I try to slowly get rid of the weight I gained in 5 months on steroids (and the weight I needed to lose even before I started the steroids). But I was recently reading a book where a woman is described as 5'4" tall and 120 pounds in her mid-thirties, and it started me thinking about the numbers we see in books.

I mean, seriously, 120 pounds?? I am 5'4" tall. I once made it to 130 pounds through a combination of pathological exercise (running every day, lifting weights a couple times a week, never relaxing), watching every single thing I ate, and generally obsessing over my body to the practical exclusion of everything else. In 2001, after an extended stay in the hospital, I was 128 pounds. You could see the bones in my chest, in my face, in my arms. As soon as I started putting muscle back onto my body, I gained weight.

What's a realistic weight for my frame? 140. I can get down to 135, but it requires more maintenance than is practical. Now, I'm not a little girl. I have small hands, little wrists, but I also have broad shoulders, actual hips (even when I am too skinny and my bones stick out) and, oh horrors, a chest. I have a friend who's pretty much my height but has a much smaller frame than I do, narrow shoulders, no chest, and manages to keep her weight to 128. She's also a personal trainer, whose whole life revolves around working out. (If you need a great trainer in Westchester, NY....)

Where are authors getting these numbers? Back in the old days, women used to be told that they could find their "ideal weight" by allotting 100 pounds for their first five feet, then adding 5 pounds for every inch over. Well, that would give you the 5'4", 120 pound "ideal woman" all right. But it's been years since anyone went by that...er..scale. The "BMI calculators" you find on the 'Net have such wide ranges as to be pretty much useless. Check them out...after 8 days NPO in the hospital (nothing by mouth, just IV), I still didn't qualify for underweight. In fact, I'd have to spend several days decomposing before I got down there. I checked--I could weigh in at a mere 108 pounds and still be considered "normal." I could also weigh 145 and be "normal." What's wrong with that picture?

We all know about the horrible body image promoted by fashion magazines, etc, but I have to wonder--what about novels? What do we take away from reading books about seemingly strong, independent women who think they need to lose ten pounds when they weigh 130 pounds? And .45-toting women who weigh 120 pounds? Please. The recoil would kill them.

I don't like to give numbers in my own character descriptions because I tend to think the number is far less important than the way the character feels about the number, whether that number is size, weight, or age. I have done it on occasion because it seemed right, but when I do I do it from my own experience of various weights.

When I read about that 120 pound woman, and then consider my 150 pound heroine (who knows she needs to lose ten pounds), I wonder if the experience of that other writer is so widely different from mine. Has she (well, they--I see that number a fair amount) been 120? And readers...do they think my character is a slob for only wanting to get down to 140, for not aspiring to that 120? Should I avoid numbers at all? That doesn't seem realistic, either...after all, almost every woman I know spends a fair amount of time considering the numbers in her life. A character who didn't would stretch the bounds of credulity.

What do you folks think? As readers? As writers? As women? As men?

Crime and Books

At this instant, I should be writing my book about crime, well, criminals of a sort. Instead of that odious duty, I'll post here about books and crime. But not the kind that goes inside the covers. I'm still avoiding that.

1) I had to extract and highlight this from Laura's comment to Elaine's last post where she linked the hilarious Book Reporter's Memo to Eliot Spitzer: "If you spent the $4,300 you were alleged to have spent on the night of February 13th on books, you could have bought 172 hardcover books at an average price of $25..." Read it all.

2) A former member of MI5 is under action by Her Majesty's government over his binding confidentiality agreement. The former agent, who has written a 300-page manuscript, "was decorated by the Queen for bravery, was recruited and trained to develop multiple personalities which he used to penetrate criminal and terrorist networks for more than 15 years." The book and methodology sounds fascinating, but will it compromise national security? The High Court is deciding.

3) Seattle's the Stranger has the entertaining scoop-- if it's not your cardiac arrest-- from a bookstore worker about chasing thieves and the top 5 stolen books. Number 5 is any graphic novel. Wait a minute...My peeps don't buy? A strategic career U-turn may be called for.

4) My own book crime. I lifted the two classics above from my 5th grade classroom's lending shelf and could never bring myself to return them. I still can't, ill-gotten gorgeousness that they are.

5) While designed for obsessive text-messagers, this civic scheme works equally well for people like me who used to walk miles with my nose in a book. Britain's Brick Lane has prudently prevented injury and liability and padded its lampposts for distracted pedestrians. No kidding.

Can You Spitzer?

As I’m writing this, Eliot Spitzer has just announced his resignation as governor of New York State. As a private attorney, as a member of the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, and then as New York State Attorney General, Spitzer went after wrongdoers with a vengeance. He broke up prostitution rings, prosecuted racketeering cases, and went after federal agencies he felt weren’t adequately protecting the consumer. Then on Monday we learned that at the same time he was doing all these good deeds, he was also spending upwards of $80,000 on high-priced call girls he was sneaking across state lines to visit when he should have been busy at work in his office.

Without getting into the political or legal implications of everything that’s been coming out this week, can you do this? Can you Spitzer?

What I mean by this is, Can you separate your personal beliefs or true personality from what you need to do for your job? Can you be one person in private and another for your career? In many professions, it’s required; if you can’t Spitzer, you’d better find another job.

Acting is one of those careers, and Jim Carrey is a prime example of an actor who Spitzers well. As Carrey told Matt Lauer on Monday on the Today Show, in 2000 he played the Ultimate Bad Guy, the Grinch, in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and now he’s supplying the voice of the Ultimate Good Guy, Horton, in a movie made from another Dr. Seuss classic, Horton Hears a Who. He pulled off each one convincingly, and he had a blast doing it. Is Carrey, as a person, an especially good or bad guy? No, of course not. Few people are. He’s just an average guy who can put on the “face” that’s required by his job.

When I first graduated from college with a BA in journalism, I became a newspaper reporter. As almost everyone who knew me back then can testify, I was shy. No, not shy, but SHY. Make that SHY!! I had trouble even speaking to myself in the mirror. But when I had to cover a story, when I had to—horrors!—interview someone, I did okay. Why? Because I was Elaine the Reporter, not Elaine the Private Person. Elaine the Reporter wasn’t shy. On the job, she could talk to people without a problem. She could sit at strangers’ kitchen tables and ask them about their frightening or unusual experiences. She could confront seedy or unfriendly people on the street or in their offices and try to weasel “the truth” out of them. But Elaine the Private Person had trouble crawling out from under her bed to answer the telephone on her nightstand.

I’m not a reporter anymore, but I continue to Spitzer today, especially when I’m working on one of my mysteries. To write any type of fiction well, a writer needs to be able to “become” his or her characters. With crime fiction, that means the writer needs to be able to identify not only with the sleuth, but also with the villain—to feel and understand the villain’s anger and hate, to think of and carry out (on paper) evil deeds, to lie and scheme and maim and kill.

I sometimes get worried by how easily I can do this. I sometimes outright scare my family. But I know the person who’s identifying with the unsavory characters and figuring out how torture the innocent is Elaine the Mystery Writer, not Elaine the Private Person, so I feel a little better about it. Heck, who’s kidding whom? I get totally into it! I enjoy it!

How about you? Can you Spitzer? If you’re a writer, you most likely can. How do you feel about it?

Two Bit...er...Two Sentence Tuesday

Well, I feel as if I am monopolizing the blog. I was hoping someone else would post two sentences first, but no one has, so you all have to put up with me again!

This week I wrote:

Again, Callie wondered at the apparent tension between the two men. It prickled along her skin, nagging, reminding her how little she really knew about either of them.

This week I read (from Merchant of Death):

Africa was burning. Witney Schneidman read the tide fo grim news every morning when he arrived at his office on the sixth floor of the Department of State's headquarters in the Foggy Bottom section of Washington, D.C.

(Travis Erwin, who's also participating in Two Sentence Tuesdays, beat me to it, posting his own two sentences over on his blog!)

It's In The Mail

We've been getting a lot of visits lately from people who Google looking for information on the Daphne du Maurier contest, sponsored by RWA's Kiss of Death chapter, so I thought I'd take this time to say...

GET THAT ENTRY IN THE MAIL!

It has to arrive at the appropriate contest coordinator's address by 3/15, which is Saturday. That doesn't leave you a lot of time. So if you're planning on entering, it's time to print out all the pertinent stuff and shove it in an envelope.

By the by, for the SASE, you should probably use a Priority Mail flat rate envelope, which requires $4.60 in postage. (We should be getting the entries back before the rates go up on May 12.)

My entry went in the mail this morning...keep your fingers crossed for me. Or, actually, keep your toes crossed. It's too hard to type with crossed fingers.

Happy Birthday To Me

Today I got my birthday coupon from Borders. so I ran out and bought Merchant of Death, which I'd been meaning to do even before Viktor Bout was arrested this week.

Merchant didn't get great reviews on Amazon, but then, I didn't expect it to. I mean, when a guy depends on secrecy for a living, a biography isn't going to be very revealing. I am more interested in some of the physical aspects of his trade.

No, it's not that the book writing business has gotten so competitive that I am considering life as an arms dealer. (Though, given some of the depressing statistics I've heard, and the lack of response from a couple of the publishers my agent's sent my book off to, anything's possible.) But I do have a character in my current WIP loosely modeled on Bout. In one of those odd coincidences, he made his presence known just a couple of weeks before Bout's arrest.

You see, it turns out that my current WIP, which was originally a standalone, has turned into a sort of loose series. A trilogy, I think. First, two "good guys" came forward and it seemed apparent that sooner or later they'd need books of their own. And then, my bad guy needed a boss. A "big bad," if you will. The guy who would manipulate events in all three related books.

Enter Bout. I mean, the guy basically screams "big bad." Of course, to be a character in a romantic suspense trilogy, he needs a bit more suavity, a bit more class, a bit more tone, but really, that's all. He's made to order.

So happy birthday to me.

Don't Care What. Who Do You Write For?

From the amazing Branded in the 80s blog, the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon. I hope blogger Shawn will be my peep.


Elaine posted this week about the ever-shifting definitions within genres. As I see it, shelving arrangements are as much fashion as fact, and I know writers who have to check 2 or 3 sections to find themselves. But the purpose of knowing your market as a writer is to help you explain it to agents and editors and readers, to help you hit the bullseye of your story goal better. And I find keeping up with the slapdash scorecards of Hot and Not subgenres only make me confused and dispirited.

When I use the term story goal, I don't mean anything tremendously formal, just the way you'd like readers to feel at the end. Should they love/hate the protagonist, be pleasantly spent from the thrill ride or the laughs, feel like they've just left a bowling alley full of entertaining regulars, have a brooding sense of tragic reality or of difficult justice done? I think once you're far enough in a manuscript, you ought to know what overall effect you hope to achieve, so your editing passes can refine and amplify it. But who is it you're trying to affect?

The category I'm finding most persistently useful as a career-oriented fiction writer is target readership. Who are my people and who else do they read? If I capture that, the publishing types can encode it into whatever slot for the catalog, because by the time I start calling myself "fill-in-the-blank-lit" in a query, that label may be so February. Laura recently posted about finding unusual new ways to reach potential readers. Knowing who readers are means you can better locate them outside the bookstore and library, and better understand how certain agents or publishing approaches may help you reach them. Addressing the crucial question of readership, however, means addressing one of the most common and infuriating assumptions I hear again and again from other aspirants.

Aspiring Writer's Conceit #1: I am writing for all ages, both and mixed genders, all strata of society and anarchy, a tale that translated into every language on the planet can bring enjoyment and enrichment to any intelligent, sentient being of any species currently known or unknown.

Oh sure, we can't assemble five people to agree on the proper preparation and condiments for a hot dog, but I'll say Amen to your lofty claim if you'll do the same for me. Okay, now may we at least admit that establishing our inevitable, global readership requires a beachhead? First, the readers of Ed McBain's police procedurals, for example, then the world.

For my latest project, I've confessed my peeps (with visual evidence) in this post. When I'm standing near people in a line or on the subway, the clothes they're wearing and the media or products they're carrying or discussing tell me whether they're my potential readers. Some of these folks (sadly) enjoy less of the printed prose for leisure than other media. No matter, I still think they're awesome, so I have a comic book and will have a web comic as a portal to my created world. I hope it may lead some of the more prose-phobic to try out a novel of mine someday as well as adding facets and bonus content for those finding the book first. My target readers are probably 18-54, significantly male though I'm not (tricky), and geeks of some niche who like modern technology, games, mysterious histories, and having their brains tickled. They enjoy the absurd and fantastic as a way to play with real-world dilemmas and existential concepts. Robots versus ancient ghosts in an Apocalypse with banana peels.

So, are your peeps buying recyclables or scrapbooking, volunteering at animal shelters or attending concerts, watching Judge Judy or reading biographies in the bathtub? Are they of a certain age or gender? Do they read 2 hardcovers a month or 4 paperbacks a week? Who are their current favorite authors? I'm going on a limb as an unproven quantity here, and welcome any feedback from authors farther down their professional paths. I've spent a lot of time imagining my protagonists and plot, but I believe it's also important to spend time imagining what their consumers might be like. Who are they and what do they value in their reading experience? Then, it'll be more obvious to the many people a writer like me must convince between invention and publication how my final manuscript will delight that readership as well as myself.

First Novel's Bite*

First novels are the toughest, most rewritten, most love/hate experience you'll ever have. Until novel 2, at least.

Getting into the structure of mysteries was a blessing for me because it provided some plot expectations that helped my character-centered stories. Sounds like that's true for you, too.

Dropping back story is essential - dribbling some back in here and there works wonders for shredding text where you want rolling story.

Writing book number 2 while allowing book 1 to mellow out is the best next move, IMHO. If it's second in a series or a separate stand-alone, it will add to your perspective and help you realize what themes play out naturally in your story lines, etc.

Book 2 helps firm up your subgenre orientation, if you need any. The agent who didn't like the pacing of your story might be a gal who likes chippier chics - she might say she wants a dead body earlier on, but Janet Evanovich, for one, often begins with subplot and doesn't hit solid plot drive until well past the first chapter. Inotherwords, agents and editors might say one thing and mean another.

What's your hook? Is it your protag's devotion to winning bake-offs which leads her into a world of intrigue circling around a gas stove and a dead baker? That's a cozy. That would drive a thriller-agent to instant rejection. But, if a traditional cozy's what you want to write, then you get some time to set up your protag's world and her place within it before having to have the dead appear.

Read. Read. Read. Read works by fellow Sisters In Crime to see how they work their craft and get to be published. Observe what works and what doesn't - get a sense of your