A New Habit for the New Year

Happy New Year's Eve! Are you going to Times Square tonight? A party? Out to dinner? My husband and I do the last one each year. Then it's home to watch the ball drop on TV and comfort our two cats and two turtles, who usually spend the evening ducking and covering from what sounds like incoming shells out in our neighborhood. Do you have any traditions?

Some people I know spend New Year's Eve Day making last-minute donations to their favorite charities, not only to help people in need but also to reduce their tax bill a touch come April. Yes, yes, I know--their primary impetus is the tax write-off, not the people in need. But hey, at least they're giving those dollars to charity rather than stashing them in some secret bank account in the Cayman Islands!

If you're still in a giving--real, true, genuine giving--mood but your holiday shopping has left your wallet tattered and empty (or you can't access your Cayman Island bank account that easily), fret not. I have a solution. Even better, it's something you can do indefinitely, every day, instead of just today or whenever you have a few extra bucks. It's a charitable website called the Literacy Site, and instead of giving money, you give mouse clicks.

That's right, I said mouse clicks. The Literacy Site, which was founded to help promote literacy among children from low-income families, has partnered with First Book and Room to Read to make books available to kids in need around the world. Each click is worth 1% of a book, so if you click every day, you alone can pay for 3 2/3 books a year. And as noted at the Literacy Site, "Making books a part of a child's life is the best way to encourage the love of reading, and literacy is key in breaking the poverty cycle."

Only one click per day is allowed from the same computer, but if you want to do a bit more, you can also help generate funds for free books by shopping at the Literacy Site store. The offerings include apparel, jewelry, home accents, and gifts from around the world.

I've had the Literacy Site bookmarked on my computer for about 6 years now, and my regular morning routine includes a click. While I'm there, I also "click to give" to the Literacy Site's sister sites:

• The Hunger Site, which helps provide food to the hungry in America as well as in places such as Darfur and Burma.
• The Breast Cancer Site, which helps pay for mammograms for women who can't afford them on their own.
• The Child Health Site, which helps pay for the healthcare of children in need.
• The Rainforest Site, which helps pay for habitat protection.
• The Animal Rescue Site, which helps provide food and care for all kinds of rescued animals.

I spend lots of days cursing out my computer. But after I "click to give" at the Literacy Site et al., I'm always glad I have one.

Ring In the Mystery Scene For Free

I read on Lee Goldberg's blog, and thereafter, skidded over to report here that Mystery Scene, an invaluable resource for things and folks mysterious, is quite intelligently offering free issues without strings or obligation to U.S. residents. (I apologize to our more northern pals. I'll send you my dogeared copies.) Because I find chapter excerpts indispensable in deciding what books to buy, I love this idea, too. And even if the mag's not your thing, there are always current, authoritative reviews and other good stuff at the MS blog.

My 2009: Less Balance, More Splinters

Image source here.

Skip the resolutions? I think not! Whether or not I adhere, compiling them is clarifying, and information is power, someone said.

I remember when my big and entirely secret goal was to finish a chapter, then a whole manuscript. That took years longer than I thought it would. I'm glad I didn't know when I began. Then, I wanted an agent and to finish another, better manuscript. More years, but it finally happened. But I still didn't get published, though I do think I'm getting better. Today, I'm working on lots of different short things as I try to find a friendly harbor for my brand of slightly-less-amateur foolishness. Sure, I could promise myself that next year I'll finish X number of shorts and get to the Y stage on Z number of longer things, but I tend to fail rather spectacularly at that kind of vow. The ones that seem to help me the most, ultimately, are the resolutions that involve a change of mind. When my mind's in the right place, productive approaches tend to occur to me and I don't resent doing them nearly as much.

That hirsute spitfire Joe Konrath has collected his writing resolutions from a few years back through next year's. It's interesting to see how his focus moved and the kinds of challenges that occur as you get deeper into a fiction career. Among his tangible action items are also attitude tweaks, like cleansing the soul of envy (excellent!) and not blaming anyone else for anything (hard to do, but better for the blood pressure).

Back when I was in a band, another of the active locals that was finally breaking into the national scene was interviewed, and one of the members was quoted as saying, "You've got to do something for your band every day." That's stuck with me, because it's the recurrent, day-to-day priority that insures progress, not splashy public declarations or the occasional grand gesture. Another residual from those days is the concept of woodshedding. In this context, it has nothing to do with being thrashed, except by yourself. It's leaving the world behind for awhile so you can focus intensively on your music.

For 2009, my own action and attitude adjustments are:
1) Do something tangible to advance my writing every weekday, except on vacation. Treat it more like a regular job if I want it to be one. Feel free to obsess and overwork.
2) Drop the current events/socioeconomic/geopolitical junkie habit. No wallowing in external news that doesn't suggest personal and constructive action.
3) Don't regurgitate stale disappointments. No pity parties, even if they're glamorously well-attended.
3) Keep my head sunk in my own creations and the useful or inspiring fiction of others.

My word of the year is Woodshed, not well-rounded.

You don't have to resolve a thing, but is there an attitude or action that might make next year nicer for you?

The Times They Are A-Changin'

David Streitfeld, who writes about Agriculture and Business for the New York Times, had an excellent article in yesterday’s paper regarding our favorite subject: Books.

Mr. Streitfeld starts by saying: “Book publishers and booksellers are full of foreboding — even more than usual for an industry that’s been anticipating its demise since the advent of television. The holiday season that just ended is likely to have been one of the worst in decades. Publishers have been cutting back and laying off.”

Then he points a sharp finger at the real culprit for shortfalls in the publishing industry, and to steal a line from that great philosopher, POGO, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

According to Mr. Streitfeld, we faithful readers have some very bad habits. We get our books from friends, from a book exchange at the local gym, from garage sales and from (are you ready?) the internet. He’s not talking about Amazon or Barnes and Noble or Powells. He’s not even talking about e-books. He IS talking about “the rise of a worldwide network of amateurs who sell books from their homes or . . . in partnership with an Internet dealer who does all the work for a chunk of the proceeds.”

And then he illustrates and explains his own complicity.

Since I am always behind in all this cutting edge (and not-so-cutting edge) stuff, I wandered over to E-BAY for the second time in my life. (The first time involved an umbrella stand. The E-BAY search took far longer than the eventual ride to a discount store where I bought the stand I wanted for twelve bucks.)

By missing the on-line yard sale experience, I’ve a lot of catching up to do. Did you know that there are 2,882,722 books and book related items for sale on E-BAY? I tightened my category to 608,208 works of fiction, which I refined to 89,748 mystery/thriller books for sale.

Mr. Streitfeld doesn’t chastise us, he just acknowledges what he sees as unfair, but inevitable. His article concludes: “Secondhand outlets that don’t sell online are already an anachronism. Even the novelist Larry McMurtry, whose enormous secondhand shop in Archer City, Tex., was probably the biggest holdout against the Internet, has surrendered. The first book he sold online was a signed copy of “84, Charing Cross Road,” the classic account of a woman in postwar New York who bought her books from a London shop she never saw. Helene Hanff’s slim volume used to be cherished for its depiction of a vanished era. Now it seems simply ahead of its time.”

However what is good for the goose is clearly not good for the gander. When I printed the referenced article, it came with this admonition: "This copy is for your personal, noncommercial use only. You can order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers here or use the Reprints tool that appears next to any article."

Seems like this is part of the newspaper industry’s reaction to the Pew Survey that shows more people get their news from the Internet than from actual newspapers.

To all who love the printed word and especially those who make a living by it, here’s a quote from another prophetic philosopher, Bob Dylan.

Come writers and critics

Who prophesize with your pen

And keep your eyes wide

The chance won't come again

And don't speak too soon

For the wheel's still in spin

And there's no tellin' who

That it's namin'.

For the loser now

Will be later to win

For the times they are a-changin'.

Copyright 1963, renewed 1991 Special Rider Music.

*****Update***** Pop over to In Reference to Murder where BV Lawson gives us her take on Streitfeld's article.

Terrie

Romance and Mystery and the Daphne duMaurier Award

Terri's posting led Clare to examine the economic realities of selling our mysteries on Monday's blog. Clare's posting of the successes of romance fiction led me to the sensational Daphne du Maurier Award competition offered by the Kiss of Death Chapter of the Romance Writers of America.

The Kiss of Death RWA Chapter offers my absolute favorite mystery competition: The Daphne du Maurier Award. One award is open only to writers who are UNPUBLISHED in a novel length genre (40,000 or more words). Does that describe you? It certainly sounds like me! If you're excited now and want to scoop up all the details, go to their website using this address:http://www.rwamysterysuspense.org/contestunpublished.html

Why am I such a devoted fan of a Romance Writers of America chapter? Certainly NOT because I like writing romance. What I do like is reading their detailed judges' worksheets immediately so I know exactly what they're looking for, and it's a lot! You know that if you score big with 4 out of 5 judges, you're on the right track. You can check out their judges' worksheets right now! Choose the subgenre of mystery that suits your style and go to their site. Check out their expectations. They have high standards, which is exactly what we all want to provide. Their score cards give me goals that seem destined to lead to success.

Kudos to the Kiss of Death RWA Mystery group. They offer a win-win situation: Whether you strike gold or strike out, every participant ends up with cogent comments from 5 different judges, and the Kiss of Death RWA group adds another notch to their belt.

If you're interested in this challenge, the deadline for entries is mid March, so you'd best get hopping. Check out their formats and expectations. Follow all their rules, and enjoy learning how other people react to your creation. These opportunities result in great information. Even if you decide that all the judges are wrong, they will have given you something to think about.

Write On!
Nan

Friday Fun - December 26, 2008

Some remaining holiday spirit? Here's one to ponder:

Arizona: A man walked into a local Kwik Shop and asked for all the money in the cash drawer.

The till was nearly empty, so the thief tied up the store clerk and worked the counter himself for three hours until police showed up and grabbed him.

Thanks to www.legal-forms-kit.com

Thanks for the laughs, Uncle Jimmy!

Thaaaaat’s all, pals!

A Holiday Gift for Your Writing Self

After you're done attending services, ripping open gifts, scarfing down dinner, puckering up under the mistletoe, and licking the last drops of spiked eggnog from the bottom of the punch bowl, don't forget to give yourself a little gift. One that does double duty is the online class "Building the Fiction Pitch, Step by Step." You can add to your writer's toolbox of skills plus meet some good new writing buds. Make that triple duty: If one of your New Year's resolutions is to finally get a publishing contract, this class can help improve your chances.

Offered by WriterUniv.com, the class begins January 2 and goes for four weeks. It teaches you how to describe your story "in an exciting but succinct way during a pitching opportunity or appointment." The topics covered include:

• What to do when preparing to pitch
• Anatomy of a pitch; different lengths you'll need and why
• Techniques to help you analyze your story
• The biggest mistake writers make in pitching their stories
• How to craft the opening for your pitch
• The top benefit of an editor/agent appointment at conferences
• How to design a pitch for individual and group appointments
• What to say--and not say--if they want more

The cost of all this knowledge? A whopping $30! How great is that?

Teaching the class is Janet Wellington, an award-winning author, editor, and writing instructor whose workshop specialty just happens to be the art of pitching. For more information about Janet, click here.

To learn more about "Building the Fiction Pitch, Step by Step" and to register, click here.

The Women of Mystery wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyful Kwanzaa, or whatever you personally celebrate!

Xmas in the Digital Age

Well, this is only barely about anything writerly- editing mishaps, maybe? But as we're awash in the holiday hoopla around here, such outrages to tradition as below cannot go unmentioned.

Teh popular interweebs mean that when you butcher your network's airing of the movie White Christmas, the viewers can let you know immediately, and everyone else can share in the smackdowns. Lifetime, in its wisdom, cut out piles of dialogue and Irving Berlin's fab musical number Snow to accommodate all the commercials!! Tx to my pal Steve from Houston tipping me as to why Bing looks so glum.

So, do you like having your prospective audience able to respond you so swiftly and vociferously? Shamey, shame, shame, Lifetime. I scrape my index finger your general direction. I think only extra nog can calm me.

Is is time to go to sleep yet and wait for the Easter Bunny?

Thanks For Your Generosity

Everyone knows how proud I am to have been part of this year's Toys for Tots anthology Dying in A Winter Wonderland published by Wolfmont Press. I am delighted to announce that we have surpassed our goal of raising three thousand dollars for the Toys For Tots Foundation. Here is our tireless editor and publisher, Tony Burton, presenting a check for $3,300 to the USMC Reserve Unit in Rome, Georgia.



GSGT Moses is accepting the check, while SSGT Kallmeyer holds a copy of Dying In A Winter Wonderland.



As I have mentioned before, this is the third Wolfmont anthology dedicated to raising funds for Toys For Tots. Wolfmont published By The Chimney With Care in 2006 and Carols and Crimes, Gifts and Grifters in 2007. Both are still available through Wolfmont. Carols and Crimes and DIWW can both be purchased at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other retailers for a while longer. So it's not to late to start building the TFT fund for 2009.



Some of our great friends, such as John Floyd and Deborah Elliot-Upton, who both blog on the Criminal Brief Weblog, the very prolific Chris Grabenstein, and Gail Farrelly of the Farrelly Sisters, have donated stories to one or another of these anthologies. They, along with Tony Burton and all the contributing authors, are living proof of the generosity of the mystery community. May Santa be as good to them as they have been to the children in need.



And to All A Good Night.



Terrie

Two Sentence Tuesday

OK, so this is a busy few weeks, and I haven't had a lot time! Everything takes twice as long these days since I had shoulder surgery last on the 12th. But I've squeezed in a few sentences even so.

Three sentences I read, from Janice Harayda's review of Marco Polo. The review isn't one of her most interesting because she couldn't devote the time she wanted to to reading the book, but I found this comment intriguing:

A strange thing happened as I was thinking about the best books I’d read in 2008: I realized that none was a new biography when, in a typical year, I read several or more. So I picked up Marco Polo, an acclaimed 2007 biography that recently came out in paperback. A blurb from Simon Winchester calls Bergreen “America’s liveliest biographer,” and to judge by what I read, he’s at least one of the liveliest.

She follows this with a quotation that made me want to go out and get one of Bergreen's books, and I am not a huge biography fan!

And since I gave you three above, I'll go for three of my own, as well:

Mac turned the handle with excruciating deliberation, then slammed the door open hard and fast, simultaneously pressing himself against the outer wall of the building. Callie could see no movement from within the cellar. She hesitated.

What did you read this week? Did you write anything, or were your hands to busy wrapping, lighting candles, baking, or otherwise doing holiday things? Let me know where your two sentences are and I'll keep this updated. Or just post them in the comments!

=========

Barbara Martin has two sea-worthy sentences over on her blog this week!

While hearts beat, romance lives.

From director Frank Borzage's Seventh Heaven of 1927, starring Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell. Those faces!

Our own Terrie pointed me to this item on the invaluable Ed Gorman's blog. I've been discussing this with other writers for awhile, but it's great to see fresh numbers.

"Fantasy mass market paperbacks sold 102,660 units last week," she [Juno books editor Paula Guran] reports. "A year ago, in the 49th week of 2007, fantasy mass market paperbacks sold 62,761 units... Romance, always the industry leader in [mass market paperback], sold 202,667 units for the week in 2007 and this year: 310,689."

As a writer who's angled further into romance and fantasy-- because it seemed like fun to try writing, let me be clear-- the numerical strength and enthusiasm here echoes what I've noticed. Another predictable thing in economic doldrums is that mass market paperbacks gain in popularity. We may all have those few writers we collect in almost-$30 hardback, but for everyday reading, under-$10 paperbacks do the job for lots of us and inexpensive downloads serve mighty well for others.

In case you're groaning and rolling your eyes at the thought of saccharine prose and ripped bodices, you might be surprised at the light touch romantic fiction can have, especially in the romantic suspense category. Yes, even thriller-loving male readers like books with romantic relationships in them, though the balance and focus will read differently than something written for a female, hard-core romance readership. To read as romantic, in addition to all the other adjectives that might apply (mysterious, humorous, gritty, clever), fiction doesn't need to contain endless emoting, heaving, and throbbing. What's important is creating invested, significant human relationships, even if your humans are (a la paranormals) not-quite-human.

When people feel a extra stressed and anxious, a little escapism is a welcome relief, and who doesn't want Happily Ever After? I think we all deserve one.

An Easy Way To Help

MizFit, who hangs out with Crabby McSlacker and The Bag Lady , has written a cute and crazy poem asking for our help.

For every comment posted by noon on Wednesday December 24th, on her poetic blog post, MizFit will donate ten cents to a local domestic violence shelter in her home state of Texas.

The post already has more than four hundred eighty comments, so we are talking serious bucks here. Click on over to MizFit Online and help break her bank.

Terrie

Do You Poofread?

If you have ever wondered how necessary it is to proofread your work before sending it out into the world--and I mean to read it word for word, with the help of a dictionary, not just run an electronic spell-check on it--click here. Taylor McDowell Mali, an American slam poet and high school teacher, has a really good explanation for why it's impotent.

FORGOTTEN BOOKS: WHAT'S IN A NAME?

My name is Nan. Simple. A palindrome. Success in writing my name came early and easily. Nobody knew if I had written it backwards! Lots of folks call me Nancy or Ann. As long as you don't call me late to the chocolate binge, you can call me whatever you want.

I remember a naming story from my childhood: Mom liked "Nancy" and Dad liked "Ann," so they compromised on Nan. However, that turned out to be false.

Actually, Mom named my sister and myself after characters in children's books. Big sis, Beth, was named from LITTLE WOMEN. She was linked to fine literature. My name plays center stage in the Bobbsey Twins mysteries. Children's mysteries! We both had roles to play, my sis and I. Beth was headed for a slow death and I was headed for kiddie mysteries! Not so bad, I guessed, back then. Fortunately for the universe, my sister has lived long and well. To this day, she defies her namesake's destiny.

All these years later I found myself meandering through the new bargain book store in my favorite strip mall. I was hunting for Christmas gifts and came across shelves full of Bobbsey twins' books. Had to pick one up. My name jumped off the pages. "Nan" was a pivotal character in this whole series of books! Holy Cow! And here I was (finally!) writing mysteries! Clearly, I was destined for mystery writing! Better late than never! Huzzah!

Following that moment of delight, I vaguely remembered sampling the Bobbsey books many years ago and deciding they were dull beyond measure. I read through the first three pages of one book after the other. No hooks. No tease. No spunk. Just my name jumping off the pages, teasing the heck out of me. My memory was accurate. Nan was dull. Now what to do? I had fallen in love with the idea that my mystery writing was a forgone conclusion: a wish my mother had invested in me. Now I discover that my name's attached to a big yawn of a series! Uck and double uck!

Despite the bad news, I picked up books #2, 3,and 4 - then went on an Amazon search for number one. So what if the books were dull by today's standards? They were part of American literature. I needed to know more.

Curiosity led me to search for info on the author, Laura Lee Hope. Great name, right? How's this for news:

"In the first place, there never was a "Laura Lee Hope." The Bobbsey Twins were created in 1904 by Edward Stratemeyer. One of dozens of juvenile series that Stratemeyer created and managed, the Bobbseys, along with Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, and Tom Swift are among the best known of childrens' book characters. Using the pseudonym "Laura Lee Hope," Legend says that Stratemeyer wrote the first three books himself, then hired ghost writers to write the remaining books, often from outlines he prepared. Newer information tells us that he probably only wrote the first book." (Source: http://home.netcom.com/~drmike99/aboutbobbsey.html#Other)

Okay, so maybe Mom meant to name me after Nancy Drew?

Write On!
Nan

Friday Fun - December 19, 2008

As the holidays stampede toward us, we might wish we had more money. This is one way NOT to go in search of it:

San Francisco:

A man wanting to rob a downtown Bank of America, walked into the branch and wrote, "This iz a stikkup. Put all your muny in this bag."

While standing in line, waiting to give his note to the teller, he began to worry that someone had seen him write the note and might call the police before he reached the teller window. So he left the Bank of America and crossed the street to Wells Fargo.

After waiting a few minutes in line, he handed his note to the Wells Fargo teller.

She read it and, surmising from his spelling errors that he was not the brightest light in the harbor. She told him that she could not accept his stick up note because it was written on a Bank of America deposit slip. She advised that he would either have to fill out a Wells Fargo deposit slip or go back to Bank of America.

Looking somewhat defeated, the man said "OK" and left.

The Wells Fargo teller then called the police who seized the man as he waited a the back of the line at Bank of America.

~at least he was persistent!

Thanks to www.legal-forms-kit.com

Thanks for the laughs, Uncle Jimmy!

Thaaaaat’s all, pals!

Opposite of NaNoWriMo

Wish me luck. I've signed up for the Two-Year Novel course at Forward Motion. It starts January 1, with the introductory lesson and assignment probably arriving the first weekend.

The Two-Year Novel course, or 2YN for short, is about as opposite from NaNoWriMo as you can get. Rather than writing 50,000 words of the first draft of a novel in thirty days, you spend about half a year first planning out your novel--developing your characters, building your world or settings, and outlining. Then you not only write a first draft, but also a second, plus you make final edits and get guidance in searching for an agent or publisher.

The beauty of 2YN is that you're part of a group that works its way together through the steps (and angst) of writing a book. You post your work in your personal thread of the discussion board, where your fellow students can make comments and offer suggestions. The weekly lessons are posted in their own area of the board and so are always available, and another area of the board is reserved for general discussion, which can include anything from help with sticky plot problems to chitchat about the weather.

The instructor of 2YN is Lazette Gifford, the owner of the Forward Motion website. Lazette is also the editor of the e-zine Vision: A Resource for Writers; the associate publisher for Dragon Tooth Fantasy, an imprint of Double Dragon Publishing; and the author of numerous books and short stories. Two of her books are the first-year and second-year 2YN books, for people who want to either read ahead or do the course on their own. Her personal website can be found here.

Almost 200 people have already signed up for 2YN2009/2010. Don't let that stop you from joining, though. Granted, this is an unusually large group, thanks to Lazette's extending an invitation on the Nano board, but most of these people will drop out as the work gets more complicated and demands more time and effort. What will be left is a much smaller, more dedicated group of people, many of whom will then form even smaller work/support groups.

Even if you have no interest in 2YN, I highly recommend checking out Forward Motion (to do so, click here). It was founded ten years ago by Holly Lisle, and its purpose is to help serious writers perfect their craft. It offers all kinds of classes, challenges, and chats, and it's all for free. It's a very worthy investment of a writer's precious time.

Music To Write By

I think we may have discussed this before, but it's always worth revisiting the kinds of things people do (and don't do) when they're writing. I can't write at home because I work from home so when I am here I am always haunted by the things I should or could be doing. So I generally write at Borders or Starbucks. The problem there is that if I am not careful, I can easily get caught up in the conversations of those around me. Which is why I have an iPod.

What I listen to on my iPod varies depending on both my mood and what I am writing. Most of the time, it's soundtrack music without words, or moody vocal music like Hem or Dead Can Dance. On the other hand, it's hard to write about blowing things up without a good dose of Aerosmith.

John Connolly often releases CDs of what he listened to while he was writing a book along with the first edition. And this week, GalleyCat asked readers what they liked to listen to while they write. The results are here.

What about y'all? Found anything that helps you? Hurts you?

Two for Tuesday

Both John Floyd and James Lincoln Warren from the Criminal Brief Weblog have stories in the January/February 2009 issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.

John's political mystery, titled "Remembering Tally" includes this two liner: "The dapper little candidate studied her a moment as she rattled on about the certainty of his upcoming victory. She was a large woman with thick make-up, a shapeless dress, carrot red hair, and a blue and white BYRD FOR GUV button pinned to her collar."

James contributed an historical mystery, "Shanghaied," which includes these lines: "Now the fact of the matter is I can swim like a otter, it being one of the many avenues of escape I was acquainted with through Pa during our travels. That was on the one hand."

Be sure to pick up AHMM to stuff your own stocking so you can enjoy these stories in their entirety.

As for my own writing, here are two sentences from a story I recently finished and mailed. "Didn’t take Earl long to write to me, without apology, wondering if I wanted him to drive the two hundred plus miles to Poughkeepsie for a weekend. I stayed strong, waiting for Earl to beg, but he never did."

If you have a twofer ready, just post it in the comments or tell me and I'll link to your post.

Update***Travis Erwin has a small piece of one of his Feedstore Chronicles up as part of Two for Tuesday. You don't want to miss it.

Update***Barbara Martin has posted a couple of intriguing sentences from a work in progress. Click here.

Terrie

Stinky Feet

A Ginkgo Tree Spirit from www.elfwood.com/.../tree_spirit2.jpg.html

I came across an amusing story in Saturday's Washington Post, by the circuitous route of "Today's Headlines" from Slate Magazine. The Post's article, by David A. Fahrenthold, begins:

"The bouquet of a ginkgo tree's fruit has strong notes of unwashed feet and Diaper Genie, with noticeable hints of spoiled butter.

For the District government this winter, it is the smell of defeat.

This year, arborists working for the city tried a new solution for the stinky fruit, which has plagued residents for decades. They injected more than 1,000 ginkgo biloba trees with a chemical to stop them from producing the fruit.

Whoops.

The chemical didn't work, for reasons that scientists still don't understand. Now, instead of less ginkgo stink, Washington has its worst case in years -- a bumper crop of nastiness that is studding sidewalks and sliming dress shoes from Capitol Hill to Kalorama"

It’s hard to get smells across with words. Try describing the smell of chocolate. Try peanut butter. Given the wealth of specific memories and emotions that smells evoke you'd think we would come up with something more descriptive than "heavenly" to transport readers.

Smell creosote and Coppertone, and I’m back on the summer boardwalk at Ocean City MD. I can't tell you what it smells like. You had to be there.

Okay. Chocolate. Here goes: My mother's kitchen on winter weekends. Oreos and lemonade on a screened porch in summer. My son's trick or treat bag stuffed to overflowing. Sin on a Sunday morning. Cold feet pressed to the radiator after sledding. Comfort. None of that actually describes the smell of chocolate, but then neither does “divine.”

For the crime writers among us, if you want an idea of what decomposing bodies smell like, get yourself a cuckoo pint and grow it indoors. It may look like an jack-in-the-pulpit, but the smell of the cuckoo pint's bloom smells like a dead mouse behind drywall. It leaves skunk cabbage in the dust.

Which brings me back to the ginkgo. The trees are quite beautiful. I intend to plant one in my yard. But you'd better believe that mine will be male. Note: Extract of ginkgo bilova is sold in natural food aisle of your grocery store. For medicinal purposes.

- Lois

Beat To A Pulp

Hooray! Hooray! We have all received an early present!

Our terrific pal David Cranmer has launched his new e-zine, Beat To A Pulp . Before you run over to BTAP, please check David's blog, Education of a Pulp Writer, because he has posted an introduction to BTAP that should not be missed.

The good news is that there will be a new story each and every week. The better news is that this week's debut edition showcases a story by another great friend of Women of Mystery, Derringer Award winner Patti Abbott.

Now take a short break from all the holiday preparations and enjoy getting, er, reading Beat to A Pulp.

Terrie

Powerful Language: Honor Among Thieves

Please don't sue, Ziggy.

Being such an upstanding and admirable citizen, I receive regular calls upon my indisputable honor to help Nigerian widows. These can be difficult for a tender heart like me to decline, but I'd heard they might not all be bona fide, so I've learned to steel myself.


However, this, you must admit, is compelling:

My proposal; you share the same surname With our late client; I am prepared to place you in a position to instruct The security Firm to release the deposit to you as the closest surviving relation.Upon
receipt of the deposit,I am prepared to share the money with you in
half. That is: I will simply nominate you as the next of kin and have
them release the deposit to you. We share the proceeds 50% for me, 50% for you Should you be interested please send me your full names,n, I will prefer you reach me on my private email address below And finally after that i shall provide you with more details of this transaction.

But here's what hooked me:

I am contacting you concerning a deceased customer and an investment he placed under our banks management seven years ago.I would respectfully request that you keep the contents of this mail confidential and respect the integrity of the information you come by as a result of this mail. I contacted you independently of our investigation and no one is informed of this communication. I would like to intimate you with certain facts that I believe would be of interest to you.

He's keeping the structure and usage so tortured, because he intends that we be casual friends. We're defrauding any genuine next of kin, but we can do it while respecting professional integrity between ourselves. And who doesn't want to get intimated with facts? It's so twisted, I just have to believe it's true. Once you know for sure a guy's crooked, you can almost trust him. Can you tell I lived almost twenty years around Chicago?

I excerpted any identifying info, because I don't want even you pals jumping in ahead of me. Any suggestions on what to do with my half of the 50 million? I'm thinking to acquire a nice, slightly used publishing company, which I can then afford to operate indulgently at a loss.

BAILOUT

So, am I looking for one? Not this week, but hey, anything can happen. Given the stressful and painful financial cycle the world is experiencing, the word bailout “received the highest intensity of lookups on Merriam-Webster Online over the shortest period of time in 2008,”and has been selected as Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year for 2008. No surprise there. Other words in the Merriam-Webster’s top ten that reflect the tenor of 2008 include: maverick, socialism, trepidation and precipice. You can see the entire list here.

In contrast, the 2007 Word of the Year was the joyful interjection w00t, followed by the culturally indicative facebook. Other words on that list included sardoodledom which is a mechanically contrived plot structure and stereotyped or unrealistic characterization in drama, and Pecksniffian meaning unctuously hypocritical. Apparently in 2007 we had time to ponder pop culture.

My great hope is that the words we investigate in 2009 will reflect a less stressful time. Perhaps next year's list will include words like pixie-bob which is a domesticated hybrid breed of cat that resembles a wild bobcat, or greeny which means concerned with protecting the environment. Feel free to hope along with me.

The bailout picture is from the website The Black Commentator.

Terrie

Friday Fun - December 12, 2008

Two Alabama State Troopers were chasing a Camaro East on I-20 toward Georgia.

When the suspect crossed the Georgia line, the first Trooper pulled over quickly.

The rookie Trooper pulled in behind him and said, "Hey, sarge, why did you stop?"

The sarge replied, "He's in Georgia now. They're an hour ahead of us, so we'll never catch him."

(Delayed reaction while you contemplate that last statement? Think about it!)

Thanks to http://www.angelfire.com/pa2/scanner/jokes/police/cops.html

Thanks for the laughs, Uncle Jimmy!

Thaaaaat’s all, pals!

Going Right to the Source

When you read the acknowledgments in mystery books, more often than not you find the author thanking this police detective or that medical examiner or any of a number of similar types of professionals for answering questions, reviewing scenes, or providing a guided tour. If you belong to Sisters in Crime or Mystery Writers of America, you've no doubt toured a morgue, participated in a Citizens Police Academy, or learned how to handle a gun at a local firing range.

Gary and Carol Rosenberg don't write mysteries, but they use the same technique in writing their Jon & Jayne Doe Series for teenagers. Instead of reading books on teen problems or interviewing doctors or professors, they go right to the kids themselves. The results so far include Jon & Jayne's Guide to Making Friends and "Getting" the Guy (or Girl) and Jon & Jayne's Guide to Throwing, Going to, and "Surviving" Parties. There's also a website, JonandJayne.com.

What, the idea of sitting in a room full of teenagers scares you? And picking their brains? Horrors! But fear not. It can be safe and stimulating and even fun, judging by the following video produced by South Florida PBS station WLRN.

If you've got a teen for whom you still need to buy a holiday gift, these books just might fit the bill. To buy them, click here for Jon & Jayne's Guide to Making Friends and "Getting" the Guy (or Girl) and here for Jon & Jayne's Guide to Throwing, Going to, and "Surviving" Parties. To check out the website, click here.

Thoughts on Critiquing and Writing "Rules"

In my other life, I am the current Guppy Critique Group/SWAP Coordinator. Okay, I hear you chuckling over the "Guppy" part. FYI: The Guppies are an internet chapter of the Sisters in Crime, and the name "Guppies" derives from the "Great Un-Published" moniker, which is slightly erroneous: we now have a number of recently published writers who are staying on, helping others become published.

Here's what I do in my coordinator position: I'm a match maker. I receive requests from Guppies seeking either a critique group or wholesale swaps of completed manuscripts for critiquing. Once I match the group/swappers, I send a note introducing the Guppies to each other. At the end of the note I add my cobbled-together version of a Critique Guide. It's not a set of laws, instead it's designed to give the new "critiquers" an idea of the scope, potential areas of concern, possibly important/often forgotten topics to consider as they "critically" read the works of others. (It's gotten some rave reviews on the critiquing guide - I've heard it's good to use on your own manuscript. If you're interested in getting a copy, leave your name and email address in the COMMENTS box below.)

There are lots of arguments pro and con as to whether you should have your ms critiqued by others or if you're better off going it alone. My biggest concern is that some readers/critiquers come with mindsets as to THE RULES of writing a mystery. In setting up my most recent group, I found myself suddenly full of warnings for my Guppy pals. Here's what I told them, for what it's worth:

Heads Up: Don't believe every "rule" you've ever heard of re: what your story MUST or MUST NOT contain to sell your manuscript.

Don't tell others what they MUST do, according to the latest report from other writers or even from the latest conference full of agents and publishers. There are too many different subgenres of mysteries to have any one rule fit all. And, lots of manuscripts are rejected because the subgenre doesn't fit the editor or agent's needs or taste. You're just chasing up the wrong tree.

The one item I've found that seems fairly universal is that plot-driven mysteries have the greatest chance of being published. If you're like me, a character-driven writer, writing gets complicated if you're looking to sell your stuff. Know your audience. Know your strengths. Try to find out your weaknesses.

Yes, a hook in the first paragraph is pretty essential, but you can show the protage in conflict with a non-murderous person/problem. Keep the conflict up. The actions/reactions of your characters reveal a lot via showing, not telling.

In regards to mysteries in general, I also like this advice: by ms page 75 (or so), have all the key players established, their relationships somewhat revealed. The murder victim and the murderer should be among the characters established, but you also need lots of scattered bits of information/clues/red herrings/subplots planted by page 75 that need to be explored in the remaining pages.
Another of my favorites: there's always an earlier crime that needs to be discovered, or that interferes with the murder investigation.

Last but not least, remember that the killer's action begins the plot. After that the protag spends most of the story - wittingly or unwittingly - reacting to events provoked by the killer. If you get stuck on the plot, write things from the killer's point of view. Find ways s/he remains elusive while staying close enough to keep track of the protag's latest gambit.

Hope this serves you well in your writing. The more you know about your subgenre and the authors plus agents and/or editors who handle it, the better your chances of success. When you find a RECENT novel that resembles your manuscript, track down the publisher and agent and get knocking on their doors!

Write On!
Nan

2 For...You Know

My mom likes to quote the line from Riley's poem about the "frost on the punkin'" in autumn, but I don't recall anything about the snow on the mushroom. This fine specimen, as big across as a salad plate, is on our magnificently ivy-clad backyard stump, helping it return to nature, as they say. I just liked the way it looked, so here it is. But that's enough off-topic dodging.

Remember last week how I said I was going to buckle down and read that book I'd left aside? Well, I haven't. Not one more word. I not only need to be led to water, I'm going to require intubation.

Among other not-promised things, I've been reading and watching loads of holiday fare. (Yes, Virginia, that includes our own Terrie's entertaining and twisty "Just Call Me Nick" from Dying in a Winter Wonderland!- see sidebar for link) I'm an unabashed theme-freak, so I've been breaking out the nog and cider while I partake in diversions both sparkly and cozy. My new acquisition this year is a book I hadn't known existed before. Being a fan of L.Frank Baum, I'm a little sheepish about my ignorance, but there's so much in this world to explore and to know! The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus was Baum's imagining of Santa's origins, written in 1902 and illustrated the most lusciously of any edition, in my opinion, by Mary Cowles Clark.

I read:
Nature peopled it in the beginning with Fairies, Knooks, Ryls, and Nymphs. As long as the Forest stands it will be a home, a refuge and a playground to these sweet immortals, who revel undisturbed in its depths.

Abandoned near the great Forest of Burzee, he who will become our Nicholas is adopted by a nymph, raised in nature, educated by the Master Woodsman of the World called Ak, and menaced by cruel Awgwas in his attempts to spread joy through toymaking from his home in the Laughing Valley. It's a different take, and fun.

I wrote:
Dorelle’s kewpie eyes opened wide while she rubbed her palms together and clapped. “Hot damn tamale!"

Share any two you've read and/or written this week in the comments. Alternately, tell us where to link. And keep your mushrooms toasty.

Inventing Mark Twain

For the last ten years that I've gone home to visit my Mom she always tells me the same thing about her next-door neighbor, Andrew Hoffman. "He spent 5 years writing a book about Mark Twain, it's a shame nothing came of it. He's now a college professor. I don't think he's writing anymore." This statement is usually followed by her showing me her copy of the book that he gave to her.

I used to just politely glance at the cover and talk about other things, but now that I know how hard it is to actually get published, I defended this man whom I've never met for the first time this Thanksgiving. I told her how much in fact he had accomplished just to finish the damn thing and convince someone to publish it. At which point I opened the book to the cover page and was surprised to see a dedication to my parents-'with gratitude to the fates for providing great neighbors.' (Something I vaguely remembered my mother mentioning a long time ago but had never shown me.)

I brought the book home.

Now I've known from the start that it would take a long time to read it (it's five hundred pages in small type), but what I didn't know and soon discovered is that making a commitment to read something that's serious is the one thing that I've actually been missing these last couple of years. You see I've been busy reading murder mysteries, thrillers, romantic suspense novels, to learn my craft, studying page turners to the point where I am bored out of my mind.

And to my delightful surprise, this dense, intellectual book about Mark Twain is a real page turner in the ultimate sense—I can't put it down, it asks something of me-my concentration and thinking power, and I have a strong sense that I will miss it when I'm done.

This book did not make the NY Times bestseller list, was not optioned or made into a movie and did not further the writer's career and therefore is considered by my Mom to be a failure, but my own experience of this book is one of complete and utter admiration for what the author has written.

Now all I have to do is finish it and tell him so.

Writing Exercises

Someone asked me recently whether I ever did "free writing" or similar exercises. I don't do as much as many people do, but I've started carrying a little notebook around with me rather than always having a novel at hand, just to see what happens. Mostly, the results are pretty ugly. And they show a side of my thinking process that's downright scary! The same person asked me whether the exercises provided text I could include in my book. That's definitely "no." At least, not so far. The voice isn't even the same. Almost all the exercise work I've ever done has been written in the present tense.

So what's the point? I guess it's sort of the same as any other kind of exercising. It works a muscle you don't want to let atrophy. In this case, that muscle is your brain.

In case anyone is interested, here's one from the other day:

My doctor’s medical group waiting area is a room strangely filled with women. Partially, this is because the older women seem to have insisted upon attending their husbands’ appointments. But there are, at my count, five women here alone, and only one man. Do women arrive earlier, thus cluttering the waiting area? Do they have more health problems? I remember years ago, before I went in for emergency exploratory abdominal surgery, the surgeon explaining that they couldn’t tell what was the matter without it because women’s abdominal cavities were complicated by all the reproductive apparatus inside. Certainly, the extra organs complicated my recovery. So maybe women really do get sick more often.

The walls of the waiting room are cream, rendered yellow by the fluorescent lights set into the acoustical tile ceiling, the trim a badly painted dark brown. Everything is faintly shabby. In this upscale suburb of NYC, you would think people might go looking for health care somewhere nicer, but nicer offices are held only by those doctors who don’t accept insurance. I know all about those offices. Last year, when I was a medical oddity, I spent time in a number of them. They were hushed and plush and a whole bunch of other “ush”es. You didn’t just get to make an appointment, either. You had to be referred by another, similar doctor (which meant you were “medically interesting”) or you had to wait weeks and weeks to get in, despite the cost.

I arrived early today, and as I’ve been writing, the room has emptied and filled again. The cycle of life? Not so much. The cycle of health. The cycle of illness. Now there are eight women and two men.

These are not the same faces, the same bodies I remember from last year’s visits, either. You could tell, in those offices, who was “interesting” and who just preferred not to use insurance. The bored were well-groomed, facially-lifted, firmed and tucked and toned. The “interesting” were desperate. Often near tears. But the proportions--four women for every man--seem, as far as I can recall, to be about the same.

As you can see, I am not good enough at this to write quickly, which you're supposed to do. I was there for about half an hour and that's all I spat out. I spent a lot of time staring off into space.

How about you guys? Anyone follow The Artist's Way or carry a Pocket Muse or any of those things? What's served you well--or ill--in writing exercises?

Good News About Good Friends

I am pleased to announce that Gary R. Hoffman has won First Place in the Erle Stanley Gardner Mystery Writing Contest for short stories! The contest is held every year in conjunction with the Erle Stanley Gardner Mystery Weekend in Temecula, California, where Gardner lived for many of his most prolific writing years.

Gary uses his talent to both entertain readers and benefit the less fortunate. His story, “Gracie’s Gift from the East,” is one of the highlights of this year’s Toys for Tots Anthology, Dying in a Winter Wonderland.

I will only tell you that Gracie is having a pretty rough time when she crosses paths with three wise men, er, more likely, wise guys. You’ll have to read the story to find out what happens.

Another great pal of Women of Mystery, Christine Verstraete has announced that Searching For A Starry Night, her fabulous tale of Sam, Lita and Petey and their mysterious adventures, is a finalist in the children's/YA category for the 2009 Eppie Awards from the Epic Foundation. The winner will be chosen in March. We wish Chris great luck, but want her to know that she is always a winner in our book. (Sounds hokey, I know, but it’s true.)

Any other good news out there? Let us know and Women of Mystery will tell the world.
Terrie

NaNo Success

Yay! I NaNo'd this year. I didn't reach 50,000 words, but it was a success for me anyway. For one thing, it's the first time I actually managed to participate. Last year, my computer died a few days in. Two years before that, I was lucky enough to snag a good, but time-consuming, client project. The year before that, I got sick. Two years ago, I never even bothered trying, figuring something brings me to a screeching halt every time I do.

But this year, though work commitments kept me busy the first half of the month, the last half I managed to plan out an entire novel and write more than 10,000 words. And that's not all. I also learned a number of valuable things about myself.

For example, I now know that I can comfortably write around 1,000 words a day and can pound out 2,000 if necessary. I learned that having a general plan helps me to write, but preparing a detailed outline is time misspent. In fact, it seems that once my characters discover a detailed outline exists, they go out of their way to rebel against it, sticking their tongues out and taunting me from their new, unplanned locations.

I learned that I write best after my chores are done. A friend of mine who's currently writing two series for a major publisher keeps telling me to work on my book first thing in the morning, before doing anything else. That's what works for her. I, however, seem to do best when the bulk of my chores and errands are out of the way. If I have to-do's still hanging over my head, I can't seem to totally settle in.

I learned I truly love index cards. For planning, that is. I've been using them for planning for about eight years now, but in my NaNo frenzy, after I realized I was correct in my suspicion that I would never be a seat-of-the-pants writer, I tried a few other methods that I thought might be better/quicker/more efficient. Bad move. (To-do for Monday: Buy more index cards.)

Most important, I learned that the first draft doesn't need to be perfect. The important thing is to get the ideas out of my head and down on (virtual) paper, and to keep moving forward, writing, not editing, not reworking, not reorganizing. And I learned I can do that. I can write under pressure. I can write, period.

That all sounds like success to me.

Friday Fun - December 5, 2008

This is an oldie from Associated Press:

McALLEN, Texas - A man was arrested for drug possession after telling authorities that two masked gunmen had stolen 150 pounds of marijuana from his home.

Thanks for the laughs, Uncle Jimmy!

Thaaaaat’s all, pals!

NaNo Mopup

Since I managed to gallop through NaNo and meet my goal - along with 21,683 others, a 18.2% win rate - I’m ruminating, and thought I would share.

Writing at bullet speed.

Writing 1650 words a day wasn’t as hard as I expected. Even squeezing in work-for-pay wasn’t all that difficult. But to get ahead, two weeks before the holiday arrival of distant friends and relatives, I began writing 2000 words daily. (I should actually have attempted more...see “Thanksgiving,” below.) That number was pretty tiring, but at least by then I’d learned to write fast.

It’s really true what they say about not editing, although I had to practically knife myself to prevent rewriting bits of chapters as I searched them for stuff I’d forgotten or went back to place notes-to-self. Writing without editing was a wonderful thing for me to learn, for all kinds of reasons, chiefly because I otherwise tend to cycle through beginnings again and again. Not editing allowed me to move forward at a cheerfully brisk pace, and invited occasional inspiration.

Thanksgiving. Hanging on by a Thread.

Next year, if we have house guests more than one night while I’m attempting Nano, someone else will be cooking on Thanksgiving Day. It was frenzied and fun. And while the burden gave rise to a temper tantrum, I must confess that the problem was due in large part to the fact that I tried to please folks on three different diets...carnivores, vegetarians, and vegans. It made too many dishes to heat at once. Four burners, a small oven, and an even tinier microwave proved completely inadequate.

If I do – as I suspect I will - cave in to multiple versions of certain dishes, I’m determined to finish the novel by Wednesday night. It’s not so much that I couldn’t find time to sneak away and write after turkey day. The problem was that my writing was stone dead on the page.

Because we’d set dinnertime at 6pm Thursday, I managed to stay in the zone until Thursday noon despite a pie-baking marathon and cranberry-sauce junket Wednesday night. But as chief chef and bottle-washer, I didn’t write for most of two days...a very bad thing. Once Friday rolled around I thought I could pick up the flow, but witty chatter distracted. Whenever I did force myself to sit down to write – a tad weary – the plot seemed pedestrian, fluency had utterly flown the coop, and my heroine kept wanting to just sit down rather than battle through the obstacles I’d set her.

Given my situation, I managed to cross the finish line only by slogging through a wayward ending, one I know will yield nothing worth keeping. That’s just silly, and I won’t let it happen again.

NEO versus laptop.

Because I kept my office – where internet distractions awaited - uncomfortably cold, I was seldom tempted to leave the warmth and comfort of my wood stove. NEO on lap, I got through the first two-thirds of the novel tucked into the living room couch. Just that simple change in location helped me break my compulsive web-browsing and news gathering about financial-disaster habits. (Sadly, I can attest to the fact that post-NaNo, newly-returned to my heated office bad habits have emerged once again.)

For the final third of the novel, I wanted my laptop. At that point, it seemed helpful to plug notes into earlier chapters. Besides, I wanted my word counter for the entire novel, not just the current chapter that resided on my NEO. Also my daily-goals spreadsheet and what turned out to be an outline of sorts. So I brought the laptop to my cozy fireside den. Yes, I could instead have printed all that stuff out and jotted reminders in the margins, but that would have required my charging upstairs to the printer, a waste of paper and a threat to discipline. (Besides, it was cold up there....)

The finish.

Family didn’t altogether get it. It helped to have the hoorays of writer friends. I’m pretty pleased with myself. Maybe not so pleased with the resulting first draft, but we’ll see. I’ll give myself a long break before reading it.

And, hey. I wasn’t the only one noveling through November. Any other NaNo tales to tell?

- Lois

Still on the Shelf

From Kate's Flickr set.

I don't know whether you'll be able to read this without a subscription, so from Cynthia Crossley's Book Lover column in the WSJ:

My self-imposed challenge this week was to save money by reading a book that I own but have never read. There were a shocking number of candidates for this challenge -- books I had bought impulsively, gifts from well-meaning (or not) friends and relatives and books whose provenance has long been lost to history.

As I scanned my shelves, I found I had convincing arguments why I shouldn't read each one of the orphans -- or convincing to me anyway. I rejected a book called "English, August," by Upamanyu Chatterjee because it is, after all, November. No to "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists" by Robert Tressell because the book jacket says it's about "the desperate lives of working people." No to "The Unconsoled" by Kazuo Ishiguro because I heard it wasn't nearly as good as "Remains of the Day" or "Never Let Me Go."

Try it yourself and see how many pitiful excuses you can find for not reading a book you own.

She finally settled upon one, and found it a rewarding- if mixed- experience. For me, the excuse is most often my mercurial mood, but lately, I've found myself polishing off scraps of book endings that I'd left bookmarked and unread. Some books just lost me part-way through or led to a slow fizzle rather than a satisfying finish. However, satisfaction reigns as I close these covers and lay them gently in the DONATE pile. One man's ceiling is another man's floor, and I expect they'll find more appreciation from a better class of reader.

So, in the spirit of economizing, not to mention end-of-year housecleaning that liberates shelf space for nifty new gifties, I'm going to sink up to the elbows in one that I barely cracked over a year ago. The winner is...

...a tremendously well-regarded book (I know, I know, Pulitzer) around a topic I do love (comic books), but of such density (600+ pages) and such well-considered prose (inciting jealousy and occasional fatigue for a hack such as I) that I just haven't adhered. I now devote myself to The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, considered by many to be an epic delight among their favorites of all time, and hardly a chore. I have no excuse for myself.

Care to (need to) take up the challenge yourself?

2-4-2s Day - Readings and Writings

Continuing from yesterday's post about Peggy Ehrhart's SWEET MAN IS GONE, here’s her description of a library, very unlike any library I ever saw:

“It [the library] turns out to be a building I always thought was a church, perched on the corner right after the Indian Imports store, set off by a tidy square of faded late-summer grass and a few aggressively pruned bushes. It’s squat but massive at the same time, shaped out of dark brown stone, rough-hewed, with deep windows that look like they don’t let in much light.

And my two sentences this week:

"Hope this finds you happy and healthy. Happiest of times to you in 2009. And, congratulations to both you and us – we survived the elections! Huzzah!"

Can you tell that holiday greetings are on my hubby's schedule? - and mine, too! Happiest of times to you in 2009! Ho, Ho, Ho!

MTM: NOVEL HOME TOWNS

Feeling the Soul of New York City and the souls who feed it.

- Novel Settings in the Real World

Whenever I go to New York City for a meeting with the local Sisters In Crime, I leave suburbia behind. The LIRR delivers me to an under-world that never sees daylight. I climb out of Penn Station into a swirl of urbanites, feeling a buzz work up from the pavement onto my soles, and up into my soul.

I love the city that never sleeps, I just don’t get there often, and I definitely don’t get the chance to wander the night streets, rub shoulders with the locals and end up in a smoky bar, listening to a blues band. That’s where Peggy Ehrhart and her first mystery, SWEET MAN IS GONE, comes in.

Maxx Maxwell, a blues singer, uses the setting to a great advantage. It reveals her inner character. She leads us into her less-than-perfect apartment, revealing her basic take on life:

“My apartment is just two rooms, this one and a kitchen. I moved in right after the guy who lived here before died. His name was Mr. Rush. When I checked the place out, his son and daughter were there, a couple of pleasant, well-dressed black people, telling the landlord they’d come the next day and haul everything off to the Salvation Army. I’d just left Sandy and didn’t own anything except a suitcase full of clothes and a box of records and tapes and CDs. So I asked the son and daughter if they’d mind leaving all the stuff there, and they said not at all.

“I’ve been sitting in Mr. Rush’s chair and cooking on his dishes and even waking up to his alarm clock for six months. The only things I’ve added to the décor are the blues calendar over the bed and the picture of my great-great-aunt Caroline on the dresser. She sang in vaudeville. I kind of identify with her. My mother calls her the black sheep of the family.” And that’s how she handles her back story - with swift exposition – and then moves on.

Here’s what our guide notices as she roams her world one night:
“Within a few blocks a neighborhood of grand, stone-faced apartment buildings turns into one where guys stand on the sidewalk in front of bodegas, listening to salsa on boom boxes.

“And something’s going on. The street that skirts the side of Jimmy’s building is clogged with cop cars, an ambulance, and a crowd: salsa guys, chubby Hispanic grandmas, slender brown kids who’ve found something interesting to look at.

“The crowd is jammed against a chain link fence with razor wire on top, filling the sidewalk and spilling out into the street…People are jostling and bobbing to get a better view of whatever’s on the other side of the fence.”

And we feel the mounting tension, thanks to the clarity of Peggy’s setting. What better way to heighten readers’ sense of reality?

I can’t wait for my next trip into Maxx’s world. Granted, I have no talent with a guitar, but I think I’m learning how to sing the Blues.

The creative genius who brought My Town Monday to life and nurtures us along each week is Travis Erwin. You can visit him here to find links to other MTM posts.