Literary Events

Looking for a literary event in the nearest big city in the U.S.? Check out Poet & Writers Literary Calendar. You can join the Poets & Writers Facebook page, and follow @poetswritersinc on Twitter.

How about an afternoon reading on July 14, 2010, at 12:30 p.m., at the Bryant Park Reading Room in NYC with Sebastian Junger? Or a Poetry Performance and book signing with Billy Collins at Keystone College in La Plume, PA on Saturday, July 17, 2010, at 7:30 p.m.?

If you are anywhere near Iowa City, don't miss the Iowa City Book Festival presented by The University of Iowa Libraries, which will be held July 16-18, 2010. Check out the festivities and more information here. Audrey Niffenegger will be reading from her novel, Her Fearful Symmetry. Become a Facebook fan of the Festival by clicking here.

Come follow me on Twitter @katcop13.

Two Sentence Tuesday

Here it is Tuesday again, and I haven't written anything on the romantic suspense. My agent still didn't like it after my last round of revisions, so I've decided to rethink it and in the meantime I talked to her about something she suggested last summer: resubmitting my beading mystery. Of course, this means looking at a work I haven't so much as glanced at in almost three years, so that's where these sentences come from:

I hadn’t come to terms with Cheryl’s death. Personally, I hardly knew the woman; professionally, she infuriated me. But to die on the floor of a public bathroom? No one deserved such an ignominious ending.

Soon, I'm going to be reviewing the book The Messenger of Athens, and we'll be giving away 5 copies here on the blog. To get you prepared for that, here's a paragraph as a teaser!

The meals she had prepared for his lunch an dinner that day had congealed and been scraped into the chicken scraps hours before he came home. He wouldn't speak to her because there was nothing to eat. She had made him an omelet—he had sat at the table and watched her do it—and when she put it in front of him, he had stood up and, smiling, slipped it into the trash.

How's your week been? Written or read anything? As usual, I'll be updating this post with links throughout the day, so let us know where to find out what you've been up to!

Leah J. Utas has a couple resigned sentences over at her place, along with a new character.

My Town Monday: Seoul, Korea

Technically, this is My (husband's) Town Monday, because last week, he was in South Korea on a business trip for 10 days. He brought back some nifty picks of a place I didn't know much about, and I thought you might be interested in a sampling, too. The aerial views below are misty, but click to enlarge, because they're quite nice.

Korea is craggy and mountainous. The mountains aren't high, but they're plentiful, terraced for agriculture, and spanned by cities laced across their valleys like dense spiderwebs. These are pictures of Seoul, the capital city of South Korea, the country administratively established south of the 38th parallel after WWII.

High-density, high-rise housing is where most people live, and it's considered a very nice way of life. You can barely see a stripe of solid gray-blue, near the very top of the picture, which is the broad Han River, over a kilometer wide, that flows prettily through the city.

Seoul Tower, which looks a lot like Seattle's Space Needle, was built in the 1960's, and is a proud symbol of the country's post-war progress. Visitors can take the Namsan cable car to the top of the mountain where the tower perches. At the structure's base is metal caging which holds up a wall of lovers' padlocks above. Lovers attach locks onto public structures, many here with inscriptions, to symbolize their affections to the world. I had heard about this in other cities, but it's also here. (Wikipedia identifies at least 22 notable sites internationally.)

The open air shopping is plentiful and pleasant, and you'll notice the large amount of English on signs. There's English to assist travelers almost everywhere, even if some of the translations, to us, are as unintentionally funny as our attempts at Korean must be.

Interesting, even artistic display of pigs' knuckles.

Though people have lived on the Korean Peninsula for millenia, Seoul is a largely new city. Much of it was destroyed by the end of the Korean War in 1953. The city's design and layout were re-conceived from scratch and designed specifically to facilitate conducting international business. The streets are well-paved and lanes wide for lots of traffic and manufacturing transport, and it's easy to get around and find your way as a foreigner.

Deoksugung is a walled palace compound in the heart of downtown Seoul that became a royal residence in 1592. One of Five Grand Palaces, it was targeted for destruction by the Japanese who ruled from 1910 through the end of WWII. Many of its buildings are gone and many more simply had to be replicated.

The changing of the guard is a magnificent pageant. See the modern buildings just behind the trees lining the compound. Today's city hall complex is close by as well.

To bang the large painted drum above, the percussionist almost runs up to it with a full baseball swing.

This was the scene outside the hotel, where thousands of people assembled to watch the World Cup on huge TV screens in the public plazas. They're all in red to support the Korean team, and if you look more closely, you'll see tons of cute, light-up devil horns. Sadly, since this photo, both the U.S. and Korean soccer teams are out of contention, but I did get a pair of horns as a souvenir!

For weekly posts like this from all over, you can visit the wonderful and official My Town Monday blog, which I'm hosting for the first time this week. Be gentle with me! Hop into our comments here or there, and let us know where we can find your MTM, because I'll be updating everywhere all day!

UPDATES:

Barrie Summy takes us from lovers' locks to another similar and widespread phenomenon she observed in California: shoe trees!

Gabriele Goldstone chimes in with the fascinating ways Winnipeg is a part of every World Cup game!

Barbara Martin gives us a passionate, insider's view with plenty of info from a less universally peaceful gathering than the one above, the recent G20 in Toronto!

Travis Erwin has a blast from Amarillo's Old Western past, double-quacker!

J Winter shows us why his dream hometown is Loveland.

Richard Levangie shares the beautiful Northern Lights of Nova Scotia.

Can We Talk?

Conversations are an important part of relationships, and the conversations our characters have in books and stories are vitally important to the entire plot sequence. In my early days of writing fiction, my dear friend, Anne, who was an English professor at the local university told me my writing was too "clean." She didn't mean there were no four-letter words or expletives, she meant I was still writing in term-paper English, and she was right. For a long time, I listened to every conversation I could. I look for the textures, tones, and tenor in them. I began to closely study the dialogue in the books of my favorite writers. Robert B. Parker, I think, is one whose character's conversations I truly enjoy. His dialogue is clean, crisp, and almost has a cadence to it. It's funny, endearing, and cutting, and most of the time he does all that with just a few words. A threatening word delivered from the mouth of a nurturer is much more frightening than when it's spoken by the monster. We have an expectation of monsters. They look, sound, and are mean. However, we all remember the interviews with neighbors of serial killers who said, "He was a nice guy, kept his lawn mowed, and paid his homeowners' fees promptly." In other words, "Nice guys don't do this." But we all know that nice guys do that all the time. Ted Bundy was charming and could easily talk strangers into helping him. He was so kind he walked Ann Rule to her car at night because there was a serial killer threatening women at that time. He also worked on the local suicide hot line with her. She eventually realized he was the killer. With your characters, it's all about what they say and how they say it. I eventually took my new skills and began to write conversationally, not like it was for an assignment where I had to get an A, and most of the time, I still evaluate the dialogue in the books I read. We enjoy reading, words that float across the page and make us pause to think about the situation, not about how it was written. "Talk to me" has become a catch phrase for most of us because we know the best communications are shared during an easy conversation. Think about that the next time your characters speak to each other. What are the expectations of what they're going to say and how can you make it better? Put your bookmark in, we'll get back to this later.

Paradoxes of Creativity

Scooped in entirety, with image, from Roger van Oech here, who got the ideas from Michael Michalko here:

To create, a person must

• Have knowledge but forget the knowledge;
  
• See unexpected connections in things but not have a mental disorder;
  
• Work hard but spend time doing nothing;
  
• Create many ideas yet most of them are useless;
  
• Look at the same thing as everyone else, yet see something different;
  
• Desire success but learn how to fail;
  
• Be persistent but not stubborn; and,
  
• Listen to experts but know how to disregard them.

Do you have a glaring weakness in the above list? I do. I always disliked knowingly creating 'disposable' work, even in art school, though I knew it was all necessary exercise for skill-building and to make progress with ideas. I hate off-topic writing exercises and throwaway stuff like that. I can't get interested or engaged with it.

It may take me years, with several rewrites and iterations to get something where I want it, but I can't seem to begin by treating it as a lark. I just work too slowly to consciously dedicate myself to wasted words, so I have to think I'll use them...eventually. Even though the end result remains lots of practice with mixed results, my mindset, where writing is concerned, doesn't allow for noodling and gestural play.

I may be damned by this flaw, but my passion requires a genuine object. How about you? Any area of the above Zen-mastery where you know you fall short?

Scholastic Summer Challenge

Scholastic is offering a challenge for kids this summer to log their minutes spent reading -- and by joining their schools, even try to break the world record. The program is geared toward children ages eight and older. Children receive virtual rewards when they reach minutes-read milestones, including messages from a celebrity or author, and they can chat with kids from around the world to see what they thought about a book.

Kids can sign up for the Scholastic Summer Challenge at scholastic.com/summer.

Word Girl explains the advantages of reading over the summer in her video.

Fan the Scholastic page on Facebook, or follow along on Twitter. Click here to print a bookmark. Check out the FAQs.

Come follow me on Twitter @katcop13.

I'm Leigh and I'm a Readaholic

My mother spent much of my childhood looking for me. She's one of those people who doesn't like down time. If you're awake you should be working on something productive. She was appalled that I enjoyed reading so much. If she needed me right away, she'd usually go to my favorite spot: the top of the mimosa tree in our front yard. I also remember her banging on the bathroom door and yelling, "I know what you're doing in there. You're reading a book!" And she was right! I love to escape with a good book. There's nothing better than being drawn to imaginary people in an imaginary place and wanting more when you've finished their story. These days I don't have to worry about my mother catching me, so I have books everywhere. In the car I prefer listening to audio books to the radio. I took my love of reading and writing and turned it into a very satisfying career. I've worked in the publishing industry for almost thirty years and enjoyed every minute of it, from being a newspaper reporter to creating a new issue of a magazine every month. There's nothing more exciting than seeing your name as a byline on an article. When I'm not talking about books or writing, I'm talking about my family. That's all for now, but I'll be checking in here periodically to discuss my writing, my favorite books, and all the elements that make me who I am. Put your bookmark in, we'll get back to this later.

Summer Writing Contests

Scinti Story Contest

Submissions for the Scinti Story Contest must be true. There is no entry fee, and cash prizes will be awarded(1st prize: $100, 2nd prize: $50, 3rd prize: $25). Part of the entry requirements is to become a fan of Scinti on Facebook. The deadline is June 30, 2010. “You can express yourself in any format – stories (10 to 1000 words), poems, photo stories, hand written letters, drawings, whatever you can imagine!” You must be 18 years old to enter, and entries must be digital (sent via e-mail).

The Brown Dunwoody Zombie Flash Fiction Contest

Midnight Corey is looking for a 500 word Zombie story. There is no entry fee, and writers can submit up to three stories, in separate e-mails. Deadline is July 4, 2010. Eric S. Brown and David Dunwoody will judge. The top three winners receive autographed copies of books, and their stories will be read on an upcoming episode of Midnight Corey's podcast.

Second Annual Gemini Magazine Flash Fiction Contest

Gemini Magazine

No restrictions on style, content, or genre; max: 1,000 words. Deadline: August 31, 2010. Entry Fee: $4. Each additional story is $3.

Women on Writing: Summer 2010 Flash Fiction Contest

Deadline: August 31, 2010. Any style, genre. Minimum 250 words, max 750. Entry fee: $10. Limited to 300 entries. Guest Judge: Literary Agent Kathleen Ortiz.

Thanks to Ask Wendy for the heads-up on Women on Writing and Scinti Story Contests.

Come follow me on Twitter @katcop13.

Fast and Furious Link-a-ganza

Don't feel too bad about the trouble you have controlling yourself. Dan Heath reports at Fast Company that new research shows self-control is an exhaustible resource (and some of us have thimble-sized tanks to start.)

Would you choose a long literary career or to be a brilliant flash-in-the-pan? Critic Robert McCrum examines arguments for both at Guardian.co.uk.

Slate's Daniel Engber examines substantively and sociologically why we're biased to love underdogs.

And Neil Caldwell deserves a pot of gold for this rainbow of accomplishment. Reported via the essential Bacon Today.

Two Sentence Tuesday: Freighted or Untethered Heroes?

This freightcar from April Orange's Picasa is riddled with bullets.

Laura, so often the M.C. of our 2x2's, is most tragically fighting for air in turquoise waters while battling the abrasive scourge of sand in the bathing suit. I hear rum may be involved. Shudder in sympathy, won't you?

Meanwhile, I've been working on approaches for my evasive, mysterious protagonists. How do I disclose enough that people are interested to read on and prepared to enjoy what's thrown at them without telegraphing every punch and plot twist in advance? I know it's possible, but my crit-ters seem to be saying I don't yet have that balance perfected. My heroine, for example, unpacks her revelations in parallel with the storyline, and she's not easy to pin down at first meeting or at any of the points in between. You can read an early two about her while I keep scowling. It helps me think.

"She was dressed in a pale T-shirt and underwear, long hair pillow-mussed on one side. She walked forward as lightly and unhurriedly as if her bare toes reveled in a meadow's dewy grass, not glowing debris and shattered auto glass."

Of course, writers make the opposite problem for themselves, too. What about creating a protagonist about which every reader will have conceived some prejudice before page 1? A friend lent me Jed Rubenfeld's The Interpretation of Murder in which Sigmund Freud serves as the sleuth while visiting New York in 1909. Here are 2 sentences from that first page:

"But if he wants meaning-- the meaning of his dreams, his secrets, his life-- a man must reinhabit his past, however dark, and live for the future, however uncertain. Thus, nature dangles happiness and meaning before us all, insisting only that we choose between them."

Do you prefer reading individual interpretations of characters you think you know or unwrapping brand new ones? Figure that out while you're sharing two sentences you've read and/or written this week in the comments thread. Or, let us know where to link to them. I'll be updating all day from the scowl factory.

UPDATE: Leah J. Utas is operating a cackle factory with her WIP, and carping about newsmen in a charmingly unexpected way.

Judgement Day

It’s often said that “everybody’s a critic.” And, it’s true. As a writer, what someone thinks of your work is not within your control. You hope that the reader will like it, understand it and enjoy what you’ve written. But, give four people your manuscript to read and chances are, you’ll get four different opinions.

Which is exactly what happened when I entered both of my novels in the RWA Daphne du Maurier Unpublished Novel Contest in the mainstream mystery/suspense category. A few weeks ago I posted about the contest briefly in the context of my decision to revise my second novel and present it as my first. That decision came after reviewing the judge’s feedback and a discussion with my agent.

Since the Daphne is such a popular contest, I thought it would be worthwhile to review the process involved. To keep things simple I thought I’d discuss the novel I’m revising, Telling Lies, the criteria used in judging, and the scores and comments that I received.

Four judges were asked read the first four chapters. The highest score a work could receive was 123 points. 120 points from 8 categories that covered specific points and up to 3 bonus points. Judges completed and in-depth score sheet that encompassed these categories. They could also choose to add a summary statement, as well as add comments to each category. Additionally, several judges added suggestions and comments directly to the pages they read.

Telling Lies had a high score of 122 and a low of 73. The two middle scores were 114 and 110. Not bad, but not enough to move it to the finals. Below is a comparison of my highest and the lowest scores in each area and some of the judge’s comments.

The work was scored as follows:

Beginning of the Manuscript (3 specific points: including the hook, revealing information, and foreshadowing)

Judge 1: 15 out of 15. Comment: Pulled me right in. Great hook at the end of first chapter.

Judge 2: 8 out of 15. Comment: Too much back story in opening pages kills the pace. Specific notes in entry*

*In regards to my describing the artist Sandro Botticelli, Judge 2 commented: This whole page of back story might be crucial to the story, but needs to be filtered in after we understand whose story it is, what he/she wants and why she can’t have it—IMO.

Plot and Pacing (3 specific points: Is it well executed? Can the plot be sustained for an entire book? Is the pacing appropriate to the story?)

Judge 1: 15 out of 15 Comment: Pacing was perfect. Kept me reading.

Judge 2: 8 out of 15. Comment: Pacing is slow, art dealer who disappears, not too terribly original.

Characterization (3 specific points: Are characters skillfully developed, are they appropriate to the plot, are actions and reactions believable.

Judge 1: 14 out of 15. Comment: Actions were believable. I would like to get more of a feel for the main characters relationship. I couldn’t feel how close they were. Still, well done.

Judge 2: 9 out of 15. Comment: Notes within pages**

** In regards to the actions of one of my main characters, a detective. Judge 2 commented: Okay, so this all seems unrealistic to this reader. Aaron is a cop, right? An AMERICAN cop. So why wouldn’t she explain all this to him—in dialogue that would draw the reader in—and convince him to help her find the guy? As a cop, I can’t believe he’d just passively sit by during this whole thing with the police.

Mainstream Specific (4 specific points: Is conflict evident, premise solid enough for a climax, protagonist introduced in a timely manner, protagonist introduced so you want to read more?)

Judge 1: 20 out of 20. Comment: Definitely interested in reading more.

Judge 2: 16 out of 20. Comment: None

Dialogue/Narrative (4 specific points: Is there a balance between dialogue and narrative? Does dialogue help build suspense? Does the narrative help build suspense? Does dialogue ring true?)

Judge 1: 20 out of 20. Comment: Good balance of dialogue/narrative.

Judge 2: 11 out of 20. Comment: Notes in entry. The dialogue did ring true—good job

Setting (3 specific points: Does it give a sense of time & place, set the mood? Is the setting interwoven into the plot and enlarge the story? Does it move the plot along?)

Judge 1: 15 out of 15. Comment: Love the setting and details. Makes me want to travel to Italy.

Judge 2: 9 out of 15. Comment: The setting could be used to better advantage with a good use of senses to draw the reader in

Point of View (1 specific point: Is it clear at all times?)

Judge 1: 5 out of 5. Comment: none

Judge 2: 3 out of 5. Comment: No—a few spots noted in entry ***

*** In regards to point of view, Judge 2 had noted several areas where he/she believed that I’d mixed up the point of view.:

Style/Voice (3 specific points: Is writing vivid & evocative? Is sentence structure & length varied? Is work free or typos and errors?)

Judge 1: 15 out of 15. Comment: none

Judge 2: 9 out of 15. Comment: none

Bonus points (Was the entry a compelling read? Would you like to read the entire book? Would you recommend this book to a friend if it were published?)

Judge 1: 3 bonus point

Judge 2: 0 bonus points

Plus a statement that describes the judge’s feelings (added to the total score ONLY in the event of a tie-breaker.


(6. This manuscript is superb - masterfully written. 5. A wonderful read.
4. An entertaining read.
 3. Well done. 2. Somewhat enjoyable.
1. Some good moments.)

Judge 1:. An entertaining read.

Judge 2: Some good moments.

In the end, I did consider what these judges and the other two had to say about my work and did decide to make some changes. I hope that these changes will make the book better. But that, as we know, is a judgment call.

http://www.inki.com/clipart/images/

Father's Day in 2 Words

I just came across this, and there's still day to burn, so here it is. A bunch of men, some names you'll know, at the Good Men Project try to describe their fathers in 2 words. I'd describe the project's results as more interesting and touching, than uniformly sentimental.

People have also added their to the comments thread. it's being discussed on Facebook, and there's a Twitter hash (#MyDadin2Words) I've disclaimed that I'm not a flash fiction specialist, but I'll give my own two a go: Intelligent, enclosed.

Thanks, Dad, for how what and who you are helped make me who I am. Today, I am an energetically optimistic, contributing member of the multiverse, so feel free to check off that box in your success column, even if our journey to arrive here wasn't through Mayberry.

Readers and blogpals: Feel free to share two words describing your own dad if you'd like.

Heck with a Mere Room, A Cabin of One's Own!

Kendrick Brinson/Luceo Images for The Wall Street Journal.

You may remember Laura's illustrated post about Roald Dahl's and George Bernard Shaw's fantastic little writing sheds. Many of us coveted. However, that's got nothing on bestselling suspense author Karin Slaughter, who has an entire writing cabin. It looks simply lovely, but the part of the WSJ article that made my eyes go greenest was where she said she disappears into the cabin until her manuscript's done- could be as long as two whole weeks!

Aaarrrgh!

I'm not sure if the fact Slaughter's dad built the cabin exactly makes it a holiday post, so...For you fathers out there, and all those connected to me and mine-- a passel of eminently celebrate-able men-- Happy Father's Day!

First Page Saturday

Every Saturday the good folks over at Dear Author allow their readers, published and unpublished alike, the chance to post the first page of something and get commentary on it. Today it's my turn, so if you want to see the first page of my work in progress, head on over. It's supposed to be anonymous, though, so don't let on you know who I am!

(I am out of town with limited access for a while, so if you comment and I don't get back to you right away, I'm not ignoring you!) Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from laurakcurtis's posterous

FBF: Friday the Rabbi Slept Late

Between 1964 and 1996 Harry Kemelman wrote a dozen mysteries in the Rabbi David Small series set in upscale Barnard’s Crossing. Friday the Rabbi Slept Late is the first of the series.

When Reader’s Digest tagged this book as one of the best mysteries of all time, they described Rabbi Small as the most compelling and complex religious sleuth in modern mystery fiction. The New York Times described the book as “a superb story with wonderful characters, profound insights and a unique detective hero.”

I simply say that in this series the reader looks forward to each new book not only for the mystery component but also because each book teaches about human nature as well as about Judaic traditions. Mr. Kemelman passed on some years ago so the series is as large as it will be. If you have the chance, pick up a Rabbi Small novel and enjoy yourself.

For links to other Forgotten Book Friday posts, please click over to Patti Abbot’s blog.


Terrie

What Do You Expect?

I remember a couple years ago I asked my husband if marriage was what he expected. He said he hadn't really thought about what it would be like beforehand, so he couldn't answer properly. (Of course, I thought "Really? You jumped into a lifetime commitment without any consideration of what it would mean? How very...male.") After a few minutes, he asked me whether it was what I thought it would be. I told him there was rather a lot more baseball than I had expected.

What does this have to do with writing? Well, I think we all have certain expectations of each step in the writing process. For those who outline, they may expect that once the outline is done, the writing part will be easy. Those who sweat out a first draft expect the editing process to go more smoothly than the drafting. Unagented authors frequently believe that having an agent will automatically take the burden off. Authors with a few books under their belts may expect their series will keep going. Reality, however, has a way of confounding expectations.

I don't outline. I do expect that the editing process for me will go relatively smoothly, and most of the time, it does. Sometimes, however, an edit has completely confounded me. I know people whose publishers have folded with nary a word of warning. I have published author friends who believed they'd be writing mysteries forever and have switched genres or left writing entirely.

Three years ago, I got an agent. A great agent. But she couldn't sell my book. And when I wrote another one, she didn't like it. In fact, she said it was fatally flawed, couldn't really be fixed, and I should move on to another project. So I did. Now, I am on the third revision (fourth version) of that project. She still doesn't like it. It's not fatally flawed, but she believes it needs a "complete overhaul."

More than one person who has read the manuscript has told me I should just find another agent because the manuscript is publishable. I'm grateful for their confidence in my writing ability, but I have a feeling their comments come from their expectations of what an agent can--and should--do. I remember what my own picture of the future looked like before Jessica took me on. I thought "well, once I get beyond that step, everything will get easier."

So what would happen if I left the agent I picked out so carefully? Would things get better? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not. How do I know I'm not ready to leave? Well, I live in fear that she'll give up on me, so I guess that's a pretty clear indication.

Also, I have other options for this manuscript. I can try hiring an outside editor. I can think about further critiques. I can put it away for a month and look at it again later. It's not dead, at least not yet.

Of course, what all that means is that at the moment I am starting over. New manuscript, career overhaul. Not quite what I expected, but then, life rarely is.

Covers, Covers

The bane of many a new author, certainly. When other people are assigning the artwork, in an author's eyes, the results may be, um, suboptimal. Harlan Coben gives a hilarious speech with blow-up posters from his early covers, including what looks a row of skeletons on a camp latrine that was, instead, supposed to evoke the confluence of death and basketball.

Via our Terrie: Here's a tantalizing post on The Bookseller from a cover design conference that says people are missing the boat on using blurbs effectively. I wish they'd tipped the best practices more clearly, but it's always good to know that someone has a philosophy at work, because often it does seem like random slappery. And you may be surprised how much impact, in percentages, the blurb has in a book's sale.

On Tor/Forge's blog, editor Stacy Hague-Hill "covers" the evolution of Two Novels, Five Covers, One Charming Romance with illustrations. It was especially interesting to me to read her quick assessment of how each cover encapsulated Patricia Wrede's books or marketed one of their qualities over another. I, too, like the last cover best!

Two Sentence Tuesday: Weird Books Edition

Occasionally, I simply have to buy a book for research even though I am not sure I will ever use the information contained therein. Such was the case with the Improvised Munitions Black Book. Seriously, who could resist such a wonderful thing produced for your enlightenment by the U.S. Government itself. Will buying it put me on some kind of list? Probably. But too bad. I needed it. A couple sentences just in case you might feel the same:

A plastic explosive filler can be made from potassium chlorate and petroleum jelly. This explosive can be detonated with commercial #8 or any military blasting cap.

My personal favorite is the wine bottle cone charge, but I'm not going to tell you how to make that. Two sentences I wrote this week. Not very exciting, but then, it hasn't been a very exciting week.

Before long, the alley is filled with cops. Most of them don't appear to me to be doing anything, though I am sure they all serve very important roles.

And you? Did you read or write anything exciting, or even anything dull, this week? As usual, comment here or let us know where to find your work and we'll update the blog as the day goes along.

• Mason Canyon is giving you the opportunity to win something you really want by writing a sentence of your own, so be sure to check out her blog for details.
  

National Crime Fiction Week

In this case, I don't mean this nation, though. The Crime Writers' Association has organized events from today through June 20th all over the U.K. I mean, just look at all the bloody daggers on their map!

Interestingly to me, the organizers also mention their response to increasing interest in what Mystery Writers of America labels 'fact crimes,' also known as true crime or the supremely vanilla name 'non-fiction.' There is a generation of crime readers who've grown up fascinated in the nuts and bolts of forensics and investigating, laregely because of popular dramas on television. Now, if only I knew someone who wrote fact crime, I could tell her what good news this is!

MTM: Floral Park, NY

Floral Park is an incorporated village on Long Island, which celebrated its centennial in 2008. The village population hovers around fifteen to seventeen thousand. As the name indicates, the village has a history rooted in flowers and flower seeds and flower growing—all good stuff but not the reason I am talking about Floral Park. I am fascinated with the small town nature of the village since it shares a common border with Queens County, the borough of New York City in which I live. If I go a mile or so either south or southeast of my house, I can just cross a street and leave the city and enter small town USA, as you can see by the picture above of Tulip Avenue, the main shopping street in Floral Park.

A few weeks ago, my oldest grandchild received the sacrament of Communion for the first time. This momentous occasion took place in Our Lady of Victory Church which has served the Roman Catholic population of Floral Park for generations and was established on its present site in 1924. After the communion ceremony, our entire family and assorted guests trotted along Tulip Avenue to celebrate in the tiny Irish café called Swing the Teapot, which sits on a narrow street called Verbena. The name of the café comes from the phrase “swing the teapot over the cup.” The name of the street is, of course, a flower.

Yesterday, we were back in Our Lady of Victory Church as my youngest grandchild received the sacrament of Baptism. But for this event, the village could not contain us and we had no choice but to cross into New York City and celebrate at the Queens County Farm Museum, which I told you about a few years ago.

For more My Town Monday posts, click over to the My Town Monday blog and see what’s going on this week.

Terrie

Editorial Diplomacy

Our own Elaine forwarded along this panel and the title. It's a keeper! Originally appeared in Parade's May 30th edition of this year. Cartoonist: Dave Coverly

Conversing in Cyberspace

The other day I mentioned in the comments to a post on focus that one of the things that steals my focus is "social media." I can waste a ton of time doing completely unproductive things that I can reasonably fool myself into believing are promoting my "brand." (And that's a whole other blog post--author as brand. One of these days, I'll get around to sorting out how I feel about that.)

Luckily for me, Chris Brogan came out with An Author's Plan for Social Media Efforts. It's not perfect for fiction writers, but most of it works well enough.

Now, most of the things on his list don't apply to me, because I don't have a book to sell. But some of them do. What I really want to point out is that the vast majority have one thing in common: the recognition that social media is about conversation, not sales. That is, yes, you're trying to sell your book, but you're also trying to participate in conversations. Nothing will turn your efforts into a bigger flop than being seen as a shill.

When we began this blog, none of us had anything to sell. Since then, some of our authors have found homes for their short stories, and we've promoted those for a time in our sidebar and in posts. But we've always been of the opinion here that a rising tide lifts all boats, and we've happily promoted just about anything we think our readers might want to know about. We were thrilled when we were approached to review books that would allow us to give copies away to our readers because, really, that's what we women of mystery are all about: giving you good stuff, whether it's blog content or free books.

So in the spirit of conversation, please do let us know if there's something you'd like to see more (or less) of here on the blog. More weirdness? More posts on writing? More posts on personal stuff? More links? What are you hunting when you're out surfing?

Even Dilbert gets Brain Cramped

Scott Adams, Dilbert's creator, discussed "brain management" at his blog, recalling how different activities affected his other capacities even after he'd finished. I'm posting it, because it touches on our serendipitous themes of the past couple of weeks: creative focus and multitasking.

...The other day, as I was cleaning pasta sauce off of every inch of the inside of the microwave, I was reminding Shelly of my bandwidth limitation for spatial manipulation. I blamed her for engaging me in a conversation involving the manipulation of objects while expecting that I would simultaneously be able to imagine the proper combination of pasta, sauce, a bowl, and (this next part is key) a cover inside a microwave. I managed to put four out of five objects in the right place, and frankly felt good about it...

It's cool he has the same problems, not least because he mulls over the issue in a more technical, nerd-certified way. Sounds official. Of course, I wish he hadn't used the tag 'General Nonsense.' This is my life here.

ACK: Just realized that the strip's embed code makes a purty picture that has become, since my last preview, too big for Blogger to display. Sigh. Dear drawing board, I'm coming back.

Literary Landmarks

(This photo is Ernest Hemingway's writing studio in Key West, where he wrote more than half of his published novels. His historic residence has been converted into the Ernest Hemingway House and Museum.)

Do you have some vacation time coming up this summer? Have you considered visiting a literary landmark?

A list of literary landmarks can be found on the web site of the Association of Library Trustees, Advocates, Friends and Foundations, or ALTAFF, a division of the American Library Association. The landmarks can be searched by Year, Author, or State.

Frommer's lists the literary landmarks in London, and Paris.

There is a wonderful collection of literary locations in the book and blog, Novel Destinations.

Tours are available in Dublin, one of the literary capitals of the world. DublinTourist.com lists the addresses of notable writers.

LibraryThing has an abundant list of books on literary landmarks.

Which literary landmarks have you visited? Which ones do you dream about visiting one day?

Come follow me on Twitter @katcop13.

Two Sentence Tuesday: Critique Experment Edition

It's Tuesday again!

This week I wanted to catch up on the few Kathy Reichs books I had missed, so my two sentences come from 206 Bones. I decided to go with more than two, though, because I thought they were so much fun. Now I am ready--and waiting impatiently!--for the new one.

Ryan and I hung our coats on a rack. Then a waiter with a Sonny Bono mustache and blue plaid shirt led us to an upper-terrace table. Only a few of the lunch crowd lingered, most wearing suits and retsina glows.

A second waiter brought menus. Same mustache, different shirt.

And now for the experimental part! A friend of mine asked me to critique part of her work in progress. This is something I rarely do because I've been severely burned by it in the past. I am, after all, an English teacher. If you ask me to critique your work, you may end up with more than you expected or wanted. So I try only to do it for people I am pretty sure will have a good product to start with.

When I read the opening of her story, I realized that she'd done something I often do: she'd started in the wrong place. And the way I knew that was that once I'd finished the first scene, I didn't know anything more than I knew when it started. I didn't get a feel for the character, the setting, or the conflict.

So I got to thinking about how those things might be better served, and I decided to try an experiment. I was going to take a setting--New York City in the rain--and a character--a man named Mario Rodriguez. Those were the starting parameters. Then I could write one to three sentences, but no more than three, and in those, I had to give details that would distinguish each version of Mario and the scene. I came up with about a dozen different ones. For my sentences this week, I give you a few.

• He strode through the rain and caught the door just before it closed. On another man, the action might have looked rushed, but Rio Rodriguez made it look smooth and natural.
• Mario Rodriguez hated rain. It fogged his glasses and flattened his hair, and he was cursed with the luck never to have an umbrella when the skies opened up. Today was no different.
• Mario slid from building to building, allowing the sheets of rain to obscure others' view of him. He would be nothing more than a shadow in their memories, if that.
  

It's a fun exercise. If you're trying to get your brain muscles moving on a scene that won't go anywhere for you, give it a shot!

What about you? Did you read anything? Write anything? As usual, let us know and we'll update this post throughout the day.

Leah J. Utas has a couple intriguingly devilish sentences at her place.

Focus!!!

I am often juggling ten things at once. Who among us isn't? So when I saw this interactive test in today's New York Times, I couldn't resist. (One more distraction from the work on which I'm supposed to be focused.)

Anyway, I surprised myself by being on the high side of successful multi-tasking, although certainly not the highest. I think it's a good measure of how much we can expect from ourselves in any given day, because we tend to expect too much.

Click here to give it a try.

The clip-art above is from About.com

Terrie